Longs Duathlon

17 year old ultra phenom, Logan Polfuss!

Alpine Goals:

Going long with Logan Polfuss

When I first met up with Logan Polfuss at what would be his new living quarters for the next month in Boulder Colorado, he had already found his way up Green Mountain, Bear Peak, and scrambled up the first and second flatirons several times—by himself.  I had known of Logan for a few years.  I’d seen him running ultras and I was shocked to find out that he was only 16 years old and he had already run several hundred mile races.  Now only a year later and he’s emailed me to tell me he’s coming to Boulder for the month of July to look at colleges.  He’s about to start his senior year of high school and he just wants to spend the month in Boulder, climbing and scrambling the trails.  And somehow, he’s talked his mom into letting him come out.  No stranger to her sons exploits, she had crewed for him at almost all of his hundred milers.

Logan on top of Green Mountain.

The seventeen year old had taken a bus to Boulder with enough money to pay the rent and eat cheap.  He’d found an apartment on Craigslist with three other roommates, skyped with them and worked it all out on his own.  Once in Boulder, he bought a $40 bicycle to get around town (which he also sold on Craigslist on his last day in town for a $1 profit).  And he was going to cap the whole trip off with another ultra, The Grand Mesa 100.  It will be a sweet redemption for a DNF he’d had on the same course when he was fifteen.  I thought back to what I was doing when I was that age.  I was nothing like this kid.  He’s possessed, inspired.

When I picked him up, he had a little more hair on his chin than the last time I saw him.  His dread locks were longer and more sun bleached than ever.  He was (almost always) shirtless with only a pair of running shorts on and a water bottle tucked into his shorts.  He was smiling ear to ear and happy to be living free in Boulder.  That night we ran up Green Mountain and at the summit I asked:

"Do you want to try and bag Bear too?"

"Sure, that would put me well over 5,000 feet for the day" he said enthusiastically.

"We don’t have food or headlamps" I reminded him.

"Well then we better hurry" is all his said with a smile.

With that we ran the combo.  The whole time we ran, he talked.  His voice was a contradiction.  He had the graveled voice of a seasoned mountain man with the lisp of a young boy. 

He was enthusiastic about trails, climbs, different routes and different ways up various mountains.  His main obsession was Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.  He had gotten a membership to a bouldering gym and was spending anywhere between three to eight hours running or climbing in the mountains everyday.  His tan skin and taught muscles showed it.  He didn’t seem like any other seventeen year old I’d known.  He was inspiring me!

Logan’s love for ultra running began at age 14 when he paced his friend’s dad, Scott Meyer, through rain and lightning to finish the Kettle Moraine 100.  One month later, Logan ran the Dances with Dirt 50 miler, in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  When he was at mile 45, someone told him he was in 14^th place.  Top 10 rang out in his head and he ran the last five miles hard. These five miles are the toughest of the race, sending you up and down the relentless Devil’s Head ski hills.  He made the top 10 in his first ultra at age 14.

“I’ll never forget those last 5 miles.” is all his says with a big smile. 

Logan tried his first 100 miler the Grand Mesa 100, at age 15.  Grand Mesa is a tough mountain course with a lot of elevation gain and descent—a far cry from the flat cornfields of Wisconsin where Logan trains.  Unfortunately, not many race directors would let him into their races because of his age, so he had to take what he could get. 

After getting lost, he missed the time cutoff.  It felt hopeless and he dropped. 

“I was done.” says Logan “I just couldn’t continue but I learned a lot that day.  That DNF brought me months of misery.  I became so depressed I didn’t know if I ever wanted to run again.”

So what does a 15 year old kid do?  Play video games?  Chase girls?  Hang out with his buddies?  No.  He picked up the pieces by contacting nearly all the race directors of hundred mile races in the country to see which ones would let him toe their starting line.  While most of them turned him down, the Ozark Trail 100 said yes.  The race was right after cross country season and he was completely untrained for that kind of distance.  Sure, nearly every mile he’d run in the last couple of months had been sub six minute miles but the longest he’d run since Grand Mesa was 12 miles. 

