Quad Race Report

All the down and dirty details that no-one wants to read but me, next year before the race. :) You only think I’m kidding if you’re still reading this. You’ll learn.

On Friday, first Co and I went to the doc for his second opinion. No news there, unfortunately, his tremor issue is still unresolved. No surprise really, but still a big bummer.

I kept checking the weather before I left: it kept saying it would rain and snow all night and all day Saturday during the race. Ugh, I hadn’t planned for that – in fact, I’ve never done a race in bad weather. What to bring. I packed my rain shell and otherwise stuck with what I had.

I got to Grants, it was clear and partly sunny. !?! I picked up my packet under the helpful guidance of K and K – I was race number 13, and it was Friday… Oh well. I’m not superstitious anyway. Went out to eat at La Ventana – nice place – steak house type. I had grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, baked potato, roll, and broccoli. Back to the hotel room. In packing my transistion bags, I locked myself out of my room twice. Hotel clerk was really nice…. And the contents of those bags:

T1
2 Cliff shot
Mini cliff bar
Running shoes
Yak Trax
Knit gloves
6 oz flask with water – nice to take gu with, but maybe I can do without.

T2
Gaiters
Fleece Jacket – don’t bother next year
Wind Jacket
Ski Gloves – don’t bother next year
Ski Mittens – don’t bother next year
Knit gloves
Cliff shot
Mini cliff bar
Spare socks – don’t bother
Head band – don’t bother if similar temp.
Hat - don’t bother if similar temp.
Flask with Velcro on it, filled with water

T3
Snowshoes with running shoes preloaded
Ski wax plus cloth


I attached a ziplock bag on the front of each bag using safety pins with a piece of paper in the bag with my race # and my name in small print. (This was a good idea.) I preloaded my ski boots on my skis, and my skins on my skis. (K and K told me to – good plan.) Label ski boots with race number using duct tape. Bring a marker and a scissors and extra safety pins – these came in handy. I had pre wrapped my skis together – don’t bother with this, as the race requires certain colors of duct tape to be used. Gray duct tape, the volunteers know to remove. Red duct tape denotes run/ski tranisiton area. Yellow duct tape denotes bike/run transition area. I used zippered bags – another good thing.

At equipment drop off, in the firestation, I see huge trucks loaded with skis and bags. Just a ton of gear. They tape my T2 bag, my T3 bag and my skis and poles together with gray duct tape and load them on the truck. T1 bag gets loaded separately. And now, as K says, nothing more to worry about, you’ve got to live with whatever choices you’ve made!

Back to the hotel room, I meet K – she’s sharing my room. She seems really nice and has done the race several times., so she gave some advice. K and K came over, and we all talked about the weather – would it snow? Rain? They told stories from other years, and basically caught up with K who now lives in Co. She used to live in ABQ.


Went to bed around 9, didn’t get to sleep until maybe 11:00. Woke up several times, and finally at 5:00 I couldn’t get back to sleep. (not abnormal for a big race for me) Stayed in bed until K’s alarm went off at 6:30. It had snowed and it was gray and spitting out. Showered, ate oatmeal and orange, drank some water. K advised me to mark my bike shoes and helmet – good plan! The weather was starting to clear, yippee! Headed over to race start at 8:15. Sat in the car for a bit, then got the bike ready. Put on sunscreen – could use more of this! Bathroom trip – next year, bring a roll of TP – they ran out. No warm up – I guess I could run a bit, but too cold to really warm up on the bike.

Race started at 9:15 – to let the snow on the bike course melt a little more. (!!) I was wearing tights with grippies on the ankles, padded shorts over top, sports bra, tank, hoody, bike jersey over that, long fingered gloves, smart wool socks. I had cliff bloks in my jersey, a gu in the little pocket in my tights, and one ¾ full water bottle.

The Bike: my feet got a little cold, until about ½ way through the bike, then they started to warm up. I did manage to eat 133 calories (bloks) on the bike – I forgot to set my 10 min timer, so had to remember on my own. I’m satisfied with that. In town it was easy ot maintain about 18 mph, but then on the small incline, that decreased to about 16, and went steadily down from there. I could feel that I hadn’t been on my bike much – I need to work on some endurance here. As I crossed some slushy patches of pavement, my wheels slipped a bit. Just enough to make me nervous! I felt really good about the bike as I realized I was going to finish near my goal time of 1:10. I actually crossed in 1:15 or so. I took off the jersey, helmet, bike shoes, forgot to take off the bike shorts, grabbed the water flask, slipped on the run shoes with the yak trax preloaded, and headed out. Good transition – I think I was in there about 2:30. It threw me to have a volunteer help me, but it was nice. I made sure to get my shoes back in my bag before I left.

The run: More uphill, and I almost immediately started to cramp – in a weird muscle in my quad. Not normal. Then my calf. I knew it was going to be a long day! I just tried to focus on RFM – relentless forward motion, like K had told me. I started to count right footfalls – helps me keep form and pace. The first mile was 10 minutes, and I was really happy with that. I sipped water along the way. Didn’t bother me to carry the flask. I loved wearing the hoody – if I got cold, I flipped up the hood, warm, took it off and unzipped a bit. I didn’t really need the yak trax. On the final uphill I started walking, and ripped open the cliff shot I had. I ate about half of it – that was really all I could manage. Swallowing a big slug of that starts to make me gag after about three of them. Except for the cramping, the run went as planned, and took about 1:10 including T2, so the run must have been close to my goal time of 1:05. The run-ski transition was more hectic, but I remembered to take off my bike shorts, and forgot to put on the gaiters. (didn’t miss those until the snowshoe.) Again, having the volunteer threw me off a bit, but she was helpful getting my ski boots on. Wind jacket on. I put the velcroed flask on my backpack, and slung the backpack on, and went.

