Twenty minutes and counting and I’m ready to rip roar around Mont Blanc Massif! The thunderstorms have ceased for the moment but it looks like it’s going to be a wet night.

You can follow the race live here:

My crew will be doing updates whenever possible on Twitter: @scottjurek

Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc LIVE Page: UTMB LIVE

Ultrafondus Live Page (will have live info and video in French & English): Ultrafondus

My race number (dosier in French): 19

For pre-race interviews with some of the top competitors, check out iRunFar.

For the fourth year in a row, I find myself back in Chamonix excited to circumnavigate Mont Blanc with the world’s best “trailers.” I haven’t had my day here but I am feeling in the best shape I have ever been for this world class event.

I relocated to Boulder, CO for the past two months to get my sea-level lungs ready for the oxygen deprived air in the Alps. Tony Krupicka has been a regular sidekick for high altitude exploits. It has been a pleasure sharing time on and off the trail with this great athlete.

Not only is he a phenomenal runner, but he’s also an exceptional writer and you can browse photos and read about our adventures on his blog.

I also had the pleasure of hanging out with Kilian Jornet. I made him lunch (he’s mostly vegetarian) and taught him how to slackline, which he was quite good at on his first try!

At the end of July, I headed back to Seattle for an all time favorite race, the White River 50 Mile Trail Championships. I shaved 11 minutes off my PR and came in 4th amongst a deep field – a good that sign that the Boulder training is working!

It was great to see friends like RD Scott McCoubrey who puts on a fantastic race year after year.

Congrats to the winners Tony and Meghan!

A few days later I went to Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City with Brooks Sports where we unveiled the new Cascadia 6 which will be released spring ’11! I participated in the Uphill Challenge against Jared Campbell. Fun stuff, though to be honest, I prefer trails to treadmills.

One of the downsides of doing the Uphill Challenge is being a sweaty mess for the rest of the day. However it didn’t dissuade this “monkey” from talking to me.

Alex Honnold is one crazy mofo climber and is training to run his first ultra this fall. I watched his short film, “Alone on the Wall,” last year and was inspired by his mental fortitude while doing the first ever ropeless climb of Yosemite’s sheer 2000 ft wall of Half Dome. I highly recommend watching the series, “First Ascent,” made by my talented friends at Sender Films.

After the tradeshow, I traveled to France and immediately spent four days fast-packing around Mont Blanc for a little course recon, sleeping up high in the refugios.

Upon my return, I got my chef on by making vegan Thai Red and Green curry for 50+ people at an outdoor dinner sponsored by Brooks Sports France. Mount Banc and the mountains looking over Chamonix made for an incredible backdrop!

I spent the last few days relaxing, making final preps for my race, and getting the gear dialed for the “big loop.” Big thanks to my fun and hard working crew!

Congrats and thank you to UTMB RD Catherine Poletti for all the incredible work and energy she and her husband Michel put into making this the world’s best 100 mile event!

Feeling ready to go like I never have been before for UTMB! Merci pour votre support!

UTMB Course

Here are the details for following the race:

My crew will do their best to post updates on Twitter when possible. Follow me on Twitter: @scottjurek

Live UTMB webcast: UTMB home page

Click on UK flag for website in English.
Follow link to the LIVE coverage. The Live Webcast will probably only be in French, but you should be able to navigate it fairly

My race number (dosier in French): 4073

Fellow Americano friends running the race:
Jenny Uehisa 3403
Krissy Moehl 2477
John Stamstad 4026
Topher Gaylord 11
Joe Grant 2118
Jamshid Khajavi 313
Kim Gaylord 9543 (running TDS race)

Bon course! to all runners including my friends from all over the globe who will be running around Mt Blanc!

I also posted a small photo album of a week in Chamonix on my Facebook Fan Page. Check out some of the scenery I will be enjoying on race day!

Finally a big thank you to all the support and encouragement all of you have sent my way over here in France! Thank you to my sponsors Brooks Sports, Green Foods, & Pro-Tec.

