This was a quick power trip to Orcas solo. It was good to get back to James’ race, it’s a killer course. Hard, tons of climbing…7500 ft and a great scene. I took off Thursday night after my kids were in bed and crashed in the Gorge. Got up early Friday, hit Seattle at lunch and hung with my brother-in-law, Andrew before pushing on to Anacortes to catch the ferry to Orcas Island.
This year I opted to crash in my rig. After a good night’s sleep, I got up, ate and did a short warm up before toeing the line. I knew going into this I was not in top form. After the broken rib and hand in November/December, I just hadn’t put in the volume I normally have on my legs by this time. Add to the mix that I (and my whole family) got the flu on Monday (5 days prior) and I knew I was in for a challenging day, especially the latter miles.
The weather was just gorgeous this year. Clear, sunny and brisk at the start, but it warmed up quickly and by 10 miles in I was down to light gloves and sleeveless jersey. Nice. The course was in stellar shape and I went out a little hot given my fitness level, but oh well.
I did pay for that “oh well” around 25 or 26 miles when my wheels came off. I was in 5th and 1st masters, but Adam Hewey, another strong master’s runner, came rolling up on me at 26ish closing strong like he always does. I immediately tried to suck on his heels for 100 meters or so, but couldn’t match his pace. Just wasn’t there. So, I just maintained the pace I was holding and hoped nobody else was bringing it home hard. I ended up staying in that position the rest of the race and rolling in for 6th place 17 minutes faster than last year in 4:55. Great race once again. James really knows how to put on a race. I highly recommend one of his races (rainshadowrunning.com).
Also, found out I got chosen in the Wasatch 100 lottery. So, September 100 is chosen. Giddyup.
Phew. It’s been a busy 6 months since Leadville. Here’s a recap of my last 6 months to catch up…
Flagline 50k start
September Ran Flagline 50k (USATF 50k National Trail Championship). I just turned 40 in August, so went into it gunning for the master’s title and got it by just a few minutes. Battled Mark Lundblad and pulled it out by 2 minutes after rolling my ankle badly in the last mile and hobbling across the finish in 4:02. Good day.
October Laid low, took some time off and let my ankle heal from Flagline. Took a family vacation to the Redwoods in Northern California. Was super bummed my ankle was mangled, as the trails there would be off the hook. Took another trip to see family in Seattle durning the month. Also was able to squeeze in some late season mountain biking before the snow started flying.
Bronco vs. SUV = 3 pins
November Had just started training again when I was had a bike wreck commuting to work. I was commuting to work on my bicycle early morning on Nov. 10 following traffic (2 vehicles) in the roundabout, when a car did not yield entering the roundabout. I was one car length behind the SUV when the 2 vehicles in front of me came to a screeching halt to avoid hitting the person that did not yield (pulled in front of them). I crashed into the back of the SUV in front of me at 20 mph. My left hand hit first and broke plastic off the back of the SUV, jack-knifing my bike front end and slamming left ribs/shoulder into the back of the SUV. I broke my left hand and cracked a rib. The hand required surgery and 3 pins and a cast. While I was on the pavement, everyone in the line, drove off. Thankfully, 2 super cool fireman on their way to work pulled over and helped me.
December Still dealing with broken hand and rib. Slowly able to start running again, after 5 weeks on stationery bike and treadmill. Nice to be back outside running.
Here’s a little video highlight of the race. Thanks Angie for capturing video. Leadville Video
Man oh man, where to start. This was an epic adventure for my 12th 100 miler. I’ve had Leadville on my list for several years and just hadn’t been able to make it back to Colorado to run it. I knew about it back when I lived in Denver in the late 90s but was only a recreational runner back then and thought it was CRAZY. I was mainly a mountain biker back then. Fast forward 13 years and I don’t think these things are so crazy any more. Funny where life leads you.
