A's race report for the Mt. Taylor Winter Quad 2010

I win, I win! I got my race report posted first! No pictures yet, but lots to read. Enjoy (if you have the time to sit a bit and read all this!)

Even though this blog post is a race report for the 2010 Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon, it is written mostly for myself for next year and the years to come. This year marked my 7th year racing The Quad. Each year the packing and prepping seems to get easier to do, yet there is always an underlying sense of urgency and anxiety to get everything done at home and in Grants, NM, before the race. This year things went very smoothly, so I though I should blog about it sooner than later and help keep the “things I need to remember for next year” fresh by the time next year rolls around.

First, though, before I start writing myself notes, I should probably explain what the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon is for anyone unfamiliar with this fun, tough, unique race. The race can be done as a soloist, pair, or team of 3-4 people. The soloists race always starts at 9 am on the Saturday before Presidents Day in February. Racers bike 13 miles from the Grants, NM, Chamber of Commerce up the canyon for 13 miles to the end of the pavement. Then you switch to running gear and run 5 miles up to the start of the ski. Here you again switch equipment, grab your backpack with your snowshoes, and ski up 2 miles to the snowshoe start. From there it is only 1 mile more to the top of Mt. Taylor, where you get to turn around and do everything in reverse back to Grants (the ski down is the only part that is a different course, for safety).

2010 marked the 27th year of the race. It is an El Nino year, so the mountain had lots of snow (snow-packed for the whole run and beyond, a first in the years I have done it since 2003). As usual, the race volunteers were the best part of the day, but the tough course and long standing race history make the event very special, too. Grants is a smaller town, about 1 hour west of Albuquerque on I-40, and The Quad is a big event for many of the folks in town. And it shows. Where else can a $65 entry fee get you support for a 42 + mile race, gear schlepping up and down a mountain, an all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed the night before hand, a $7 meal voucher good at most restaurants in town (El Cafecito!!!!), Subway sandwiches after the race, and pretty affordable hotels right in town? The main race coordinators work hard to get people to come do this race, yet still keep it grass-roots in feel. It is a gem.

Anyways, back to the 2010 race report….. This year we started the packing the weekend before with assembling snowshoes (running shoes already bolted on), skins, ski boots, extra gloves and hats, wheels, bike shoes, and random gear bags lining up in the spare bedroom.

Here is what finally went up the mountain:
in bag #1 (bike-to-run): light weight racing shoes (lunar racers) with screws, visor, stretch-gloves, water bottle;
in bag #2 (run-to-ski): ski boots, ski gloves, water bottle;
in bag #3 (run-to-ski): skis with skins on, poles;
in bag #4 (ski-to-snowshoe): snowshoes with shoes attached, hat, extra socks, extra gloves, lightweight wind pants (just in case) and a gel;

wrapped separately for the way down:
in bag 2 (ski-to-run): different screw shoes (heavier, dry), run socks, gloves, visor, wind breaker, vest;
in bag 1 (run-to-bike): buff for the head, vest;

Then I wore triathlon racing shorts (some compression, light weight pad), tights, long smartwool socks, a camelbak shirt with a 64 oz. reservoir, short-sleeved poly undershirt, my new heavy weight GS boulder jersey, and a buff for the head and cycling gloves (full finger) for the ride. I also carried 1 gel, 64 oz (6 scoops) of carbopro in water, over mittens, and a light weight jacket. I used regular bike shoes and put on my toe covers. I rode the road bike, no aero bars (they might be good to have, but this is my lightest bike) with race-wheels and sew-ups.

This year the race started off at a good clip and I lost the lead pack before the 4 mile mark (at the prison). My legs were just not feeling capable of catching back on, and the group easily split and broke free out front while I was left worrying in their wake about my fitness. Only two women made the break, though, so I was still sitting OK, with a lot more racing left to do. Looking around, I saw my friend B. Hunter and my wonderful E right with me. We worked to bridge up to the leaders, but only B made the jump. In the process, though, we caught the second place woman, J. Smith, and towed a couple of gents along for a bit. Up front the pack was starting to splinter as the climb began. I had L. Isom, lead woman, in my sights, but never could close the gap, and as the climb continued, she slowly pulled further away. Things moved along, ebbed and flowed as the climb continued. Luckily, E and I were racing at a similar level this year, and I was able to use him for a good draft as we had a steady headwind to fight as we climbed the ~1800 feet to T1. In the last mile or so, J. Smith reappeared and woke me up a bit as I grabbed her wheel for the final ride to the top of the bike portion of the race. We finished in a small pack of 4 (2 other guys got swallowed up in the final push) with E a mere 15 s behind us. Time for bike up + T1: 1:00:44.

