Tahoe Trail Run: Run to the Beach 10K Race Report

        With no clear information ahead of time, this race was even more of a mystery than most. If I knew the area, as some may have, I would have known what to expect. I expected a fairly flat and fast course, since the only description was a mix of trail and road. Also, since the 5K and 10K courses shared a common route for part of the race, I figured that it would be flat. Nope. There was some significant singletrack climbing on the 10K only loop, but since the website had no course profile I didn’t know what to expect. It was a great course, a fair amount of singletrack, one good climb that required a walk at the top, and lots of rocks! I didn’t feel particularly fast, since I was back in the pack, unable to really pass anyone. I ended up running with the same group for most of the race, trading the lead occasionally. I was definitely out of gas at the end, and while I held off some of the people I passed, I got passed by a couple of people who came from nowhere. Unfortunately, I ran off course twice for a few meters (nothing major). Once was THEIR fault, two different arrows, different colors, different directions. The second time was my fault, I was following another runner on a descent and she missed a turn and I didn’t notice. The race had a tough finish that I did not expect, which was on sand! Apparently it was not just a race TO the beach but also ON the beach! Ouch, that hurt.
        Overall, I ran under 54 minutes, which is significantly faster than Burton Creek, making me wonder if the courses were both really 10K. I also wore my new heart rate monitor to see what intensity I was racing at. I uploaded the data into the computer to graph heart rate and found an average of 175, which is a hair under my usual LT of 180. I can feel the difference though, between 175 BPM, where I can recover, to 180 BPM where I feel pinned, and the few times I was up to 182-184 BPM, I was hurting. And so wraps up my first racing/training vacation of the summer: three races on three consecutive beautiful weekends in fantastic Lake Tahoe! Now it’s time to go back to work, make some money to keep up this habit, and tweak the training a bit to get faster.

Next Up for Racing:
Three consecutive Friday night beginner class mountain bike races to improve handling skills.
Find an Olympic distance road triathlon to try a different sort of race

Next Up for Training:
Strength!
LT intervals!
Climbing!

Next Up for Tahoe Vacation:
Gotta check the calendars for that...

Race Report: XTERRA Tahoe City

Wow, what a tough but fun race. What went right? Only that it was a lot of fun, especially the bike course. The bike course went through all kinds of singletrack through Sierra meadows, windy, twisty and fun. There some climbs, but nothing too major or demanding, except for the altitude, not like Del Valle with its long granny gear fire roads. What was difficult about this course was the false flats, where it didn’t look like you were climbing, but it sure felt like you were. As one guy in transition remarked, it felt like your were going backwards. So that was the fun part, and since in an XTERRA most of your time is spent on the bike, it helps to have a fun bike course. Everything else was very tough.
Where did the tough begin? At registration, when they gave me a swim cap, but no race numbers. Tahoe City being rather cramped, it was confusing to locate transition, registration and the start finish, since they were all in different locations. Usually there all in the same place to simplify matters. So hiked around a lot, parking, registering, setting up transition etc. Despite being one of the first on the scene, I still was just in time for the start, along with the other late guy, Ricardo. From there, it just got harder. The swim was a disaster. I felt confident since the swim at Del Valle went so well. I thought that even though I hadn’t been swimming much that I would be fine. No. The combination of cold water and high altitude put the zap on my breathing and I really struggled. I couldn’t establish a comfortable breathing rhythm until the end of the first 750M lap. I watched despondently as the whole field just swam away from me. I finally gave up on swimming and decided to completely ignore what my arms and legs were doing and concentrate only on breathing which helped a lot. But I was slow. Even Ricardo had a tough swim, although he did better than I did, even though we swam together at Del Valle.
It was a long jog on pavement to transition where I set out on the long bike ride. It started with a long climb on the road that helped to spread people out before heading into the state park for the trails. I definitely could feel the altitude, not that I was suffering more, just that I was so slow. I was working hard, enjoying the ride and the course, but just not moving fast. So much for spending a couple of weeks at altitude to grow some more red blood cells!

