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…

150 dome tents, uniform brown, a symmetrical grove of land-locked polyps on a field of cultivated grass…our tents were all the same, but the context – the beauty and luxury (even the grass was plush) of Vail – struck a stark contrast to our previous mornings. As I creaked my way out of my tent, the air was still sharp as ever, the smell of breakfast as enticing, but something was different.  As I watched for the rising sun, I wondered whether it was a reflection of the start-finish venues – Vail and Beaver Creek – end points about as far as Neverland and Narnia from Camp and Red Cliff.  But I suspected, standing huddled in down jacket and anticipation, that it was something else, something less to do with geography and more to do my internal landscape.  Today would be the last stage of the race and I found myself already missing what was not yet finished.

Stage 6 Profile

Red duffels packed and stacked a final time, we adjusted the team numbers on our Icebreaker GT180 tops, snugged laces in a gesture of reassurance and gave each other a knowing smile.  Barring the ever unforeseen, we were going to make it.  The race’s theme song blared one last time and we traversed a final start line.

The early miles were a simple trot trough the village and across the highway, a paved procession of giddy runners.  Some were clearly looking to press the issue on this last day, but our plan was clear and non-negotiable: chill out and have fun every step of the way, soaking up the stage.

Out of town, the trail turned its favourite direction – up, of course – and we headed into the hills.  The crisp dawn was quickly melting into a sweaty morning as we climbed from exposed scrub into a gorgeous poplar grove.  Mindful of my heart and the personal debacle that had been the final 8-miles of the previous stage, I reminded myself to keep the pace mellow, but even at that I felt like I was running on only three cylinders and so tucked in behind Aviva who had no trouble setting an even, conservative pace.

The relaxed pace left us behind some of our regular running partners, but if I’d learned anything over the preceding five days, it was that conservatively trailing early in the stage consistently begot later-stage passing and fresher legs.

True to experience, as we ascended the subalpine ramps we began to regain our favourite, familiar teams. And, further true to form, we quickly settled into a small pack of laughter, stories and good-natured ribbing as we crested the ridge and began our descent.

Streaking through 6' nettles on the descent to Avon

Through the day’s second aid station I reloaded on calories as Aviva jogged ahead and … jogged? … not so much!  Where did she go? By the time I had looked up from the energy gel smorgasbord, she was disappearing from view, ripping down the long, steep, twisting descent towards the town of Avon.  I quickly gathered our gear and gave chace, once again remarking at the extent to which the technical training routes of Victoria were paying off for my nimble teammate.  The return on that investment was that we soon found ourselves running up the backs of two other mixed teams, the two teams ahead of us in the overall standings.  Hearing our approach, the four runners looked over their collective shoulders and turned up the speed a notch.  And so it was that I again had the surprising, somewhat amusing pleasure of witnessing my wife’s – yes, she of the “Rumon, we’re not racing any of this, so stow your race face – we’re out here to finish and nothing more” – competitive temperment.  With the teams picking up speed, Aviva matched pace and hurtled down the hill with me in tow, me grinning at her tenacity while trying to keep my footing amidst the dust cloud she was kicking up.  We stayed like this, a caravan of six, nearly all the way into Avon, the valley gateway into Beaver Creek.  I say nearly, because about a kilometer from town, Aviva stopped at a stream crossing, shook her head and asked, “What the hell was I thinking?”  I’ve learned enough along the way to know a question that should be left unanswered and simply suggested we keep it mellow from here on in (though still smiling proudly at the girl’s game display).

Unfortunately, Vives’ gameness had dug a little deep into the well and, with the heat mounting towards midday, we were forced to transition – with a little quiet cursing from one of us – from “mellow” to “suffer”.  [Speaking of "suffer", a note to the race organizers: You guys sure know how to make a runner earn his end-of-race beer!  Taking a look at the stage profile above you'll see that before reaching the descent into the finish, and having already climbed over 3000 feet, teams must clear a final 1000+' climb over ~ 4-miles.  Ouch.]  So suffer it was, quad-assisting up the steeper ramps (many of these ski slopes), keeping the fluids flowing and trying not to constantly wonder whether that next hill was…please…could it be?…mercy!…the last of the day.

