Jelm Mountain Trail Race (11 mi)

Medicine Bow Nat Forest, Wyoming

Just when I said I would stick to 10K’s I went and ran this 11 mile trail race 25 miles SW of Laramie. This is the only Saturday I have off until the Silent Trails Race in October so I thought I’d take full advantage of it. The run itself was grueling on the way up and equally as difficult coming down. The race followed the Jelm Mt. Road to the observatory at the top and was uphill the entire way. As I hit the 1st hill right off the starting line, I started to think I was in for it but was fine once my body adjusted and kicked in. After the 1st mile, the field was pretty spread out and I was hanging about 9th or 10th which I held the rest of the race.

I hit the observatory (elev 9,656 ft) with a 50:40 split (5th place) and that was all I cared about. A couple of guys passed me on the downhill but I was running down VERY conservatively. As coach used to tell us up at Happy Jack, running downhill is the easiest and fastest way to tear apart your knees. I have bad knees as it is and couldn’t afford to obliterate my menisci. The way I look at it, anyone can run fast down a hill but few can withstand the endurance it takes to run up.

I finished with an overall time of 89:05, a time still good enough to place me 8th overall in a field of 100+ runners. My time didn’t even compare to Dr. Dan Radosevich who finished 1st with a time of 75 something. The guy is an animal and has way too much time on his hands. Rumor has it, he ran the course 3 times before the actual race. You rock my world Dan!

Once I finished I couldn’t find Farhad or Kai, the two guys I rode up with. As it turns out, these two crazy mofo’s took off running for another 7 miles to “cool down.” Apparently they wanted to make this into some kind of long run. Honestly, I was sore from the race and don’t see how anybody could have kept going for another 7 miles.

Always a Cowboy 8K

Laramie, WY

This was the 1st year that I was able to run this race due to work conflicts. It was a great event and I was really impressed with the amount of work that Leslie put into organizing it. The course was changed this year from a 5K to an 8k, 1 kilometer for each of the guys.

I finished with a time of 31:42. I don’t think the results will be posted on-line and I’m guessing I finished about 12th overall. My brother finished about a minute ahead of me despite “being out of shape” and drinking beers the night before. I know my time wasn’t great but that just made me feel slower than shit! I did pass Travis Jordan around 6K which felt good knowing he’s a really good runner. I see him hauling ass around town on his fartleks all the time.

The placing for the race kind of pissed me off in that some of the guys on the team this year ran the race and walked away with the prizes. I thought this was supposed to be a race to raise money for the team. What the heck? Needless to say, Ragan walked away with the 1st place men’s prize.

2001. It’s hard to believe it’s already been 4 years. Despite the events that ensued that year, I’d definitely say it was the greatest year of my life. I had transferred in January from Casper College where I was pursuing a fire science degree which I quickly decided was nothing more than a youthful fascination. I transferred to UW and took my academic scholarship for full tuition and mandatory fees. Once I was in Laramie, “Mo,” a guy I had known since junior high, got me involved with the track team. I ran every workout that semester in hopes of proving myself worthy of carrying the cowboy flag and running in a varsity slot that fall.

As it turned out, coach gave me bad news the 1st week of xc practice that August. Apparently there is fine print in the NCAA regulations that states you must be a full-time student at the academic institution to which you transfer for at least 1 year before you can compete on any of the athletic teams. What a load of horseshit! Coach Sanchez saw it that way too and kind of looked the other way when I joined the team for practices. Basically he said that I technically couldn’t work out with the team but if I just “happened to show up” at the same place where they were doing workouts, there wasn’t anything he was going to do about it.

Regardless, I had a blast that year and would give anything to relive the time I spent with the guys. As I ran down Spring Creek today during the race, I took in the views of the Happy Jack area and was reminded of how great those runs with the team were. I would give anything to be there running Aspen repeats with the guys again. Those runs made Mondays the sweetest day of the week. It was awesome!