Pike’s Peak Ascent:

I did the 50th running of the Pike’s Peak Ascent on August 20. This was my second time in two years. Last year I finished 10th out of 1700. I didn’t know what to expect before the race, so the pain of that race, mentally and physically, was kind of …… intriguing shall we say. Top ten received free entry so I felt obligated to do it again. For 2005, I actually trained, four to five hours a week, whereas last year two hours a week was average. I also did a lot more hill and trail running as the majority of the race is single track with an average of 560 feet per mile of climbing (6,800 feet to 14,100 feet). Now that I knew what pain I suffered last year, I dreaded even more doing the race this year.

The gun went off at 7 AM. This is only the second time in 2005 where I will here a gun go off. The other was the Earth Day 5K where Andy asked me to start the race and thus I decided to do it.

Okay, so I took off and headed up the mountain. Within the first mile six of us were together and we had gapped the rest of the field by quite a bit. A 19 year old, who finished second last year, began to pull away from our group. The five of us were together through mile 3. I was definitely doing better than the previous year as I was probably 20th at this distance. Although I was pacing myself, I still had negative thoughts pop into my head with the basic beginning to each question “Why?” In most instances, I was able to immediately switch those negative questions to positive thoughts such as “Be happy you can do this,” “It sure is pretty out today.” “Come on this is my only true race of the year.” “I have trained better this year for the race.”

At the midway point, I was about ten minutes faster than last year. That was my goal for 2005. Looking at times from last year, that would put me in tenth place. I was hurting, no doubt, but I had two other guys with me at the time and we seemed to pace each other well. My hip flexors were feeling all of the climbing. At mile 10, I was able to pull away from these two and yet Ultra Endurance sports guy, Mike Kloser, at the age of 45, blew by me like I had gotten my leg stuck in a crevice. He came from I don’t know where. I was then in sixth place. My right hamstring had started to get tight around then, but this happened to me last year and I knew I was able to make it up. Still, the hip flexors were letting me know that they were attached to my body.

At mile 11, while climbing over this rock, BOTH quads locked at the same time! So much so, that I forgot all about my hammy and hip flexors. I had to stop and massage them just to be able to move forward. “Come on, you (**&%&% muscles. This is not the time to act up!!!” Cramping? Quads! What the…… Immediately, I thought to myself, “sodium…why didn’t I take sodium tablets like I tell all of my half and IM distance athletes to take. You idiot….you are a coach.” Granted, a lack of sodium may not have caused this as general fatigue may have been a factor. Run training 7 hours a week would have been more appropriate for this type of racing. Still, I was sweating profusely and sodium might have helped quite a bit. Tablets would have insured me of having enough sodium. Still, I did carry my own water bottle of Gatorade, but maybe that wasn’t enough.

After massaging, the muscles relaxed quite a bit. Off I went, but not too fast as I am above timberline and the lack of oxygen was making the head spin a little bit. I could feel the muscles a little tight, but I was getting close to the finish. Five minutes later, “Aggghhhhh!” QUADS!!!! I stopped again. Triathlete, Tim Hola, went by me while I was sitting there. That was frustrating. Oops, here comes Mark Haugen who did some World Cup races with me while he was on the military triathlon team. GET UPPPPPP!!!! I walked, then started to run (if you call it that). “Arggghhhhh!” QUADS!!!! Sit and massage. Three times I had to sit. I was able to get going again, mostly walking with a shuffle now and then when there weren’t boulders to climb.

The crowd was huge at the top. You could hear the cheering and race announcer from the 10 mile mark. Close, yet far, far, away at the time. Although I wanted to run near the top, and of course impress Hayley, the legs made it no such doing. I crossed the finish line in 10th, again, and my time was 2:40, five minutes faster. After crossing, all my weight went on to Hayley. She carried me to the medical area where they gave me oxygen, non-flavored J. After ten minutes and the addition of a PAINFUL, yet much needed quad massage from the medical person, I got some fruit and yet I wasn’t feeling too good. Basically the next hour, as we drove back to the hotel room, I was dry heaving from the altitude. After a cat nap at the hotel room, things felt better and recovery over the next two days was actually quite good. I believe the quad massage was huge.

Looking at the results, God teased me again by offering free entry. The guys who passed me, 6-9, finished 4-8 minutes faster. That was the disappointing thing as if my quads didn’t cramp, I could have gone faster. Would of, could of, should of….those are the questions that we all should as best as possible, prevent through preparation, before race day.

Until next year……