Pikes Peak Race Recap

Quick Synopsis:

Longer version:

Well, that sucked. Laid a big turd out there. 3:24 and change.

Since I broke my leg 2.5 years ago, I’ve done about 70% of my miles on dirt roads, 10% on a treadmill, 10% on asphalt, 5% on trails, and 5% on trails. I used to run nearly half of my miles on trails, but since I had that fall, I just avoid anything technical. 

Well, I had forgotten how many “step ups” and rocks there were on this trail up to Pikes. Leading up to this race, I did most of my training on high-altitude dirt roads. That’s fine for building the aerobic engine, but it doesn’t do anything to get you to accustomed to the physical challenge of stepping up on rocks 1000 times over 13 miles. And so I wasn’t ready for it on Saturday.

Executed the plan fine to Barr Camp. 52 to No name and 1:28 to BC while keep the HR below 160, which is generally a sub-tempo effort. Nobody passed me between No Name and Barr Camp, and I passed quite a few. But mechanically, above BC, it all went bad. Kicked a few rocks and slipped a couple of times. About 5 to go my quads started cramping and seizing up from all the step ups. By 4 to go, my legs were just shot. Last 4 miles were all slower than 20-minute miles. I just couldn’t push off worth a damn. My HR was in the low 140s.  

I just wasn't anywhere near prepared for this race. I vastly overestimated my specific fitness for this challenge and vastly underestimated the scope of the challenge. And I paid for it with a 4-mile death march in some nasty weather up top. Was in total survival mode above A-Frame.

Other than the death march at the end, I had fun racing again. Fun seeing some folks out there I hadn’t seen in a while. 

I’ll see if I can find another race this fall to get the stink off me from that one. 

Pikes !?!!?!!

I'm running the Pikes Peak Ascent in five days. 

I haven't run a race in 22 months and it's been nearly three years since I finished anything longer than a 5k. 

And of yeah, it's my first trail race since this happened.

It's a little hard to know how I'm going to do. On the one hand, I feel fit. On the other hand, I haven't done a race like this in a long time, and I've never done a race that was just straight up for nearly 8k ft. of gain. Plus, my mileage has been fairly slim this year. As in, like 30 miles a week through June and then 45 miles a week since. My longest effort this year is 15 miles.

The low-mileage approach isn't a principled stance. I know I'd do better if I ran more miles (assuming I could stay healthy). I've just been too busy with work, parenthood, and coaching to do more than I have.

That said, I just PR'd on my favorite high elevation tempo run, a 7-mile tempo on Old Monarch Pass. I ran 53:01 on Saturday, or 7:34 miles for 7 miles at over 11,000 ft. with over 1k in gain. That's a fair ways faster than I ran on a similar effort before I ran 81 minutes for a half three years ago. So that's encouraging.

If this were a 2-hour race between 7k ft and 12k ft., I'd feel well prepared. Unfortunately for me, it's probably going to be closer to a 3-hour race (or more) going up to 14k ft. So I don't feel that well prepared for that long of an effort. 

Plus, I just realized that I'm not even in the first men's wave. I got seeded 231. Near as I can tell, I'm starting two minutes or so behind the lead women and a minute or so behind the lead men, so it's going be super congested going up the Ws. 

I emailed the registrar to ask if I could get a bump to the first wave, and he said he would have given me one, but I asked too late. 

Oh, well. 

A+ goal would be sub-2:50, with an A- goal of sub-2:55. B goal is sub-3. C and D goals are to finish and to not break any bones this time.