Logan was as tough as they come at age 15.  After a hard day and night, he found himself nearly in tears as he and another runner did the math and realized that, at the pace they were moving, they wouldn’t make the 95 mile cutoff in time.  After a slow and depressing hike into the 95 mile checkpoint, they were told it was daylight savings time and they still had an extra hour!

“Finishing was mind blowing” recalls Logan “because just five miles earlier, I didn’t think I was going to make it!  I just couldn’t believe it!”

In 2012 Logan was 16 years old and did not one but three 100 plus mile races: Zumbro 100, Kettle Moraine 100 and the Tuscobia 150!  Tuscobia is a self supported winter ultra in Northern Wisconsin in December.  The runners pull a sled with all the essential gear to hike and sleep in sub zero weather.  No crew and only four aid stations. 

At one point, Logan had been alone for a long time and needed a nap.  He hunkered down for a nap and about twenty minutes later, two racers came along and asked if he was alright.  He said he was fine, just napping, and the two runners pushed on. 

“I’d been alone for the last thirty miles.” he said. “I suddenly decided I’d get up and go with them for some company.”

Logan started busting out mile after mile to catch them.  He couldn’t see any sign of them.  No headlamps or anything.  He figured these guys must really be moving fast. 

“That’s when I realized, maybe those people weren’t even real” he says with a laugh.  But at this point he’d been sweating so much trying to catch these imaginary friends that his base layers were completely soaked—a potentially deadly predicament in sub zero weather.  Without panic, he stripped his clothes off and crawled into his warm sleeping bag to stay warm and take a nap. 

Earlier that year, I was running my first 100 mile race, the Kettle Moraine 100.  I’d met Logan a few times at this point.  I’d seen him shirtless and on level 12 of a few starting lines.  When I hobbled into an aid station in the middle of the night, Logan was there on a cot with blankets wrapped around him.  He opened his eyes and acknowledged me when he saw me, but that was about it.  He was in massive pain due to cramping issues.  I had to get my foot taped up, but I could tell Logan’s issues were serious.  His pacer sat patiently by his side. 

“There’s no way that poor kids going to finish” I thought. 

The next morning while looking at the race results, I was stunned to see that Logan Polfuss came back from the dead and finished the race in sub 30.  I barely knew this kid and I was telling all my friends about him.  This crazy 16 year old with long dreads is about the hardest dude I know.

Living in the moment!

In 2013 Logan started off the season with another shot at the Kettle Morraine 100.  An ankle injury nearly DNF’d him again but after spending a couple of hours at an aid station, he rallied and finished with the aid of trekking poles.  He also checked the Zumbro 100 off the list for a second time.

Fast forward to now.  It’s the summer of 2013, and Logan is riding his bike up to the Chautauqua trailhead everyday where he runs up and down the mountain trails or scrambles up nearly anything that he can.  He’s supposed to be out here looking at schools.  He’s looked at one but he hasn’t missed a day in the mountains.  Every time I join him, he knows more trails and climbs than I do and it’s obvious that he is putting all of his spare time and energy into researching all the trails in the Boulder area.  He knows the FKTs and who set them on all of the trails.  He’s a smart kid.  Next year, he wants to study wind turbine technology.  Or maybe wildland firefighting.  He’s not sure but he’s got the time to think about it.  But basically the mountains are calling and he must go.  He only has another year to wait.  After this month of freedom in Colorado, Logan has to go back to one more year of high school and he’ll have to start incorporating more speed into his training for cross country. 

“I have to go back to running in muddy cornfields!” he says “It’s gonna suck!”

Before he had to leave, I really wanted to get Logan up Longs Peak.  Longs Peak is the northernmost fourteener in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.  It is 14,255 feet high.  It’s the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park and Boulder County. We got a few people together and on July 18^th and took Logan to the mountain he says he’s been obsessed with for over a year.  He carries minimal gear ( a jacket around his waste and two water bottles tucked into his shorts).  I’d been up the standard keyhole route several times before.  But Logan had studied every route up and knew the pitches and the difficulty of each one.  The whole time he muses:

“Is that the Diamond?”

