Scott loves trails

What a nice way to end my '08 ultra season! And wow, Masochist is a TOUGH race! Not as technical as other 50s, but the climbs seems to go on forever (all 9,000 feet of them!). And in someways the fact that the majority of the race is on various types of dirt roads with good to decent footing means your legs take more pounding with the constant same motion, rather than the more varied movements of technical single track. Fortunately, there are a couple of neat single track sections to break it up. Lots of downed leaves made for pillowy footing in those sections. With all that repetitive motion (2,000 more feet of climbing than descending), it was the hamstrings and upper calves in particular that bore the brunt. Felt at times like I was on a treadmill set at a max of 15 grade, with the continuous steep and long climbs! Despite a day that wasn't too warm (never got beyond maybe the low 60s or so), I cramped quite a bit. Never enough I had to stop, but it really slowed me in s...

An initial post from our Yahoo trails user group from Monday 9/22, day after the race (or was it Tuesday?)..... Three’s my new lucky number—and so is 13! Yes, the third time attempting 100 was, indeed, a charm! Plus it was three years ago that these crazy thoughts of doing ultras, and eventually making it to 100, started creeping into my thoughts and beginning to take on concrete form! Oh yes, and Iroquois was my lucky 13th ultra finish (finally matching my marathons completed). So ‘3’ just keeps popping up for me now! But first, a big shout out of congratulations to my friend and training partner Garth! In his first 50, he ran Iroquois in a swift time of around 11:30 (I’m proud to say, wearing a long sleeve layer I provided him the night before, when he fretted how cold it was at the outdoors pre-race dinner at the race site!). He looked good and happy throughout, as I was near him for a while, and then saw him ahead of me several times in out and back sections. Then briefly said cong...