Death race check in....

It's hot. Pack weighs 45lbs. Need to find my mojo. 12 minutes till check in. Hopefully next communication will be when I've successfully completed this course. Signing off.....

Twas the NIght Before Xmas.....errr.....Death Race

The weather is absolutely perfect.  It's going to be sunny and warm during the day and pleasantly cool evenings.  I'm done trying to out think Joe and Andy.  I've got warm weather clothing, cooler weather clothing, rain gear, plenty of water, gatorade, pizza, soup, peanut butter, cookies, cola, gels, etc.  The mandatory gear list has been checked, double and triple checked.  As I drove to Pittsfield I saw this sign and actually paused and thought...hmmmm.....left or right :)

I arrived into Pittsfield around 4:30PM today.  All three checks bags made the journey successfully via SWA.   Made it to the hardware and grocery store.  Everything was laid out and organized, now only need to decide what goes into my back pack and what goes into my fanny pack.

Below is the mandatory gear list that includes a saw, chopsticks, knitting needles, a life vest, a bag of human hair (Sadie's :), pink swim cap, ax bandages, medical tape, a black compression shirt, pens, paper and clippings from a bonsai tree....oh yeah, I forgot the damn 5 gallon bucket.  Need to run out to Home Depot in the am to get it.






All packed and ready for tomorrow.  There simply is no substitute for preparation.  I will remain flexible and in a great state of mind and will focus on having fun during every task that they throw at us.  There is no question, this is going to be a very very tough race.  Only 10% are expected to finish.  My goal is to outlast the other 90%...position myself for a decent finish.  We shall see.  Cheers!

Pilgrimage to Pittsfield VT

Jumped an 8:45am flight to Baltimore and a connecting flight up to Albany. Fueled up on a big bowl of pasta in Baltimore and reviewing the list of open items that I need to purchase when I land in Albany en route to Pittsfield.

Feeling good, well rested and getting into the right frame of mind for the DR.

The weather is still looking pretty nice for the weekend. I'm getting very anxious to get this race going. Gotta sign off - we're about to depart from BWI.....cheers!

Death Race is Approaching.....

It's Tuesday morning.  In 72 hours it'll be 7:30AM EST in Pittsfield, VT and almost game time.  There has been a ton of chatter on the Spartan Death Race Facebook group site along with several emails from the organizers and a video trying to get into everyone's heads.  For them its a great game.  For the competitors it's really just the same.  A group of adventure seekers that occupy a space on this planet several standard deviations from the mean will all be gathering to see just how tough they really are.

The current weather forecast is shaping up quite nicely with highs in the upper 70's and lows at night in the mid 50's...not too bad.  It is the northeast, and having grown up there I know that the weather can change quickly so I'll need to be prepared with warm clothing.

I've prepared for this race much better than the Winter Death Race.  Trained cross fit style over the past two weeks with an emphasis on burpees.  I'll be ready for their damn burpees this go round.  They have talked a bunch about swimming and it would appear that there is a large reservoir about 6 miles as the crow flies from Pittsfield to Crittenden....but that's as the crow flies...so that means we'll have some hiking through the mountains of VT to do in order to get there.  Current water temps are in the high 50's and perhaps will be at around 60F on race days(s).  With my handy wetsuit I should be just fine....unless they do not allow them on race day.  I also have my neoprene cap which will go into my pack to keep me from getting a brain freeze in the water along with my neoprene gloves.  Thinking about getting those neoprene booties...hmmm...one more thing to buy for this damn race....will have to hit REI before Friday.

My training this week is consisting of light runs, light push ups, sit ups and burpees....and oh yes not to forget, knitting.  Yep that's right.  It's 5:30AM and I am you tubing my way to learning how to knit.  Not certain that we'll have this exercise when we get to Pittsfield, but I'll at least be able to knit a scarf if required to do so.

I may log one more blog before the race....i'm as ready as I'll ever be....knit one purl two.

Cheers!

