Tough Night & Best Morning!

Last night, was a killer Crossfit workout up in Whistler. Here is what I did:

300

25 x Pullups

50 x Deadlifts (40kg bar)

50 x Pushups

50 Box Jumps (24" box)

50 Floor Wipers (40kg bar)

50 Kettle Bell Clean & Presses (12Kg KB)

25 Pullups

TIME: 16min36sec

TOUGH, TOUGH, TOUGH!! I had already logged 2 good hours of running so this finished me off!

BUT, this morning, I had the best powder run yet of the year up at Red Heather! With a 7am start, I was back down to the parking lot by 9am. Blue skies, light & fluffy powder, it felt like winter was actually here! Hard to head to work on days like that!

24hrs of Sunlight

Race Report

I'm back home now in Squamish to where there is oxygen in the air and I can breathe like a normal person! The race was awesome and I can't wait to go back next year. However, I will be giving myself a full week to hang in Gunnison prior to the start. Coming from sea level to try and compete with the high altitude mountain folks is just plain hard!!!


So, Friday afternoon we made the drive to Glenwood Springs with crew members Ben and Agnes. It took 3hrs along this gorgeous twisty mountain road and we arrived in time to register, meet 3rd crew member Keith, grab some food and head to Sunlight Mt to our slopeside hotel. Now, Sully and his crew knew what was going on and knew what it takes to dial in this race. Our hotel room as only a few steps away from the transition tent at the base of the hill. Perfect for our crew to dry skins, make food and exchange gear for us! The evening was spent trying to make me a 2nd pair of skins for my rando skiis - mission successful! After cutting a pair of Keiths skins (so nice of him) and bending the crap out of the front attachment and using a carabiner from Ben's key chain, we had a sweet set-up for me to hammer on and switch out. I was so ready to hit this race in the morning.
Had a good sleep and things got under way at 11am! I felt great the first few laps, climbed well and logged some sub 40min laps. However, by 2pm, it was a different story! The altitude was making me sleepy. Frick I thought, how am I going to survive 24hrs of this if all I want to do is curl up on the side of the ski hill! Luckily, as night approached, my adventure racing mentality kicked in and I woke up! Maybe it was my coffee from Beans Around the World that I had brought down (oh ya, we gave it a new name "the 24hr Espresso Special.")My laps times stayed pretty much under 1hr and I was happy with that. I continued to lead in the women's category, putting some time on the 2nd place female with every lap. For the most part, I felt great out there! Ben, Keith and Aggie did a wicked job of feeding me every lap (about 100 -200 calories) and filling my bottle with nuun. We had a great sytem going and the transitions were kept to about 1min each lap.


However, by 4:30am, shit hit the fan!!! My breathing became super hard and I just couldn't get the oxygen in. I would skin for 10 steps, stop, gasp for air, feel like having a heart attack and then take another 10 steps. Embarisngly enough, my 16th lap took about 1hr30min or so. Yikes!!! This was not good. I was so dizzy at the top and could hardly focus despite having all the other encouraging competitors doing the team category around me! I only had a 35min lead on 2nd place and thankfully, had put a 3 lap lead on 3rd place. I skiied down to the bottom and we decided that I needed to take a break, get out of the cold, drink hot fluids and try to heat up my lungs. They took me into the hotel room and I layed on the bed, hacking up flem and gasping for air! I tried to sleep as I watched my 1st place slip away!!

What could I do??? The crew kept their eye on the results for me and Dina from Jackson Hole, WY (now in 1st place, ) put some solid laps in on me. However, 3rd place (Polly McLean) was still moving steady and in order to secure my 2nd place, I had to get my butt back out there and suffer another few laps. Frick!!!! It was so painful to move again. 8:15am, I trudged back out, put the skii's on and tackled Sunlight Mt, a few more times, just to be sure! It wasn't pretty but I got the job done.

The real kicker was this......I was so ready for this race, more than I realized. My legs felt amazing and I attribute this to my CrossFit training in Whistler! You'd think that after 24hrs of going up and down some 30,000 vertical ft my body would be tired, but it just wasn't! It was my lack of acclimitization that got me and cost me the the race. I'm happy with 2nd, all things considered, and cant wait to race this one again!

Sully killed it again like a true champion. He did just enough laps to win the men's solo and did it very easily at that ( I think he took 2 x 2hr naps)! The race atmosphere was great and it was well put on! Highly recommend this one to anyone looking for a fun winter challenge! Thanks to Sully and our wicked awesome crew for taking care of me and showing me what true Colorado Rando Racing is all about!

Gear for the Race:
- Salomon Running Tights & Vest & Nordic gloves
- Ryders sunglasses
- Ibex long sleeve wool top and undies
- SOLE jacket at night
- Scarpa touring boots
- Atomic Tour Lite Skiis
- Dynafit Vertical Bindings

Next up, a few weeks of training and then I have 3 back-to-back weekends of single day Rando races here in BC and WA. I hope that I have done the hardest of all and that these ones will seem a little bit easier! Now, if I can just make it up the stairs without feeling like death, I think I'll be ready to go again soon!

First 24hr Ski Race

Colorado

Sorry, the blog has been a bit quiet for a few days as my days have been packed to the max with work, training and preparing for my trip to Colorado which came up just a wee bit too quickly.

So, here I am now, in Gunnison Colorado at Sully's place, drinking coffee and getting ready to head to Glenwood Springs tonight. He picked me up last night from Grand Junction and we made the 2hr trip back here. I was super tired and so got some rest (have been running on about 4-5 hrs of sleep for way tooo many days now. Clear and sunny skies today but snow is on its way.

(Utah's mountains from the airplane)

The race starts tomorrow and yes, its my first ski race rando race and so in true segger fashion, I thought that a 24hr one would be the way to kick it off. Oddly enough, I have another 3 short ones on the calendar over the next few weeks which I hope then will seem easy compared to this one.
K, so the race is the 24hrs of Sunlight. Check it out. Sully holds the world record here. The goal is to ski as many laps as you can in that time frame. Skin up, ski down. REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT. My goal is to be able to breathe and have fun. The womens record is at 22 laps and the mens at 34. Ahh, should be interesting. As you can see, YES, I will have a heart attack trying to crank at this elevation.

(Sully doing a last minute check on his new ski set up)

I had good travels getting here. Had a good week of training leading up to the race, no real taper because this is not an A race. Still in full throttle for the Rock & Ice in March. Have been making some wicked breakfasts full of nothing but good stuff and then enjoyed my favorite breakfast at the Wildwood yesterday en route to the airport.

More to come before the race, we are off to find some breakfast and get the tour of Gunnison!