And, finally, it was. So we rolled downhill towards Beaver Creek, towards the satisfaction of realizing a goal that months ago had seemed like an overreaching dream.  I was on the edge of giddy, so proud of what Aviva had accomplished in short months of training, and ecstatic that my heart had behaved on this final stage.  Vives, though, was a little more reserved, focused and refusing to celebrate until actually across the finish line.  It cracks me up to think about it now: You’re about 300 meters from the finish line when it comes into sight below you.  With only one short downhill and a victory trot across smooth resort town pathways, I started to tell Aviva how proud I was of this monumental finish of hers.  “No!” she pleaded, “stop talking, we’re not there yet!  You’ll jinx it!“  Huh?!  After 105.78365 miles I figured the last couple of yards were in the bag, but apparently not.  So I shut my trap, pasted another one of those grins on my face that only husbands can wear, and waited out the next 295 meters.

Done like...

Which, of course, were crossed without incident.   And there we were, under the finish arch, one last time hearing Drew the announcer call out our team name and relishing the cheers of friendships forged over the past few days.  Covered in sweat, grime and satisfaction, I gave Aviva a salty kiss that was as sweet as they come.  We’d done it.

• Frontrunners (shoes & gear)
• Icebreaker (clothing)
• Lake O’Hara Lodge (pre-race altitude acclimation accommodation for Aviva)
• Ocean River Sports (cross-training support)
• Jim Finlayson (coaching)

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.

At around three-and-a-half hours into the stage, I started feeling pretty rough. By four hours, I told Aviva I was in a “dark patch” and that I wouldn’t be doing a ton of talking for a while. It was frustrating as we were rolling downhill along the Colorado Trail and I really wanted to be able to enjoy this 10k section of single track. But I just wasn’t feeling myself – I really had to focus to keep myself moving and, equally important, moving in a straight line. Through the third and last aid station of the day, 4 miles from the finish, I didn’t let on but I was having a hard time hanging onto Aviva through the winding single track. Another mile later and we spit out onto the flat valley property of Camp Hale, a long, hot, exposed 3 miles to the finish. For the first time in the race, we – at my request – walked the first half-mile section of this home stretch. I just didn’t have it in me to run. I needed fuel. Though I had to fight the gag reflex at this point, I took down one last gel and readied myself for the limp home. It was at this point that the mixed team we had passed went ambling by. Though they were by no means flying, I could only watch as they disappeared up the road – the best I could put out was around 12-minute-miles.

My breathing became ragged. I started sounding like a locomotive. I swore under my breath at how bad I felt, how weak. I wheezed encouragement to myself, spitting out self-talk in rhythm with my painfully sluggish stride: “Come-On-Car-ter-Come-On-Car-ter…” Aviva began to look at me oddly, wondering who the runner next to her had become. We continued this way for the next 2 miles, me with my head hung down, eyes angled up at the team up ahead, trying not to lose contact, trying to hang onto my pride as my supposedly inexperience wife at my side looked the far better of the two of us at the end of this long day.

The road turned up slightly before the final stretch into the finish. I asked that we walk. My head hung lower. At the top, it was Aviva who suggested we run again, completing the reversal of roles. I fixed my eyes on the finish line a half kilometer away and just kept going until the end. That was all there was.

It was only once we had stopped, once I was able to direct my focus away from something other than the three feet of dirt in front of me, that I was able to take stock. Something wasn’t right. Sure, I was tired, but tired I know – this was worse. I couldn’t face the thought of food; fluids, too, were out of the question. All I wanted to do was sit down. I found a lounger by the Salomon tent and collapsed. While Aviva replenished, I just stared into space. Minutes past, but I was still panting, unable to compose myself. I looked at my heart rate monitor. 129 after 10′ of rest. Nowhere near as high as it used to be during my pre-surgery bouts of supra-ventricular tachycardia (SVT), but still higher than it should be. It climbed as I rose to wander down to the creek to soak my legs. Wander became a bit of a stagger and I was nearly hyperventilating as I walked the couple of hundred metres. In the water, my chin fell to my chest and I simply stood like a statue, trying to breathe regularly, while those around me collectively downloaded their stages. I was tired and upset, but mostly I was angry at the fact my heart was “letting me down” as I thought of it with my post-race stupidity.