The Spartan Death Race 2012

The weather forecast for next Friday is a high of 78F and a low of 56F with a 30% chance of thunderstorms in Pittsfield, VT.  I am hoping that the weather cooperates and remains mild with little to no rain for the weekend and through Monday, which is the expected completion day of the race.   I've been checking the Facebook site for the Spartan Death Race participants and the organizers are having fun jacking with everyone prior to the race.  They've modified the start times, end times, the required gear list to include a pink swim cap, chop sticks, dress shoes and clipping from a bonsai tree.

My plan is to arrive in Pittsfield on Thursday afternoon, head into town, go to the local grocery store and do some reconnaissance.  On Friday morning I plan on getting up early to get my spot inside of the tent with all of my gear, on high ground in case it rains.  I did learn a few things from the Winter DR that I plan on doing differently for the Summer DR.  In an event like this, it's best to simply remain flexible and adaptive with a positive attitude while focusing on balancing rest and nutrition along with overall position/rank.  

In preparation for this race I have done the IM in St George, a 100 mile bike ride, a 30 mile trail run as well as a ton of core work.  Over the past week I have stepped up my upper body work outs to build upper body strength, specifically push ups, dips and burpees.  There has been quite a bit of chatter regarding swimming in this race from the organizers so I plan on hitting the 50 meter pool this weekend and spending some time in the water.  I will go to VT prepared with my wetsuit, goggles, snorkel gear and pull buoy.   My fear is having too much crap in my back pack or not having enough.  I think that I am going to go down the middle of the road and leave certain of my gear back at Amee Farm, we'll see how that works out.  For certain I need to have in my pack the mandatory items and right now the plan is to also have:

1.  Wetsuit, with neoprene cap (keep me dry/warm) with goggles
2.  Head lamp
3.  100 oz water bladder with Gatorade
4.  Hammer Gels (glycogen)
5.  Potato Chips (sodium)
6.  Gloves
7.  Hat
8.  Lighter/Matches
9.  Wool socks
10. Set of hand and foot warmers
11.  Black tape
12.  Plastic garbage bags & bread bags (for sneakers if they get wet)

The goal with the above list of items is to (i) have hydration/nutrition for energy (ii) keep warm and (iii) stay light in weight in the event we have to run.  I need to reevaluate my current pack as it may be too big to run with and I may need a smaller pack.....I'll most likely pack both and get a lay of the land on Thursday/early Friday.  There is no substitute for preparation.

Still plenty of time before the race to think about these things, while they play head games with us.

Cheers!

Golden Gate Canyon Dirty 30 Trail Run

Another busy week at the office and week of travel.  I arrived back in Denver from Chicago on Friday at 5PM to be greeted by Francisco, who had arrived from Texas a few hours earlier.   We headed to the hotel dropped off our luggage and skipped over to Chianti’s for a nice pasta dinner and a glass of wine.  The food was great, learned about fried capers from the owners of the small Italian restaurant…..they are really tasty.   After dinner we went back to the hotel and got ourselves organized for the Golden Gate Canyon Dirty 30 trail run.   The course is located in the foothills of the Rockies about 15 miles up the canyon outside of Golden Colorado. 

The alarm went off at 3:45AM after a restless night of sleeping.   I’ve been dealing with the tail of a cold where I’m hacking up mucus fueled by a post-nasal drip.   That morning my stomach wasn’t in the best of shape, not sure why, but just had to deal with it.  From the hotel it was about a 70-minute ride across town and up the windy switchbacks to the race start. The weatherman was calling for lows in the 50’s and highs in low 80’s.  When we arrived at the race the temperature was 41F…go figure.  Another cold start to a race, fortunately I had some under armor gear in the car and a warm hat to wear.   Francisco had some arm warmers but that was about it.  The rest of the runners were prepared for a hot day as well.  That never really happened.

We made our way down to check in about 10 minutes before the race start.  There was about 500 competitors in total at the race.  It was a typical ultra trail runner’s event.  A lot of laid back crunchy dudes that look forward to running up the and down the mountains over rough terrain.  Not a lot of hoopla, low key, but well organized.  We were able to easily find Ray in his Hawaiian shirt.  We snapped a couple of photos, exchanged some small talk as we shivered and waited for the gun to go off.

