Pirate Girl's Triathlon Adventures

Running from Sabino Canyon to Prison Camp

2012-01-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

I got this crazy idea in my head to do a point-to-point trail run as my long run over the weekend. Looking at my maps, it was possible to run from Sabino Canyon to Prison Camp (Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site) on Mt. Lemmon, just past milepost 7 on Catalina Highway. So I filled my hydration pack with water and snacks, and coordinated some shuttling with Zac. He would drop me off at Sabino Canyon and drive my Jeep up to Prison Camp and leave it at the trailhead. He would then ride his mountain bike down, enjoying the Prison Camp to Molino Basin portion of the AZ Trail and the road down. I've realized, endurance runners and downhill mountain bikers should partner up more often. Endurance runners want to go up the mountains and have cars waiting for them, and downhill mountain bikers want to start at the top and head down.

At 10:30 AM I started my run at the bottom of the road in Sabino Canyon. It was a good thing Zac was dropping me off because the parking lot was packed with snowbirds and holiday visitors. And since it was past 9 AM, the evil trams were running.

(Click photos to enlarge).

I've been running Sabino Canyon on a weekly basis, but this time I had my camera with me. Thimble Peak is a common sight in the canyon, but would be an important landmark for my crazy run in the mountains today.

The warm December temperatures have led to lower elevation snowmelt and lots of water flowing in Sabino Creek. The last bridge was overflowing with water, and kids were squealing and people were trying to avoid getting their shoes wet. I ran right through the middle of the water. I figured my trail shoes were going to be in and out of water throughout the day anyways. Besides, a good trail run always involves the 5 elements: earth, air, fire, water, and blood.

I reached the last hill on the paved road of the canyon and was caught by the evil trams.

This was truly unfortunate timing. By the time I reached the turnaround of the paved road, two tramloads of people had been let out. There were people everywhere, including on the switchbacks leading up to the Sabino Canyon and Phoneline trails. I had to do a lot of hiking to pass all of the tourists that would stop in the middle of the trail without warning.

Road, switchbacks, and Phoneline Trail.

Finally I reached the trail intersection. Today's destination, the East Fork Trail (#24A), which is also part of the Arizona Trail.

This is the climb up the Sabino Canyon trail. I took this picture knowing The Dark Warrior would appreciate it. That would be the trail skirting along the cliff.

Looking back at Sabino Canyon and the paved road I had climbed earlier.

A view of "what's around the corner." Sabino Creek in the middle of the picture, and the trail would wander through the hills.

Running the trail, with Sabino Canyon down below.

Had to get a shot with the saguaro in the background.

My final parting view of Sabino Canyon before disappearing into the hills.

At this point, the trail is descending down to the creek below. Sometimes this isn't a good sign, because that means climbing back UP from the creek.

I reached the intersection of the East Fork and West Fork trails, which are designated as part of the AZ Trail. I had never done this section of trail before, and because it's within the wilderness boundary, I can only trail run it (no mountain bikes in wilderness). I would continue on and take the East Fork.

Box Camp Trail is a future training trail run goal of mine. This will have to happen much later in the year after a lot more training. This trail comes out on Catalina Highway by Spencer Peak, around milepost 22ish.

Starting the climb on the AZT out of the creek bed.

Palisades Trail is another future training run option, with this trail ending at the Palisades visitor center.

More climbing on long, winding switchbacks on the East Fork Trail.

At the top of the switchbacks, the trail became a bit of a catwalk on the side of the cliff.

Still running, with the Palisades Trail on the hillside in the background.

I had just run around the rocky crag in the shadows, which became a landmark later on.

This was the intersection with the Bear Canyon Trail. This can be taken back to Sabino Canyon to make one large loop. At this point the trail changed names to the Sycamore Reservoir Trail.

I had run part of the Sycamore Reservoir Trail before, and at this point the memories were getting jumbled and I got my trail saddles confused. Turns out the saddles look very familiar, except there's an additional 2 miles to go! I hit a few unmarked trail splinters, so had to rely on trail sense to figure out which way to go. When in doubt, I followed horse tracks. Prison Camp has a huge horse trailer parking section, so that's the only direction they could have come to get on the trail. Since my Jeep was at Prison Camp, I followed the horse tracks.

This would be the widest creek crossing that I'd have to make all day. I wandered downstream until I found a shallower section.

Crazy fungus. I swear I didn't sample these on the trail!

This was the Sycamore Creek area of the trail. The brush was too overgrown and dead to make it to the reservoir itself, so instead I stayed on the trail.

Ugh! 2 additional miles! These were by far the hardest miles because of the amount of climbing, and it was at the end of my long route.

As I climbed out of Sycamore Creek, I caught this view of Thimble Peak. I was now viewing it from the other side from where I started that morning.

As a reference point, this is the Thimble Peak vista point on Catalina Highway.

I climbed, and climbed, and climbed some more. The climbing up to the next saddle was relentless. In the shade, old snow and ice was still present but starting to melt.

Finally I reached the top of the saddle and the AZT marker!

This was the view from the AZT marker of the area I had traveled. The rocky crag that I had gone around is the shady spot in the middle in the distance. I had gone around that and through the hills to the left.

And looking over the other side of the saddle, this was the distance I had left to go. The trail continues down through the valley and in between the grassy hill and rocky mountain.

I crossed the creek about 20 times on my way to the parking area. I emerged at the trailhead, happy to find my Jeep left by Zac waiting for me. One last check of the hydration pack, and I had about 2 sips of water left. 3 hours 43 minutes moving time (4.5 hrs total elapsed time), 11.8 miles, and 6000 feet of climbing.

My GPS track overlayed on the topo map via TopoFusion. Green is flatter compared to red as far as climbing goes. The climb at the end (in red) was so much that it made the Sabino Canyon road (in green) appear flat!

Choose your running partners wisely

2011-12-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

The week after the Kauai trail run we were back in Tucson, which meant another Sabino Canyon run. I had always wanted to run up the Phoneline Trail and back down the road as a loop. The Dark Warrior had agreed to this idea a few weeks prior. So I also invited The Boulder along, and at the last minute, he showed up. So there the 3 of us were in the parking lot, ready to go. This was the first run of the 3 of us running together. I would soon find out I was outnumbered.

You have to choose wisely which running partner you bring on certain trails. Only after I judge the skills of a runner do I allow them to go on my exploratory runs with me, where I don't really know the trail or the distance. So we set out and started up the Phoneline trail. The Boulder had already experienced this part of the trail with me, and now knew it went straight up in the first mile. The DW did not, but he'd figure it out from looking up at the mountain from the flat part of the trail down below.

We hit the steep part, and after awhile it got quiet behind me. Too quiet. I turned around. "Who's hiking back there?!?" I yelled. Busted. The Boulder was walking. He knows he has longer legs and can pull off a longer stride at a walk in what takes 2 of my running strides up a trail. No matter, at least move the arms or keep some sort of cadence of "running" while we're on the trail! We climb and climb and start skirting along the side of the mountain, following the trail. The DW doesn't like heights but knew he couldn't stop and turn back. Now I'm wondering, why did the guy that has issues with heights challenge me to the Pike's Peak Ascent, which climbs to 14,000 feet up A MOUNTAIN with steep drop offs? The only answer is that he's not right in the head, like all of my running partners. No sane people can really run with me. The sane ones are out on the Rillito River path where it's safe, and not climbing a mountain.

At this point, The DW and The Boulder team up and start scheming on how they could pick me up and toss me over the side because the ghastly run we were doing was my idea. I'm outnumbered, so all I can do is stay ahead of them, just out of reach. Both of them are wondering why they showed up to The Canyon that morning. We start to get closer to the end of the trail, and other trail users approach from the opposite direction. We get odd looks. Later I jokingly tell The Boulder and The DW, "They were probably thinking, 'Look at that woman dragging her husband and father along the trail like that.'" Why else would people like us be out there? Oh yeah, because we are crazy. Most wouldn't guess we are running partners.

Because this is a route I've never done before, I can never be too sure of the total mileage. At one point I mention being "about 1 mile" from the intersection, which The Boulder and The DW both exclaim is an evil trick, because they passed a sign that said 2.7 miles (I failed to see such a sign). So for the next 20 minutes I heard nothing but how long my 1 mile was. "I told you it was ABOUT 1 mile, not EXACTLY 1 mile!" I may need to divorce The Boulder and disown The DW. Forget that we're not married or related to each other. I can make it happen. I once divorced Liane's husband, Nate, 8 times for a lack of firewood at the 24 hour race.

We made it to the switchback section, which The DW and I had run a few weeks before. This time it wasn't slippery, and he started pushing the pace, which caused him to catch up closer to me. Too close. Hmm...given the past comments about tossing me over the side I wasn't going to give him the opportunity, so I had to speed up. I was running at Mach Stupid down the trail until I safely hit the pavement. The 3 of us gathered up in formation and finished out the 3.7 miles of road back to the parking lot, for a total of a 9 mile loop. All of us survived. However, I may need to split those two up for future runs or else they'll come after me for revenge. Nevermind that we all work in the same office area. Hmm...perhaps I should guard my coffee mug carefully lest they get ideas.

And now The DW's point of view on this run:

The first rule – never play in another runner’s universe; they’re God there - return to the canyon
And so it goes. I recovered from my harrowing run in Hawaii with only a limp. Blame that on a dime sized blister. I was only occasionally plagued by nightmares of falling off of slime covered cliffs into the raging torrents below (wait a moment…those are memories). Almost a week had passed, time for the truly gullible to be ripe for another offer. "You know how we ran up Sabino Canyon and then onto the switchbacks? Well I’ve always wanted to run back along the pipeline trail and complete the loop."

Ok. Think about this for a moment. She runs Triathalons. And she’s never run this trail. In her back yard. Only the village idiot would take her up on it. And then, betrayed by my own vocal cords, I hear "when would you like to run it?" She pounces like a black widow on a particularly juicy fly. "This weekend would be nice."

And there you have it; trapped into another flirtation with Death. At least this time she invites another running partner to run with us. Someone young and in good enough shape to carry the head-end of the body out along the trail. My body.

We meet at the Canyon at the assigned time. This time I bring disposable gloves (the cheap jersey gardener’s gloves that they sell at Walmart). Mostly, I’m trying to save the Coroner the trouble of having to peel them off my cold dead fingers. We all pull into the parking lot at the same time. No mean feat since we are coming from the ends of the Earth. We park beside each other like some scene on the flight line from American Dawn Patrol (sorry kiddies, you probably don’t get the reference – tough).

We get out of our cars into the frigid morning air. The desert shouldn’t ever be this frickin cold. The other poor dumb male points to a a faint line in the hills; "that’s where we’re running, right ?" "You can see it for miles, looks like a long way up." Perfect, like being able to see the plank you’re going to walk from the next ship over.

So, now it’s time to start running. My running partner (the overly perky, very young one) leads the way. First thing I know, she takes off into the desert. No trail markings, just a deer trail leading off into the wilderness. Perky is in the front; our friend is in the back. Now I get an inkling what she is up to. He is back there to keep me from turning back…sort of like Cortez burning his ships. We soon reach the part of the trail that begins to climb. Lovely, I’m sure that mountain goats use this as a training ground. Then we get to a rocky part of the trail. Perky hits it like a squirrel going up a tree after a walnut; me, all I can think about is that I hope my knees don’t give out. I have visions of tearing sounds followed by a long, long drop.

Eventually, a very steep climb along slick granite rocks becomes merely an interminable climb along slick granite rocks. Suddenly, our leader shouts back "It’s too quite back there, one of you is walking." From behind I hear a muted "shit". And on we go, along a narrow path that would give a Tibetan sherpa the willies. Did I mention my fear of heights? It is only surpassed by my fear of sudden landings. I notice that the trail is "missing" one side. Of course, our ever pleasant leader chooses that time to say "you can see the road down there". I know better than to look. If I do, I become a permanent trail marker. "look dad, that rock looks just like a terrified runner; clinging to the rocks".

I won’t bore you with too many other details. At one point I observed that "If we throw her off the trail from here, she’ll probably bounce off the road below" She sped up. Lack of trust. I will point out that about 6 miles into our Baton Death run, she slowed down to point out a mileage marker. "we’ve been this far coming up from the other end. It’s only about another mile" I turn back to he other poor dumb bastard behind me "you did note that it said 2.7 miles to go, didn’t you ?". He shouts up ahead "you did say that you’ve run this trail before?". Silence. Never ask a question to which you can’t stand the answer.

Needless to say, we survived. Barely. And I’m a richer man for it. Nothing like several near death experiences to make you appreciate level ground. But part of me has come to the nagging realization "this is what the ascent will be like". What to do? How do I prepare so that I don’t die on the mountain?

It's On: The Age vs. Beauty Grudge Match

2011-12-24T14:33:00.000-08:00

I tend to do my insane endurance training and races every other year. I'll do one crazy year of training and racing, followed by a year off lollygagging and posie sniffing with the occasional bike ride or run mixed in. Look at how the past couple of years have gone: 2008 = Ironman Arizona, 2009 = off, 2010 = 5 XTERRAs and the XTERRA World Championships, 2011 = off. So now that 2011 is drawing to a close, I find my brain has recovered from the burnout stage and is once again finding races and events to sign up for. I figured I'd return back to endurance mountain biking, but I've found the pendulum has swung the other direction and I've turned to endurance running. Somewhere in the October timeframe I started running regularly again. I also started traveling a lot for work, and running is the easiest sport to fit in, as well as an outlet for stress.

I also picked up another running partner. For quite awhile, I was running with The Boulder on a regular basis, but he had another woman enter his life of the short, bald, toothless variety (ok, he had a baby). But we still meet up about once a week at The Canyon (Sabino Canyon) for a torture fest. He also roped me in to doing the Tough Mudder race on January 14th. This may have been payback for previous races I roped him into...I'm not sure the tally at this point. So to be truly crazy, I decided to sign up for the PF Chang's 1/2 marathon for Sunday, January 15th, thinking it would be cool to run Chang's wearing my Tough Mudder shirt. The Boulder has hedged on Chang's, but he could pull a last-minute sign up at the expo race weekend on me. My running partners are always suspect for such actions.

My new running partner shall be referred to as The Dark Warrior (DW), for several reasons. First, he's a martial arts expert which means this has opened up a whole new world of night running in sketchy cities while on business travel. Some women run with a big dog, a can of mace, or a gun. I have a trained killer. Second, it matches his sense of humor, which is why we get along quite well. Third, it's actually the meaning of his name. So there you go.

The DW and I have actually worked together for a few years, but only recently started running together. He has a cabin in Colorado and about a year ago mentioned the Pike's Peak Ascent. I checked the website and it looked like a truly insane race, but wasn't on my radar as I was still in the midst of my XTERRA madness. However, this year we had several business trips together, and started running together while on travel. After our first trip he came by my office and mentioned Pike's Peak again. Well, he will learn that he caught me at a bad time of year, when I'm over my recovery and looking for truly insane and challenging races. So this time I said sure, I'd run it with him. Never mind that I've never seen Pike's Peak in person, or experienced that type of elevation in my life. Nope, when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. "I'm going to finish the Ironman." Did it. "I'm going to build a car." Doing it. I'm going to run Pike's Peak with The DW.

He then coined this as the "Age vs. Beauty Grudge Match." Being in his mid-50's he claims to be "an old man." Having experienced many triathlon courses where men of that age group and beyond have passed me on the course (I know because their age is sharpied onto the back of their calf), I know not to trust such claims. Besides, he's a martial arts expert. How many mid-50 year olds beat the shit out of teenagers on a weekly basis? This one does. For fun. So I'm going along with the grudge match. Neither of us is the type to back down once the gauntlet has been thrown. And, of course, we both immediately began our secret training runs during the week. My strategy was to run hills of every kind. His was to hit the treadmill. I'd rather poke my eyes out than run the treadmill. So we'll see how this turns out. My other friends have immediately taken advantage of the situation. Liane asked what I was training for, and I mentioned Tough Mudder, PF Chang's and The Ascent. "Oh so you're doing a lot of running then," she exclaimed (I'm suspicious at this point). When I answered yes, she said "So you'd be up for running the Grand Canyon rim to rim with me this year in May." Normally I'd think this was insane, but since I was roped into Pike's Peak and threw my brain out the window I now thought of Liane's idea as a great training run, and agreed. Liane, was of course, happy with the agreement and happy I had lost my brain.

The DW is also a writer, and I finally got up the courage to ask if I could share his writing on my blog as the counterpoint to my writing about training. He agreed, so I will share with you the first few entries of his to get caught up (his writing will be in blue).

Fools Run In (with apologies to Mercer/Bloom)
And so it begins. I'm not sure who the muse of over aged runners is probably some nymph with a name like Velocepidia or some such. But here I am, committed to attempting the Ascent on Pike's Peak. How does an over fifty near retiree end up on such a quest ?

Good question, if I figure out the answer, I'll tell my therapist. It started innocently, like the Trojan War, or the Black Death; I was discussing running with my new Program Manager: a nice young thing who likes to run.....a lot. We got around to the stupid things that long distance runners do; like run accross the desert on utility trails without water at noon on the 4th of July, or running through a national forest without a map, or phone, or gun. One day I mentioned the Pike's Peak Ascent. Who knew that she'd google it, or be lying in wait. I walked to her desk one day after a moderate run and said "we should run the Pike's Peak Ascent", she said "Ok, let's do it this summer". Crap. And so we start. She informed me that there is a qualification ; a half marathon. Double crap. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant..an Idiot's truthful one hundered per cent.

So, here it goes; I'm writing this because this is one that should be documented, for surviving generations of middle aged men as a guide to what not to do. I'll try to keep this up every weekend until the event. Maybe someone will finish it for me posthumously.

Saturday Oct 22, 2011 - After diligently hitting the treadmill for two weeks, I attempted to break 8:30 miles over a 4 mile run. Did it : 8:22s. Never want to run that fast on a treadmill again. F'ing thing is too short. You're either against the panic bar or back to where you are about to step off into oblivion. The only thing you can do is stare at the digits. It's like Chinese water torture. However, I have faced a mental hurdle and know that it is at least theoretically possible to qualify; and heck, that young thing in the running tights that I accidentally coughed phlegm on was way too young for me, anyway.

From here on out, it is run and always press the time. The tendency for someone my age is to jog (don't want to outrun your walker). I'll always have to overstride in order to make the time.

Next weekend, it's the desert by Hoover Dam.

At this point I was running a few times during the week, at 5 miles each, then Sabino Canyon with The Boulder on the weekends. At the office, The DW and I started throwing back and forth how we were planning on cheating on our training to beat the other.

Me: "I have Mt. Lemmon in my back yard."
Him: "I have a cabin at elevation in Colorado."
Me: "You don't swim. I can swim to strengthen my lungs."
Him: "I go to Colorado every summer. I can train on the course."

Dammit.

Anyways, the subject of cheating came up in his next journal entry.

She Cheats
Of course she cheats; she's young, agile, and runs like the wind. She has all of the high tech gear, heart rate monitor, GPS, elapsed time, Hell for all I know the computer tells her when to step sideways to compensate for Coriolis effect. Myself, on the other hand, I'm old fashioned. I tell my time splits by the number of fingers of shadow on the lee side of parking cones as I pass them. I time my pulse by blinking with each red flash after a run and counting them off on a second hand.

But, no matter the age, running distance is running distance. You make deals with yourself (I'll turn around at the next hill, honest) and then breaking those deals...you cheat.

Eventually, you get to the end, and you promise yourself "That's good enough to qualify". The next week, your out there again saying "I can cut ten seconds off last week..I slowed to look at my watch, I won't do that this time". And so, you lie again.

This weekend was an opportunity to run an out and back that I always liked. I was in Las Vegas, staying at the Hacienda for one night before going out for yet another age innapropriate activity the next day. Behind the Hacienda there is a trail that leads down to a bicycle trail that runs along the deserted track of the gravel train used to build Hoover Dam. The trail takes off across the waste on a nicely paved bike trail; not one intended for runners. In the summer, it gets to 117 on a cool day. But today, it will only be a balmy 88.

No need to carry water and be slowed by it. I carry a cell phone so that the Coroner can find me by the GPS.

I'm up at 5:30, but I must wait until dawn before I can set out. The initial path leads down a sheep trail and has a steep drop and no lights. One would not want to step in the still steaming evidence of sheep only to fall a hundred feet to one's death. It would be useemly to be laughed out of Hell.

I start running and converge with the bike path. Soon I come across the first mileage marker. I'm struck by how much it looks like a small tombstone. It's a desert and most of these people are Mormons...it must make for a dry sense of humor. I use the mileage marker and the clock on my cell phone to clock the pace. Shit ! I'm only doing 12 minute miles. I try to pick up the speed. I run through a cut in the mountain, only to see more mountains and valleys. I think to myself "One of these valleys is wear the other dinosaurs went to die." But not for me, not today. Pretty soon I see a sign that says "steep grades". Only then do I realize that I have been running up a grade. Optical illusions in the desert are great practical jokes.

Soon, I realize that I am being followed by a large crow. I figure I can expect buzzards or vultures, but a crow ? It's a Labor state, maybe they have a trade agreement. The crow follows me out to the near summit of the path, maybe 4 miles out. I look back at the casino across the desert. It looks like the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz; only much, much smaller. I turn back and the crow turns with me...I'm maybe half way back and I'm passed by a cyclist. He has water...it flashes through my mind that I can mug him and take his water. At the speed he's going, if I stick a foot out, they'll find him a half mile from the path....with no water.

Eventually, I make it back to the path to the casino. There are people running it. Old people, maybe 45. I run past them, one must keep appearances. In the end, I make it in almost exactly 88 min. Eleven minute miles. It will do.

Weeks of travel for work return and we are up at 5:30 AM and meet in the hotel lobby each morning to run. One doesn't want to be the one that slept in while the other was out running. Even when my body was wrecked and rebelling from travel, I still met The DW in the hotel lobby. Co-workers on the trips figured we were insane when we mentioned we had run 6 miles starting at 5:30 AM. Nope, just not willing to back down on a grudge match. The women would then ask how I could run in the dark and not be afraid of getting mugged. I replied that I brought my trained killer with me.

Thanksgiving rolled around and The Boulder was out of town, so I invited The DW on my weekend Sabino Canyon run. I was surprised when he agreed to show up, given he lives in Nevada. Ok, he lives on the west side of town. But it may as well be Nevada. My plan for this run was the standard out & back on the road, but to add the half mile of switchback trail at the end. The DW claimed he hadn't been to Sabino Canyon in 30 years, so I narrated the trip as we ran. As we crossed the bridges I think he was getting tired of the hills because he mentioned pushing me over the edge. "I can swim" I replied. "Not with a broken ankle because I stepped on your toe as I pushed you over the edge" he replied. Hmm...perhaps he wasn't enjoying the hills.

She almost killed me
First rule of training if you've challenged someone to run an insane race (like the Pike's Peak Challenge) : never train on your competitor's turf. It's sort of like challenging a gunfighter to a fight and letting him have his choice of weapons, letting him have the sun to his back, and finally, letting him count to three.

In this case change the pronoun to feminine. I'd change it to sneaky if there were such a thing.

The course was on the other side of town. Almost in another time zone. Beware of someone who says "the parking lot fills up early, so let's get there just before sunrise". Like a lot of men, my body has to retrace all of the steps of evolution as it wakes up. This means that, as the alarm rings, I'm a one celled organism. I don't hit primate until after coffee. However, if you're going to run over seven miles, don't drink coffee beforehand. Not unless you plan to have your partner run around the restrooms while you go...multiple times.

When I got there, there was a damn running club getting ready to take off into the pre-dawn twilight. All of them cheery, the bastards. I can only hope they were hit by a tour bus.

It was cold, very very cold. Al Gore can take his global warming and shove it, someplace warm. As we started to run, I noticed that I was running on non-responsive lumps of frozen flesh that used to be feet. It's really nice to try and be graceful when the only feedback you have on your stride is "thunk", "thunk", "thunk".

Of course my partner has the grace of a gazelle, even when frozen. I hate her. We soon crossed a patch where there was a sign stating that Mountain Lions were occasionally present. I was hoping for one, preferably one on a low fat diet; I'd be safe.

After running 2 miles that were suspiciously mostly uphill, I get the statement, this is the last rest before we go uphill. Then I noticed her thighs. Power to weight ratio. I was about to be a dead man. Now I was simultaneously sweating and freezing; great, my body was schizophrenic. I'm halfway up a long, long hill and ,of course , she's way ahead of me. I notice this peculiar sound; much like a tea kettle. I realize that it is me wheezing. As I am dying, it occurs to me that Pike's Peak will be worse, much much worse. I'm a dead man.

I get to the end of the road and she is patiently running loops, waiting. "Shall we add more ?" And we do. Up stairs, up a dirt trail, along wet slick rocks.

I'll cut this short. I almost died. My life didn't just flash before my eyes; it played the full length, uncut version. Needless to say, somehow I survived to make it back to my computer. And I didn't drown her at the first bridge (not that I could've caught her). I must now train hills. Next Time.

Oh yes; I had the time of my life.

Early December we had a business trip to Kauai, and on one of the days had enough time for a trail run (or so I thought). I had always wanted to do the 2 mile section of the Kalalau Trail to the 2 mile offshoot Hanakapi'ai Trail to the falls. Zac and I had hiked the 2 miles of the Kalalau Trail to the beach and back a few years ago, but didn't have time to do the falls. This time I was a much more experienced trail runner.

The reviews of the trail on Yelp were interesting. "The image of the falls was so beautiful I cried," (Really?), "I should have worn sandals rather than my trail running shoes," (Um, ok), and my favorite, "Don't do this trail if it is wet! We had to spend the night out in the jungle with no food or water!" (Idiots. If I'm 8 miles from my car I'm hiking out no matter what, even if I have to crawl).

I had packed my Camelbak and filled it with water, along with my snacks. The DW carried nothing. "Too hard to run with water" he usually exclaims. We found a parking space at the popular trailhead and headed in. Forget that it was mid-afternoon when The DW and I started the run. We were going to get to the falls. Also forget that it was the rainy season on Kauai. The trail that was once dry was now covered with slick mud. Trail builders had tombstoned the trail with rock in the steep sections, which just turned slippery when rained on. A few sections of the trail at the beginning were dry, so we decided to run those. As we passed by people there were several comments, mostly reserved for The DW. People would just say "hi" to me, but have some sort of sympathetic comment for The DW, like I had forced him to be out there.

Certain parts of the trail were covered in wet rock, so we resorted to using our hands and feet to get over those sections. This resulted in us becoming quite muddy. At the first river crossing people were taking off their shoes to cross. I plunged in to use it as a chance to wash some of the mud off. Besides, my trail running shoes had been wet before. Gotta love the people afraid to get their feet wet.

The jungle became darker as we headed inland through bamboo and trees and endless stream crossings. Most of the time there were little orange flags tied to trees to find where to cross. The trail was highly technical, requiring climbing over boulders and hanging onto trees to get up hillsides. At least it was a trail. Once you've been through the jungle of Saipan on an XTERRA with no "trail" to follow your standards of what is a trail become lowered. In fact, I told The DW that I usually pay for such experiences. Add an ocean swim, a mountain bike ride on the first part of the trail, and this part of the trail as the run and you totally have an XTERRA quality course.

The number of people on the trail increased as we got closer to the falls. It required crossing the river several more times. At one point we caught up to an older guy who started to follow us. "I hope it's not that much further" he said. Turns out it was another half mile. We finally made our way to the bottom of the falls. When we got there it was kind of like "Yep, that's a waterfall." It was ok. Not really what we'd describe as "magnificent," and we didn't cry. Most people had planned to swim in the pool below, but with the clouds overhead and the water cooling on the 200 ft descent, the water was too cold for many. We took a brief rest on the boulders below and I offered The DW some of my water, which he finally agreed to take, only after I showed him how to work a Camelbak bite valve. A college kid full of way too much testosterone had climbed half way up the cliff next to the falls, and we were waiting to see if he was going to jump or fall. Nothing happened as he just sat there, so we decided to turn around.

We passed by the older guy sitting on the rocks eating an apple. "You made it" I said. "Yeah, but the trip back out is gonna be tough" he said. He wasn't in very good shape, and I could tell he was going to be going slower on the trip out than the trip in. The DW and I re-traced our steps along the trail and crossed the river endless times. We were racing the sun back.

We hit the beach with 2 miles left to go. I stopped to wash the caked mud off my legs in the river crossing, while a couple asked The DW if the trip to the falls was worth it. This couple would then turn into the most annoying couple on the trail. They wouldn't let us pass, and kept varying their speed. Finally, with a mile left we decided to start running and smoke them, despite the slippery rocks. We got back to the rental car just as the sun was going down. The DW consumed all drinkable liquids in the car and the drinking fountain at the restrooms. We then began our search for food. It took forever to cross the quiant little bridges when all we wanted was food. I started getting quiet, slipping into my "lack of food coma." I literally closed my eyes for part of the trip. At one point I opened them and spotted a Brickoven Pizza. "Turn here!" I yelled. "Park here!" "I've got to call my wife..." The DW said, but I was already out of the car before it reached a stop. I ran inside, grabbed seating for two, and made the path of least resistance to sustenance. I told the waitress 2 iced teas and 2 buffets as I grabbed a buffet plate. The DW walked in to the restaurant. "We're sitting over there and you're eating the buffet and drinking iced tea" I said. Thankfully he was fine with that and understood my mood when exhausted and lacking in calories. We downed caffeine, carbs, and salt, and once we were a bit more cheery as the food hit our systems we joked that the old guy with the apple was still out there on the trail, probably having to spend the night. I should check Yelp to see if he wrote a review.

The runners diary - from Hell (looks Like Eden - it isn't)
Ok. By now you probably have the idea that I am in over my head. This would be an understatement; like saying that the saber tooth tiger sinking into the tar pit was in over his head.

Never, ever go on a run with a trail runner if she describes the run as "technical". "Technical" is a polite euphemism for "Jesus Christ! I'm gonna die!". Technical describes climbing out of Lucifer's pit, on hands and knees, across burning coals. Ok, you've been warned.

We were in Kauai on business. She brings up the fact that there is this four mile trail into a very beautiful waterfall. It starts where the road around the island ends. the end of the world ! Are you reading what I'm writing ? Why does the road end there ? Because it's too difficult to go any further. Also, beware of any conversation where an experienced trail runner nonchalantly says "It's humid, I'm going to bring water". This should cause every alarm bell you possess to go off; expect mummified bodies along the trail. But alas, I am foolish and eagerly agree (like a lamb to the slaughter).

We park the car at the end of the world (oops meant to say road); ready to begin our "technical" run. She has on a backback filled with water (***warning***); I naively have a bottle of vitamin water that I leave in the car because "I'll probably be thirsty when we finish". Much later, it will be the thought of this bottle that will sustain my only hopes of survival.

We start up the path, ready to run the 4 miles to the waterfall, observe it's beauty, and run back.

Soon, all too soon, the grade steepens, and slickens. Imagine the dietrus from hundreds of years of decaying vegetation suddenly getting wet; and adhering to the rocks; like slime.

My running partner points out "these are tombstone rocks covered with mud, it's probably better when they're dry". No shit ? We're talking about black slime with the consistency of 10-40W motor oil. Step wrong and you'll be kissing the rocks. A 15% grade. Slick. 3.95 miles to go. I'm going to die.

We pass a woman headed down with her arm in a sling. A fresh sling. My partner is still cheery. "I'd hate to be her headed down those rocks wit my arm in a sling". Where up ahead does she think that said arm encountered said sling ?

We find dry road and begin to run. People are shouting their encouragement and pity? to me. Looks like she has you on a mission (?). Good luck !

We reach a river crossing. Swift water. She steps into a rather deep part to get around a couple in front of us. I follow; up to mid thigh. "you do realize that I can't swim ?" Answer "Oh I forgot. I hate being behind slow people". Apparently, she hates being in front of people who are still breathing.

As we proceed, there is more mud (lots more); and river crossings (6, but whose counting).

My favorite recollection is being on a 45 degree rock face and losing my footing. When in doubt, sit down. I catch myself with my feet dangling over a precipice; sitting in the mud. I get up to run and catch up (by now she's a hundred yards in front of me). I pass a family ("daddy, that man is all covered in mud"). I catch up to my partner. "Did you fall ?".

