Race Reports

Race Report: Mt. Taylor (Bike)

As I lay dazed in the snow, it dawned on me that things were falling apart. A skier I had rocketed by a minute earlier now snowplowed by me and asked if I was okay.

I rolled over a bit and groaned “Yup.” She continued on while I laughed at the irony of the situation. In my attempt to Bode Miller the downhill ski portion on Mt. Taylor (Tsidool to the Tewa, an ethnic group of the Pueblo American Indians), the cautious people I had passed earlier were now slowly going by, staring at me like a car wreck on the interstate.

I figured I was going close to 20 m.p.h on this particular stretch of the downhill before my left skate ski decided to go one way and my right another. My legs had no juice left to overpower the forces of Mother Nature. If I recall correctly, I was actually admiring the great wax job I put on my skis because I was flying down the side of the mountain slicker than snot. Then the mountain jumped up and bucked me off.

Hard.

During the fall and ensuing tumble, my left ski pole was jammed into my ribs and my head did a few bounces on the ground, apparently to subconsciously check the condition of the snow pack.

Yup. Still hard as my throbbing noggin attested.

As I stood up, something was rattling in my left ear. I gingerly shook my head. More rattling.

Shit. I hope that’s not my eardrum knocked loose.

I took my glove off and snapped my fingers next to my ear. OK, I can still hear. That’s good. I’ll deal with whatever I knocked loose later. And with that, I continued my shakey descent down the mountain with a newfound respect for Tsidool, wondering how I had gone from racing the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon to trying to survive it.

*******

Due to a work commitment, my plans to get to Grants, New Mexico by car were scuttled when I had to fly to Reno the day before the race. With that schedule there was no way I could make the seven-hour drive and be at the check-in by 11 p.m. Fortunately, my beautiful wife had blessed the use of the family’s lone frequent flyer ticket so I could catch a plane from Vegas to Albuquerque, rent a car, make the hour drive to Grants and pull up to the registration area at 10:30., leaving me a whopping 30 minutes to spare.

That was the plan up until 8:15 Friday morning. I had just parked my truck at the airport and was heading toward the gate to catch my flight to Reno when I got a phone call from the office. The business trip was cancelled and I was cleared to go home.

“You mean, go home, go home?” I asked. “Not go home as in go back to the office.”

“Yes, he said to go home.”

“Sweet. I’m going to Albuquerque and I’m going now,” I replied. I wanted to be far down the road before anyone changed their mind.

On the road to Grants, New Mexico. Beautiful country.

One focus: Get to Grants before the office changes it mind.

When I arrived in Grants about seven hours later, I checked myself in, grabbed some of the pre-race spaghetti dinner at the urgings of Coach Ilg (”You need to eat.”) and checked in my gear down at the fire station. I had my gear for each of the two transitions (bike to run and run to ski/snowshoe) in XL Ziploc baggies. These are very handy for this kind of event.

I drove back to the motel, put the bike together, prayed everything was tight and straight, and hit the rack.

I slept like crap. I really don’t sleep well in motels on the first night and although I had no jitters about the race, I tossed and turned, anxious to get the games started.

I rolled out of bed at 5:30 a.m, mixed up an Ilg Supreme with water (I could not locate any soy milk when I got into town and I sure could have used the extra calories in hindsight), popped a few BioBuilde and waited for the inevitable bathroom meeting. Once that was concluded, I completed my Wholistic Fitness® prescribed Early Morning Ritual® and got dressed for battle.

I checked Google weather and the temp in town was 28 degrees with a high of 50. Using a rule of thumb of 5 degrees temperature change for every 1,000 feet in altitude, I figured it would be in the mid-20s for the snow events and thath I would dress a bit warmer than planned for the beginning stages of the race.

Just a wee bit more clothing to wear in a winter quadrathlon than a summer triathlon.

I’ll tell you what I wore because it plays a minor role later on:

Base layer: Darn Tough wool crew socks over Injinji toe socks; Swix windbriefs; Sugoi long-sleeved performance shirt.

Middle layer: Sugoi long tights; short-sleeve cycling jersey; arm warmers.

Outer layer: North Face wind shirt and Sugoi nylon cycling vest. I also wore a Craft ear warmer/head band and some light Sugoi liner gloves.

I got down to the convention center about 45 minutes before the soloist’s start time of 9:00 a.m. The Quad organizers know how to hold a race at a civilized time. I rode the bike for about 10 minutes to make sure there were no rattles and that I had indeed put it back together correctly.

Oddly enough, I had absolutely no pre-race jitters. From my limited experience as a triathlete, I knew what to expect on the bike and the run and wasn’t worried about the ski or snowshoe. Those would be what they would be. There was nothing I could do about them until I got there.

El Lobo Gris, ready for battle.

BIKE (13 miles climbing 1,800 feet, mostly in last three miles)
A few minutes before 9 a.m., all of the 100+ soloists formed a pack at the start/finish line. We were all ready to open our hearts and souls before Tsidool and to see what she would teach us on this day.

The gun fired and we took off through town at an easy-moderate pace. We stayed in a pack for the first mile or so and then the slower cyclists began to peel off as the main group started to push the pace.

By the time we got to the prison on the outskirts of town (four miles from the start) the peloton made its move. I stayed with the first chase group for another mile or so until we hit our first little hill. At that point, I dropped back because I didn’t want to push it this early in the race, but then felt I would benefit from some drafting so I rode back up to the newly formed third chase group and hung on some tires for another two miles.

My heart rate was hanging between 90-93 percent of max so I decided to back it off. I wanted to stay within my limits and not blow the race by going out too hard in the beginning.

The ride up to the base of Mt. Taylor was gorgeous. I focused on keeping my cadence around 85 and my heart rate below 90%. I was mostly successful on the former, and totally unsuccesful on the latter.

Looking over my shoulder with a pair trying to catch me. Fortunately, they were the rare few who never did.

Obviously, my Bike Fu is still at the white belt level. My nutrition plan was to take a sip of Fortune Delight every 10 minutes and I was able to do this throughout the ride.

Looking back at previous times for men in my age group (35-39) I had planned on making the ride in 1 hour. It ended up taking me a bit longer. Those last three miles were at a friggin’ crawl.

For purposes of illustration, from here out I will compare my times to those of the top male soloist Josiah Middaugh and the top age group soloist Eli Torgeson (35-39). This is not to beat up on me. It’s the vision of the destination I want to visit. I just need to keep working the roadmap to get there.

Top Male Soloist: 51:30
Top Male Age Group (35-39): 52:15
Hak: 1:30:14 (AG: 18/19; Overall Male Soloists: 106/110)

Where the HR drops off is the bike-run transition. I was unsuccessful in switching the Polar from bike mode to run, so you see a bit of the run on the last part of the chart. Note the steady decline in speed the higher I go..and the steady high HR. Ooof. I need to work on that aerobic base building. Zone 1-2 means Zone 1-2.

Lessons Learned:

• My Bike Fu still needs lots of work. I noticed the gearing on those slowly passing me and we were mostly in the same situation. However, their cadence was about 5 rpm higher. I still need to work on a maintaining a cadence of 90.
• My HR was anerobic most of the ride. Not good. That’s just a matter of aerobic conditioning, of which I believe I have none.
• I dressed a bit too warm for the ride up and should have shed the windshirt.
• I need to get in a lot of work on extended hills (3 miles and up) for next year.
• Stick with a group if at all possible and hang on someone’s tire like white on rice.

Next: The run.

Keep dancing your edge,

hak

© 2007 The Outdoor Journey.