best western?

While in Colorado last August to run TransRockies I, unwittingly, found myself as a cast member in what was affectionately (I think) dubbed the Year of the Beard.  Some guy by the name of Rob Krar was playing a similar role.

Well, sort of.

He was also busy tearing the ass out of the course with his partner, Mike Smith, ultimately winning the 6-day event by, um, a healthy margin.  A really healthy margin.

I, meanwhile, was picking myself up out of the dirt and thanking the heavens for having a teammate, Sean McCoy (love you, man), who didn't seem to take it too hard that we weren't going to be threatening anyone for the win.  He also good-naturedly overlooked the constant distraction that was my beard.

That beard didn't do me a bit of good with regards to the race itself, but it also may well have been the icebreaker that introduced me to Rob (and many others, for that matter).  I only ever actually saw him one time on course and even then only because there was an open, doglegged section of dirt road that let all of us middle-and-back-of-the-packers see he and Mike vanishing off into the distance.  Luckily, in Vail after the end of an exhausting Stage 5, I did get a chance to spend some time chatting with him and his now wife, Christina.

Beard or no beard, he was just good people.  She and he both.

A year later, Rob has made a major splash on the ultra-racing scene and is poised to be in the mix late in the day at his very first 100-mile race, a race that just happens to be the one and only Western States Endurance Run, arguably the most iconic hundred of them all.

It was my pleasure to recently hear in great detail Rob's journey from being an accomplished middle-distance track and field athlete in college to being a burned out and injured road runner and, eventually, reinventing himself as successful trail racer at increasingly longer distances.  Getting to retell that story on iRunFar in the days leading up to Saturday's big race was a joy and an honor that I will cherish.

http://www.irunfar.com/2013/06/rob-krar-in-pursuit-of-speed-smarts-but-not-superstition.html

Another joy, always, is helping the iRF team cover some of the most prestigious ultra races from around the globe, and Western States, of course, is at the top of that list.  With iRF founder Bryon Powell lacing up his kicks to take another crack at the course himself this weekend, those of us who help moderate the online race coverage will be paying that much closer attention to how the day plays out.

I'll do my best to be unbiased, but I must admit that I'll be pulling hard for Rob and Bryon to have the performances I feel they're both capable of having with the work they've put in and the talent they possess.

If you're enough of an ultra-junkie to keep revisiting your monitor screen for the latest updated over the many hours it takes for a 100 mile race to play out, you already know how great it is to have a resource like iRunFar to deliver (nearly) real-time peek ins.  For those of you who haven't checked in before, I encourage you to do so on Saturday.

Here's a link to iRunFar's live coverage of the 2013 Western States 100 which kicks off at 5:00 AM, PDT on Saturday morning:

http://www.irunfar.com/2013/06/live-coverage-of-the-2013-western-states-100.html

Between now and then, you still have time to watch and listen to interviews with many of the race favorites, find out who race fans are predicting will vie for the win, and read a number of pre-race articles and historical features on the race.

See for yourself:

http://www.irunfar.com/western-states-100

There will be an amazing collection of talent assembled at the Squaw Valley starting line and it will include grizzled veterans with 100-mile long resumes of trail success and some relative newbies with speedy credentials yet to be tested at 100 miles (count Rob among the latter).  Weather reports all seem to agree on sky-high temperatures that will surely impact the race, especially as the afternoon drags on and runners drop deeper and deeper into the canyons carved out by the American River.  And, as always, there's the history that is Western States animating every inch of the trail while awaiting the completion of another storied chapter.

I, for one, can't wait to "see" it all unfold.

alpenglow.

Last year during the running of the 2010 Western States 100 miler, I followed the action as best I could by hitting, hitting and rehitting "refresh" to see if there were any further checkpoint updates.  As you can imagine, that makes for a pretty long day, no matter how nerdy your interest in ultrarunning.

That day the young Spaniard, Killian Jornet, drove a furious pace that eventually helped push Geoff Roes and Anton Krupicka to record performances.  Jornet ultimately faded in the unfamiliar California heat after naievely failing to stay hydrated.  He returned this year, fluids in hand, and won the race.  Still, his real home is in the mountains of Europe.

