Montrail Athlete, Matt Hart

Matt, you’ve had an epic summer so far. Setting the Zion Traverse Speed Record, a Colorado Trail speed record attempt, pacing and crewing at several 100-mile races, huge runs in the Wasatch. And now you’ve got Wasatch 100 coming up. How are you feeling mentally and physically heading into the race?

Mentally I’m in a very good spot. A lot of things in my life are going well right now, so I’m in a good head-space to race. I love my life. my friends and family and feel fortunate to be able to even attempt to run 100 miles. Physically I picked up a strained glute/piriformis on the Colorado Trail that I’m a bit worried about for race day. It’s felt ok, but at times it’s sharp pain, so we’ll see.

With the Wasatch mountains being your backyard and all, do you have an advantage against other runners who don’t know the trails as well?

All things considered I don’t know the course that well. If you compared me to my running partners like Jared Campbell, Christian Johnson and Roch Horton I am a newbie here in the Wasatch Mountains. In 2008 I lived here for a few months and I ran all but the first 25 miles of the course. This year I’ve really tried to not stress about it and overdue it. Honestly there are so many other great routes to run I’ve been enjoying other terrain for the past 5 weeks I’ve been back here in Salt Lake. However, I have run Big Water to Lambs, and just last night we ran the last 25 miles of the course in the dark to Midway. Really though, those runs were more about who I was running with, scouting the course was just a bonus.

What’s your favorite section of trail along the Wasatch 100 course?

I think up high on the Wasatch Crest, the section by Desolation Lake and Red Lovers Ridges is just spectacular single track. No roads or access, just beautiful views West towards Salt Lake and East towards Park City.  I did some backcountry skiing up in that area this winter too and it’s just really pretty.

When the going gets tough out there, what keeps you going?  How do you persevere through pain and fatigue?

As I said above first and foremost I’m just thankful to be able to run period. A point really driven home last year when I spent the whole season sidelined with injury. There aren’t a lot of people out there who are able to run a 500 mile piece of trail or a 100 mile race. I’m just happy to be out there, and I remind myself of that when the unpleasantries of ultra distance racing are front and center. As for persevering through pain and fatigue, they are part of the job description. I know they are coming and I welcome them. There is a masochistic part of me that really thrives when the going gets tough, the conditions get nasty or shit just hits the fan and I’m physically falling apart. I feel like I’m build for this.

What’s your goal for the race?

I really want to run my own race from start to finish. I want to focus on my effort and my time and how I feel and not worry about the fast guys up front. If I do that I think I can run top 5, and on a good day top 3. With that said I also don’t want to have anything left when I finish. I plan to leave it all out there on the trail. “Race my guts out”.. as they say.  Or maybe just I say that.

Tell me a little about your training over the past month or so.  You’ve been running serious vertical all summer, and clearly with the Colorado Trail adventure, you have plenty of miles under your belt. But how do you specifically alter your training regimen for a 100-mile race?

Coming off the 500 miles of Colorado trail I pretty much had the biggest base of my life. I ran my biggest mileage week ever, at 358 mountainous miles. So what I needed to do was sharpen. I could run for 18-24 hours a day no problem, but I lack any speed whatsoever. With all that in mind I was going to push my long run out to every 10 days, and run more shorter faster efforts. But all of that sort of went out the window when I realized the glute injury I sustained on the trail wasn’t going away. So I’ve just been doing what I can without aggravating it, with the main goal of showing up at the start line on September 10th. I did have the distinct pleasure of pacing my buddy Bill Huggins to 3rd place at Cascade Crest 100 Miler last week. At 33 miles this was my last long run two weeks before Wasatch and my glute behaved.

Who is crewing you at Wasatch 100?  Will you have a pacer?

I’ve got a great crew. Ellen Parker is heading up the crew and will pace me as well.  We’ve known each other for 10+ years, long before either of us were serious endurance athletes. She’s just a great friend and a great runner (she just took 1st at TransRockies open women’s division). My crew will also consist of Miriam Rabitz and her husband Darryl. They are long time coaching clients of mine from Seattle and have never witnessed anything like this before. This should be quite the experience for them!

