Photo recap of the last 2 weeks

I went to Southern California for business, took the fam, and took some personal time before and after. Here is the recap... mostly in pictures.

Saturday, April 21st:

After the 1/2 Marathon we drove to Las Vegas

Aquarium at Caesar's Palace

The Bellagio

My son watching the fountains

Volcano at The Mirage

Pirate ship at Treasure Island

 Sunday April 22

We stayed the night at my wife's uncle's place in Vegas. In the morning we got up and drove to California.

The view from my wife's uncle's place

 We went to California adventure in the afternoon.

Dillan had a lot of fun in the lines.

With cousin Gillian

Sunday night we stayed at a hotel across the street from the park.
 
Monday April 23, I got up and ran around Disneyland (about 4 miles) and felt rejuvenated and ready to hit Disneyland with the fam.

Trying to pull the sword out of the stone.

Woody was one of the highlights.

The Monte Cristo at Cafe Orleans. It is basically a doughnut with ham and cheese inside. It was even a bit much for me. But very delicious.

 After Disneyland we went back to Oceanside to stay at my sister in law's house. She lives about a mile from the beach. So wednesday morning I got up and ran to the beach barefoot. I carried my VFFs just in case but didn't need them. It was a blast to run along the beach at the edge of the water.

 Tuesday evening I drove up to Ontario, CA for business (Wed-Sat). I didn't run Wednesday morning. Thursday morning I got up and ran in the rain and had a blast. Thursday night I did some scouting for trails and thought I found one. I came back Friday morning and tried to run it but it led to what seemed to be either a homeless camp or a bmx project. The trail didn't lead far so I turned around and followed a dirt road uphill.

Homeless camp or makeshift bmx park?

Dirt road to the clouds

 The run friday morning was not very satisfying so I did some research and discovered the Potato mountain was not far away. So Saturday morning I got up extra early to go run it before I had to present some training.

Heading up Potato Mountain

Potato Mountain Summit

 At the top I ran into a group of runners. The Daybreakers. There were 4 of them and one of them ran with me back down and up Potato mountain. A cool guy. He took a pic when we got back to the top.

Potato Mountain Summit #2

 After training Saturday, I drove back to Oceanside where I had left my wife and son. After dinner we went out on the pier with Gillian for shakes as the sun was setting. It was a little cool but very beautiful.

Sunday I rested and hung out with the family.

Monday morning I took my recently purchased Trail Gloves for their first run. I ran to a bike path and then along the beach before heading back to my sister in law's house.

Ran in the trail gloves again on Tuesday. I tried to stay on the dirt on the side of the trail as much as possible.

After the run we packed up and started driving home. We stopped to see the Calico ghost town.

We toured part of a mine and they had these dummies from the 70's

In the mine

 We got to tour a house that was built on an angle. We took some cool pics that look like we're leaning over. It was actually the building that was at an angle.

 We stopped in Vegas again on the way home.

Dillan eating a slice of pizza at Nathan's in New York New York

Had to see the fountains again

 Now that I'm back in Utah I had to hit up a mountain that I recently discovered; Saddleback Mountain. It was overcast yesterday and I decided to go for it anyway. I think I covered the story fairly well on my dailymile post so I'll just share the pictures.

To show how steep it was this is looking across the mountain directly to my left as I went up.

A campsite on short saddle. One of the brief runnable parts

Anyone know what these giant panels are for?

I have no idea what all these bricks are for.

The pile of rocks marks the summit at about 7500'

Me at the top

Coming back down out of the clouds

I don't think these pictures do justice to how steep this is.

2012 SLC 1/2 Marathon

It's been a while since I've posted and I feel like I have a lot to post but I'll try to dedicate this post to the 2012 Salt Lake City 1/2 Marathon held on April 21st 2012.

A few months back I volunteered to pace this race and was selected to pace the 1:50 group (8:24/ mile). I thought that this was very doable despite the fact that I was doing most of my running this year at a slower pace and my longest run so far this year was 10 miles. I felt like my achilles was healing and thought this would be a good test to see if I could continue to ramp up my training.

In the few weeks before the race I ran the half marathon distance is close to or faster than the 1:50 I was supposed to pace so my confidence was up. Especially because both of the routes (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/163303103, http://connect.garmin.com/activity/167580097) I ran seemed like they'd be much more difficult than the race course.  

The night before the race I drove to SLC, picket up my packet and pacer shirt and sign then headed to my mother in laws house in Sandy, UT for the night. I didn't get to sleep until about midnight and to get to the start I got up at 5am. I wasn't sure if I would have time to ride the train up to university so I just drove to the start area and found a parking spot. I wandered over to the start, waited in line for the porta-potties and then dropped off my back of stuff to be taken to the finish.

Self shot at 5:30am. No one else was up

They had been making a big deal about how warm it was supposed to be so I was super hydrated. I decided to carry a bottle of water for the first while. I got to the start and got organized with the other pacers and at 7am it was time to start.