Pre-race Build Up: Lots of Balls in the Air This season has been my most hectic yet. Not only did I turn 40 in August, my wife and I welcomed our third child into the world in May. Needless to say, my life is busier than a one-armed paper hanger. Being a working and family man, coming out to Colorado early to acclimate was definitely not an option, so, I opted to sleep in an altitude tent for 6 weeks leading up to the race. This proved somewhat challenging and I thank my patient wife, as having a new baby in the house made any thought of extra sleep this entire summer simply not an option. Pile on the fact that I took a graphic design director position at a local internet company and still have my graphic design consulting business, I’ve basically been working two jobs this entire summer. Working 4 full days (Mon-Thurs), then Sunday through Thursday nights catching up on my consulting projects after the kids are in bed, made for a challenging summer. According to my training log, my average sleep for the entire summer is 6.2 hours/night. Not the best for recovery when putting in 12-16 hours of training a week. There were times when my work and family responsibilities just didn’t allow me to run, so I would cram in a night run at midnight and sacrifice sleep. So now that you get the snapshot of my crazy life, I’m blessed just to get to the start line in one piece.
Travel Mishaps: Learning to Roll With It The plan was to fly into Denver Thursday morning, have my folks pick me up at the airport (they were driving from NW Missouri) and be in Leadville by late afternoon. No problem right? Wrong. After hitting Whole Foods in west Denver on the way, we started to drive up out of Golden into the mountains. Less than 10 miles up out of Golden, my Dad’s car overheated and we pulled off, called AAA, waited. That’s okay, Jeff, just roll with it, man.
After 30 minutes, the car had cooled down. We cancelled AAA tow, drove back to Golden and dropped the car at a local repair shop and planned to rent a car. To our dismay, NO ONE in ALL of Denver had rentals available. Finally, I reserved a rental car at Denver Airport through Expedia on my smartphone, 40 miles in the wrong direction. 80 miles extra driving. Yep, just roll with it.
Luckily, my cousin, Angie, lives in Denver and picked us up, drove us to DIA to pick up the rental and by 6pm we were on the road to Leadville. We arrived about 9:30pm Thursday night, checked into the Timberline Motel, hung out a bit and then went to bed. My father, who is 64 and pretty darn out of shape started coughing and hacking about 11pm. The coughing got worse and by midnight, he couldn’t lay down, and was almost constantly coughing til he gagged and hacked up stuff. His left lung had fluid in it. The start of Pulmonary Edema. Leadville, at 10,200 feet, was proving just to high for his body to handle. Uh, still rollin’ with it.
I woke my Mom up and sadly informed her that she had to drive Dad back to Denver to lower elevation immediately. So, after reloading the rental car, I sent my folks back to Denver about 12:30am to find a hotel. I laid down and slept soundly that night. It actually was a blessing in disguise, as my Father’s snore is louder than a 747 (no offense, Dad), so, having a completely peaceful motel room to myself was nice. Silver lining.
At the pre-race meeting on Friday, it really started to hit me how deep in tradition Leadville is with regard to this race. The race started in 1983 and would be the 29th running of the event in 2011. Cool. Over 800 people had entered and 640 showed up to toe the line at 4am on Saturday morning. The biggest 100 miler in the U.S. and the 2nd oldest. Very, very cool.
My cousin Angie stepped up to take my folks spot for driving and crewing, while my buddy, Dave Bowman, drove up Friday from Glenwood Springs to crew and pace the last 23 miles to the finish. Note to self, roll with it.
Grabbing some quick calories at first aid station, May Queen, mile 13.5
The Race
I got to the line Saturday morning about 5 minutes before the start and squeezed my way up front. For an ultra, it felt more like a marathon start with so many runners. With a shot of the shotgun to signify the start and the Leadville Police car escorting us down 6th, we began. I settled into a group of 12 runners, slightly behind 3 guys who shot off the front. My garmin showed us running conistently 7-7:20 pace for the first 5 miles and our group quickly gapped the remainder of the field. This start is pretty unique for a 100 mile trail race, as you are on a gravel, double track then, pavement for most of the first 7 miles before hitting Turquoise Lake trail. We all were chatting and joking and as I took inventory of the runners in the group, it really dawned on my how deep the field was this year. The deepest in Leadville’s history for sure. Lots of fast, solid elite runners.
After cruising the north shore of Turquoise Lake on the technical singletrack we popped out at the campground and through the May Queen aid station at mile 13.5 at 5:45am. I was surprised at how packed it was. Tons of spectators. After May Queen, you run up a road and into the Colorado Trail and climb up to a gravel road, then onto rough double track up and over Power Lines and Sugarloaf Pass at 11,100 feet. I started settling in and arrived at Fish Hatchery at 7:22am, swapped bottles and gel flasks with Dave and hit the highway, then Halfmoon Road section to Half Pipe aid. I started catching a few guys in this section and moved onto the Colorado Trail up and over and down to Twin Lakes at mile 40. About here I started to get a little dehydrated more and more at each aid station. I made the mistake of not drinking an extra bottle at the aid station, then topping my bottles. This mistake started to add up with the long sections between aid at Leadville. NOTE: Leadville has some of the longest sections at any 100 miler, with 9-10 mile sections between water. I carried two 24 oz. bottles and drained them dry on several sections before getting to the next aid station.
