 Absolute craziness on the blog today doing something I've never done before I'm going to attempt I'm going to attempt to film the entire vlog in one clip. Why am I doing that? Because it's Friday It's heading toward 5 p.m. Which means I need to eat dinner Edit this blog and then get to bed because I got to wake up early real early about 4 30 ish And so therefore I'm just going to I'm going to walk you through the entire house all the gear laid out for the Pike's Peak Ascent and then yes walk you through my pike's peak race strategy here I've just written it down on the paper. I've been thinking about it for a long time But especially over the past seven days and so now it's down on papers I'm going to walk you through that and so I want this I want to edit the vlog pretty quickly tonight very quickly That's why you got your witness in history here today I've never done this before one clip. Okay, let's start in the kitchen I'm going to take the camera off the tripod and walk you around here. Let's rock and roll Okay, hopefully the white balance is not too crazy. Well, just going to have to deal with it Folks just going to have to deal with it. Okay, here we go. So I have the coffee ready. I've got my breakfast ready Snacks for the car and then I'll pull out a couple more items in the morning from the fridge So here it is. I've got my banana here. I'll just let you look at it. I got a banana Laura bar some oh Um oatmeal muffins with chocolate chips the true love made and then just some raisins for a little snack in the car And then oh butter my bread butter my bread little seek beauty work hard and love each other from That coffee pot. All right. So there you go There is the kitchen feeling real good about the food situation Moving on to the where should I go next? Hmm Let's go to the drop bag. Let's go to the drop bag right here So this is the bag number 103. That's going to go to the top of the mountain There we go, which matches my bib number and these are the items if it could Frankly, it could be snowing on it's not going to I don't think that's not the weather prediction But we are talking about 14,000 feet above sea level. So it could be snowing up there So I've got some warm clothes. I've got yes, I'm sending the gopro up the mountain Hopefully they don't lose it right and then my Solomon hat So here is the gear going in the drop bag and then I will place my phone in the drop bag as well In the morning And that'll go to the top as well so I can communicate with all of you Okay, moving on shall we do it here? Let's do all I'm going to say that for last actually So this the blue Ikea bag is going to be All the gear for the warm-up and the cool down Excuse me for the cool down all of this is for the cool down And then hanging out afterward for the party and just I pizza and beer and oh seeing the family You better believe it. There's the real motivation for this raise right there So I will be bringing that and then over here. Let me make sure there's enough light. Oh boy Um, it's hard not being able to see in the camera But basically I'm going to have a couple items in the front seat of my car like the anti chafing Solved the squirrels nut butter. I'm going to have my foam roller and then I'm going to have A couple gels. Let me just bump up the ISO here There is that so there's the foam roller. I'm not going to use this guy. There's the gels There's my stretching so I will use those items immediately after the warm-up There's my warm-up shoes the beacon the beacon v2s And then here is the squirrels nut butter and then along with just you know the keys for the car my wallet sunglasses not my not my racing sunglasses, but Um, just my drive down and warm-up sunglasses and then here on the door This is a big tip of the day If you know like you don't want to forget something if you have a one exit out your house Make sure you make a note. So I want to make sure I don't forget my water bottle. So there's a paper note That's right a good old classic paper note for that and last but not least. Oh about a bing about a boom the good stuff Uh, the racing kit it's ready. Oh tip number two of the day charge your watch. I just got done charging my watch It's at a hundred percent. So we're good to go there I I didn't almost forget, but I forgot to tell you that yesterday charge your running watch So here it is boom. Let me just drop the ISO again. Sorry about that. Hold on boom. So Here we go. We got the racing socks the solemn s lab sent seven sgs We've got the uh, the nike shorts. Oh, I love it. You got my gel already tucked away in the pouch You've got the watch that's charged. You got the bib number already pinned on Seek beauty work hard love each other sunglasses are in here and yes, I've already I know I'm very particular, but I've already like cleaned them the sunglasses I got all the you know the thumb prints off of them and whatever sweat all that good stuff So they are clean and in the case and then the halo headband. There it is There it is just to keep keep that sweat out of the eyeballs. Okay, that's the gear and I will load Okay, the light went out. Hold on. I'm I'm not giving up on this one clip wonder here. Okay Hold on. Hold on. Let me just turn this light back on um Again doing this to Just cut down a little bit on Editing tonight so I can go to bed as early as possible. All right. Love you guys. Here we are the race strategy for the 2019 Pikes peak ascent. This is the 64th running of the pikes peak ascent Uh, the race has seven thousand eight hundred and fifteen feet of vertical gain Which is two thousand three hundred and eighty two meters The race starts at 6300 feet above sea level in Manitou Springs, Colorado right on the main street And uh, let's see the start is at 7am mountain time So depending on when you're watching this I literally could be running up the mountain right now as you're watching this Uh, okay. So the gun goes off 7am. Boom Uh, I take off the fast guys that Take off for some reason in