On with the racing flats, visor, a swish from the water bottle, and I grabbed a handful of my stretchy gloves and took off. The timing mats have me 1 s up on J. Smith, but she soon moved in front of me and never looked back. I was contending with cold, stubborn feet who did not want to wake up. I focused on a staccato tempo as I tried to be light and airy for the next 5 miles and ~1200 feet of climbing. I figured my feet would come around by the ~2 mile mark where there is a water stop. This is where things usually start to feel good (right before it starts to get steeper) but they never did. Not even when the guy wearing the “barefoot shoes” passed me. Instead, my calves both started to feel stiff and numb. It was a very interesting sensation. I plodded on, though, and hoped that my inability to feel anything was a blessing in disguise since I would never know if I should be in pain and suffering (then again, my lungs and upper legs had plenty of suffering going on, so I guess I was in the thick of the race either way). Oddly, though the run portion seemed much loooooonger than I remembered, it also seemed less steep. The camelbak was only sloshing a little and provided easily accessible, readily absorbed nutrition. Soon I was making the final approach into T2 with E and J. Smith both still just in sight (a relay team member waiting in T2 shouted out that I was only a few minutes out of 2nd). Time for run up + T2: 54:07.

I found the volunteer who had grabbed my bags and brought them to the benches, so I plopped down and started switching my run shoes for ski boots. Glove switch, hat switch, another swig of water and I was ready to clip into my skis and continue marching up the hill while strapping on my poles. A few meters out of transition and up the first few bumps of the climb and I saw E turned around and headed back towards me. He had forgotten to grab his backpack with the snowshoes and had to head back to T2 to retrieve them. Onward I plodded. This year, the snow had already been tracked into grooves by the skiers before me. I simply did my best to march along in their wake. I was approaching something of a kick-and-glide even with the kickers skins we had on, especially on the few flat or even slightly downhill sections. Next year, though I need to be more careful with my skin placement so that less overlap hangs off the sides. They may even need to be trimmed. And they definately need to be mounted farther back, with the fronts no further up than "C" in "RXC" on the Kestles.

Most of the uphill ski is steep. And uphill. It is also mostly through some beautiful trees. Onward I staggered, then crossed the first meadow. Next I was passing the “Quad 20” road sign (Garmin said 19.99 miles), then out through the second meadow, dashing through the last bit of trees, then breaking out into the sunshine with only Heartbreak Hill in front of me. By this time, no one had passed me on the ski, no one was really insight in front of me on the ski, and a few snowshoers who were on teams (they get to hike up from the start of the ski) were all I had for company. My legs were burning, my glutes were fried. Getting up that hill was not sounding like a good idea, but it was the only way to continue on, so it was what I did. One ski after the other. Often I was able to step straight ahead, but at times it was too steep for that, so a herringbone step was required. Then, after a good long haul, I neared the top of the climb, glided over the ridge to transition, and was quickly changing gear for the snowshoe. Time for ski up: 39:16.

Off with the skis, boots, poles. Off with the skins (fold those onto themselves and toss into the snowshoe bag). Snowshoes went on quickly and were just as quickly cinched using my lace toggles. Then I was off. My plan is always to run the flat part of the snowshoe and power hike the steep part. This year that was a struggle, and I even walked a few steps a couple of times on the flat section to get my camelbak hose in my lips. My legs were heavy and tripping seemed eminent. I was getting tired, but knew this leg was my best bet for getting nutrition in. The flat seemed to be more of a struggle than normal, but it was also very soft from all of the new snow. And it was very uneven. Then came the Edge of the World. I turned down the shot of J. Daniels and hurried on past the volunteers in their party attire to the steep part, the climb up. Quickly I pulled out my wind jacket and threw it on over the top of my other clothes. I even put on the hood. The wind was blowing here and I was sweaty and wet from the rest of the climb, so I knew the windbreaker would be key to a good decent. No one was in sight in front of me and there was a gap (back to E I think) behind me, so I only had my thoughts to keep me moving up, up, up. The track here was “groomed” by snowmobiles and was often rutty and off camber. And if you looked down and studied the snow a little bit, you could see the hoar frost thickly covering the ground. Time for T3 + snowshoe up: 25:11.

A few more big wind gusts and I reached the top, went through the timing chute, grabbed a Dixie cup of water, paused to drink it and discard the cup in the trash, then started the free-fall-descent-on-snowshoes of the steep part. I love that feeling of riding your tails down a steep powdery hillside. This trails was again “groomed” by snowmobiles so it was a bit grabby with the cleats in some places, but it was still magical. The last two years they have made the steep up and steep down of the snowshoe two different routes. This has plusses and minuses. I like the new trail down. I like it a lot. But I miss the chance to see everyone in front of and behind me, to look them in the eye, to wish them good luck, to scope out the competition. Soon enough my magical free fall down the steep powder hill ended, I was back at the Edge of the World and facing head-on traffic from all the racer nearing the top of the mountain and the halfway point of their race. Many were wobbly-legged (as was I, still). That, combined with a trail that was more rutted and deformed than normal made for a few interesting passes and near collisions. In the end, catastrophe was avoided (at least on my watch) and I was back to my skis ready to change gear once more. Time for snowshoe down: 10:10.