“I wonder if that’s the Kieners route?”

“I betcha that’s the lamb slide!”

“Is that Broadway up there?”

Cassie Scallon pauses to take a picture of Logan on our way up the keyhole route.

The kid had done his homework.  He scrambled faster than all of us.  He would disappear way up ahead and fifteen minutes later we’d see him perched on a rock, happy as can be, waiting for us.  Other climbers watched his scrambling abilities with awe.  He was part mountain goat, part spiderman.  When we made it to the summit of Logan’s first 14er, he was more interested in talking to other guys who had come up different routes.  He was completely possessed!  When we descended, he would Killian it down, down, down until twenty-five minutes later we’d bump into him, smiling and yet again, waiting patiently for us.  When the rain and hail moved in on our way down, he literally disappeared down the mountain faster than any of us and took shelter in the Rangers station where he studied and memorized every map of Longs Peak that hung on the walls. 

After we all changed into dry clothes and started the drive back to Boulder, he was the first one to fall sound asleep. 

At the end of July, Logan ran and finished the Grand Mesa 100, getting redemption for his previous DNF.  Not only did he finish but he placed 6^th overall.  He spent hours hiking in downpours but was determined to gut it out. 

“I can’t believe my legs feel so good!” is what he texted me the next day.  He hasn’t even discovered his potential yet.  Where is he going to be when he’s 22?

Another hundo complete!

The next weekend was the kids last in town.  He wanted to find an epic finish to the summer before his twenty-two hour bus ride back to Wisconsin.  On Saturday, he and I biked ten miles one way to do some scrambling on the first and second flatirons.  He knew all the proper routes up and the downclimbs.  He recognized I’d climbed up a dangerous water gulley (once I’d already done it), and knew how to talk me down after my panic attack and being stuck with nowhere to go for over four minutes.  After our adventure, we were tired and dehydrated.  He took me to his usual spot in Boulder after a long day—Wendy’s.  It wasn’t for food (Logan is vegetarian) but for a dollar soda with all the refills we could handle. 

The next day we decided to hit Longs Peak one last time.  It was Logan’s last day in Colorado.  After carefully studying the north face route, that was the way we decided to try.  Parts of it were harrowing but it was all a cakewalk for Polfuss.  When most of us decided to take the keyhole route down for safety reasons, Logan took the cables route, stopping to carefully check out the camel and Keiners route.  We all ran down at different paces in the rain and laughed and spoke of our adventure on the ride back.  It was his last day in Colorado and he was completely in his element.

Before we bro-hugged goodbye and before Logan got on his bus to go home, I asked him if he had any idea what races he’d be doing out here next year.

“I haven’t even thought about it” he said.  He was present and didn’t spend much time thinking about the past or the future.  We could all learn something from this seventeen year old ultra prodigy.  Where will this kid end up?  Will he be leading the ultra race scene at age twenty-one?  He doesn’t seem to care.  He just wants to be outside and in the Rocky Mountains.  He lives in the now and now it’s time to go back to high school and focus on his senior year and cross country season.  But look out Colorado, he’ll be back next year.

parakeet drummer

parakeet drummer
knows Life is
a bummer
especially last summer
when his back was
in pain
disdain
constant angst
and sometimes hard rain
overlooking
the flame
the knife's edge
standing on the ledge
thinking not of Life
but Death
holding his breath
longer than
               before
trying to love Life
but always needing
               more
insane
miniscule brain
precision accuracy
and speed
are what you
need
to get by
w/out being high
w/out a sigh
w/out the parakeet drummer
going for a fly
and forever saying
  bye bye
     because it's easier to lie
        than to face a
            room full of people
                 or the gd steeple
                       after another lowbrow
                            weekend
                                full of sin
                                     plastic trees and
                                           flowers
                                                the hours
                                                     pass
                                                           ultra fast
                                                                  and cast
                                                           the dismal vibe
                                                     over the side
                                              of the fallen down bridge
                                        on that late winter night
                                  after a long long walk
                          that left you
                 forever
          jaded.

out of sight
that the parakeet drummer
even has
the glow in the dark drummer
to buy him a hummer
when spring turns to
summer
but he still can't
keep a
straight
face.

