Days 11 & 12 - 0', 1404'.

Wasn't able to do much yesterday so skipped it all together and turned todays climb into a tempo run. 4.85 miles with 1,404' of climbing. It's an average of about 5.5%, but the grade varies alot hitting 12% at times and a 3/4 mile stretch of 2-3% and everything in between. Felt strong and was pleased with the sub 41:00 I did. Nice and easy jog back down. I'll probably be looking to go sub 40:00 on this run sometime soon.
21,404' up and 128,596' to go.
I would need to run up Mt. Washington tomorrow to get back on a 2,000'/day pace.

Day 10 - 744'

Yea, I did it - I ran exactly 744' up Sugar Mountain so that I'd have some really nice numbers on day 10. I had planned for a nice lunch run to do about 1,000'-1,300', but at about 5 minutes past 8 this morning I realised I had mis-read my calander and had some meetings in Banner Elk, NC and Boone, NC. We were meeting with some people at the base of Sugar Mountain and as soon as we were done I threw on my shorts and shoes and took off without a w/u and got it done as fast as I could, jogged back down feeling a little guilty, but satisified.
20,000' up, 130,000' to go.
10% of the days and 13.3% of the vertical are finished.
I've averaged 2,000'/day and will need to average 1,444'/day to finish.
So far so good, physically I feel great, just getting stronger.
The real challenge will be time management and creativity the next few months.

Day 9 - 3,801'

Dropped off low, picked up high.
Was able to get 3,801' in while only going down about 1,000'.
19,256' up, 130,744 to go.
Made it home in time to see most of the Germany/England match.
Good stuff by the German's. If their attacking and finishing stay sharp they should be able to give Argentina (if they make it past Mexico) a good fight in the quarters.

USA/Ghana

Bigger, Stronger, Faster.
I've played against all 3 in every combination and here's how it works.
Bigger than me - I'm faster and usually stronger.
Stronger then me - I'm faster.
Faster than me - I'm bigger and stonger.
Bigger, Stronger and Faster than me - I need to DENY him the ball.
If I can't deny him him the ball - GOAL!
Both goals today were a result of a quick counter where Bigger, Stronger, Faster guys had the ball and could not be stopped.
After watching the Ghana/Germany match a few days ago I'm not suprised that we didn't advance. But, the USA is better than I thought and I'm happy with the way we played.
I will now go Guilt Free and support the side I've loved since 1982, the Dutch!
In the meantime I will follow WS100 and hope for Nick C to be the Strongest guy and take down the Faster guys! Go Nick!!!!
However, with the pints I've put back during the USA match I don't think I'll be awake at 11pm(EST) to see the 15 hour CR finish.

Day 8 - 2,583'

15,455' up, 134,545 to go.
Got some quick vertical in this morning that looked a little like this.
2 miles +161', -643'
2.67 miles +1106', -177'
1.85 miles +16', -840'
1.85 miles +844', -13'
.66 miles +0', -456'
.66 miles +456', -0'
.66 miles +0', -456'
I have a GPS for testing purposes only, so I'm having a little fun getting to know some of the steep grades that I run. For example, the .66 mile hill that gains 456' is an average of 13.1%. But the first .2 gains 203' for an average of 19.22% and the final .46 gains 253' for a 10.4%.

Day 7 - 1,267'

Same as yesterday, just doing what I can to get the vertical in. Hoping to go big again this weekend and knock out as much vertical as possible.
First week totals are:
12,872' in 7 days = 1,839'/day
137,128' remaining = 1,474'/day
7% of the days and 9.14% of the vertical are finished.
This will not always be the trend with schedule changes, so I need to get as much in as possible.
Legs feel pretty good so far, I'll know for sure after about 3 weeks though.

Day 6 - 1,267'

I knew it was going to be tough getting a run in today so I took the shortest, quickest route for some vertical - the treadmill. 2 miles at 12% gave me 1,267' before the smell of coffee triggered the morning routine. 138,395' of vertical to go.

Days 3,4,5 - 900', 1000', 1200'

142,762' of vertical on the trail. 142,762'. Climbed some hills, took some spills, 139,662' of vertical on the trail.
I have a nice 5 mile, 1,500' climb nearby that I've been using this week to get my vertical in. Monday and Tuesday I did some simple up/down's. Today I picked a steep 250' section and did 4 reps on it after an easy 200' w/u.

A Perfect Father's Day

The kids and Maureen planned a Father's Day Trail Run at Craggy Gardens, a 1 mile trail that climbs about 500' to some open flats with great views. Riley was only concerned with beating everyone to the top which had me in a full sweat trying to keep him in site. Kayle was excited to try out her new running skirt and have as much fun as possible, even though she was only about 5 minutes behind Riley!






Riley - Too fast for the camera.
Kayle - Smokin' the descent.

Kayle - coming over the summit.

Riley - Approaching the summit.

Riley - Showing his steep rock hoping ascending technique.

Riley - Dropping Daddy when the trail levels out.

Kayle - Showing all of us how to pick your path on a technical ascent.

Day 2 - 2,579'

145,341' of vertical on the trail. 145,341'. Knocked some out, then got kicked around, 142,762' of vertical on the trail.
Felt pretty good until the last 1,200' / 1.5 mile climb. I just had fun and hiked this to the finish. Started the run summitting Mt. Pisgah.

Day 1 - 4,659'

150,000' of vertical on the trail. 150,000'. Knocked some out, kicked some around, 145,341' of vertical on the trail.