We break into the clearing with the falls. It's anticlimactic. Sure, it's beautiful, but the real thrill is getting there, alive, while following one of the best trail runners that you know.

I won't burden you with the tail of how we made it out. Suffice it to say that we did. I will admit to whining : "Can I have some water ?" And the all too gracious reply "sure. I told you so." During the last 2 miles, the only thing that kept me alive was borrowed water and the thought of the vitamin water that I had left in the car.

In retrospect, I made it. But, I wouldn't have tried without my partner; and I certainly wouldn't have finished without her help.

And this is how the Age vs. Beauty Grudge Match has begun. The Pike's Peak Ascent is in August, so we have 8 more months of training to go.

My summit of the Agua Caliente Hill

2011-12-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to summit the Agua Caliente Hill trail for quite some time, ever since we moved to NE Tucson about 4 years ago. For those that aren't familiar with the hill, it is the hill between the Catalina and Rincon mountains. The trailhead is exactly 2 miles from my house, and I often run the first mile or so of the trail in the middle of my usual running route. The summit is 4.5 miles from the trailhead, and I had been as far as 3.5 miles into the trail. Previous attempts to summit failed due to others in my traveling party. My brother petered out around mile 3.5, and on a later trip Zac gave up on me, claiming blisters at mile 3. So, to summit I would have to do it on my own.

Currently, the TTG December Runathon is going on. I have always wanted to summit this trail as part of the Runathon, and this year I decided to do it. Previous years I didn't plan as well. Last year I didn't run much before December and the increased mileage of December caused some pain in my heel. This year I came into the Runathon with a good base of running behind me. The weather was supposed to move in on Sunday, so I chose Saturday, December 17th as my day to run the trail.

The trail alone is 9 miles. I could drive the 2 miles to the trailhead, or leave from my front door to make it 13 miles and a half marathon. Front door it is! I loaded up my hydration pack with water and snacks, tied a windbreaker to it, stashed the cell phone and camera in the pack, ate 4 of Leslie's snickerdoodle cookies as my last meal, and wrote on the fridge whiteboard "Left for ACH at 12:20 PM" as a note to Zac. With that I walked out my front door and started my Garmin.

(All photos can be clicked on to enlarge).

Thankfully, my house is round and with a reflective copper roof it is easy to find from various points on the trail. As I trotted up Ft. Lowell at an easy pace, I took this picture of the mountain, my destination for the entire day.

I kept the first 2 miles on the road nice and easy. There were a few cars in the parking lot of the trailhead as I ran up to the gate. I looked at my Garmin: 2.1 miles at the gate. With that I started the trail. The trail starts out easy for only a few yards, then immediately begins to climb. One has to step over several water bars in the first mile because of the grade. This is my least favorite section of water bars. They are so tall that I have to really step high to get over them.

This is the view from only a quarter mile into the trail. My house is down there somewhere. The horses can't step up the steep water bar section, hence the marker for a side trail which I call "Pony Bypass", which is a short section of a single switchback.

About a mile into the run and a view of the mountains ahead I have yet to climb.

Self shot, proof that I'm out there running.

Looking out over Tucson, about 1.5 miles into the trail.

Agua Caliente hill is known as one of Tucson's best false summits. Everyone thinks that the summit is the grassy knob that appears as the highest point to the left. It's not. The true summit lies behind it, about another mile.

About 2 miles in I reached the pond, "Cat Track Tank." The pond has been bone dry the last few times I've run to this point, so it was nice to see some water. A few springs ago it was nice and full and the ducks had moved in, so hopefully with all of this rain the pond will fill again and the ducks will return. You can see the trail skirts along the right side and leads up to the saddle in the distance.

As I climbed the saddle, the sun came out. Tons of saguaros in this area.

A hawk was circling overhead, landing on the saguaros.

Once you reach the saddle, it's the first point at which you can look over onto the Catalina side. This is where FR #4445 intersects the trail.

At this point, the summit is still 1.5 miles away. Most start the climb here and think it's the grassy knob, but the summit is the section of dark trees behind it.

This is at the top of the grassy knob, and the section of trail that skirts alongside of it. Nice, easy running here.

Proof that I'm still running at this point. Snow on the Catalinas behind me.

And here's the view on the climb up the summit, looking back at the grassy knob.

I've wandered the trails on this side of the Catalinas.

Finally I reached the summit! 6.62 miles from home, 2 hours and 10 minutes, and 3000 ft total climbed to get to the top at 5300 ft.

Here's the 360 degree view from the top. The Catalinas, where you can see the road winding up.

East side of the Catalinas.

Off in the far distance to the east the Galiuro and Winchester Mountains. Rincons to the far right.

Snow on the Rincon Mountains.

Rincon Mountains and Saguaro National Park. Redington Rd is the ribbon of dirt road down below.

Saguaro National Park and back to Tucson.

At the summit there is a geodetic marker, which I had to take a picture of with my foot.

Proof that I was at the top.

Buried in a pile of rocks is a mason jar with several small notebooks and pencils inside. People that reach the top write notes to mark they were there. With all of the technology of today it's still fun to follow low-tech documentation techniques in remote areas. However, I included today's technology by texting a few people from the summit, and updating my facebook status. I figure the time stamp helps search parties reduce the radius in which to search.

I found the latest entry and wrote mine. No inspiring words. I pretty much stated the obvious.

One last final view of Tucson down below before heading back down. I could still see my house from here, a bright little triangle.

As I headed down the trail, the clouds of the impeding storm front started moving in, causing rays of sunlight to cast down on Tucson like a theatrical spotlight show.

Up on the grassy knob as I headed down, the contrast was such that it was easy to see the sections of singletrack trail through the hills that led back home.

Act 2 of the spotlight show.

This photo is significant for a few reasons. 1) I was exactly 4 miles from home and at this point ran out of water. 2) This section of trail is rocky, causing one to look down a lot. I glanced up at at this moment right in front of me I found my house. It was perfectly in view in line with the trail. Straight ahead there is a dead saguaro with a curvy arm. Below the curvy arm and just to the right of the straight saguaro is a faint triangle. That's my house! So at this point I wasn't too worried about being out of water.

Looking back at the grassy knob and trail I had traveled as the sun cascaded over the hills. I was now part of the spotlight show.

What a typical rocky climb on the trail looks like. Hence the long travel time.

About a mile from the trailhead the sun started to set. I was racing the sun home.

Lower in elevation, one last look at the sunset before I headed down to the pavement below.

In the last half mile of trail I passed several trail users coming up the trail, obviously out for shorter jaunts. It was nice knowing I had finally covered the entire trail and been to the very top. I hit pavement and enjoyed the last 2 miles home, grateful for flat pavement and easy footing. I walked in the front door at 5:30 PM, just as the sun had almost set. 13.24 miles, 4 hours and 7 minutes of running, 3000 ft of climbing, all from my front door.

I am the cruise director.

2011-03-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

I am the ultimate planner. At the beginning of the year, all vacation time is allocated down to the hour on where I'm going to go for the year. I plan down to the level of what campground we are going to stay at for which nights. Often this works well because I discover things like the campgrounds for California go on sale in January, and you have to be online in order to get a high-demand spot, such as a waterfront campground at Lake Tahoe in July. Some of my friends have discovered how I plan everything, and follow along, which is how I've become the cruise director of vacations involving races and events.

As part of corporate training, we are given the True Colors assessment. Four colors represent personality styles. They are pretty detailed, but I'll provide my summary: orange = adventurous, spur-of-the-moment funseekers; yellow = organized planners; green = thoughtful & scientific; blue = touchy feely emotional people. I remember taking this test back in middle school. Back then I was mostly green, because I loved my science classes, which is how I eventually became an engineer. I recently took the test again, and my colors had changed. Can you guess what the primary color was? Yellow? Ha! Wrong! My dominant color is orange, followed closely by yellow, then green, and my lowest score was blue (really, really low on blue). It fits pretty well because I'm the spontaneous type that thinks of crazy adventures on the spur of the moment, but then I go into the crazy planning mode to figure out how to make it work and become reality. Green would be my engineering side, and the lowest score of blue means I don't give a damn how anyone feels. Please don't cry in front of me...it's really, really awkward. ;)

Recently my cruise director skills were put to the test. When I go on travel for work to someplace interesting, I often try to find a race or event in the area to do on the weekend before or after the week of work. This is how I ended up doing the King of the Hill XTERRA in NJ last year. I was in Boston for work the week before, then drove down to NJ with my bike to do the XTERRA that just happened to be the weekend after. In the first week of April, I'll be going to Washington DC for a final training session for work and graduation from the class. There is always a ton of stuff to do in DC, so museums were obviously on my list. But then I started Googling. It turns out the first week of April is right when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, and seeing the cherry blossom festival is something I would love to do. As I read about the festival, I found out that it is really popular, and hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to the area to see the flowers on the trees. This is a bit of a bummer because I don't do crowds. Crowds are full of idiot people that frustrate me with their stupid actions, so I avoid them.

But wait! There was a glimmer of hope. I started looking at sites like RunningInTheUSA.com, and there is a Cherry Blossom 10 mile run the first weekend of April in DC. They shut down the streets for the race, and the course follows the cherry blossom trees. I could do the race, and only have to deal with a couple thousand runners instead of hundreds of thousands of idiot tourists! Now, I'm not one to really follow running races. I know the Boston Marathon is a big deal, and Badwater is a stupid hard event, but that's about it. Well, I guess this race is very popular because as soon as I checked out the race site, it said the race had sold out AFTER people were given lottery slots. Great. Lottery means crazy hard race to get into. But I kept researching, and it just so happends that for the month of February only, the race allows for bib numbers to be transferred. You have to find a racer that doesn't want their bib, send them money to reimburse them for the entry fee, they release their bib to you online, and you go in and pay a $12.50 transfer fee. So how do you find the racers with the bibs up for sale? Well, the race site has a message board with people pleading to take numbers off other racer's hands. The message board was quite the scene with people offering up chocolate chip cookies, sob stories of death and disease, or people wanting to run the race to propose to someone at the finish line. Crap. I was just looking for a fun race to do in the local area before I had to head to a week of corporate training. How was I supposed to compete with the tug-at-the-heart stories?

It was a gamble, but I kept an eye on the message board. Suddenly there was a post by a gal named Sarah, and I decided to pull the trigger and email her for her bib that she was offering for sale. As soon as I emailed her, I saw the sharks had smelled the blood in the water and there were 3 or 4 posts asking for the bib. I waited for a reply. Nothing by the end of the evening before I went to bed. I figured I was out and one of the sharks got it. But the next morning I had an email from Sarah. I had been the first to respond so the bib was mine if I wanted it. Happy happy orange! Time for yellow! I hit the credit union an hour later and had the check in the mail to her that afternoon.

The check arrived to Sarah at the end of the week, and on a Friday she released her number. The race sent me an email that said I had 72 hours to claim the bib. This is where owning a Droid makes it all worth it, because at that point in time I was in the middle of the desert at the 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo mountain bike race. I caught the email in time and filled out the entire race transfer form on my phone and successfully got in the race! Had I waited until after the race on Monday when I was sitting in front of my computer, I would have missed the window. Thank you Droid!

I'm now entered into the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile run. The next steps involved setting up all flights, transportation, and hotels for the 2 weeks of travel. I have the entire itinerary in a Word document down to the metro stops that I need to take to get around. I'm not going to share that on the blog because it would reveal how truly crazy I am about the planning, and I don't think we know each other well enough for that. ;) And of course I still have all the museums planned that I want to see. For the race I have no set time goal for the run. Rather, I'm just there to do a really fun event and see the cherry trees. I'm planning on taking my camera to take pics while in the race. I have to maintain at least a 14 minute mile to reach the time cutoff, and I think I can handle that no problem even with carrying my small camera and taking pics. :) So stay tuned for the race report and cherry tree pics. The race is April 3rd!

Final Runathon and Experimental Results

2011-01-11T18:50:00.000-08:00

This is how Week 5 of the Runathon ended:

Sun, 12/26 - Up the Ft. Lowell trail and back. 2.54 miles.
Mon, 12/27 - Ran the AZ Trail from the Pistol Hill trailhead to the picnic area and back with Ryan The Boulder. 6.25 miles.
Tues, 12/28; Wed, 12/29; Thurs, 12/30 - All of these were on the Ft. Lowell Trail. 2.56, 2.59, 2.60 miles.
Fri, 12/31 - I noticed that I was 4.22 miles from reaching 110 miles for the month, so I decided to run that amount to finish out the year.

Total Week 5 miles = 20.76 miles
Total Runathon = 110 miles

The following day I did the Egg Nog Jog 5K to see if my 5K time changed from the beginning of the runathon. My initial 5K time was 27:08, for an average of 8:45 min/mile. The morning of the Egg Nog Jog was crazy cold at 29 degrees. My hands completely froze. It got to the point that I couldn't concentrate on running anymore because my hands were in so much pain from the cold. I finished the 5K, looked down at my watch, and the time was 26:26 (8:23 min/mile average)! My PR for a 5K was 26:19, so I was only 7 seconds off. I blame the cold and my hands being in pain. So increasing my run volume definitely had an effect on my 5K time. That was with no speed work, no track workouts, and not running with people way faster than me.

Time to re-visit my goals for the Runathon:
1.Run everyday in December, a minimum of 2 miles each run. Done!

2.Do a trail run at least once a week. Done! I even ran a different trail as my trail run each week.

3.Egg Nog Jog 5K faster than 2008's. Beat last year's time of 26:19 (8:25 min/mile average). Oh so close! But I did beat my 5K time from before the runathon this year, so I think that's good.

4.Run to the summit of Agua Caliente Hill and back. I had to skip this one because of the pain in my heel and arch. But I'll be getting there someday!

So that's the end of the December Runathon. I'm glad because now I'm ready to get back on my bike. :)

Runathon Week 4

2010-12-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

This week I started having pain in my left heel. This is never a good sign, and I really don't want to come down with plantar fasciitis. So on the days my heel really hurt I rolled it and iced it, and then reduced the run volume this week. I also ran mostly dirt trails. Normally I would take time off from running, but I figured I would slowly step down the volume and see if I could hang on to the Runathon.

Sun, 12/19 - Did a square route run with Zac. Ft. Lowell, Fennimore, TV, Soldier Trail. 3.27 miles.

Mon, 12/20 - Very slow run, because I was super tired. Basically tried to run as slow as possible to fake a rest day. 2.50 miles.

Tues, 12/21 - Tried some new trails right by the Clements rec center with Ryan The Boulder. All sorts of cool XC trails out there, and even a nature trail with a gravel path. We kept flushing out the coyotes. 3.66 miles.

Wed, 12/22 - Phoneline trail run in Sabino Canyon with Ryan The Boulder. 5.21 miles.

Thurs, 12/23 - Super easy run around the paved loop at Clements with Ryan The Boulder. 2.80 miles.

Fri, 12/24 - Tried a new trail that goes right behind Leslie's house, but it petered out. 2.59 miles.

Sat, 12/25 - Easy run up the Ft. Lowell trail on Xmas morning. 2.52 miles.

Total Week 4 miles = 22.55 miles
Total Runathon to date = 89.25 miles

Runathon Week 3

2010-12-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

So I felt bad about doing just barely above the minimum required 2 miles per day for most of Week 2. So this week the pendulum swung the other way and I went a bit overboard. Part of it was trying to find new routes to run to keep it interesting and mix it up a bit.

Sun, 12/12 - Somehow I convinced Zac to go with me and do our normal running route of running up Ft. Lowell to the traihead, then the spare parking lot, and back home. We did have a terrific sunset, which caused us to break into song. If anyone in the neighborhood was wondering who was singing Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," it was us. 4.60 miles.

Mon, 12/13 - Easy, bare minimum run. This one was to Leslie's house and back at 5:30 in the morning. I've run past her house a lot this month. Thankfully she has bright lights out front. Her neighbors seem to like to be stealthy and dark. Only a few Christmas lights on the street to keep me entertained. 2.55 miles.

Tues, 12/14 - I met up with Ryan The Boulder and we did our usual morning run route of running along the Irvington utility trail to the Fantasy Island fenceline trail and back. Both of us were spotting our brand new headlamps. Do not look directly into the beam! We also discovered a new V-gate to the north entrance to Fantasy Island. Unfortunatley it is constructed out of barbed wire and not smooth wire, so we had to be extra careful going through the gate. 5.10 miles.

Wed, 12/15 - This was my crazy "Let's mix it up" run. Ryan The Boulder and I met up at 5:30 AM and ran the first part of the Saguaro East paved loop to the north Cactus Forest Trailhead. We then ran the Cactus Forest Trail through the middle of the paved loop, and then the extra 1.5 miles that takes you back to Old Spanish Trail. It was cold and dark, and I had a spectacular trip, which I saved before hitting the ground or plowing into cactus. We also saw some sort of bushy tailed animal by the trail, and our guess was that it was a stray dog. Anyways, this was my trail run for the week. 8.02 miles!

Thurs, 12/16 - After two longer runs in a row, I was determined to keep today's run low-mileage. Ryan The Boulder and I just did 40 min up the Irvington utility trail, then back. 3.26 miles.

Fri, 12/17 - Waited for the sun to come up, then Zac and I ran up Soldier trail and around Agua Caliente Park before heading back home. Knees and legs were still tired. 3.98 miles.

Sat, 12/18 - Easy solo run up the Ft. Lowell trail to Melpomene and back. I saw an odd sight on my run. A guy was "walking" 4 dogs. Except he was riding a quad and had attached a bar to the front with 4 eyelets where the leashes attached. So as he drove the quad the dogs ran in front with their leashes attached to the bar. I have no idea how they executed turns. 2.52 miles.

Total Week 3 miles = 30.03 miles
Total Runathon miles to date = 66.7 miles

Week 3 means we are over the half way point in the runathon. But I have to give 5 updates in December, and when you're running everyday it makes the month seem really long. Looking at my mileage, if I keep running at the same rate I should have no problem passing 100 running miles for the month, and may even reach 120. We shall see!

Runathon Week 2

2010-12-16T20:56:00.000-08:00

By Week 2, the gung ho-ness of "Oh boy this will be a challenge!" wears off. Now the body is saying "Why are we running AGAIN? We ran yesterday. Today should be a rest day." But today is not a rest day. Nor is tomorrow. Or the next day.

Here's Week 2:
Sun, 12/5 - Neighborhood run the day after Dawn 2 Dusk. So far the most painful run of the runathon. 3.44 miles.
Mon, 12/6 - Morning run where I did the absolute minimum. 2.5 miles.
Tues, 12/7 - Another "just get it done run." 2.54 miles.
Wed, 12/8 - Evening run. Normally I run in the mornings, and it's because I get it done and have less of a chance to procrastinate. Not much over the minimum with this one. 3.14 miles.
Thurs, 12/9 - Back to the morning. 3.93 miles.
Fri, 12/10 - Didn't want to go crazy the day before the mud run. 2.51 miles.
Sat, 12/11 - Cat Mountain Mud Run 5K with Zac and Ryan The Boulder. This was out at Starr Pass, and all on trails. So it was my trail run for the week! 3.10 miles.

Total Week 2 miles = 21.16 miles

There were a lot of runs just over the minimum required 2 miles. But even with low miles each day, I still came out of the week with over 20 miles. I think I may break 100 miles this month.

Runathon Week 1

2010-12-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

For those of us doing the Runathon, we are doing our weekly reports on Saturdays, since December ends on a Friday. I need to get my Week 1 report posted before it's Week 2!

Here's how the runs went:

Wed, 12/1 - Easy neighborhood run. 2.90 miles.
Thurs, 12/2 - Ran up Old Spanish Trail from the church to Freeman and back with The Boulder. 5.35 miles.
Fri, 12/3 - Ran the Pemberton Trail in the Fountain Hills area with Zac. Trail run for the week! 4.75 miles.
Sat, 12/4 - Got up early and ran before the Dawn to Dusk mountain bike race. I learned from last year to get this run done BEFORE the race, as I wouldn't feel like it after. 2.51 miles.

Total Week 1 miles = 15.51 miles

So far so good!

My December Runathon Experiment

2010-11-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

Each year the Tucson Tri Girls hold the December Runathon. For each day in December, participants are to run a minimum of 2 miles. Now 2 miles sounds like nothing, but when you're doing it everday in addition to your other runs and bike rides, it can become difficult to schedule sometimes. I did this challenge back in 2008 and successfully completed it. Since I have no training plan that I'm married to this year, I decided to do the December Runathon again this year.

Last time I set some goals, so I think I'll do that again for this year.

2010 December Runathon Goals:

Run everyday in December, a minimum of 2 miles each run. The most important goal!
Do a trail run at least once a week. Gotta mix it up and hit the trails in addition to the roads.
Egg Nog Jog 5K faster than 2008's. Beat last year's time of 26:19 (8:25 min/mile average).
Run to the summit of Agua Caliente Hill and back. The trailhead to this hill is 2 miles from my house. I can see the summit right now out my office window as I type this. But I've never reached the summit. This year I'm going to do it as a long run and get to the top where the summit marker is (9.25 miles round trip).

Back when I did the 2008 December Runathon, I did the Egg Nog Jog 5K on 1/1/2009 and ran my fastest 5K ever. I figured it was because of the Runathon. Or was it? The only way to find out is to do an experiment. This year I plan to do a 5K time trial before and after the December Runathon to see what happens. For my pre-Runathon time trial, I chose the Gladden Farms 10K race, which I did this morning. Both this race and the Egg Nog Jog are in the Marana area, and are similar in terms of hills. Shari and I ran the 10K this morning, and I pushed it on the first 5K to get my TT time, then cruised for the second 5K to wrap up the race.

Pre-Runathon 5K time = 27:08 (8:45 min/mile average)

So now it is saved in the blog. We'll see what happens in a month! I'll try to keep updating my blog on a regular basis with how the Runathon (and other workouts) are going.

El Snack Tour de Tucson

2010-11-21T20:06:00.000-08:00

I had kind of been waffling about doing El Tour de Tucson. I've ridden it in the past for bike patrol, which is a whole other type of riding. Lots of stopping, lots of working on bikes, and overall being out on the course until the sun goes down. As bike patrol, I would always ride my commuter cyclocross bike with the trunk on the back, so that I could carry all the tools and supplies needed. And in the past I never really considered riding the tour as a rider since my bike choices were either my cyclocross bike (which is heavier in commuter trim) or one of my mountain bikes. The tri bike was out due to the aero bars. But this year I finally pulled the trigger and got a real bonafide road bike, so the thought of the tour entered my head about 2 weeks before the race.

Now I am not trained for the tour, but wanted to start getting back into doing longer rides. The 66 mile distance was perfect. Long enough for a challenge and to get a good ride in, but not too long to turn me into roadkill. I posted that I was thinking about doing the 66 mile event on Facebook, and Liane chimed in and asked what speed I was planning to ride. Speed? I was planning on an easy ride at a pace that would ensure I would be able to walk the next day. But because I signed up a week before the race, I paid a lot more in entry fees. So to make up for it, I planned to partake of as many snacks on the course as possible. In triathlon you get used to having to carry everything with you for surviving an entire day of racing. You can't leave the course if you forget your snacks, or have someone hand you snacks over the fence. But in El Tour, there are a ton of snacks provided. And if there wasn't something that I wanted there would be Circle K's along the way. Thus El Snack Tour de Tucson was born.

Liane met me at my house and we rode the 7.4 miles to Udall park for the start. We met up with Tri Girl Rose and hung out until the ride began. Then we were off on our snack tour. Liane and I chatted the entire way, because you can't be on a snack tour and not be chatty and social. Our first stop was the Sabino Creek crossing. It took some time to cross the creek, but I didn't mind as our first snack stop was right after the wash. I snagged 2 cookies while Liane opted for a banana. I only went with 2 cookies, because you have to pace your snacking in the El Snack Tour. Go out too fast on the snacking, and you won't have any room for future snacks. If they are good snacks you will be mad you screwed up your snack pacing.

The next aid station we skipped, because the sign out front said "Water and Bathrooms." We didn't need either of those. So we continued on up Sunrise, then over to Oracle. By this point I did need water, so we pulled into the aid station at Catalina State Park. I refilled my water bottles, and took a look at the snacks. Hmmm...only fruit. A very poor showing of snacks. I took a few bites of watermelon, then we were off. The wind was now very noticeable as we rolled through the Rancho Vistoso area, and Liane mentioned pretzels would be good right about now. I agreed, as we were reaching the point in the ride where carbs and salt would taste good. We pulled into the next aid station and they had kids out front with trays that had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh my gosh were those good! Liane and I both took 2 small sandwiches. It was time to go back out into the wind, but I was much happier after my PB&J.

I told Liane that I remembered a few years back there was an aid station around that area that had Girl Scout cookies, and if they were there this year we HAD to stop. I was not passing up Girl Scout cookies. Our conversation then turned to our favorite Girl Scout cookie flavors and how evil they are and how easy it is to eat an entire box. We almost missed the next station but at the last minute spotted the Girl Scout flag. We quickly pulled into the pit stop and I grabbed a peanut butter chocolate cookie and a caramel shortbread. No samoas or thin mints. Darn it! But PB would have to do. This wasn't too far after our PB&J stop, so I only took 2 cookies.

Back out on the road and the wind. We skipped the next aid, because we could see from the road they only had fruit. We were getting good at spying the snacks from the road and just doing a drive-by without having to stop. If it was just fruit, we kept going. On Tangerine we drafted behind a big guy, and for those few minutes we looked like we were actually in a bike race. That is, until the next aid station appeared. This aid station was off the road just before the train tracks and where we would have to cross under I-10. The aid station was packed with people, and I could only see one little tent. It wasn't looking good. We went into drive-by mode and almost didn't stop until at the last minute we saw the most awesome sight ever: the Eegee's truck. We both yelled "Eegee's!" and pulled in and dropped our bikes. They had lemon, strawberry, and pina colada eegee's in plastic cups, already served up so you just grabbed your cup and go. We stood around and ate our eegee's, which tasted wonderful. No wonder so many people were stopped there!

After the eegee's break it was back onto the roads, and the crappy road section out by Picture Rocks. It's like Euclid road only longer. We knew there was a hill to climb, but there would be an aid station after the downhill. At this point we REALLY wanted pretzels. Pretzels would have complimented my eegee's quite well. We jammed up the hill, coasted down the other side, and pulled in to another aid sation that only offered fruit. Grrr! No pretzels. I ate some of the contingency snacks that I had brought along and took a slice of watermelon.

The lack of pretzels was affecting our mental state as we cranked along the Frontage road. Dust was blowing across the road and we were getting sandblasted. We were leap frogging with Tri Girl Marlene, who was doing the 109 mile distance. Liane and I dropped back again to do a drive-by of the next aid, which just had fruit. Again with the fruit! Things were looking bad. We were also tired of sitting on our bikes. Thankfully the last aid station saved us. We pulled into a parking lot, dropped our bikes, and were greeted with chocolate brownies, chocolate chip pumpkin bread, and pretzels! I was on snack sensory overload. I grabbed a brownie and started chowing that down while grabbing a slice of pumpkin bread and shoving pretzels in my jersey pocket. It was absoloutely wonderful. We seriously considered staying there for awhile and calling Liane's husband Nate to tell him that the finish line had moved and it was now located in this parking lot where the brownies were.

I was perfectly content to stay with the brownies, but Liane said we had to go and actually finish the ride so we got back on the bikes to finish the last 5.5 miles. I had packed enough pretzels in my pocket to be able to eat a pretzel each remaining mile. Liane was surviving on Tootsie rolls. The last few miles of a ride are always the longest, so the pretzels at least gave me something to enjoy. We rode to the finish downtown, crossed the timing mat, and found Nate. Liane and I then had to find the real food. I was prepared because I knew you had to buy the good stuff. The free stuff included bagels and more dreaded fruit. We got our medals then made our way to the food court where we scarfed down pizza and sodas. Both tasted wonderful and were the perfect ending to our El Snack Tour de Tucson.

Fall Foliage Ride

2010-11-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Zac and I headed up Mt. Lemmon to do some riding in the fall leaves. We rode the 1918 trail, and took quite a few pics. We then continued on to the Sunset trail, where I had a minor mishap that tweaked my shoulder. My shoulder still hasn't healed from my fall during the run a few weeks ago. Hiking with the bike and riding down drops just aggrivated it, so I think I will be stuck riding the road bike for the next few weeks until it heals.

Who says you can't see fall color in Tucson? This is a 30 minute drive from our house.

XTERRA World Championships Race Report

2010-10-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

I feel that if you have the opportunity to race in the biggest race of your sport, you should do so. When I roadraced motorcycles, I qualified for the Race of Champions my amateur year. It meant driving from our home in Tucson, AZ to Daytona Beach, but it was an awesome time. From XTERRA Saipan in March I got a qualifying slot to the XTERRA World Championships in Maui, which weren't held until this past weekend. So that meant continuing on with training so that I could attend this huge race. This would mean I went through 1 full year of triathlon training, by far my longest stretch.

XTERRA is a very cool group of people. At the World Championships, everyone is glad you are there, and everyone is there to have fun. No one really cares what you are ranked, how you got there, or how fast you are. It is the last XTERRA tri of the season, and something to enjoy. I went into this race with a very different mindset. Let's face it, I wasn't going to win the World Championships. Neither were 548 other people there. I was in a beautiful place, and there to celebrate and enjoy the culmination of an entire season. This was, after all, my 5th XTERRA race of the year.

Race morning I got to transition early, and by early I mean 7 AM. The race didn't start until 9 AM. I love this about XTERRA. No getting up in the dark to eat breakfast to be ready to hit the water for a 7 AM start. I think this is the mountain bike influence on the race, since many were partying the night before. I set up my area, and headed to bodymarking where I was stamped with the official number stamps. I love the big races that have the number stamps, and not some kid scrawling your race number on with a sharpie. Once I had my area set up I wandered around, checking out the race. There were TV crews everywhere. They had retrofitted golf carts with camera gear, had cameras on stands on the beach, had camera divers deployed in the water, cameras on boats, cameras on the helicopter flying overhead, and cameras just about everywhere else. It was like a Universal Studios sound stage. I had to make do with my Android phone and point and shoot camera. I handed the phone over to Zac for the day, so that he could keep friends and family updated at home on facebook.

While waiting, I wandered over to the race announcer's station. There were 3 announcers covering the race, and I wanted to talk to one announcer in particular. I don't know her name, but she's the woman announcer with short, black, spiky hair. She had done the announcing for XTERRA nationals, and the western regional cup race. I went up and thanked her and told her that I wasn't a fast racer, and really appreciated that she was there at the finish line announcing all the way up to the last racer crossing the finish line. Many races break down the finish line before people have finished racing, and many are left with a sad ghost town of what used to be the finish area. But XTERRA keeps the finish line open until the last racer has finished, and this announcer stays and announces their name, even if the only people hearing the announcing are the family at the finish line and the race workers and volunteers.

At 8:30 AM the opening ceremonies started on the beach, with Reverend Alalani Hill leading the traditional Hawaiian blessing ceremony. The XTERRA racers joined together in a giant circle with arms around each other while she spoke. She is an amazing speaker, and as we stood together with our arms around complete strangers from different countries, many were moved to tears with her words. The gentleman who was standing next to me in the huddle was sniffling, so I patted his shoulder. At the conclusion, we all lined up on the beach and Rev. Hill brushed each racer with tree leaves. As I passed by I touched her arm to say thanks for her kind wishes and felt an extra bush of tree leaves across the back of my neck.

At 9 AM the starting cannon went off and everyone ran into the water. I let the majority of the mass go ahead and walked in until about knee deep and started swimming. Thankfully the seas were calm that day. All of my practice swims in the ocean were in preparation for this day. The sun was out and there were a few small clouds in the sky. As I swam I could see a few small fish and coral below us. I still ended up in the mass of people, and tried to draft where I could and moved around the crooked swimmers where I could. The week before the race I had fallen in a running race, causing roadrash on my right side and injuring my shoulder. I could tell the shoulder was still tight when I swam, but it loosened up about halfway through the first lap. I was smacked in the back of the head once, and had my hands brush a few racers, but other than that it wasn't too bad. After the first buoy we had to make a 90 degree turn, which is where most of the contact happened. At this point I was also a bit freaked out for a second at what I saw below. At first I thought it was a giant orange fish, but on a second look it turned out to be a diver zooming around underwater holding on to an orange propulsion system.