Which brings us to this past weekend and another running of the epic Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a 100+ mile circumnavigation of Mont Blanc across the rooftop of Europe.  Runners climb over 30,000 feet and start in France, pass into Italy and then Switzerland before returning to France for a crossing of the finish line in picturesque Chamonix.  The race begins in the middle of the night amidst thousands of celebrating onlookers before disappearing into the darkness.  The course winds through the Alps, exposed to the shifting weather of the mountains, and visits numerous 1,000-year old villages whose streets are lined with proud inhabitants enthusiastically cheering on the visiting runners and volunteers.  It is impossible to imagine a similar atmosphere here in the United States.

Obviously, I was nowhere near the Alps, holed up in Manheim awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Irene.  Thanks to Bryon Powell and http://www.irunfar.com/, however, I was privileged to be one of the moderators of a live "chat" of the event.  Collecting various Twitter feeds and serving as a common meeting place for anyone following the event from wherever he or she called home, the iRunFar coverage was as good as it gets for those of us who couldn't be up in the mountains ourselves.

As a moderator, my sole task, really, was to review and authorize comments to make sure that they weren't inappropriate, block spam (there was little, if any), keep any single poster from monopolizing, etc.  Bryon, who has done a magnificent job covering Western States, Hardrock and other major events in the past was on the course this time, not as a reporter, but as a UTMB participant.  Maintaining his open-minded approach to iRunFar, those of us monitoring the chat employed a light hand in moderating and most comments were given the "ok".  Mostly, we kept busy responding to those who'd just checked in with updates from earlier on in the event.  There were several of us involved and we split shifts amongst the group, though there was much overlapping as, at heart, we were there as fans and spectators as much as we were moderators.

The shared enthusiasm of those logged in was infectious and included Americans, Canadians, Europeans and many others.  There was some friendly nationalist and continent vs. continent competitiveness in some of the dialogue, but mostly there was shared awe and celebration of the Alps, the UTMB and the participants at the front, middle and back of the pack.

I can't even imagine the electricity of actually being there in the Alps, but even following along on the computer with like-minded enthusiasts was thrilling.  There were disappointments as reports drifted in of many of the top Americans dropping throughout the day.  Those letdowns played out repeatedly as fans, friends and family members checked in for updates only to find that beloved runners were already off the course.

The highs, though, were incredible.

The machine-like Salomon running team owned the day on the men's side with teammates Iker Carrera, Miguel Heras and Kilian running together near the front almost the entire race before an always smiling Kilian (so revealed the countless pictures being posted online) broke away in the last few kilometers to finish just minutes ahead of Iker.  The incredible Lizzie Hawker punished the women's field and beat all but 12 men to the finish line.

The pre-race excitement had motivated me to get out the door for a 10 PM run on Friday night and, after Kilian made his triumphant arrival in Chamonix, I found myself lacing on my sneakers again despite the pending arrival of Hurricane Irene.  The roads surrounding Manheim are hardly the Alps but I found myself daydreaming.

Those daydreams looked a little like this:

Returning from the run, I tuned back in to see just how far up the overall leaderboard Lizzie had climbed on her way to the women's crown and learned that Bryon had DNF'd.  The weather had been less than cooperative and the cold at the highest passes had taken its toll.

Those factors had made for a higher than usual drop percentage.  Only 1131 of the 2300 starters made it to Chamonix.  The DNF list included some of the biggest names in the sport, including Scott Jurek, Geoff Roes, Krissy Moehl, Nick Clark, Dakota Jones and, yes, even Miguel Heras who ran near the front for most of the day.

Bryon could (and should) hold his head up high knowing all that he'd accomplished, including giving so many of us, who until recently would have had no visibility other than reading race recaps, a nearly-live connection to the glorious spectactle that is the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc.  I know that I for one am most grateful.

Thank you.

irunfar earth day giveaway

Bryon over at irunfar.com is hosting yet another incredible giveaway contest.  In honor of Earth Day, he's putting the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Run" motto into practice by giving away many of the samples or gently worn/tested gear and apparel items that have recently (and not so recently) come his way.

Entry is free, in fact, all you have to do is leave a comment at irunfar letting it be known what items you'd like to be in the running (pun intended) for...sign up for as many items as you like.  There's a full rundown of available item's on the contest blog post.

Check out the contest details at and while you're there sign up to follow irunfar on the regular:

http://www.irunfar.com/2010/04/earth-week-trail-gear-reuseafest-2010.html