Nick Clark, of Fort Collins, is one of Colorado’s favorite ultrarunners. We caught up with the stud to review his 2014 season and talk about his 2015 plans.
Nick, your blog has run dry and your fans are out of the loop. What kind of a race schedule do you have for 2015 planned?
Well, not much of a schedule at this point. I was going to run a 100km race in Idaho in late June, but a work commitment in Europe has nixed that plan. The fortunate upshot of that scheduling snafu means that I am now planning to run the Lavaredo 100km in the Dolomites region of the Italian Alps; an excellent substitute race. I’ll run a couple of races between now and then. The only one I am currently signed up for is the Salida Marathon in March, my seventh running of that fine event. I’m looking for a May 50 miler to run as well, and the most likely candidate at this point is the Jemez Mountain 50 miler down in Los Alamos, NM, another race I’ve run multiple times.
If I run well at Lavaredo, then I may try and do two more events on the Ultra Trail World Tour to see if I can place in the final standings. The most likely options from a scheduling and recovery standpoint would be UTMB and Diagonale des Fous. But that all seems like a long way off right now. The first step is to see if I can get fit enough to compete; not the foregone conclusion it once was.
I think even you’d agree that your 2014 wasn’t on par with the immediately preceding years. You also turned 40 last year. Can you get back to that 2012 or 2013 form, or do you want to? Getting older, how does your training need to change to reach your race goals?
Phew, all good and valid questions Justin. I had fun in 2014 traveling around the world to places I’ve always wanted to visit, but you are right it wasn’t a great year from a performance standpoint. In fact, it was a thoroughly disappointing year, but you roll with the punches. Whether or not I can regain my fitness and form from 2010 – 2013 is yet to be determined, but I feel like I have the motivation to at least put in the work to find out. The problem these days is finding the time. I work full time, have kids who are at the age now where they are involved in tons of activities, and I also have a growing event-management business. All of a sudden the luxury of the daily two hour lunch run is not what it used to be.
And getting the mileage done is not just about time management; it’s increasingly about recovery and motivation. I lost a lot of motivation through the second half of 2014 and lost a ton of fitness as a result. I remember standing on the start line at Western States in June last year wondering what in the hell I was doing there and that’s not a good headspace to be in at the start of an all-day running race, especially the biggest one of the year. That attitude pretty much carried through to the rest of the year, but rather than renege on racing commitments I’d made and take the time off I needed, I soldiered through. I had an okay run at the Steamboat 100 in September, but really ran out of juice for the South Africa Sky Run 100km race in November. I ended up DNF’ing in South Africa and just felt terrible about it.
After that one, I was pretty sure that I was done trying to compete at the pointy end of big ultras. My love for running is unwavering, but getting after it year after year has taken its toll. If it ever comes to the point that training hard makes me resent running, then I’ll be more than happy to step away from the competitive scene and just enjoy running for what it gives me beyond competing. I took a total of six weeks off after that South Africa experience and I’ve just started getting back into the swing of things. I’m running 60-70 miles a week right now, trying to build a base without overcooking things. The mileage is really quite moderate for me, but it feels good and I’m enjoying the process. The Salida Marathon will be a good indicator as to where the fitness is and what I need to do moving forward from there. Fortunately, my current goal race is a long way off so I have plenty of time to get into shape. I just need to find a way to carve out the time and keep things interesting so I can stay motivated.
You’ve traveled a bunch over the past few years. Nicarauga, Costa Rica, South Africa, Japan, and probably a few other destinations outside the U.S. that I can’t recall. Of these trips, which place would you like to visit again for a vacation? And which race would you like to do again?
Yes, I’ve raced in a lot of really great places over the last couple of years, and I’m really grateful for those opportunities in addition to the support of my family in encouraging me to go get after it. They’ve all been really top-notch experiences, so it’s hard to single out a best location or race. However, if you had to nail me down on one, I would probably say that the Sky Run 100km race in South Africa is the one that I’d most like to revisit. The whole experience out there was incredible and the guys at Pure Adventures deserved better from me. I plan to return within the next couple of years with my family to show them how amazing South Africa is. The Coastal Challenge stage race out in Costa Rica is also one that I have very fond memories from, mainly because I got to share it with my family, but also because it was a legitimate challenge just to complete the damn thing. And the staging locations were just incredible! But like I say, they’ve all been amazing trips, I’ve met a ton of incredible people along the way, and I have great memories from every single country I’ve visited. Run-tourism really is a fantastic way to see the world.
There was a Wall Street Journal article online yesterday about marijuana and ultrarunning, debating whether it is a performance enhancer, should be allowed or shouldn’t, etc. You’re an ultrarunning race director and you don’t drug test. As a race director then, would you be disappointed if someone that uses marijuana to help their recovery, and publicly talks about it, won one of your races over non-marijuana users?
I didn’t see the article, but it’d take some convincing for me to believe that marijuana truly enhances performance. It makes you lazy, man, but maybe that’s the point. Come home from a long run, smoke a blunt and then sit on the couch for the rest of the day in state of blissful contentment?
And, no, we don’t test at our races. The only race I’m aware of that tests on the U.S. trail circuit is Pikes Peak. There is no possible way that we could afford to test, and besides we’re not trying to set our races up as any kind of championship events. We offer a modest amount of prize money at Quad Rock, enough basically to cover the costs of entry, travel and accommodation for our prize winners and maybe a bit left over to take their family and friends out for a nice meal at a local eatery.
Our goal in putting on events is about building community, exposing runners to trail racing, and offering runners opportunities to challenge themselves in scenic Northern Colorado locations. I don’t think anyone questions the morals of those who are winning our events. If people choose to smoke or ingest marijuana while training, and I’m sure there are more than a few at our races that do (as is their legal right within the state of Colorado), then I’m not going to wave the naughty stick at them, no more than I would if I caught them drinking the free Boulder Beer we provide at our post-race BBQs. If they were stupid enough to be taking hardcore performance enhancing drugs, then yes I would be incredibly disappointed, but I simply do not have the resources to police that.
Speaking of your races, the Never Summer 100k sounds like a real gem for the Gnar Runners group. How excited are you to put that race on and how much of a treat are the runners in for?
I can’t tell you how excited we are about the Never Summer 100km race coming up this July. It’s an event that really epitomizes what we are trying to do at Gnar Runners, which is to offer well-managed, challenging events in scenic locations, with positive community vibes. We really want this one to become a destination race where people carve out a weekend or longer to really enjoy the fantastic setting of the race. I mean the race sits at the top of the iconic Poudre Canyon, it kisses the northern border of Rocky Mountain National Park, and runs through two phenomenally scenic mountain ranges. What’s not to love?
We’ve been scouting the location for well over a year now, and we’ve really tried to involve as many people as possible in the process, both runners and community stakeholders alike. We’ve been deliberately slow about getting it off the ground to make sure that all the pieces are in place and also as a means of building pre-event buzz. We knew the mountains would sell themselves, so we organized a couple of getaways up there last summer with a big group of friends. From the feedback we got we knew immediately that we had the potential for a big hit on our hands. This was long before we’d even gotten final permitting approval and way before registration had opened.
The terrain up there is quite complicated, so it took us a while to figure it all out, but we are extremely excited about what we have in terms of a race route. The rangers up at State Forest State Park have been extremely accommodating, so we’ve been able to cherry-pick the absolute highlights of the area and create just an incredible challenge involving alpine peaks, alpine lakes and killer sections of alpine ridge running. We only have a few spots left, so if this sounds appealing to anyone reading this article then I’d encourage you to sign up sooner rather than later.