I came out of the water on my first lap and saw 16 minutes and change. Not bad for my first lap! We had a short run on the beach, then headed back in for the second lap. The second lap had much less density of people, and I thought it was cool that I was swimming up with people that were wearing speed suits. By the middle of the second lap I was done with being in the ocean and wanted to get out. The only way out was to keep swimming. I resisted pulling up and breaststroking and forced my head down in freestyle. I finally touched the beach and stood up and made my way to transition. 34 minutes for the swim, and I was happy with that.

I got to transition and spent my time getting the sand off my feet. Usually I fly through transition in 1-2 minutes, but I figured it was more important to get the sand and grass off my feet before stuffing them in my shoes. I also wanted to get my gloves on to protect the roadrash on my right palm. While in transition I could hear the announcer talking about some of the racers. The Japanese racers were gathering at one end of the transition area, waiting for each other so that they could go out on the bike course together. I thought that was really cool. I grabbed my bike and ran up the hill, and gave the volunteer a high five as I ran. Rev. Hill was right behind him with her tree leaves, and yelled "Keep it going!" so I gave her a high five as well. At the top of the hill we were allowed to mount our bikes, and the bike course began.

We only had a short section of road before getting on a dirt road, then riding over to Makena ranch. The entire bike course is on private property, and no one is allowed to ride it until race day. Without a pre-ride, myself and a couple hundred other racers would have to figure out the course as we rode. All I knew was the shape of the course from the map, which was no help, and the snippets of video I had seen on XTERRA.TV of people crashing on the downhill. The course was on the west end of the island, which was very dry and had not received much rain. The trails were covered with rocks and a layer of fluffy loam. But unlike the jungles of Saipan, I was experienced in riding over loose rocks.

The first part of the course was mostly doubletrack, and a ton of uphills. On the first few hills, people were jumping off and walking. But not me. I was bound and determined to ride as many uphills as I could. I cleaned the first few, then got into a few where I only had to walk a few steps at the top after I had spun out in the loose dirt. Then we came to the first downhill. The trail was not very well traveled, and was covered in lava rock scree. I passed a girl from Japan who was riding with a guy. Just as I was looking for a way around him, he crashed, and I had no where to go but off to the side. I had a small tip over trying to avoid him, but got back on and continued down the hill. I kept the weight over the back, stayed off the front brake, and lightly guided the front end down until I was safely at the bottom. That would be the only downhill for quite awhile.

Somewhere on the course is a hill called "Heartbreak Hill," but I honestly can't tell you which one because they all look the same and there are a billion of them. We would climb a rocky hill, then the course would level out for a short bit, and then climb another rocky hill. The only good thing was that I wasn't by myself and there were still plenty of riders around me. So I would climb, and then get off when I couldn't climb anymore. The gumption that I had on the early hills to cleam the climbs was slowly waning. I started to look to the ocean to take in the view, but I was absoloutely covered in sweat and frying in the heat. It was 95 degrees and humid, and I had never drank so much on a course in my life. My shorts and Camelbak were encrusted with salt. We had 3 aid stations on the bike course, and I made it to the first one with half a Camelbak and an empty water bottle. I threw my bottle away and got a fresh water bottle and continued on.

More climbing. My legs were now killing me and it was getting harder and harder to turn over the pedals. I talked with the riders around me. One guy was named Jerry, and he had taken the time to put on leg armor in transition for the long downhill. I was now sighing and groaning on the climbs, and was running out of gas. My Snicker bars weren't even helping at this point. I stayed in my little group of riders until at the top of a climb, where the course made a sharp turn. The downhill! Jerry stopped to put on elbow guards, and the guy in front of me was hesatant to start the downhill. I threw my bike gears out of the well-oiled Granny gear, and started the awesome downhill. The guys behind me said they were being chivalrous and letting me go first. ;)

The downhill was made up of lava rock, some of it in large sheets fixed in place, and much of it loose scree. Even though the trail pointed down, it still takes strength to ride these things fast. But I didn't care. I own the downhill. Fortunately the downhill was doubletrack, so I had plenty of lines to choose from. There is a speed you have to reach where your wheels are no longer down in the rocks, but instead start to float over the rocks. I hit that speed and then some, which is called Mach Stupid. At this speed there was no way I would be able to stop suddenly for any reason, but it didn't matter because there was a ton of visibility on the trail, we were all travelling the same direction, and no one was around me. Well, that is until I started catching and passing other riders. Some were timidly picking lines, stuck in the rocks. I came flying down with a loud "On your left!" I passed about 5 people on this long section of trail. The last one was a girl who was trying to make her way down the last few yards of trail and crashed right in front of the camera crew. If they were filming, the next scene was her sitting on the right side of the trail as I hauled down the left, cleaning the section. All of the videos of the course show people crashing all over the place on the downhill. But I had cleaned it! And I reached a maximum speed of 28.8 mph on that loose, rocky downhill.

The next section of trail was yet another uphill climb. I was so sick of climbing! The XTERRA helicopter flew overhead. "No worries folks, I'm still out here, climbing and taking my bike for a walk" I thought to myself. I started the next downhill, which was much shorter. But things got a bit weird at the bottom of the hill. On the XTERRA courses, blue arrows mark the bike course, and red arrows mark the run course. The last blue arrow I saw pointed to the right at the bottom of the hill. But when I tried to turn right there was a race crew there. One of the crew guys had just shut the gate to the Jeep road, which was the next section of the bike course. The gate was even marked with a "Mile 16" marker. What was going on?

"Which way do I go?" I asked.
"Go straight down there" the guy in the XTERRA staff shirt said.

But "straight down there" pointed me to the dirt road, which had runners on the run course coming up from the opposite direction. I was confused, but as racers we are always supposed to do what the course officials tell us.

Now, at this point in the race my brain has been baked, and I started becoming paranoid. There was one single time cutoff to worry about at this race, and it was that we had to be out of T2 by 1 PM. That was it. My head started spinning. Was there another cutoff that I wasn't aware of? How could there be? I'm one of those people that reads the Race Bible cover to cover and knows all the rules. Maybe they felt at this point in the race I had no hope of making the 1 PM cutoff? But I wasn't a straggler, and I was still out there with plenty of people! As I rode down the road, runners going in the opposite direction were looking at me strangley, because I was not on the bike course. The other riders that I had passed on the downhill had also caught up by now, so I followed them. Here we were, biking in the opposite direction on the run course. No blue arrows anywhere.

As I rode, the thoughts continued. Have I been pulled from the race? Am I even still racing? Did they divert me and everyone else off the course to hand us our DNFs and tell us to clean up our transition areas? I've been down this mental road before in 2007, when I was racing the minutes on the clock trying to get back to the transition area in 30 mph winds at Ironman Arizona, only to miss the cutoff by 6 minutes. But this time I did not care. I started to mentally come to terms and prepare if they were going to cut me from the race. I was not giving back all the clothing I purchased the day before with "2010 XTERRA World Championship Maui" emblazoned on it. I was going to keep it. And maybe this meant I wasn't going to have to run the 7 miles of the run course.

As I rode past Run Aid Station #2 with Jerry and another guy, two other bike riders came up from the opposite direction. "There are no blue arrows down there" they said. Well, duh, there hasn't been a blue arrow for awhile folks. We stopped and they rode to the aid station and asked where we should go. Other bike riders appeared and joined our group. I was in a group of about 10 people wondering where to go, so I felt a little better being in such a large group of confused people. I looked at my watch. 12:40 PM. We had exactly 20 minutes to get this figured out, get back to transition, change into our run gear, and get clocked out of T2 if we were, in fact, still in this race. One of the riders asked the volunteer at the aid station, and she radioed to the race headquarters. "This is Run Aid Station 2 and I have bike riders wondering where to go" she said. They radioed back and told us to continue up the road and turn left. Once again, always do what the race course volunteers and officials said.

We continued up the dirt road and turned left. To our right just outside of the turn an XTERRA course official guy came flying up in a golf cart. "The front of the group of bikers just came through here!" he frantically radioed back. What the heck was going on?!? We were now on the last stretch of dirt road that was the beginning of the run course. We continued, and turned onto the paved road that led back to the race site. As I made the turn there, a volunteer was quickly writing down and calling out all of our race numbers. "Great, she's writing down the DNF list" I thought. Why else would they be recording our numbers?

I followed the other riders, and we rode the final stretch on the grass golf course towards transition. The crowd of spectators was still there cheering, yelling "Great job!" but they didn't know. They didn't know that I was probably heading towards a transition area to only have my bike grabbed by an official and told I couldn't continue. I tried not to get upset. "Always keep going until you're told to stop. You don't stop racing until you see the red or checkered flag" I told myself.

I rolled up to the transition area and was pointed to the rack of bikes. No one was there to pull me from the course. Were we still racing? I ran to my spot, threw down my bike gear, got my run gear on, and headed out. Zac was on the edge of the transition area and cheering.

"I don't even know if I'm still racing" I said as I walked by.
"Just keep going. I heard there was something messed up on the course" he replied.

So I headed out of transition, with my official T2 time being clocked before 1 PM. As I ran out, a bunch of other bikers were still coming in, so I was far from last. I came to the realization that I now had to run 7 more miles to be finished. The first part of the course on pavement wasn't bad, but then we turned and headed up the dirt hill that I had just ridden down. My legs were completely shot. I tried to run, but just couldn't get the legs to go. So I decided to walk on the uphills and "run" on the downhills. I had to try to save some energy to get through the next 7 miles.

I trotted where I could, but the course climbed and climbed. It was all dirt Jeep road, until we finally made a turn onto a downhill. The downhill was not much of a road or a trail, and was covered with loose, fist-sized rocks. No matter where you stepped, your foot was landing on a loose rock. It was painful, even with trail running shoes on. I was trying not to fall and make last week's injuries worse. I had pulled on road bike gloves to protect my roadrashed palm in case I did fall.

I ate a few Sport Beans, and stopped at all of the aid stations for water. Even though they had water, I still carried two bottles on my Fuel Belt with me, so that I would always have water and I could slowly sip it. I was already sunburned, since I was in a rush to get out of T2 and didn't bother to re-apply sunscreen. There were a few clouds out that blocked some of the sun, and I think that saved me and allowed me to keep moving on the run course.

After the rocky hell, the next bit of fun was Big Beach. It's the longest beach on Maui, and we had to run it. There were a few flags on the beach, but the XTERRA officials had told us at the pre-race meeting that we were allowed to run anywhere parallel to the markers. I decided to take the path of least resistance and run on the hard-pack that forms right by the water line. The only tough part was that the beach wasn't closed for this race (why would you...it's only the World Championships) so I was dodging boogie boarders and people running in and out of the ocean. It was bizarre. Here were a ton of people enjoying their vacation or weekend on the beach, and I was running right through the middle of them, trying to finish a tough race course. I was covered in salt, sweat, and dirt. They were slathering on suntan oil and lounging on beach blankets. Oh, and they had sodas and snacks. Snacks that were not some horribly engineered robot race food with a lukewarm water chaser. I would have hated the beach people, except once in awhile some of them would cheer. I think it was only because I had a number on. Otherwise I would have looked very similar to the crazy beach bum people that wander the beach. And probably smelled the same.

I finished the beach run and turned onto a trail. Just before the aid station I found a log and sat down and dumped 40 pounds of dirt out of my shoes. Sand is just awful, and beach sand is the worst, and I can tell you from my countless trail runs that sand in shoes just makes for bashed up toes. There was no way I was going to run 20 more minutes with shoes full of sand. I pulled my shoes back on, and hit the aid station. This aid station was awesome because they had ice, and I gladly took a cup. I popped a cube in my mouth, filled my hat and put the ice on my head, and kept going. "One more mile!" they yelled. I learned a long time ago never to trust distances claimed by aid station people.

The next section of trail was called the "Spooky Forest" which was a bunch of scraggly trees with no leaves, twisting through the trail. I had to duck under and climb over logs. At least I didn't have a ravine to lower myself down via rope like Saipan. This was cake compared to that. But the forest section wasn't very long, and I quickly found myself back on another stupid beach with more stupid sand. This sand was more coarse and black because there were huge lava rocks at the water's edge. I had to slowly climb the boulder field of black lava rock. When lava rock gets wet, it gets insanely slippery. I was glad to have my gloves on, because at some points I was climbing on all fours as the water splashed over the rocks. To my right, a golf course finally appeared. This meant I was close to the finish!

As I walked over the rocks I ate about 3 more Sport Beans. On the 4th bean my stomach turned sour, and I spit the half-chewed 4th bean out. Stomach does not want Sport Beans! I sipped some water. Ugh. I also learned at Iroman Arizona not to force down stuff that makes you nauseous, because the stomach WILL revolt and have a Going out of Business sale without your consent. I thought for sure I was going to loose it. But I was so close to the finish! So I walked and drank more water. I also REALLY wanted to take my shoes off again. The sand from the black beach had made it's way into my shoes and made my size 8.5 shoes feel like size 5. I looked at my watch. If I hurried I could get under the 6 hour mark. No time to take off the shoes.

I trotted along the trail and finally saw Zac near the little gazebo base we had taken our pictures at the day before. He was still waiting for me and snapping pictures. "Do you want your flag?" he asked. "Sure" I said. He would have no problem beating me to the finish line. I had one small wall I had to get over before the final stretch, and didn't have the energy to hop over it. I grabbed the top of the wall and slowly stepped over it like I was 80 years old. I took my Arizona flag from Zac and started jogging the last part of the course. It's funny because the trail goes behind the beach restrooms before the final 2 turns to the finisher's chute. Hey, it's the World Championships afterall. So the next time you use a restroom near a trail, for all you know it could be right by a World Championship course for some insane race.

I had to dodge a few spectators but finally made it to the finisher's chute. It was a row of flags from different countries and US states. There were still spectators cheering, so I unfolded my AZ flag and ran with it over my head up the finisher's chute. Everyone was cheering, and I crossed the finish line at 5:54:54, just under the 6 hour mark! I heard my favorite announcer gal announce my name and say "She's a Tri Girl from Tucson!" which was really cool. There were still television cameras there at the finish line (yes, even that late in the game). I think they got a shot of me with my tongue out or something. I had a flower lei draped over my neck, and was handed my official finisher's medal, which says "Survivor XTERRA World Championships." How appropriate.

All I wanted to do at the finish line was finally take my shoes off! I found an empty chair and dumped out my shoes and socks. My toes were dyed black from the lava sand and I had no clue what state my toenails were in. I talked to a few other racers around me and watched as the other racers came in. Meanwhile, Zac posted on Facebook that I had officially finished the race. I slowly walked barefoot back to the transition area, and sat down to clean up my spot. I had no energy to stand. I had stashed a small insulated lunch box in my transition bag with 2 small cartons of chocolate milk on ice. So I sat in my disheveled transition area with no shoes on and my race gear scattered everywhere, sipping my chocolate milk. I looked around and others cleaning up their spaces were sitting in the grass as well. No one had the energy to stand. As I slowly picked up my area, I talked with the other racers that I had seen out on the course. Many asked if I would be back to Maui next year or in the future, but I said I wanted to travel and do some of the other XTERRA races abroad first.

And what was the big confusion on the bike course? After the race I heard there had been a major crash on the course, so we were diverted away from the area. So it turned out I wasn't being pulled from the course or anything. They were taking our numbers down to keep track of who was being diverted and to keep an account of us, since we couldn't continue on the regular course. So no matter what, always do what the race officials tell you, even if it's confusing. After I got some food and rest, it all made much more sense. ;)

Even though the race was incredibly tough, the XTERRA World Championships were still a lot of fun to participate in. The XTERRA community is still pretty small compared to other triathlon events, and I like that. I hope they are able to keep the vibe going as things change throughout the years. This race made me want to continue to do XTERRA triathlons, and after seeing the highlights video I definitely want to do some of the European races. I'm not sure if I'll ever make it back to Maui, which is why I took this race as a "once in a lifetime opportunity" and enjoyed it while I was there.

So what is next? A BREAK. This was an entire year of training and I am mentally tired and want to get back to my willy nilly training. I'll still bike and run (and sometimes swim, heh) but I need a mental break from following a set plan. There's a lot of new stuff I want to try next year, like downhill mountain bike racing, bikepacking, and getting back into riding my bike into work once in awhile. I tend to do this in waves, with one "on" year of focused training, followed by an "off" year of doing whatever whenever. So I'm definitely looking forward to some "off" time!

Photos from the race are here in my album on Facebook.

HUGE thanks to everyone that helped over this past year:

Zac - Husband, race sherpa, photographer, laundry helper, and the one who says "I think you should do it" when I question if something is stupid/crazy, even after I said I would do it.

Coach Scott Blanchard from Pyramid Coaching - He set the plan that helped me get here, helped keep me from melting down, from overtraining, and never said I was crazy when I wanted to reach the 2 goals of Saipan and the World Championships. A good coach is such a huge help!

Mom & Dad - For endless support and cheering. They are huge fans of the blog. ;)

Training Partners - For everyone that helped in my year of swimming, biking, and running to get here. My friends from the Tucson Tri Girls allowed me to tag along on bike rides. And Ryan "The Boulder" for our weekly runs where he would run with me no matter how crazy the workout was, including hill repeats on A Mountain or running Saguaro East in the dark.

Readers of The Blog - Friends from Beginner Triathlete.com, MTBR.com, friends & family members, and everyone else that puts up with waiting for me to make an update or write a race report. Thanks! :)

Back from rehab

2010-09-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

The role of Dr. Drew shall be played by Coach Scott in this blog post.

I had about 2 weeks off from training, and normally when one needs to take time off you taper down. But, as mentioned in the previous blog post, everything quickly came to a halt. "We had to take drastic measures" Coach Scott says. So let me tell you about my little trip through training rehab.

The reason I call it "rehab" is because everyone that trains is a meth head. The body gets used to inputs (training, meth, whatever) and when you suddenly stop, the body isn't too happy. The first few days I felt like crap and had no energy, despite doing nothing related to training. My sleep was all jacked up and I was very jittery and anxious. About half way through the first week I came down with a migraine headache, most likely from the withdrawl of not training. How whacked out is this?!? I just wanted to sit around and relax and enjoy my time off, but the body was having none of that.

The following week had a few 20 minute easy workouts. The first run I tried felt like agony. I couldn't even gut out 20 minutes of running. Obviously not enough time off. So the rest of the week I continued to rest from anything swim, bike, run related. Instead I diverted my energy to working on the house. That weekend I was out of town, and found there's nothing like travel to make you feel like a slug. Lots of sitting around on planes and in airports, and no restrictions on eating. Cold Stone ice cream at 12 AM? Let's go! (Yes, this really did happen).

I got back home Sunday night, and was ready to go. In the airport I had e-mailed Coach Scott to please give me a workout on Monday, which is normally my rest day. I was requesting a workout on my rest day! That morning I headed out for a run, which was one of the best runs ever. No worries about heart rate or time, just going out and running. My trip was to New York City, and after that I really appreciated to be able to leave directly from my front door and run and be surrounded by the quiet desert.

My enthusiasm towards training came back down to regular levels later that week, and I'm pretty much back to the routine of normal training. The goal is to get through the race in Maui, and then I'll take time off from the structured training routine for more of a mental break. I'm not scheduling any races between now and Oct 24th (so far) because mentally I'm just not there and in the racing mood. Too much over the summer, so I'm still recovering from that.

Training ALL STOP

2010-08-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

Nothing is broken, and I'm not injured. But I will be taking a break from training over the next 10 days or so.

What has happened is a massive amount of cumulative fatigue. At first I thought I was burned out from racing, so I just stopped signing up for races, and trudged my way through the races that I had already paid for (you'll notice a lack of race reports over the past couple of months because of this). This past week is when everything completely fell apart.

On Friday last week, I ran 2.5 miles in to Saguaro East with Ryan, my running partner, and then we turned around and ran back out. So we got the worst of the hills twice. Then on Saturday I did the Lemmon Squeezy ride up to Palisades and was hurting. At first I thought it was the previous day's run. All morning I had comments like "What's wrong with you?" "I never see you on this ride and you were right in front of me the entire time" "I never keep up with you except today". Ugh. Let me tell you that when you are mentally beating up yourself over your performance, it is 10X worse when it comes from 5 different people passing you. I felt like I should crawl into a hole and die instead. Then on Sunday Zac and I went up to Sunrise to ride the downhill trails, and I managed 2 very slow runs down. It was all I could manage to get down the mountain. I took a nap in my Jeep in the parking lot, then we headed home when the mountain closed and Zac had finished his 8 runs down the mountain.

This is when things got really bad. Monday was my rest day, so nothing out of the ordinary there. Tuesday I was insanely tired and never did my planned ride. Wednesday I met Ryan for our morning run, where I was supposed to do 5 speed intervals of 2-3 min each. I manged two of them. The first made me think "There's no way I can do five of these." On the second, I had a horrible pain in my chest (a cramp), I couldn't control my breathing, and my heartrate was insanely high. I told Ryan I wasn't feeling well, and too many red flags had been thrown, so I was just going to run slower and calm down. He was a bit concerned, thinking he was going to have to give me a piggy back ride to get back to the car. But we made it back, and I slowly gutted out the core workout for the week in the gym. Thursday my alarm went off at 5 AM for my ride, and the body said "Oh hell no this is NOT happening." So I went back to bed for another 1.5 hours, but still felt like crap when I got up.

I was a mess and falling apart. So that morning I e-mailed Coach Scott, pouring out my entire mess of a week, and my mental freak out. How was I going to survive the next several weeks of training? If I don't train, I'm not going to survive the XTERRA Worlds race at Maui. If I don't train, I'm going to end up clinging to a kayak in the ocean, walking my bike on every uphill, and walking the entire run course. Was I going to be just a spectator instead of a participant? I was spiraling out of control. I could no longer mentally push through the fatigue. My brain was cashing in the chips on this season and there was no way the body was going to go anywhere. I titled my e-mail "Falling apart this week."

The response I got just about brought me to tears. The first line from Scott was "I know exactly what to do. I have seen this a thousand times in the last 20 years of endurance sports." I was then told I needed a break immediately, and needed to stop everything right now. No swimming, biking, or running, and only walking allowed. I am, quite literally, burnt and trashed. I had to get complete rest and bring the systems back to normal. He said there is overreaching and overtraining, and we are at the overreaching stage but borderline overtrained, and have to get a handle on it right now. But, he said it is not bad and it is part of the training cycle. It's hard to catch ahead of time but we are in a good spot right now.

So first up is no training at all over the weekend. I'm supposed to sleep insane amounts and eat a ton of carbs and everything in sight. No holds barred. Given my fried mental state this is the best plan EVER! I can handle this. Scott has jumped into action, piecing my season back together with the enthusiasm of a cheerleader. The only rule is, I have to follow the instructions. I can't be out training when he says rest or else I'll make it worse. Right now he knows we can get me back online for Maui and salvage the season, but only if I follow the instructions. If you are stuck in a hole and someone throws you a rope, you don't start cutting at the rope. The final words from Scott were, "I'm all over it." This is exactly why having a coach is so valuable. Had I been on my own I'd still be out there trying to train through the fatigue and pain, which would only make everything worse. You get a coach's brains and experience, which keep you grounded when stuff like this happens. Sometimes you can't self-diagnose what is going on.

Needless to say, I won't be able to do the final Easy Peasy Lemmon Squeezy Ride. At first I thought I could if I went really slow, but the more I rest the worse I feel. This ride is supposed to be fun, and I don't want to be a liability to anyone out there. So instead I will be a mobile cheer station and SAG (support and gear) wagon, hauling water for the riders on what will be a very warm day. I'm still going to party at The Cookie Cabin at the end, and since I'm under orders to eat a ton of food you'd better believe I'll be partaking of the pizza and cookies there.

I had heard of overtraining, but not overreaching. I had to Google these terms together to find out what the difference was. This is a whole new type of fatigue I'm feeling. I've noticed in endurance sports there are many different kinds of fatigue. There's the "lack of sleep" fatigue with the hazy headache and all. There's the "I ran too many hills yesterday" fatigue. There's the "Ironman fatigue" that lasts for weeks and weeks. At first you feel like you've been hit by a truck, but weeks later when you try to train you feel this deep muscle fatigue lingering. But this is a brand new one. Right now, the more I rest the worse I feel. I have no energy for doing basic tasks. And when I try to rest I have this jittery feeling, kind of like being amped up on too much caffeine. Yet I am dead tired. And my legs are still sore from Wednesday's run, which is not normal.

No one talks about this stuff on training message boards. Everyone is busy flexing their muscles and showing off what insane training workouts they did over the weekend and proving how awesome they are. Maybe most feel that if they admit they are fatigued, then it's a sign of weakness. Well, I'm here to admit it, because if you go through it you are a normal human.

Anyways, thanks to everyone that has sent me messages and e-mailed their best wishes. I didn't want anyone to think I had seriously injured myself or had snapped my body in half riding my mountain bike (although that would be a cooler story, but would require longer recovery). Over the next 10 days or so, look for me behind a plate of food or under the covers.

Green Mountain trail run

2010-07-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

This summer is heavy on the Lemmon, with the Easy Peasy Lemmon Squeezy rides on Saturdays for 6 weeks in a row. I usually need to get some sleep after a week of training, so not getting up at 4:30 AM on Sunday means heading to higher elevation for later morning trail runs. On Sunday, I was able to convice Zac to come with me for a trail run on Mt. Lemmon. We had ridden to Windy Point the day before as part of the EPLS ride, so the legs were definitely tired. I promised him it would be an easy pace, and probably more hiking than anything.

The original plan was to park at the San Pedro Vista (the destination for next week's EPLS ride), and run the Brush Corral trail. However, as we drove up the mountain, we noticed dark clouds overhead. We got to Rose Canyon and it was sprinkling. By the time we got to the San Pedro Vista, it was pouring. We looked around and there was no sunlight in sight. I really didn't want to get drenched for an hour, so we turned around and headed back down the mountain. We decided to try the lower Green Mountain trail. It's nice that in just a few miles on Mt. Lemmon you can have completely different weather. At the Green Mountain parking lot, it was just cloudy and still cool enough for a run.

Normally mountain bikers travel this trail in the opposite direction to make it mostly downhill. We would be starting at the bottom, so for us it would be a climb up and then a run back down. The weather was great, and we just had a light sprinkle during the middle part of the run. It was sunny lower on the mountain, so the clouds overhead in this area were perfect. The trail is quite technical in spots as you climb up, with a ton of undercut water bars and granite rocks. For us it was mostly a hike, with a few sections of running thrown in when the trail flattened out. We turned around at the 1.5 mile mark and headed back down, which was a heck of a lot easier. But it was a nice break from running the road and the desert trails at the lower elevations.

I've perfected taking pictures while running and riding. :)

Zac and I trying not to fall of the rock.

The "green" portion of Green Mountain. This part we could actually run.

Hard to believe this is just a few miles from Tucson.

Singlespeed!

2010-07-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

There are many internet articles about singlespeeding. They go into how deep it is, how rich of a feeling you get experiencing the ride, how simple it is and in that simplicity you can unravel the complexity of life, etc. I don't know how singlespeeding can stop a war, but these folks feel it can. It can also solve world hunger. And do your taxes.

Personally, this is not how I arrived at the door of the singlespeed world. My hardtail mountain bike has been getting less action lately. This was my first real mountian bike, and it's about 10 years old. I keep it around as a back-up bike, and to let friends borrow to see if they like mountian biking. But as for me, I just wasn't riding it as much. The drivetrain and other components needed to be replaced. I just couldn't see spending money when I wasn't riding it that much. Then I got the idea...turn it into a singlespeed! I don't have a singlespeed, I had never tried it, but what the heck. The hardtail would be perfect for it. So for a whopping $35 investment in parts, it was converted over.

I took the bike out for it's first ride as a SS last night. It's nice to have the old parts that were giving it problems removed. No more gummy shifters. No more tweaked and worn out derailleur. I need to put a different seat on it since the old one is worn out and uncomfortable, but other than that it's working pretty well. I just tooled around the neighborhood and river path, so I'd like to take it out to Fantasy Island to see what it's like on a real trail system. I think it will give me a fresh look at Fantasy Island too. I've done so many miles out there that it became boring after awhile. But now I have something new to try!

I'll let you know when I've solved world hunger.

Picacho Peak Time Trial

2010-07-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

One thing I've noticed in the difference between training with a coach and training on your own is that a coach comes up with training ideas that you'd never try on your own, because normally you think those ideas are crazy. Like running the Saguaro East loop, for example. I feel the loop should always be done on a bike, but there it was on the plan...run the loop. So I ran the loop, and survived despite wanting to steal people's bikes as they rode by. The downhills are way more fun on a bike.

So I pulled up my training plan for the week to see "Picacho Peak TT? Let me know if you want to do this" on my plan for Sunday the 20th of June. A time trial? Me? On the ROAD?!? Wait a sec how is this supposed to help for XTERRA training? "Good baseline for fitness." Well, I had just picked up that aerohelmet at Deuces Wild. I should probably put the thing to use. Besides, other Tri Girls had done the previous race, so maybe I'd see some of them there. *sigh* Fine. I'll do it. If it involves a bike, I'll try it at least once.

I got up crazy early on race morning and drove to California. Well, actually Arizona City which may as well be in California when you're coming from NE Tucson. Arizona City, by the way, is just south of the Casa Grande outlets for those wondering. Yes, I had to look it up on the map.

I arrived at the race, wondering how this was going to go down. Each aspect of cycling has it's own culture. The downhill mountain bikers usually have one-word sentences involving a lot of "Dude", "Whoa!", and "Awesome!" and they are all about the beer and sometimes the "herbal supplements." They do a run on their bikes and then it's all about the partying. Sometimes the partying hinders the riding. Then there's the cross country mountain bikers, also very concerned about beer and parties and, most importantly, schwag. Free socks? They're in. Roadies I can't comment on as I've never done one of their races. But the triathlon crowd I know a lot about. Most think they are the uptight ones. They are all about body mass, body image, complex carbohydrates, peeing on the bike, and where to put the M-dot tattoo. On the XTERRA side of triathlon I can say the mountain bike influence takes over and they are much more laid back. But the TT crowd made triathletes look like the downhill crowd.

As I drove through the parking lot looking for a parking space, I began to take it all in. People were setting up their own little areas by their cars. They pulled out EZ ups, trainers or rollers, and starting riding nowhere. For 40-60 minutes they rode nowhere in a parking lot in Arizona City. My trainer was at home, where it belonged because it was no longer winter and dark out. I parked my car, signed up for the race, paid my $30, and wandered around. I actually ran into people that I knew from work or, oddly enough, triathlon message boards. I said hello and that it was my first race, but holding a conversation was tough. Everyone was very focused on getting ready for the race and riding nowhere, so I felt like I shouldn't bother them and cut the conversation short. Except for Andy, who I know from the aforementioned triathlon message board, and he was willing to chat a bit. I overheard others in the parking lot discussing the wind. Apparently the wind was a big factor. I looked and the trees in the parking lot were dead still. I went back to the car and fiddled with my bike and was relieved when the TriSports rig pulled up and Shari hopped out. Oh thank goodness! Someone to talk to!!! Otherwise I would have spent 30 minutes awkwardly fiddling with my bike for no reason.

I have no idea how they determined the order riders were going in, but I was at the back of the 40K group. We had the choice of 20K or 40K, but I didn't drive all the way to the other side of the world for 20K. I tooled around up and down the road in the opposite direction from the race course, then lined up. The people around me were dressed in their outfits, which are meant to maximize aerodynamics. Everyone was in a onesie, because you know, the seam between your shorts and jersey would be too much drag. Everything was skin tight. Sperm head aero helmets were everywhere. And people were wearing booties, but not to keep their feet warm. Nope, the velcro on your shoes could be too much drag, so you have to put an aerodynamic bootie over it. I was lucky to be wearing my TTG cycling jersey, only because Joyce had warned that it's against the rules to be in a sleeveless jersey as her husband found out. I had also stayed up late the night before doing important pre-race prep of putting pirate girl stickers all over my new aerohelmet. If you're going to look goofy in a sperm head helmet, you may as well rock it with some awesome stickers.