Tahoe City 10K

        Never trust Google maps completely. That is the lesson of this race. Also, cross check information. I should have looked at the race website for directions, but since this race director has not always gotten all of the information correct in the past, I went with Google thinking that a state park should be easy pickins’ for the Archiver of the Known Universe. Not quite. FInally locating said state park on the state website after the race, the first sentence was “Lake Tahoe’s hidden state park.” No doubt. I could not find this state park with Goolge’s directions. I finally resorted to driving aimlessly around Tahoe City until I found a lot of parked cars and what looked like runners. When I saw a race number, I knew I was in the right place, but it was not the state park. Instead it was the Nordic ski center where I learned how to ski as a little kid many years ago. Turns out that the Nordic center use the “trails”of the state park in the winter and maintain them. The rest of the year you’re on your own. They are not really marked due to unrseolved access issues.
        Fortunately, due to other race morning issues, I left with plenty of time, and while I did not have enough time for a proper warmup for a short course race, I still had plenty of time to check in, get my number, drop the swag bag in the car and take a few deep breaths. The course, as advertised, was fairly flat, no huge climbs like I get in the Santa Cruz mountains or Marin. It was rolling single and double track. But the altitude made these “rolling” climbs much harder. The real challenge on this two lap circuit was a narrow, rocky single track climb. Visually, it was not at all steep, but the narrow twisting trail, generously littered with large rocks, forced you to run sideways as much as forward. A smooth and consistent cadence was impossible, and my heart rate showed it. On the first lap I passed some people, including a woman that I ended running with for most of the race, since she passed me back on the climb on lap 2. I didn’t want to pass her again, but as the course flattened out and became smooth double track, I recovered and picked up my pace, while she didn’t. I had also been passed by some kid who never gapped me either. He would periodically look back. Yeah, I’m still here, you haven’t dropped me yet. I recovered, but they never sped up! I was in a quandary, do I have enough power for another move? When do I go? The finish was tricky with really unstable deep wood chips that were like running in sand. As we headed downhill into the finish, I was right on their heels, yet still they wouldn’t accelerate! I looked to make a move, then the kid who led our little group flinched a little, holding his side. His form looked a little shaky earlier, but now I knew, he was hurting, so I went as hard as I could. I kicked with what I had, determined to hold out to the finish, which I did. I came in just under an hour, having gapped my group by eight and thirteen seconds respectively. A beautiful day, a beautiful race. Summering in Tahoe is divine!

Ist XTERRA!

March 28, 2010
Granite Bay, Folsom Lake

So, my first ever XTERRA off road triathlon is done. The summary, fun, but hard. Worried about driving time, I got up too early, around 4:30. Thinking it would be about a 2 hour drive, I didn’t realize that going down the hill the whole time made it closer to 1 1/2 hour drive. I didn’t know how big an event it would be, so I wanted to get to registration early to make sure I had plenty of time to register and set up my transition area. There were fewer than 200 racers, so registration was easy, since I was there 15 min. before registration opened, and over two hours before the race start! I filled in the time going over my transition, the start, and finish for all three legs of the race.

The Swim:

I was most worried about the swim since my last race the swim was very difficult. I had only put in a few workouts in the pool, but I solved my ear problems, and I felt smooth and comfortable in the pool. How would that translate to a mass start race in 55 degree water? Quite well, actually. I swam smoothly, didn’t use too much energy, only swam off course a little, and didn’t get run over or kicked by other racers. Mission accomplished!

The Bike

This race was almost a quadrathlon, since there was a long jog up the beach to transition. I lagged in transition, so I need to streamline my technique. Having raced essentially the same course as a stand alone MTB race in October, I though I would be a lot faster than I was. Since I have not ridden my MTB in months, I suppose I should have been prepared for feeling a little off. Then I went out so hard, that I stumbled on technical sections I should have cleaned. My lap times were almost the same, even though I felt like I was going much harder the first lap, but I rode smoother on the second lap. I kept thinking that I would make up time on the run, since I usually run well off the bike.

The Run

Very, very hard! After 90 min. of mountain biking, my legs were dead! I was forced to go much slower than usual. It was also a difficult course, with a few sections that required a walk, both uphill and down. By the time it was over, I was cooked!

Overall

13 min for a 1/2 mile swim
1h30 for 16 mi. MTB
38 min for a 3.5 mi. run
10 min. for transitions
Nutrition:
        During: 1 bottle HEED, one Hammer gel
        After: Another bottle HEED, gel and one packet SE

Recovered well with that and a Chipotle burrito.
But: didn’t continue recovery long enough considering poor sleep, so I either picked up a cold, or an allergy attack. or both. Bummer. Lesson learned, pay more attention to recovery of the immune system.

Hero #2 Martina Navratilova

I first heard about her focus on diet many moons ago when reading Robert Haas' book on sports nutrition Eat to Win, which I think may be one of the first books of its kind for a general audience, coming as it did after the fitness boom of the 70s. What made it unique was it focus on quality carbohydrate, rather than protein, and emphasizing low fat eating. It's out of print now, but I found an old copy and was surprised at accurate it still remains. It is quite close to McDougall and Pritikin it its practice. In the book he mentioned some of the athletes he worked with such as Navratilova. She is quoted as having benefitted greatly from the plan, but until recently I did not know that she is truly plant based, and credits it for her success. While not being a tennis fan, I have been impressed with very long career, still winning championships into her 50s! So I was quite interested in this little video that credits outstanding longevity in a highly competitive sport to her love of plant power!