Palo Duro Trail 50k

Palo Duro 50k Trial run, The Beast

Brian first talked to me about the Palo Duro 50k right after the Socorro Chile Harvest Triathlon. I must have been high on the endorphins from having a good race and started actually thinking it was a good idea. After all, the race was several months away and I would be in “good shape” after running the Colorado Relay and all the training getting ready for the Beach to Battleship Ironman. Yeah, it sounded like fun….

After convincing Margaret and Jane it would be a good idea, after all good friends don’t let friends do stupid things – alone. We registered, made reservations and made training plans.

Great, now I had three things to get ready for, the Colorado relay – which I was lucky enough to get the hardest leg (had to arm wrestle Margaret for it), the Palo Duro 50K and the B2B ironman. My training plan for B2B just wasn’t going to cut it. Luckily Jane has a coach and Margaret has a really good training plan!

After a couple of months running the foothills, a couple handfuls of 20+ mile runs, several centuries on the bike, and hill repeats every Thursday I finally felt comfortable running the 50k. Well, I wasn’t so much comfortable with it as I was fit enough to run it. Truth be told, I was really nervous about the distance as it was an unknown.

I’m use to road marathons where the energy is high, people are anxious, the music is blaring, and the road is smooth. Trail runs seem to be diametrically opposed. The energy is low key, most folks are relaxed, there’s no music (well, there was a live piper –which was very cool) and the roads are anything but smooth.

At the pre-race pasta feed we checked in, got our swag, race numbers, ate our fill, and talked shop. What a great time. And, as a bonus, I got the coolest race number of all time, 666, yep the number of the beast! So as a group it was decided that I needed horns for my running hat, which Walgreens provided for $1.99 and Jane painstakingly attached to my prized IM St Louis hat.

The start was a bit difficult since it was in the dark and the route quickly turns to single track where it’s almost impossible to pass. It turns out it was probably a good way to start off, nice and easy with plenty of walking for the first 3 or so miles. The Dread Pirate and I ran the first three miles together, with me trying to shine a flash light far enough ahead of us that we could see the obstacles. After the 3 mile mark the trails started to open up, by mile 6 the runners had separated enough to get into a nice grove and the sun came up. Nice….

Mile 6 saw us back at the start and ready to run two big 13 mile loops. Margaret and I found each other and started to run, it’s great to find some your own speed to run with. We ran the whole race together, switching off taking the lead and taking pictures of interesting landscape items and each other.

One of the most fascinating things for me was the feed stations. I’m accustomed to powerbars, fruit, gels, the aid stations at trail events consist of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, cookies, snickers bars, M&M’s, salted baked potatoes, coke, pretzels as well as bananas. At first I was nervous about the nutrition and took in a few gels but after about 15 miles I relaxed a bit and just started eating whatever sounded good. It appeared to have worked since I finished the race feeling well and never had an energy slump.

The run was designated as a easy training pace but with the hills, single track, and dirt, my heartrate seemed to climb right up into the serious racing zone, I spent about 4 hours in zone 4 and about 1.5 hours in zone 3. Not necessary an easy training run but it worked for me.

The course was gorgeous, wet lands followed by rolling hills out into the deep red canyons, running along red cliff walls, through dry river banks, climbing rough single track, Beautiful scenery all over the place. Oh, and don’t forget the wild life, There was one runner making crow calls and entertaining us with his English accented calls. We could hear him from miles away.

The race was fantastic, and I’m totally hooked on Trail runs. The weather was perfect, nice and cool in the morning and no wind with the temperature heating up to around 80 by noon. My total time was right at 6 hours for 31.5 miles, definitely not a road race! If you ever get a chance to do this run go for it! You won’t regret it.

A welcome recovery week!

As most of you know I’m training for several things at once. Long term goal is the Ironman St Geroge in May of 2010, which I’m a little nervous about because of the bike profile, but that’s an entirely different post. Short term goals are the Colorado relay (Sept 11-12, Palo Duro 50k (October 17) and Beach to Battleship iron Distance race (November 17).

I’m less worried about Beach to Battleship than I am about the Palo Duro 50k, which is really strange. B2B will be my 4^th Ironman and I’ve never done a 50k run so I guess I’m nervous about the unknown as opposed to the bigger race. The Colorado Relay is hard but lots and lots of fun!

The training for both short term goals is going really well and I’m at the end of a four week build period that has been pretty intense. Each weekend has been a very tough workout and I haven’t missed a scheduled weekday workout, my fitness has steadily been improving and I’m gradually getting down to race weight..

This weekends run was a 20 mile hard trail run where I spent the majority of the time in zone 3 and zone 4, Not good, but running in the foothills east of Albuquerque makes it easy to push much harder than you would normally do your long run at.

After the run was supposed to be a 3500 yard swim but due to cramps in both lower legs I just couldn’t get past 2500 yards. Every time I would push off the wall one calf or the other would cramp. By the time I decided to call it quits both feet were also cramping. I’m not sure if the cramping was due to dehydration, stress from running the foothills or just an electrolyte issue.