Your buddy (and teammate) Geoff Roes crushed the course record at Wasatch 100 last year. Is his record in jeopardy this year?

No. Certainly not by me, and in all honestly I don’t think there are many out there who are capable of touching that record. I mean Karl ran his best time on the Wasatch course chasing Geoff last year, and ended up 2nd.  Karl has won the race 6 times. I will say I think Nick Clark is FAST and he’s gotta be the favorite for the win this year.

Tell me about your fueling and hydration plan for this race.  How will you stay fueled, and what will you eat/drink?

I try and keep it very simple.  I’ll eat a clif shot gel every 20-30mins. One bottle will have 2 nuun tabs in it for electrolytes, the other bottle just water. My crew will give me Roch’s turkey sliders, which is avocado wrapped in turkey. That will give me some protein and good fats and the satiety of eating some real food. I’ll also graze fruit through the aid stations. Oh and ginger chews, I love ginger chews. I usually have my crew divert me away from the aid station so I don’t decide that Doritos and Mountain Dew are a good decision.

First 100-mile race in a few years for you. You feeling confident?  Apprehensive?

Yeah I’m pretty good at getting hurt before 100 milers, so honestly I’m an unknown entity. But I’m also pretty good at suffering for long periods of time. Being 100 miles fully supported means it will feel catered compared to what I did on the 500 mile Colorado Trail. I feel like I can run forever, so I’m confident I’ll have a good race.  Really I just can’t wait to get to the start line!  I get serious taper tantrums.

What gear will you use for the race? Head to toe

Black Diamond Ultra Distance Z-Poles for the first 18 miles. Mountain Hardwear Refueler Advanced shorts, Wicked T, mh visor, gloves, arm and calf sleeves at start. Rudy Project photochromic sunglasses, Montrail Rockridge shoes, Teko Socks, Nathan backpack and handhelds.

Good luck at Wasatch 100 Matt. We’ll check back in after the race for a post-race interview.

The results are in and the US men ran very strong en route to a 2nd place team finish and the silver medal in Slovenia.  Joe Gray was the top US male with a 10th place overall finish and Max King was the 2nd American male, with a 16th place overall finish.

The USA women’s team finished in 4th, just missing medal contention.

Results can be found by following the link on the right side of the page, here.

Last weekend, Montrail athlete Annette Bednosky entered the Continental Divide Trail Race in North Carolina, this year’s USATF 10k trail national championship, mainly because “it was only 15 miles from my home.”  Despite the fact that “short distance mountain runners” made up the majority of the field, Annette, who’s name is usually associated with 50-mile, 100-mile and 24-hour running races, showed her versatility and overall talent by running to a 4th place finish for the women (and 1st place Masters) in a time 58:07.  The winning female finished in 52:04.

Congratulations Annette, way to step outside your comfort zone and challenge your potential.  Great job!

The following day, Annette hit the trail again for a 1/2 marathon trail race and finished in a time of 1:55:30, good for 4th overall and 1st place female.

How many people do you know who could run these races on back to back days and do so well?  Yeah.  Me neither.

Congratulations Annette!

Andy and I decided to make Transrockies into a looooong roadtrip to save some costs. So we’re driving back from Colorado right now. We’re in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Oregon. It’s pretty quite. We’re listening to This American Life on a podcast. I’ve had more quality alone time with Andy in the last week than I have with my family all summer. I know that’s not good, but when you run a six day stage race with one teammate you get a 2-3hr run every day with them, two 20hr drives to Colorado and back, and time during the day to hang out and relax, and you sleep in the same tent every night.

Transrockies is a unique experience that allows you to really let go of everything, lets you focus on the present, and get to know the athletes competing with you. For many of the athletes running it’s quite the life changing experience. A marathon is an experience that lasts for a couple hours, maybe 5, but after that it’s back to life as normal, you don’t get to know your fellow competitors, talk about your aches and pains, your athletic pursuits, or learn from the experience they’ve gained through athletics. Tranrockies is the kind of event that you’re immersed in for a longer period of time than just your normal marathon. You get to know your competitors intimately and in the end become lifelong friends with them. The six day stage format of Transrockies plays to my strengths as a shorter distance trail racer but what makes it a race I come back to are the people competing that become good friends by the end of the week, the staff that takes care of everything for us except the actually running, and the experience of running through some of the West’s most beautiful landscapes.

