Multiple Marathons in One Year - Max Mujynya and Michael Wardian

If you know Max Mujynya, you know he's a guy that logs some serious miles and enjoys his running.  He really is a perpetual motion machine.  I took a peek at what Max put up in 2010 and it's pretty impressive.

By my count, that's ten marathons and one ultra.  Ay, Dios mio!  It looks like he just about cleared the board of official New Mexico marathons, on road and off, with the exception of Shiprock.  And he did this all in the same calendar year, not to mention finishes at both Boston and New York.  That is a solid year of racing.

What's more? The guy had a slow year compared with 2009 when he completed fourteen marathons.  His last race in Tucson a few weeks back was his 46th marathon finish in 47 months. That's tough.

Compare Max to another gunner, Mike Wardian out of Virginia.

Ten marathons as well - touche Max! Wardian ran several shorter distance races and one 100K ultra, but all of that wouldn't fit in the image above.  The guy can hammer.  If you note the fine detail, Wardian won three marathon titles outright, and ran to four other top 5 placings (in the same calendar year!), but fell short of the Olympic Trials qualifying standard by a scant 1m 55sec.  The fascinating nature of a foot race, particularly the marathon, is that there will always be the next race in which to run faster.

Related Posts:
  - Year in Review - 2010
  - The Athens and NYC Marathons
  - Chicago Marathon - Local Results, (scroll down)
  - Duke City Marathon - Review

Cycling the Santa Fe Rail Trail - Zia to Nine Mile Rd.

Leaving town

Santa Fe Rail Trail
Zia Rd to Nine Mile Rd
6,850 ft elev.
12 miles roundtrip

***

Had a great ride on the Rail Trail Sunday evening.  Rode from Zia to Nine-Mile Rd.  The trail was less tore up than I thought it would be, although I could tell that a ride earlier in the day would have been wet and muddy.  One advantage to the snow and cold is that the sandy washed-out sections of the trail were partially frozen and easily rideable.  Another advantage was that the thorns and goatheads of November are now buried in snow, a safe distance from my tires.

Orange and pink over the Galisteo Basin

Sandia in profile

Used my new NightRider handlebar light to power through when the light fell away.  Worked magnificently.  One of many observations I've had over the last couple months is that a petzl headlamp doesn't work as well on a bike as it does hiking or running.  You need a regular flood light to navigate at 10mph+ or risk crashing a lot. Or crashing into others if you're on the bike path. 

Snow in the track cut

Out on the llano - Mostly clear trail with scattered snow and ice.

Proud thicket of yucca

The sunset, as usual, was electric.  I didn't cross one person out there, not even a car parked at the Rabbit Rd trailhead.  On one section of the trail there was lone coyote howling at the sliver of moon in the sky.  His coyote magic was strong because I've seen the moon growing larger each night since. 

My own train cutting through the night

View Santa Fe Rail Trail - Santa Fe, NM in a larger map

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Colorado Hut-to-Hut, Neff Mountain

Touring gear, polka dot skins, and neck high snow pack

We were invited by friends on a backcountry hut trip for New Years.  The hut, or yurt in this case, was just north of Chama and Cumbres Pass in southern Colorado.  For years I'd wanted to check out the 10th Mountain Division Huts in Colorado, but I was unaware of a hut system in New Mexico.  Aside from the area where we spent New Years which is more or less the Chama area, the same outfit - the Southwest Nordic Center - has a system laid out in Taos and apparently Red River has built a few out their way as well.  So there you go.

The crew in queue, Tyson in rear guard

Strapped with six-packs of roman candles. And my Rossignols.

Was there anything not to be psyched about on a trip like this?  We drove up in a snowstorm that slowed us down a lot. We found the parking pullout just north of the pass, but initially had some route-finding problems because the snow was stacked so high on the road sides.  Foreshadowing perhaps.  Finally on the correct trail, we had figured an hour and a half for the 2.75mi hike in.  What we hadn't figured on was mechanicals with some of the gear, having to break trail through thigh deep powder in some places, and that our approach would stretch into darkness, semi white-out conditions, and below zero temperatures (-13F in Chama that evening).  There was a delicate period just near the end of what turned out to be a 3.5hr hike where the trip unnervingly began to exhibit all the hallmarks of an epic.  An epic in outdoors parlance meaning 'really bad evening'.

As night falls on our blind winter approach, smiles still abound

Our crew had a lot going for it though: We had at least three hand held GPS systems with the coordinates of our hut, we had hand and footwarmer packets bought impulsively at SDC Mountain Works earlier that morning (a brilliant stroke of luck), and we had a strong team with at least three Search and Rescue volunteers, a couple marathoners (what up!), an upstate New Yorker, and a mauy thai boxer/kettle bell enthusiast.  At the time that conditions began looking a bit grim, our trail breakers belatedly made the decision to dump the 40lb packs and b-line this thing to the hut.  The strategy cut a lot of time, and the GPS handhelds lead us right to the front door of our yurt.  In the end, the trip did unfold into an epic, except the epic included champagne, hot chocolate and brandy, home cooked meals with elk sausage and bacon, an Espanola-roadside-stand fireworks artillery show, and powder so freaking deep that Justin and John were launching half-gainers off the wood pile.

Justin firing up some fine New Year eats

Amy and John with dinner, champagne hoard, and warmth.
Note the ice on the bottles, they were frozen.

New Years!  John sets the night afire.

Shooting stars

There was much telling of tall stories, including the one that had just occurred, and much drinking of spirits.  The stars came out and it was lovely.  We made our own stars with roman candles and sparklers.  The next morning was even lovelier.

