St. George Marathon, Oct 7, 2023 - and a new Personal Record!

Let me tell you the best news first.  I finished in 3:29, which is a 14 minute PR for me and exceeded my wildest goal for a finish time.  Everything went right.  

https://www.athlinks.com/event/137781/results/Event/1058753/Course/2393408/Bib/5437

St. George is now my favorite road marathon course.   It's sort of down hill the first half, then a little hill, then sort of flat, then mostly downhill the second half.  In other words, it's amazing.  

And not just because I got a PR!   

Organizers, I have a suggestion for you.  Need more cowbell!  I'm only sort of kidding.  On a lonely stretch of pavement it's nice to hear one...they sound so cheerful!  Reminds me of happy cows in beautiful pastures in Switzerland.  

My training went pretty well.  I actually did some speed training.  I actually did some down hill runs.  

My training volume is lower than normal this year.  I'm averaging 12 running miles a week, and about 5 miles of hard hill hiking.   Most of my training a month before the race was a backpacking trip up to the highest point in Utah at 13,500 feet.   That counts as a run, right?  I also summited a couple of other high peaks as well.  

With a month to the race I read a book about nasal breathing and decided to train with that method.  I did two 4 mile runs breathing through my nose (!), one of them speed work, and some breath hold training while walking the dog.  I managed about 18 miles of nasal breathing during the race.   The Veyo hill was a little hard, so I walked for a few seconds and used my mouth to breath, and then the final miles of the race were hot and tiring and I couldn't hold the concentration.  But that was 18 miles more than I thought I could do it!    Photo for proof!  See my mouth was closed :)

My watch malfunctioned at the start (too many GPS watches in one place?) and I felt like I was running fast but my speed seemed slow.  After a 6 miles I checked the watch mileage against the mile markers and realized it was 1/2 mile off!  That's about when the 3:20 pacers caught me up and I realized I had been running too fast, not too slow.  Oops.  

I started the race with a 12 ounce bottle of Coke in my hand.  That lasted me for the first half of the race.  Then I switched to water for a few miles, then added water to my squishy bottle with my drink mix to carry the last half.  No stomach issues at all.  

At 12 miles the 3:30 pacers caught up to me, but the pacer (how did he have breath to speak?) said they were 3 minutes ahead of pace.  I felt good, and sped up a little, and when we hit the sweet downhill overlooking Snow Canyon, I held a 6:37 mile pace for over a mile!  

With 6 miles to go I started to feel the pace.  I stuffed a bag of ice in my bra, held some in my hand, put some in my hat.   The last 3 miles were torture and I did lose a little time...I think my pace would have put me at about 3:25 if I had held it.  

With 1/2 mile left to go my shoe came untied.  Tying it was torture too and cost me valuable time.  

After the finish I was super depleted and unable to do much, even talk.  I soaked my feet in ice water, sipped on water, and tried not to throw up.   Even 90 minutes later I felt pretty out of it.  Definitely didn't drink enough while racing but I know myself and what I'm capable of and I pushed my limits.  I can say I really prefer trail racing and I will probably go back to that as I enjoy the scenery and the pace changes a lot more.  

We had a lot of friends racing as well, including Addie, Chad, Jim and Sylvia and lots of others from all over!.   Sylvia won the women's marathon in 2:36 for the 4th time!  Jim ran his fastest half marathon in 1:42, which is faster than I've ever run a half, so I've definitely created a monster.  

https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2023/10/07/ggg-jj-santana-sylvia-bedford-win-back-to-back-st-george-marathon-titles/

Here's the nuts and bolts of my nutrition for the geeks. 

Best recent addition to my supplements: Copper - instantly decreased muscle soreness post-workout.  See vigeohealth.net for further guidance, as it needs to be balanced with other nutrients.  

Week before:  Extra salt, creatine, BPC-157 (oral and injected), colostrum, enzymes, bromantane, and essential amino acids.   Daily vitamins a bit more than usual.   PEMF, Massage, Chiropractic adjustment.  

Morning of race:  Keto hot chocolate, mixed nut packet for breakfast (not the best but it was an early bus ride to the start).  MOTS-c, Cerebrolysin, Kava, Ketones, Caffeine, Nicotene Gum.   Yes I threw everything I knew might help at this race!  

Race nutrition:  12 ounces of coke, 1 ounce kava, 1 ounce ketones, 1/2 packet drink mix (UCAN, MCT powder, EAA's, Colostrum, LMNT), some water.  

Kings Peak Backpacking, 17-19 Sep 2023

 It was 10 years ago almost to the day.   We had made it to within 100 meters of the south summit of Kings Peak, and we could see dark clouds rolling in.  We ditched our goals and high tailed it as fast as we could down to treeline.  By the time we had set up our tent and got in it had snowed 2 inches!  

This trip was different.   Deb and her dog Luna and I made our approach from the north, through China Meadows.  The weather was gorgeous.   It was supposed to be 3 days of sunshine, calm breezes, and a clear blue sky.   