I rolled up to the starting line where there were 2 officials. One guy was there to count down and wave his hand in front of you "5...4...3...2...1" and then you go. Reminds me of Wayne's World..."you didn't say 2 or 1." And the other guy awkwardly holds the back of your bike so that you can be clipped in and ready to roll when the finger guy drops the "1" finger. I say awkwardly, because it's weird to have someone hold your bike from behind when you're over the age of 5. I have pretty good bike handling skills and can roll really slow and trackstand for short periods of time (not the minutes like Zac can) and not fall over. But this guy grabbed my bike and it had a slight tilt to the right, so that I was leaning to the right. I couldn't wait for the hand to drop just so I could start rolling. The finger guy did his thing and I was off.

What I can say is that the next hour and some odd minutes were the most boring of my life. The 5 or so people that were behind me passed me in the first 5 minutes, so I was alone. You go in 30 second intervals, so for someone slower like me, you don't really see anyone. I saw a few people going the other direction and finishing up their race. Other than that, it's a lot of staring at the white line. I had also not ridden my tri bike in awhile, or been in the aerobars, so the seating position wasn't the most comfortable. I had the roughness of the road to keep me entertained, dodging potholes and rough spots. There were wildflowers still in bloom which was nice. And all the cars that passed me were nice and left lots of room. I reached the turnaround where the officials were, then headed back. There was a slight tailwind pushing me back, but nothing like the winds I've had on other bike rides. This was windy??? Oh well. I was the last person out there, so it was hard to stay motivated and keep pushing. I sat up for a bit, just to take the painful pressure off. I passed the 5K sign, so I got back in the aerobars so that I looked like I knew what I was doing and was part of the crowd for the group waiting around at the finish. But wait, where was the finish? I rolled past a guy in a gardening hat and past where the start tent had been, which was now taken down. "Oh well, there's the entrance to the parking lot, I guess I'm done" I thought to myself.

The place was a ghost town. Only Shari was there at the finish waiting for me, just to make sure I was ok. I appreciated it, since I had come up there alone. Always nice to know someone is looking out for you at a race. Everyone had packed up and gone home after their run was over. No party, no schwag, no beer, NO SNACKS. That's right. There were no snacks at the end. How can there be an athletic event with no snacks at the end? Not only that, but no water either. Humph. What did my $30 cover? Surely some of that could go to some bagels and orange slices. Heck, the weekly aquathlons in the park have a better spread.

So, with all of that, I could hardly call the event "fun." It just isn't my bag. I like the social aspect of races. Heck, half the time that's where I see some people the most. And staring at a white line for over an hour is mind numbing. Kind of like riding the trainer.

My stickered helmet:

XTERRA Deuces Wild

2010-07-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

I love to do this race every year, and this year was no exception. Normally XTERRA Deuces Wild is followed a week later by XTERRA Four Corners. But this year the scheduling didn't work out and they fell on the same weekend, with 4 Corners on Saturday and Deuces on Sunday. I wasn't going to blow my race at Deuces by racing on tired legs, and I know how long the drive between Show Low and Farmington is, and I wasn't going to miss out on the Deuces raffle. Deuces is a superior course, and all the Tri Girls were going to be there, so 4 Corners was getting cut from my schedule this year.

Zac and I left on Saturday morning to get to the race with enough time to see the TTGs finishing up the road triathlons. That evening we went to the raffle, where I won a set of LG tri shoes, and Liane won an aerohelmet. We did some trading and switched prizes, and it worked out well. Sunday morning we arrived early and got set up in transition. Zac would once again be doing the relay with Shari, with her swimming, him doing the mountain bike, and her doing the trail run. The water wasn't as cold as last year, which was great.

I had all of my wisdom teeth pulled 2 weeks before this race, so my training leading up to it wasn't the greatest. I decided to take all the pressure off and just go out there and do the race and not worry about it. I got in the water, and decided to go out easy on the swim. This race I actually swam really straight with no navigation issues. I started catching and passing the guys that had a 4 minute head start on us, and only had a few issues getting around some of them that liked to swim in S patterns. I felt really good in the water, which is why when I stood up on the boat ramp I was shocked to see a swim time of 21 minutes. I had done the swim last year in 17 minutes, and my first year racing in 22 minutes. No way had I lost that much time. After the race I checked the results and lots of times for people that I know are fast swimmers were much longer, so I decided the course had to be long.

T1 went well, then it was time for my favorite part of the day, the mountain bike. I crushed the downhills and then was disappointed to see the gate to the forest was shut. Last year a rail in the fence was knocked down so that we could hop over. This year I had to lift the bike over the fence, then climb over. Oh well, this happens all the time on other trails so it wasn't too big of a deal. Then it was time for the climb and the usual log crossings. Except this year there had been a lot of trail erosion. The log that we normally climb over had a huge gap between the underside of the log and the trail. I decided to lay the bike down, crawl under the log, and drag my bike under like a dead body.

After that it was the usual climb up the trail, and this year I made it much further up the hill than previous years. The trail was in great shape. The massive downhill followed, which was a blast, then back through the forest and over the fence before heading back to transition. On the road I saw that I was getting close to the 1:40 mark for my bike split, and wanted to have my split be under that. So I hammered on the road up the hill to transition, passing a couple of guys giving me strange looks like "why the heck is this crazy chick hammering into transition???" and hopped off the bike with an official bike split of 1:39:42. Woohoo! Small victories.

It was hot by the time I hit the run course, but I did my best to run as much as possible. My pace was definitely slower than last year, but it was also 20 degrees warmer. I didn't want to do anything stupid out there, so I made sure I was always comfortable. The lake crossing wasn't too high this year, but it was so hot that I splashed through it to get wet. Then this year there was a "shortcut" option, where we could cut across the swamp and back into the lake before heading up the boat ramp. Heck yeah I'm doing that! I made it as far as I could in the mud and then splashed down and started swimming. My trail shoes filled with water and sank like a rock so my form wasn't exactly the best. Zac, Nate, and the TTGs were on the shore cheering, and I was happy to get out because I had less than a mile to go. Some chick came by pushing hard, but there was no way I was going to follow. I just kept going along at my happy pace. I finished in 3:13, which is only 1 minute slower than last year. The chick that blazed by me was in a chair and the medics were looking at here. There were a bunch of people looking pretty bad in the shade at the finish, but I felt great and was glad I wasn't one of them.

I got my awesome finish line popsicle, then we headed over to the lunch area and met up with the other TTGs. I slowly ate some watermelon while I waited for the digestive system to reboot and come back online. It was awhile before I could nibble at the Mexican food provided at the lunch. We waited for awards, and Zac & Shari took 1st place in the relay and got cool trophies! Zac and I changed, got some more food, and headed back to Tucson. Overall an awesome weekend!

Zac rockin' the Elvis jersey for the race:

Start of the women's wave of the swim:

Done with the bike:

Heading into the water on the trail swim:

Splashdown!

Swimming the trail swim:

Emerging on the other side:

The finish!

Shari & Zac with their cool trophies:

XTERRA King of the Hill

2010-05-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

I was scheduled to be in Boston for a week of training May 10 – May 14. Before the trip I checked the national XTERRA race schedule, and noticed XTERRA King of the Hill was scheduled for May 16 in New Jersey. Google Maps showed a 5 hour drive between Boston and the race site in Lebanon, NJ. Not too bad. So I set to work figuring out the logistics of getting to the race with all of my gear.

My first preference was to rent a mountain bike. I searched Google. I posted on the regional forums of Beginner Triathlete and Mountain Bike Review. I called bike shops that were sponsors of the race. I e-mailed the race director and people in AZ that I knew were from NJ. The result: mountain bikes are not for rent in NJ. Well, I should clarify. Mountain bikes that would hold up to an XTERRA bike course were not for rent. This is where I met my first division between west coast mountain biking and east coast. I’ve rented mountain bikes in the west with no issues, and no one even batting an eye at the thought. But on the east coast I got a lot of “Um, no one rents mountain bikes. This isn’t really a tourist area for mountain bikers.” If you want a beach cruiser for rolling along the Jersey Shore, no problem. But a bike for XTERRA racing…no dice.

Ok, on to Plan B, which was to disassemble my Blur and pack it in its flight box and fly it with me. The problem with this are the airline fees. Some think UPS or FedEx would be cheaper. And years ago they were. In 2003 I shipped my Bullit in a larger hard case from Tucson to Downieville, CA for $45 with insurance. Now it costs $150 to ship a bike via UPS or FedEx. I decided on Southwest, because a bike flies for $50, and there are no fees for the other checked bag. Also in my logistical planning was where to fly into. Into and out of different airports would mean I would get stuck with a hefty fee from the rental car place. So I decided on the halfway point and to fly into Hartford, CT.

I spent several hours cleaning the bike before packing it because it still had dirt and residue from Saipan on it. Then I removed both pedals, wheels, disc brakes, brake calipers, real derailleur, and handlebars. What follows next is padding the bike so that it would survive in the box. I used a lot of old race T-shirts to wrap parts, and foam insulation tubing for around the bike frame. My floor pump, Camelbak, and bike and trail running shoes all went in the box with the bike as additional padding and stuffing to keep the frame from moving around.

Mountain bike ready to fly.

The entire bike box was 67 lbs, along with 47 lbs of a roll-on luggage bag with all of my race gear and clothes for 10 days. Pulling those two items around the airport alone can be a pain, but I learned you just have to go slow. People in airports are also very curious about a girl toting around a huge, plastic trapezoid. In Hartford I got about five questions of what was in my box. I was too worn out and tired to make up something cool, but then again an entire mountain bike in a box that small is pretty impressive. It also makes everyone think you are some big wig bike racer. Who else would haul all that stuff around an airport?

The next hinge in my logistical plan was the rental car. I absolutely had to get an SUV or something of the like. I had Emerald Isle service through work, which meant I would be eyeing an HHR, Dodge Nitro, or worst-case a PT Cruiser. When the shuttle dropped me off there was a lone, red HHR left in the isle. Score! I folded down the rear seats and loaded the bike box on its side, followed by my luggage. It all fit, no problem.

I drove to Boston, and the next day put my bike together. I labeled all of my foam pieces so that disassembly and packing after the race would be much easier. During the week I rode a local trail that was only 3 miles from my hotel (see the Merrimack River Trail post below). I was stuck in a classroom from 8 AM to 5 PM every day, but it was awesome to have my bike with me and hit the trail before or after class. I took advantage of the extended daylight the east coast has and rode the trail any time I could.

On Friday our class ended early, so I loaded the bike box, luggage, and my assembled bike in the HHR and drove the 5 hours down to New Jersey. The drive wasn’t bad, and the next day I hit the bike course for a pre-ride to see what I would be in for the next day. While out on the course I ran into a guy named Kenny, who was stapling XTERRA arrows to trees. He worked for Green Brook Racing (the race company putting on the XTERRA) so I chatted with him for a bit and asked about the course. After my pre-ride, he and the race director, Joe, and the rest of the crew headed to lunch and invited me along. A very friendly bunch and a great group of folks!

The next morning I didn’t have to be up until 6:30 AM. The race didn’t start until 10AM! This was awesome! Joe, the race director said that it was usually cold and overcast in the mornings and beautiful by that time of day, so they found they got more competitors when they pushed back the race time. I got to transition early, set up my bike and gear, and got my numbers at registration.

Transition area in The Garden State.

I got a great spot in transition.

We had a pre-race meeting at 9:30 AM, and then it was time to get in the water for a warm-up. The race was held at the Round Valley Recreation Area, where there’s a huge lake. But we weren’t swimming in the main lake, and instead were swimming in a smaller lake over a spillway. It was kind of nice because there was a nice beach, no boats, and it was small for easy sighting. I got in the water, which was 66 degrees, and did a quick swim before getting out and heading to the start up the beach. This XTERRA started with a beach run (rather than the run being in the middle of two swim laps), then two laps of an out & back along a line of buoys. The beach run took me 1.5 minutes before I jumped in the water. There were 126 racers in the XTERRA and only 20 women, so when I got in the water I was already at the back of the pack. I tried to calm down on the first lap since the heart rate had shot up on the run. I turned at the buoy and found the major disadvantage to an out & back swim course. People like to follow the buoys, which means a higher probability of having a head-on collision with someone coming from the other direction. I moved over a bit and kept sighting every 4 strokes so that I wouldn’t crash into anyone. I got out and ran around the marker pole on the beach, and jumped in for the second swim lap. With everyone getting out and in the lake in the same area, the mud had churned up so it was hard to see until I got to deeper water. I started pulling hard on the second lap, and came out of the water in 15:50. Not too bad for an 880 yard swim including a beach run.

Super easy swim course.

I got to my transition area and looked behind me. Some of the other girls that I knew were in my age group were behind me, and I wanted to beat them out of transition. I got the wetsuit off, threw on the bike gear, and ran my bike up the hill out of transition. This being XTERRA, there were cement stairs heading down the hill, and we had to ride the stairs to get out on the bike course. It was so much fun! I love riding stairs! Many elected to walk their bikes, or take a small dirt trail around the outside. We had a small stretch of pavement before the trails began, so I got my cycling gloves on in this area. Then we hit the trails and immediately began to climb on a fire road. The climb wasn’t too bad because there was an awesome and fast downhill right after. The guys that passed me on the climb were now getting passed by me as I flew down the hill. I swear I’m going to give up this triathlon thing and race Super D.

The start of the bike and run courses.

The first climb on the bike course.

View of the lake from the top of the first climb.

It was important to get out in front of as many riders as possible, because we had a switchback section coming up on singletrack, and there wouldn’t be much room to pass. I entered into the top of the switchback section with a guy right on my tail, and I wanted to ditch him because I knew he was already looking to pass and was probably thinking I was going to be slow in this section. The trail headed down and I pushed the bike around under me while standing to limit braking and hold as much speed as possible. I caught another rider, but he hopped off on a slight incline and I was able to ease by and start the next section. The switchbacks weren’t too tight but still required some control. There were also a ton of tree roots that formed drop-offs in the middle of the trail. I grabbed the big ring to keep my chain from bouncing around and snaked my way down the switchback hill, catching air off of the roots. I was now at the speed where you “float” over objects in the trail. The guy behind me was nowhere to be seen. I was annihilating this section! Towards the end I caught up to a train of slower riders, but thankfully the two front guys dismounted and moved off to the side so I could get by. The trail popped out onto an open, grassy field, and then started up a gravel road. The very beginning involved another set of switchbacks on the climb, and riders all around me were getting off their bikes. I got into the inner ring and set to work spinning up the hill in a fast cadence, passing those that were walking.

The open, grassy field after the switchback section.

Riding through the trees.

A tunnel of trees.

The fire road was the easy part of the climb. It was steep but the gravel made for good traction. The fire road ended and we split off onto another singletrack section, which was the major technical climb. I was in the granny gear now, but I was still spinning at a high cadence and climbing on the bike. I wanted to stay on the bike as much as possible. Riders were dismounting all around me, but I moved off to the side around them and kept going. I made it to a rooted section of trail before finally having to get off the bike and hike. But once I was through the roots I was back on and climbing. The trail was in the shaded forest now, but the shade wasn’t helping much. The humidity was super high, and combined with my high heart rate I was completely drenched.

I climbed and climbed, pushing as hard as I could to stay with the group of riders I was in and staying on the lead lap. The course would double-back on itself, and I wanted to be done with the out & back before the leaders came through. Then, it happened. As I shifted gears on the climb, my legs suddenly spun with no resistance, but my back wheel was making an awful noise. I looked down to see the chain on the inside of the inner ring. I figured I had just dropped a chain on the climb, and hopped off and grabbed it to slide it back over the inner ring. The chain whipped around, revealing two open ends. I had broken a chain in the middle of my race!
I grabbed my bike and laid it on the ground off the trail. First things first, get the Camelbak off the back to get water weight off the body. I then assessed the mess in front of me. The chain was broken and wrapped in a mess in the rear cog. I grabbed the chain and set to work on unraveling the mess. My hands were shaking like mad and sweat was dripping off the front of my helmet. Going from race mode and Zone 5 heart rate to 0 in 2 seconds causes the body to do strange things. But I HAD to get this fixed! I was at the worst point in the trail. I was 3.5 miles in, so to hike out would be forever and would mean DNFing. I did NOT come all this way to DNF! But I couldn’t break the chain further and had to be careful. It was like diffusing a bomb. I carefully un-wedged it from the rear cog, then got it routed correctly through the rear derailleur.

I reached into my Camelbak and pulled out my powerlink. I had been carrying this powerlink with me ever since I started XTERRA racing, 6 years ago. An entire link had broken, and the pin was long gone somewhere on the trail, so at least I didn’t have to use my chain break tool to push a pin out. I tore open the package, and one half of the link went flying onto the forest floor. GAH!!! I slowly dug through the leaves and rocks and finally found the tiny gold link. As I worked, the entire world passed me by. People would ask “Need any help?” and I said “No, I broke a chain.” Most would quietly say “oh” and keep riding because they couldn’t help. One guy that rode by responded “Did it fall off or is it really broken?” THAT comment sent me into a fury. WTF!!! Here I am working on my bike with two halves of chain in my hands trying to link them together and I have some IDIOT asking if it “just fell off?!?!” Like I couldn’t tell the difference between a chain that had broken and one that had fallen off?!? I mentally pushed him off his bike and gave him a Shimano heel to the nads.

I put the pin ends of the powerlink through the open ends, then spent some time connecting the eyelets together. This is normally an easy operation any other time, but in the middle of a race with adrenaline spiking and hands shaking it becomes tough. Finally there was an audible snap as the link joined. I stood the bike up and shifted a few times to make sure it was working, then grabbed my Camelbak and got back in the line of bikers. I was now back with the stragglers. You do all this training to specifically NOT be a straggler and then one mechanical issue sends you back there. Many were walking, so I pedaled hard, trying to make up any time I could. I had lost about 10 minutes dealing with my chain, so there was no way to catch back up to the group I had been racing with. Thankfully there was a downhill, so I shifted into the big ring. Each shift made me cringe, wondering if the chain would snap in a different spot. But I had to keep going. I was now in the “irresponsibly fast” zone on the downhills but I didn’t care. I was dancing over the rocks and tree roots, and then hit the rock garden. Two guys were in the middle of the garden and going much slower. I grabbed the left line and said “on your left” and made it past. I was now free to pick up momentum again and make it through the garden. Then there was a hard left turn and we were on the campground road.

The campground road is another gravel fire road about 2 miles long. Here I was passing other stragglers with mechanical issues. One guy couldn’t change his flat, but I couldn’t stop because I had already lost a ton of time dealing with my chain. Another guy that was in front of me stopped to help him. Another guy was walking his bike out with a tube draped over his handlebars. He had gotten 2 flats, and walking a bike means he obviously didn’t carry any patches with him. He had about 3 miles of walking to do at that rate. I climbed up onto another singletrack section that joined back up with the out & back of the course. I was finally headed back to transition. I hoped my bike would hold together long enough for me to get back there. On my way down I passed the course sweeper heading up the hill, and he said I had a mile of downhill. I took advantage of this and once again entered the crazy fast zone to make up as much time as I could.

Flowers alongside the singletrack.

I crossed the open green field again, and started climbing the switchback section that we had come down earlier. It was much tougher going up than down, but I climbed what I could. I was demoralized at this point, just trying to salvage what I could of my race. But it was really hard to push with the same vigor that I had before the chain broke. I got back out on the last fire road, and started the last downhill on the fire road. I could see the lake at this point, and only had about a mile and a half to go. The next section I dreaded. It was a climb back up the fire road, but at this point the bike and run courses would intersect and I could see all the runners finishing up their races. It was horrible to see people I had been racing against out on the run course while I was still on the bike course. I made the turn onto the pavement, and had a fast downhill all the way back to transition. I got to transition and people were already done with their races and packing up. I racked my bike, threw on the running gear, and was out of there in 45 seconds.

Toboggan Hill

The run starts on the same pavement as the bike course and leads to the same fire road. But runners get to make a right turn and run up “Toboggan Hill,” which is where the race gets the name of “King of the Hill.” Toboggan Hill is covered in grass, and is huge. I resorted to walking like all the other racers around me, due to the insane slope. Once at the top there’s hardly any rest because you get to run down the back side, turn around, and then run up the backside before being able to run down. The views from the top are fantastic though, and I tried to take them in to try to bring some sort of positive light to my race. The run down Toboggan Hill was pretty tough, just because of all the pounding your legs take on the steep slope. I was happy to get to the bottom, then continue on up the fire road. The last part of the run involved the same fast downhill on pavement as the bike course, then an extra section of trail looping around the lake. I ran past a playground, and the kids on the playground cheered and yelled “Girl power!” as I ran by. It was pretty funny. I got onto the beach and finished up the last bit of the trail run, crossing the line in 2:36:58. Had I not had the chain to deal with it would have been under the 2:30 mark.

The Finish Line!

I picked up my transition area as they did the obligatory XTERRA pushup contest. I decided to hang around for the awards, just to see if results would get posted. I was absolutely shocked when they called my name for 1st place in W30-34! I waited afterwards and talked to Kenny (the guy I went to lunch with the day before), who was also doing the timing for the race. I wanted to be sure of the results. We went back to the timing shack and he pulled up the results. Sure enough, the others behind me had longer times. I was given a cool bobblehead doll as an award. So as they say, don’t ever give up! You might just be in first place. ;)

Bobblehead Trophy

Merrimack River Trail Ride

2010-05-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

This week I'm in Tewksbury, MA for work, and brought my bike for a race next weekend. Since I had Sunday free I decided to explore some of the local trails. Unfortunately, it poured all day yesterday. In Tucson this wouldn't be an issue because the trails are rocky and sandy and drain fairly quickly after a rain. Out east the trails have fluffy dirt which turns to sticky mud, and the trails don't dry out for a few days. I had originally planned to hit the Henry Parker State Park trails, but didn't want to drive out there if the trails were still muddy. I took a walk around the hotel and saw the woods behind the hotel area were wet and muddy. So I decided to try to find the trails closer to the hotel, and if they were in bad shape I could always bail out and ride the road.

Just 3 miles from the hotel was an access point for the Merrimack River Trail. There's a map of the trail system here. I left directly from the hotel and hit the pavement. An odd thing that I noticed was the lack of cyclists out on the roads. In Tucson you get used to a ton of riders being out on the roads. But I never saw another cyclist on the road, despite seeing several "share the road" cycling signs. I took the road to a residential street where I found a sign for the trail system. I entered in at the Raven's Bluff access point and headed east. The trail is all singletrack that skirts along the Merrimack River, with bridges over creeks. It was chilly and very windy out, but thankfully the bank of the river is below a large hillside for much of the ride, which offers some protection from the wind. The trail was covered with fallen leaves and tree roots, but the trail was surprisingly in good shape. Most of it was dry with just a few wet spots that had boards over the top to prevent trail erosion (very similar to the Pit of Despair stunt at our house).

The trail was rolling singletrack, with just a few short, steep climbs here and there. At certain points it got very close to the river. It was a ton of fun! I saw a few hikers, a couple of trail runners, and only 2 other mountain bikers. I was surprised at the low amount of traffic on a weekend. I took the trail all the way to I-93, and continued on after crossing under the freeway. I could only go about a quarter of a mile further until I hit a bridge that had fallen in the creek, and a downed tree on the other side. The trail continued after this, but I decided this was a good point to turn around. I took the trail back to the access point and continued west for a bit. The trail is marked with white blazes on trees, and I think I figured out two blazes meant easier trail, and one blaze was a more advanced trail. I took the trail to another access point, and decided to turn around and head back to Raven's Bluff. I rode about 10 miles on the trail before the wind got too cold to continue.

After I checked the map when I got back to the hotel I found that I turned around just before the power lines, and there's more trail to the west of the power lines. I found the access point on my ride back to the hotel. If I get a chance to get back out on the trail during the week I'd like to take the access point by the powerlines and see what the trail looks like to the west. But it's awesome to have such a great trail network just 3 miles from the hotel!

Official trail sign:

It was wonderful to be in the sun when it was out!

One of the many bridge crossings on the trail. This one is just after you get on the trail at Raven's Bluff.

Singletrack, greenery, and the Merrimack River.

This was the only bridge I came across with railings.

Open view of the Merrimack River.

One of the rare times the sun came out from behind the clouds while I was on the trail.

The trail crossing under I-93.

Riding in the forest.

Through the trees.

And through green fields.

Cinco de Mayo 10K

2010-05-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

The Cinco de Mayo 10K was a last-minute race for me. Coach Scott suggested it, and I had been thinking about it, so on the Saturday before the race I signed up. I’m glad I did because they had awesome Zorrel shirts as the race shirt. I also need to do races as motivation to train, so it was either do the race or make myself go run alone. Running in a race is much more enjoyable!

On race morning I found Shari, Beatriz, April and Kathy. We chatted for a bit and then decided to do a warm-up jog. We did an out & back and had a great time chatting away. It was almost hard to remember that we were there to do a race. We lined up at the start and took off at the gun. I was next to Shari and because of the crowd we were moving around amongst all of the people. She moved forward through a hole, but suddenly the hole closed behind her and I got cut off. I moved off to the side to have a bit more room, but lost Shari. So I continued on, focusing on trying to get up all the hills. There were quite a few on the first half of the course. We ran along the golf courses, and picked up speed downhill heading towards the turnaround point. I dreaded this because that meant we would have to go back up the hill. After the turn I wasn’t feeling too well, so I just focused on getting up the hill. I looked for friends on the course and waved and cheered across the street as we ran.

At the mile 5 aid station I grabbed some water, but suddenly got a cramp right after. I raised my arms to try to stretch it out because it was so painful. Suddenly Shari appeared and ran with me. There was a guy behind us, and I fell back to where he was. The last part of the course was the toughest, but the guy behind me kept saying “Come on! Let’s go!” When someone is so encouraging when you’re hurting it really makes you want to cry. I caught back up to Shari, and we crossed the finish line. I finished in 56:55, which was a 9:05 average! My goal was to go faster than the 9:40 average at Sabino, so this was great. Shari and I walked around to cool down afterwards. It was only in the 70’s but it felt like 100 degrees out. We walked over and got some awesome burritos in the food area, along with eegee’s. We sat in the grass with the rest of the Tri Girls, and the burritos and eegee’s were the best thing ever! SAR really picked great post-race food for this one. It was a fun race, but boy did 10K feel like 10 miles on that course!

Urban Assault Ride

2010-05-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

This was a back-to-back race weekend, with the Sabino Canyon Sunset run on Saturday, and the Urban Assault Ride on Sunday. Zac and I had done the UAR last year as team PirateGirl and Mr. PirateGirl dressed as pirates, and we would be repeating our appearance this year. During the week the UAR folks posted a quiz, and the results of the quiz would place racers in their starting waves. I love doing the online quiz! It is truly an exercise in Google skills. Zac and I split the quiz up, with me taking the first half and him taking the second, and then we would both attack the questions we were stuck on. The quiz did require us to buy the latest issues of Dirt Rag and Bicycle Times magazines to get two of the questions. For the ones we didn’t know we guessed. We turned in our results and scored a 95%, which put us in the first starting wave!

The Urban Assault requires teams of two to ride their bikes around Tucson to various checkpoints. Five of the checkpoints are known: Sunflower Market on 1st, Tahoe Park, Summit Hut, Fairwheel Bikes, and TriSports. Two of the checkpoints were mystery checkpoints. For the first mystery we had to solve a crossword puzzle online, and that revealed we would be going to Himmel Park. We would only find the clue to the next mystery checkpoint there.

You can ride to the checkpoints in any order that you wanted. On race day Zac and I staged our bikes in the bike area, and got at the front of the starting corral. We would have a 2 minute head start over the other wave. I had figured out how to get to each checkpoint, so once the gun went off we were running for our bikes and hitting the streets of Tucson. I had decided to go straight to TriSports first, to get away from the crowds. Crowds can cause lines to form at each checkpoint, which can slow you down. We hit the bikepath with a group. I dove behind an alley and onto the Aviation bike path, with another guy from the crowd right behind me. I turned around and the guy wasn’t Zac, and Zac wasn’t there! Oh well. I knew he knew we were going to Trisports, so I wasn’t going to wait. We crossed over the snake bridge, and Zac finally caught up. Then it was onto the basket bridge and the rest of the Aviation bike path. I’ve done a lot of commuting in Tucson by bike, so I knew the routes pretty well. I pulled the lead with Zac drafting 6 inches off of my rear wheel. We were flying down the bike path at 20 mph. I could feel my legs from the previous night’s run in the canyon, but I had to hold up my half of the team.

We were dicing back and forth with a girl team. I guess they didn’t like getting passed by people dressed as pirates? Anyways, they got out in front and pushed it hard to ditch us. However, I had superior navigation skills because they didn’t pass us again until Palo Verde road, just before Trisports. We hit the Trisports parking lot in 21 minutes and got to the first checkpoint. Each checkpoint requires teams to perform a challenge to earn a colored bead before they can proceed to the next checkpoint. Trisports had a flag course setup and we were to ride kid’s bigwheel bikes around the course twice. It was awesome! I grabbed a pink bigwheel and set off after Zac, who was already out on the course. These things have no breaks so to get around the corners you tend to slide out. I flew around the course on the first lap, and passed Zac when he had to reach across the cones to grab his wallet and phone that had fallen out of his pocket (amateur misake). I crossed the line and started lap 2. But the transition between laps was on a downhill with a turn, so as I slid around the corner my inside wheel lifted. I corrected by leaning hard to the left to weight the inside tire. Dang these things could use softer compound tires! I punched it out of the corner and caught up to another guy on a pink bigwheel. He was NOT smooth in the corners, so when he spun out I tried to pass but couldn’t get by. I was being held up on the bigwheel course by a guy that couldn’t handle the pink! I finally made the pass and crossed the line for the conclusion of the second lap. We parked our bigwheels, got our bead, and got back on our bikes to head to Summit Hut. It took us 2:33 to complete the challenge. Yes, I took splits of everything!

We rolled out of Trisports and immediately our legs felt funky from pedaling the little bigwheels. That sensation subsided after about a minute and we were back to cruising on the bike path. The girl team was ahead of us, but we got held up by a red light. Red lights are death, so since there were several ways to get there, we dove up 22nd street to cut over rather than wait at the light. The goal was to keep constantly moving. We got to Summit Hut in 22 minutes.

The challenge at Summit Hut was human bowling on skateboards. One team member had to sit on a skateboard with their hands tucked under and their feet out front on the board. The other member pushed them up to a line and let them roll down the course like a bowling ball towards a set of pins. Since I was smaller I was the bowling ball. Zac’s first inclination is to brute-force everything, so he pushed me hard. I only had to roll about 20 feet, but I went unstable and careening down the course from the force of his push. My legs came off and I drug my feet to keep from falling. “Oh my god I almost died!” I yelled at him. We had to do the challenge again, and this time I told Zac to push me easier. This time I coasted into the pins, and we were awarded our bead. Total time for this challenge was 2:33. The split would have been smaller had I not had gorilla boy shoving me through the pins on the first pass.

Next up was Mystery Checkpoint #1, Himmel Park. We weren’t allowed to ride Speedway, so we shot down neighborhood streets to get to the park. We arrived in 17 minutes. The crossword puzzle clue told us to look under the jungle gym for someone wearing an afro wig and a tutu. We found the guy in this outfit, who didn’t look too happy about his attire. Maybe he lost a bet? Anyways, I had no sympathy for him because we were roving around the streets of Tucson dressed like pirates. We got our bead and our next clue was printed on a board. The clue said “find this” and pointed to a photo of a city pool. All you could see was a shallow kid’s area and a water slide. I immediately knew what it was! It was Quincie Douglas pool. There was a crowd standing around looking at the photo trying to figure it out, but I grabbed Zac and we got our bikes. I told him it was Quincie Douglas on 36th and Campbell. I had swam there a bunch during lunch workouts. It paid off to be a swimmer! Zac admitted he would have had trouble with that one, so we got on our bikes and rode to Tahoe Park. We decided to hit Quincie Douglas at the end. Besides, since the checkpoint was at a city pool, most likely we would be getting wet. Total time at Himmel Park was 2:43.