Earlier in the week I had met Meagan, the race director, at the Runners Roost where you were able to pick up your race packets.  I had a really nice chat with her asking lots of questions about the course, aid stations, expected finish times, etc.  She had told me that the 1^st ¼ mile of the race was flat open road before it converted to single track.  When the gun went off the 1^st ¼ mile was on a dirt road, however it was not at all flat.  It was an uphill climb.  The red flags went off right then and there and I thought to myself, if this is flat I’m wondering what the rest of the course is like.  Well, Francisco and I, two rookies on this course, were about to find out.

When the gun went off, Hawaiian Ray looked liked the bullet from the chamber, sprinting up the dirt road with a lot of the other elite ultra runners.  The Mexican Honey Badger and I hung back and jogged slowly up the dirt road as the majority of the pack passed us.  That was quite alright by me.  My male ego simply kept whispering I’ll see you at mile 18.  As it turned out it was more like mile 12-15.

I lost Francisco early and decided just to run my race.  For the first ten miles it seemed like it was all up hill and more like a hike race versus a trail run.  I labored up every climb during the 1^st 10 miles.  My stomach felt like crap.  At second aid station I dumped out my perpetum and filled it with water, wolfed down a bunch of very salty potato chips and chocolate chip cookies while I took of my hat and jacket and replaced it with my IM STG white cap.  I was prepared for a sunny day at high altitude, so I was sporting my Swiftwick long sleeve white compression shirt.  As it turned out I really didn’t need it as the sun was only out for about 2 hours the entire day, during which time I was running through the evergreens and shielded form the sun.  The rest of the day clouds, first light grey puffy clouds, then dark ominous ones kept the sun from us.  As a result, the day was for the most part had a chill to it.

At about mile 12 I began reeling in runners and told myself from here on out nobody would be passing me.  Well it didn’t quite work out that way, as I played cat and mouse with about a ½ dozen runners.  At mile 24 aid station I was nauseous and dizzy.  I had gone through all of my water 50 minutes before and was feeling the effects of high altitude and dehydration.  At this aid station they told me that we had a long 3-mile climb left before finishing the race with a two-mile descent to the finish line.  I must admit, I was pretty spent at 24 and was bonking.   Experience told me to chill out for 5-10 minutes, get my heart rate down, suck down some coke, water, chips and cookies.  I knew that there was another side to this bonk and it was just a matter of time.  While I regrouped 15 people passed me as they rushed through the aid station.  I left the mile 24-aid station after making friends with the high school mountain bike team (the aid station sponsor) and walked down a dirt road and then began to shuffle a slow jog.  After 2 more runners passed me the sodium, water and glycogen had hit my blood stream.  I was feeling good.  I picked up my pace and once again I was reeling in runners.  There simply is no substitute for experience.

At mile 27 there is the “peak”, the top of the mountain.  By this time the dark clouds were spitting large cold cold drops of rain.  I passed the race Marshalls as I was ascending and they were descending from the Peak.  They told me to get up and get back down due to the lightening and storm that was moving in.  When I reached the top, nobody and nothing was there but an abandoned orange tent.  I screamed a passage from Jimmy Hendrix “excuse me while I kiss the sky” I then blew it a kiss, gave it the finger feeling pretty good about that fact that I had reached the top and had a nice decent to the finish line.  About 2 seconds after my gesture there was a flash of lightening and a loud clap of thunder, almost simultaneously….I pissed somebody off..so I quickly apologized, to who I’m not sure, but it felt like the right thing to do.  I proceeded to descend at break neck speed, literally because that’s what would’ve happened if I had caught a toe on one the many rocks that plagued this course.

I felt great at this point with just a few miles to go and most of it down hill.   At this point the skies had opened up and began to shit all over us.   I caught this 23-24yr old graduate student at the school of mines just as she did a superman and bounced off a bunch of rocks.  It was an ugly, ugly, ugly spill.  Fortunately she didn’t hit her head but suffered some nasty purple bruises and cuts.  I helped her up and told her to run behind me, which she did for the next 1.5 miles.  I could see about 6-8 runners in front of me and decided that she was fine and it was time for me to catch those runners.  In my pursuit I not only caught them but several more.  At about ¼ mile from the finish I saw Francisco and thought, how the hell did he get in front of me.  As it turns out at mile 25 they did not allow runners to ascend up to the Peak because of the threatening weather.  I was one of the last runners allowed to go up to the Peak before they cut it off.