The ski: Skiing with momentum after running was really tough, esp. with the cramping I was having. Now there was a solid knot in both calves. The skins made climbing relatively easy, and I just kept plugging away. I passed a few people, and then the team folks started passing me. (2 had passed me on the run, one being E’s team.) RFM, baby! I passed a few people without skins, they were having a hard time on some of the inclines. I sipped once from the flask, but it was unwieldy. Best to skip this, I guess, and just drink in transition. It would be really nice to figure out how to have warmish water in T2 – maybe a thermos. All the aid stations had water with ice chunks in it. The ski up felt longer than I remembered. Really showed me that my run and bike endurance were not what they should be. I had to pause a few times to stretch my cramping calves. I was frustrated by that, but focused on keeping up to the guy ahead of me. I didn’t find the groove like I had in training, the groove I was in was much slower. I still am satisfied with my ski up time of 54.01 which is under my goal of 55:00. Including T3, though, it is 1:00. Some improvement to be made, mostly in endurance, I think. I took some water on the way in to T3.

Me, going up "Heartbreak Hill"

T3 was frustrating. I could not get my foot in my snowshoe because of my cramping calves. I kept groaning trying to just force them in. Finally I was able to get both feet in, and thank the volunteer that was trying to help me. I had to massage both calves a bit to get them to release, and I realized that running to the “edge of the world” was not going to happen.

Snowshoe: I hiked quickly to the edge of the world – most people around me were also hiking. The aid table at the edge of the world had music and booze, but I declined the offered drink. That was fun to see. The hike to the top from here has a really steep grade, and I was chugging along trying not to look up too much. I stopped several times to stretch and catch my breath. My glutes and hamstrings were burning by this time. (More squats and lunges next time!) Getting to the top was a relief, I had some water up there and took a minute to enjoy the view and rest. So sue me. Time 32.14 not including T3 versus goal of 35. Wahoo! On the run down I had to walk a little as the footing was really bad in some spots – loose snow with big divots in it. Tough to navigate. I jogged on the flatter sections for about ½ of it and walked the final bit into T3’. Time: 14.07 versus goal of 15. Again, getting into the ski boots wasn’t fun, but I did better. T3’ time was 3.37.

Ski down: I could tell my muscles were tired, and that control was going to be an issue. Not helping matters, the racers around me were also unsteady on their skis, and it was hard to pass on the 8 foot wide trail. I did pass several people. And I fell three times, twice when I could not get rid of speed and lost control, and once where I caught an ice patch. On one of these faceplants, my right calf cramped up so badly I cried out in pain trying to move it. Oh, that hurt so much. I need to work on my quads so that snowplowing isn’t so hard at this point. I was having trouble directing the metal edge into the snowpack to slow me down. More practice on skis will help too. (There are no training shortcuts!) The knit gloves for this section may not be the best choice – when I fell, they instantly got wet and the snow clung to them. My hands got cold. Taking the gloves off, whacking them against my leg worked ok. I was very glad to see the end of the ski section. Volunteers now were a little less organized, but still so helpful. Brought me my bag. I ate a mini Cliff peanut butter bar. Yummy. Time including T2’: 35.10 versus goal of 30 minutes.

Run down: Starting the run down felt so good! I cheered as I headed out. I maintained an even pace that felt pretty easy – I wanted to make sure my calves didn’t give up the ghost! I took off the yak trax after ten steps, as I just didn’t need them. I think I was doing about 9:30 miles until the short uphill sections. I walked maybe 3 times. I took water and an orange at the aid station, which tasted really good. The last two uphills, I was praying I remembered that the last one was really the last one, and there wouldn’t be one more uphill! Just like K said, I was so glad to see the transition area!!! Time: 49.03 versus my goal of 50 minutes – excellent! I was really excited now about getting on my bike and finishing the race, hopefully under 6:30 total (Total time at this point: 5:45.)

Remember my race number? Unlucky 13? Unfortunately, my race was cut short – my first DNF. Someone had a seizure while driving their truck and ran over about 20 bikes in the transition area. Mine was one of them. My first thought was “but, how am I going to finish the race?” I guess I could have run down the 13 miles. I guess I took it pretty well – I joked with a few others who were standing there. It was neat to see the inside of my carbon fiber fork. And, no one had been hurt as a result of the accident (although I’m not sure how the fellow with the seizure is doing). That is amazing, with a full and quite busy transition area, that no one was injured. In the end, it was only ‘stuff’ that got destroyed, and the police said everyone would be given replacement cost for their items. So, I let it go. If I’d gotten to T1’ about 10 minutes earlier, I would have saved my bike. If I had had K’s cell number memorized, I would have called him from T1’ and asked him to loan me his bike so I could finish. Crazy, but I would have. I know it now! I thought that the 2 in his number was a 7, but I won’t mess it up again! With no way to finish the bike section, I picked up the pieces of my bike, loaded them on the team buses, and got back to the finish line. I was really disappointed that I wasn’t able to finish the race! I was really looking forward to crossing the finish line and being able to recount the whole day. K found me at the finish area and asked me how it went. I held up a piece of my bike’s fork, and told him I had a souvenir. K said I still have a great story, it just doesn't happen to be one about how I finished the race.

So, I’m disappointed, but I’m resolved to come back next year, about hopefully post an even better time. The event was fantastically well run, and course is gorgeous. Quad 2009 here I come!