Mount Elbert

Longs Peak 7-27-13

Western States 100

I’m putting one foot in front of the other, scrambling up Michigan Bluff.  My hands are on my knees and sweat is coming off my nose almost in a steady stream.  It’s 4:30 in the afternoon and we’ve been battling the heat all day long.  Some have fallen victim, others are somehow still moving.  I’m about 54 miles in and I know there is an aid station at the top of the climb.  I haven’t seen my crew for a long time.  They missed me at my last check point so this time, I need everything.  New socks, water and ice in my hydration pack and my water bottle, Carbo-pro, Nuun electrolyte tabs, calories, encouragement.  I’m struggling but I knew I would be by this point.  Devil’s Thumb and Michigan Bluff are the two big climbs of the race and they both start way down in the hot, hot canyons.

Keep moving forward. 

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. 

Thank you God.

So hum.

Just a few of the mantras that I’d been mentally repeating to myself to keep me moving up this seemingly endless climb.  And then I hear cheers.  Finally.  I’m getting close to the Michigan Bluff aid station.  I’m confident my crew will be there and everything is about to get better.  First I have to weigh in.  I’m two pounds down.  The doctor asks when the last time was I peed. 

About an hour ago / I lie.

You feel okay?

I feel great, that was just a massive climb to get up here.

But I don’t feel okay.  I’m trying not to slur my words.  I’m trying not to sway back and forth as I talk w/ him.  I feel drunk.  My stomach is in knots. 

Okay, keep drinking lots of fluids, make sure you’re eating too / the doc says.

I tell the crew I need everything and they know what that means.  They hustle around and do all the work for me.  God bless them.  It’s over a hundred degrees and I suddenly feel like I’m about to simultaneously puke and pass out. 

Sit down Adam, you need to sit down / someone yells at me as I fall into a chair.  I’m going in and out of consciousness and a doctor is asking me questions I suddenly can’t answer.  I know I’ve got 45 miles to go.  How will I ever make it?

At 4:30 am of that morning, it wasn’t quite that warm out yet.  My best friends in the whole world surround me w/ positive energy and easy laughs.  They take pictures and tell me good luck.  I tell them I love them.  I tell them / Whatever it takes!   And there is a shotgun blast and we all take off up the big climb out of Squaw Valley.  I’m already are in love w/ this mountain.  I ran it two days ago by myself but now I am running it w/ world champion runners and mountain climbers.  People I’ve only seen in magazines and on the internet.  It takes about 45 minutes to get to the top and when I do, I turn around to view Lake Tahoe, off in the distance.  It’s beautiful.  The sun is just beginning to crest.  There is a layer of clouds lingering on the mountain town I started at, way down below. 

96 miles to go / someone yells and snaps me back to reality.  Here we go.  Western States 100.  Only the most iconic race in all of ultrarunning.  The oldest and most prestigious ultra race of all.  Somehow I am here.  Somehow I am fully trained and fully rested.  Somehow I have a crew of friends that flew out here, ready to do whatever I need them to do to get me to the finish line.  How did I get here?  Through all the good and bad things that have happened over the last year, how am I running a hundred mile race?  Through all the bad roommates, bad women, financial problems, cops, false charges brought up against me…through all the sleepless nights and moving in the middle of the night and all the hours of work, countless hours of driving through the mountains…through all the stress that comes w/ moving to a new place and not knowing anyone…through somehow managing to run 75 mile weeks w/ 40 on the bike…through the stress of not having a real job lined up and having to take whatever I can get just to get me on my feet…through countless hours at the gym, just to get away from my living situation…through police reports of complete lies against me from people I thought I knew and trusted that turned on me just so that they don’t look bad to their peers for their poor decisions…through all night training runs that ended up being more of a spiritual experience than a workout…through roommates from Craigslist that beat my dog for eating the pizza they left on the counter…through schizophrenic roommates that go away to hospitals, only to escape and come home so that I have to call the cops to come and take him back to the nuthouse…somehow…somehow I’m here running a hundo in hundo degree temperatures.  I laugh out loud.  Life is funny that way, sometimes.  I’m thankful for everything.  I’m thankful I’m here.  Here is all that matters. 