Since racing season is in full swing, I thought I’d share my latest recipe for condensed liquid calories and protein. There’s been a lot of debate on the benefits of protein during endurance events. While many products extol the virtues, most research has not found a

direct link between protein and enhanced performance. One may think the calories from the fat and protein eaten while running provides energy, but that’s not the case. Our bodies have enough stored fat to provide energy at low to moderate intensities, and ideally we should not be burning protein for fuel. For higher intensities, carbohydrate is the fuel of choice. We usually have only 60-90 minutes of stored carbohydrate in the muscles (i.e. glycogen) at our disposal. Any additional carbohydrate needs to come from food we ingest. So, from a scientific view we really only need to eat or drink carbohydrate for optimal energy levels.

So why might we want to eat protein and fat while exercising? Why do we crave the fat and protein on long runs? Although the jury is still out, I have found protein and fat to be beneficial during ultra endurance events (i.e. those lasting 3+ hours) for the following reasons:

1. Fat and protein give a feeling of satiety.
2. The presence of protein and fat lower the glycemic index (sugar spike effect) of carbohydrates.
3. They break up the carbohydrate taste bud monotony. We all know that eating carbs in the form of gels and drinks can get old, so the protein and fat can refresh the palette.

During racing and training, I always make sure I consume enough carbohydrates every 20-30 minutes and I have found it helpful to incorporate protein and fat. I prefer to get those from whole foods such as bean & rice burritos, energy bars, and liquids (i.e. shake or smoothie) regularly throughout a race. Over the years, I’ve used a drink called “Balanced” that no longer was available due to the company reformulating the product. I was forced to find an alternative protein “meal in a can” drink. A number of people use “meal in a can” drinks like Boost and Ensure that contain dairy and lesser quality ingredients. So I went to the labratory (aka my kitchen) to create my own vegan concoction.

There are many protein powders on the market, but I use Jarrow Soy Essence because it is less processed, non GMO, and fermented for better digestibility. And it tastes good and easily dissolves into most liquids!

Protein On the Run

2 tablespoons Jarrow Soy Essence Protein Powder
8 oz rice milk*

Combine ingredients and shake, blend or whisk until smooth.

If you want to add more carbohydrate calories, add 1 tablespoon of agave nectar, brown rice syrup, or other sweetener. Other options include ½ banana or 1-2 dates. For more sodium, add ¼ sea salt.

* making your own rice milk is easy and reduces the waste produced from containers.

1 cup of cooked white or brown rice
3 cups water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon agave nectar, brown rice syrup or other sweetener

Combine ingredients in blender and blend for 2 minutes until smooth. If the texture is grainy, strain through cheesecloth or fine strainer.

After a long and well needed hiatus I am back. I want to thank all of those who sent emails wondering what happened to the blog and expressed their hopes that I would continue blogging. Your encouragement and interest is much appreciated.

I needed to take a break to focus on my personal life. I never intended to take as long of a break as I did, but a long inward journey pulled me away from expressing myself here.

Sometimes life takes us on a journey that we never anticipated, down paths that we would rather not take. You know those paths — seldom traveled and barely maintained, the ones that go careening down a mountain with treacherous drop offs, and then on relentless uphill climbs. Sometimes life ends up leading the way, tugging us along. The past seven months have been one of those journeys for me.

Seems like no matter how much a person has been through, difficult times are still difficult. I even had to swallow my own medicine as many people reminded me of things I said in various interviews. This quote: “Like in life, sometimes the most difficult times bring the most clarity…” was one of the bigger “pills” for me to swallow. And it was true. As with races and training runs, summits of those long climbs come into view and at the end of the journey we arrive with greater clarity and ultimately a deeper understanding of who we are.

In addition to this inward journey I had some great journeys both on and off the race course. One thing I never gave up during the blog hiatus was racing, and I’ll be filling you in on these experiences with upcoming entries that will include race reports, what I learned while traveling and racing, upcoming events, and training tips.

So thanks for staying tuned, and keep climbing those mountains!

After much anticipation and interest, and some coaxing, I’m now entering the blog world. My intent with this blog is to keep people informed of what I am doing, write about what’s on my mind, spread the news of interesting caveats I learn, answer some commonly asked questions, and inspire folks to live a full life. Likely these these will be quick notes rather than huge entries or lengthy stories, the first on topics I have been meaning to post for sometime along with some current news on my training in CO for the Hardrock Hundred. Hope you enjoy!