The weekend’s bike rides were great, the main group did about 80 miles and two of us decided to get an extra climb in and did an extra 20 miles in the process. Nice even 100 miles for the first ride. The next days ride was a famous coffee ride. We ride out to Bernalillo (about 17 miles one way) get coffee, pastries or whatever and ride back home as a group. The coffee ride is a totally social and a welcome break to the intense training that we have been doing preparing for our various races.

This week is a very welcome recovery week, well, if you can call running a 170 mile relay race recovery!

The Ride Part III

The Ride Part III

For me the ride is always the most interesting and most fun. We started from the paved road just below the cabin and headed down for a nice brisk 6 mile decent, the same one that I ran down the previous day. Its funny how altitude plays tricks on you, my legs and lungs were both hurting by the time we got to the bottom. What’s up with that? It’s supposed to be a decent! Hope this isn’t an omen for the rest of the ride!

We made our way into Chama proper to meet Steve and the kiddos. The kids were having a great time eating pancakes and Steve had this wonderful looking breakfast burrito with bacon and green chile hanging out the sides. I decided right then and there we were stopping for one of those on our way back through town.

The ascent to the top of the pass and the continental divide is an 8 mile, 2000(ish) foot climb. The scenery is spectacular! The road sports a smooth wide shoulder with plenty of room to weave side to side when the oxygen deprivation starts hitting. We left just a few minutes before the train started its trek up the pass and our loose goal was to beat it to the top. Right out of town the hills start but they are small and we stayed together as a group. When the hills started getting steep our nice little group fell apart as we started climbing at our pace. The “Leaving New Mexico” sign came up much faster that it did last year so maybe that’s a sign that I’m in better shape, or maybe it’s just the thin air playing tricks on me. Either way, it’s a great regroup point and we took full advantage of the rest stop. We had fun taking pictures of the train as it passed us and then it was time for the final assault on the summit. The train passes under the main road and I was determined to beat it to that passing, not really that hard but it’s a fine line between blowing up and making it to the pass gracefully. I could see the train on my left as it picked up speed, and luckily I had a nice downhill section where I could also pick up some speed. I pushed hard, determined to beat the train and felt like I was a cowboy trying to ride my horse ahead of the train to the safety of the other side. Yeah I was getting a little hypoxic. I beat the train to the pass and now I needed to beat it to the top! The final hill looks daunting, I saw it and wondered if I would even make it to the top much less beat the train. As it turns out its an optical illusion, while the it’s most certainty a good hill it’s nothing compared to what it looks like. Even after climbing the hill last year I was still fooled into thinking about how difficult the final ascent was. Having cleared the final big hill it was an easy ride into the train station. I handily beat the train, Nothing like racing 100+ year old equipment up a hill.

Next in was Jane and she also beat the train, Orlando, Hartley and Debi all made it to the top and we got to take a great picture.

The ride back to Chama was fantastic! Not TDF fast but it sure made up for the ascent. Back in Chama, Jane and I ordered our burrito (with double meat), it came just in time as I was starting to fade and seriously doubted I would make it back to the cabin. Orlando ordered a breakfast plate and Debi and Hartley rode back to the cabin.

Back on the road it was an easy ride to the cabin road but now we had that 6 mile hill up to the cabin plus an extra 2 miles to Corkins lodge to make an even 60 miles. Riding the hill wasn’t as bad as I feared and we made it without any problems. What a great ride with great friends.

Part II - the Swim

The swim was supposed to consist of a 2500 yard open water swim in Heron lake. After refueling from the run we goofed off a bit and I played around with the kids, face booked and generally relaxed. We had a few hours to kill while Steve was off riding to the top of the continental divide (He volunteered to watch the kiddos while we swim). We made it to the lake, trying to ignore the storm clouds building in the horizon, and got ready to swim. The water was perfect, the lake was calm, clean and we found a great spot to start from, but those darn clouds were looking ominous. We made it about 500 yards out before the first squall hit us. The waves started getting bigger and started capping, I looked up and saw lightning in the horizon. Our pleasant swim turned into a make it back to the shore as fast as you can type race. We all made it back to shore with just a few panic attacks. Debi’s fancy new GPS unit said we swam 1.25 miles in a little over 16 minutes. Yeah! Those new fancy wet suits sure help! The ugly truth is, she forgot to reset her previous workout so we only ended up doing about 1000 yards, which still isn’t too bad.

Back on shore we quickly packed up our gear and headed off to the cabin. We had a barbeque planed for the evening and despite our attenuated workout we were all still starving.

The evening’s activities consisted of rolling on the foam roller and watching a great documentary about hiking the continental divide from the south end of the US all the way to Canada. The first part of the show was focused on New Mexico and they showed the Continental divide monument which would be our destination on tomorrows bike ride. Those hikers are seriously crazy, It takes anywhere from 4-5 months to do the hike – that’s 20 miles per day, rain or shine. Serious stuff.