We made the short trip to Tahoe Park, which was just a few minutes away, and arrived in 17.5 minutes. The challenge at the park was for one teammate to climb piggyback on the other and swing a mallet to move a ball down the course, around a tree, and back. I climbed on Zac’s back and we started to smack the ball. The only trouble was, with how tall he was the mallet wasn’t long enough. I kept telling him to bend forward so that I could reach the ball. We got around the course in 2:23 and rode off to Sunflower Market on 1st Ave.

It took us 14 minutes to reach Sunflower Market. The challenge here was the newspaper toss, which was the most difficult. One teammate had to grab their bike and join a carousel of riders that were riding clockwise in a circle. They were given a sachel with rolled up newspapers inside. While riding around in the circle they had to toss a paper to their teammate about 25 yards away, who had a cardboard box to catch the papers. The tough part was that the catcher had to stay behind a roped off flag line. Since Zac is a trials rider and can trackstand, he was the tosser and I was the catcher. On our first round gorilla boy appeared again and I caught the paper, but he had tossed it so hard that it bounced out of my box. I told him to aim behind me and loft the newspaper, rather than chuck it. The volunteers at the challenge told us we didn’t have to catch the papers thrown by our partner, so then things got violent with the elbows. It was a good thing we were wearing helmets. We had to catch 3 papers, and I finally got 3 of them. It took us 6:28 to complete this challenge.

By this time it was getting hot out. We were filling our water bottles at each checkpoint to stay hydrated. Our next stop was Fairwheel bikes down by the university. As we rolled through town, people would honk their horns or yell to us to cheer for the pirates. We got to Fairwheel in 19 minutes, and the next challenge was a puzzle. The puzzles were just square pieces of carpet that had been cut into triangles and trapezoids. We had to complete the puzzle within 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes was up, if our puzzle wasn’t done we could move on. Since Zac is a mechanical engineer, and it’s tough for two people to do one puzzle at once, I let him take the lead. At first he was told by the volunteers that he was being “too scientific” about it. Finally we realized that you had to look at the grain of the carpet to solve the puzzle. Once that happened the puzzle was together and done. We spent 5:07 at this checkpoint, which still got us out before the 10 minutes was up.

Up next was Quincie Douglas, Mystery Checkpoint #2. We took 15 minutes to get there, and there was a board identifying it as the correct checkpoint. For this challenge one partner had to remove their socks and shoes, get in the pool while wearing their helmet, and swim to a guy in the middle of the lane floating on an inner tube to get the bead, then swim to the other side. Once I heard the instructions I was pulling off my socks and shoes and Zac said, “Well I guess you’re doing this one.” Um, yes, of course! I ran to the end of the lane, hopped in, and did the lifeguard stroke over to the guy in the tube. Swimming with a helmet on wasn’t that easy, but at least it was only 25 yards. I got out, got my shoes back on, and we plotted our course back to downtown. Total time for this challenge was 2:40.

We got back to Maynard’s in 12.5 minutes. We had pushed hard to each challenge because they said we had to be back by 3:15 PM to get a time. We arrived at 2:50 PM. We parked our bikes and the last challenge was the inflatable. You climb up a slope on one side, and slide down the other into a pool. Once Zac and I were down the slide we were able to check in. We arrived at 2:50 PM with all of our beads. It turns out they left the course open over an hour later. I think they realized it takes people longer to get to all of the checkpoints.

We rode a total of 32 miles that day. We had an awesome time terrorizing the streets of Tucson dressed as pirates for the second year in a row. I can’t wait until next year’s assault!

There were a ton of photos from the race photographer posted here: http://www.cubbieownsyou.com/gallery/UAR_Tucson_2010

Some of the favorites of Zac and I:

Zac and I at the start line:
http://www.cubbieownsyou.com/gallery/Maynards_Start/IMG_4188_640x480

Arrr! I be bombin’ your photo pirate style!
http://www.cubbieownsyou.com/gallery/Maynards_Start/IMG_4202_640x480

The start of the race:
http://www.cubbieownsyou.com/gallery/Maynards_Start/IMG_4227_640x480

And another:
http://www.cubbieownsyou.com/gallery/Maynards_Start/IMG_4229_640x480

Rolling out on the streets of Tucson:
http://www.cubbieownsyou.com/gallery/Maynards_Start/IMG_4252_640x480

Sabino Canyon Sunset Run

2010-05-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

All XTERRA courses seem to be incredibly hilly. So I decided to do the Sabino Canyon Sunset run as a good race to practice going faster on hills. I had done this race once before, a few years ago, but that was when the road was still under construction from flood damage, and the course was only a 10K. This year we would be going all the way to the end of the road and back. A few months ago I made it to the end of the road for the first time. On previous runs I would usually run to Shuttle Stop #8, then turn around. On my first run to the top I realized the worst hill was saved for the end. Where Shuttle Stop #8 is at is the start of a very steep, long, and ugly climb. Once I reached the top my heartrate spiked into zones that probably don’t exist (Zone 6.2…really?). But it was a glorious downhill afterwards. So at least I knew what to expect.

I had done a training run a few weeks prior to this race and ran it at an average of 10:39 min/mile. My goal for this race was to run it at an average of 10:00 min/mile flat, or better. It was a stretch goal, but I thought I could get there. I told Coach Scott my goal, and he agreed it was doable, so I spent the weeks leading up to the race working on hills. It’s always good to get confirmation that your goals aren’t completelty out of whack.

Race day I got to the parking lot pretty early, and set off in the opposite direction up the Bear Canyon trails. This section of trails was away from the race crowds and gave me a chance to run for about 15 minutes to warm-up. I got to the starting line and picked a spot in the middle of the crowd, but off to the side. This way I could move off into the dirt if needed depending on how much the crowd pushed me around.

The gun went off and everyone took off running. I tried to stay at a steady pace at the beginning, because I knew this section was flat and would lead to the first uphill climb. I didn’t want to blow up in the first mile. I got to the top and freewheeled it down, then hit the first water station where the Tri Girls were. I was gasping for air, so didn’t have a chance to yell hello, but still got cheering from all the ladies there.

The first couple of bridges were pretty easy, then we hit the flooded bridge. I ran across and made sure I picked up my feet real high to not trip on anything I couldn’t see under the water. I settled into a group of runners that were running a similar pace, and we would trade positions back and forth. I also noticed that when you wear clothing that shows off your tattoos you get a lot of cheering from the tattooed crowd.

I hit Shuttle Stop #8, and it was time to settle into the climb. My goal was to not walk, no matter how bad I wanted to, and no matter how slow I went. I was going to do some sort of stride that was nowhere near running, but definitely wasn’t walking. This meant that I would get passed by those walking. I didn’t care. My goal was to run the whole thing and I was going to “run” no matter how slow my pace was. The road wound around the mountain side, and at points it looked like there was no end in sight. Just more winding road covered with people. I put my head down and focused on the ground in front of me, and just getting to that turnaround point. Finally the pavement changed and I crossed over onto the smoother section, which meant the top was near. I reached the turnaround and saw Jim from Master’s swim and the TriTucson series handing out water. I grabbed some water and started the wonderful downhill.

Running downhill is almost as painful as running uphill. The legs take a beating trying to control speed to where you don’t go rolling down the hillside. I flew down the big hill I had just climbed, and settled into an easier pace. My heartrate had been in zone 4-5 for much of the uphill climb in the canyon, so this was a chance for it to come down and recover some. I had forgotten my shoes had been soaked by the water crossings until I crossed them again. My shoes had squeezed out most of the water but once again filled up and started sloshing again.

I passed the TriGirl water station one more time and knew I was almost there. I just had to get up the last uphill and then it truly would be all downhill to the end. I reached the base of the hill and others around me started walking. I settled into my granny gear and got up the hill. The previous hills had taken a ton out of my legs and I wasn’t sure if I would make it to the end in time. I tried to run the last downhill and flat as hard as possible. The sun was now almost completely set by now, and I was chasing what little daylight there was left.

I pushed it hard over the line and hit my watch. I finished the 7.4 miles in 1:11:09, which was a 9:40 average pace. I had blown my goal time out of the water! Of course my legs were going to pay for it. I grabbed some water and spent some time stretching before getting in the car and heading home. Overall it was a great race on a really challenging course.

Tucson Tri Race Report

2010-04-29T16:38:00.001-07:00

My last race report was 6,271 words, so I needed a break. This has caused a back-log of race reports, so I will do my best to catch up.

The Tucson Tri (3/21/10) was the weekend after XTERRA Saipan, so I didn't have any expectations for this race. I was going to go out, race, and see what happened. My training leading up to it had been about trails and endurance, and not the short, fast, speedy stuff. In October at the Tinfoilman my personal goal was to be under 1:20. For this race I wanted to be under that same benchmark, but was ok with being a few minutes over.

On race morning the WORST NIGHTMARE EVER for any athlete happened. My alarm did not go off. I used my watch alarm, and apparently a week in a humid environment and 6 years of racing in water caused the alarm chime to die. The watch still worked, and I still had a little alarm picture indicating it was set, just like normal. There was nothing to indicate it wouldn't work the next morning. I just happened to wake up that morning and check the time, 50 MINUTES LATE! I threw my race gear on, grabbed my water bottle, and ran out the door. I didn't need to load the car because it was already loaded with my bike and gear from the night before.

I flew down Speedway, which annoys me because the speed limit is 35 mph. I was, um, slightly over. I really didn't want to get pulled over, and tried to time the lights to where I would get mostly green lights. I needed to make up all the time that I could. I rolled into the parking lot, grabbed my gear, and hit the transition area. I was able to make a 50 minute gap into a 20 minute gap, and arrived at transition at 5:20 AM. I found TTG row, set up my gear, and waited for the race to start.

I was in Wave 8 (I'm getting very used to being in Wave 8) so I had plenty of time. I was able to eat my breakfast and watch the other swimmers. The only thing was, it was freezing cold in the morning! Many of us had worn sandals, myself included, so my feet froze. A couple of hours later I could start to feel them again. I wandered around, and met up with Leslie who was volunteering at the dismount line, and Johnny who was taking photos. I watched the mayhem at the dismount line for a bit, then decided to bid farewell to my warm clothes and get in the Kasser pool to warm up.

Last race I warmed up for about 10 minutes before my wave, and that seemed to help. So I swam an easy 200 and got out. I walked down the starting area of the pool and ran into my friend Hunter, who I used to race motorcycles with a couple of years ago. He had convinced a friend of his to do the tri as well. He had really been working on his swimming, and had graduated to a fast wave after doing the November Casa Grande tri as his first tri. I'm sure we'll see him on the podium soon.

I got to my lane and the other person assigned to my lane didn't show up. So I had the whole lane to myself! I also had Tom Hurkett from Master's swim timing for me, so I knew I was in good hands and he'd let me know when it was time to get out. The horn blew and we were off and I started the swim, which I'm never a fan of. My goal for this race was to do flipturns at the wall the entire swim. Yeah, all these years of triathlon and I was never a flipturner. Until now! I did my turns each time at the wall except for the very last one, when Tom put in the stop sign to let me know I had one lap left. I did an open turn so I could yell "Thanks Tom!", swam the last 25 yards, and got out. I wasn't the last one out of the pool for my wave, so I met that goal. I checked my watch and my time was 14:30, so I was right on time.

I ran out to transition, threw my gear on, and ran out. Total time in T1 was 1:18 from the end of the swim lane to on the bike and through the first corner. I pushed it hard on the bike right away. As usual, I ended up leap frogging with some people where I would pass them and then later they would pass me back. Euclid was fun as always, and I just wanted to make it past that part on all 3 laps. I got done with the bike in 34:59, and did my flying cyclocross dismount into transition. Zac got a video of it here:

I switched out of my bike gear into my running gear, and was out of transition T2 in 34 seconds. On the run course my toes were in pain, numb from being frozen earlier in the day. I pushed the run as hard as I could, but I was definitely feeling the fatigue. I saw lots of Tri Girls out on the course at this point, and would cheer across the mall for them. I also saw Zac and Anne out on the course cheering, and Anne's daughter was giving high fives. Two laps was painful and seemed to take forever, and finally it was time to make the turn towards the finish line. I couldn't sprint much faster, couldn't breathe, and just had my legs carry me there. I crossed the line and hit the timer on my watch, and looked down to see 1:18:47! A new personal record! It was 18 seconds faster than the race in October!

I hung around at the finish line with the Tri Girls, then grabbed my gear and changed in the locker room. I waited for the results to be posted, and since the live results don't get sorted by age group, had to count those in my group. If I counted right, there was a chance that I might have been 3rd in my age group. So we stayed for the awards, and they announced my name! Finally! I had been 4th several times in this race series last year, so I was so happy to finally get on the podium. I got an awesome embroidered towel.

The race was a blast, and the best thing was being able to go out to lunch and head home with a pretty short drive. But boy do these short sprinty races hurt! No time to settle into a pace, or enjoy snacks, or enjoy the scenery. It's just go, go, go!

Pics from the race:

Hanging out with the hooligans. ;) Chatting with my friend Hunter before the race.

Look! Flipturns!

Almost done with the swim.

Out on the bike course.

And onto the run.

For High Fives, apply here.

Me, Shari, Kristen at the finish.

My towel for 3rd place!

XTERRA Saipan: Slippery When Wet

2010-03-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

Introduction
During the week of the race, people asked me how I ended up at XTERRA Saipan. I've been doing XTERRA races for 5 years now, and have known about this race because it's one of the most famous ones on the XTERRA circuit. It's known as the "Crown Jewel" of XTERRA. Last year there were several articles about it in Triathlete Magazine. You can see some of the photos here: 2009 XTERRA Saipan photo gallery. The photos showed white sand beaches, tunnels on the trail run, and beautiful, green surroundings. Truly an adventure! My husband Zac had been traveling a lot for work, and so in the middle of last year I said "Hey, we could always go to Saipan next year" and he didn't say no. So I made the plans, and we were on our way.

This is also a championship race, with slots available to the XTERRA World Championships. It's a smaller race, so the possibility was there that I might get one of the coveted slots. I wanted to arrive at this race as prepared as possible, so I enlisted the help of Coach Scott Blanchard from Pyramid Coaching, and he came up with a plan. I had 20 weeks of focused training leading up to the event, and averaged right around 13 hours a week of training. This was right up there with the volume for half Ironman training, and some of the Ironman training weeks. But I've always felt the tough XTERRA races feel like the same level of effort on race day as a half Ironman, so it fit. Over those 20 weeks I did a lot of time on the trainer, climbed a ton of hills, and ran a lot of trails. Oh, and I swam too. ;) Everything was set to peak at this event, and I went in as ready as I could be. I felt confident that I had done everything in my power to be prepared for this event, and whatever would happen on race day would happen.

The Race
The morning of race day started with rain. We headed to Micro Beach and arrived at 5AM to a sprinkle. By the time we got the car unloaded and got to the transition area it was a downpour. We took shelter under the event tent, and I didn't even bother setting up transition until the rain subsided. This meant that the jungle would be very wet and slippery on both the bike and run courses.

I set up transition in the dark, but thankfully the race had large floodlights lighting up the area. Once the sun came up, I walked down to the beach to check out the water. The west side of Saipan is protected by an offshore coral reef where the waves normally break, and then it's pretty shallow water up to the beaches. So I was a bit surprised to see waves breaking on the inside of the reef, right where one of the buoys for the swim was positioned. A jet ski kept having to go out to grab the buoy because the waves were pushing it off course. Zac spoke to a local surfer who was spectating at the race, and he said normally the water is very calm and flat, but that evening the swells had come in. Great...perfect timing of course!

Trying to smile for Zac and the camera, but not happy looking at the swim course.

The good thing is that I've swam in the ocean a few times at the La Jolla Rough Water Swim, and last year's swim at La Jolla was especially rough. So I did have experience in rough ocean water, and I tried to remember that to remain confident. For the XTERRA, we would be swimming a 750 meter triangle, with a 50 meter beach run in between laps. XTERRA is keen on the beach run in between swim laps, and XTERRA Saipan is no exception.

There were two distances for today's race. The full championship race course was a 1500 meter swim, 32K mountain bike, and 12K run. The sport course was half of that. But if you want points in the XTERRA series, you gotta do the full course, which is what I was there to do. There were only 65 people doing the championship course, so it was a much smaller group than what I was used to lining up for the swim start. No separation of guys and girls in waves here, we would all be starting together. A little after 6:30 AM the horn sounded and we all went running into the water.

The start of XTERRA Saipan.
I had positioned myself to the far right of the group, which put me in line with the first buoy. The water is very shallow, so we were able to run into the water pretty far before having to start swimming. Immediately I started getting pounded by waves, and they got worse as we headed towards the furthest buoy. This is when I noticed the major difference between this course and La Jolla. In La Jolla the waves are in a pretty consistent phase with each other. Once you get out of the cove you can start to get into a rhythm with the up and down motion of each swell. Here in Saipan, I was in the middle of waves coming from several directions, and once in awhile I would get caught when they all came crashing together in a huge peak. It was like being in a washing machine that was on the churn cycle. The only good thing was that the water was only about 5 feet deep, so at certain points I could put a foot down briefly to get my bearings and time when to sprint.

The water is incredibly clear and warm. The water temperature that day was right around 80 degrees, so that meant no wetsuit. At some points I wished the water was a bit more murky so that I didn't have a reference of motion under the water. I would be swimming, trying to move forward, but the view when I put my head down in the water made it look like I was moving backwards. Once in awhile I would close my eyes when my face was in the water just so I wouldn't have that underwater reference.

As I finished the first lap, I stood up and tried to walk in from the knee-deep water, but found there were sharp rocks on the ocean floor. I beat my feet up but just wanted to get back to the beach. I got out with a group of people and ran down the beach and jumped over some downed trees, before starting my second lap.

Running over the beach debris, ready to start lap 2 of the swim.

The second lap was even rougher than the first. It felt like it took me a lot longer to get to the turn buoy. The good thing was that there was someone else my speed there, and I ended up swimming right by their right hip, which is a great spot to get a draft. I have no clue if it was conserving any of my energy but I've heard it works so I was willing to try anything. Then a bunch of people in green caps appeared. It was the sport wave, as they had just started their race, and I lost my draft buddy. As I turned and made my way back to the beach I felt like I was getting tossed in all directions. It was ridiculous! I just wanted to get out of the ocean and onto my bike. Finally I reached the last buoy and did a few dolphin dives to make it up to where I could walk to the beach. I stubbed my toes a few more times on the rocks hidden below and emerged from the ocean, happy to be free of the salty washing machine.

DONE with the swim!

I took a little bit longer in transition than I normally do to rinse my mouth out with fresh water and rinse my face off. Then it was on with the socks and shoes, Camelbak, and helmet and I ran out of transition ready to start the bike. I had my gloves strapped to my handlebars and put those on as we rode down the street.

Leaving transition, ready to start the mountain bike portion.

Then it was time to climb Navy Hill. From my earlier blog post, Navy Hill is a steep paved road, about as steep as Gates Pass or parts of the Mt. Lemmon climb. I had climbed this hill 3 times already on pre-rides of the course, and my plan was to take this climb slower than normal. This was the first 2 miles of a long bike course, and I wasn't going to blow it all here. So I rolled along at a steady pace and good cadence, and several people passed me on the climb. I ignored them, and instead wondered what the Cartagena area would look like now that it was race day. I finished up the climb and made the turn onto the dirt driveway of the shanty area, and blasted down the hill. This time when I reached the bottom there was an arrow pointing where to go. It pointed to a cleared section in the jungle. I was right behind another rider, so I followed him.

This was the first time my tires hit wet jungle that day. The trail was freshly cut and all the clippings were on the ground, and wet from the morning rain. This made it feel like I was riding on ice. My rear wheel slid all over the place. The other rider in front of me was having worse trouble, so as soon as I could I passed him. There was a piece of corrugated steel on the ground in the trail (like what horse stalls are made out of here in Tucson), and as I rolled over it my rear wheel shot out from under me. I corrected, and felt all of my core muscles go to work to English the bike back under me. Somehow I pulled it out. Ok, no more riding over corrugated steel. Thank goodness for all those core workouts. Apparently this is what those muscles are needed for.

The path took us downhill and onto a road. I would never have guessed this is where we were going to end up back when I tried to pre-ride the trail. There really are no trails in the area, just pieces of private property that they route the course through for this event. I was on the road for a short while before being directed back into the jungle, and a couple of steep climbs. Climbing on the slick, muddy jungle floor wasn't going to happen. I made it as far as I could (which was a bit further than those in front of me) and got off to start the hike-a-bike. I dug the toes of my shoes into the hillside to try to gain traction. This is where toe spikes would have come in handy. Being a desert rat, I've never had to use those on my mountain bike shoes. So I did the best with what I had. My shoes were also drenched from all the water running off my body, and so they sloshed with each step. I climbed the hill with everyone else, and then came to a crazy steep bank before emerging into someone's backyard. The owners of the property were watching and cheering from the elevated porch. I stopped for a second to catch my breath before mounting the bike and rolling down a paved road.

This is how the course would go all day. We would climb through mud which would cover the tires with pounds of mud, then ride pavement which would fling it all off. This section of road brought us to the next section of jungle singletrack. This section was longer, and muddier. I've never ridden in the jungle, or on mud covered with plants, so I was basically learning a whole new style of riding on the fly. If the rear wheel shot out I learned you couldn't correct with the normal pounding of the pedals. That would cause everything to go unstable. You had to finess the bike as much as possible, but also realize you were not going to regain traction anytime soon. So you were teetering on the extremes of finess and riding ragged. At this point in the course I learned to stay away from all tree roots. One section of singletrack was blocked by a group of tree roots completely covering the trail, causing it to be off-camber. I knew it would probably be slippery, but attempted it anyways. Bad choice. Both tires slid out from under me, and since I had half anticipated this, my right foot was already clipped out. But it's amazing how quickly you can go down on that slick stuff, and my right knee plowed into the ground. Thankfully it was just skinned and covered in mud, so I picked myself up and hiked over the rest.

In this section of singletrack, I caught up to two other riders. One was a girl and a guy was right behind her. He wasn't too confident in passing, but kind of had to when I came up behind him. As soon as it widened he went around, and I hopped over in the rough to get around her. I took the chance to pass him and finally had open trail ahead. We were heading downhill, which is my favorite part of mountain biking. I flew down the muddy singletrack downhill, probably faster than I should have but I didn't care. My suspension felt all wonky, probably due to the strange terrain under me. I was so used to dry, loose rocky conditions, and this was about as far from it as you could get. The downhill turned to doubletrack, and I had plenty of room to get around the other riders. I passed a bunch of people that had passed me on the Navy Hill climb, as they were struggling in the technical sections. At this point it started to rain again. It seemed to be a micro-burst but it was enough to keep the trail extra slippery.

The trail opened up into a clearing and the sun broke through the clouds. I could see the ocean on the other side of the island at this point. But there was no time to take in the views as I had to stay concentrating on the trail in front of me. Before long I reached a road, which was a long, winding downhill, similar to descending down Mt. Lemmon. Once again, mud popcorned off of my tires, most of it landing on me. The road turned and headed west, which is where the long climb began. The paved road turned to dirt, and we were officially on the climb to Mt. Tapochau, the highest mountain on the island at 1500 ft. The climb was a long grind up a dirt road covered in loose rocks, but I didn't care because I was out of the mud. I rolled along, once again in my steady cadence and churning up the hill. This time, not many people passed by.

Mt. Tapochau, the highest point on the island.

I passed by the turnoff where the sport course racers would turn and head back. Since I was on the championship course, I had to continue the climb. I knew what was on the sport course turnoff as that was one of the few sections of the course I found, thanks to the tip from Fish. But today I had to keep climbing. I made it up to the base where the climb became super steep and chewed up. It was very similar to the scree hills out by Chiva Falls. I had run out of momentum, and got off to start the hike up the hill, as all the other racers ahead of me were doing. Rain had chewed up the dirt hill into a rutted mess, so it was a tough hike-a-bike. My record of having to hike my bike on a portion of each XTERRA course still stands at 100%. There was a car parked up ahead, and I hoped the volunteer there was parked at the top of the hill. Turns out he was, and as soon as it flattened out I got back on and started the descent down the other side.

The descent was more of my style of riding and what I was used to. It was a steep hill covered in loose rock and dirt. I flew down this hill, making up any time I could. The bliss was short-lived though, because the road led to, you guessed it, more muddy jungle. I passed by another shanty area, where matresses and other random items were lying on the side of the road. The road had been heavily used by ATVs, so it was a complete mess. Puddles had formed in depressions in the road, and my bike started to get so clogged with mud that I started to ride through the puddles in the hope that it would clear some of the mud. My cleats became so crammed with mud that clipping in was no longer possible. This is why I ride clipless pedals with platforms, because at least I still had a platform to put my foot on. When the trail leveled out I would bang my cleats on the pedals, trying to clear both of them out. It worked, and with some force I could clip in again.

Since I had gone downhill, that meant I had to go back uphill to get to the point where the championship course and the sport course met up. That was on the mountain, and I could tell from my surroundings that I had a lot more climbing to do. I had to stop once in awhile to clear plants and debris that was building up between the rear tire and the frame. It got annoying to have plants constantly hitting my legs as I pedaled. Once again the trail became too steep and slick to ride, so I got off and hiked some more. I had no clue how far I was from the junction. I reached a mental low point where I was tired of pushing my bike, tired of the mud, tired of the jungle, and tired of being constantly drenched. One of the tricks I've learned in endurance racing is that chocolate fixes everything. I had put a bento box on the top tube of my Blur just for this race so that I would have food handy, and not have to deal with taking off my Camelbak. I reached inside and pulled out a fun sized Snicker bar. I had frozen 4 of them overnight so that they wouldn't melt right away. It was perfectly defrosted, and I ate my candy bar as I climbed the hill and my mental state improved. I got to a point where I could finally get back on the bike and finish the climb while riding.

Finally the junction came into view. I saw up ahead there was a guy with the same colored number plate as me (black numbers for the championship course, green for sport) and he was talking to the volunteers. He hadn't done the climb yet, and decided he was going to call it a day. They told him to take the turn which would send him back to the transition area. I don't think he knew how technical this section of trail was going to be.

Thankfully I had already ridden this section, so I knew a little bit more about what was coming up. This section started with a steep, slippery downhill that would lead into the jungle tunnel. I made it down the steep downhill and into the jungle where a tunnel was cut through the trees. I came up on another racer who was lifting his bike over a thick tree root. He was a sport racer, and saw my numberplate and said with an accent "Oh, championship. I will move." I told him, "No, that's ok, I need to pick my bike up anyways." We were in a section that I knew I would have to hike. We climbed up a short, steep uphill and at the top I got back on and flew down the hill. This is when the wild ride really started. No more climbing, just descending through the twisted jungle and the Fire Swamp. I was having to shove my bike one way and my body the other to get through some of the sections. I also realized how much I grab the seat with my inner thighs when standing to move the bike around. My seat and legs were drenched, and I was sliding all over the place and couldn't grip the bike as well. Overall I rode this section much better than the pre-ride, and got out onto the dirt section of Navy Hill road.

What followed was a lot of fast descending on the dirt road. I had to be careful, because this is where the run course and bike course merged for a short while, and the fast pros were already on this section of the run course. Thank goodness for disc brakes, because even with all that mud I could still slow down and stop. Once I reached the fork where the runners turned off I was able to let it fly. I flew down past the smelly toxic waste shack and onto the paved private road. This was the last climb and thankfully it was on pavemet. I climbed up the road, passed the goat house, and flew down the last steep descent in the jungle to the house with the loose dogs. Today the dogs were nowhere to be found. I got onto the rough driveway, and passed another sport racer. I could tell she was a new rider and was riding out of control on this descent, so I moved way over to the right as I passed by. I hit the pavement and was so happy to be on the last paved downhill. I turned at the bottom of the hill and rode up the road for a short distance before making the last turn towards the American Memorial Park. I rolled through a large puddle, still there from all the rain, and rolled into the transition area, officially done with the bike course and still in one piece.

Done with the bike and still alive!

As I switched from bike gear to run gear in transition, I noticed the pros were already done. Oh well. I took my bike shoes off and gave my feet a squeeze to get rid of some of the water. I put on my damp running shoes, switched to my running hydration pack, and headed out to start the insane trail run.

The start of the run course.

The run course started in the park, so I was able to run for a bit. But as soon as I turned and started the trail in the jungle, the running ended. The trail run was even more steep than the bike, and the trail was less worn in. There were a lot of tree branches and logs to jump over, and then the climb up the steep hill began. Back in the park I had put a pair of old road bike gloves on. Turns out I needed them pretty early. The hill was so steep I was down on all fours reaching for rocks and tree trunks to grab onto to pull myself up. As I pulled up I could see marks in the mud where people had slipped and fallen. This continued forever. I would hike, come to a hillside, and pull myself up by rocks and trees. There was no "running" for me in the jungle.

The course climbed and climbed and climbed. And since I was hiking I was moving a lot slower. Thankfully I had my water with me, so I didn't have to worry about where the aid stations were. I was just following red arrows in the jungle. In one section I came to a hillside with a wall coming out of the hill. The arrow pointed at the other side of the wall. I didn't see any trail along the fence, and as I looked over the wall I could see a red arrow in the distance. So I climbed over the concrete wall into a fenced area with huge water tanks. I have no clue where I was, but this appeared to be the water supply for the fancier homes higher up. I ran across an open field, then back out of the fenced area and up a road.

I decided I would run the roads since I would have to hike the trails in the jungle. Unfortunately, the road sections were few. They just connected the jungle sections. I climbed through the jungle, grabbing onto bamboo for support on the steep hills. I was by myself in the middle of nowhere. The good thing was the aid stations had people writing down racer numbers, so at least there was some record of where I was on the course. I just wondered when I was going to reach the junction at Navy Hill road.

I wandered down the jungle to an encampment down below. The arrows pointed around the camp, which had an old metal bed with rusted bedsprings and a bunch of other metal debris rusting in the jungle. Thankfully the next arrow had us going around the area instead of through it. But it meant more climbing. I pulled out another Snickers bar, but the sun had been out for a few hours now and it was melted. I didn't care and ate it like a Gu. Chocolate was chocolate.

Just when I felt like the jungle would never end, I climbed up a hill and came to a house and a road that paralleled the house. Turns out it was someone's driveway and the owner was out with his family watching for racers. "Another runner is coming!" he would yell, and the wife and kids would wave. I waved back, trying to smile but at this point it was tough. This did lead me to Navy Hill road though. I jogged down the downhill and it was painful. I swear it felt like my muscles were coming detached from my body as I ran. Going downhill was becoming just as painfull as going uphill.

I reached the turnoff of Navy Hill Road, which started the next section of trail. From the map in my head I knew I had one more section of trail to go before hitting the road near Sugar King park. This last section saved the most grueling for last. The trail was all downhill, but very rocky. Not only were the rocks slick from being wet, they were also covered in wet moss. This was "The Ravine." The start of the ravine was like being in a rocky wash, but then it got steeper and rockier. Water had caused steep drop offs to be formed, so the only way down was to put your hands on rocks on either side and lower your body down and hopefully find stable footing. This is how it was for a long time. Hike in the rocks and trees, and then lower yourself down a drop off. Shouldn't I be wearing a helmet for this?

After awhile, I heard someone else come up behind me. It was another racer, and she was from Japan. We came to the most famous part of the trail, the tunnels. The tunnels were dug during WWII and are still there today, and of course the race course took us right through them. As we entered it was dark, and there was a fork. One fork led to a dark section straight ahead, while the other led down some stone steps to a lighted area. No arrows, so we guessed we were supposed to follow the lights. We got to the room in the cave and followed the flashlights to another turn that led outside. At this point two volunteers were stationed, because the end of the tunnel led to a steep drop off a cliff about 8 feet tall. The volunteer at the top said we could either take the rope down or try to scramble on some rocks in the cliff face on the right, while the volunteer at the bottom was stationed to keep us from plunging into the ravine below. I grabbed the rope and cautiously climbed down, and at the bottom let the other lady go ahead since she was running a bit faster.