I was able at this point to figure out why I had felt so weak for the latter miles of the stage. Pre-surgery, my heart condition typically manifested as SVT (extra-high heart rates) followed by PAS (paroxismal atrial fibrillation – irregular, though not necessarily high, heart rates). My cardiologist had originally posited that it may be that the SVT was triggering the PAS and that by correcting the SVT with the radio frequency ablation procedure, the PAS would no longer be a problem. However, based on the way I presented on his surgical table, Dr. Leather considered that I may have two separate pathologies, the latter triggering the PAS on its own. He suggested I may need to return for a follow-up procedure. In the interim, though, I have been much less active and, though I have had the occasional bout of identifiable PAS, I didn’t worry too much about it. The trouble comes with the identification of PAS. Whereas it’s simple to know when you’re in SVT – your heart pounds out of your chest, the numbers on your heart rate monitor leave no doubt and, often, you’re soon feeling fairly faint – PAS is more subtle. And so it is that I didn’t know what exactly was going on during stage 3 until I stopped. Yes, I had had a couple of small episodes during my limited training back home, but the mind has an amazing capacity to shield us from injury, to do what it needs to to keep the body going. Or perhaps I’m just dumb. In any event, I felt like hell at the end of this Queen stage and needed to go for my heart meds. It took a couple of hours for me to get back to sinus rhythm; once there I breathed a sigh of relief and took stock.

I knew I wanted to continue the race, Aviva’s dream race that had become my shared passion. I also knew I had to take better care of myself. And so it was that we decided to take stage 4 as a rest day. I wanted to give my heart a break after its unexpected workout the day before. Aviva supported this approach and so we hiked and ran well within ourselves on stage 4. Yes, we were pleased when we finished with a relatively great result, but we were even happier that everything in my chest stayed right. We breathed a collective sigh of relief and looked ahead to stage 5, though – and now you know why – with a little extra trepidation knowing this one was going to be another long, hot stage of over 5 hours on our feet.

Red Cliff is an amazing little town. I don’t know the complete history, but I gather it was originally one of the many small mining towns scattered around the Colorado high country, this one with a largely Latino population. Mining no longer drives the community, but that community is still Latino-flavoured (is it wrong to add a “u” to “flavour” when you’re a Canadian writing about a Latino community in America?), though with an increasingly hippy/artsy populace moving in. It sounds as though both should hurry up and dig in, as a private ski resort is on the way along with all that resort community status entrains. Whoever lives there, present or future, Red Cliff will always reside in remarkable surrounding, situated as it is nestled in the narrow, steep-walled valley that gives it its name.

One consequence of those protective cliffs is an early sunset and late sunrise, leading to corresponding cold overnight mountain temperatures. So it was that we woke up Friday morning to frost on the ground and frozen clothes “drying” on the line. We packed with the speed of frigid fingers and headed to breakfast sporting an extra layer.

It was an extra layer that was quickly shed, as with the sound of the starter’s pistol (an actual 9mm Ruger (sp?) in this case…some parts of this west are still wild) we headed up an east-west valley into the sun and towards Vail Pass. It was hot in no time so, mindful of the long day and wanting to keep my health in order, we kept an easy pace as we ran/hiked the lower portions of the nearly 4000′ climb that started our day. Further constraining the pace was the fact Aviva was feeling nauseous on this morning. Though it would do nothing to aid her stomach malaise, I took her Gregory hydration pack in the hopes that at least her step would be lightened her step if not the brick in her gut. Between conservatism and gastro-distress, our pace had us back in the “pack” during the early uphill portions of the stage. However, the short history of this race had proven that our tortoise strategy typically found us regaining many of the teams that left us behind in the opening couple of hours of each stage. True to form, by the time we reached the second checkpoint, about a thousand feet short of the day’s first summit, we had latched back onto one of our favourite teams, the Meeth couple from Aubourn.

We took our typical CP strategy, me running ahead with Aviva’s pack to refill fluids for both of us while Vives caught back on then passed the CP to get a head start while I grabbed gels, etc. This approach typically saved us a minute or two but also, more importantly to Aviva, allowed her to keep rolling and not lose momentum. It also meant that I usually had a couple of minutes of harder running following the CP, invariably illuminating for me that I wasn’t in shape to be covering ground much (if any) faster than Aviva and I were as a team. The lesson was the same as I ran out of stage 5’s CP2, if not more pronounced.

