leadville day 3 - night run and return

No pictures from this final run. 12 miles up to about 11,000 ft and back down to about 9000. Twin Lakes to Treeline for those who know the route.

Gear comments. It gets cold in the mountains, even in summer. High 30's maybe overnight low, with 60's as a high. Two layers long sleeve tech, jacket tied, hat and gloves. Headlamp and flashlight.

Lesson learned. Little el-cheapo headlamp not so great. Flashlight better, but carrying light and hand bottle and running up/down jumping over rocks too much tension in shoulders and arms. Disrupts natural gait. Next gear purchase - a really powerful headlamp. Think highbeams on your car. Landing aircraft. You get the idea.

Out of the woods, onto gravel road for 3 miles down hill. Let it all out, 8:30's down passing those who pass me on the climb. Read rules - oxygen bottles are illegal. Damn.

Burritos and beer at the end. Trip back to Leadville snoozing in the back of a SUV over rough roads.

Up at dawn, long drive home. The definition of nuts moves down the field a few more yards. I came humble, and leave even more so. The idea that someone could design a race like this, rather astonishing to the flatlander. To hear or read, one thing. To feel the burn of altitude and a 20% grade up another.

Night run on trails a foot wide with a fall hundreds of feet to the side. "Search and rescue is at the runner's expense" from the race manual.

Roughly 8 weeks to train and stay healthy. Some gear to buy, a lot of long slow training runs and walks to finish. Maybe 70 miles of power walking, a wise man told me.

day 2 - over the pass and back

Started at sometime after 8 am at Twin Lakes campground, at the base of Hope Pass. After breakfast and a 45 minute bus ride. Rains have been heavy this spring, as well as snow pack, so all streams are full and rushing.

5 miles of climbing from about 9000 to 12600 ft. Slow and steady, many people passing. Trying to keep my heart rate under control, breathing manageable. Slow and steady progress. Pause for scenery. Summit looms, can see people ahead, switchback after switchback. Treeline, snowpack, treacherous footing. Numb hands, mild swelling.

After almost 2 hrs of climb, reach the summit. Breathing difficult. One foot in front of the other. Take a few pics, smile at the other runners, start down the other side toward Winfield.

Rockfalls, difficult footing, no full speed descent here. Lost my footing, grabbed an aspen tree for dear life.

Reach the bottom, mile 8. 2 hrs 30 minutes in, eat, eat, drink, drink, move, move. Two miles uphill to Winfield aid. A little boy - maybe 7 yrs - cheers. Hands me a flower?! I say thanks, and power walk upward.

Llamas - not 'the llamas', but llamas anyway. 3:35 at turnaround mile 10 and change.

Back down hill two miles gravel road 'Continental Divide this way.' Fuel and water. Nine 20 ounce bottles in 21 miles. 8 or 9 snickers bars (mini size.) Chips, pretzels, watermelon. Real food (ok, junk food, but good.)

Start the climb back up 'Hopeless Pass.' This is really hard. People passing me, encouraging, First mile up 45 minutes. Another nearly 2 hr ascent. Every emotion. Hate it, this sucks, I'm gonna quit. Stare at ground, slow steps. Make it to each switchback. Just want to die. Trying to control breathing and racing heart. Pop 200 mg caffeine and wait for effects. Like double expresso.

Treeline, scrub, summit only a few hundred feet. Rain and wind pickup. Jacket time. Meet Ken, race organizer with clipboard just below summit. Smile and struggle on up the last few switchbacks.

Up and over summit. View spectacular, cold and wind and rain. Descending 5 miles. Feel surprisingly good. Start to pickup speed. Past the snow fields, slippery footing on descent, long way down.

Start to run. Start to run fast. Damn, this feels good. Euphoric, lack of oxygen, adrenaline. I can do this. Start passing people, easier to just go like hell than to stop. Descending rapidly. Take off coat. Find mp3, put on 'Wreck of the Old 97' Johnny Cash on repeat. 9 and 10 min miles, feel like flying, jumping rocks, splashing through swollen creeks, over logs.