The ravine continued on, and the drop-offs got steeper. I was having to lower myself to an intermediate rock and gain another hand hold before moving to the next lower section. At one point the drop off was so high there was a rope to help us get down. After this there was more of the wash-like running in rocks with jungle walls on either side. A few other racers caught up to me, and I was just happy to know that others were still out there with me. I didn't care that they were passing me, it was just good to know I wasn't alone in the middle of the jungle.

I had to cross the ravine floor and get to the other side, which required crossing a very large, slick rock. I knew it looked slippery, but was hoping my footing would hold. As soon as my right foot came down on the rock it shot out from under me and I was flattened on my ass on the rock. Well, guess that didn't work. (After the race I was talking to a local, and he did the exact same thing. We probably both fell on the same rock). At least the rock was slick, so I didn't get scratched up or anything from the fall. Oh, that was another thing. The people passing me on the run were all bandaged up from the bike. I saw bandaged elbows and knees everywhere. Apparently they had enough time in T2 to stop for First Aid.

I hiked along the rocky ravine, and finally heard voices up ahead. The arrows pointed us up a steep bank, and once I climbed up it I was on a dirt road and at the next aid station. I was finally done with the jungle! I grabbed a fresh cup of water and started running. I was running not only because I could, but because I wanted to run away from the jungle! I was so sick of hiking through the jungle at that point. I ran down the road and through the Sugar King park. Volunteers were still out, so at least the race hadn't packed up while I was tripping around in the jungle. There were even cops still manning the intersection when I ran through. I later learned that the Chief of Police was in this race, so the cops did a good job because their boss was out there.

I reached the final aid station and started the run down the beach. "You are so close! Just 10 more minutes!" the volunteers yelled. I knew better than that. I knew it was going to be a lot longer than that based on where I was on the beach. There was a guy in a red shirt in the race running up ahead, so my goal was to not loose sight of him and to keep running. I had been running ever since I got out of the jungle, and I wanted to run all the way to the finish. But the beach was ROASTING at this point. The light sand reflected the light and heat so I felt like I was baking in a solar oven. I slogged along the beach and saw the red shirt guy get tangled in some local's fishing line. I made sure to run around the back of the fisherman as I passed. The temperature was in the mid 80s at this point, and the humidity crazy high. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, but I knew the finish was just after the beach run.

I finally saw the last section of beach. The managers of XTERRA World Tour were there, taking pics and cheering, and I waved as I ran by. I made the final turn and the race director was there pointing the way. I was back on the grass at this point, running up the same chute from the swim finish.

The final leg of the run.
I made the last turn in the grass and there were still people there to cheer, and the finish line was straight ahead. I even got to cross the official XTERRA Saipan finish line tape!

Crossing the tape at the line.

As you can see from the pic, I finished in 5:31:06, and there were still others out there. As soon as I crossed the line, wet towels were thrown over my neck and I was whisked away to the first aid area where there were lounge chairs setup. I wasn't even that injured, just a skinned knee, but it was hard to tell from all the mud on my legs. I think the only time I've been muddier was the Muddy Buddy race. The volunteers brought over towels and cleaned my legs off, then the medical assistants cleaned my skinned knee up. I found out later they were nursing students, and eager to practice. So that worked out well because there were a lot of people to practice on.

After I was toweled down and cleaned up I walked to transition to get my disaster of a mountain bike and race gear. I had stashed in the car a lunch box with chocolate milk on ice, and I had Zac run and get that for me. I took my muddy shoes off, sat down in the grass, and enjoyed my chocolate milk.

Mmmmm...chocolate milk. The perfect post-race drink.

I picked up my gear, and got my awesome finisher's shirt and hat. I think it's appropriate the shirt says "finisher" on it, because everyone certainly is happy to have finished this race! We then headed back to the hotel where I washed 10 lbs of mud off myself, Zac washed 20 lbs of mud off my bike, and I got some much-needed food and took a quick nap. That evening we went to the awards ceremony, and I got my medal and a slot to the XTERRA World Championships on Maui in October!

Kahuna Dave (managing director of XTERRA World Tour), me, and Bill the XTERRA Saipan race director.

I will definitely be taking this once in a lifetime opportunity and doing the XTERRA World Championship race in October.

Overall, this was one of the gnarliest XTERRA courses I've done. The trail run was by far the most technical course I've seen for an XTERRA. The race is more like an adventure race than a triathlon. You've got to be pretty secure with pushing your personal safety envelope in this race, as it does go through some shanty towns of Saipan, and you are in the middle of the jungle, often alone. But the adventure was well worth it. This was a race that I really didn't care about my pace or finish time, just finishing a really tough course. I had one little crash on the bike, and it turns out some of the locals crashed far more times than I did. And it was very cool to race in such a unique location. By the way, Saipan is considered to be in the western region of the XTERRA American Tour, so I also earned points in my region for this race. Win all around!

I think I will make it a goal to do a different XTERRA race each year. I'd love to do one of the European XTERRAs like XTERRA Germany someday, so we shall see. In the meantime, I've got this little race in October to plan for. :)

Special thanks to:

My husband Zac for keeping everything together while I was training for this race, and coming along on this trip. Oh, and the airline miles he built up from work. :)
Mom & Dad for support and taking care of our dogs while we were gone during the race.
Scott Blanchard for his awesome coaching help and never telling me I was insane for wanting to do this. I would have never finished this race without his help.
All my training buddies: Zac, Liane, Shari, Johnny, Ryan, and everyone else I swam, biked, and ran with while getting ready for this race. You helped make the miles go by so much quicker!
The Tucson Tri Girls & friends for all your support and cheering along the way. I proudly wore my purple in a race where I was one of 6 people representing the mainland USA. :)

Adventures in Saipan: Cartagena and The Fire Swamp

2010-03-10T12:18:00.000-08:00

Tuesday - 3/9/10
On Tuesday I attempted to ride the XTERRA Saipan bike course. Zac and I parked at the American Memorial Park (AMP) beach where the transition area would be, and I headed out on my bike with nothing but a cartoon map from the race website (Here it is: XTERRA Saipan map) and part of the map from the hotel. The hotel map is very similar to the one provided for Disneyland, with cute pictures showing where places like McDonalds are located. So if I got lost in the jungles of Saipan I could always find my way back to a McDonalds.

The start of the course was pretty obvious in that we would be riding out of the park and up Navy Hill Road, which is a paved road. I reached the intersection at the start of the road and waited for the light to change. In front of me was a huge hill, and I had no idea how long it went on for. The light changed and I started climbing. The climb went on and on at about as steep of grade as Gates Pass or Mt. Lemmon. This was going to be fun to climb right after the swim. I knew I would have to make a turn off of this road to the left at some point, but had no clue when.

Somewhere on the climb on Navy Hill Road.
I stopped on the side of the road at a shady part where trees completely tunneled over the road and there were vines hanging down. I checked the map again, hoping my cartoon map had morphed into something more helpful but to no avail. I continued the climb, now completely wet with sweat like I had just done the swim. Up ahead there was a phone pole with a blue XTERRA arrow pointing to the left. Yes! This means the bike course must be marked! The arrow was pointing to a gravel road on the left next to a yellow bus stop structure. The gravel road continued to climb. At the very top I looked for more arrows, but didn’t see any and decided to continue down the road. I realized this road was a “residential” road because there were shanty structures off of the road. At one point I passed a group of people parked just off the side of the road under a shack structure. I was going fast downhill so there was no way I was stopping. At the bottom of the hill I was forced to stop. I was now in someone’s driveway of their shanty. Their shanty was to the right, so that obviously was not the right way to go. Straight ahead there was jungle and I didn’t see any way through there. To the left was a small opening in the jungle, so I dismounted and walked forward a bit. Overhead was an old school phoneline stretched haphazardly across. There was a lot of debris and trash on the jungle floor, and up ahead there was a bunch of rusted metal barriers blocking the path. I felt like I was in the jungle scene in “Romancing the Stone” except there was no Michael Douglas (from now on I refer to this area as Cartagena). I backed out and decided to go back up the road. I climbed as quickly as I could and got back to the bus stop intersection.

I pulled out my map and decided the only way to continue was to keep going up the paved climb, despite what the only blue XTERRA arrow I had seen had told me. As I climbed I passed more shanty houses, then some houses that were somewhat normal. I reached the top of another hill and saw in faded spraypaint on the road the words “Trail Run” with an arrow. I figured this may have been part of last year’s trail run course, so I continued on. I flew down the hill and reached a fork in the road. The left fork turned to dirt while the right fork was paved. I rolled up the paved fork for a bit until I saw the words “private property” marked on a phone pole. I turned around and waited for a truck to pass before heading up the dirt road, which was still marked Navy Hill Road, the original road I had been on.

This dirt road led into the jungle, and I didn’t get far before I hit the horrible smell of human waste and decomposing trash. There was another shanty on the right, and there were 50 gallon barrels everywhere, some which were burning with smoke. I determined that this may be this person’s restroom and trash burning area, so I turned around. Once I did I saw blue XTERRA arrows on the phone poles. What? Apparently this was part of the course, and now I was going the correct direction. I got back to the intersection and saw a blue arrow pointing to go up the paved driveway marked “private property.” More climbing, but at least there were more arrows to follow.

Following the arrows in the jungle.

I passed a goat house where goats were bleating at me as I rolled by. At the top of the hill the arrows indicated to go left. I could see the beach below and took a quick picture before continuing on.

The beach through the trees before the final descent.

The arrows didn’t lead to any trail, and instead seemed to cut through the side yards of people’s houses. I reached an old Jeep road doubletrack and started on a steep descent. I reached a clearing but had to stop quick because there was a house below and 4 loose dogs heard me and came running out and barking. I stood and waited and the owner came out and yelled at the dogs and tried to corral them inside. As soon as it was clear I continued down, and the blue arrow was in this lady’s front yard. The arrow pointed down the driveway, so I rode down that, which turned out to be quite rutted and technical for a descent. Finally I hit a paved road marked Sugar King Hill, which took me back to the park.

Just as I was going to go back to the park to find Zac, I saw 2 guys on bikes in race clothing sitting at the intersection at the start of Navy Hill Road. I looped around and pulled in behind them.

Me: “Do you guys know where the course goes?”
Them: “Yeah, follow us. Are you here for the race?”
Me: “Yep. First time here.”
Them: “You from Ireland?”
Me: “No, Tucson Arizona.” (Do I sound Irish?) “Where are you from?”
Them: “England.”

Then the light changed and they took off up the climb. I didn’t get their names, so I shall call them Fish & Chips. Fish & Chips were of course fresh and I had already climbed the damn Navy Hill once today. They of course had 2% body fat and flew up the hill, so I continued on my spin in granny gear and saw that I was in Zone 6.1 for my heart rate. Lovely. I am so screwed for this race.

So I climbed Navy Hill again and Fish & Chips were waiting for me at the yellow bus stop where the errant blue arrow showed the turnoff into Cartagena.

Fish: “Sorry about that.”
Me: “Oh no problem.” (Me trying to hide the fact that my muscles were shaking from fatigue).
Chips: “That the second time you’ve climbed that hill today?”
Me: “Yeah.”

So Fish proceeds to tell me that he spoke to the guy that is marking the trail this morning at the hotel, and this section was new and not completed yet. They were going to continue on up Navy Hill. Lovely. Apparently I should have asked Fish & Chips about this important detail BEFORE I CLIMBED NAVY HILL A SECOND TIME. I wished them well and turned around and headed back down Navy Hill. I met Zac at the park and told him why I had only done a 7 mile ride, and my fun in the jungle. He hasn’t seen the movie “Romancing the Stone” in a long time so he didn’t quite get my Cartagena reference until I explained it further. I still had another 20 minutes of riding to do according to my training plan, so I cruised up and back on the jogging path around the beach, which also happens to be the beginning of the run course. I decided that Wednesday I would try to ride the course again.

Wednesday - 3/10/10
This time I got an earlier start on the ride, starting 2 hours earlier to try to beat some of the heat. I rolled out at about 8:45 AM, and started the climb up Navy Hill road. In my head I was trying to figure out what my plan would be if the course was not marked. Unfortunately the Cartagena section led to the upper loop of the course, and that was the only way to get there. We had tried to find where the course comes out by driving up a side road in the rental car, but no luck. Just as the yellow bus stop to the turn came into view, another rider came up behind me. It was a local Saipan guy who was doing the race as a relay, and he was the biker. He had done this race as a relay the year before. What luck! A local! I chatted with him as we turned and went up the gravel road leading to Cartagena. He rolled along on the downhill and right as we got to the person’s shanty back yard he made a slight jog to the left down what looked like could have been singletrack at one point next to a phoneline. I followed him down and there was no trail whatsoever to follow. Our tires rolled over leaves of tall jungle grasses. At one point he zigged and I must have zagged because I reached an open area and he was gone. My Saipan guide was gone like a leprechaun! I stood in the clearing trying to figure out what to do. I continued straight and my bike tires crunched over the plastic parts of Japanese engine parts. Now I was in grass 5 feet tall. I pushed my bike forward, looking for any sign of a trail or broken branches. Looking for tire marks was a waste of time because I couldn’t even see the ground. The plants folded under the bike and I hoped I wasn’t stepping on any snakes. This path was no good, so I turned around, back over the crunched car parts and noticed a decaying flip flop. Great. I was back at the clearing and decided to head to the right. This took me to a crashed Jeep, which was hard to tell it was a Jeep because it was covered in jungle plants, and a decaying mattress. This was even more like the Cartagena scene in the movie and I figured for sure I would come across a crashed drug plane with a skeleton pilot inside.

I turned around and in the clearing looked left and right. Left led back up the hill I had just come down. Right led to the tall grass.

My view looking left on the "Cartagena" portion of the course. Do you see the "trail" I came down?
My view looking right in "Cartagena."

There was a phoneline overhead, so I tried the right path one more time, thinking there would be a service trail or something paralleling the phoneline. Nope, no dice. I turned around and climbed back up the hill, my legs now itching from the billion leafy green plants I had trampled through. I have no clue if any of them were poisonous, or if the bugs I was getting bitten by carried any of the crazy tropical fevers, or if the small brown flecks of material on my skin were grass clippings or micro leeches. I got back to the shanty village and climbed the hill back to the bus stop.

I pulled out my map and decided that since this section of trail was not completed, I would have to continue on up Navy Hill road to get to the road leading to the climb up Mt. Tapochau. After my ride yesterday, we took the rental car up that road and saw the intersection where Navy Hill came out. The XTERRA course continued on up the road, and after awhile we had to turn around because the road to the top of the mountain got too steep and rutted for our little Toyota Camry rental car to handle. I got back on my bike and rolled up Navy Hill road, up past the smelly shanty area. I was climbing slowly and the owner of the shanty had several dogs, one of which ran out but was thankfully chained. I was getting so sick of dogs. The island of Saipan is overrun with feral dogs that roam around everywhere.

Apparently I was climbing Navy Hill road on a busy day, because a few cars actually passed by. Some parts of the road were so steep I had to get off and hike my bike. As I climbed I reached a construction area where a new house was being built. I was now in an area that had less shanties and houses that were now made out of real bricks. The climb continued up and up, and I finally reached the intersection of the main road. Once I got out on the road I could see the ocean and I was now back on the XTERRA course. I was standing below multi-million dollar homes and condos. Very strange. Saipan is an island of extremes.

View of the ocean from the road heading to Mt. Tapochau on the course. The small island out there is Managaha Island.

I started up the climb again, and just as I got rolling I heard someone come up next to me on a bike. It was Fish! Fish asked if I had found the course, and I told him no, I had just spent 30 minutes bushwacking through 6 ft tall grass and still hadn’t found the course. I had climbed Navy Hill instead. He said that he and Chips went back and spent some time trying to find it and eventually got to the other side, but it was a lot of work and not obvious. He asked if I had done this climb, and I said no, not yet. He told me to follow him on a fork of the road to the right. He said we would continue on the climb, loop around, and end up on this road where we would have to go left through the grass. It wasn’t marked yet so he wanted to make sure I found the trail. Fish wanted to get back to his British friends at the top, so I said goodbye and started to climb. After awhile I was sick of climbing and turned around to try out the singletrack he had pointed out.

The singletrack led to an area with tall grass, but this time there was a huge square trail cut through the grass. It was like an ad for the DR Brush & Mower had come through there. The trail was really slippery from all of the grass clippings on the ground, but there was a ton of arrows and tape to follow.

This is what a trail should look like!

Not a trail for tall people.

The trail then turned and went into the jungle, where a tunnel had been cut for the course. Vines and branches were still low overhead, so this was a course for short people, not tall guys. The course made tight turns up and down hills, and I figured there was going to be no way through these areas except to hike-a-bike. My record of 100% XTERRA hike-a-bike still stands. I’ve never done an XTERRA that didn’t force us off the bike at some point. During some portions of the course I almost couldn’t see because it was so dark from all the plants. I reached one section that I call the Fire Swamp, because it looks exactly like the Fire Swamp in “The Princess Bride,” except more green. Vines draped down in curtains and pulled at my bike, helmet, and Camelbak. This was not a race to have bar ends on your handlebars. The end of the Fire Swamp took me to the construction area of the new house, and I was now able to fly down Navy Hill road. Going this direction was much more pleasant because I could blast past the smelly shanty area. This brought me to the paved private road that I had climbed yesterday. I decided to finish that part of the course, and this time flew down the hill figuring I would be able to hold enough speed to fend off the lady’s dogs that would probably run after me. Only one shot out to try to get me, but I was on the downhill at that point. Unfortunately, trying to escape the dog made me take a bit too much speed down the technical downhill, and I was on the ragged edge of trying to slow down while getting over the rocks and ruts and not crash. I safely made it to the pavement, and took the road back to the park.

Once I got to the park, my Garmin showed 7.5 miles completed. The course is advertised to be somewhere around 30K (19 miles). So I decided to leave the rest of the course as a surprise for race day, and that race report.

Thursday - 3/11/10
All I had on the training plan was a 30 minute swim. I swam in the cove of the hotel where we’re staying, which is really shallow water so at times it was difficult to get a full stroke. The water is amazingly clear here, which is both good and bad. Good because you can easily see where you’re going, and bad because you can see all of the sea creatures below you. There are a million slug-like things that hang out on the ocean floor, and I really don’t want to step on one. That, and I’ve seen several snake-like creatures which may be eels of some sort. Anyways, my swim went ok except for getting a horrible sunburn.

Friday - 3/11/10
Today is the last day before the race, so I’m staying out of the sun and trying to do as little as possible. The training plan called for an easy 20 minute 2 mile run, which I ran at a 9:41 average pace which felt pretty easy. I was feeling good about this until I ran into the XTERRA folks at the hotel after breakfast. I met the head XTERRA guy Dave, and asked him about the run course as he was heading out today to triple check it. I asked why in all the videos and photos for this race were the runners wearing bike gloves (I packed an old pair of road bike gloves just in case). He said there was a lot of rock climbing and cliff scrambling, and they were securing ropes for us along the rock and cliff faces. He’s then telling me about foot holds in the rocks, and how he needs to check and make sure the ropes are secure. His wife and another guy are standing there waiting to see my expression and I just said, “Well, it’s not XTERRA if there’s no risk of death.” The head XTERRA dude thought for a second and said, “Yeah, that’s true.” So everyone else is telling me how we have to be careful running through the caves and tunnels and on the cliff faces. All I can think is, “Well, there goes my chance of hoping to stay under 12 minute miles, again.” (XTERRA trail runs are always difficult so my goal is a 12 min/mile pace for each race).

So race day is guaranteed to be an adventure, which will probably make my adventures on the small portion that I’ve seen of the actual race course seem like nothing.

24 Hours in the Old Pueblo

2010-02-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

Team #421, "Tucson Tri Girls and a Token Guy." (L-R) Liane, Krista, Zac, Me, Anne.

This year we were a 5 person co-ed team, Team "Tucson Tri Girls and a Token Guy." We were one of the rare teams made up of 4 girls and a guy, which is the exact opposite of what most of the co-ed teams do. Mountain biking is still dominated by guys, so many 4 man teams pick up a girl so that they can have 5 and race in the co-ed division, and get more rest between laps. So I think it's cool when we steal more of the eligible women mountain bikers and put them on our team. :)

For the 2010 team we had myself, my husband Zac (the token guy), Liane, Krista, and Anne. Originally Liane's friend Nicole was to be on our team, but she had come down with a serious injury and we decided it was best for her to focus on recovery. During a mountain bike play day at our house I asked Anne if she could join in on the fun of our team. She did some schedule checking, and thankfully was able to make it. Our team was complete!

Zac and I loaded up the van and headed out to the race site on Thursday in the late afternoon to stake our team's claim on the campsite. We had our fingers crossed that our favorite site was open, and sure enough, it was! We love our site because it's not far from all the race happenings, but far enough to get some sleep, and it usually has terrific lakefront property. This year was no exception. We set up camp, I texted the info to the team, and we headed off to bed to get some rest and bank some sleep hours before the craziness of the event started.

Friday afternoon the rest of the team arrived, and we set to work setting up camp. Our camp includes important features like the official Junk Food Table. It is a tradition that we started last year and carried into this year, and this year it was quite impressive. Chocolate, salty chips, candy, and anything made of sugar or fat went on this table. In fact, it was enforced by our team NOT to put anything not junkfood related on the table. Zac tried to squeeze an orange in there and I told him to keep fruit like that inside away from public view. Liane tried to put chain lube on the table and it quickly ended up on the grill table. Over the race weekend, the mountain of junk food grew to where it was impossible to see the table underneath. I'm proud of my team!

Friday is the rest day before the big event, so it was spent around the campfire and watching things like a team of guys trying several times over to erect a tent. They would try, and it would fall, and then they would put it back up only to take it down again. It was great fun to watch. This year we decided to hike to the top of the mountain that overlooks 24 hour town. There is a little shrine of rocks at the top, and you can see the entire town and riders on the course down below.

Saturday morning we had breakfast by the campfire, and while the team went to the race meeting I tuned in to KEpic radio and listened to the race meeting while I got my race gear ready. Hard to believe in the middle of all this camping fun we actually had to get on our bikes and ride! I would be the first rider for our team, and I still had to pack my Camelbak and get my helmet ready. This year I made team schwag bags that included glow sticks, knee high socks with bikes on them, Snicker bars, a purple beaded necklace, and a foam TTG crown/buzzsaw/sun to adorn the tops of our helmets. When the group got back we set to work on our helmets and got our decorations on. Then it was time to park my bike in the transition area, check in our team, and head to the race start.

With 2000 riders it would be crazy to force them all onto the singeltrack all at once. So the race has a LeMans style start where we run several hundred yards to our awaiting bikes to start the race. I seeded myself towards the front of the middle, but everyone joined in at the front and I ended up further back than I wanted. When the gun sounded I was stuck behind a lot of guys, so next time I'll be up closer to the front. I ran down past our campsite and waived to my team as I headed to my bike. I grabbed my bike and officially started the first lap of the race.

The first lap is insane, and you have to be able to hold your own out there with the crowd. This is why we don't send the newbies out for the first lap. I rode down the dirt road with the crowd and wove through the bikers, and made sure to pass quickly where I could. We reached the bottom of "The Bitches" which is a series of 7 steep hills on the gasline road. Thanks to XTERRA training, this was the first year I could hammer up and down all of The Bitches. Normally I would slog up and get passed on the uphills, only to pass on the downhills. So it was great to finally be able to do both. I reached the Corral Trail, and this was where a year of racing in the MBAA series paid off. I was able to pass quickly and get around people, and hold a lot more speed in the corners than last year. We would form trains of people because someone would get stuck behind a slower rider and not pass, and then that would hold up the next person, and the next person, etc. So I would stay in the train and wait until it was my turn to pass. I used the time in the trains to do my eating and drinking, since there wasn't anything else I could do.

After the Corral trail it was the Rattlesnake trail, then the His/Hers trail. We had a few more trains of people on this trail before it cleared up for a bit on the Junebug trail. The Highline trail is where we start another long climb, and I still had the legs, so I kicked it into high gear. Somehow in all of this training I developed a high cadence spin that works wonders when climbing on a mountain bike. I just sat there and spun the legs and motored over the rocks and up the hills. The descent on the Highline is my favorite as it is fast and twisty, and I caught some air a few times. I rolled into the timing tent and handed the baton off to Liane. New for our team this year was our baton hand-off. We duct taped our little wooden baton to a small purple feather boa, and exchanged the feather boa between each rider. I looked at my watch and I had finished the 16.3 mile course in 1:28:55, for an average speed of 11 mph. A new record for me! And that was with being held up in the trains of people!

I got back to camp and was greeted by TTG visitiors Leslie and Robin. Leslie had brought her famous chocolate chip cookies, and I was so hungry I downed 3 at once. My heart rate was still high, so this probably wasn't the smartest idea. No matter what, I always feel like crap at 24 hour events after my first lap. I was all jittery, had a horrible headache starting, and felt like I was ready to puke at any minute. I took the only aspirin we had in the RV, which was Advil that expired in 2006. Oh well, take 3 and hope it works. I tried to take a quick nap, but that didn't work. So I got up and started sipping on different things. When the Root Beer I tried made me nauseous I discovered it was the sugar causing it and nibbled on some salty snacks with water. I also wandered over to the exchange tent with Anne, and the walking seemed to help.

Liane is an experienced mountain biker, so we put her out 2nd to deal with the remaining crowds. She did great and came in in record time, for her own personal record. Anne was our newbie, and we sent her out 3rd where she would have guaranteed daylight for her first lap, and the crowds would be a bit less. Most people are nice out there, but lately there are more and more jerks entering the 24 hour scene and violate the number 1 rule of 24 Hour Town, which is "be nice." Anne had a few of them come up on her, and one guy tried to force her into a cholla. She shoulder checked him into a bush, and he learned not to mess with her. Even the photographer on the course exclaimed at one point to a guy behind her "Dude, you're being a dick." When the photographers say that, that has to tell guys like that something. Anne successfully made it back to the exchange tent in one piece, and a total of 20 minutes faster than her projected time. I walked back with her and told her the nauseous, jittery, exhausted, "There's no way I'm doing another lap" feeling was totally normal in this 24 hour thing. It takes some getting used to, but happens all the time.

Krista was up next, and she had the split lap of part of it being in daylight as the sun was going down, and part of it at night. She had been doing a lot of night riding over the year so I knew she would have no problem out there on the course. She had also done the MBAA series last year, and her riding has really improved over the year. So much in fact that she also turned in a record lap for her first lap of the race. Our team had a whiteboard in camp for recording times and writing notes, and we had stars around the first 4 laps for everyone's record times.

Zac was up next after Krista, for the first night lap. The last rider on a 5 person team usually has their first lap on the course as a night lap, and Zac never has a problem being the first one riding in the dark. After this, we pretty much stayed in rotation, and kept notes on our team whiteboard so that everyone could estimate when they needed to go out.

Once Zac came in, I headed out for my first night lap. I normally use a Niterider HID for night riding, and as soon as I went out my light seemed a bit dim. But, I hadn't ridden at night in awhile, so I figured it was my eyes adjusting and I'd get used to the conditions after a few minutes. When I got to The Bitches, I noticed it wasn't as bright as the other lights around me, even lights that were much older than mine. I finished up The Bitches and decided to keep going, as turning around would mean riding all those hills again. When riders came up behind me I hoped they would stay there, as their lights lit up the trail and for a few seconds I could actually see. But then then would pass and I would be left with my light that wasn't much brighter than my camp headlamp. I rode the trail by feel and memory, which apparently wasn't that good because I missed turns and went off trail a million times. When I got to the His/Hers trail my light started dimming even more, and I doubted I could make it back to camp. On the trail there are "aid" stations that are radio points. They don't hand out food like the triathlon stations, but instead are there to help in getting first responders out on the course. They each have a letter assigned, and about halfway through the course is the Golf station (Golf for G). I had already passed by Golf, and the next point was Hotel. I got to Hotel and called Zac and asked if we had any spare lights charged and ready to go. As a registered racer, he could meet me on the course with lights. The next station, India, crossed the main road, and he could meet me there with lights. So I ate my Snickers bar at Hotel, donned my camp headlamp for more light, and hit the Junebug trail with the dim light that I had left.

It felt like it took forever to do the Junebug trail, which is rather twisty and tough to ride with failing light. About 20 minutes later I made it to India and pulled over just in time as I saw Zac walking up with lights. We pulled the failed lights off my bike and put an older Halogen set on. They turned on right away and seemed like daylight compared to what I had. I told him to get a message to Liane that I was running late due to the lighting issues. What a difference light made! I rode along the Highpoint trail, happy to finally have descent light. At this point a duo guy rode up behind me and sat there. I asked him if he wanted to pass, but he said no, his legs were fried and he liked my pace and cadence. So he fell in behind me and matched the tempo and we cranked along. Then a solo rider came up behind him and fell into our little train. Apparently my cadence is appreciated by those with ailing legs, so I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or what. The three of us chatted and the guys behind me mentioned that they had both gone out too fast on the first lap, which is why they were dying now. We finished up the lap, and I met Liane at the exchange tent. My total lap time was 1:58, but ride time was 1:45, so I only lost about 13 minutes due to phone calls and making the lighting exchange.

I got back to the RV and immediately got out of my sweaty clothes and crashed. Zac had his alarm set, so I set mine for an hour later. I got about 4 hours of sleep before waking up. Zac was getting ready for his next lap, so I decided to stay up and get ready for mine. I checked the whiteboard to see if Anne had survived her lap. She had, and turned in another time 20 minutes faster than her expected time. She left a note that she was fried and had gone to bed, and Krista was now out on her next night lap. Zac went out, and would be coming in with the sunrise. The wind was picking up so clothing is always tough to figure out. I decided on my TTG jersey and arm warmers, with my wind breaker over the top. When I went out for my lap the sun was up, so no need for lights. I warmed up right away on The Bitches, but decided to keep my wind breaker on as we headed into the wind after that. Once on the Rattlesnake trail I decided I was getting too warm, and made a stop to take it off and to get my Snickers bar from my Camelbak. I finished up my 3rd lap with a 1:50 lap time, and total moving time of 1:45 (5 min lost for taking off the windbreaker and getting the bar).

I handed off to Liane and rolled into camp. I had hoped to do a 4th lap, but my legs were too tired at this point, and I couldn't stand sitting on the seat anymore. I had climbed most of the Highpoint trail out of the saddle because it hurt too much to sit down. And, looking back at my training I wasn't doing the long epic rides anyways. Zac was way too chipper when he had come in during the morning, so his punishment was to go out on a 3rd lap. He met Liane in the exchange tent and went out for what would be the final lap for our team. The most important rule in the 24 hour race is to have someone for your team cross the finish line after 12 PM. If your rider comes in at 11:59 AM you have to send another rider out or else the team DNFs. At about 11:30 AM, riders start to gather outside of the exchange tent so that they cross the line after 12 PM (that means no one else wanted to go out). Zac left at around 11 AM, and I knew he wasn't going to turn in an hour lap, so we were in no danger. Anne and I met him at the end and walked back to camp to start the packing process.

Overall our team did 13 laps, and everyone did great. It was a great time out in the desert, and our whole team was all about going out and having fun. Turning the pedals on the course was challenging for each of us at some point during the event, but in the end we came out of it alive and smiling. And, I have to say, this year was by far the best for weather. Usually this event can have a mixed bag in the weather department, with past races being cold and muddy. This year it was sunny with highs in the 70s, and at one point we were comfortable in shorts and flip flops! When the weather is good, that adds to the fun factor. As always, when we finish this event we are all tired, hungry, and dirty, and never want to do another one again. Until November rolls around and someone brings up the idea of forming a team for the next year's race. :)

There are too many photos of the event to post here on my blog, so I'll point to the links:

Fleet Feet AZ Trail Race

2010-02-11T13:46:00.001-08:00

Last year was the first year I had done the Fleet Feet AZ Trail race out at Colossal Cave. Shari and I ran it together and had a fantastic race. So this year we both registered and planned to run the 8 miles together again and hopefully beat our times from last year.

