Mount Marathon Preview

Well, 10 weeks of focused preparation have lead to this event. Tomorrow I get to lay it all out there and answer a few questions I've had about how this will go for me. It's hard to describe to outsiders the atmosphere of the weeks of leading up to Mt. Marathon and the general vibe in the community of Seward during this event. In South Central Alaska, there really is no other event that generates as much buzz and media attention as MMR. It's really something. And to think I have the good fortune to experience it for the first time as a competitor is pretty cool. It's certainly going to suck for part of it but if I can make down in one piece and pull off a decent performance along the way, I'm going to be pretty psyched.

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Mount Marathon Lead-Up

Local favorites Matt Novakovitch and Eric Stabel at Bird Ridge photo: Cole DealMount Marathon Race is one week away. I’ve prepared as methodically as I ever have. I’ve raced two events and hit target performances with PRs on both. The performance data from my Suunto Ambit 2 indicates that I’m spot on with both fitness and rest. I just finished my de-load week with only a couple of 1 hour bike rides and a short run. This was preceded by a good week of training, about 12 hours worth.

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2013 Alyeska Climbathon

Plan, prepare, execute. That was my approach to last week’s Alyeska Climbathon. It went ridiculously to plan and almost went even better than I could’ve hoped…almost.

I apologize for taking so long getting this out. I was pretty crushed after the event, utterly drained and I even caught a nasty cold for my effort. Sucked heavily. With empty legs and a stuffy head I wasn't in mood to write anything. Onward.

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Gaming the Alyeska Climbathon

The Alyeska Climbathon is tomorrow and I’ve a score to settle. Last year I ran and trudged my way to 11 laps, which earned me second place. I did about 23,000 vertical of climbing in 9 hours and 10 minutes. I had 10 hours to race but it looked unlikely for me to finish another lap so the organizer called it for me.

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Bold Peak

After enjoying one of the sunniest and warmest early summers in 35 years, south central Alaska has returned to its usual rainy summer self. In fact, August was one of the wettest in history. Awesome. So, I thought I’d put up a quick post from better days when the sun was high and temps warm. This was a great day on a big Chugach summit.

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