Start of Stage 1

Andy and I are currently having GORE-TEX Transrockies Run theme song withdrawal. It’s a good thing he’s got it on his iPod so we can listen do it when we need a fix. If you’ve done Transrockies then you know what I’m talking about. We hear this song every day right before the start of each stage and every night at the start of the awards ceremony. As a theme song, it’s destined to be a ranked as a B rated track in everyone’s mind, but despite this it’s actually a pretty good song. I know some, (Hal and Eric) would disagree but that’s ok. My taste in music is different. If you haven’t heard it you can download it at transrockies.com.

Stage 0 – The 20hr drive to Buena Vista with 3hrs of sleep : We rolled in to Buena Vista last Saturday around 4pm after a night of 3hrs of sleep on the road and a quick stop in Twin Lakes to watch the Leadville 100. We’d done our homework on the competition and figured the boys from Run Flagstaff would give us our greatest challenge. There was also a team from Rock Creek Racing in TN that we would keep an eye on.  You never know who’s going to show up though and usually there’s some team that we wouldn’t see coming. That’s what happened two years ago with a team from the UK.

Climb up Hope Pass on Stage 2

Packing that evening was easy this year. We were given bags that were big enough to use as a sleeping bag for both Andy, me and possibly a few other people. They were big. This poses a problem, while I can throw everything in, a bag this big when full isn’t something a 140lb runner can handle easily.

Stage 1-6 – The actual race: Buena Vista to Beaver Creek: We started each day with a great breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon or sausage and some oatmeal. Yeah, eggs, potatoes, and meat aren’t on my normal pre-race meal plan but hey, I can’t waste food that was fixed for me, plus, it was good and with three hours of running at altitudes above 8000ft I was going to need some extra calories this week. Most stages involved at least one large climb and 3000 – 4500ft of climbing a day. We covered ~117 miles over six days with 14mile being the shortest and 25miles being the longest day. I’m always pretty impressed by the field. I know not everyone is doing 100 mile weeks so for the other athletes these six days have to be tough. Doing a 100mile week isn’t easy on flat ground at sea level but to have to do it with huge climbs, on tough trails, at an altitude only a fraction of the competitors live at is asking a lot of your body. After finishing each stage it’s matter of figuring out how best to get the most relaxation time in as possible. After getting some recovery food in, stretching, an ice bath and a shower, usually I take the approach of sitting in a reclining lawn chair for a good three to five hours talking to people. Learning from them, about them, and talking about running, of course.  Then it’s dinner from Bill the Cowboy Caterer and the evening program with a recap from the day, Cynthia’s (the Gore-Tex lady) story of the day, the awards, into to tomorrow’s stage, and finally pics and video of the day’s stage. The crew does an incredible job of taking care of everything to make us as comfortable as possible and I think everyone has an incredible experience.

Running around Buena Vista in Stage 1

The race itself turned out to be fairly relaxing after a couple days. We had thrown down a pretty good time on day one to gain a 7min lead over Flagstaff and continued to gain a few minutes each day so that by day three we had a pretty comfortable lead. Flagstaff fought a good battle though and were great to run with. The fact that we were well trained for hills and long miles this year kept our legs feeling good day after day and allowed us to continue strong through the end of day six.  For recaps of the other days and other competitors, slideshows of pictures from each stage, and video from each stage to www.transrockies.com.

Celebration of our win with a little champagne

Stage 7 – Townsend Place Condos to The Dusty Boot… and back: The final banquet wraps up much the way most of the evening programs did but with no race the next day, the runners and staff feel the need to unwind at a local bar called the Dusty Boot. What happens at the Dusty Boot, stays at the Dusty Boot.