Running uphill with the two full hydration packs, I felt like I had bricks for shoes, huffing and puffing and forced to walk a couple of the short climbs. Without adequate justification I was immediately grumpy at my fatigue, projecting onto my teammate ahead of me. As soon as I caught up to Aviva I told her that she needed to take her pack back – I no longer had it in me to do double duty. Fortunately, Vives’ stomach was feeling better and we soon fell back into our team rhythm, me happy to let Aviva set tempo while I enjoyed the lesser weight on my back.

We held our pace as we ascended the last few hundred wooded vertical feet towards through top of the climb, breaking into subalpine meadows and catching our breath once again at the ragged skyline that materialized in all directions. A short descent to regroup and lament aching quadriceps and we were climbing again, this time headed for high ground within the Vail ski area. The climb took us through Vail’s back bowls, terrain that would have had us salivating at the prospect of tele-turns if it weren’t for the treeless exposure leaving us parched. We dug in and ascended the switchbacks across the fall-line, heading towards the final checkpoint of the day. Once there, we again followed our CP technique while Aviva got a head-start on the descent.

Perhaps it was the chase to catch up that put me in the cardiac red zone. Whether that or some combination of the days’ duration, heat, electrolyte imbalance, etc., about 10 minutes into the 8 mile descent I had to honour our pact and tell Aviva that my heart was going sideways. It slid quickly in that direction and I was soon spoiling the mountain still with my wheezing and ever-more-heavily plodding footfalls. This time I recognized what was happening and almost immediately went for my medication. I perhaps should have gone one further and walked or stopped, but I refused to do either, over Aviva’s protestations. In lame defence of my stupidity, stopping was unacceptable to me even if we weren’t technically racing, and walking was actually harder than running. Though by this time I was coming down the mountain like a drunken sailor, weaving back-and-forth across the trail and tripping every dozen or so strides as though I had drop foot, at least at a run the forward vector gave me something approaching gyroscopic stability. During the spells that I was so out of breath I had to walk, I had a hard time holding myself upright.

Through CP3, halfway down the mountain, I continued my refusal to stop, noticing that my meds appeared to be having a positive effect. Aviva wasn’t so sure; it was clear she was angry with me (and reasonably so), though in the face of my pig-headedness the best she could do was tell me she was slowing down, threatening a time penalty if I did not also and we consequently reached the finish line separated by more than the allowed 2-minutes. At this she didn’t get much argument from me, especially when the trees began to break and it became clear we still had many minutes of descending left before we reached Vail.

To say I reached my low point here, still a couple of miles above the finish line would be the understatement of this little story. I’m not proud of the vocabulary that came out of my mouth the next few minutes, or of the many times I was forced to catch myself before falling or how often I had to walk. But I did what I had to do to get to the finish, for better or worse. And, thankfully, in the better column came the fact that with a few hundred metres to go I found my breathing coming back to me and my head clearing. My heart was falling back into a regular sinus rhythm just as we reached the end of this very long day. In many ways it was my happiest finish line yet in this event.

(Thank you once again for all the wonderful comments – they were such a pleasure to return to in WiredLand.)

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.

