Alta Wildflowers

Not much text needed for this post... just a bunch of photos of the wildflowers GOING OFF at Alta (and throughout the Wasatch Mountains) right now. Andrea and I went for a hike up through Albion Basin yesterday. The colors are spectacular...

Flexible, Homemade Ice Packs

Andrea and I have a lot of those flexible/gel-style ice packs (like these)... our freezer is full of them, and we use them all the time. With my hamstring being my primary issue over the past couple months, I've really wanted something a little bit bigger to cover the entire upper leg. Last week I read Lou Dawson's post about homemade ice packs and realized how simple it would be to make my own.

A two second web search revealed lots of bloggers out there have already done this little science experiment, and there were several "recipes" to try. Being cheap, I headed to the dollar store / Big Lots and picked up some supplies.

I read that dish soap worked well, but it froze a little too hard... so I modified the formula a bit and added some extra rubbing alcohol. Here's what I came up with...

-30 ounces of dish soap
-2-3 ounces (approximately) of rubbing alcohol
-Double bag in gallon sized ziploc freezer bags
-Freeze laying flat so the liquids spreads out as much as possible. Freeze overnight the first time.

This recipe works really well. When you take them out of freezer, they are hard, but you can easily mold it to the shape you want (in my case, around the hamstring). I just wrap an Ace bandage around it to hold the pack in place (see below). The packs are quite cold, so to avoid frostbite it is wise to have a thin layer of some fabric between your skin and the pack (like an old thin pillow case).

Total cost is probably $1.75 per pack. Not too bad. The formula might need some tweaking for perfection (and might vary a bit depending on how cold your freezer is), but this gets the job done.

My supplies

Always label so no one thinks its a big, rectangular, popsicle

The finished product, wrapped on my hamstring, keeping me healthy and running strong!

Draper Days 5K

Start of the 2013 Draper Days 5K

Today was the Draper Days 5K, one of the more competitive short races in Utah since its a part of the USATF-Utah road racing circuit. Winning it almost always takes a sub-15 minute effort, which isn't necessarily easy at altitude on a course with a decent hill in the last mile.

Andrea and I BOTH ran this morning - its been a while since we both ran in the same race. She wasn't necessarily going all-out, just using it as part of her transition back into running post-surgery. For me, it was my best 5K so far this year, although I still have some work to do. I ended up running 15:09 for 4th place, which tied my "altitude 5K PR."

You can check out both of our race reports on Fast Running Blog:  Jake's Recap - Andrea's Recap

Great to see Andrea back out on the roads... the comeback is ON!

Finish Line

Montana

Consistent triple digit temperatures = go north. We recently headed up to Hebgen Lake, Montana with some friends for a few days to escape the heat. On the way back we made a stop at Mesa Falls (pics at the bottom of this post). I've said it a hundred times, but one of the great things about living in Salt Lake City is that its so easy to drive to places like these for a long weekend...

Tour de Run

My "summer of racing" kept going this weekend at the Tour de Run, a cycling-inspired stage race directed by Nate Houle. Stage 1 was Friday at 7:30pm, Stage 2 was Saturday at 7am, and Stage 3 was Saturday at high-noon. This was a really cool concept and I hope it continues to grow. Here are my stage-by-stage reports...

Stage 1, 5K - 15:40, 2nd place
I took it out quick, Josh McCabe and Chris Rushing followed close. Hit the mile in 4:52 and Chris dropped back by 1.5 miles. It was down to Josh and I, which it what we probably both expected. The middle portion of the course was a windy trail through a forested area and around a pond. A fun course (reminded me of Thanksgiving Point). We ran the second mile in5:00. The third mile has a short uphill stretch. We were running side by side through there, but Josh pulled ahead in the last quarter-mile and won by 0.8 seconds. Third mile was 5:08 and then the last tenth was 39 which seems kind of wrong, but maybe one of the other miles was short. Doesn't matter, this is racing, not time trialing.

Stage 2, 10K - 32:42, 2nd place
The "hill" stage. I took it out a bit more conservative (10:36 at 2 miles) and then Josh absolutely crushed me on the uphill. I ran 5:56 for that mile, and probably fell 20 seconds back. Mile 4 was back downhill (5:02) and then I closed the gap a bit over the last two miles (5:00, 5:02, and 64 for the last 0.2) but Josh won the stage by 14 seconds.

