I've been home from my road trip to Utah for a week. Resting and processing the experience. It's time for a recap while the memories are fresh.

At 10:45 am on September 27, after 28 hours and 45 minutes time elapsed, and 75 miles, after some consultation with my crew and the aid station's captain, I quit the Bear 100 race. I had enough energy to make it to the next aid station, Gibson Basin, but I wasn't going to be able to beat the 12:45 pm cut-off time there, and since that aid station wasn't accessible to crews, I would be dependent on the race team for extraction. It seemed best to stop at Beaver Mountain.

By distance and time, that was my biggest effort ever. I'm partly disappointed, partly satisfied. Disappointed that I didn't finish, after a promising start, but satisfied that I kept going through season-long adversity to get to the starting line, and kept going through race day adversity to get to 75 miles. In the end, I wasn't in good enough form to finish. An essential piece of fitness was missing.

The race kicked off in an unexpected warm drizzle that continued through the initial climb to the Logan Peak aid station. We all appreciated how it suppressed the thick dust on very dry trails. I felt good on the climb and reached the 10.5 mile mark four minutes faster than in 2023. The first half of my descent to Leatham Hollow went really well, but then I developed intense and debilitating cramps in both my quadriceps about three miles from the bottom, and slowed to a crawl. I'm not exactly sure why I cramped up. Indeed, I was going faster than in 2023, and with less training. But also, the Logan Peak aid station had run out of their advertised Gnarly Fuel2o. I'm a very salty sweater, and had been drinking only water for a while when the cramps hit. My problem was probably a mix of high exertion and lack of electrolytes.

Ruthie, my crew chief for the race, patched me up in Leatham Hollow. I chugged a 20 ounce bottle of salty LMNT solution, and another 20 ounces of Scratch mix provided by the race. I limped out on super tight legs, hoping for the best. Two miles up the road, before the climb out of Blacksmith Fork Canyon, I went to the bank of the Blacksmith Fork River to cool my head and hands, and then got stuck with intense cramps while trying to get back on my feet. It was as comical as it was painful.

Things got slowly better on the way to Upper Richards Hollow, the Oktoberfest-themed aid station at 28 miles. I had half of a bratwurst with some sauerkraut, and a can of NA beer. When the aid station captain admitted to cutting the Gnarly, running low again, I gobbled up some extra pickles and potato chips before shuffling out, only a minute slower than my 2023 time. I was able to run most of the downhill on this leg, though not very fast.

I met Ruthie again at the Right Hand Fork aid station, mile 37, chugged two bottles of LMNT and some other electrolyte drink, ate some dates and watermelon, and enjoyed some loud reggae music. Right Hand Fork has a great vibe.

I lost 15 minutes, compared to 2023, getting to the Temple Fork aid station, mile 45. My legs were tightening up and I could feel some damage around my toes. I spent an extra 10 minutes at Temple Fork getting a loose toenail taped down by the medical team, slurping chicken broth, and eating waffle fries before heading out into the dark with my belt light and headlight. An aid station volunteer here told me that he was cutting the Gnarly mix not because they were running low, but because it was "too sweet". For his own taste!

I feel bad for harping on the aid station drink situation. Stuff happens. I simply should have covered myself by carrying drink powder like I did in 2023. Everything else about the Bear was impeccable.

The big climb to Tony Grove in the early part of the night went okay. About halfway up the densely overgrown single-track, I heard a woman's voice and the sound of something big crashing through brush. It was a cowgirl on a horse, with two dogs. She said she was driving cattle off the trail, and I thanked her for it. Shortly after, I met with a pair of runners from California and led them to the top of the climb before pulling away on the descent. I would later find that one of them was one of the last finishers of the event. Congratulations, Rajeev! Ruthie helped me through my gear change at Tony Grove, and helped me ingest miso broth, coffee, and pizza. I left the aid station 10 minutes behind my 2023 time.

The stretch to Franklin Basin was a tough slog. My legs were locking up again, and I couldn't run downhill at all. I arrived at Franklin Basin, mile 61, 25 minutes after my 2023 time. Ruthie patched me together, again, and after some discussion of my hydration and urination, I resorted to taking 800 mg of ibuprofen. More about that in the next recap. An hour later, I was able to wobble out of the aid station exit. Without Ruthie's crewing, I almost certainly would have given up there.