So, as I launched into the section across the marsh and creek crossing from Twin Lakes to the start of the Hope Pass climb, I really was progressively getting farther and farther behind on drinking. Not my normal thing. I’m usually good at catching it, but I was for some reason lazy this time. I rushed through aid stations when I should have stayed an extra 30 seconds and got more water down. That’s okay, Jeff, just roll with it, man.
Crossing creek at mile 41, on my way to Hope Pass
I got up and over Hope Pass at 12,600 feet and up to the ghost town of Winfield and the half way point in 9th place. I got into Winfield pretty dehydrated. Dave ran with me about a mile out of Winfield to check in and see how I was feeling. Not good. I got to the Hope Pass trailhead 3 miles down the gravel road from Winfield and had already almost drained both bottles. Luckily, Sean Meissner was sitting on a rock (he was passing through on his way to TransRockies Stage Race, which started the next day) and had a big jug of water. I bummed some water off him. Chugged a bottle and refilled and got power hiking up Hope Pass again. I got over the top and down to the aid station just above treeline and refilled and got moving down the big descent to Twin Lakes at 9,200 feet. About halfway down, I had already almost drained both bottles again. Still several miles from the aid station at Twin Lakes, I opted to dip out of the fast rushing creek that paralleled the trail coming off Hope Pass. I chugged a bottle, dipped and got going again. I was starting to feel better on the marshy swampy section over to Twin Lakes and came into Twin Lakes at mile 60 and met Dave to swap bottles and gels. We walked and he had a Nalgene Bottle with water. Again, I chugged about 25 ounces and dumped the rest over my head and shoulders. 8th place was 15 minutes ahead of me when I left Twin Lakes—pretty sloshy in the belly from all the water. I had downed over a gallon of water in less than an hour. It took me most of the climb up and out of Twin Lakes to get my electrolytes and salt levels back balanced with all the water I’d consumed. But about 45 minutes out of Twin Lakes I started feeling better, which in turn meant moving better. About 66 ot 67 mile mark I caught 8th place and kept plugging away.
I arrived at Half Pipe aid, mile 70 and asked how far up the next guy was…30 minutes. Dang. I figured I was now racing for 8th place. 30 minutes up meant I needed to run 1 min per mile faster over the next 30 miles in order to catch him. I kind of accepted my fate at that point and trudged the road section over to Fish Hatchery to pick up Dave as my pacer.
I arrived at Fish Hatchery feeling, well, less than motivated. At this point, with little incentive, I just wanted to get finished. So, that’s easy, just kept moving. Dave offered me my Yerba Mate special concoction (I call Giddyup juice), I declined. Was kinda in a funk. So, Dave and I slowly but surely got up and over Sugarload again, with all it’s false summits and cruised down the double track to the Colorado Trail section. This section we hit right before dark and I was starting to feel pretty good. I wanted to get through this technical trail section to May Queen before dark so I picked up the pace here and ran that pretty quickly. And sure enough, we made it to May Queen right at dark.
When we got in, my dad, mom and Angie were there to greet me. They asked if I wanted the Giddyup juice. No. Just tryin’ to get ‘er done. But, to my surprise, I was informed that 7th place was only 5 min in front of me. That kind of lit a fire under me and I looked at Dave and said, “get the Giddyup Juice, dude!” He smiled, turned and ran back to my folks and Angie and grabbed the 6 ounces of Giddyup juice. I chugged and we flipped on our lights and headed into the 6 mile Turquoise Lake trail section. This section is pretty technical and undulating along the North Shore of the lake. This is the kind of trail conditions I thrive in and really started to click.
Within 15 or 20 minutes we saw lights ahead. Sweet. It was Montrails’ Ryan Burch and his pacer. We went by them and I kept pushing to gap them. Within a few more minutes, more light and we blew by Duncan Callahan and his pacer. At this point, I was pumped, I had moved up two places in about 15 minutes and felt pretty good. I kept pushing low 8 min/miles and to my even greater surprise came upon Timmy Parr sitting on a rock, looking rather white. That put us in 5th and I just kept plugging away with the goal to hold my position.