On race morning (Feb 7th) I woke up to rain and started packing clothing. I wasn't sure what the weather would be like once the race started. I parked at the race site and Shari and Renee were parked in front of me. We couldn't have planned that any better! I got out of the outer warm layer of clothing and decided on shorts, tank top, and arm warmers that I could scrunch up and down depending on the temperature.

Shari and I did a quick 5 min warm-up, then got in the mass of people for the start. The start of the run takes us down the road, because shoving 1000 people on singletrack all at once is not optimal. We did the first loop and hit the singletrack and began climbing. At this point it was a lot of shuffling through the group, trying to figure out where we should be in the pack. I just tried to hang on to Shari and not loose her early in the race. Out on the trail we saw a lot of people cheering including people from Fleet Feet, and some mountain biking friends of mine like Jon Shouse and Dave Barger, who were out taking pics.

Around Mile 3 we hit the technical section, which is a lot of up and down hills, and over rocks. At this point an older guy came up behind me and his breathing was annoying. It sounded like he was either coughing up a lung or having a heart attack. He also kept tripping. I suggested he pass me so that I wouldn't get lung butter on my TTG jersey. I was hoping he would leave me in the dust because I really didn't want to have to perform mouth-to-mouth on this guy if he keeled over. Unfortunately my plan didn't work, and he decided to hang out between me and Shari. I had backed off the pace a bit so there was about 15 yards between us, but the guy stayed right behind Shari. The guy totally biffed it and crashed in the trail, but he got up and kept going. Shari asked him if he was ok, and apparently he was because he finally passed and kept going.

The course kind of makes the shape of a "P" with an out-and-back early on, and then a loop at the top. Last year we had the front runners come by us while we were still on the out-and-back. This year we made it to the loop of the "P" without getting caught by the fast people. So that must have meant we improved! We reached a dirt road with a steep climb, and took that hike as a chance to get out our food and get our snacks for the run back. We finished the loop of the "P" and got back on the out-and-back section for the final leg of the run.

We wound our way around the singletrack, and could see up ahead people were falling and crashing everywhere. Shari and I took a couple of the uphills as a chance to hike and get a quick breath, and then were back at it again once the trail leveled. About Mile 6 we turned and got up on a ridge and were greeted with a strong headwind. That wind was cold! Time for the arm warmers to come back up again. We knew we didn't have much time before the grey skies over us started to dump their water. Sure enough, about half a mile later a light sprinkle started. We were on the uphill at this point so a light sprinkle was kind of refreshing.

At about Mile 7 I wasn't sure if I could make it back. This was by far the longest of my trail runs lately. We climbed up the hill that we had previously had fun running down. At this point Tara caught up to me, as Shari and I had been the rabbits she was chasing. We chatted and the talking helped me to keep my mind focused on the trail and not on how tired I was. We reached the final downhill and it was all downhill back to the wash. By now the rain was officially coming down, but we only had a little bit left to go. We crossed the wash, ran across the road to where the cheering spectators were, and crossed the finish line. I grabbed whatever people were handing me (medal, water, etc) and just wanted to keep walking because I couldn't catch my breath. I wandered around the finish area until I could breathe again, and caught up to Shari and Tara to say thanks for a great race.

We went back to the cars to get out of our wet race clothing and into our dry rain gear, then wandered over to the food area. By this time the rain was really coming down and the temperature had dropped significantly. I ate a bit of food, but was zoning out so I said goodbye to Shari and Renee and headed back home where I defrosted in the hot shower and collapsed for a nap.

I finished in 1:25:17, which was an average pace of 10:39 min/miles and a total of 3 minutes faster than last year. Shari and I were both happy with our improvement, so we'll see what happens next year!

I thought this was a great pic of me and Shari before the race. (Photo by Dave Barger).

Me, Shari, and Renee before the race. (Photo by Dave Barger).

Running on the singletrack, early in the race. (Photo by Jon Shouse).

In the train of people. (Photo by Jon Shouse).

Shari and I in the train. (Photo by Dave Barger).

Watching the trail in front of me. The guy behind me is the one that fell later on. (Photo by Dave Barger).

Tech Trek with Mom

2010-02-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

My mom has been working on getting more fit. She has done great with the diet, but the exercise is the other half of the equation. She wanted to do a walking event with me (since right now she doesn't run) so our first step was to hit Performance Footwear and get her hooked up with some "real" shoes. She had been walking on her treadmill and having heal pain, and I told her it was because she needed real running shoes. We took her to Performance where they put her up on the treadmill and video taped her footstrike and had her try on different shoes. She loved a pair of Brooks Glycerines that came in purple, her favorite color. As long as she loved them, that's all that mattered. I knew she wouldn't want to walk in shoes if she didn't like them. I then told her she had to practice in the shoes on her training walks to get used to them. She's up to 30 min of treadmill walking each day.

Then I set out to find a race we could do. It had to be on a weekend that didn't conflict with one of the other billion races I'm registered for, and I wanted to find a good event. Luckily the Tech Trek was offered again this year, and I signed us up to walk the 2 mile course. It's a family friendly event, and you save more on entry fees if you register more family members, so I convinced my husband Zac to sign up to run the 10K while we walked. Nevermind he hasn't been running lately. This is $5 off an entry fee we're talking about here. I had done this event in the past, so I knew it would be a good one for my mom, and it was only 2 miles from my house because it started at Agua Caliente school. I also had the Fleet Feet trail run the following day, so I would have to do the walk anyways to not blow my chance at a PR on the trail run. No temptation to sign up for the Tech Trek 10K there.

Race day we got there early to get good parking and get our goodie bags. Since we were there so early we waited in the car and took stock of what was in our bags. The bags had cool things like flashlights, hats, tool kits, and Fitness Plus magazine which we read while we waited. It was then time for Zac to get ready. We strolled over to the start to watch him take off on the run, then hit the bathroom one more time before lining up for the 2 miler. I then answered all of my mom's first-timer questions: Would I stay with her? (Yes, of course). Would we be the only ones walking? (No). Would we be the last ones out there? (No).

About 30 or so people lined up for the 2 mile course, and the announcer yelled "Go!" and we were off. I let my mom set the pace, and of course I still wore my Garmin so I could announce the distance we had traveled and our pace with insane accuracy, weather she wanted to hear it or not. We had a simple square course to follow: west on Limberlost, south on Melpomene, east on Prince, north on Homestead. My mom was walking at a consistent pace of 17-18 min/mi, and I carried my camera to take pics along the way. We did catch up to groups of people and had to work on passing to get around them. I let her lead the way and let me know if she wanted to pass. We walked past houses with horses that watched as the groups of people went by. Once we reached Prince we merged into the 10K course, but I think by that time Zac had already passed through. The course was mostly flat with only a few slight inclines here and there.

Mom kept her head down most of the time because she was used to the treadmill and wanted to make sure she didn't trip on anything. Most of my pictures have a great view of the Nike swoosh on her hat. She didn't want to turn around to see who was behind us (I kept telling her there was a bunch and no way were we last). So instead I took pictures. At the end of Homestead St. we entered the back entrance to the school grounds. Since the 2 mile course was non-competitive, there was no official finish line. People just meandered onto the field. So we stayed on the path that went around the field, and I picked out a random painted line and said "That's the finish line!" so that I could get a picture. We finished in 36:40 and walked a total of 2.06 miles. About 15 minutes later we saw Zac cross the finish line for the 10K. He finished in a little over an hour, which is right where he expected.

We wandered over to the goodies and decided against the French toast made out of donuts. In my opinion, that ruined both the French toast and the donuts. Keep them separate, please. Instead we opted for fruit and water, then headed home. Mom had a great time, so hopefully she'll slowly increase the walking so that we can start to increase the distance. I'm already shopping around for a 5K for her as the next goal. ;)

Mom and I before the race:

Zac starting the 10K race:

Mom was excited and emphasising the arm swing at the beginning of the walk:

Still smiling about 1/2 way through the course:

Proof that I stayed with her:

Proof that she wasn't last and was in front of others:

Mom crossing Elaine's Improptu Official Finish Line:

Zac heading towards the finish line of the 10K:

Chase The Sun trail run

2010-01-24T07:35:00.001-08:00

I found out about the Chase The Sun Run on the Running in the USA website (I was looking for a different race at the time). Then Tri Girl Joyce sent me an invite on Facebook, so I decided it would be a good race to do. This was a 10K trail run through Tucson Mountain Park, starting from the Ironwood picnic area. And, as you can guess from the name, the race started at 4:30 PM, so we would be chasing the sun.

This race was put on by the USA Orienteering team. This was the inagural race, and it was sold out with a whopping 13 people. Big races can be fun, but I also like to do small, grassroots events like this where you find out about them through word-of-mouth or obscure internet searching. The Tucson cyclocross series used to be like this (it is no longer around) and the Arizona Endurace Series is like this. Smaller events mean cheaper entry fees, and it's pretty much a "show up and race" feel.

Since I was coming from the exact opposite side of Tucson, I gave myself an hour to get to the event. I got to the Ironwood picnic area and found the tent where check-in was and we got our numbers. I used the trip to the bathroom as the jog to warm-up. Then it was time to strip off clothing and get ready. I had brought a wide array of clothing because I didn't know what to expect weather-wise. I decided on my TTG capris, my long-sleeved Underarmor shirt, and TTG top. I put a headlamp in my hydration pack "just in case." I also wore the pack so that I could practice with it. I may be wearing this pack in Saipan as it will definitely be hot and humid, and I want to be used to runing with the pack.

At around 4:30 PM we headed to the start. We got instructions on the course markers. There would be flags in the ground marking the turns, and we were to turn in the direction of the markers. There would also be streamers in the trees to follow. We were to ignore all other splinter trails. At 4:35 PM we were off and running. This was a training race for me for XTERRA Saipan, so my instructions on the training plan from Coach Scott were to go hard during this race. So I shuffled my way through the runners, chatting with everyone for a bit before finding and open spot where I could set my pace. The first part was a bit breezy, and my eyes were watering like mad. For the first part, the trails were pretty flat and not too rocky. As it progressed we got into some small roller hills, kind of like Fantasy Island, where you go down a short downhill followed by a short uphill. The organizers had also put mile markers out on the course, which is rare in trail running. But the markers were exactly spot-on as far as distance, because my Garmin was showing the same distance.

We headed west for a few miles before making a sharp turn and heading east again. After this turn I could feel we were going up a slight incline, and this would last for the next several miles. Thankfully I had the tracks of the faster runners to follow as well. This section had a bit more gravel, and we had to watch out for cholla balls that I'm sure the wind had knocked down from all the cactus. At the 3 mile mark I was beginning to wonder if I could hold the pace and make it. At this time, two other runners caught up to me. I needed to take my mind off of how far we were, so I started talking to the guys behind me. They were happy to stay there and let me pace, so I asked where they were from and how they found out about the race. One runner was Tom and the other was Pete, both from out of town. They had found out about the race from the same website. Thankfully they were both willing to chat, and we talked about running races, Garmins, and the upcoming races we had. This really helped make the miles go by. Sometimes it's tough to tell if the other runners around you are willing to talk, but I'm glad both Pete and Tom were.

The last few miles we were parallel to Kinney Road, and this section got really rolly with the small hills and I felt like it was exactly like Fantasy Island. The course flattened out and I saw people up ahead, and sure enough it was the finish. We crossed the finish line (yes there was an official line drawn in the sand) and I walked around a bit right after to cool down. I thanked Pete and Tom for running with me as we all had a great time out there. I finished in 58:20, for an average pace of 9:21. This was the fastest 10K I've done so far, and it was on trails so I was really happy with my time. Plus, I avoided tripping or falling, which is always a bonus with trail running.

The USA Orienteering crew had a nice spread of snacks of bagels, bananas, clementines, and hot chocolate at the finish. I put the layers back on and enjoyed the snacks and talking with everyone while the others came in from the run.

This was a fantastic race and really well organized and fun for the inagural event. This would be the perfect race for any beginners to trail running because the course is pretty flat with no gnarly technical sections. You aren't on a mountain with the risk of death if you fall off the side. ;) I was able to run the entire thing, whereas other technical courses often require hiking in spots. I asked if the race would be held next year, and the USA Orienteering team is planning on it, although it may be on a different weekend as they have to work around their training and racing schedule. So if you have a goal to try trail running in the future, be sure to check this event out.

The Trail Runner and The Mountain Biker

2010-01-16T13:01:00.000-08:00

Today I had to do a 1 hr 15 min trail run on "difficult" terrain, according to the training plan. I decided the Redington area would do. Lots of climbing and descending in rocks and scree. Actually, I'd rather trail run out here anyways. With the mountain bike there's always a lot of hike-a-bike. This time I'd be free to run the entire way and not have to push a bike. So I threw the trail runners and hydration pack in the Jeep, and Zac put his bike on the roof rack. We drove up to the 3 Feathers parking area on Redington Rd. When we started at 10:30 AM, there was only one other car there. We thought that was kind of odd for a warm Saturday in January.

Zac took his camera and I took mine, so we have pics of me trail running and Zac mountain biking. I went ahead and started my run while Zac got the bike ready, as I figured he'd catch me soon. I walked for 5 minutes to warm up, then started my run. The Jeep road immediately heads downhill on steep, rocky terrain. Loose gravel covers the rocks, so it is super slippery. But this is what I was here to practice on. I made my way down the first steep section, then had a flat spot before "The Chute." The Chute is a large, steep rock formation that many 4WD vehicles play on. A white Jeep was blocking the route I wanted to take down, so I ended up staying far to the left along the hillside. I made my way down this section before the trail flattened out and started to climb. It was pretty much either climbing or descending while on this trail. I ran for about 40 minutes, with Zac leapfrogging past me on his bike. We would take pictures as he rode and I ran, and I got good at fishing my camera out of the front pocket of my hydration pack when Zac rode by.

At the 40 minute mark I turned around and ran back the way we came, figuring the trail was mostly uphill on the way back up. We only had 1 Jeep and 2 dirtbikes pass us while we were out on the trail. When we got back to the parking lot there were a ton of vehicles parking and unloading dirtbikes and quads. Looks like we had picked the perfect time to hit the trail. Overall on this technical trail I averaged a 13:15 min/mi pace. It was a bit slow, but my legs were also super tired from the past 3 days of workouts (A mountain hill repeats on Thurs, mountain bike time trials and run brick on Fri, and hard trail run today). I only had a few slides of the feet on the steep, rocky sections, but didn't crash. Thankfully tomorrow is an easy recovery road ride and TTG swim. The easy workout day couldn't come soon enough!

Johnny and Liane will recognize a lot of where these pics are from the many training rides we did out here this past summer. ;)

Trail running the Jeep trail:
Wee! A downhill!

Zac at the very top of a climb. Does he look tired?

Running past the cow pond:

Zac at the intersection of FR4417 and FR4426. And there's still a little snow in the Rincons!

Zac blasting down the downhill of FR4426:

Me crossing a cattle guard. It's much more difficult to run over these than to bike over them.

Saguaro and blue sky:

Zac enjoying the downhill:

Hiking up "The Chute."

Preparations for Saipan

2010-01-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

Check out the 2009 Saipan Championship Gallery. These photos were from the photographer from Triathlete magazine for the April 2009 issue. One thing I'm noticing is that people were wearing their bike gloves on the trail run. Hmmmm...

This is Week 12 of training, and there's 1 month, 3 weeks, and 3 days left until the 2010 XTERRA Saipan. Training has been going well. Scott is having me ramp up into more specialized training now that the base work is done. I did some research on the course, and there's lots of climbing on the bike, and loose, rocky, steep hills on the trail run. So now my training plans come with off-road brick workouts specified, followed by comments of "Please don't kill me afterwards" from Scott. He's not making me swim 3X per week, so he shall live. ;)

I'm averaging around 12-13 hours of training per week, which is more than I've ever trained for an XTERRA. My routine is to come home, empty the bag of workout clothes and gear, and re-pack them for the next day's workouts. As soon as I'm finished with one workout I'm planning and prepping for the next one. Sleep is somewhere in there. I'm trying to keep up on it this week, but being the first weeks back at work from the winter break has made it tough.

So here's how I'm feeling about the 3 sports.

Swim:
Thankfully it's all coming back rather quickly to me, even though I'm swimming 1-2X per week. Flipturns are part of my workouts now (even though they are not needed for XTERRA). I figure if I get somersaulted in the ocean, I'll be experienced in coming out of it streamlined and knowing where the surface is. But my swim times are right back at where they were before my swimming strike last year.

Bike:
Lots of work being done here. I'm using all of my bikes. The tri bike goes on the road in the daylight for HR specific work, and stays on the trainer during the week for early morning sessions. The cyclocross bike comes out for recovery rides. The mountain bike comes out on the weekends for trails and brick sessions. I just had my XC mountain bike overhauled at Arizona Bicycle Experts, so everything will be broken in and adjusted by race day. I seem to be climbing a lot better than before, and Zac mentioned I now have muscle definition in my claves on the climbs. I don't know, I can't see them. Guess I'll have to trust him.

Run:
Lots of intervals and now the trail runs are on more technical terrain. I need to get used to running on loose rocks on steep hills, so on the trails I'm forcing myself to stay off of the worn-in line and run in the rough where the rocks are at.

Overall I'm starting to see an improvement in fitness and strength. I'm glad I hired Scott's brains. :)

The past few weeks have been spent making all of the travel plans and arrangements for the race. I officially registered for the race, though I'm still waiting for the participant list to get updated for this year. Our flights are all set and are insane. We depart Tucson at 6:10 AM on Saturday, 3/6 and fly to Dallas. We are using Zac's airline miles from American, so we have to go through this hub. Next we fly to Tokyo and arrive there at 4:35 PM on Sunday, 3/7. We depart at 9 PM that night and fly to Saipan and arrive at 1:30 AM on Monday, 3/8. We are in Saipan the whole week and leave on Monday the 15th. My plan is to get there early, adjust to the timezone, swim, bike, and run the course ahead of time, and rest before the race on the 13th. In between we'll do all the touristy stuff.

I've been waiting to see if we would get a discount for the XTERRA at the host hotel, and after much internet scouring I found out they were set up this week. So we will be staying at the Pacific Islands Club resort for only $80 a day! They want to encourage people to travel out to this race, and so they offer this great deal. So that saves us a huge amount, because the normal rates there are not cheap.

I'm still waiting to see if Northwest airlines (the Tokyo to Saipan flight) will be waiving bike fees for the race. They did it in the past so hopefully it goes through. Other than that, we're all set to go!

Tour De Cookie

2010-01-10T17:11:00.001-08:00

Tour De Cookie is kind of like a scavenger hunt on bikes, with the bounty being cookies and the proceeds going to the Tucson adaptive rec center, and the Kids’ Try-athlon. So it’s a really cool event. This year riders could choose a 31 mile long course, or an 11 mile short course. I was tired from a week’s worth of training and hoping I could convince my husband Zac to do the 11 miler, but he noted that there were only 2 cookie stations on the short course and 9 on the long course. Those that know Zac know he’s all about the cookies, so I was stuck riding 31 miles for cookies.

Holy cow it was freezing this morning! We rolled into the Brandi Fenton Park parking lot and the temp gauge on my Jeep said 37 degrees. Ugh. I donned all the clothing I had brought with me and got the bike ready. I brought my commuter cyclocross bike, which has a rear rack where I attached my commuter trunk. I was prepared to haul a lot of cookies! Zac did the same and attached one of his panniers. We were not going to be limited in the number of cookies we could haul. My bike also had a small furry Cookie Monster attached to the front. He has a hinged mouth and each time he opens his mouth, he yells “Cookies! Kawabunga! Yum Yum Yum! Wha ha ha!” and then he burps. Since he was on the front of my bike, he would talk each time I went over a bump or rough patch in the road. On roads like Oracle I have a rapping Cookie Moster.

We got to the start line and lined up with all the other Tri Girls. Everyone was bundled up but there was a ton of purple out there! At 8:05 AM we took off and the event was underway. I was really mad at myself for not packing my winter cycling gloves. My hands hurt so bad from the cold that I wanted to cry. Zac and I decided to follow the long course as it was laid out on the map and cue sheet, so that we could also follow the course markings. There were orange arrows with a “C” marking where to turn. Our first stop on the map was Bodycentral on Oracle and Magee. Last year this was the furthest stop away, and many people skipped it. I thought this year the organizers put them first so that they would get all the early traffic and wouldn’t get jilted, and it also allowed everyone to string out a bit. It was 10 miles and a ton of hills to get to the first station at Bodycentral. I had remembered from last year they were down a hill, and you can’t see the shop from the road. But as we approached the area there were no signs or balloons or anything. Had we missed the turn? Zac’s dad, who was also riding in the event had their address written down, and sure enough we were in the right spot. We rolled down the hill of the driveway and up to the front of Bodycentral.

No booth. No people. NO COOKIES! Crickets chirped. A lone tumbleweed rolled by in the dusty wind. A baby cried in the distance.

WHAT?!? Are you kidding me? We had just ridden 10 hilly miles and were eager to taste the sugary goodness of cookies only to be greeted with an empty parking lot. Hmm…well, maybe they moved their station on the road for better visibility? (Long stretch here but I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt). We went back down Oracle all the way to the intersection, and there was nothing. That is kind of a downer for a charity ride. Oh well. On to stop #2 and Team In Training we go. Their booth wasn’t too far away, but unfortunately they were packed with people and were running low on cookies, and we were only 1 hour into the event. I think the first booth not being setup caused an overflow to the second booth. But the TNT folks were cheery and doing their best. Zac and I decided to only spend 1 cookie dollar there so that they would have more cookies for the others still coming in. We still had a bunch of other stops to go.

We continued on to stop #3 on Stone and Grant at the Ameripsych booth. Much less traffic here and a good selection of cookies. Since we were behind in our cookie spending, we spent 2 cookie bucks here. Next we ended up downtown at the Tucson Roller Derby booth. They were easy to find as there was a gal on skates with a cookie sign showing us where to turn. They had a great booth setup with lots of derby folks on skates. If Tri Girls skated, we would be like them…it was like a parallel group. They had a fabulous selection of cookies so Zac and I splurged and spent 4 cookie bucks there. A guy from the paper was there taking photos, and as I took my outer jacket off he kneeled down and started taking a bazillion pics of the Cookie Monster on the front of my bike. I also got my pic taken by the roller derby folks with a derby girl and Cookie Monster. The guy from the paper asked me my name and I put in a plug for Tri Girls. So I’ll have to see if Cookie Monster ends up in the paper. ;)

Zac and I had to pick up the pace because I was hoping to go to TTG swim after the bike ride. Next stop, the TTG booth! The purple tent was setup on the UA mall, right by the pool. It was easy to find, especially with the TTG banner up across from the booth, and it was the perfect location. Keli, Shari, Kathy, Joyce, Eve, Leslie, and Jess with Patches the Tri Pup had an awesome spread, and it was so fun to chat with them. Zac and I spent 9 cookie bucks here each, and I think I took about one of everything. Leslie and the other TTG bakers had some tasty stuff that we couldn’t resist. I wasn’t able to get Krista’s truffles though, because those were already gone. :(

Our next stop was the Lightning Rugby booth, and they weren’t far off of the 3rd street bike path. They were on the side of the street, and I have to hand it to them for being very organized. They had a line of cones and they directed the bikes into the cone lane. They had someone mark the cookie sheet on our race numbers while the others got cookies, and the whole thing went very quickly. They were limited on space with the street they were on, but it all worked out well.

We had a couple of miles to our next stop, United Cerebral Palsy of So. AZ. They had volunteers on the street corner directing us into the parking lot, which gave us a safer way to get back to where their booth was in a back parking lot. A couple of their guy volunteers were bike valet, and held our bikes for us as we went to the cookie booth. These folks had a ton of spirit, with music and their volunteers were dancing. They had the cutest cookies shaped like bikes, so I had to buy 2 of those. They also had games, but Zac and I couldn’t stay for the games because we were running out of time. Last year we got done with the ride after they had taken the finish line down, and this year we weren’t going to let that happen. So we had to essentially grab our cookies at each booth and go.

A couple of miles to the next stop at a park, and we were at the Janice Meyer booth. Zac and I bought 2 baggies each of these cool little turtle things. They had taken a small pretzel, melted a Rolo on top, an stuck a pecan nut on top of the Rolo. Oh my gosh were they tasty! I’m going to have to figure out how to make them because Zac and I thought they would make excellent endurance ride food. You know, when I’m not eating Snickers bars. ;)

As we rolled back towards the Brandi Fenton park, we made a quick stop to help some TTGs with a flat. Zac popped the tire back on quick, and add some more air to the tire with his pump. Next we hit the Green Things booth. We had ridden past their plant nursery on the river path many times, and now we know how to get in the front way. This was kind of a self-serve station, where you just grab a brown paper bag and put cookies inside. We talked to the nursery guy for a bit while we got our bags situated and he told us stories of lost riders. The story of the missing Booth #1 had also made it to him, as I guess other cyclists had told him the same story.

Only one more booth to go, and that was the TriSports booth at the finish! Zac and I decided to hit the booth first and got our last 2 cookies. Then we turned around and rolled through the finish line and got our finisher’s cookie medals. They are little ceramic medallions that look like dark chocolate chip cookies. This time we got through the finish line before they took it down. I quickly unpacked my gear, said goodbye to Zac, and left to get to TTG swim. Overall it was a great Tour De Cookie!

Thanks so much to the Tri Girls that volunteered this morning in the cold, and those that made wonderful cookies. Thanks also to all the TTGs and honorary Tri Guys that came out and rode in this event to show support. A big thanks to Shari for making the TTG booth at this event happen. I think it is awesome TTG can give back to the community and support events like this.

Joyce took these great pics, which I'm stealing from Facebook. :)

Zac and I at the TTG cookie stand together:

The bounty of cookies I bought from the TTG stand:

Merry Christmas from the AZ Trail!

2010-01-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know. Christmas was last month. I'm still catching up.

The training plan for Christmas morning said I could do an hour run anywhere, so I decided on a trail run on the AZ Trail. I chose the Sycamore Reservoir trail (#39) from Prison Camp to the Sycamore Canyon Reservoir. This section is in wilderness, so mountain bikes aren't allowed on this section of trail. I always like to trail run the AZT sections that I can't bike.

Zac and I hit the trail at 9 AM and were the only ones heading out. The trail starts by the corrals in the Prison Camp campground, and heads up a hillside and then down into a wash. We started our run in the wash and climbed up to the saddle where the official AZ Trail sign is.

We then had a lot of downhill leading to the reservoir. Some sections were quite rocky.

View of Thimble Peak:

Zac and I at Sycamore Reservoir with Thimble Peak in the background:

There was quite a bit of water flowing down the reservoir to the stream below. The snow on Mt. Lemmon was already melting.

Zac by the reservoir:

I hiked down a bit down a steep slope to get a few more pics. Yes, risking my life for pics! ;)

Better view of the steep reservoir wall:
That would be ice in the stream below. The water flowing down the reservoir ended up below the ice.

View of the saddle on our climb back up. The saddle is where the AZT sign is.

That morning we were the only people on the trail. We only saw 2 other hikers coming up the other side of the saddle as we headed down. After we left the parking lot, there was a lot of traffic heading up Catalina Highway...most likely people going up to play in the snow. Overall it was a great way to spend Christmas morning!

Cliff Notes versions of race reports

2009-12-19T17:11:00.001-08:00

Yep, I'm still alive. Apparently I took a break from blogging. Right now I'm averaging 12-13 hours a week with XTERRA training, which ranks right up there with Half Ironman training and the early weeks of Ironman training as far as volume goes. Phew!

I'm not going to be able to do the usual detailed race reports for the 6 (!) race reports that I am behind on, so here is the Cliff Notes versions of each race.

PBR Off-Road Tri - 10/11/09
After surviving several insane XTERRA courses, it's a nice treat to drive up to Tempe and do the PBR off-road tri. I think it's a requirement for each XTERRA course to have something insane. The PBR tri is not part of the XTERRA series, but is kind of the same idea. Swim in a lake, mountain bike, trail run.

We drove up to the Phoenix area the day before because Zac had a mountain bike race at McDowell Mountain Park as part of the Dust Devil series. He made it 4 miles in to his race when his fork broke, forcing him to walk something like 6 miles back to the car. He was not a happy camper. We hit a hotel that night in Tempe at a super cheap rate thanks to a last-minute bid on Priceline, and got up early on Sunday for my tri.

I'd like to say I rocked the course and beat my time from last year, but my swim, bike, and run times were almost EXACTLY the same as last year! The swim was uneventful, but it was nice to only have to go 750 meters. The mountain bike was a blast and I rode the techy rock section each time, which was a great way to pass a bunch of people. The run was a mixture of trails and road, with the road section heading down Curry avenue and under the 202. As with last year, the race ends with an awesome slip n' slide.

Rock y Road 50/50 - 10/17/09
I had ridden the Reddington area trails a ton in preparation for this race. The week of the race I had to travel for work, and that Thursday I came down with some sort of stomach bug that purged my body of all electrolytes and fuel. Thursday evening I was definitely not doing the race. By Friday evening I had eaten toast and drank tons of Gatorade, and managed to get down some bland pasta. I was down 6 lbs in fluids. Saturday morning (race day) I was still a bit shaky but decided to see how far I would get on the course.

We headed out just as the sun was coming up, and it was already in the 70s, with weather predictions showing it to be on course for the hottest day in October. I slowly climbed up Redington Rd and made it to the Chiva turn-off, alternating water and Gatorade as I rode. These were my least favorite roads of the course, with many of the hills covered in scree and lots of wash crossings. I was way behind the group and just focused on keeping moving foward and taking rest breaks when I needed them. As I climbed to FR 37, there was a large bull standing in the Jeep trail, munching on the grass. I had to walk up the hill behind the bull and hoped he wouldn't come after me. At this moment I recalled Chad's AZT 300 race where he ended up in a tree as a bull came running and rammed into the tree. I made it safely past and continued on. As I rolled to the Italian Trap singletrack, a herd of cows on the other side of the fence next to me started trotting, and I recalled Liane's story of how she stampeded a herd of cows and had to track down the rancher to apologize.

As I rode the trails alone, I remembered all of the training rides I did with Zac, Liane, and Johnny...where we stopped to rest, where we just about died from heat stroke, and where we ran out of water in the past. I made it to the singletrack and started the long, rolling hills of the AZ Trail. Johnny said he'd be there in spirit, and sure enough he was. On 2 rides we stopped to un-wedge his chain from between his large rear cog and spokes. Well, on the Bellota trail my chain got wedged in the exact same spot. It took me forever to get untangled, but I finally did.

At 12:10 PM it was well over 90 degrees and I reached the major decision point at the La Milagrosa trailhead. Do I continue on down Milagrosa, one of the most technical trails in Tucson, or head back to the forest road and call sag support (my dad) to come get me? I rested in the measly shade of a mesquite tree and switched the last of my water bottles around. Miraculously, I had cell phone signal here, so I sent Zac a text message: "Starting La Milagrosa at 12:10 PM." That way if I didn't make it, he'd have a time stamp and Search & Rescue would only have 4 miles to find my body.

I started down the Milagrosa trail, telling myself to keep moving as much as possible. I had put my arm coolers back on to try to keep the sun off my arms. Also, it's never a good idea to ride trails like this in the heat of a hot day when you're in the middle of reading books like "Death in the Grand Canyon." Your actions closely mimick those in the book that have died. Somehow I survived the trail and got to the granite slab section of trail, which is the steepest and most technical. The few ounces of water that I had left were as hot as soup and it was hard to force myself to drink it. I finally got down to the pavement of the neighborhood and started riding back to McDonald park. I breifly thought about going straight home. I REALLY wanted to stop at someone's house and ask to use their water spigot, but I didn't want to stop riding. The last stretch on the pavement back to the park took forever, but when I got to the park I found Zac there at the Jeep. I dumped my bike, immediately laid down in the parking lot in the shade of my Jeep, and started drinking water and dousing my face in the water we had stashed in the coolers.

I laid under my Jeep for about 30 minutes, not caring about the stares of people in their cars as they rolled through the parking lot. I told Zac that I couldn't continue, and packed up. There was no way I had any strength left to continue on the road up Mt. Lemmon. But I had survived the trail portion of the 50/50 which was much further that I thought I was going to get after being sick right before the race.

