A Tumbling Pace

Thursday I headed out with my friend Kim for Telluride to run my third annual Imogene.   The tradition started about 3 years ago and I have been hooked ever since.  I meet lots of people who have run Imogene several years in a row, e.g. one couple from Flagstaff who we met on the bus had run it 19 times!   I can’t think of a good reason to ever stop making this a fall destination race.  

On the way down we stopped in Gunnison for the night and the next morning I called up my friend Eric, who introduced me to singlespeeding a few months back.  We decided to ride Hartmann Rocks with him the next day, keeping it light because of the race the next day.  Hartmann Rocks is the site of the Sage Burner and has a really large amount and variety of trails for mountain biking, among the other recreational uses of the area like climbing and hunting.  Eric also owns a Gary Fisher Rig 29er singlespeed.  It was the first time I had ever rode with another singlespeeder and I noticed Eric was an excellent climber, beating me up most of the sustained climbs.  He had tons of good tips as well.  We only rode for about 2 hours, and Eric was nice enough to take lots of breaks, knowing we wanted to save our legs.  I can’t wait to get back and ride with him some more.

We then drove to Ouray and stayed at our usual camping spot in town that the 4J RV park.  I was feeling really calm about the race.  My plan was to treat the first 1 hour of the race very lightly, because the climb would be over 2 hours, and I rarely climb that long and steep.  Most of my climbs, even on 14ers only take about 1 1/2 hours.  I didn’t want to blow up.  

Our pre-race routine was perfect and included ginger cookies that made my stomach feel especially calm.  We arrived at the finish line with 3 minutes to go and placed ourselves about 1/3 back, a very unaggressive position for me.  When the gun went off I quickly realized that being that far back in the crowd was pretty wasteful so I worked my way around everybody and placed myself more in the top 1/4.  

For the first 4 miles I looked around at others a lot and never felt like I was working that hard.  Perhaps I was going too easy.  I knew however that there was a lot of work ahead.  I hoped to run until mile 8 and then hike the final 2 miles.   The climb up to Upper Camp Bird is where I have started walking in years past and this year was no exception.  Except I felt a lot more clear minded.  I wasn’t climbing any faster but the altitude was getting to me less. I reached Upper Camp Bird and then as in years past I worked my way up the final 2 miles.  It was not nearly as painful as in years past, although I rarely felt like I could run.  I reached the pass in 2:25, the exact same time as last year, very disappointing for me to consider as I had worked so hard at climbing better.

I then realized that I was cramping on the way down and couldn’t get much of a rhythm for the first few miles.  Things got really bad about 1/3 of the way down and I wondered whether I would ever be able to get a running rhythm back.  I think this happenned last year as well.  I was descending with a lot more confidence because of the Hokas.  I finally found a nice rhythm which only got better the lower I got.  I finally ran sub 7 minute miles and finished in 3:23, 2 minutes better than last year.  

I ran this race with a lot less drama than last year and it felt a lot easier.  But I only finished 2 minutes faster.  I also didn’t climb any faster despite all the weeks spent climbing local Boulder peaks.  This really confused me but after a few days of reflection I think I have figured it out.  In order to get a much better time, I think I need to do 2 things:  

1)  Radically change my endurance fitness.  I did this once 2 years ago when I started ATC, which dropped my time by over 50 minutes last year!  I have been looking for a way to improve even more but I don’t think it is going to happen unless I lose weight.  Losing weight is not a good thing to focus on for most runners so I don’t want really want to fret about it constantly.  But I do want to eat a cleaner, lighter diet and hope to drop around 10 pounds.   Kim told me I am one of those rare types who can carry extra weight without noticing it easily.  When she said that, something snapped and I realized that I had been fooling myself by being sloppy with my diet.

2) Focus on running fast.  Races are about speed obviously.  I have approached running more as a power-endurance sport, grinding out climbs and long mountain runs, but I really need to take the speed dimension seriously.  To me this means more time running flatter and faster, and running with people faster than me.  I think this will do the trick but if it doesn’t then back to the drawing board again.

Ok, back to the rest of the weekend.  The day after Imogene has traditionally been a day to do something uniquely hard.  Last year Kim and I climbed Mt. Sneffels.  The year before we (and Naz, Ralphie, Mary and Steve) rode down and out of the steep Black Canyon of the Gunnison on a very hot day.  This year we drove to Crested Butte and rode the whole Deer Creek trail.  We started on the southeast side of the trail.  The first part was really steep and on my singlespeed and with tired legs, I wasn’t cleaning much.  As soon as we got to the top I started feeling really good and we rode miles of beautiful aspen forest and rolling single track until the end of the trail.  Actually we missed the end of the trail and rode for 1.5 more hours on cow trail before realizing our mistake.   So 5 hours of hard riding had us feeling that we had met our post Imogene challenge requirements.

The next day we rode the 401.  I cleaned the whole road, and about 90% of the switchbacks leading up to top of the trail on my singlespeed.  Then on the downhill I felt really stable and smooth and rode over most of the technical sections I had been unable to when I had rented a bike and rode this trail in July.  

I am entering a transition with trail running in my life.  For the first time I feel as passionate about another sport as I do trail running now or basketball when I was young, namely single-speed mountain biking.  So trail running has to move over to accomodate time for mountain bike riding.  I plan to try generally to run one day, bike the next.  Since I will be running less, I will concentrate on much higher quality runs, faster, longer, steeper.  I am excited about where mountain biking will lead me and want to quickly jump into racing and long adventure-like rides and races.  Most of all I feel more grateful for everything in my life that is so good and there is a lot of it.  Happy Fall everyone!