#SOULSTICE MOUNTAIN TRAIL RUN HOW TO#
#SOULSTICE MOUNTAIN TRAIL RUN PLUS#

The early bird misses the crowd, the heat, the monsoons.” ~Elise RumpfĬall on your crew. to hug some cold coffee and force down an apple, a granola bar, a cookie anything to get some calories in. Unfortunately, we hadn’t spent enough time training at higher elevations, so we all ended up hypoxic above Upper Camp Bird.” ~Emy Tice Do you? Get the sticker here! We thought that since we lived at 7,000 feet, simply running our trails would be sufficient. Once we reached the steep grade at the start of our first Imogene, though, we realized we hadn’t trained correctly. We were running up to 30 miles per week by the end of the summer and were in great shape….

Train at higher elevations: “For my first Imogene, my two friends (Kim Culbertson and Jennifer DeMott Miller) and I trained really hard all summer, hoping to beat the goal of four hours. There’s a whole section in To Imogene, a Flagstaff Love Letter with more words of wisdom.

#SOULSTICE MOUNTAIN TRAIL RUN HOW TO#

The best place to learn how to run Imogene is at Imogene, but here are some wise words from Flagstaffians who have done it. Flagstaff consistently sends more runners to the race than any other town, including any town in Colorado. There’s a rich tradition supporting any Flagstaff runner who decides to try Imogene. He emphasized that it wasn’t as much about distance as it was about time spent running.” ~Monica Baker Flagstaff Finishes First He also added Kachina Trail so that I would be running at 9,000 feet. “Dennis adjusted my training routine to include Rocky Ridge, then up Brookbank, through the Dry Lakes and down Lost Burrito. Walter and Nancy Taylor completed 20 IPRs.Īl and Sarah Hendricks, courtesy of Sara Wagner “We loved the summer training runs on the Peaks, including Kendrick, Sunset Trail, Schultz Pass, Inner Basin, Doyle Saddle, and Elden Lookout Road.” ~Dr. Train rested, with the primary goal of a more intense weekly long run. For shorter runs: Lowell Flagstaff Urban Trail System, Buffalo Park, the many roads and trails on Observatory Mesa, and some track runs.

For long runs: Mount Elden Road, Inner Basin Road, Schultz Pass Road east to west, cinder cones north and west of Winona, Snowbowl from Aspen Corner to midway up the Agassiz ski run switchbacks.

I will do some fast-slow running once a week.

On the shorter runs during the week, I might emphasize repeat hills, or downhill running or power walking or just easy running.

I may increase the weekly mileage or not, but I do increase the distance and intensity of the longer run over time.

Early on in the training I start with a guess as to easily manageable weekly mileage and divide this distance into one longer run and all the rest shorter runs.

Things I have done that probably were not the most efficient training: The information on this page comes from the book To Imogene, a Flagstaff Love Letter, published by Soulstice Publishing in 2019.

#SOULSTICE MOUNTAIN TRAIL RUN PLUS#

For most runners, the run has four elements that you will encounter and need to train or prepare for, plus gear: Your strategies must take account of your training and running background and your age. Your training plan should be capitalizing on your strong points and strengthening your weaker points. In my mind, IPR is 90 percent training and 10 percent strategy. If your goal is to complete the run as a personal challenge, that requires lots of power hill hiking and long, slow runs over three or four months.If your goal is to see what you can do all-out, that requires good overall conditioning with long runs and strategic training over a four- to five-month period.If your goal is to be first in some category, that requires a more technical and strategic approach and a long-term running background.Your motivation for running Imogene influences your overall training plan.

Soulstice mountain trail run