Pass two ladies. "How you doing?" "Great, I'm running down this damn mountain."

Miles flash by 17, 18, 19, 20. Almost to bottom, hear rushing river. Over the bridge to Twin Lakes just behind Steward, Dave's friend, 69 yrs young and 11 time finisher. Breathin hard, caught him. 3600 ft descent in 47 minutes 5 miles.

Without a doubt the hardest single thing I've done to date. Don't feel trashed, like pavement marathon for time, but pleasantly sore and tired. Drink a beer.

'Only' 40 miles to go at this point on race day evening, onward drive into the dark. Doubt, fear, hope, confidence swirl around in my head.


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day 1 - 25.4 mi

Some pictures from the course today. Confidence from realization that these are ordinary runners, not supermen. Some more prepared, some less prepared. Yes, we flatlanders can run at altitude. But 100 mi is a helluva lot further than 25. Confidence yes. Realization of the size of the task ahead also. Up and over the pass tomorrow.


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from leadville training camp

Arrived safe, checked in for the race. Met some fellow runners at coffee house. Fellow with 22 one hundred milers under his belt and 9 Leadville finishes. And here come the flatland newbies to fatten the local economy. Some advice - don't go out too fast. Not sure I could if I wanted to.

Views from the highest city in North America are spectacular. Dinner, rest, contemplation of 26 mi on the course starting at 7 am. Let's find out how we run up here. Nothing like jumping in both feet.

Some pictures from near Turquoise Lake.


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and then, I swallowed a bug

Post work activity began with a venture out into the broiler outside, and a visit to Dr. Pain on Kimberly Rd. to exchange new aches for old. It was 98 deg on a bank thermometer, and hardly a cloud in the sky.

Fresh pains installed, across the Mississippi on twin suspension bridges called 'functionally obsolete' by DOT engineers concerned with such matters. Clouds in the distant west, but still mirrors of heat waves rising from the stop and go traffic. Carbon atoms must be spent to benefit fitness.

A few warm up laps, followed by a stern warning about heat by the elder runners. Drink, hydrate, then hydrate and drink. Followed by further drinking. Water only. Clouds continue to rise to the west of the Augie track, bringing a welcome breeze.

400 m repeats with lots of rest between. Russ does not wish runners brought home on their shields tonight.

On lap eight, I swallowed a bug. It tasted bitter. Yuck. Someone had just said 'good form' or 'keep it up', so I figured a few more. The wind is starting to pickup, and you can feel the temperature drop.

At lap nine, I concentrate on form and pace, following a pack and getting splashed by sweat. Finished, tired, one more lap down. Looking for water and I look to the west. Ominous clouds, hazy. Rains?

Wind starts to blow hard. Hearing a crack, the Augie scoreboard falls onto the track, missing the runners ahead and behind. Suddenly, the ladies bathroom under the stands - blessed concrete construction - seems a good place.

Out we come, moments later, dazed runners loooking for their gear. Blown against the east fence, some bottles are found.

The coolness in the air. Time to head for home. Excitement and danger averted.

-Larry

qc triathlon

Congratulations to Tina, Lisa, Laurie and first timer Dave on finishing the Quad Cities triathlon. The blogger is envious of the multi-sport ladies and the cranky cartwheeling truck driver.

-Larry

tomrv ramblings

- Watched a man give his jacket to a shivering rider in the small town of Elvira at a sag stop. (Can't stop thinking of Oak Ridge Boys while there.) Without knowing her name, and fully expecting to get it back before the ride was over. And then watching with mild amusement as the tent over the food released it's full load of rainwater on the protected below.

- The organization and weather was perfect. Except for the rain and the headwind for the first 40 mi Saturday. Goretex works. Thanks Al for inventing! I'm only half the man you are (literally.)

- The route to Galena out of Blackjack Rd. sag was not the same as last year. Which I figured out after 2 miles down the wrong road.

