Getting ready for the Quad

Our first major race (the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon) of '09 is coming up in a little over a month. The race is a road bike, run, ski (with skins), snowshoe to the top of Mt Taylor, snowshoe down from the top of Mt Taylor, ski, run, and bike back to town. Four thousand feet of climbing followed by a four thousand feet of decent.

It is an interesting race to prepare for since you have to run uphill a lot and technically should be able to rest at times during the decent. The bike up is all about keeping yourself to your pace which is difficult with everyone else around you. The runs, ski up, and snowshoe sections all rely on good running strength. The ski down can be a lot of snow plowing depending on conditions, which can trash your legs for the following run. The run down starts with a steep grade and ends with rollers. The bike down should be easy, but there will most likely be a headwind to some degree.

The logistics of the race are also interesting as you have to send equipment up the hill the day before not knowing what kind of weather you might run (literally) into and there isn't really much on course support (although I did get gummy bears on the run down last year). A sent a camelback up last year with her ski (and snowshoes) stuff only to find it empty when she tried to drink out of it.

The shortest and IMHO easiest leg is the snowshoe down as you nearly fly down from the top. The toughest section for me has varied from the ski up the year we thought we could do it without skins, to the run down a couple of years, and to the bike down the year I bonked hard during the run and hit massive headwinds on the bike.

A's PR is still from her first year back in '03 although she would have beaten that time in '05 except for the massive headwinds on the bike down (that section took 15 minutes longer than normal) and last year except for the broken spoke that I wrote about in a year in review. My best time came two years ago which I was surprised about as I though last year would have been faster even with the broken spoke, but looking back at last year's training log reminded me that I was sick for the week before the race.

This year, I've had the back issue from roller skiing and gotten one cold, but otherwise have had gotten in pretty steady training. Staying in B-town over the holidays helped that. A's crash on Saturday kept her from running on Sunday, but Izzy-dog was up for a fast run, so we ran a half marathon with a negative split. Fortunately, A was able to get back to normal training (except for swimming) after that.

I'm somewhat concerned about my mental health as I was disappointed that our planned rollerski this morning got postponed due to the winds. After college, I was sure I'd never rollerski again, so to be disappointed with a postponement is a bit troubling. At least it is outside which is much better than a treadmill or bike trainer. Oh well, I don't even hate swimming that much anymore.

-E