I run w/ Andy Jones Wilkins and his posse for about 15 miles.  He’s moving a little faster than I’m comfortable w/ but I enjoy his loud voice as he talks details of the course and the race in years previous.  He is a walking encyclopedia of Western States information.  He compares this year to 09 and 06 in terms of heat.  I’m moving good.  Running everything and power hiking up every other hill or so.  Aid stations come and go.  I rush through them, stopping only to refuel and ask how far to the next aid.  You can’t think of the 80-some miles ahead of you.  You have to break it down to / Alright, 5.5 miles to the next aid.  I can do that.  I run 5.5 half asleep on an empty stomach all the time.  5.5 is easy. 

Someone asked me after the race, at what mile does it start to hurt?  That’s easy.  Mile 10. 

10?!  Well then how do you do it? / they asked.  I could tell, that wasn’t the answer they were expecting. 

I’m not superhuman.  I haven’t trained myself for it to not hurt until mile 80.  That’s impossible.  I’m just like any runner.  Things start to hurt at about mile 10.  Mile 15 the legs are sore and ready to be done w/ the day’s workout.  But you keep pushing.  After a marathon, full blown leg pain is in effect.  You just can’t really acknowledge it b/c you have three marathons to go.  By mile 35, you realize it’s going to be a long, long day.  By mile 45 your body begins to accept what’s happening to it but then by mile 50 you are destroyed and trying not to think about the fact that you are only halfway there.  And by mile 60, everything hurts.  Stomach, shoulders, hair…everything.  That’s when you turn inward and find strength you didn’t know you are capable of.  You go through pain you didn’t know existed.  Pain you didn’t know you could manage.  That’s when it almost becomes out of body.  You are looking at yourself, suffering through heat and stomach problems and many levels of ups and downs and even you are surprised. 

I can’t believe I’m still running / becomes an accidental mantra that I hadn’t planned.  It just keeps popping in my head.  At mile 60.  I can’t believe I’m still running.  Holy crap, I can’t believe I’m still running.

I somehow turn it all around by the Foresthill check point.  Mile 62.  100 kilometers.  That is where I can pick up my first pacer.  I was back to running and my stomach issues had cleared up after taking a Tums and walking a mile or two.  Saint Marty was supercharged and grinning when I found him.  I’m always happy to see Marty but this time, I’d never been happier.  I doubt that I showed it.  I doubt I even smiled.  But thank God, Marty was there to run w/ me.  Most of the runners on the field hadn’t been talking much throughout the day, myself included.  Everyone was saving what little energy they had to keep moving and fight the heat.  I needed someone to talk to.  Or to talk to me.  I needed someone to start doing the thinking for me.  To tell me when to eat and take salt.  I couldn’t think anymore.  All I could do was put one foot in front of the other.  Marty ran 20 hard miles w/ me.  My crew knows me and how my body works after 60 miles.  They’ve been here for me for every hundred miler I’ve run. And Marty is the patron saint of ultrarunning.  He took me all the way past the river crossing and up to Green Gate.  We had some great conversations and we had some great moments of silence.  At Green Gate, I switched pacers and Jessica took the reigns.  She had some work to do.  Really, I did but I was putting it on her to get us to the finish in under 24 hours.  If I put all the responsibility on her, then I knew it would just come back to me.  I would let her lead me throughout the night.  My headlamp would be pointed directly at her feet and I’d watch nothing but her Saucony Peregrines and the trail for hours and hours.  We had to move.  We had to move fast. 

I don’t want no junk 30 hour buckle / I told her / I want the silver buckle / Just saying that made tears well up in my eyes. 