- How you know you are in Wisconsin? Deep fried green beans, deep fried broccoli, and deep fried cauliflower as appetizers in a bar.

- Overheard womenfolk talking "The T-shirts are hideous! Nobody looks good in "mustard." (A color between brown and yellow, the listening man assumes.)

- Almost every dorm at Clarke College in Dubuque is named for a nun starting with "Mary." After most of the day in the saddle, they all look the same. To your surprise when you walk into the wrong room...

- To my Muscatine friends Mario, Nancy and Teri - I was smiling 'inside' at the end of 108.5 mi.

- The Garmin said 13000 cals burned in two days. Added to the 2000 x 2 days reqd for breathing and blood pumping, 17,000 cals is why dinner was on three plates sat night.

- The best flat tire I ever had. A couple hundred yards from lunch in Preston, IA. Changed by a bike mechanic from Iowa City. I kept the lumber staple.

- You don't necessarily need a bike that costs as much as a car from a bankrupt domestic auto maker to complete the ride. But you do want to carry tubes, patches and pump and know how to use them.

- There is a woman in Moline who has an overnight gym bag that looks just like mine. At the end of the ride, after bags are unloaded from trucks, confusion reigns. She was a good sport when I took hers, and she took mine. She didn't use my brand of deodorant, and I wouldn't look that good in her sports bra. Exchange was made.

- I have now heard Dean Mathias explain the no seat thing in every way possible. "I lost it a few miles back." "They gave me a discount to leave it off." "You decide, use your imagination."

- Being passed by old fat guys on long climbs is mildly disconcerting. Bikers come in more shapes than runners.

Why all this biking you ask? Injury hounds my summer like one of the four horseman. Stress fracture, no. Stressed regions - little lines in an MRI - in both legs, yes. The hurt from Illinois marathon has moved to the opposite leg. Heavy cross training, with hopes of getting through season. 300+ mi bike week worthy. I approach upcoming long, long distance running events with humility and cautious hope.
Track Tuesday.

Back to track in Tuesday. Onward to Leaville training camp end of June.

-LWS

tomrv 2009 garmin edition♦

I've been playing with open source software tonight. SportTracks and Buckeye Outdoors. Written by geeky endurance athletes who don't get paid. Because the Garmin software never passed the 'wife test.' One look at the Garmin Connect software that ships with runner gps watches, she says "you've got to be kidding?" and never touches it again.

Yes, it was 'slow ride, take it easy.' The word 'Tour' is in the event title.





-Larry

road closed

Somewhere west of Lynn Center, east of Cable in Henry County. Unless you live around here, the place names mean nothing. Little towns with not much besides a convenience store every 10 miles.
A little beagle dog followed my bike for a few miles, and didn't believe road closed for culvert replacement really applied to either of us. He crossed in the grass waterway of the nearby field. I followed carrying the bike. The beagle then went home, having escorted me across the obstacle. Onward to Cable, Sherrard, towns that peaked a hundred years ago. Vehicle traffic sparse. Two runners only people not in cars seen in over two hours.

another quote of the day

Overheard at a marathon starting corral-

"Listen to my body ?! Hell, if I was listening to my body right now, I would be at home in bed reading the funnies eating a cheese danish."

Bald Man swims

This wetsuit has strategically placed zippers for easy entry and exit. Please become familiar with them. The exit zipper may be behind you.


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giant reptiles spotted at scott county park

Humans nearby omitted for clarity....

quote of the day

Ran across this one in a running podcast from Endurance Planet.

"If the furnace is hot enough, it will burn anything." - John Parker, 'Once a Runner'

Which is what beer loving and ice cream loving runners would like to believe. Not always true with later years.

caption contest time

Dean Dick addresses the masses at Dam to Dam.
My suggestions to start -

- "They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God. "

- "I know that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully..."

- "We will bury you!"

- "Remain calm. All is well!"


- "I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok."
Add your caption suggestions on the comments page.