Monday 102714

If (and it is a pretty big if) I do both Pikes and Leadville next year, the bulk of my training needs to be done by the time I hit June.  Basically between June and July, I have three weeks where little if any training will get done.  Why?  I will be on a boat somewhere.  And often not hitting any land.

Those trips are not ideal for training for a marathon up and down on a 14k peak, or a 100 miler out of Leadville of course.  That said, the reasons for being on these boats is simple:  life time opportunities with my family. 

If anything, knowing that I will be dealing with these circumstances only furthers my belief in that I need to get my training while I can, and maximize that.  With down periods like this (and others dealt because of life, work, etc), I need to look to push myself in the up periods, almost to the point of breaking, and then leveraging the down period as a recovery. 

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.  It will be fun either way.

Yesterday’s haul (which later led to today’s canning operation):
She has been rehabbing in the mountains while we have been away.  She is back.  Two and half weeks left with the cast spoon thing.  Yes, it reads, “do not chew.”  She is Australian so I am not sure she can read anyway.  And yes, I am going to make that squirrel pay.

She somehow thinks this is still a good idea.

I thought I’d get out in the afternoon, but the day got away with me.  Still catching up with stuff after being away for a few weeks, including circling the kids to make sure they catch up (with teenagers this is a bit of pushing rope up hill).  Between that, math homework, and fighting off a cold, I was not motivated to roll out into the dark of 9PMish …

News stuff:
- Monarch girls have had the grip on the XC 5A state title for three years and were heavily favored on Saturday to continue that streak.  But Fort Collins, the bridesmaid for the last three years took it by FIVE points. 
-The Lyons kid Roberts posted the fastest time across all the races on Saturday – and the only kid that was going to probably challenge that was Alhamra.  I was surprised to not see him at the top of the result – but he apparently had a pretty bad day.
-Also in XC was action over in MA, that included Abby D’s return to racing.
-NSFW – but holy crap funny from BroScience.  Thanks Jeff.  Glad I had the headset going for that one.  Of course, this is more of Jeff’s life.
-thinking of JV, this is the sort of race that I think he’d love.
-The guy I have run more miles with up and down Mosquito Pass wrote a book.  It is a good read, even if I get trounced in the end to take second.  ;)  No, seriously, I had read a copy a bit ago and I found it sometimes funny, sometimes painful as Hal spoke of some of the stuff he has gone through. 

- The Basic is this Saturday.  ‘Nuff said.

25 who are more influential … it should probably be no surprise that the first guy I would list is Matt Carpenter. 

Carpenter’s resume in terms of wins and course records is mind blowing.  18 wins at Pikes and the CR holder up and down in a time that no one has come near in decades.  3 wins at Mount Washington in sub 1 hour times.   Winner at Leadville and course record holder at 15:42.  And that is just a little bit of it.

But for what it is worth, that is only part of why I put the guy down as influential. 

Arguably, most of Matt’s most epic efforts came AFTER he failed.  Read through his race reports on the link above and you see a thread that is common and inspirational:  high expectations going to a race, coming up short and then retuning his focus to leave no stone unturned:  Pikes, Leadville, NF 50 in SF.  It is a story that many of us can relate to, or at least one we can relate to more than the guy or gal who comes out and wins from day 1 all the time. 

But that still is only a part of why I see him as influential.  The guy started the Incline Club which helped hundreds of runners train for Pikes and Leadville races over the years, helped get the Barr Trail race going, pushed back on the USATF with how they treated MUT runners, took a principled stand on what he expected of races and how they treated elites (probably to the point where he has pissed enough folks off that he has been held from the CO Running HOF), became the registrar of the PP races, created one of the coolest result databases out there for Pikes over the years, and …

… he reached out.  It seemed to me that any guy that asked this guy what they should do for training – he was willing and caring to help out.  You probably would not get the nice “you are crushing it dude” answer that you get on Fakebook, but instead a pretty critical and straight forward analysis of what you were doing wrong and what you need to do to fix it. 

Matt stepped out of the limelight a few years ago, which probably why he did not make the list Justin posted.  He was one of those guys who was so good that even as he neared 50 he was considered sometimes unrealistically the favorite against guys half his age.  In the eyes of some, he probably had to step away for a bit to get away from that sort of expectation.   You could argue that he is less influential now that he has changed the focus in his life to other pursuits.  Or you could argue that the seeds he planted are still growing.   Every summer the guy’s name still comes up in terms of records, wins, and accomplishments.