Leaving Franklin Basin alone at 4 a.m. was hard. I was running up against cut-off times then, and my legs were hurting. The good news was that all the adversity was in my head and legs. The overnight weather was beautiful. Calm and mild, not cold at all. The trail wound through some lovely stands of large, mature firs and spruce. I could see familiar constellations from clearings, and the first glow of dawn. Eventually, I became glad that I'd continued. I soon caught up another runner. Bruce Ames and I continued together until sunrise and our eventual arrival at the Logan River aid station, mile 69. There I had pancakes, sausage links, and instant coffee. The aid station staff were as happy to see the sun rise as we were; it's a cold corner of Logan Canyon.

After Franklin Basin, I could no longer move fast enough to finish. Getting as far as I could get before timing out became my new goal. Bruce and I made it to the high point above the Beaver Mountain aid station together, and then he broke off because he could still run downhill. At that point, my quads were screaming and the tendon at the bottom of my left shin was swollen and angry. The descent to the Beaver Mountain aid station was steep, rough, and hot. Frankly, it sucked. I'm sure I would have felt differently if I wasn't so hobbled. It wasn't a terrible trail. I run trails like that all the time at Lory and Horsetooth.

After signing some paperwork, Ruthie and I went to the Bear Lake finish line and saw the 30-hour finishers and podium awards while waiting on our drop bags. People who had been hiking for a while picked up their pace one last time when they reached the finishing chute. There were smiles, hugs, and some tears.

As I said at the top of this post, I was missing an essential piece of fitness when I started the race. What I lacked at the Bear 100 this year was fatigue resistance and muscular endurance. Although I began well, my pace degraded too quickly over time. In the past, like in 2021 and 2023, I've developed fatigue resistance with big mountain training blocks. 260 miles and 40,000+ feet D+ in a month, twice. This year, I was nursing various injuries and couldn't do nearly that much peak volume. On the positive side, my Achilles and knee did not hinder me at the Bear and feel fine now.

I intend to write more about this event. For now, I'll conclude with gratitude about the mild weather (it snowed a week later on the course!) and fall colors, many thanks to the race team and volunteers, who were numerous and super helpful, and, most of all to my crew. My aunt Jeannie hosted us for several nights before and after the race, a real treat. Ruthie crewed me for 30 hours at multiple aid stations, and said that she enjoyed it and would do this kind of thing again! Her support was key. I'm super lucky to have it. Thanks, everyone. I couldn't have got as far as I did without you all.

This was my last big week before the race. Now I'm tapering so that I start the Bear with fresh legs and plenty of energy.

• 56 miles running

• 12,556 feet D+ running

• 15 hours, 57 minutes all training

I lost Monday to inflammation that made my knees feel creaky, which was disappointing. But I felt better on Tuesday and my week rapidly improved. I went right back out to my one mile laps at Pineridge and did four repeats. Wednesday I did a half-marathon length run at Lory State Park, milking it for all the vert I could get, a yard short of 3,000 feet. I also got a reminder of how important it is to refuel the evening before a long run (I failed). Thursday I chugged up to the Towers and down, feelng better. Friday I did five laps at Pineridge.

I had been planning another hill grinding session on Saturday, but at the last minute decided to give my swollen right knee a break, and did a gravel ride instead. This set me up well for a great Sunday outing. I went out for 24 miles in Horsetooth Open Space and Lory State Park on a route that was very close to that of the Quad Rock 25-miler.

I carried the gear that I will be carrying at the Bear, the same vest and bottles and rain jacket. I used my poles on the ups and stowed them for the descents. The jagged up-and-down profile of the Quad Rock course is not unlike the last 80 miles of the Bear, so my confidence has increased.

In 2023, my biggest training week ended five weeks before my race. This year, under different circumstances, it is two weeks before my race. I feel good about this right now. I'm eager to see how I feel on Friday the 26th.

I've been on the Project Steering Committee (PSC) of the GDAL project for a few years now. It's a hugely significant software project, one that I'm very fond of, and I like to think that I've had an impact in my time on the committee.

Recently, though, the steering part has become less rewarding. By granting Amazon S3 and its imitators special, featured storage protocols, GDAL is stuck carrying water for big and lucrative cloud service providers and a few hyper-scaling customers that don't adequately support the project. It's a crappy situation, not unique to GDAL. A lot of open source projects find themselves ruthlessly exploited these days. This is my personal view. I don't speak for GDAL.