Casa Mt. Neff

Bluebird, boards, and miles of white stuff 

Winter above the Chama Valley

Leah touring the bright new trails

Tyson during our snow shear test

We trekked around camp, but found the snow to be unstable for any downhilling.  In fact we saw that it was unstable for sitting on hill tops.

I actually saw this guy slide.  Most likely wind-loaded.

I got out on my cross-skis later, backtracking the trail we'd come up the night before.  Took me less than 15min to backtrack what had taken us 75min to get through with packs and post-holing.  Better views the second time as well.

The second night was grand but we'd run through all our fireworks.  Food, brandy, and the telling of stories were still in abundance.  We packed it out on Sun. morning to greet the new year back home in Santa Fe. 

Yours truly bustin' trail

Christina and snow-bowed pine stands

I ought to mention our stop for lunch in Chama at the High Country Saloon.  Fun place, decent food, and a bar stocked with just about every local microbrew available.  On tap were Marble, SF Pale Ale, Alien Amber, Ska Blonde, and bottles of Monk's Ale visible in the cooler.

If you haven't made a trip to Chama lately, or planned a hut-to-hut trip you ought to, because it is awesome as hell.  Be safe, know your route, and get to where you're going in the daylight.

  Related Post:
   - New Years 2011-12: Bull of the Woods Yurt - Taos, NM



View Neff Mountain Trail - FR 116 in a larger map


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Related Links:
  - The Southwest Nordic Center - Cumbres/Taos Yurts

Cross Country Skiing - Cumbres Pass, CO

Stand tall noble Rossi's

Got out on the boards over New Years just north of Chama on the other side of Cumbres Pass.  I had the foresight to tote the skis along on an overnight ski/snowshoe trip and the weather and snow conditions cooperated nicely.

I had picked up my skis at this year's ski swap and my first outing with them didn't go so well.  The edges were scaled with rust spots and grime, so I spent an hour with a filing tool removing most of that junk.  My effort was rewarded with heavenly gliding in Colorado's backcountry and built-up excitement to get up to Santa Fe's Norski trails as soon as possible.

I skied down through a ~1mi. track we'd cut in the new snowfall the day before.  The fading light gave off some extraordinary orange and pinks over snow caked hills.  Made the climb back up to base camp without problem.  Stopped several times for photos and to admire the views of a new year.  Recovered with hot chocolate and brandy, my lovely wife, and good friends.

Now if I can string together another 364 days like this, my year ought to be pretty freaking awesome. 

Snow madness

Self portrait with the year's first sunset

Backcountry colors

Neff Mountain Trail - Clickable map below


View Neff Mountain Trail - FR 116 in a larger map


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Year in Review - Running Log

My ride, rockin' the new snow

I made it into work on Wednesday by bike.  It was a little cold and a little wet, but I'm tough - and that's what showers and washing machines are for anyhow.  Wednesday's ride was significant because it meant that I had rode into work at least once every week since the beautiful bygone summer days of June.  By my best estimates I figure I logged at least 300 total commuter miles this year and saved about 15-20gal of gas.  I don't reckon I saved any money in this endeavor since I was busy buying up an extra bike lock, an upgraded bike pump (the new ones work really well), a needed tune-up and a new derailleur, new brake-pads and chain, and a high-grade light.  I can say with experience now that it's a lot more fun buying up stuff for your bike(s) then for your truck, and it's a lot more fun arriving at work after a morning ride than being pissed off from traffic and being held up at the short-timed traffic lights. 

Running log (mi) - Peaks for Boston, then kinda falls off a cliff

A lot of the riding and commuting I put in since October was really just a substitute for being off my feet, recuperating from an overuse injury and being really bored.  Up until this point, I had had a great year of running.  My best ever really, although with the lingering caveat that I spent the last three months of the year laid-up due to all the awesomeness.  Looking at my tally, I rang up 1500mi on the trails - or for the 9.5 months I was on my feet - an average of roughly 35-40mi p/wk.  This is almost double my mileage for all of 2009.  And while some of this increase is surely due to bigger goals and a greater depth of experience, a lot of it is due to the gradual but necessary build up of strength and resistance that came from the 20mi weeks the year before.  The results were best times in every race I ran over 5K. A seven minute drop in the marathon. Five minute drops in most races I had run in previous years.  Best times on favorite training runs that I'd run-out dozens of times over the years. I actually won one of the races I ran this year - a very foreign and out-of-body feeling to have.  Damnit, that was really awesome.  For the 5K distance and shorter (track workouts basically), I ran my quickest times since high school days, and noted the obvious, that my speed could use a lot of work in comparison to the strength and endurance I'd built up.  

Biking log (mi) - Lots of unrecorded riding during the summer

The lesson I learned from this year's work isn't that mileage necessarily builds improvement, but rather it is consistency that really adds to increased fitness and performance.  I think mileage is a metric that needs to be looked at as a measure of consistency.  My mileage the last few months is for all purposes zero, which reflects a substantial flaw in my training and long term consistency.  The success during the remainder of the year reflects a lot of work and preparation that was done well, but was fundamentally incomplete.  A regimen of stretching and balance will need to be added to stay on the trails and out of the pool. 

Swim log (hrs) - Also known as the injury log

Happy New Years!  Run well, drink local, enjoy the trails, and don't swim (b/c it is the opposite of fun). 

Related Link:
  - Santa Fe Trail Runner - A Quick Look Back