We started off and I tried really hard not to start too fast but we were going a little faster than the pace. A couple of miles into the race the hydration was kicking in. I handed my pacing sign to a Canadian guy in the group to carry on and jumped into the porta potty. When I got out I took off to catch him. After a few minutes I caught up the the 1:45 pacer. I realized I must have missed my guy so I pulled off to the side and began to walk while watching for my sign. Eventually the guy came around. Turns out that he had stopped at the porta potties too. Oops! That was ok because it actually got us closer to our pace.

We continued on and I made sure to chat it up with everyone around me. Most of them were not trying for my particular pace but thought it was helpful to know where they were. I took another potty break around mile 5 (I kept the sign with me) and downed a gel.

As I continued, I kept trying to gradually slow down my pace. I was averaging about 8:10-8:15. I was intentionally getting ahead of the pace because of a hill in the last mile or two but I didn't want to be that far ahead.

I had a blast talking to people, encouraging them, thanking the police, etc. A few times at road crossings I actually walked across acting like a crossing guard. It just seemed natural given my super bright shirt and sign. What a blast!

At one point I slowed down to let a lady get in front of me for a picture. I told her I'd make her look good. Not sure it worked.

The crowd started to thin out in the last 3-4 miles. I tried to stay steady but ended up loosing a few people. When we hit the last hill I still felt great so I concentrated on encouraging runners up the hill. There was one guy that really wanted to break 1:49. I kept telling him that he could do it. Turns out he did.

At the top of the hill, I stopped to encourage people up the hill. From there you could see the finish and I knew I was still ahead of pace. I started running sideways and backwards, waving people on to a strong finish. It was so much fun. I ran on to the finish and completed the race with my trademark somersault over the line. I crossed the line about 1:50:20 or so on the clock but my garmin and chip were the same at 1:49:42. So I think the mission was accomplished.

This is in the finishing stretch.

I grabbed some chocolate milk, bananas, and other things, posed for pictures and checked in with several runners who reported their successes. I'm so glad I did this. I felt like I let people down at the TOU marathon last year when I missed my time but this felt equally, yet oppositely, great.

Because my car was at the start and I didn't want to dink with the train I did a slow run/ jog back up the hill to the start for another 4 miles.

Buffalo Run Write-up from a Pacer/ volunteer

 

I had the awesome experience of being on an island all day Saturday to help with and witness some amazing things. Each March there is a great event called the Buffalo Run. There are 4 distances to choose from; 25k, 50k, 50 mile, and 100 mile. I did the 25k in 2010 and the 50k in 2011. This year I wanted to do the 50 mile but due to my tough guy syndrome and ignoring an ailing achilles I decided it was a bad idea. Instead I volunteered to help at an aid station and got the chance to pace Christie, a friend from dailymile.com, during a portion of her first 100 mile attempt/finish.

Today I recieved an email from another DM friend Derrick who had been contacted to do a write up on the event. (He ran the 50K, I beleive.) He emailed me some questions and I got a little verbose in my response and thought that it might be a good idea to include my responses here along with some photos I've stolen from Christie and some that I took myself.

Below you will find Derrick's questions in bold with my responses directly following them. (in case you couldn't figure it out).  I've never been interviewed for a race live or via email before so this was pretty fun. Here goes: (the pictures were not part of the email, but Derrick if you read this you can use them if you want.)

_______________________________________

1. First off, I know you by Jeremy H. What is your last name?

My name is Jeremy Haddock. I am 32 and live in Logan, UT.

2. What was your experience pacing for the 100 mile course? Who did you pace for?

A while back I found out a friend from DailyMile.com was running the Buffalo Run 100 miler as her first 100 mile race. I thought it would be fun to run with her for a while and help out where I could. She was only going to have 1 pacer and I thought she could use a little more support. I was already signed up to volunteer so my time was limited but I was already planning to be on the island that day. I figured if she didn't want any more company I'd just hit some of the other island trails and then cheer people on but this was way cooler.

This was soon after I joined Christie. We had just left my aid station.

So since I had never met Christie (from Boise, ID) before, I didn't have much of an idea what to expect from her. She seems super bubbly online but you know that people can often be different in real life. Turns out she really is that bubbly and smiley in person. I got up Saturday morning and didn't have much of idea of where on the course she'd be. I got to the start area around 8am. (The 100 mile race began the previous day at noon.) I got out of the car and headed over to the start area and figured I'd see if I could figure out where she was. As soon as I found out who the racers were supposed to check in with, I went and waited to ask if she had checked in. Just then, Christie and her husband walked in and checked her in. I asked if she was Christie and she was confused at first but then remembered that I was coming to run with her for a while.

Christie's husband Wayne taking our picture.

She was crying and apologized for it. I told her not to worry about it and that I was there for her regardless of how she was feeling. I told her she looked great. Apparently by this point she had run somewhere around 70 miles. The last 15 or so with huge painful blisters on each foot. I joined her on the trail and soon her pacer caught up to us. I had not expected to go quite so soon so I was overdressed and didn't have any water with me.  A little over a mile down the trail we passed the aid station that I'd be working later so I dropped a layer there. We continued down the trail not knowing exactly when I'd turn around for my assignment. We had a great chat as we headed down the trail. When we were almost to the next aid station there were several buffalo right near the trail. We were going to go off trail in the opposite direction to give them a wide birth but then another female runner came by and they got further away. So Christie's pacer and I ran ahead to get them off the trail a little more. Christie's husband who had been following along the road with Christie's 5 kids got a great photo of us on the trail with several buffalo in front of us.