Zac had gone straight from the exit of the Milagrosa trail back to our house and laid down in the driveway by the hose bib for 30 minutes before continuing on back to the park where our vehicles were. The heat got to him, too, so we both decided today wasn't going to be our day to finish the event with how hot it was. Hopefully next year the weather will be a bit better.

Tinfoilman Tri - 10/25/09

I had done the Tucson tri and the Firecracker tri, and the Tinfoilman was the last race in the series. I signed up with an estimated swim time of 14 minutes. I was swimming just under that in the summer aquathlons, and I figured that would motivate me to keep swimming up until October. Well, it didn't. I went on a strike from swimming, and forgot that I really should update my swim time. So on race day I was in Wave 8 out of 10. Lots of sitting around and fretting about the swim. Why, after doing 5 years of triathlon, would I fret over an 825 yard pool swim? Because I had volunteered for these races in the past as a swim lap counter, and know that Jim the race director paces up and down the lanes and does the math of who in the current wave is going the slowest, and holding up the entire next wave of swimmers. (This is why an accurate swim time is important). I didn't want to be THAT swimmer, especially in Wave 8! Keli was in Wave 7, so I had someone to talk to while we waited and waited for our time in the pool to come up.

This race I actually made an effort to warm-up, and got in the Kasser pool and did 200 meters right before my wave started to get in. I was hoping this would help get the heart rate up and the start wouldn't be such a shock to my system. Before I knew it, it was time to go and start swimming. It felt like the swim took forever, but when I got out I wasn't the last person in the pool! I looked down and my time was right in line with my swim time for the Tucson Tri, so I was happy with that. I got through T1 in about a minute, and got on my bike with it's new Zipp 404's installed (great buy on ebay). I hit the bike course with the plan to bike as hard as I could and hopefully turn in the best bike time I could. I forced myself to stay in the aerobars on the straight sections of road, and ended up leap frogging with 2 other ladies. On the last lap the one in front of me crashed as she was making the turn onto Enke Drive, so I slowed down but she was already up by the time I got there. I did my flying dismount, but had a sloppy racking of the bike that may have cost a few seconds. I got my run gear on and was out in about 30 seconds for T2. A quick check of my watch showed my fastest bike time ever!

My running wasn't as abismal as my swimming, but I hadn't been doing as much as in the past, and definitely not any speed work. I had mostly been biking on the mountain bike the months leading up to this race, so I was less than prepared for racing a sprint tri. I decided to push as much as I could on the run and my time would be what it would be. The first race was a 1:20:25, and the second was a 1:20:05. I was mentally preparing myself to be no where near that once the run was over. I wasn't sure if I could pull down the same run split, especially after pounding so hard on the bike. The 2 laps around the UA mall were painful, and as I ran past the garage I looked down and saw that I was close to last race's run time. Could I actually do it? I didn't look at my watch anymore and pushed as hard as I could for the rest of the way and crossed the line and looked at my watch. 1:19:18! I had beaten the 1:20 goal! I was all teary at the finish but quickly found some water and calmed down. Hmm...maybe I should re-think this training thing since I went faster on my least amount of training. ;) I ended up 4th in my age group and the series champion in W30-34 for doing all 3 races.

Casa Grande Tri - 11/7/09

The Casa Grande sprint tri would be my last race of the 2009 season. I had read on the entry form that they only awarded 2 deep in each AG, so I made getting top 2 in my age group the goal. Zac was there to do the duathlon, so of course I had to sign up and do the triathlon. We arrived to the race super early and set up on the tennis courts. The swim was super short with only 400 meters to swim. The only problem was that it was self-seeded, meaning you lined up where you wanted to in the line of racers. Krista and I slowly worked our way around the crowd and got in with folks that were in the 7.5 min timeframe. We got in and started the serpentine swim. The pool was nice and heated, but crowded with all of the racers. By the last 50 meters I caught up to a guy that was WALKING on the bottom of the pool! And he was ahead of us! Apparently he was a bit over zealous in his swim time estimate. I quickly passed him and got out to start the bike.

I left T1 with a guy that was in a white shirt and we headed out onto the course. The duathlon riders were already on the bike, so there was a lot of passing to do. I kept myself down in the aerobars again, and it was nice to have long stretches of road to just spin in the high gears. The white T-shirt guy and I kept passing back and forth. He was the only one that passed me. We came into T2 right next to each other, and it turns out we were racked right next to each other in transition. "Nice bike!" I told him, and he agreed. I took a little extra time to grab a sip of water and was out onto the run course.

This was my 2nd tri 5 years ago, and I had forgotten that the run course climbs along the base of a mountain with some rollers. I hit the first aid station, grabbed some water, and looked at my watch to see 11 minutes. I wasn't sure if the mile 1 marker had been there or not, but kept going. Thankfully, the next stretch was all downhill, then a long flat section before making the final turn to the finish. I crossed the line in 1:09:34, which was under my goal time of 1:10, and I was surprised to see I had averaged under 9 minute miles on the 3 mile run. I caught up with Zac at the finish, and he was happy with his finish time as well. We waited for Krista to cross the line, and it was her turn to get teary at the finish because she had her best 5K run time ever and wasted her goal time.

There was a nice breakfast at the end while we waited for the results. Results showed Zac 1st in his 30-34 AG, and I was 2nd out of 52 in the W30-34 AG for the tri. But when awards were announced, our names weren't called. For some reason, for awards, the race was grouped into 10 year age groups. So Zac and I were grouped in 30-39, and the 35-39 folks were ahead of us in the standings. No idea why the race did this, especially when last year they were grouped in 5 year age groups. So for 30-39 I was 7th out of 88. I guess 52 women in 30-34 weren't enough to justify awards and they had to expand it to 10 year age groups. USAT sanctioning is good for some things, like keeping races consistent. (This race isn't USAT sanctioned).

Zac had fun in the duathlon, so I think we'll try to find him some more races to do. Oddly enough, there are only a few duathlons around, but a ton of triathlons.

Dawn 2 Dusk - 12/5/09

Liane and I do the Dawn 2 Dusk mountain bike race every year, and the past 2 years Zac has done it solo. This year there were the usual parking issues, but we found a spot and managed to grab some space for Liane and Nate to park. This year, it was freezing cold. I had the first lap, so Zac and I rode our bikes down the road to the start line in the dark and 36 degree temperature. I was wearing bike shorts, tights, and insulated pants on the bottom, and 2 long sleeved jerseys and a wind breaker on the top and I was STILL cold! The race started and Zac and I rode together, letting the mass of the group go ahead. It was kind of disappointing to see people that had been late for the start coming down the road and hopping in with the group and shortcutting the road to the start line.

We hit the singletrack and the sun finally came up, but I was still cold. Zac rode behind me and joked it was nice for the duo racer to allow the solo racer to draft off of her. The Pemberton trail that we were on has a long, grinding climb at the beginning for several miles, and I lost Zac towards the end of this climb. But he caught back up and decided to go ahead on the downhill section. I finished my first lap about 5 minutes behind him and handed off to Liane and headed for cover in the RV. I immediately turned the furnace back on and started to warm up my frozen feet. It took about an hour before they were warm again, but it made a difference for the second lap.

I was still bundled up on the second lap, but thankfully didn't have the extra 2 miles of road to ride. I wore my heart rate monitor for each lap, and this lap I spent 34 minutes in Zone 4 and 32 minutes in Zone 5. It sure didn't feel like it on the course. I finished up the lap and handed off to Liane and grabbed more food before sitting down briefly to rest.

On my 3rd lap I was doing the math and determined there was no way I would be getting a 4th lap in. We would need me to go out before the 4:30 PM cutoff, and both Liane and I would have to turn in record-breaking laps to do so. Besides, on the 3rd lap I was tired and didn't really feel like doing a 4th lap in the dark when it would be freezing cold again. I came into transition and handed off to Liane for her 3rd lap and told her to enjoy the last lap of our race. I then packed up the RV and waited for everyone to finish their last laps. Zac completed 5 total, and was happy to see the burrito I had warmed up and ready for him at the finish. Liane finished up her 3rd lap, locking in our 6th. Our goal was to not be last in our category, and we succeeded.

Kentucky Camp Epic - 12/12/09
I did this ride last year with Liane, and we decided to do it again this year. There was the option of riding a 29 mile short course, or 58 mile long course. I had already seen the section that makes up the long course, and didn't want to be out on the trail for over 8 hours, so I decided the short course was the best bet. The course was slightly different this year with the start at Rosemont Junction and heading south on the AZ Trail. This would give me the chance to ride a new section of the AZT that I had never ridden.

That morning I geared up and waited with the other short course racers for the start. There was no sign of Liane, and I wondered what had happened to her since the race is just down the street from her house. The race started and I let the speedy folks go ahead and fell in behind. This wasn't really a "race" for me, more like a long ride where I just wanted to see new trail. I didn't see Liane at the beginning, and as I rode I figured maybe she thought the race started at last year's start point, and I might see her out there. I climbed and climbed the new section of trail, and fell in with a group of people that were also out there to have fun and rolled with them. As we rolled along FR163 and hit the junction where the long course people came up from Kentucky Camp, I spotted a rider in pink long sleeves. It was Liane! Somehow we intersected each other. Sure enough she had parked at last year's start point and decided to ride the course backwards hoping to find us, and she did. So she rode the rest of the trail with me until we hit the intersection where I would continue on back to my car and she would take the dirt road back to hers. As we rode we began to remember the long climbs and sketchy sections of last year's ride, but at least this year we didn't have the crazy wind that we had last year.

I hit the last singletrack and made it back to my car and then headed off to Liane's for some of Nate's panini sandwiches and tomato soup. Which, by the way, is excellent ride recovery food. Hot food never tasted so good!

My next BIG race

2009-11-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Wow, over a month since I've updated my blog. But, it is probably because I've been racing almost every weekend. Race reports that I have yet to do:

PBR tri
Rock y Road 50/50
Tinfoilman Tri

They will be out of order, as I hate holding up the blog for race reports. I'd better get on it because the Casa Grande Tri is this weekend, which would add another report to the list. But, Casa Grande is an important one, because it's Zac's first duathon! (I'm not counting Muddy Buddy, because that's a cutesy event and not really a race).

So, onto the big news. I have a coach! Yes a real live, living, breathing coach! And why would I do this after 5 years of triathon? Because of next season's "A" race. Let's go over the race first and then the coach stuff. So what is next year's big race? Another Ironman? Ha! You are so wrong if you thought that.

Next year's big race is:

XTERRA Saipan on March 13, 2010. I know what you're asking...where the heck is Saipan? About a 3 hr flight south of Japan, near Guam. Google Map here. It's not a race that I've been thinking about forever. Rather a few months and the pieces fell together. Zac has been racking up the frequent flyer miles at work, so I of course, have come up with an ingeious way to spend those miles. To do a race there would be pretty cool. The course is crazy hard, but awesome. The swim is in the ocean over a coral reef, the bike goes through the jungle, and the run takes racers through the tunnels the Japanese dug during WWII. Saipan is considered to be part of the Western XTERRA region (it's a commonwealth of the US), so points count towards my regional standings. But THE most important reason for doing this race: it's a qualifier for the XTERRA World Championships on Maui! (That's like Ironman Kona for the road triathletes out there).

That's the plan. Go to Saipan in March and try my best to qualify in my age group for a world championship slot. XTERRA is similar to Ironman in that they have a lottery system for slots to Maui. The lottery opens in January, and because XTERRA is smaller compared to Ironman, chances are pretty good on getting in via the lottery. But I know if I apply for the lottery, that will be a safety net. I want to fly without a net. I want to qualify and I think I can do it. This is why it was time to get super serious and find a coach to get me there.

There are very few XTERRA training plans out there compared to other training plans. You can find 100s of Ironman training plans, like "20 days to your first Ironman," "Iroman Training on 3 hours a day," and "The peanut butter Ironman diet." Ok, so maybe I made those up but some plans are about that level of crazy. Look for XTERRA and you won't find much. The plans and magazine articles that are out there are for "finishing your first XTERRA" and not "kicking ass at XTERRA." Plus, if I have a shot at a qualifying slot, I want to be the most prepared possible, and to know I did everything training-wise to get there. I needed to get a real live coach.

So how did I go about finding one? This is where the super fabulous Tucson Tri Girls come in. We have several coaches that sponsor the club. Over the years I've heard them speak, so that helped me to narrow it down. But the top personal requirements I had in finding a coach were:

Has to be a mountain biker - This is the key portion of the XTERRA race, and the most technical. I wanted someone who knows what it's like to climb crazy hills covered in scree and go bombing down rocky descents. More importantly, they need to be able to tell me what I need to do training-wise to be a better racer on the mountain bike leg.
Has to know what XTERRA is, and already trained other XTERRA athletes - XTERRA triathlons are completely different than road triathlons, and I wanted someone that knows how different the races are and how different the training is.
I have to like and trust them - I'm not going to listen and follow the training plan of someone I don't like or "click" with. I'm going to be investing a lot of time, money, and effort into this, so I have to trust that the training plan they come up with is the correct one.
Has to be about balance - I'm not quitting my job to train for XTERRA. I'm an age grouper, not a pro, so I wanted someone that would allow for the balance of training and real life.
Affordable - Holy cow cost can get out of control when you're looking for personalized coaching! I do have other expenses and didn't want to take out another mortgage to cover coaching services.
Has to be in Tucson - I wanted someone that could tell me to go climb Mt. Lemmon or go run the Rillito River path, or to do my run in the morning to avoid the heat because it's a tough workout. This also helps in meeting face-to-face with the coach for #3.
Has to listen to my feedback and not think I'm crazy - Yeah, so it may be a huge leap to go from my lollygagging training to possible qualifier. But they have to think it's possible, and not think my goals are nuts. Thanks. :)
Has to work with the full spectrum of athletes - I like people that work with the people that want to get fit as well as the people that want to be pro racers (and not just work with the pro racer crowd). The coaches that do this seem to be very down to earth and realistic about training and goals.

With all of that I did my research and selected Scott Blanchard of Pyramid Coaching. Scott is a super cool guy as he has done several clinics and speaking events with the Tri Girls, and is a national pro mountain biker. When we had our first meeting, Scott had already looked up the Saipan race and was excited about it. That made me even more excited about it. He felt we could get my fitness up to where it should be and didn't think my goals were completely nuts. Sold!

I went in and got my anerobic threshold testing done, which set up my heart rate zones for training. I had to actually search through my house and find the HR monitor strap that goes with my Garmin because I never used it. I used to follow my HR zones when I was first starting out in triathlon 5 years ago, and quickly abandoned them. Scott sets up all the training based on zones, so I had to get wired back up and start getting into the habit of wearing the strap on my workouts. Last week was my first full week of training on the Pyramid plan. It made me realized how much I had been loafing...pretty much all this past year. I kind of took this year off after last year's Ironman AZ deal, and now I'm mentally refreshed and ready to go after the next crazy goal. But the thing is, I'm really looking forward to this race, and getting to Maui would be awesome and rank above IMAZ in my book. :)

Revealing my secret race

2009-10-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

For the past month and a half I've been riding the Redington Road area each weekend. As I alluded to in previous posts, all these rides were in preparation for a race that I was keeping secret. No person in their right mind would ride that area week after week without a purpose. My riding partners know of the race, but they all know about having "races that shall not be named" that you keep under wraps to avoid fully commiting to such races. If you don't declare the race, you can back out at any time for whatever reason. Like you suddenly came to your senses or something. You can also avoid people being critical of your training. "You're doing what?!? Shouldn't you be swimming/biking/running more than you are then?" And then you have to go into your training philosophy and how swimming/biking/running no more than 3 hours per week is a perfectly acceptable way to train for endurance events. Just like living on chocolate, Root Beer, and pizza is a perfectly acceptable nutrition plan.

I'm very careful who I divulge my race info to. Mostly it's the friends that are equally crazy and also have their own personal list of "races that shall not be named." We check on each other periodically through the season and ask "Are you still doing Race X?" Sometimes Race X gets dropped and it's no big deal in this circle. We are all understanding and ask about the next race coming up, as if the thought of doing Race X never existed. Or Race X is still on the list and we sit and wait for our friends to return from said race, to evaluate it and see if it's something we want to consider next year. If it was horrible, thankfully your friends experienced it and not you and you now know to stay far, far away from Race X. Or it was a grand time, and you and your friends can plan on doing Race X the following year.

So it's time to reveal one of my "races that shall not be named" because we are now 2 weeks from said race, and it now appears on my Facebook page. That kind of puts it out there.

Here it is:

Yep, it's the Rock y Road 50/50. It's one of those events where there are no entry fees, no support, all you. Half of the ride is on a mountain bike and the other half on the road. Sounds simple, right? Well not when you add in where the course is. The mountain bike portion is just under 50 miles. We start from McDonald park, ride up Redington Road, down FR4417 to Chiva, over to the Italian Trap AZT and climb that, climb and descend the Bellota AZT to the final turnoff at Milagrosa. Milagrosa is one technical, difficult trail that we descend for 4 miles. After that we ride back to our transition area (our cars) at McDonald park to switch to the road bike portion. After all that nastiness on the mountain bike, we are rewarded with a climb from the base of Mt. Lemmon up to Palisades (mile 19) and back down. Overall it's 88 miles long and 12,134 feet of climbing. Since there's no support, we have to carry all water and nutrition with us. And no, we can't drop some in the desert ahead of time.

Finishing this race is my goal. Last year there was 1 finisher. The year before there were 2. So the chances of not finishing are very high. Sounds perfect!

I've been doing training rides out on Redington each weekend, and technically I've covered all of the course, just not all at once. And thanks to this summer's Easy Peasy Lemmon Squeezy rides, I've done all of Mt. Lemmon several times over. I have the road on Mt. Lemmon and Redington Rd memorized now because I've ridden them so much. Each mountain bike ride I carry all of the water and food that I think I'll need for the race to get used to the weight on my back. I'm hoping the weather will be cooler so that I don't have to carry as much water, because the weight is killer.

My strategy is to metally break the ride up into sections, kind of like doing an Ironman. You don't think about the whole thing because that is just too scary to do. So if you break it up into smaller chunks that are easy to comprehend, it's easier to stay in your box and focus at the task at hand. For the mountain bike portion, my sections are: Climb Redington, Chiva, Italian Trap, Bellota, Milagrosa. I'm much slower on the mountain bike than the road bike, so I'm going to have to push through much of the dirt portion and ride as much as possible without long rest breaks. I pretty much know which steep climbs give me problems, and I'll get off and push up those to save the legs. No point in going in the red on short, steep climbs just to claim I've cleaned them when I need the endurance in my legs for the entire day. Chiva will be the toughest part for me, followed by the climb on Bellota. Even though Milagrosa is the most technical portion, much of it is downhill, and the last time I rode it I rode it really well. And I tell myself that section is only 4.6 miles long. It also helps that it's the very last section before hitting pavement again.

I need to get through the moutain bike portion so that I can get to my strong point, which is climbing Lemmon. Once I get on the tri bike, I'm a climbing machine going up the mountain. I don't know how I can totally suck on climbing in the dirt, but rock on the road. I'm going to blame lack of traction, or rolling resistance, or something. Anyways, I've broken Lemmon up into the following sections: Molino Basin (Mile 5.7), 7 Cats (Mile 9), Windy Point (Mile 14), Palisades (Mile 19). If possible, I'll try to limit rest stops to these mental checkpoints. Once I get to Palisades, I know I can finish because it's all downhill and you get free miles after that. My problem will be daylight. Since I'm so much slower on the dirt, I'll need to keep moving as much as possible to ride in as much daylight as possible. I REALLY don't want to descend down Mt. Lemmon in the dark, but if I get pushed that far I may have to. I'm prepared because I'm strapping my lights to the front of the tri bike, and will have a rear blinky light. If that's what it takes to finish the race, then so be it. Now that I think of it, it may take just as long as an Ironman takes to finish this race.

Race Report: La Jolla 1 mile Rough Water Swim

2009-09-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

I have a goal race coming up that requires an ocean swim. I've only done 1 ocean swim before, which was last year's La Jolla rough water swim. So I decided to do the race again this year for the experience. Zac and I made it a weekend trip, and spent time in La Jolla, which has a ton of stuff to do.

On Friday we arrived and had some time to kill before heading over to the hotel. So we wadered around Birch aquarium to check out all the fish.

After that we checked in, got some dinner, and headed down to the beach to watch the sunset.

On Saturday we ran up the coast, and in the afternoon had our very first surf lessons. I loved it! Surfing was so much fun, and we are planning on doing it again any chance we get (most likely any time we are at the beach).

Sunday was race day. This race is great because the women's wave doesn't go off until 11 AM. We opted to walk the 2 miles from the hotel to the race site at La Jolla cove, and as we walked I noticed big waves rolling in. When we got to the cove it was insane. It made last year's swim look like waterskiing water.

You can see how rough it was at this Youtube video.

I watched the racers swim out and how the waves were coming in and decided I'd put myself on the far left of the group. Our wave didn't get to the beach until 11:30 AM. The rough conditions were pushing the race further and further back in the schedule. The gun went off and I ran in to the water with the others and started swimming. It wasn't long before the first wave hit. I could hear the lifeguards yelling about the waves. There was a huge chain of them there to keep us from getting pushed into the rocks. I dove under and emerged on the other side and kept swimming. The next wave hit, and I told myself to keep swimming and once I got out of the cove I would at least be into the rollers and out of the breakers.

The rollers weren't much better. It was really hard to sight, and you had to lift your whole head up and do a couple of strokes just to see past the rollers. Most of the time I looked forward all I saw was a wall of water. One thing I hate is that they use small buoys with a string of balloons tied to them instead of the large TYR dorito chip buoys. On race day the wind was blowing, flattening the balloons. All I knew was to head to the red roofs of the La Jolla Inn.

Zac was watching from the shore and watching people get pulled out of the water. In my wave a gal in a speed suit came in on a surf board. So I beat someone in a speed suit! ;) He also said the main group didn't swim straight. Afterwards that made some sense to me because I had started to the far left with the group on my right, and when I reached the first buoy they were all on my left. So I had swam straighter than the group.

I hit the first buoy and hit the lap button on my watch to see 18 min for the 800 yd leg. That was much slower than last year and my usual 800 time. But conditions were the worst I had ever experienced, and I was here for the swimming experience and not to try to win anything. On the way to the second buoy we were now swimming into the rollers, so sighting was really tough to do. I finally came up to where the lifeguard boat was and could hear them making announcements, so the buoy wasn't far behind. They were telling us to swim towards the point of the cove on the way back in. I rounded the second buoy and followed their directions as they made sense. If you headed towards the point that would help compensate for the waves and the current and keep us out of the rocks.

At this point I was wondering if I was even going to make it. Each wave was sucking the energy out of me. I had to do a lot of sighting on the last leg in, and was hoping I would time it to where I wouldn't have too many breakers. I got lucky and only had one wave wash over my head as I came in. I kept checking behind me and got out before the bad waves hit. According to Zac, just a few minutes earlier the entire cove was white water and the waves were really bad and the group was having a hard time getting in.

I got my finisher's medal and checked my time: 44 minutes and change, which was 8 minutes slower than last year. But I survived the waves, which is what it was all about. Now I have a good gauge for rough ocean conditions and can hopefully survive in case my goal race has rough water.

The start of our wave:

Diving through the waves:

Coming back in:

My "survivor" medal:

All of the pictures of the trip are here on Facebook.

Sabino Canyon trail run

2009-09-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

I've mapped out the trail run for the upcoming Tucson Tri Girls training camp, and today Zac and I did a practice run. There is some trail-finding required at some of the creek crossings, so I figured I'd get those out of the way now and make sure where all the turns were.

We will be doing the loop below counter-clockwise. From the parking lot we will be taking lower Bear Canyon Trail to the Sabino Lake Trail. This leads into the Creek Trail, where we will cross the creek several times. The Rattlesnake Trail takes us out of the creek and across the road, where we'll head south on the road for a short bit before joining up with the trail again. There is a bit of a climb out of the creek bed as we intersect the lower Esperero Trail and take that south for about half a mile. We will cross the main road and take the Esperero Trail all the way back to lower Bear Canyon, and back to the parking lot. Overall it will be just under 4 miles. The trail only has a few technical rocky spots, no long climbs, and some great views. It has a great mix of everything for trail running, from slickrock to sandy washes to rocks to smooth dirt. This is a good one for beginner trail runners as the trail isn't technical, and the veterans will enjoy the constant change in terrain and the scenery. I was glad I brought my camera along as the views were fantastic.

Here is our route in blue. (Click to enlarge).

Heading north on the Sabino Lake Trail. (Click any of the photos for a larger version).
Canyon walls to our left as we crossed the creek.

Lots of creek crossings on the Creek Trail.

Starting the climb out of the creek bed on the Rattlesnake Trail.

View from the intersection of Rattlesnake Trail and Esperero Trail.

Another climb on the Esperero Trail as we head back to the parking lot.

View of Sabino Canyon from Esperero Trail. You can see Phoneline Trail cutting into the side of the mountain (future trail run as that one is a bit more technical ;).

The slickrock slide as we head down Esperero Trail, with Tucson in the background.

Always a chance for wildlife encounters on the trail. As I was running, I was looking for the next turn and didn't see this Gila Monster until he jumped, opened his mouth, and hissed at me. He was not happy at how close my foot got! I took a quick picture as he wandered back into the brush. This was the biggest one I've come across out on the trails.

However, the cardboard Gila Monster at the visitor's center is ok to pet. :)

So that's it! We will be doing the run on Saturday, the first day of the Tri Girls training camp. The pace will be nice and casual, and we will wait at all of the turns so that no one gets lost or left behind. Plus, it gives us a chance to take some pics out on the trail. For those that aren't into trail running, there will be a couple of groups running the road at the same time. So there should be something available for everyone. See you at camp!

Italian Springs ride

2009-09-07T18:07:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, Zac, Johnny and I set out on our usual Redington ride. I had been sick with a head cold for the past 2 weeks (hence no blog updates) so the plan was to go up Redington to Mile 12.6, do the Italian Springs section of the AZ trail, and take the Jeep roads back to Redington.

We got lucky with the weather this time with clouds keeping the sun off of us for most of the ride. The Italian Springs section of the AZT was great up to the intersection of FR 37. After that we tried to continue on, but the trail turned into a hike-a-bike with loose rock everywhere. We decided to head back and take FR 37 to 4424 to 4417 that took us back to Redington Rd. After that the sun had come out, but at least we had the downhill for the rest of the way home. In the last quarter mile, my front tire started to go flat, so I had to sprint the rest of the way home. I rolled up to the doorstep right as the slime in the tube was sealing the hole. Thankfully the flat happened so close to home and not on the switchback descent of Redington.

Overall it was 4 hours of riding and just over 34 miles covered. The Garmin map is here.

The blue shirt twins hanging out at the OHV area.
Clouds!!!

Rolling along the Italian Springs AZT.

Zac and Johnny coming down the AZT after we turned around and decided not to hike-a-bike anymore.

A bit of mud on the Jeep trails.

Watching the storm roll in.
Heading home.

La Milagrosa ride

2009-08-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Zac, Johnny, and I left at 5:10 AM with lights strapped to our bikes in an effort to beat the heat as much as possible. We rolled up Redington Rd. with very little traffic, except for a few early riser Jeepers. We had made it to Mile 5 by the time the sun hit the road. Surprisingly, one of the shooters was already up and shooting at Mile 6. How early do we need to get up to beat these guys?

It sure was dark when we started.

The sun starting to rise.

The sun still not officially up when we hit the dirt.

Wake up Tucson! Most are still sleeping while we climb the road.

Zac and Johnny crossing over into the sunlight.

We did our usal climb up Redington and at the Mile 10 OHV area, Erik, Liane, and Nicole met up with us. We continued on up to Mile 12.6 and rode the Bellota AZ Trail. The hike-a-bike was killer on my legs, and this was not a good sign for the upcoming ride. The downhill to the intersection of FR 36 was a blast though. We rested under our usual shady tree at the intersection of FR 36, then did the next section of the AZT up to the intersection of the FR36A Jeep road. At this point Erik, Liane, and Nicole split off to return back to their cars, and Zac, Johnny, and I continued forward to the La Milagrosa trailhead.

Erik on the AZT.

The group at our usual shady rest stop.

We stopped at the trailhead to La Milagrosa for one last rest break in the shade. It was 10 AM. This was by far one of the stupidest things I had done. La Milagrosa is a tough trail with no shade and usually ridden in the winter time. But here we were on tired legs about to start the brutal 4.6 mile stretch of trail on a hot summer day. I didn't even bother with Clif Bars this ride. I had frozen 2 Snicker bars and stuck them in my Camelbak. I finished the second half of the first bar before La Milagrosa, figuring I'd save the second bar as a reward on the trail.

The trail starts off with "The Waterfall", a technical rock section. I haven't been on this trail in a few years, and the only time I have ridden it is on my Bullit, which has a few more inches of suspension than the Blur. We hiked down the waterfall, climbed the trail up the other side, and began our ride. Right away there were rock drops to be ridden, and I quickly switched over to getting over the back end of the bike. The Blur did rather well, and the nice thing was, I was able to ride the climbs on a much lighter bike.

Zac and Johnny at The Waterfall.

Zac hiking down the Waterfall.

We were all very tired on La Milagrosa, and as a result, would end up riding over stuff we probably shouldn't have in order to conserve momentum. There was still a lot of hike-a-bike, but I was surprised at the good time we were making. We would have to stop between sections just to rest the legs and arms before rolling again onto the next section. At the top section before the descent down into the wash, my stomach started growling. But I couldn't stop, and told myself I would stop in the wash for a snack. I rode several of the drops and made it to the wash, where I parked the bike, found one of the few areas of shade against a rock wall, and devoured the second Snickers bar.

Views from the trail:

My house is down there...somewhere.

Cool saguaro shot that Johnny took.

Zac in the shade of the rock wall in the wash.

Bike parking in the wash.

We were roasting at this point in the ride, but still had a few miles to go. We hiked up out of the wash and started the descent across the granite playground area.

Johnny and I on the granite playground.

There is a gate after the playground and at this point I got a nosebleed, probably from the heat. Yet another good reason to wear full-fingered MTB gloves. We hiked down the next steep part of the trail and came across a group of teenagers in swimsuits looking for water. Um, they were soon to be disappointed. The only water we had come across in the entire canyon were pools about a foot wide of stagnant water and yellowjackets. We rolled on and finally crossed the last wash and hit Horsehead Rd. From there we took Soldier Trail back to our starting point.

It was just over 5 hours of riding time (over 7 hours of actually being out on the trail). We reached home just after 12 PM. Ironically, at about 3PM the clouds rolled in and the monsoon rains started. I would have loved to have a little rain on the trail that afternoon because it was crazy hot. But we completed a very tough ride. The Garmin map of our track circling the mountains is here. A little over 30 miles total and over 4,000 ft of climbing on the bike.

AZ Trail run in Molino Basin

2009-08-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

This morning I was not going to get up early, so I figured my run would have to be at higher elevation on Mt. Lemmon to escape the heat. But luckily it rained overnight and was cloudy this morning, so I was able to take advantage of the good weather to hit a lower trail (and one that's closer to my house). I decided to run the Arizona Trail from Molino Basin. It climbs from the basin parking lot and goes all the way to Prison Camp. I didn't want to trash my legs for tomorrow's long ride, so I took it easy and took the camera with me.

There were mountain bikers:

And ponies:
And I was representing the trail runners:

All the user groups were out on the AZT. I think this section is probably the most popular due to it's proximity to Tucson. Everyone was very friendly and I think we were all out there enjoying the weather. I ran up the trail for about 2 miles, then turned around and headed back down.

Tomorrow we will be on the other side of the Molino Basin Saddle. The plan is to leave our house at 5 AM with lights on the mountain bikes and head up Redington Rd. We will meet other riders at the OHV parking area, and ride the Bellota AZT. Instead of turning around like last week, this week Zac and I are descending down La Milagrosa. I'm hoping for the same weather tomorrow that we had today!