We were getting near the end of the Lake trail when Dave informed me he couldn’t keep up the pace anymore. So, he stuffed 3 gels in a pocket of my Ultraspire handheld and said “Go!” I left Dave and soon was on the road making the final slog back to town. This section is REALLY long. It feels like it takes forever. But, I soon was on the outskirts of Leadville and onto the pavement of 6th and topped the hill and could see the finish line. I crossed in 18 hours, 27 minutes for 5th place. Solid day, even though is wasn’t an “A” performance with the massive bonk I had over Hope, but all in all a good day. The buckle is HUGE. Leadville style. Giddyup.
Thanks to my family, crew, friends for all your love and support. Also, thanks to Patagonia, Ultraspire, Black Diamond and FootZone of Bend. All your generous help. You all are awesome. Thanks.
Hydrating at Tennessee Pass Cafe in downtown Leadville
Ten hours to race start. Tons of chatter on the race this year, who’s gonna run what and how fast and who is the favorite…thanks Rod for keeping me abreast of the gossip. 🙂 What are my thoughts? Well, it’s simple…
It’s 100 miles. No matter how you cut it, it’s a long way. I know who’s running it, but I don’t worry about other runners or who’s who. I’ve always seen it as me against the course. It’s a distance that has to be respected. I don’t have any predictions or grand plans, except to run my own race and let the chips fall where they may. Do I do everything that is within my power to get ready. I’ve been sleeping in an altitude tent for 6 weeks…so, heck yeah.
I’ve trained…but to be honest, I really haven’t had much time to dwell on this race until today (not as much as past races). Life is just too busy right now. I have 3 kids (one is 13 1/2 weeks old today) and a beautiful wife who give me just enough hall passes to race these crazy adventures. So, dwelling on running has not been an option. Period. And that’s okay. Family is always going to be more important than running…and it should be, otherwise life is out of whack.
Will I run hard tomorrow. Yep. Will I leave it all out there. Yep. I owe it to my family to run hard and finish with no regrets. Anything less would be an insult to them. I’ve taken precious time away from them to train. I’ve sacrificed 6 weeks in a tent at night with a baby in the house. (Luckily my wife has been a saint about that part.) I’ve put in the training for this distance. Same volume that I have in the past. That’s all I can do. This will be my 12th hundred miler. I love this distance. It’s hard, it’s complicated, but yet so brutally simple—one foot in front of the other.
I’m honored to be running in the 2nd oldest 100 miler in the country. The pre-race meeting was inspirational. To be in a town that so revolves around this event. So embraces it. The tradition runs deep—it’s oozing from the town. I dig it. The energy is good. I’m stoked to be back in the Rockies and running in the footsteps of all the previous runners that have run this race for almost 3 decades. Cool to be here and the best way I know how to respect that tradition is to run smart, run hard, and leave it all on the course. Giddyup!
Leadville 100 pre-race meeting in the 6th St gym. Standing room only. 29 years of tradition.
Abbey custom steel 29er at the Gnome Shrine at Elv trail.
Last week was a good week of training, in all aspects. My new baby son is challenging my wife and I in the middle of the night. At least once or twice a week I’m hitting 4 or less hours of sleep. Not the best for recovery, but good for sleep deprivation training. And we all know how much you need that in a 100 miler. So, I just chalk it up to Leadville training (even though I whine about it from time to time). 🙂
Last week had a stellar 3-day block of training that started on Thursday afternoon with a 20 miler at Tumalo Falls with some good hill training and snow running while exploring snow levels in the high country. Next morning, I jammed out a awesome ride on my new Abbey custom steel 29er mountain bike (pictured) for 37 miles and almost three and a half hour ride. In the evening, I capped off my Friday with a 4-mile warm up running with Sean finished with the two of us going head to head in FootZone’s Treadmill Challenge put together by Max King. 10 minutes on a treadmill at 10% grade. I just edged out Meissner for the bout win. Finally, to top off my 3-day block, I got up at dawn Saturday morning and did a bike-run-bike workout by riding my cross commuter to the trailhead, running a hilly 14.5 miler with a summit of Lava Butte and Green Mountain for a stellar block of training topped off with little sleep (thanks Abe).