Wanted to have a solid start to my new mission, so I thought it would be a good idea to, sort of, do what I wish I was doing today, Mt. Washington. Can't go 4,650' in one shot here so I did a 2,000' climb twice, then did another 650' and ended up with 4,659' for the day. Can't get a clear shot of the data on my watch and the camera on my phone is the only camera I know how to use, you'll need to trust me on this one!

150k vertical in 100 days.

OK, I'm a little bored with what I'm doing right now (not a whole lot) but I have no desire to race or train, just run for fun. I do, however, have the need to set a goal. One that doesn't involve racing, training or competing will be new to me, so I've decided to challenge myself to something I like doing the most, but wouldn't be too easy. I've come up with 150,000' of verticle in 100 days. This actually doesn't seem like a lot, but the fact that I'll need to descend all the verticle as well puts it just on the edge of a fun challenge. This will be an average of 1,500' per day for 100 days. At a casual effort I think a 1,500' ascent will be 35-40 minutes, so round trip I'm looking at about an hour a day run. I think this will be much harder to do than it looks on paper. I'll call Saturday June 19th my first day and Sunday September 26 the last day (notice I didn't use start/finish to avoid the competitive aspect!). There will be some challenges with verticle on some travel I have, but there will also be some great opportunites to make up for lost verticle on some other trips. For the last 5 days of this 100 day challenge I will be at Loon Mountain which has 2,100' of vertical in 2.5 miles. I should be able to make up for any lost vertical on that trip. I hope to develop some fun consistency and a chance to look for some new steep trails in the next 100 days.

A little Vertical with some great people.

From what I can come up with I've put in about 20,000' of vertical in 4 states in the past 10 days. My "job" has given me the extreme pleasure of being in NC, CO, UT, and NH in the past 10 days taking me from the top of Mt Pisgah, Loveland Pass, Lone Peak and Mt. Washington. Along the way I've stayed with Lucho who lives at 8,160' and has the best home office I've ever seen. There are no easy days where he lives, just slower runs. Not only did I get to stay with a really fast guy, a person you'd love to see suffer at the end of a training run, but I was able to stay with a person who's a great person well above a fast as shit mountain runner. The Memorial Day FoCo TT on Round Mtn. gave me the opportunity to get a headstart on these speedy mountain goats and film them finishing a 4.5 mile, 3,000' climb. I have some footage of Lucho finishing, shattering the FKT, coughing up a dry luggie and apoligizing to a hiker for ruining their morning on the summit of Round Mtn. "I'm sorry," Lucho says to the hiker, "I got to the summit and watched a guy puke." Tim W may have coughed and dry-heaved a bit, but was fresh and ready to go about a minute later.

I'm holding onto this film, waiting for the right offer. I've already turned down a few offers from the producers of Lost, Dave from Beauty and Change, and National Geographic. Tim and Nick are going to be big stars and I'm willing to hold my hand for a few more months.

A few minutes later I have Nick Clark finishing very strong on legs with about 50 miles and a shit load of vertical in them the past 2 days. I'd really like to see these 2 guys battle it out with fresh legs and a proper w/u. I get the feeling they'd like to race eachother in an informal TT as well. Perhaps we'll get to see something like this soon, once WS and Pb is finished. There were a few other guys there that might want a little say in this, as well. A guy named Bob Sweeny(sp) could split Nick and Tim and maybe even take the win for himself, a guy named Eric might screw up the whole table. Perhaps a guy named Scott, aka fast eddie, or a person named Anton. Shit, what might happen if a guy from Alaska heads down to make sure a guy, Killian, from spain doesn't riun it for the Americans. OK, I've gone too far, if that happened somebody would put up some money on that TT. My money would still be on Lucho though - you should see him bounce off Sanita rocks. Scientist have yet to discover wjat I witnessed, elastic rocks. I was behind him and could have sworn that the rocks were bouncy. I was wrong, the rocks were actually thick beach sand.

The highlight of this 4 state trip was the hike up Mt. Washington via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail with my Uncle (in-law) Steve who will be 60 next month. Oh yea, if the next TT is on this 4.1 mile trail with about 4,200' of gain to the summit of MW I may need to put my money on Kevin Tilton; he went sub 60 and after hiking this trail, that's just silly - yea, I laughed about a minute after I finished and realised KT went under an hour on this trail! My other pocket has money on my uncle who grew up at the base of MW and raised his 3 kids here as well. My other pocket has money on the best mountain story. When Steve was in HS most of his mates played hockey, but his 3 best friends and he were skiers. The kind of skiers that hike to the top of MW, 4,500', and skied down the nastiest shit they could find. Like most teenagers in the 60's-70's they looked for a way to make a few bucks to support their skiing addiction, so these 4 guys would buy 2 cases of beer and hike through snow to the top of MW with skis and a half a case of beer each, then sell half the beer at the top to the tourists for a buck a bottle, drink a few themselves before dipping the tips over Tuck's Ravine. Get to the bottom and drink a few more. As much as alot of people would like to match up an Ali/Tyson fight, I'd like to see these 4 teenagers from the 60's-70's get up the mountain without skis and beer and see how they could match up with some of the speedy guys today. The ski/beer guys didn't just make 1 run, they went 2-3 times for about 9-12,000' of vertical in the snow for a day. All in all I've had a great couple of weeks, a time that has reminded me that great athletes need to be great people first. A lesson learned that 30-40 years ago people did some bad ass shit just for recreation and fun. My uncle's story about hiking up MW in the snow with skis and a 1/2 case of beer makes the running goals I have just sound silly. Those guys really knew how to have fun and do something really special, physically, at the same time. Perhaps someday I'll do something really cool like that. Maybe I already have, but won't realize it until one of my kids writes about it someday.