We’re going to make it / she said / we just have to keep running. 

Aid station volunteers told us we were cutting it close to the 24 hour mark.  They told us we had to work harder than we ever had b/f.  They even kicked us out of aid stations just to keep us moving quickly. 

Now go get us that silver buckle! / one aid volunteer yelled at me.

I will / was all I had to say for those tears to well up in my eyes again. 

Jessica put up w/ a lot from me.  Was I a drama queen?  It felt like it.  I couldn’t talk.  I could only grumble. 

Are you doing okay? / she’d ask.

Ugh / is all she’d get for a reply. 

How do you feel?

Like shit / I’d reply and she’d laugh.  But it wasn’t funny to me.  My feet were complete hamburger.  Every step hurt.  Every rock I stepped on was torture.  When we hit 90 miles, the remaining 10 miles seemed impossible.  I was so close but 10 miles?!  I’m done, man.  There’s NOTHING left in the tank.  How am I ever going to make it 10 miles? 

I can’t believe I’m still running / snuck into my head again.  I was.  Well, more like a shuffle but I was at least jogging.  How?

At No Hands Bridge, I was so disoriented I didn’t even realize my crew was there until they were hugging me and telling me I had made up 20 minutes of time and I was going to make it under 24 as long as I kept moving.  Tawnya was dressed and ready to run me into the finish.  I switched pacers for the last time and suddenly we are running 7:30’s.  

Why are we running so fast Boos? / I asked.

We have to get you to the finish / was all she said.  She wasn’t slowing down.  She was firm.  We had a big climb up and out of the woods and finally reached pavement.  I knew what that mean.  1 mile to go.  I’d run 99 miles.  Through all the craziness of the last year, the most important thing was coming into fruition.  Spectators cheered and said / Way to go! / and / You look strong! / and in 23 hours and 48 minutes I crossed the finish line.  12 minutes to spare.  I couldn’t have done it w/out them.  I wouldn’t have wanted to either. 

The emotions of the weekend didn’t really hit me until after we’d eaten and drank, celebrated, slept and flown our own separate ways.  It didn’t hit me until I was back in Boulder and picking up my dog from where she’d been boarded.  As soon as I saw Roxy, I broke down like I was at a funeral.  Only I was at Pet Smart.  Uncontrollable bawling. 

I guess you’re happy to see your dog / the worker said, looking strangely at me. 

Never been happier / I said through tears of joy.  I don’t cry much.  This was hilarious to me, I couldn’t stop / Never been happier…

b/f WS100

1.

You go for a 4 mile run in the morning.  You attend the pre-race briefings and medical check in.  You meet many top level competitors.  This is ultra-world.  All things ultra.  It’s nice, almost relaxing.  You know this world. 

In the afternoon you drive to Sacramento to pick up crew.  Tawnya and Marty have been traveling all day and you haven’t seen them in a minute.  You hug and pound each other on the backs.  You stop for dinner.  There is either dive bars or super fancy restaurants to choose from.  You all opt for the $200 dinner.  You have one lucky Guinness b/f your three course meal.  You take a sip of Tawnya’s wine and it’s heavenly.  Blood of the gods.  You drive back to Squaw.  It’s dark by the time you guys get there.  In the morning, you run 100 miles. 

2.

You spend a large portion of the day looking for a hotel as close to the start as possible.  All rooms have been booked well in advance.  You check the neighboring towns and they are all full as well.  You have no option but to check out the super expensive resorts that are right AT the start of the race but you expect them to be full as well.  Luck!  One suite left, a million dollars a night.  You take it for two nights.  You change into some running clothes and run the first 4.5 miles of the race, up the escarpment and back, totaling about 9 miles.  Then you rest.  You read and sit in the hot tub. 

3.

You are up at 4 am.  You get to the airport on time and once you make it through security, a feeling of freedom washes over you.  You are free.  Broke.  Alive.  Flying by the seat of your pants for the next 5 days.  You are going to see some friends you haven’t seen for a while.  Friends you can actually trust.  They have been few and far between lately.  You are away from your worries.  You are going to run a hundred miles which may or may not bring about more problems.  When you come back, some will be there, some won’t.  But you are free. 

