Long Run, Long Ride

I'm beat. Over 8 hours of training in the past 2 days. On Friday I had a swim, followed by the longest run I have done to date; a whopping 2 hours in the mountains. My IT band took a beating and I'm afraid I'll have to pay extra close attention to them in the next week or so. Energy-wise I felt great during the entire run.

Mesa Trail run; elevation graph

Today I rode up to the peak of Mt. Evans at 14,100ft. I felt strong and largely unaffected by the altitude until crossing above 12,000ft. I felt as if I were bonking during the last 3 miles of the ascent . I had a headache, I was dizzy, my arms were tired and numb, and my legs had absolutely no power in them. After a quick photo-op at the top and a long, bumpy 26-mile descent back to our cars in Idaho Springs (7,800ft), I did a quick brick run. My IT bands were pretty much shot from the run yesterday, so I only got in half of the run time I wanted to. Now, my only goal for the rest of the day is to regain all the water weight I lost and eat salty food. In total, I burned over 5,000Kcal today and lost over 8lbs of water through dehydration. Not good. I guess 4 bottles of water on a 4 hour ride is NOT ENOUGH.

Mt. Evans ride; Elevation graph

Echo Lake


Approaching 12,000ft. Well above treeline.


Summit of Mt. Evans

Kentucky Fried Chicken sounds amazing right now...but - would I dare???

Age Group National Championships 2007

I had a great race. Great swim, great bike, awesome run. I set a 10k PR at 38:49 on a very challenging run course. The bike course was equally challenging, and the hills were not in my favor. I finished in 2:02:18 for 29th place overall, 6th place in the 20-24 age group. I qualified for both 2007 and 2008 World Championship races. I'll be going to the 2008 race in Vancouver, for sure, but I have to see if I can pull together the money to go to 2007 Worlds in Hamburg.

The splits;
19:28 1500m swim
1:01:56 40km bike
38:49 10km run






Male 20-24 Age Group results.


Overall results.


If you want the blow-by-blow, read on.

I started the swim right behind last years 20-24 age group winner, Ben Collins, in hopes of catching a free ride behind him for the swim. At the gun I was already about 3 body lengths behind him...scratch that idea. I jumped on the nearest pair of legs I could find and held on for dear life. I was in the top ten at this point of the swim, but I only lasted behind those legs to the halfway point. At the swim turn-around I got dropped and was in no man's land for a few hundred meters until a group of about 4 guys picked me up and I drafted off of them until we had about 200m to go, at which point I decided to veer off to take a more direct path to the finish. I ended up coming out of the water in 8th place, about 10 seconds ahead of that pack.

After a hectic T1 I hopped on my bike and didn't put my shoes on until after the crazy-steep hill directly out of transition. It took me a little while to get blood to my legs and in the mean time the pack of swimmers I had come out of the water ahead of started catching me. I found myself behind a strung-out line of about 6 guys. I would pass everyone on the downhills and flats, and then everyone would pass me on the hills. After the first 5km I broke ties and made some time on all but one kid, who I ended up "leap frogging" with for most of the bike. We were trading off for 2nd and 3rd place, but on a big hill with a few km to go he pulled ahead. I finished the bike in 3rd place, about 30 seconds behind 2nd.

I settled into a strong pace on the run, but the uphills were killing my quads and the downhills didn't feel any better. By the top of the first hill I had already been caught by one kid; knocked back to 4th place. I kept plugging away and actually felt like I was running fast, I was surprised. At the run turn-around I got a chance to see who was creeping up on me, and I was encouraged by the gaps I saw. About a kilometer after the turn-around another kid slowly closed in on me and passed; back to 5th place now. I kept him as close as possible, but I was starting to hurt at this point. My arms started to tingle and go numb, I'm guessing because all my blood was going to my legs. With two more hills to go I was struggling to keep the pace up and counting down the minutes for when I would finish. On the last hill before turning into the finishing chute I could barely get my legs to turn over. Another kid passed me and I had nothing left to follow him. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that no one else was closing in and I buckled down to the finish line, crossing safely in 6th place. It felt really good.

I want to give a little tribute to Charley French, the 80-99 age group champion. At 81, Charley finished in 3:03:32.
33:44 1500m swim
1:21:51 40km bike
1:03:06 10km run
...holy shit.