Friday 081517

Triple Crown slips away from Zack and Jack

Live Leadville tracking is apparently here. I will roll the dice and pass on the obvious pre race favorites of Krar and Sharman and say this is the go around where Aish pulls it together.  Parr should not be counted out either.  Apparently prerace activities include beer miles started by former winners and Brits. (hat tip to Brett for that one).

I took a crack at predicting the men’s PPM (open and masters yesterday).  Apparently Clayton is out for the season so that shifts my guesses up a bit.  Still no Carpenter on the start list.  Damn.  I thought that was going to happen.   I am only checking the start lists like four times before my first phone call in the AM.  I thought he’d be in it.   Then I could have mancrush conversations like this

(Pic from JV who going to PR and go sub 4:30 in Sunday’s race unless I can get him to eat a bunch of Booberry cereal the night before). 

I am not sure what to make of the PPA on the men’s side.  As it is the WMRC and there is a boat of Europeans in there that I have never heard of – well, it is hard to predict.   I think the race however will come down to Blake (former winner), Gray, Canaday and Wacker.  I am going to give the nod to Gray as he has had an incredible year and just took second at SZ in a so called American Record.  I’d say top master is Gutierrez but he will probably break the top ten.  I think the top master award itself - because of that glitch in the awards - will probably go to Romero who always seems to race well above his other abilities on this hill.  Side note, it is interesting to see that Freudenburg, once from St Louis and a sub four podium guy in the marathon is now racing for the Netherlands.

Every year I have watched it I have thought the Ascent is the most stacked field ever.  I have looked at those lists every year and have thought that 20 folks are going to break 2:30. 

And that never happens. 

I think the most under 2:30 in the Ascent field alone was 2010 with 12 (although in that race people were running off the course in weird places, including Blake and Delany  who would win the race in later years, so they probably could have had even more that year).  But every year the mountain chews folks up and spits them out.

A bad 5k race means you are off by 20 seconds.  A bad marathon means you are off by 30 minutes.  A bad Pikes means you are walking the last three miles of that race above treeline in 70 minutes and thinking about that for a long time.  Folks go for it and blow.  Every year.   I will say they have 9 go under 2:30.   I hope I am wrong and it is more than that.

On the women’s side of the Ascent it has to be Kremer – again going off how well she did at SZ but I can’t see her breaking Dobson’s course record.  In the mix will be Frosty, Arritola, and … well, again a slew of Europeans in there and I really don’t know. 

PPM women:  none of the top five women seems to return from last year but places 5-9 have.  That is interesting.  Toss in former winner Ortiz, but who is now 50, and it should be a solid race.  I don’t really know those runners well enough to make an effective pick.   Don’t ask me about PP masters women – I don’t know that.

I love Dave Grohl.

As long as we are doing covers:

Evening – 3.1 miles, one spurt on a hill to touch the gas, but not hard.