As we crossed the finish line it read 7:29:32.  A sub 7:30, for this 50k, while it doesn’t seem that fast, let me say I gave it all I had.   The rain had stopped.  I was pretty beat up.  My feet were bruised from the course due to all of the rocks.  All of the fellow racers congratulated one another.  Each knew just how challenging this course was and there was a mutual respect for conquering it.  There are very few athletes that could’ve tackled this course.  I would equate the technical difficulty of this race as a triple black diamond ski run.  It is a very, very tough track.  Ray finished with a time of 6:58, pretty damn sporty after already logging in 75 miles that week.  He’s getting his game on for UTMB.

As we went to the car to change before heading down to the awards ceremony and grabbing some food, a bigger storm rolled in with lightening and thunder and torrential rains.  We changed quickly and decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel instead to take a well-deserved hot shower.  It was a long day, up at 3:45AM and 7.5 hours on the course running.  We were tired but a good tired.  It’s races like this that are going to get us prepared physically and mentally for UTMB in August.  Till then, I continue to train smart and blog about it…..Cheers!!

Training & Race Update

Since IM STG I've been training hard on the trails, in the gym and on the bike.  On Memorial Day weekend I participated in a 100 mile bike ride in Clarksville, TN, a very flat fast track.  The race started out badly.  The lead peloton comprised of about 50 cyclists had a spectacular wreck at about mile 5.  Fortunately I was hanging back off the lead group catching dirty air when it occurred, so I was able to avoid it.  I stopped to help the injured, four men in their 30's/40's that were pretty jacked up.  One guy was twisted all up in the barb wire fence while the other three had broken wrists, collarbones, shoulders and elbows.  Another guy that stopped dialed 911 for an ambulance.  Everyone appeared to be "ok" per se so I hopped back on my Felt B2 Pro and decided to stay away from ALL pelotons.  Approximately 4:50 minutes later I finished the race.   Interestingly enough 3 weeks before in STG it took me 7 hours and 35 minutes to do 112 miles, which shows you just how tough STG was.  Must say, Clarksville was a confidence booster.

The previous weekend I entered the Cedars of Lebanon super sprint triathlon at the last minute.  The course was a 200 yard swim, 10 mile bike and a 2 mile run....a far cry from IM STG.  My goal was to win this race.  I finished top 5 overall missing the top spot by 2 minutes, but placed 1st for the overall Masters category (45 Yrs + age group).  The course was flat and fast and I pushed hard after getting out of the water averaging about 25MPH on the bike and a 7 min/mile on the run(which was actually a little hilly but not bad). Definitely worked the fast twitch muscles that morning.

I'm gearing up this weekend for the Dirty 30 trail run in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, outside of Golden Colorado.  Several of us that are doing the UTMB signed up for this race to get in some solid training.  The course starts at about 7,800 ft and goes up to 9,800 ft of altitude.  Total elevation gain and loss in about 22,000 ft...which is pretty challenging.  My expected time will be somewhere between 6 to 6.5 hours.  The weather is suppose to be pretty hot so I'm most likely going to put on my white long sleeve compression shirt, compression socks and a white hat to keep the sun from scorching me at these altitudes.  The gun goes off at 6AM so hopefully I'll be getting my post race massage by 1PM :)

Oh, yes, I can't forget to mention that I'm doing the summer Death Race in Pittsfield, VT on June 15, 2012.  I know that I said that I'd never do that race again...but I am, enough said.  So, as a result, I have begun cross fit training at the gym, cranking out burps, push ups, sit ups, box jumps, chin ups, lat pulls, etc. all to build upper body and core strength.  I've got a great endurance base, I need to build my upper body strength to more effectively compete at the DR.  Not certain how much I can accomplish in 2 weeks but i'm hitting hard everyday in the gym doing strength training drills.

Will continue to blog about the results of the up and coming races and progress on training.

Cheers!!