We had to scare these guys off the trail for Christie. Pretty nerve wracking.

My view

My view

Looking over my shoulder at Christie @ about mile 77.

Part of the trail I helped pace.

I got the chance to run ahead and behind a few times to grab something for Christie and was happy to do so. I also tried to distract her by pointing out an antelope, several buffalo and an awesome reflection in the lake. It worked sometimes but I could tell she was having a rough time. When we got to the Lower Frary aid station I only had an hour until I was due at my aid station so I gave Christie a hug, told her she could do it and promised to see her at my aid station (mile 94) and started running the 5 miles or so back to my assignment.

3. How was volunteering? can you describe your experience?

Volunteering was awesome! When I first got there we were almost out of water.  I ran a little over a mile to the start to make sure more was on the way (plus I wanted to get my car/food). They had already sent more but sent me to try to find a place to fill more water jugs. I failed. I brought the empties back and headed to my aid station (Mountain view aid station). I found out that we had indeed run out of water and several runners were upset about it, but by the time I got back we had more water.

This guy thought it was ok to just stroll on through. He ate less than any of the runners.

There were two other guys working the station with me. Jay, who was obviously a seasoned 100 mile runner, and Malcolm, the high school senior son of a friend of the race director who was running the 100 mile race. It was getting hot so Malcolm and I put up a shade but I was apparently already fried. I felt awkward at first because I had no idea what I was doing (my first time volunteering). I noticed that Jay would run down the trail to approaching runners (now moving fairly slow) he would get their bottle and run back and have it filled before they got to the aid station. Then he could focus on their other needs. I know he was trying to get some miles in but it seemed like a fun way to offer exceptional service so I put my shoes back on and started to do the same thing. Malcolm also joined in the fun. It made it a lot more entertaining and you could tell that the runners were appreciative of the effort we were putting in. 

Moving on to meet his buddies

We joked that we guaranteed that ours was the best aid station and offered anyone who felt otherwise could run back to us and complain. No one did so we must have been awesome.
Most of the runners coming through looked very tired (they were either at 44 or 94 miles at this point) but we only had one or two that we were worried about. One girl came in shivering. she was wearing black pants and a black jacket and was still cold. We had her sit down and helped her take in some salt and fluids and made sure she was feeling better before we allowed her to leave.

They aren't quite as scary when they're on the other side of a fence. Although I was told they can run over it.

I got to see another dailymile friend, Matt, who was running the 50 miler and later I got to be the one who ran out to find Christie coming in with her pacer. She had been so worried that she wouldn't finish on time but I assured her she could still make it. We let her sit down for a couple of minutes, gave her some calories, liquid and encouragement and sent her on her way. I was so proud of her.

4. Why did you decide to help out at the race?

Originally I wanted to run the 50 mile race this year. I had completed the 25k in 2010 and the 50k in 2011 and figured it was the logical next step. However, when I was getting ready to start training I realized that the achilles issues that I had been ignoring for 8 months were not getting better. I thought about trying another distance but wasn't sure what I'd be able to do.

Later I was contacted via facebook by Britta Trepp about volunteering. I had heard how great it was but the idea of a discount towards next year's race and permission from the wife sealed the deal for me.

After closing down the station, I was left alone to wait for a truck to come pick up all the crap. I got some nice relaxation in. I was so glad for the cloudcover.

 5. What is your experience in trail running/ultra racing?

I first started trail running in high school in Colorado for cross country. I preferred the trail races to the golf course or road races. In 2002 I ran my first marathon. I got married soon after and stopped running consistently. After gaining more weight that I wanted, I started running again in 2008 and worked my way up to doing marathons and a half ironman but I longed for the dirt. I did most of my longer runs in Logan canyon on the trails. In 2009 Jim Skaggs offered a free Hill climb race on Antelope Island and it was a blast even though only 6 people showed up. As mentioned above I ran the 25k and 50k distances at the buffalo run. But my first race over the 26.2 was the 2010 Logan Peak Trail run (28 miles, 7200' elevation). I was amazed that I recovered so much quicker than the marathons I had run. That combined with more enjoyable scenery and a more laidback culture was a major reason I love trail running.

Last fall I spontaneously helped pace another DM friend for 16 miles of the Bear 100, only meeting him the day before. It was a great experience too.

6. Is there anything else that really impacted you or you found interesting about the race Saturday?

I had heard it before, but it has really started to sink in since Saturday that a 100 mile race is an excellent analogy for life. At times it is fun, other times hard, sometimes you feel alone, sometimes you have great friends to help you through the rough patches but no one can do it for you. We all have to put one foot in front of the other for ourselves as we head down the path of life. Small things repeated enough make a huge difference in the outcome. Its not as much about speed as it is about a consistent push to move forward. There are some beautiful view and memories to take in, and in the end you want your family and loved ones there to cheer you home. 

Christie's family at the finish. Congrats again Christie!