Team Atehena – TransRockies Run 2008

After my second round of heart surgery on December 4th, I recently got hooked up to (yet another) Holter monitor for a 24-hour test.  The hope is that the results of this test will give me the clean bill of health that has had my fingers tightly crossed since I came out of the anaesthetic-induced sleep that afternoon in December.  I’ve been feeling pretty good, getting stronger every day, though the run my doc asked me to do on the test day was all kinds of unimpressive.  Long way to go before my planned return to do the TRR again this year (yup).

As promised, we’ve tried to make our trip a net-zero-carbon adventure.  To that end, we calculated the carbon emissions attributable to our flights (2.58 tonnes), then rounded up to 3 tonnes to account for van shuttles, generator use, etc.  We then headed over to zerofootprint and bought 3 tonnes worth of offsets as a starting point in our attempt to make this trip as low-impact as possible.  Kudos to the organizers of the race for taking similarly green approaches to their event.

Back home and hiking...Mount Arrowsmith Summit

Stage 6: Vail to Beaver Creek
Distance: 21 miles, 1839 feet
Climbing: 4623 feet

Now such a very long way – in terms both geographical and state of mind – from Colorado’s gorgeous mountain trails, it is only now that I find myself with the time to post a proper final installment from the 2008 TransRockies Run.  Let’s see if we can get up out of the office chair and back up to speed… Read the rest of this entry »

Photos are now posted on our Flickr page; however, they posted out of order, so I’ve also loaded a Picasa slideshow, which I now learn I can’t embed into WordPress (argh!) … please click the image below and you’ll get to the album – there’s a Slideshow button in the upper left.  I’ll try to caption the images tonight.

All done, what a huge sense of satisfaction!  We’re actually home in Victoria already, facing a large pile of reality, but still glowing with happiness at the end of such an amazing week.  We’ll get a stage 6 post up ASAP along with a full set of photos posted to our Flickr site.  The brief version of our day goes like this:

• Once again, stunning scenery;
• Aviva continued to get stronger, putting the fear into the 5th and 6th place teams on the downhill into Avon;
• No heart problems for RC;
• Finished in 7th place (mixed team) in a few ticks over 5-hours, retaining our 7th place overall (mixed) finish.

Everyone’s support kept us light on our feet – thank you once again!

The Stage 6 Race Video is up – that’s us crossing the line (etc.) at 5:40 of the video.

Stage 5: Red Cliff to Vail
Distance: 23 miles, 2685 feet
Climbing: 4407 feet

I’ve run out of time here, so will have to update ASAP. The short version is that we’ve made it to Vail and we’re mostly intact. The stage had its ups-and-downs (literally, of course, as well as figuratively), but it has to be mentioned that the high country mid-stage offered the most beautiful vistas we have seen. We were solid today, but a slow descent into the village of Vail, through much of the resort area’s ski terrain (MUST come back in the winter) – your reporter again the reason for the slower pace – left us a little longer on the trail than would have otherwise been the case. Still, we came in at under five-and-a-half hours, so we’re still beating predictions. As ever, we’re only “racing” ourselves, so we’re super-happy with this result.

Update

As I write from my airport hotel room in Denver, far from long miles, high altitude and heat, I am in a position to fill in some gaps intentionally left void earlier in this story, gaps that provide fuller context to why I was apprehensive about stage 5 as well as why it was a bit of a slow road to the finish on that day. [Note: this update has actually been written in one hotel room, two airports and one airplane – it appears I’ve become even more long-winded with this time spent in thin air.]

As you will recall from our stage 3 report, things didn’t go exactly to plan on that longest stage of the TRR08. I mentioned that the cause of our slow finish was a bit of overzealous-by-RC tempo setting during the middle portions of the stage. True, but only part of the story. Read the rest of this entry »

Stage 4: Camp Hale to Red Cliff
Distance: 14 miles, 1734 feet
Climbing: 3009 feet

Our planned “rest” day started perfectly and appropriately – Aviva had her first good sleep of the race.  Perhaps that explains what was to come …

With only two miles of relatively flat before a four mile, 3000′ climb, followed by an eight mile descent, stage 4 had the makings of a good day to rest and take stock before the two monster days to come.  There would be little pounding on the flat, we could hike the climb and then just roll the descent, conserving for the next two stages.  Everything went to plan … except we incongrusously went relatively fast.  We still can’t figure it, but we’ll take it. Read the rest of this entry »

Apologies for the radio silence – it turns out that our last few camp sites have been not only sans internet, but also outside of cellular range.  Now, days later, we couldn’t be farther from the backwoods – I’m writing from outside a coffee shop in Vail.  I only have a little while, so I’ll try to hammer off a few quick updates from the past 3 stages.  First…

Stage 3: Leadville to Camp Hale
Distance: 24 miles, 1815 feet
Climbing: 2930 feet

The stage out of Leadville – highest town in North America – was the Queen Stage of the race, stealing the descriptor from the Tour de France: at ~40 km it was the longest stage of the TRR.  At the end of it, I was ready to find a Western Union to wire Wendy her dough – Aviva was the strength of the team on this day. Read the rest of this entry »

From Rumon

Wow. 

Though I consider myself a halfway articulate fella, today’s route leaves adjectives wanting.  Simply put, the climb from Vicksburg, up and over Hope Pass and down into Twin Lakes was some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen.  But more on that in a bit – we have some catching up to do.

Day 1- Buena Vista to Numbers (kayak launch on the Arkansas River)
Distance: 12 miles, 4947 feet
Climbing: 1103 feet

For the first day of racing, the organizers were kind enough to serve up a mellow half(ish) marathon over flat(ish) terrain.  It was an opportunity for sponsored athletes and Euro-dogs to break out their racing flats and gun for the first leader’s jerseys of the race.  Of course, we didn’t see a whole lot of that shaking out past around 13 seconds into the stage.  In fact, as Aviva remarked at around 3 miles, 80 teams in this race and we were running all alone.  It was great – just like one of our training runs. 

Except for that thing about the elevation.

Ah yes, and the blistering (to we Victorians) heat. Read the rest of this entry »

From Rumon

With the race start now less than a day away, things are getting real.  On her way out the door with a morning coffee, headed creekside for a read, Aviva gave me a big hug … and wouldn’t let go.  “Something on your mind, Sweetheart?”  “Ummm…no…”  “It’s gonna be fine, Angel; you’ve done all the work, it’s all downhill from here ’til the start.”  Perhaps not the best metaphor given the climbing to come, but I wanted to offer whatever I could to Vives to help settle her very reasonable case of nerves.  As anyone who’s done this kind of thing knows – especially those who have been given the dogmatic direction from Coach Carter – these last few days before a race are like being a caged animal.  You’ve been training for months (at least in Aviva’s case here), you’re as fit as you’ve ever been (ditto) and now, in gorgeous surroundings screaming out to be explored, all you should really be doing is keeping your feet up and your body hydrated.  Athletes burn energy – both positive and negative – by diving into their sport; it’s on our feet (or bike, etc.) that we channel – it’s where we find our calm.  And so, in this most tweaked of times, it’s antithetical to just sit around.  Even after years of experience, it’s a hard thing to manage.

And so here I am typing. Read the rest of this entry »