Jemez Mountains

The Jemez Mountains Trail Races took place in the scenic Jemez mountains in North-Central New Mexico. The course was on technical trails with a substantial amount of elevation change. The 50K and 50M events included extremely steep climbs and descents on very technical terrain. On the course, runners experienced high altitude (over 10,000 feet above sea level), scree fields, stream crossings, fallen trees, and other obstacles.

Our trip began after an 8 AM breakfast at Purple Castle with Katie Throndsen, Jon Teisher, and Lauren Kennedy. The four of us planned to drive down together in two cars--as some of us were planning on sleeping *in* the car. We ran into Tanya Anderson and Susan Mopper that morning too.



[JT, Katie, Lauren, Tanya, Susan, Matt]

~5 hour drive to Los Alamos with a stop at Colorado's oldest church in Conejos, Colorado. Arrived in Los Alamos, NM late afternoon and found a couple of camping spots around Bandelier. Los Alamos is adjacent to the Santa Fe National Forest and Bandelier National Monument. After getting settled in and paying the camp site fees, JT and I hot-footed it over to the packet pick-up and to take advantage of the free pasta. Caught up with our buddies from Austin, TX (Pete Mehok and Naresh Bhagavatha)--as well as some local yokels: Brooks Williams, James Kaminski, Sean Kute, and Andy Henshaw. Quick stop at the local supermarket for beer and ice and we all headed back to the campground.

I hate pre-race nights! Everybody is always in a great mood and wants to party--but as any runner knows, the act of partying has inevitable side-effects the next morning. Did we get to bed early and wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed...no. We stayed up into the early AM drinking booze. Finally Nacheaux (Lauren) gives me the ultimatum to "Go to bed BLOS!"...and so I did. ;) About 3 and 1/2 hours later we're waking up in a hungover frenzy and driving to the starting line. At the start, Katie and Nacheux pull JT out of the back of the truck, brush him off, explain to him that he is running a 50M race, and tell him to get going. I wish the 50-mile guys the best and head back to my car to finish waking up. An hour later I'm ready and out with the 50K group.

The best part of the trail (I thought) was climbing a ladder next to a waterfall in a very lush, shaded area of the trail. After about an hour of trail running at a pretty decent pace, my motivation was fading. A few hours into the trail, I pass some of the 50-mile runners running in the opposite direction. I pass JT and he tells me he is bailing at the next aid station due to injury-related issues. I pass Brooks at another point to hear him say, "Man, I don't think I'm gonna make it!" None of this did well for my motivation. Nonetheless, I was determined to finish this race--especially after my soapbox diatribe the night prior against people that DNF.

For the first time in my running career, I discovered the benefits of salt tablets. Somewhere around 22 miles into this race I noticed my fingers were swollen. Never had that happen before and, frankly, didn't know why. Suspecting it might be a hydration issue or hyponatremic reaction, I started popping those Succeed! caplets at the aid stations. Swelling started to go down and I discovered new-found energy.

Somewhere 24 miles or so into this race my GPS got tired of waiting for me to finish and died. So, I'll post this GPS plot from the race website instead:



The last part of the race was pretty boring as we were going down from higher altitude: hot, windy, dusty desert wasteland...

~8 hours later I'm finally wrapping this thing up. Whew! No finisher medals for this race--but we all got this cool poster:



...and our choice of a hand-crafted figurine made by one of the locals. I selected this:



I don't know what it is. I suppose it is some kind of candle holder--but it looks more like a urinal to me.

Start/End: Posse Shack, North Mesa in Los Alamos, NM. 6 AM start for 50K.
Result: 48th overall, 8:14:14

Group photo after the finish:



[James, Andy, Nick (overall winner of 50-mile), Brooks, Matt, Sean, JT, Pete]

Back to the campground for a short-lived evening before everyone was out for the count. Pete and Naresh needed to hit the road back to Austin so they took off shortly after we got back. Less than an hour later, Pete's car breaks down on the way out of town and Nacheaux went back to pick them up. I spent a good hour gazing at the stars after everyone had turned into pumpkins.

Sunday morning we were off to Taos, NM. After getting Pete and Naresh back on the road, we got lunch and hit Eske's Brewery in Taos. We went slightly out of the way to check out the Taos Gorge Bridge on the way out of town.

Excellent weekend with good friends. Next up, IronMan KS 70.3 in Lawrence, KS in less than 2 weeks!