Gearing Up For My First Ultramarathon

In the words of someone famous, "On to the next one". If you read my last blog post about the Burn Your Lungs Run, you know that it is now over and I finally feel free to pursue the next thing on my calendar. Which happens to be a vacation to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with Audrey's sister Amy and her family.

At the end of the vacation week, I will be doing my first ultra marathon. For you newbies out there, an ultra marathon is any distance over 26.2 miles (the official distance of every marathon). The lucky race that just so happens to be my first is called, "El Vaquero Loco" (not in Espanol - "The Crazy Cowboy"), and it is held in the Salt River Mountain Range in northern Lincoln County, Wyoming about 2 hours from home.

From what I can tell this will be a tough mountain race. It boasts over 9,000 ft. of elevation gain for the 50k (31 miles) and lots of single track trails past high alpine lakes, with the race starting around 7,000 ft. and getting up to 10,000. It's an out and back course. This year is a little bit different because of all the snow and late summer rain the road into the original starting point (Cottonwood Lake) is washed out. So, I along with all the other 50k runners will start at Intermittent Spring and run the course backwards.

I have been training for this race in Brooks Cascadia 6's that I purchased back in March. I haven't really fell in love with these shoes like I wanted to. They have hurt my feet in different places, and feel really heavy after running about 6 miles in them. On Friday, Audrey and I went down to Salt Lake Running Co. and I picked up a pair of Pearl Izumi Peak II's.

I actually have already ran a race in these shoes. The Park City Mini Trail Series 5k. Click here for my race report. I liked them then, and liked them again in the store. I will be trying them for the first time tomorrow, only 6 days before my ultra. I will decide if I am going to wear the Peak II's or my Cascadia's for the race probably on Saturday morning. Right now I am leaning towards the Peak's and hopefully putting my Cascadia's in a drop bag somewhere along the course if I get blisters from the newness. We'll see. I'm just ready to run in the mountains.