Stage 3, 4.32 miles - 22:43, 1st place
Ran the first two miles in 5:06, 4:59 and I could tell I wasn't going to get 14 seconds back on Josh because he was stuck right on my shoulder and running strong. So I asked him if he was planning to run Draper 5K and Des News 10K. We agreed that since that was the plan for both of us, we weren't going to kill ourselves today and kind of cruised the next two miles (5:25, 5:37!) and then I pulled away a bit in the last 1/3rd (1:36) and won by 3 seconds. I think after three races, my uniform smelled so wretched that Josh was happy to let me move away a little bit.

I ended up second place overall by ~10 seconds. Chris Rushing was third, Karl Siebach was 4th, and Kevin was 5th. On the women's side, Allie won by a landslide! In the team competition, Smores and Friends (Allie, James, Kevin, and I) won and were rewarded with a gigantic basket of Kneaders goodies.
This was a fun, well-organized event. I know there were a lot of races this weekend (with a lot more prize $) but I'm really glad I chose Tour de Run. There is something to be said about racing instead of just time-trialing and I think Nate Houle has created a unique event... I hope it gets some traction and more people do this in the future. Overall the turnout was somewhat small, but everyone there seemed to love it. All 3 races were loop-type courses that started and finished at Lone Peak HS. They were fun and challenging (and in the case of the 10K, somewhat brutal). But I'm growing tired of bus rides and downhill dashes (great attitude with the Des News 10K coming up, right?) so this was a nice change from what kind of races we typically have in Utah. Lots of great prizes too. It was good racing against Josh, he's had my number over the last month but we've pushed each other, and I enjoy that kind of competition.

Andrea took lots of photos.

Here's a few...

July 4th Weekend Races

Post Race at the Sawtelle Stampede. The race atmosphere oozed patriotism.

I ran two races over the holiday weekend - first up was the Murray 5K on July 4th (part of the USATF-Utah Racing Circuit) and then on July 6th I ran the Sawtelle Stampede (a high-elevation trail half-marathon in Island Park, Idaho).

Here's the recaps from my Fast Running Blog, and then lots of photos...

Murray Fun Days 5K - 15:44, 3rd Place

Someday I will run 5 kilometers at a pace faster than I do for the half marathon. Today was not that day! Teren won easily in 15:19, then Josh McCabe was just in front of me in second (15:42). Felt flat on my warmup and never got going. Teren and Josh were way up (~20 seconds) on me at the 2-mile mark, and Josh was coming back to me in the last quarter mile, but my kick was non-existent again. Splits - 5:03, 5:00, 5:11, 28. Gotta kick this sinus infection. It doesn't affect me too much on easy stuff, but I feel like it affects me a little more when I try to run fast.

Sawtelle Stampede All-American Fun Run - 1:15:03, 2nd Place

I know I said "no more half-marathons until TOU 1/2", but I'm making an exception for this... it was an ALL-AMERICAN FUN RUN for crying out loud! Our friend Fritz told us about this race a couple weeks ago... it's something of a tradition for his family, and apparently the race has grown from about 20 people to probably close to 400 this year (between the Kids' 1K, 5K, 10K, and HM). 

It was an awesome, low-key, fun community event. You could almost call this a trail race. The course was a rolling jeep road/trail at ~6500+ feet with plenty of hills. I was thinking that Fritz and I would run ~1:20 and easily take the top two spots... but there were some other very good runners there and it turned into quite a battle. Elijah Armstrong (a high-schooler who ran 14:28 for 5000m on the track a few weeks ago) stuck right on me until the very end, along with Jacob Howell (who only fell back a tiny bit over the last two miles). I had no idea who Elijah was at the time, but I suspected he was very fast because we were moving a really good clip for that altitude/terrain, and he was strong all the way. It came down to a kick, and I should have known better to wait until the last 75 meters because he got a jump on me and I wasn't able to match it... he won by a full second. He really impressed me... the kid is the real deal. 

I was pleased with the effort. It was a great aerobic tempo run type workout, and I came away with a nice chunk of gold coins. 

Mostly it was just a really fun day with Andrea, Amiee, Fritz, and his family. Fritz's nephew ran the Kid's 1K and the girls all ran the 5K. We had a great time.