The climb was unremarkable though incredibly steep.  We used our barely-remembered ski-walking technique from our individual days dryland training for cross-country skiing in our youth (we both raced XC and biathlon and have realized we were likely at the same races fifteen years ago, though of course we weren’t to meet for another ten), and motored up the climb, keeping our heartrates low.  Apparently climbing is a strength for Team Atehena, because we found ourselves in the company of teams typically many miles up the road.  It was a great feeling, especially as a number of these folks are absolutely stellar personalities.  Sharing the abuse of the (seemingly) near-vertical pitches certainly dulled the pain.   Over the crest and onto a sub-alpine plateau, we found ourselves confronted with the Gore Range to our right and views to a still-distant Vail village to the left.  It was absolutely stunning, and our legs seemed to benefit – we rolled along at our best pace of the four stages, event though we were up near 11,000′.  At one point, I looked to my right at Aviva and saw something I hadn’t yet seen in her, and certainly hadn’t expected  – she had the bit in her teeth.  “Vives,” I reminded, “rest day, right?”  She had seen a couple of teams up the trail and, feeling her oats, was ready to push ahead.  She took the point though, and we ramped back to all-day pace.  Nonetheless, on the long descent we again found ourselves making up ground, with no intention of doing so.  It seems Team Atehena also goes downhill not half bad (now if we could just figure out the flats!).  Truth be told, the terrain was much like that back home at Thetis and Mt. Work, so were were in our element, especially when the trail became submerged.  While others tip-toed through the creek/trail, we barrelled through, numerous Victoria winters having diminished our slippery-rock risk aversion.  As some have already commented, it paid off, and we found ourselves crossing the line in sixth place in our division (keeping in mind that a couple of teams nearer the lead have imploded along the way, making our ascent a little less miraculous).  We were pretty chuffed, especially given we were in conserve mode all day.  It worked wonders for both of our confidence, a good thing going into stage 6, a 36 km grunt over Vail Pass - a day that would have us climbing nearly 50% more than our previous high days.

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.

She’d be the first to admit she wasn’t feeling all-powerful at the beginning of the day.  Stage 2 had put the fear into her, and a bad tent sleep didn’t help the start line confidence one bit.  With little else to do, we stuck to our usual plan and started off super-conservatively, making our way along a few miles of pavement before hitting double track and ramping upwards.  The climbs on this stage were nothing spectacular, but the rising heat (again, just for we soft Canadians) had us further conserving.  That is, until Carter (masculine) got hit with a small case of the competitive streak he used to wear around regularly in his more-active days.  We found ourselves climbing with a mixed team two places up the standings from us; I, figuring they were looking a little haggard and we were looking … less so …, decided to push the issue a little.  Interesting things happened: (1) we dropped them; and (2) Aviva stopped speaking to me.  The connection only became clear to yours truly miles later.  A few further miles later it also became clear that Aviva was right – we shouldn’t have pushed early.  At around 3.5 hours, my wheels started to come off and teams around us slowly began taking advantage.  Thankfully, Aviva and I had agreed on my mistake (:-)) and we relaxed into our rather depleted state and trudged along.  The scenery didn’t hurt: apart from the final three flat, exposed (read: hot and nasty) miles, the last portion of the stage was run along the Colorado Trail, a beautiful lowland portion of the Continental Divide Trail. 

Licking our wounds (okay, mostly me doing the licking – Aviva looked great at the end), we rolled into the finish at around 5:16 (as I recall).  Knowing the next stage was a relatively short up-and-over, we decided to take it as a rest day, mindful of the two back-to-back long days to come.

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.

Suffice to say, we suffered a little out there, but were very happy with the way we ran.  We were even happier with the surroundings.  Though the dirt road we traveled was itself less than spectacular, the views of the Arkansas River and the surrounding landscape features kept us more than entertained.  Good thing, as a little distraction from our elevated heart rates was very welcome.  Altitude is a killer!  Through our training, we have become adapted to our “all-day pace”, the pace we can run comfortably for hours at a time without distress.  Even though we dialed that back a notch, we were both running at heart rates more like marathon pace.  Humbling to say the least, as you shuffle along with your heart in your throat.  (Now, before my darling mother flies down here with that observation and promptly has me admitted to hospital, let me assure her that though my HR was a little high, it was completely stable – good news.)  We ran a fairly even pace throughout the stage, did an adequate job of eating and drinking along the route and crossed the finish line unscathed.

After soaking the legs in the Arkansas (bliss!), we grabbed some food and loaded into a shuttle to our campsite.  Now, here’s where our tale goes off the rails a little.  One of the food items we picked up was a tin of tuna (provided by one of the race sponsors) – protein seemed like a grand idea, but the fishy packaging was perhaps a little less than perfect for this guy who has chronic stomach issues after long events.  Aviva, too, felt a little queazy, so the ride to the campsite was less than ideal.  Once there, we found a tent and I promptly sacked out, holding my gut and wishing for sleep.  No such luck.  However, there were Tums to be had and I was soon able to get vertical.  In that aspect, though, I was met with a ripper headache (altitude? heat?), so the evening was devoted to rehydrating and slow movement.  Aviva got her stomach in order quickly and, no surprise, was the better of the two of us in no time (and, at this, thanks a ton, Wendy, for the vote of confidence!  Give a poor, fragile guy’s ego a break! ).  The catering was again pretty stellar, the slide show and video tons of fun and the night rounded out with a hot cup of Clif chocolate recovery drink at the Salomon tent (gotta GET some of that stuff!).