More importantly, I'm doing less geospatial work these days, and thus I'm increasingly uncertain about the rapidly-changing currents in which the PSC is steering the project. Do things like "GeoParquet" and "GeoArrow" really matter to practitioners who aren't working for a handful of hyper-scaling organizations? Is "GeoAI" for real or is it bullshit? Do we steer the project towards these interests or away from them? I truly don't know. I wish I did.

Can I fully engage with the problems that GDAL faces over the next year? That's my criteria for participating in the PSC. I can't, and so it's time to go. The project is in good shape, I believe, and I hope that I'm making room for someone with a great vision to join it.

Week 29 was complicated by poor air quality and some swelling in my right knee. I did some uphill treadmill running one day, and two longish bike rides. For real running, I did 5 laps on my one-mile Overlook route at Pineridge, and one solid run at Horsetooth Mountain.

• 19.3 miles running

• 4,635 feet D+ running

• 9 hours, 12 minutes all training

I discovered at the end of the week that my office chair has been slipping from its high setting (good for my knees) to its low setting (bad for my knees). Hopefully, fixing this will help.

It's T-24 days to the Bear 100. I've been busy with life, training, and work. Blogging has suffered. I'm going to catch up a bit this week.

Week 28 was a solid training week. I'm very pleased with the work I did.

• 52.3 miles running

• 12,943 feet D+ running

• 17 hours, 40 minutes all training

I did five runs, all with significant elevation gains, and all over 90 minutes. I also did one yoga session, one session of tempo intervals on my favorite elliptical/stair-stepper hybrid at its max vert setting, and a lot of short bike rides.

I found a way to extend one of my favorite local segments to make one mile up-and-down laps with 250 feet of positive elevation gain (dénivelé positif, in French, or "D+") . This is slightly steeper than the Bear's rate of 230 feet per mile. Friday I did four laps. This week I'll do the same workout and at least five laps. It's not the most scenic run, but it's close to home and doesn't require a 20-minute drive. A trail-running podcast episode about crewing and pacing made the repeats pass quickly.

Sunday I went out for six hours in conditions that I expect at the Bear and at a similar elevation, on a route with a 3,000 foot climb and a 2,400 foot climb. I counted my carbs, fluids, and salt intake to use in planning my race fueling and hydration. I ran nine miles up and over Crosier Mountain (9,250 feet, or 2,819 meters) and down to the Glen Haven General Store for water, potato chips, peanut M&Ms, and a Coke. Then I reversed course, summitted again, and then ran back down to my car. Nine miles is a typical gap between aid stations at the Bear. It was a useful simulation. My legs felt good, my gear was fine, my fueling and hydration adequate.

The second half of August has been pretty wet and the mountain vegetation is unusually lush. I saw thriving moss and ferns on the shady slopes of the Big Thompson canyon, and running water in the springs higher up. The trail conditions were fabulous, neither muddy nor dusty.

Week 19 was a planned rest week. I did more biking and enjoyed watching or listening to the Western States Endurance Run livestream while gardening and running on a treadmill at the gym.

• 10.6 miles running

• 318 ft D+ running

• 7 hours, 12 minutes all training

In week 20 I ran more than 35 miles! My biggest mileage and elevation gain of the season. Recovering from Achilles tendinopathy while training has been challenging, but it seems like I'm succeeding.

• 36.8 miles running

• 6,280 ft D+ running

• 14 hours, 30 minutes all training

I ran four times and did back-to-back long runs for the first time in ages. 10 miles on Saturday and 14 today in two trips up Towers Trail in Lory State Park. My body is feeling okay afterwards, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to do more next week. I think I've got the capacity for a 50 mile week with 10,000 ft before Never Summer.

Week 18 was my biggest, most social, most fun, and most satisfying week yet. I did a gravel ride with a friend on Wednesday, hiked to the alpine tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park with my daughter on Thursday, ran in 35 °C heat on Friday, and then treated myself to a fast run up and down Horsetooth Mountain early this morning.

Outside of training, I quit taking Naproxen, continued passive and active heating training, and started seeing a physical therapist about my Achilles tendinopathy. I learned that part of the solution will be loading my calf muscles, but without lengthening the muscle and thus stressing the tendon. The therapist also reassured me that I can run when it feels good. I don't need a boot or crutches or anything like that.