Stage 8 – 20hr drive home with a stop at Arches National Park for a run: The drive was pretty quiet, the run was going great until at 1:30 into the run Andy stopped running. Dehydration, due in large part to unsaid happenings at the Dusty Boot, was the culprit. My response: But dude, how can you be dehydrated, we drank a ton last night. He just stared, and started jogging again. With hurricane force winds, camping was out of the question so we finally broke down and spent $40 on a dive hotel. I wasn’t sure which used bar of soap to use in the shower or if after taking a shower my infected toe would be worse off or better.

According to Andy all I did for the team was whine and complain. Day one was my hip flexor and achilles, day 3 I tripped on a stick (but didn’t fall), and day 4 I was tired, yesterday I complained about my infected toe. That was my contribution to the team. I was so grateful to have Andy as a team mate. He led me to the finish every day…except when I was pulling his butt up every hill in the Rockies. Don’t know what I would have done without him. We are Team Montrail/Hammer Nutrition.

This is an amazing event and if you’re a trail runner, one that should fit on the calendar at least once. And I don’t recommend thinking of it as a race, because you’ll never be able to rationalize doing a $1300 race, but as an adventure vacation of a lifetime instead. That’s a lot easier to explain to the wife.

Wednesday it’s on to Slovenia for the World Mountain Running Championships. Arrive Thursday, acclimate, race Sunday (12km, 5000ft uphill), fly home Monday. It’ll be a quick trip and hopefully successful, either way, it’ll be good experience and a good test of how much my hill climbing has improved. Look for a report next week.

World Mountain Running Championships

Max King is heading to Slovenia with Team USA on Wednesday for the World Mountain Running Championships, which take place on September 5th in Kamnik. Follow the US Mountain Running Team on Twitter and the USMRT Blog.

The men will run for 12km with with 1295m of ascent. The course is about 4.5km of road and 7.5km of trails.

Preview 26th World Mountain Running Championships
Written by Nancy Hobbs, Trial Running Examiner

At the 26th World Mountain Running Championships slated for Sunday, September 5 in Kamnik, Slovenia, a record number of countries are expected to participate. Approximately 360 athletes representing 41 countries will participate.

The juniors (who must be at least 16 in the year of competition and not yet 20) will have nearly 80 in the men’s category and 19 full teams (maximum of four to run with the top three to score) and over 50 in the women’s category and 17 teams (maximum of three to run with the top two to score). On the senior side, there will be 156 men and 22 full teams (maximum of six to run with the top four to score) and 73 women and 16 full teams (maximum of four to run with the top three to score).

Expected to be strong this year are the traditional uphill scoring teams – Italy, Uganda, Eritrea, Turkey for the men; Austria, Czech Republic, and Russia for the women. USA is considered one of the favorites to medal in both the senior women and junior women categories, but don’t count out the senior men and junior men who also have their sights set on the podium.

There will be three course distances. The junior women will run approximately 4 kilometers, the junior men and senior women will run approximately 8 kilometers, and the senior men will run approximately 12 kilometers. The courses are uphill-only as opposed to odd-numbered years when the courses are up/down in nature. The terrain will include tarmac (for the senior men’s course), gravel road, single-track trail, open meadows, and lots of climbing.

The USA Mountain Running Team will arrive in Kamnick by Thursday, September 2, and preview the course on Friday. The opening ceremony, which includes a parade of nations, will be held on Saturday, September 5.

Read more here.

Congratulations to Max King and Andy Martin of Team Montrail/Hammer!!  The team won all 6 stages of this year’s TransRockies race in Colorado en route to an overall Men’s Open championship!  This is Max’s second time winning TransRockies and Andy’s first.

Check in here for more standings, updates, photos and videos.

Great work guys!  Now get some rest and have a few beers!

***UTMB has been canceled due to severe weather and a mud slide across the course.  Press conference in 1 hour.  Updates coming. – as of 1:30pm  PST

The 165km Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, or UTMB, is about to start in France and we’ll be following along as Montrail athlete Geoff Roes takes a crack at the challenge.

Thus far Geoff has enjoyed his time in France, which has included catching up with friends, running the last 10 miles of the course, and passing a drug test administered by the race officials.  Bryon Powell of irunfar.com caught up with Geoff for a quick interview as well.

Follow along with the race at the official site or with Bryon on his IRunFar twitter account as well as on his website.