Last, we were pretty chuffed to hear that we’d been given a touchy-feely paragraph on the event’s front page – you can check it out at the bottom of this page.

Day 2 – Vicksburg to Twin Lakes (near Leadville)
Distance: 10 miles, 1039 feet
Climbing: 3098 feet (max. elevation: 12538 feet)

Short and sweet.  Or short and hellish.  Depended on who you were and the outlook you ascribed to today.  For us, we made a couple of mistakes, but it ended up being a day of breakthroughs and senses of accomplishment – today was a crux stage, and we’re both here to talk about it.  Here’s how it unfolded…

Not well to begin with, as it turned out.  At our 5:45 alarm, Aviva was less than keen to unfold herself from her sleeping bag – she’d basically just fallen asleep from a mostly restless night.  A quick hug and a little compassion was all I could offer though, as breakfast was in 15 and the buses rolled out shortly after that (we had a short transfer to our start at Vicksburg).  Vives cowboyed up though and we were soon packed and down at the trough for another impressive spread.  Maybe not completely subjectively impressive though, given Vives soon had a nasty stitch going followed by waves of nausea.  Not good.  Trooper that she is though, we clambered on the bus for the transfer.  Aviva communed with her iPod gods, trying to find gastronomic solace in the lyrics of some random terrible top-40 artist or other (whoops, sorry, this blog’s about running, not musical taste, or lack thereof).  I caught up with Adam Chase, running with Michelle Barton for Running Times Magazine and in 3rd place in the mixed competition after the first day.  With today’s climb looming, I hoped a little of his aerobic capacity might cross the aisle in my direction.  (Spoiler: nope.)

Given how Vives was feeling, it wasn’t surprising that we didn’t have a stellar start to the day.  The first two miles was gradually inclining from the 9,700′ start to the turn-off to the steep climb up Sheep Gulch (part of the Continenal Divide Trail, CDT*), but it wasn’t doing us any favours.  We dialed it back trying to find comfort for Aviva’s stomach, but it never came. 

So, upwards.  The first 1500′ of vertical was pretty challenging.  Not a lot of conversation going on.  Aviva, though, kept a great, steady pace at her comfort level.  And the sky got closer at a surprising rate.  We both marveled at the biogeography: thick conifers at 10,000′, a poplar stand around 11,000′.  I called out to Vives each time we reached the elevation of one of the climbs she’s done in the Lake O’Hara region.  “That’d be the top of Lefroy” (at the top end of the poplar stand).  “Consider yourself standing on top of Hungabee” (the highest mount in the O’Hara region – here, still just leaving the tree line).

Once we were out of the treeline, the sun seemed to warm-up Aviva’s outlook and flush some of the stomach nastiness.  Though the altitude made it feel like we each had 80-lb. yetis on our backs, we started to roll, passing a couple of teams.  (Here, I have to mention how amazing all the “competitors” are while out on course.  I put competitors in quotation marks, because at our place in the bunch it feels much less like a competition and more like a collegial group hike done with intervals between couples.  Such a cool, positive vibe.)  It didn’t hurt that the views were breathtaking and the alpine wildflowers were out in force.  Before we knew it we were ascending the last couple of switchback ramps and onto the windy saddle.  We got a couple of classic cheezy photos and started the 3,500′, 5-mile descent into Twin Lakes. 

And here’s where things went a little sideways again.  Remember Aviva’s sore gut?  Not so good for getting in the calories.  At around 2-hours at the top of the climb, she’d only been able to get in a single gel.  She tried and succeeded to get a couple more in on the way down, but it wasn’t enough.  Combine her nutritional state with the fact Vives led and hammered the descent (so impressed – all the Mt. Work sessions paid dividends) and you can guess what’s coming: bonkers.  We made it to the bottom of the descent, but the last mile-and-a-half of stream crossings and meadows to the finish was a bit of a challenge. 