Here are the numbers for the week:

• 20.3 miles running (and hiking)

• 14 hours, 59 minutes all training

• 4,187 feet D+ running (and hiking)

The hike to Flattop Mountain in Rocky was super fun. I loved the chance to spend all day with my adult kid and help her kick off a "couch to Fourteener" program. It was my first trip on foot this season to treeline and above, and I felt good. I was also impressed at how well my Salomon Ultra Glide shoes served on an alpine trail. I'll feel confident wearing them at Never Summer or The Bear, as long as conditions are mostly dry.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went for a nice long bike ride in the heat of the day. Today I got out of bed early to run in the coolest part of the day. I took just one handheld bottle (2 scoops of Tailwind) and hiked and ran to Horsetooth Mountain via the Spring Creek Trail. I went pretty hard and was just a little off my personal bests (from 2021) for some of the long uphill segments. I'm very excited about this. Consistent training, even if not in my favorite form, has been working.

Coming off the summit, I met a friend and chatted for a while, and then headed down, down, down to my car. I had to take a short walking break after a sharp rock strike on one of my heels, but was otherwise able to run three miles to the bottom without riding my brakes.

Next week is a scheduled rest week. I plan to do some high intensity workouts of shorter duration, some recovery rides, short easy runs, yoga, Pool HIIT, and sauna sessions.

I didn't do a lot of running in week 17, but none of it was flat. I did a solid uphill treadmill run on Thursday and a hot trail run at Lory State Park on Saturday.

• 12.8 miles running

• 10 hours, 40 minutes all training

• 3,667 ft D+ running

In addition to those two runs, I did a hard elliptical workout and rode a bike three days. I did some weight training at home and at the gym, and did two sauna sessions. I'm trying to do 2-3 20-minute sessions a week in June to get ready for potentially hot weather at Never Summer. Andrew Huberman has a nice long podcast episode about the science of deliberate heat exposure that I found super interesting. If you haven't heard it, it's well worth a listen.

I went out for 2.5 hours in sunny 30 °C conditions yesterday and felt warm, but okay. The modest amount of heat training that I've been doing seems to be working. I'm going to stick with passive heating in the sauna a few times a week and one hot run every week. As much as I enjoy hearing about David Roche's extreme heat traing regimen, I won't be buying a heat suit or core temperature sensor.

Like I said last week, I've found it hard to adapt to downhill running when I'm not doing much downhill running. Today my quads are quite sore after yesterday's three miles of steep descents. I need to do more, that's all there is to it!

Week 16, the end of the first half of my trail running season. I started out sick, but was able to get back into training pretty quickly. I had a nice gravel ride Wednesday, some tempo treadmill Thursday, a 2.5 hour ride on Saturday with a significant amount of comfortably hard uphill pedaling, and a 90 minute uphill treadmill run on Sunday. I avoided my usual group classes at the gym.

I continued with the therapeutic dose of Naproxen, iced my left Achilles tendon every night, and did no running on pavement or trails. Walking felt better all week, I'm happy to report.

It's seven weeks to Never Summer. It's weird to approach it with a base, a solid base, of cycling, and uphill treadmill and elliptical sessions, without the hundreds of miles of real trail running that I've done in the past.

My fitness level is pretty good. Based on my perceived level of exertion during workouts, my resting heart rate, and my body weight, it seems like I'm back where I was at this point in 2023. That's great, I'm pumped! I'm eager to do some fast downhill running before Never Summer. That's the thing that's hard to simulate in the gym, and I've been feeling soreness after my rare downhill runs this spring.

It'll be interesting to see how I fare on an alpine run like Twin Sisters, for sure. I'm planning that outing now.

My doctor convinced me to try a two week course of Naproxen and more PT before jumping into steroids. I'm following her advice and also sticking to low impact exercise. I did manage 115 minutes of comfortably hard treadmill running and elliptical pedaling in week 15, which was a big bump up from the previous week. Otherwise, my numbers continue to lack luster.

• 4.9 miles running

• 7 hours, 1 minute all training

• 0 ft D+ running

That 4.9 miles was on a treadmill at a 7% incline. That would have been 1,800 ft of elevation gain on an actual trail. And I went hard on the climbs on my one hilly bike ride.

Friday I felt fatigued. I attributed it to more hard workouts. Sunday I was definitely feeling sick. Sore throat, sinus congestion, headache. Today (Tuesday) I'm feeling 50% recovered from this cold. I hope to get some real exercise tomorrow.