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Transrockies

Published by
Maximus   Sep 21st 2011, 5:15am
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As an athlete you go through highs and lows as your body ebbs and flows with it’s  bio-rhythms. For endurance athletes this is even more evident as your performance depends almost entirely on what state your body is in.  I wish I could say that I feel good all the time and that training is always great, but it isn’t. The past two weeks has been quite a lull in my racing and my training as well. I had a great period in June and July where I was feeling great in training and having great races and felt pretty invincible. The past few weeks I haven’t felt the same and as you start to lose races, confidence starts to wane. I think this period was kicked off by a couple of events. First, the 3 weeks at 140 miles, which was new and I’d never done before, then travel to Switzerland and ending up with a cold. Losing that race badly didn’t help the confidence, then travel back home and to Colorado ended up with two more colds. I was slated to do Pikes Peak Ascent on Saturday but waking up that morning with my cold back ended the idea of doubling PP and Transrockies. I needed to be well for Transrockies starting on Sunday so I bowed out of PP. That was pretty demoralizing only because it meant I was giving up and at this point in time, not invincible. I know I can do it, just not last weekend. Sunday I felt better but starting Transrockies coming off the last week didn’t give me a lot of confidence. The only thing that did was the experience I’ve gained from the last two Transrockies wins. I wasn’t willing to lose this one, and neither was my partner Ryan Bak.

I asked Ryan to be my partner after Andy Martin, my partner from last year, ended up with an injury. Ryan was a perfect replacement. I knew he wasn’t in the greatest shape, he’d been taking a few years off then went from running 20 miles a week to 95-100 miles in about 8 weeks, but I knew he was tough and knew how to hurt and run fast from my time training with him at the Oregon Track Club in 2008.

Stage 1 on Sunday did not end up as planned. We were out fast, at high altitude, in the heat. Ryan looked fine after a couple miles but as we started to climb my HR began to climb and suddenly I was gasping for breath and my HR elevated like I was doing 200m repeats, only I was on a long run through the Colorado Rockies. Uhgg.

 

We ended up losing a bit of time on Stage one but gained most of it back after Stage 2 up and over Hope Pass. We were still bettered by the UK Solomon team as they can scream downhill. Ryan and I almost caught them after they opened up at least a 2 min lead after the descent down Hope. Unfortunately this run would be the beginning of the end for Ryan. I had started to feel better so running down the trail I roped Ryan up to put some good time into Flagstaff, but then down went Ryan  by kicking a rock and at the same time cramping his hamstring. That was the issue.

 

Day 3 was quite incredible with Ryan surging off the front after the first climb. He pushed the pace the rest of the day with me hanging on for dear life. It was awesome. We put 5min on Flagstaff and felt great doing it. What was truly amazing this year was the times we were running were significantly faster than other years. Stage 2 we were 11 min faster than last year, Stage 1 was 2min faster, and Stage 3 was 20 min faster.  After such a great day I was in pretty good spirits. Memphis Joe’s Margaritas on the back of a Budget Truck was a truly great way to finish off a great Stage 3.

 

But then we started Stage 4. Ryan’s hamstring had cramped near the end of Stage 3 but we made it the last couple miles and he had it worked after the race but starting Stage 4 it was still pretty sore and was threatening to seize up again.  We did the best we could at getting up the long 2500ft climb but it took a lot out of both of us. It wasn’t until the downhill that we were really slowed.  With Ryan’s hamstring giving him issues he couldn’t lift his leg, causing him to clip rocks on the way down. After two Superman falls that were quite impressive cus I saw both he was pretty banged up. We did our best to get to the finish line but not before Flagstaff took away our lead and put a minute 30 into us. He didn’t feel it but after finishing Ryan noticed a large blood stain on his Leaders jersey. Turns out one of his falls put a nice gash in his hip and was going to need stitches. But it also turned out that one of the falls broke one of his big toes and the stitches were the least of our worries.  The fish tacos at Mango’s were a small consolation to what ended up a disastrous stage 4.

 

Stage 5 and 6 were painful, mostly for Ryan. I felt pretty bad that I couldn’t do anything to ease his pain but even carrying him over my shoulder (which I couldn’t have done anyway) still would have been painful for him. I tried to put myself through as much pain as I could by towing him up hills when possible, but there was nothing I could have done to match the pain he was in with a broken toe and 45 miles to go. There was no getting around what ended up Ryan’s most painful runs ever. He was a trooper though and it was one of the toughest, most inspiring runs I’ve ever seen. I was impressed after stage 5 that he wanted to continue and finish the race. I was impressed after he pushed through stage 6 to a second place stage finish and we stayed in second overall. With all that happened this year I felt like our run and place was great and we did all we could to get to where we finished.

 

It was another awesome adventure in the Rockies, spending 6 days with runners from all over the country and getting to know new friends. It was great to see a huge Bend, OR contingent that showed we are one of the strongest trail running towns in the country with podium finishes in 3 categories and a 4th place in the TR3 race. Go Bend.

 

Now it’s on to the World Mountain Running Championships in Albania next week. I was slated to do the USATF 20k Nat Championships but Transrockies took more out of me than expected so I decided to get a good week of training in and look forward to Mtn. Running.  I just hate admitting when I can’t handle as much as I think I should be able to. It’s the athlete’s mentality and it gets me in trouble sometimes.

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