Catching Up

Man I am one bad blogger. Don't know how all these people update their blogs so often! Its not that I don't have things to write just can't seem to find the dang time.

February was an interesting month. Lingering cold I thought I had was actually pnuemonia so that was a rough few weeks. Then the Olympics and the post-hangover of that and next thing you know we are a few days away from spring!

This weekend is the Chuckanut 50k and the field looks stacked with a pile of solid runners including Hal Koerner, Andy Martin, Kyle Skaggs, Peter Ellis, Gary Robbins, Adam Campbell, Adam Lint, Brian Morrison to name a few. Should make for a great race and produce some fast times.

To catch up from past races though here is a little report on the Calgary Frozen Ass 50k that I did February 15th.

This was the 3rd time I had run the Frozen Ass 50k. It is a fun event dead in the middle of winter in Alberta following the Irrigation Canal from Calgary out to Chestermere and back. Weather can be from a nice sunny 40F day to a -40F day with feet of snow burying the course.

Last year I ran the race and it was -20F at the start. At one point I thought my elbow had froze over and fallen off as I felt a bump jingling around in my sleeve. Turns out it was just sweat that had frozen into an ice ball. It was so cold I couldn't even drink coke at the aid stations. For those that know me well to have that happen where I can't even find a way to drink coke is unfathomable.

After the race I spent about $50 on those hot patches and kept putting them on my crotch, it took about 3 days for me to get feeling down there aagin. For some strange reason I decided to go back to the race again despite that cold experience a year prior.

Weather looked to be a little more tolerable is comparison to the year before, forecast called for 34F and sunny skies. Probably about 50% of the path was clear of snow and the parts that weren't for the most part were decently hard packed.

I wasn't sure how the race would pan out for me. I had a great base of miles over the winter but came down with pnuemonia earlier in the week and was a little sluggish given the medication and time off from running (100 mile weeks are the norm for me not 10 mile weeks!)

Despite those challenges I was very satisfied with my run. Crossed in 3:46 about 2 minutes behind the leader. I just didn't have that extra energy to try to make a charge and overtake him. I was sore and beat up for the next few days which is unusual for me after a 50k but got me a few more days rest and this past week hit 112 miles for the week with relative ease. Excited about Chuckanut coming up this week as well as Mount Si 50 miler which is a little less than 4 weeks away. I am really keen on gunning for a PR there (currently my PR is 5:52)

Peace