You fly.  You get a rental.  You drive to the wrong Squaw Valley.  Then you head to the right Squaw Valley.  That takes up most of the day.  Welcome to California. 

4.

Pretty much rest and pack up.  You drop Roxy off w/ a friend who is watching her.  You are more ready than ever to run 100 miles. 

5.

Bike 9 to and from work. 

Run 4.7 on lunch break at Lair O The Bear. 

6.

Rest day.  You biked 9 to work but it was a rest day other than that.  You biked to work and on your lunch break you got to go to court to fight the charges brought against you by the plaintiff, Jacki Marie Philipps.  Born 6/03/1977.  Works at Place Bridge Academy, 7125 N. Cherry Creek Dr, Denver CO.  Filed for civil protection as a victim of the following:  Domestic abuse, stalking and physical assault, threat or other situation.  In her police report, Jacki Marie Philipps fabricates that you said: 

I will tear this place apart and fuck it up.  You have no idea who you are dealing with.  I will fuck you up.  You are trapped.  You are in a legal binding agreement.  Your family is not here to save you.  I’m going to cause you pain like you’ve never experienced.  You will know misery.  You have no idea what I’m capable of.  You should be scared.  I’m going to cause more pain and misery to you than you’ve ever experienced.  You are fucked Jacki, wait and see.

Jacki Marie Philipps reports that you were physically intimidating her by following her around the apartment.  She asked if you were going to hit her and you reportedly said, I’m too smart for that but you will feel a lot worse pain than that. 

Jacki Marie Philipps reports that you asked her to put in writing that she will not speak in the apartment, including on the phone.  You reportedly said that you will let her know when she is allowed to speak again. 

Jacki Marie Philipps reports that you drove by the place she was staying, slowly, seemingly looking for her.

Everything above was written in her handwriting.  It broke your heart.  A month ago you trusted this person.  Not one word of truth.

And after all of that, guess who doesn’t show up to court today.  Since you are the only one that shows up, the case is thrown out the window.  Liars have a hard time finishing the fights they start when they don’t have a leg to stand on.  Down deep, she knows the truth.  She knows she lied.  She knows what she is.

7.

You run / hike Mt. Sanitas three times.  Once you hike it w/ a friend.  The second two times you run it by yourself.  Beautiful day out!  Bon dia.  A week until WS100!

8.

It’s Saturday.  You constantly have to remind yourself to take your foot off the throttle.  You run 12 miles in the sun w/ no shirt.  You spend an hour strength training and foam rolling and stretching. 

9.

Bike commute 9 miles.  Rest day. 

10.

You are so close to WS, you can smell it. 

AM:  you ran 6.7 miles w/ a few pick ups.

PM:  bike 9

11.

You manage to fit in some cross training in the morning.  Stretching, push ups, core work, foam rolling etc.  At lunch you run up Green Mountain in Lakewood and see an Anton Krupicka / Nick Clark look alike.  It seems they’re everywhere our here…

12.

You haven’t been taken to jail yet.  Thank the good Lord above.  Today you ran about 8 miles.  Biked 9.  Life has turned into stress and paranoia. 

13.

You decide to go for a 2.5 mile shakeout run in the pm.  You decide to go downtown, which you never do.  You run right by the only person in the world that has a restraining order on you.  She’s having cocktails outside on the sidewalk and you ran by close enough to touch her.  Well w/in your 150 yards.  You reckon jail is in the night’s outlook. 

14.

Ran 21 miles w/ the big dogs, south of Denver.  They are all scoping out the Dirty Fork 50 course.  You knew they’d be going fast and it’d be a good push for you b/f a taper.  You all run hard.  It was fantastic and that’s all there is to say about that.  Taper starts now.  50 miles this week.  Like a vacation!

15.

AM:

Ran 11.8 miles. 

PM:  18 miles on the mountain bike.