High Altitude Workout Training - Part I

High Altitude Workout Training (HAWT) as the ladies of the tri camp have designated it.

Debi and Hartely were incredibly kind enough to host a tri training camp at their cabin in northern New Mexico. Last year we had a “Race the Train” ride where we try to beat the Cumbers & Toltec train to the 10,022 foot continental divide. We had so much fun last year that we did it again this year except we threw in a run and an open water swim.

The weekend started early at with a half day of forced vacation. I was told early Thursday morning “either you use it or you lose it” so of course, I used it.

Fellow outlaw Orlando, my son and I drove the 2.5 hours to Chama and arrived at the cabin around 8:00pm, received a warm welcome and a table full of sandwich fixings, roast chicken and fruit. We promptly stuffed ourselves in preparation for the weekend’s activities and anticipated caloric deficit.

DP, hubby and twins arrived later that evening around 11:00 pm just in time to save me from impending doom in the jingo game that Debi and I were playing.

The next morning started off at a relaxed pace. No reason to get up early and run, the mountains are cool and it was late August so we got to sleep in. Everyone had different runs scheduled. Mine was about 18 miles but I figured I could cut it down a few miles because I was running hills and we were at 8000 feet. We all ran down to the paved road form the cabin, at the bottom everyone headed up the hill except me, I headed down. Now, down hill is not as easy as you would assume, especially at 8k feet! The first 6 miles of the run is a net loss and my legs and lungs were feeling it. It seems that I just couldn’t catch my breath and I chalked it up to the high altitude but by mile 5 I realized that not only was the altitude getting to me I was also having some asthma issues, funny how the altitude masked things. At the turn around point I used my inhaler and wow I could breathe! The run up the hill promised to be long and painful, and it was. By mile 11 I was spent and ended up taking a little walking break, which really helped. I pushed on past the road leading to the cabin and ran the rest of the way up the hill, another three(ish) miles to the end of the paved road to my turn around point. What a great feeling to start running down hill again!

My total run time was 2:39 for 16 miles at about 8k feet with an ascent of 2600 feet. I’m not sure my Garmin is lying to me or not about the 2600 feet, it just doesn’t seem right ( I think it's too much), but I don’t have a way to verify it. When I got back from the run Hartley was making breakfast and we had a great time talking about our individual runs.

Picture of me after the run. Yeah,I think it’s the gayest picture I’ve ever taken but hey, maybe the socks had something to do with it?

Swim workout Part II:

Yoga

I’ve been doing the same yoga for a couple of years now and decided it was time for a change. Since I had extra time on Thursday night I decided to do a hot Vinyasa yoga class. Normally I do the Bikrams yoga once or twice per week and while it’s certainty hot and I get dehydrated it’s very doable. The Vinyasa class kicked my butt! The poses aren’t particularly hard but the combination of 105+degree heat the second workout of the day conspired against me. At one point I thought I was going to pass out, which would have been a little embarrassing, it was a tough class.

The 6:00 am yoga class that I’m used to going to is very low key, little talking, not many people, serious and most folks are over 40 years old and generally a 50/50 split between men and women. The 6:00 pm vinyasa class is the complete opposite. Everyone was talking, laughing socializing, and three quarters of the class was under 30, female and the studio was packed. It was a totally different experience, and I really enjoyed it (minus the whole passing out thing). I think what surprised me the most is seeing what some of the women were wearing, I realized it’s hot and all but is that really a reason to wear next to nothing? I normally wouldn’t complain about these things but it was pretty difficult to concentrate and I kept falling over. The women didn’t seem to have a problem with what I was wearing, go figure.

I think I'll try and make a few more of these classes, it was a lot of fun and well worth the hazards of falling over. If you are looking for a hard workout look up a hot yoga studio.

More on the POJ

After a many requests to see my POJ, Okay, well, actually only one request. Here it is. I like to call vehicles like this a 50/50 vehicle. Now, I’ve been around cars all my life, grew up working on them, rebuilding engines, body work, paint, the whole nine yards. I know when a car has the potential to look good and I know some cars will never look good without a lot of body work or a paint job. This is one of those vehicles that look reasonably good as long as you don’t really look at it. Where was I, Oh yeah, the 50/50 truck. A 50/50 vehicle looks good from 50 feet away (when you can’t really see the details) or at 50 miles per hour (when you can only get a quick look at it). This is my 50/50 truck. Don’t look at the bent up fender/door the hood is bent and pounded back to a reasonable shape. The rust over the rear tires isn’t all that bad, all the scratches and little dents on the bed and front fender aren’t too noticeable. In the end, a good buffing, cleaning the rims and a little chrome polish go a long way toward making a POJ something that can be used as an everyday driver. At least everything works. Well almost everything, I still need to change three light bulbs, fix the drivers side seat so I don’t sink to the floorboard, and replace the broken bolt on the drivers side mirror so I can actually bolt the mirror on to prevent it from shaking sliding around. It’s getting there.