2011 Racing Plans

First, I want to announce that Scott Jurek, Geoff Roes, Dave Mackey and myself will be part of a casual, largely informal social gathering of the Boulder Trail Runners at Sherpas on 825 Walnut St. here in Boulder tomorrow (Thursday, January 13th) evening at 6:00pm.  Each of us will speak very briefly (a couple minutes) and then will be open to an extensive Q+A session.  The hope is that it will be quite interactive, so come on out!

Obligatory current shot of Boulder, CO's iconic Flatirons on the face of Green Mt.

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Second, I think I've mostly roughed out the goal races in my 2011 trail racing season.  These are my current desires and hopes, but things are always bound to change due to unforeseen circumstances.  My schedule will include a mix of races I've run before and races that are new to me.

Feb 5--Rocky Raccoon 100 Huntsville, TX

March 19--Chuckanut 50K Bellingham, WA

April 9--American River 50 Sacramento, CA

May 7--Miwok 100K Sausalito, CA

June 25--Western States 100 Auburn, CA

August 14--Sierre-Zinal Sierre, CH

August 26--Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc Chamonix, FR

My schedule is pretty much guaranteed through Miwok, but after that things get a little hazy in an "if-then" causal sort of way.

First, I've thrown my name in the Hardrock 100 hat along with a bunch of my like-minded friends (Geoff, Nick Clark, Dakota Jones, Joe Grant, etc.) and if the kind of field I desire (i.e. deep, competitive) materializes there at the hands of the lottery gods (very unlikely), there is a good chance I would forgo Western States.

Second, my ability to make it over to Europe in the second half of the summer for a few weeks is largely a function of my duties as a thesis-writing graduate student.  If these responsibilities dictate my presence stateside, I will obviously forgo the SZ and UTMB races in August and instead insert the excellent White River 50 on July 30th (a very good chance I'll do this anyway), the Pikes Peak Marathon on August 21 and the Wasatch 100 on September 9, Wasatch lottery gods willing, of course.

The common theme amongst all these races is that, excluding Rocky Raccoon and maybe Wasatch, each should be amongst the most competitively deep races of the entire season.  Chuckanut looks set to be an absurdly fraught battle with the likes of Max King, Erik Skaggs, Geoff, Adam Campbell, and Andy Martin all pushing the pace up front.  American River looks slightly weak at this point, but I'm sure there will be the usual solid group of guys forcing the tempo, at least through the flat and fast first 30 miles.  The Headlands will be host to essentially a rematch of this year's TNF50 Championships in the form of the Miwok 100K.  I am looking forward to joining Dave, Geoff and Dakota in battling over those scenic hills once again and won't be surprised if it takes a course record to win it this year.

All in all, such a schedule provides plenty of motivation to strap on a headlamp and trudge through deep powder and single digit temperatures to rack up vertical on early January mornings and late evenings.