But here’s where the breakthrough came: we got through it.  A little bit of positive talk and some recollection of the hard training miles that came before today and Aviva latched on (not literally – we have a “no tow” policy for this race) and turned it over into the finish line, just short of 3:04 after we started. 

Once again soaking our legs in a conveniently located creek (need to hook one of these up for the Blenkinsop Valley for post-workout back home), we had a chance to reflect on the day.  Though today was the shortest stage of the race, given the 3,000′ ramp over such a short distance, it was also very much a crux.  And, though we made a couple of nutritional errors and had some consequent challenges along the way, truth be told…for us, our team stormed today.  Even though we weren’t feeling fantastic, we still bettered our predictions for the climb and literally flew on the way down, passing another couple of amazingly friendly, encouraging teams along the way. 

Aviva’s pretty concerned about tomorrow’s stage, a bit of a monster at nearly 40 km, but I think today was, quite rightly, a confidence instiller.

I say “think”, because I’m alone here at the Provin’ Ground Cafe in Leadville (site of the (in)famous Leadville 100, elevation in the post title) while she tries to catch up on the missed hours sleep back in tent city.  Hopefully she’s getting the rest she deserves.

For me, today couldn’t have been better.  I was very happy to be able to give my heart a bit of a rest on the climb.  And, though Vives put the gears to me on the down, overall today was mellow for my ticker – more good news.  What’s more, whatever random malady was making my head pound yesterday seems to have vacated my cranium.  All in all, I’m pretty happy with how my body is performing and adapting to the altitude given the relative lack of training in the lead-up.  Tomorrow will definitely be a test, but we’ll just stick to our steady all-day pace and get there a mile at a time.

Not sure our connectivity at our next overnight – hopefully we’ll be able to at least throw a quick update to the blog.  Thank you so much for all the comments (apart from yours, Simms!) – they’re coming through my BB, so we’re able to pick them up before and after the stages and they certainly go a long way to lightening our feet and putting smiles on our faces.

All our best from the town of rare air…

*The CDT is a part actual, part notional trail spanning the spine of the continent, along the Rockies from Canada to Mexico.  “Notional” because, though the dream of the CDT has been alive since the 60s, the entire length has not yet been established.  The Continental Divide Trail Alliance, partnered with the TRR, is working towards fulfilling the dream.  As part of their entry, competitors in the TRR had the option of contributing $100 to the CDTA – over two thirds took them up; combined with generous corporate donation from Gore and Salomon, the total contributed to date from the TRR is nearly $25k.

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.

We’re counting ourselves lucky this morning as we again had a fab sleep.  As I’ve always told my athletes, it’s not the pre-race sleep that matters, but those nights 1- and 2-days out.  So we’re dialed…except for the fact that technically speaking the next six nights will all be pre-race sleeps.  It will be interesting to see how we both adapt to the post-race adrenaline and aching legs that won’t be avoidable in the nights to come (perhaps I shouldn’t let Vives read this post, huh?).

The better part of the morning was spent chatting over breakfast on the lawn with a mixed team from California, Juliette and Howard, running as Team Herbalife (North America) (there’s a team from Holland also).  These two were fantastic, here for all the right reasons, with a great outlook.  I think the chat went a long way  towards making Aviva less worried about the “competition”.  (When we were lunching and walking through town yesterday, Aviva kept tugging on my sleeve, whispering, “Do you think they’re runners?  How ’bout them?  Oo, they look fit!”)  Aviva’s pretty concerned about us ending up last, but I think J’s stories about the team from Europe who last year ran with a mickey of Sambuca helped a little.  (Yeah, I know!)

Sign-in and package pick-up starts in around 15, so we’re headed out shortly.  A couple of randoms before heading out:

• We’ve been taking a few pics, but for some reason neither this site nor our Flickr page seems down with downloading.  I’ll see if I can work any technomagic and get it sorted.
• Oddly, though, I was able to post a great photo (in my humble, biased) of Aviva to MuddySocks earlier today – you can check it out here.
• Thanks very much for the comments that have come in – it’s great to hear from friendly voices back home.

We’ll check back in later today after we’ve been to Reg.  Hope everyone’s having a great Sunday and getting outside wherever you are.