Adventures in Onionism

I ran my third Hardrock in July. Here's the report. Before   I flew from Fairbanks, Alaska to Durango, Colorado a week before the race. I got my rental car and drove to Silverton. The next day (July 4) I picked up my race gear that I mailed to my friends' house in Ouray. I ran the Telluride to Kroger's Pass section of trail. The climb went well, but on the way down my quads started to burn so I deliberately took it easy. I spent the evening with friends in Norwood, CO. I drove over to Lake City and did the Sherman climb the next day. My legs were unfortunately quite toasted from the Kroger's climb the day before, but of course I could still hike.  The next day the air quality was terrible. Did I mention there was a fire? The Gold Mountain Fire started under 1/4 from my friends' house in Ouray about a week prior. Thankfully that's on the east side of town and prevailing winds kept pushing it east away from town. Of course that means it took a lot of wilderness wi...

  Just a little bit hotter and a little bit worse! I finished my second Hardrock last week. It was a fun experience. I ran 1 hour 47 minutes slower than my 2017 time (in the same counter-clockwise direction) but it was a million degrees hotter, the course is two miles longer, and I took an additional 1.6-mile wrong turn. I placed essentially the same: 35th this time, 36th last time. I feel like I normally finish as the median runner, but when the going gets  very  tough, I do relatively better. I think the easiest explanation might just be that elevation wrecks some really good runners and I barely notice it up to 13,000 feet. Thanks, genetics. Or, when a race is high enough and steep enough that almost everyone is hiking, I'm a relatively fast hiker with better endurance. Regardless, it worked out reasonably well for me again. Training I've been telling myself since last October that I should hire a coach to write a training plan for me, or at least write a plan myself. ...