the first quarter mile I'm going to let them go just like two years ago. Um, so you go down the main street Then you take a hard left and you start climbing up the mountain on pavement And so when I take that hard left, which is approximately at about the half mile mark approximately At that point, I want to be right around the top 10 Listen, I see no reason to spike the heart rate early in a race So I'm going to let the crazies go out crazy and um, but I will be you know around the top 10 at that Left when you start the the gentle climb on the pavement and then the next, you know Three quarters of a mile to a mile. Let's just call it at the 1.5 mile mark You are you actually start to really climb right around the cog railway in case you're Familiar with that But then another about two or 300 meters you finally hit The dirt and that is where you catch uh, the trail and you go from you know A narrow road down to a trail And at that point I have learned over time that It takes a lot of energy to pass runners on trails You know, you're wasting energy trying to sprint by them or yell at them and say hey coming up on your left So my goal when we hit the dirt is to be definitely top five Possibly top three depending on how i'm feeling of course I'm going to be listening to all the competitors around me listening to their breathing Watching their their cadence look at their arm carriage. How do they look and frankly I I don't want to mess around with passing people From a mile and a half to The 3.3 mile mark and just a little side note. I break down my races into quarters Some people do it into thirds I prefer quarters because of my track background Forelaps for a mile it's just easier in my head. So 3.3 is the quarter mark I know exactly where that mark is on the course because I've run pike speak Three times four times this summer not to mention a winter. So I know exactly where it's at and I'm just going to say this um That I took some risks in this training block because of the foot injury and uh I went from zero to a hundred miles a week in Five weeks. I counted it up on Strava yesterday zero meaning let you know because of the phantom pain. So july 1st to Uh late july early august I don't remember but it was five weeks by the time I was at a hundred miles a week And I held that for two weeks feel good about that holding it for two weeks That was a risk. Don't do that. Don't do that anyone Uh, but I knew what I needed to do to get ready as best as I possibly could for as best as I possibly can For this pike's peak ascent Therefore frankly at this point I have embraced the fact and I'm going to spend a little more time just reflecting in this comfy chair here in a minute, but um I took risks in training. I ran a very very good time on graze peak exactly actually seven days ago from today And um, I'm going to take a risk in this race not crazy risk Calculated risk, but I'm I'm not going to hold back. I'm not going to hold back at all. Um I'll hold back the first half mile. I'll hold back the first frankly mile and a half on pavement But then once the dirt hits I'm going to I'm going to go. I'm going to go I'm not going to wait to the 3.3 mile mark and I'm not going to go crazy Don't worry. I'm not going to like go out and sprint as hard as I can But I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to go a little bit All the way. So remember the four and a half mile mark It starts to level off a little bit and you can really start to roll out some miles So from four and a half to 6.6, which is the half mile mark The last training run that I did on pikes peak at that 6.6 mile mark I came through in 102 an hour and two minutes and I think I can get to the halfway point in sub 56 ish ish Okay, right around that 50. I think I can cut Five minutes approximately off of that 102 Five to six minutes off of that 102 for the halfway point Moving along to and I'm not going to go through the aid stations move an end Okay, and I'm also talking about okay. Here we go. So at the nine point Let's just call it 10 mile mark 9.9 miles. So the three quarters of the way done That is 12,098 feet above sea level or 3687 meters I expect one or two competitors to be around me at that point. They might be ahead They might be behind. I don't know but I expect it. I expect I don't say at least I expect one or two competitors around me at the 9.9 mile mark, which is treeline If you're familiar with the mountains here in colorado, that's treeline And you basically have a 5k to go and in my mind how I break it down 5k is 12 laps around a track. I can do that 12 and it's in some change I can run 12 laps hard and I can do it at elevation for sure So my goal is to be in the hunt On at the 9.9 mile mark the three quarters of the way mark And we'll see who's around we'll see who's around Um and then the finish 13.2 is 14,115 feet above sea level or 4,302 meters I have some notes written down on the bottom for motivation Float it don't fight it eyes up eyes up Pump arms quick feet eyes up Pump arms quick feet and I have a couple more notes, but they are personal And I'm going to save them for myself as motivation For this race. So that is the deal and we're going to go with the keyword of strategy We're going to go with the question of the day. Do you for peak races? Write down a race strategy. Do you break it down? Whether it's on your computer On a piece of paper. This is how I do it and I will um, I will go into maybe more detail On what's on this piece of paper After the race folks. This is it. I love you. Thanks for coming on this journey It's been a fun one a good training block and I am uh, I'm excited. So stay tuned everywhere I'm sure you'll know how I did before I even do and um Let's do this. All right. All right. Here's a couple old blogs From this training block just some good hard work some good hard work Through this training block on the right or the left. I'll mess around folks. Let's go get it. See beauty work hard And love each other