I picked the snow clumps off my socks, changed gloves, stuffed my feet back into my ski boots, threw the snowshoes into the backpack and then onto my back, then grabbed my poles and clipped into my skis to start the glide back down the mountain. Once moving I strapped my poles on. Again, there was no one in sight as I began my descent. Soon, I would see I was the next racer to follow a snowcat groomer as he kept moving down the hill. The wind was swirling fresh snow onto the trail and he was trying to keep a track open. At the first tight corner, after crossing the meadow, he pulled over and I zoomed by. This year I carried more speed into the turns, but the snow was also soft and slow, so my time was comparable to year’s past. Near the bottom, in the whoopty-whoop section, I passed two racers. I caught another in transition, but he soon motored past me on the run down. Time for T4 + ski down: 17:24.

In transition I threw on my shoes, grabbed a handful of stretchy gloves, threw on my visor, took a swig of water, and shot off. Unfortunately, as I was now a human popsicle, I was still wearing my wind jacket with hood. The visor slipped on over all of this easily enough, but the extra jacket and hood nicely hid my ski hat that I was also still wearing. As I started to thaw, I pulled off the jacked and stuffed it into a back pocket, and only then discovered my hat. I knew I wouldn’t need it for long, but the easiest way to carry it would be to keep wearing it, so I did just that from most of the run down, until it got flatter and warmer and was just too much to leave it on my head. The run down this year felt good. I focused on feeling light and having quick turnover with the feet. I was very happy to have chosen my racing flats for the trip down, too (I had a second set of screw shoes that were beefier, more of a training shoe, that I thought might be well suited for the greater impact of the steep sections in the initial portion of the run. The Lunars held up well, though, and were awesome later on when things got flat and the legs were feeling heavier and tired. Feet held up OK, too, only a few blisters that likely would have happened in any shoe. Time for T5 + run down: 39:39.

Into the last transition. My bike was WAY down at the end (women get the low numbers and are racked at the start of the transition on the way up, which is the back of the transition on the way out. Both the first and second women were late to register and got high numbers, so were racked at the other end from me. Of course, by now, they were so far in front of me that I never saw them, but technically they had less running to do since riding in this transition is allowed). Anyways, my nice boy-scout volunteers convinced me to throw on a vest (didn’t hurt, but cost some time probably) and a head band (buff). Then a change of shoes, donning of the helmet, and I was off. I took the upper curves cautiously after Roger’s spill from 2008. The road was in good shape, though, and I was soon cruising through the flatter parts, thankful for no head wind this year. I was trying to discern if it was a tail or cross wind all while going as fast as I could. A few times my compact crank set-up had me maxing out with no more gears to shift into, so I just spun as fast as I could. I felt OK now, but really, really, really wanted to get done with this race. I had not looked at my watch after the top of the hill and had no idea where I was at, time-wise, I just was ready to stop moving for a bit. The entire bike down, I saw no one, again (this was very strange all day, as I usually jockey around with a few guys and start to know who’s who. No teams even passed me, this may have been a first). Back in town there were a few head-wind sections as we jogged our way back over to the chamber of commerce (wind was definitely from the west now), then I crossed the finish line. Time for T6 + bike down: 34:44.

Total race time for 2010 was 4:41:12 and good enough for third woman. A hearty 8 min from second and 17 min from first. E was the next finisher, 7 min back.

Total times from year’s past:
2003 – 4:42:48
2004 – 5:05:31 (food poisoning and forgot bike shoes, used run shoes and home-made toe straps)
2005 – 4:44:39 (major headwind on bike down = major bonk)
2006 – no snow, we did not race
2007 – 4:52:35 (no skins, bad, bad decision)
2008 – 4:44:02
2009 – 4:29:26 (break through year, great race)
2010 – 4:41:12

This year was strong, but the fresh snow made it slow. Clothing was good (changed gloves a lot but never changed socks). Nutrition was good (has been a problem). We also did not train especially for this race or taper for it at all. We trained right through it. And as a test of fitness….. I think we’re fit!

From coach J: “Wheww! Glad this one is done and you were strong and no worse for the wear. So great that you were able to hit 3rd without any focus on this event besides being in good general conditioning which you certainly are. …and think of all the sports energy you still have to put into your St. George Training. Be pleased!”

Be pleased…. I think I am! Until next year. Then it will be off to break 4:30 again, or maybe even 4:20….. until then, stay tough!