Welcome

"Shake out" with Jake, Adam and Adam. Went north on the BST from city creek to the road in N Salt Lake. 1800 ft of ascent I felt bad at mile 3 but good the rest of the time. I had a hard time getting out of my car when I got home.

Funny how you can be sore in some ways but fine in others. Overall, I think the run today will speed recovery and was the perfect thing to do.

Lunch

Long hike with the kids up at Alta with my brother's family.

The AM boys were both sick so I took it as a sign to take the day off. Legs still pretty beat up.

Lunch run while it was in the upper 80s. Wasatch out and back. I wanted something slightly quicker than easy and 7:02 pace for the run was plenty for a good effort. Legs are much better than yesterday but they still need another day.

Tried out some new shoes and there was a hot spot on the left big toe. Hot spots always on the left side. I will probably return them because I hate my Saucony Rides with a similar issue.

AM

9.7 on the JRP with James. 69:12 total. Legs not back yet.

Lunch

Another 7.5 with Adam at 11 before the heat of the day. Legs felt very sluggish. Low 80s.

9.25 on the treadmill at work in the 2:00 hour. A little soreness in my left calf and hamstring.

I thought I was out but they pulled me back in again. I somehow agreed to do another Ragnar. I like making friends but I hate this race. And the nice guy I am, I am doing the entirety of Ragnar hill. I am stupid.

Ultra Ragnar Wasatch Back

I decided to help a team out even though I swore off Ragnar last year. We had a 10 am start time and I had legs 3-4, 18, and 33-34. Only 27 miles but more than 4,000 feet of ascent including Ragnar hill. We turned out having a diverse set of runners with guys averaging any where from 6:30 pace to 14:30 pace. We guessed about a 26 hour finish and it ended up close to 29.

Legs 3-4 go from Hyrum to the base of Avon pass with a net ascent of 280 ft. I warmed up two because my mileage was going to be low. Nice rolling leg and the weather was nice and cool Friday. I started at 11:40 and finished the 11.1 miles in 71 minutes for a 6:26 pace.

One of our runners struggled going up Avon and that's when adjustments started. I decided to take one of his night legs so I added leg 19 to my run which was only 3.6 miles but with 644 ft of total ascent. These legs started at 10:30 pm and together had a net ascent of 1060 ft and a total ascent over 1500 ft. I finished the 11.8 miles in 83 minutes or a 7:04 pace. Felt pretty good and I felt like I was doing a good job of saving myself for Ragnar hill. I did start to get tired toward the end of the second leg with an ascent of 400 ft over the last 1.5 miles.

Ragnar day II

I started legs 33 and 34 at 11:40 am and Saturday was hotter than Friday. I went shirtless and was able to stay sufficienty cool. 33 starts with an easier 1.5 miles getting to the base of the pass. The total ascent for the two legs is more than 3200 ft. I was not feeling good on the 1.5 and was worried but I settled down on the hill and never had tired legs or walked a step. I wasn't fast but I was earnest. I finished in 80 minutes with a 9:39 pace. Yeah! Feeling good and done! 

But the guy doing the last leg was worried that he wasn't feeling great at the end of his run earlier that morning. So there was a chance someone would step in for him on 36 and that someone would likely be me. I tried to pretend to be finished getting back in my crocs eating an ice cream sandwich and drinking a monster protein shake in the finishing area. We waited for the exchange and he took a while. He finally came through and apparently he had made a 3 mile wrong turn because of no marking on the trail as he was coming down. So he was toast and I was on my way over "Park City hill" which is the worst way one could ever conceive of finshing a race. You start from the finishing area and take a rocky steep climb up a little hill going a net 490 ft over .8 miles with numerous switchbacks. For me this was in the 2:00 hour so much hotter. The crocs aren't good at doing dozens of very short switch backs and I didn't even try to go hard. I just wanted to finish and we did so. That leg, which claims to be 2.8 miles, was 3.6 miles. Time was 33 minutes or 9:22 pace. I was much more spent after this run and was just done.

And that's it. 34.9 miles in about 4.5 hours with 5800 ft of elevation gain and 1100 ft down - half of that descent coming on the last run. Stayed in touch with Fritz. They had two vans. He arrived at 5 pm and was done by noon. Didn't pay for anything and got a bunch of gear. That sounds like slighlty more fun but nothing could incent me to repeat this error again. #neveragain

Today, Sunday, I am fine. No soreness and I will probably get out for 8-10 up City Creek.