Deb's pack weighed at least twice mine...she did have dog paraphernalia and a big first aid kit, so I volunteered to carry water and the stove.   The hike in to Red Castle lake was surprisingly flat, and seemed to go on forever.  It was kinda muddy even from recent rains, and chewed up with horse tracks, but followed a nice stream and was shady through nice pine forests.   Our starting elevation was 9500 feet or so, and even a flat trail with packs made us work to cover the miles.  

We covered about 10 miles and found a nice campsite overlooking a small lake.   We had just enough paper to start a fire and it was all the things camping was supposed to be...cool but not cold, no bugs, beautiful scenery, and a gorgeous sunset over the water.    I did get a little cold in my tent...I put on all the clothes that i had, and warmed up a nalgene of hot water, and just managed to stay warm.  In other words, I packed perfectly and I'm grateful nothing went wrong.  lol.  

Our second day out was the big portion of the loop.  But the sun stubbornly refused to pop over the hill, so we lit another fire and took our time with breakfast.  Luna was a trooper, and had less foot trouble than Deb, who was struggling with some blisters.  Some tape and a spare set of socks helped.  I think Deb just chose not to complain too much, as her feet were a mess by the end!  

We had chosen to make a big loop to get to Kings, and left our valley as we slowly climbed above treeline.   There was plenty of water in every little stream...this is not a year to worry about the next water source.   We kept up a good pace but the high Uintas are tough going with lots of rocky trails, shale, and loose rocks.   

Kings Peak is not a beautiful summit, I have to say.  At 13,500 feet it's the highest point in Utah, but from around the area it's hard to even tell which one it is.    The trail zigzagged it's way up to the saddle just below the summit.   There we could ditch our packs for the final bit, which was dusted with fresh snow.  But we were in shorts and a light sweater and the sun was bright. 

We hadn't seen anyone literally all day until reaching the saddle.  Now we were on the main "day hike" trail to the summit.   Keep in mind that it's still a 26 mile day hike to reach the top!  But on such a nice Saturday, we probably saw about 20-30 people making their way up and down the rocks to the summit, at about 1 pm.  They had a lot way to go still to get back to their cars.  But so did we, in a sense.  

The rocks up to the summit were a breath-stealing slog.  Luna was the only one of us still going full speed.   We figured we were getting close, but confused by whether the highest point was the south summit or the north.  One guy passed us going down and cheerfully told us it was only 45 minutes more.  Hmmm.   We actually arrived in about 5 minutes so perhaps his sense of time was crooked.  

It was nice to start going downhill again for the day.   But the day was creeping on and there was no time to waste sitting around.   Down, around, and down some more brought us into Henry's Fork Basin.   We turned off the main trail and walked along the path that would get us back to China Meadows.  Our goal was a nice lake somewhere before the sun set and our legs gave out.  

After 15 miles and about 8 hours of hard hiking we found a great lake.   The moose were there first, and one was standing in the middle of the lake eating something.  We must have given him a fright, because he galloped awkwardly out of the lake and dripped off somewhere around the corner.   Not to be dissuaded, we followed the trail around the corner too and found a little campsite that was just perfect.   Two moose peered at us from a few hundred meters away and neither group seemed to care about the other.  We kept Luna tied up by our camp tho.  

Two moose were in the middle of the lake eating contentedly for hours as we set up camp and made dinner.  I went to collect firewood and found the original two moose still just chilling where we had first seen them.   They locked horns and tussled a little and I gave them a wide berth.  

Another cold night but I was more strategic about my sleeping clothes and felt warmer.   The water in the dog bowl was frozen solid by morning tho.  Moose snorts woke me up and by the time I got out of the tent he was back in the middle of the lake eating again.  Deb used all her skills to start a final fire (there was a lot of downed wood from beetle kill trees), and I ate pad thai for breakfast, made heartier by adding instant mash potatoes.    I'm pretty sure that only tastes good when camping.  

Our trail out had some choices, but included a gradual hill up and over a ridge.  At the top, we considered a shorter trail (it might have saved a mile), but randomly met up with two guys at that intersection.  They advised us that the shorter trail was a mess of downed trees, and to follow the horse trail instead.  The horse packers had blazed a trail through a lot of fallen trees and it was longer, but probably quicker to follow their way.   It was a pleasant walk through the woods, and Luna learned to jump over logs on her leash rather than run under them.   She had good recall but we were worried she would run 50 miles each day and wear her pads off.   On this trip she never seemed to tire and gave Deb a nice sled dog pull up the hills!  

Back on the main trail to China Meadows, it was almost hot, and we were grateful to see the miles tick off.  11 miles later we were back at the car.  Gave us a total of 37 miles in 3 days.   By car it was 3 hours back to our houses, and in those couple of days the oak trees had started turning red!   Fall colors are amazing.