Hitting another big week this week and training right through SOB 50k this weekend in Ashland. Giddyup!
Ah yeah, this Friday night, if you’re in Bend, First Friday Artwalk is going on downtown and Max King has put together a Treadmill Challenge at FootZone. The event will pair two runners against each other on identical treadmills. The treadmills will be set to 10% grade and the runners will go head to head for 10 minutes, farthest distance covered takes the bout!
I’ve been paired with Sean Meissner in the ultrarunner division. Should be a good time. So, come on down, drink some wine and watch Meissner and I suffer for 10 minutes. For more information, see the ‘Zone’s website. Giddyup.
I’m back online after fighting a spring injury (yes, I’ve been silent…injuries suck and bum me out) and my wife giving birth to a new son in May. Still in the newborn haze of less than ideal sleep, but back training and glad to see some nice weather, FINALLY, in Central Oregon. So, to kick of the summer, and you’re in Bend, RSVP and come check out the Ultra Panel Discussion at Footzone in Downtown Bend on Wednesday evening (June 8). For more info see FootZone’s website. Should be informative from every angle.
Well, what can I say, the C2M adventure was a good one, even though the “fun run” got cancelled in the middle of the night…a 78 mile training run with 22,959 feet of climbing was well worth the adventure…
Mother Nature won this bout with some pretty darn strong weather. Bottom 3,000 feet of the course had heavy rain and the top 1,000 feet of the ridge was covered in a soup cloud with some snow and high winds. Visibility was challenging (3-10 feet at times), especially once night hit.
The Coyote Two Moon 100 Miler has a staggered start with the early folks starting on Friday evening at 6pm and the last group (my group) started at 10am on Saturday under cloudy skies and upper 50s temps. I went out with Karl and Padre up the first climb. Karl and I hung out on the lower 2/3s and chatted with Padre up ahead 40 meteres or so and finally toward the top I caught back up to Angle and we topped out the climb together and hit the first downhill. Karl ended up getting a yucca sticker in his IT band on the first climb, so he dropped off the pace a bit.
Justin soon gapped me and he stayed a few minutes ahead of me until about mile 28 on the climb out of Rose Valley. It was starting to sprinkle up that climb and by the time I climbed out of Rose Valley the 2nd time, it was raining down low and snowing up on the ridge. Not really sticking, just bad visibility going into night time was total junk. By nightfall I had about 15 minutes on Angle and 25 on Karl.
The weather really turned as I was heading down into Cozy Dell at about the 100k mark. The rain got really heavy and the clay section the last 2 miles into Cozy Dell aid station was like grease. I fist planted my bottles a few time in the mud skiing down to the aid station. But, kept feeling great and by the time I hit Gridley Top aid up top at 72 miles I was up by 30 minutes on Padre and 40 on Karl.
When I stepped out onto the pavement at Gridley Bottom (mile 78), Sheryl Meltzer was standing there with a giant umbrella and my drop bag with the news that the “fun run” had been cancelled. I guess a few folks were coming in to Gridley Top a bit hypothermic and the weather was really buffeting Gridley Top. Bummer. But, conditions were hard enough that after sweeping and getting all the runners off and checked out, they abandoned that aid station and vehicles and hiked out until the weather subsided.
Awesomely hard course and would love to run that course when there were clear skies and big views. Would be sweet. Definitely some of the most challenging conditions I’ve been in during an event. I was ready for the elements. I had cold hands a few times, but it wasn’t that cold…low 30s. Warm compared to what I’ve been training in the past few months. I had plenty of good layers (little shout out to Patagonia, nice duds y’all). I have to say, the two days in Ventura and running the Ray Miller Trail on Thursday were stellar and gave me a taste of the nice weather there. Great hanging at Patagonia HQs…good times with the team. AJW is always in rare form and bowling on Thursday was hilariously entertaining.
Good job out there C2M folks. Great aid stations, great volunteers. All in all…giddyup.
Wolfeman and I made it to our flight to find out I was bumped to standby…what?! Booked a flight over a month ago. Little drama in the waiting, but sitting in a seat. Got on. Giddyup!
