Being on the road, I am way behind on catching up on blogs, the race reports from Pikes and Leadville, but here are a few …
Kilian gave his winner’s trophy away? I am not surprised actually.
Rim to rim runners are apparently causing issues with their vomit.
Leadville: Brandon F’s Leadville report, Lucho’s report and Footfeathers pacing report with that, Brandon S’ report (check out the pacer outfits), Andy W, Kiernen, Nick Clark .. and Matt Trappe has some fantastic photos from Leadville.
Pikes: JV’s report, Knuckledragger’s … pix from Pikes from Marathon Photo.
Truly the story from the weekend is Kim Dobson’s Ascent. I mentioned to a few folks that I thought it was Beamon-esque (look up Bob Beamon if you don’t know what that means), but at least few guys I know were very impressed by her effort, but not surprised by the outcome.
I spoke to Scott E for a bit after the race and he said he had little doubt with the specific training that she had done the mountain. On Monday, Scott commented on this thread that I had put up in 2011. I have pasted them below for reference. More than ever, it is very clear to me that the challenge with Pikes is not the grade but the altitude and being specifically trained to deal with that. You are climbing 7800 feet, but that is not like gaining a 2500 feet in 2 miles on the front of Green. You are doing it over 13 miles. The course is very runable, and so – as KJ seemed to tell us in ever interview this past weekend: it is “flat.” The question is whether you can run or not after 10 miles of climbing and at 12k feet … and beyond.
Dobson’s performance also brings up the pace calculator – apparently Dobson was right at 72:30 ish at Barr and 1:43 at A frame. She ran the splits in the calculator nearly perfect for her sub 2:25. (and for those of you already speculating what sort of marathon that would mean, it generally points to a sub 4, but Kim would probably be the first to tell you she had no interest in the round trip …). A key take away here however is this: the calculator worked for Kim because she trained at altitude. Stated another way, if the calculator does not work for you, it is probably because you are falling apart up high. And you might need to ask yourself if that is because of an issue with altitude (and training for that).
On this front, a few folks said I must have been altitude acclimatized because of my burro running. I am not sure if that is true. I spent more days at sea level in San Francisco than I did at 13k feet. And frankly, “running” with a burro at those elevations at 25 minute mile pace is pretty different than doing it on your own when trying to get to 15 minute mile pace. And for what it is worth, while I moved fairly well up high on Sunday, I still was behind the calculator from Barr up (said differently, I was ahead of the calculator below Barr, but then I got what I got up high). To me … it means a slightly dangerous suggestion … if you want to perform at a certain level in the climb – say 3 hours, and you are not going to be altitude trained, you might need to gamble and “bank” some time below Barr Camp. This is risky of course, because you might blow it all up down low.
Scott’s comments …
With regard to specifically training for Pikes, low-altitude laps on something like Bear are not nearly as good as high-altitude climbs. There is NO substitute for training at altitude for a race that is virtually always decided by those who have prepped correctly for racing hard at altitude. Those last six miles on Pikes will destroy even the most fit runner who has not bothered to properly train. Wanna do well at Pikes? Put in gobs of steep stuff, months of pretty heavy mileage, sharpen with appropriate intervals, and LOTS of altitude for both the long runs and the hard runs.
And … No trust fund for me, for sure. I lived, and still live, frugally. I chose to live at Barr Camp because I knew how important it was to mentally, as well as physically, prepare for the Ascent. And though it's been touched upon, I have to say that the "Live High, Train Low" approach and other methods mentioned are all geared towards research of physiological benefits for low-altitude races, NOT Pikes. It's my firm belief that if you're going to race to 14K, you'd better get your body prepared for the 10-ish miles of significant uphill, and your brain prepared for maxing out virtually the whole way. As the weeks progressed, my training splits from Barr to the summit would ALWAYS improve; to the point where I could get those six miles in comfortably at or below 60 minutes. I memorized the trail, I ran the race over and over in my head, and I spent a ton of time recovering between training sessions, which is easy to do at Barr Camp. If I needed an easier day, I'd run on the Elk Park trail (heaven!), and there's a bunch of places for flat striders up there. My intervals were anywhere from 4 minutes to 13 minutes, mostly above Barr but sometimes lower down. I KNEW on race day that I was effectively running "underwater" until Barr Camp, whichI considered to be my "sea level." I always raced on feel, and never bothered to glance at splits. I usually went out pretty fast and soloed the whole race, but my most memorable race was when Matt and Mark Stickley pulled away from me (and I was suffering from a horrible side-stitch) and got out of sight before halfway up. Just past the Bottomless Pit sign, I encountered Stickley walking -- he was blown. It took me until a mile to go to bridge back up to Matt, but then the adrenaline took over and I put in close to two minutes on him in that last mile. Yes, I got tested at the OTC and only Matt (at that time anyway) had a higher VO2 than me (I think I was 92 or 93?), so I understand that I have the right set of lungs and capillaries, but the mental strength and the confidence gained from beating people like Matt were invaluable.
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