The race will start at 9:30am PT, 12:30pm ET in the USA.  Good luck to all the runners!

As you may know by now, Montrail athlete Geoff Roes will race this year’s Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) in France for the first time, a 165km technical and mountainous course around the Mt. Blanc massif.  It will also be his first time racing in Europe, against some of the world’s top endurance runners.  The race starts Friday at 6:30pm local time (9:30am Pacific) and the top runners should be finishing about 20-22 hours later.

Geoff is approaching this race with his usual calm and collect and is doing his best to avoid all the hype and just run is own race.  We all know that if he runs smart and fuels properly, he’ll be at or near the front come the finish line.

Geoff will be running UTMB in his Mountain Masochists.  Good luck!

First and foremost, the 2010/2011 Montrail Ultra Cup series kicked off in Willamette Pass, Oregon with the Where’s Waldo 100km.  The race was won by Timothy Olson of Ashland, Oregon in a time of 9:25:04.  Last season’s female Ultra Cup champion Meghan Arbogast is at it again, as she runs to the win at Waldo in a time of 10:52:50.  Montrail athlete Erik Skaden took 4th place overall.  Congratulations to all the runners who finished.  Western States 100 auto-entry spots were awarded to Timothy Olson, Dan Omstead, Amy Sproston and Jenny Capel for their top finishes at Waldo.  Next up, Run Rabbit Run 50 in Steamboat, CO on 9/18/10

In Colorado, the Transrockies stage race kicked off Sunday morning, with the first leg being 20.6 miles of relatively flat terrain (2700 feet of climbing).  Veteran competitors Max King and Andy Martin, comprising Team Montrail-Hammer Nutrition, went on to win the first stage in a time of 2:26:03, putting a 7-minute gap on the field.  Keep up with the race here.

Montrail ultrarunning superstar Gary Robbins completed his Conquer the Coasts project by running the East Coast Trail (220 km) in Canada in a record time of 35 hours, 17 minutes.  He now owns the speed record for both the West Coast Trail (70km) and the East Coast Trail.  Congratulations Gary!

Read Gary’s Blog for the full story.

Did you race this weekend?  Or maybe you just went out and challenged yourself?  Where were you?  How’d it go?

Things have been fairly calm here at Montrail headquarters in the few weeks after the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City.  If you haven’t already seen, check out the photos from the Wasatch Wobble 5k.  More photos are being added to the Montrail facebook page daily.

The storm is brewing however, and in this case it’s a storm of excitement and anticipation heading into a few major events in the upcoming weeks.

The Montrail Ultra Cup 2010/11 season kicks off this weekend in Oregon at the Where’s Waldo 100km near Willamette Pass.  This gorgeous setting plays host to the kick-off Ultra Cup series race for the second straight year and once again the competition is strong on both sides of the field.

TransRockies starts August 22nd and Max King and Andy Martin will be competing for the win.  Max is running very strong right now, coming off a win at the Trail Runner Uphill Challenge (15 minutes at 10% incline on a treadmill) during Outdoor Retailer and a course record run at the Ashland Hill Climb, 13.2 grueling uphill miles, with an elevation gain of 5,600 feet.  We’ll be following Max and Andy throughout the week during TransRockies in Colorado.  Good luck guys!

Also kicking off next week is the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) in France.  This race is the world’s largest mountain ultra (2300 runners) and certainly one of the toughest (166km with over 9000 meters of elevation gain).  Two-time defending champ Kilian Jornet will be back to defend his title, and he’ll be challenged by the likes of Montrail athlete Geoff Roes, as well as other Americans Karl Meltzer and Scott Jurek.  Irunfar.com’s Bryon Powell will be there to cover the race and keep us posted on how Geoff is doing.  We can’t wait for this one!

Canadian Gary Robbins will be out trying to break another speed record.  A few weeks ago he took down the 80km West Coast Trail and next Friday he’ll head out on the 220km East Coast Trail and go for the record.  Follow his blog for more info.

Then in September, we take the Montrail Ultra Cup to Colorado for the very first time, as the Run Rabbit Run 50 hosts the 2nd race in the series in Steamboat Springs, Colorado on September 18.

Enjoy the action!