Scott Wolfe and I did a power trip up to James Varner’s Orcas Island 50k this past weekend. What a cool race. Tons of stellar Pacific NW singletrack, complete with some “Varner Miles.” Yes, be prepared for a wee bit over 31 miles. My garmin logged 31.75 in a very heavily treed course. My best guess would be closer to 34 or 35 miles with nearly 8,000 feet of climbing. Ah yeah, Bronco Billy likes. The extra credit was fine with me. I need for Coyote Two Moon 100 miler in March. Plus, I knew the Varner Miles were coming. Bill Huggins and Padre (aka Justin Angle) had mentioned it was a bit long. So, I was mentally ready for some bonus miles. James is really putting together a great set of races in the NW. He’s also getting quite the reputation for making them kinda hard too. Again, keep it up James…builds character. Check out his schedule at rainshadowrunning.com.
Scott and I left Friday at 5:30am from Bend and arrived on the island at Camp Moran (race headquarters) at 6pm. 8 hours to Anacortes, WA, hour ferry ride and a half hour shuttle ride to the camp. Long day on the road, but all worth it. The course was stellar. It rained Friday night, but race morning dawned with no rain and in the 40s. Perfect for me with a sleeveless jersey and gloves.
After about a 15 minute jogging warm-up, I dropped my extra layers and met Scott, Padre, Huggnut and Adam at the start. At the start, a roadie named Justin took off like a shot and the rest of us settled into the groove in a chase pack (he would later get off course and finish well behind us). We were quickly on singletrack and climbing the first climb with Padre leading, me, then Seth Swanson. Soon Seth jumped ahead of me. So, Padre, Seth and I settled into a group with Wolfeman about 40 meters behind us, then a trailing group another 4o or so meters back with Huggnut, Adam and some other folks in that line.
We cruised along chatting as the early miles tucked behind us. This course has only 2 aids stations (plus a water only). 10.6, 19ish (water only) and 23 (at least by my garmin). As we were approaching the first aid at about mile 9.5 you traverse above the campground on nice singletrack and you can see the aid station. Well, I was due to take a gel and—something I typically warn newbies ultrarunners about—“don’t wait to eat…if it’s time to take a gel, even if you are 2 minutes from the aid station, take it!” Well, what did I do…yes, I waited. 7 or 8 minutes later, we were just arriving at the aid. Stupid. I was bonky. I took longer at the aid than Angle and Seth and lost contact with them.
Upon leaving, I surged to catch back up over the next mile or so, but my lack of calories caught up to me hard. I got within 40 yards of them by the start of the Powerlines climb (very steep) and bonked bad. Huggnut passed me, Adam passed me, I completely watched everyone quickly drop me and disappear out of sight down the trail above me on the hard climb. I was creeping up. I knew what I’d done and downed two gels, took an S cap, chugged water and kept plugging along until it caught up in my system. About mile 15 (3 or 4 miles later) I started feeling better and was able to get back into a decent rhythm. Soon I was through the water only spot and starting the long climb to the summit of Mt. Constitution (the high point) and the final aid station location.
I started feeling much better on this up and ran a ton with a few short hike breaks on very steep sections. Up toward the top I caught sight of Adam’s green Fleet Feet Seattle jersey and we came into the aid station nearly together. I asked him how he was doing…he just said, “Need calories!” and commenced to inhale a bunch of PB&J squares—I believe he ate all they had out on the paper plate and they had to make him more!
I topped off my two bottles with water and grabbed some gels (as I’d just taken my last one on the climb) and took off to try to catch Huggnut on the down. I was feeling really smooth on the downhill and within a half mile saw Huggins and passed him with a “how ya doin’, man?” and he just said “hangin’ in there.” I was hoping I might catch Seth or Angle if they blew up a little, but the remainder of the last 10 miles I just passed early starters. Come to find out, Padre and Seth ran super strong and consistent with Angle taking the win in 4h55m and Seth about 5 minutes back. I came across in 3rd in 5h13m, with Scott Wolfe in 4th about a minute and a half back (he had got off course a bit before the first aid station, along with roadie Justin).
All said and done, it was a great power trip to Orcas. Wolfe and I stopped in Yakima about halfway back on Sunday afternoon and did a shake out run up to the Yakima Skyline Trail on the Yakima Rim between Yakima and Ellensburg, WA. Which, is part of one of James’ other upcoming cool-looking races, the Yakima Skyline 50k. Looks like a sweet trail with spectacular views. Wow, James. I’m glad you’re doing all this hard work so we can go run these awesome courses. Hope to get out and support some of his events to keep them around. Giddyup!
