Not many people get to know me without learning that I spent a great deal of my youth doing one of two things – running or cycling. Cycling certainly turned out to the defining and possibly all-consuming experience of my teens, leading me to go places, meet people and face challenges I might never have otherwise. It was, in fact, the reason I came to Boulder. I came seeking to make a leap to the next level of cycling, which meant a pro contract. Being 19 at the time, I had no contingency plan.
After one season of cycling and living in Boulder, a few things became clear, not the least of which was a summing up of my position in the elite cycling hierarchy that existed in Boulder, captured best by a phrase I still use today. I was ‘a dime a dozen’ - almost literally. I heard horror (to me anyway) stories of national champions and neophyte pros living in rented garages, sleeping in their rusted out Subarus, and always chasing the elusive pro contract. I agonized daily over whether or not to continue down the path or chuck it all for who-knew-what, but at least the possibility of a more normal life, steady income and furniture that was neither salvaged from a dumpster or constructed with a large cardboard box and an exacto knife.
Well, anyone reading this can guess that I never signed the pro contract, that my gaunt mien never graced the pages of a single issue of Velo News, and that I found not only a cardboard furniture free life, but I also turned up a few things even better along the way. I almost immediately turned my attention and energy to climbing and traveling, and eventually settled in Boulder, went to CU, found a wonderful woman to marry, and got that ‘normal’ life.
Climbing has absorbed all of my interest for several years, interrupted a few times by things like school, marriage and lack of partners, but I have been climbing quite a lot since the spring of 2000. Despite my love of climbing and the great friendships and experiences it’s given me, I’ve always had a fondness for my old endurance sport buddies – running and cycling. I’ve tried several times to get back into running, and even went through a phase when, still struggling to make ends meet in Boulder, I would run everywhere I went. As I had three jobs at the time, I ended up running quite a bit. There was also a short trail running phase, before I knew trail running existed as a legitimate reason to exercise. Sadly, it will probably be a very long time before I can bring the same level of fitness to the trails that I brought less than a year after quitting cycling. Nonetheless, several attempts to get started running were always hampered by a lack of goals, time or injuries that kept hampering my training.
In the last two years, I’ve turned some of my attention to trail running, and have even done some races, with the kind of limited success that is reserved for retired elite athletes turned office jockeys. More importantly, I discovered that I love the challenge and solitude of running in the mountains and going uphill. This year I’ve really devoted a lot of time to running, and I set a goal of running the Pikes Peak Ascent ½ marathon in under 3 hours. In looking for training opportunities, I got it into my head early in the year that I wanted to go up and do the ‘Long’s Peak Duathlon’, which involves cycling from Boulder up to the Long’s Peak trailhead (around 40 miles, mostly uphill), running or hiking to the summit, and then reversing the whole thing. Knowing this to be a monumental undertaking, especially considering the only time I knew of was around 13 hours, I decided to attempt the seemingly more benign ‘Mt. Audubon Duathlon’.
Between running, trail racing, climbing and just life, I not only could not find the time to do Audubon, I also didn’t straddle my bike for most of the summer. Fortunately, competition and motivation exist in the form of an unruly Canadian friend of mine, Bernard. A climber and cyclist, but not much of a runner, Bernard took his cocky competitive self up to do the Audubon Duathlon about a month ago, and turned in a time of 6 hours, 15 minutes. Of course, it was reported to me in detail and with the bold-print footnote that he’d undertaken a 10 hour alpine climbing day the day before. Nonetheless, the gauntlet was down.
Turns out that the upshot to sticking around Boulder is that, much like fast cyclists were in abundant supply, there also exists a plethora of folks interested in all sorts of kooky adventures. In Boulder, embarking on a new adventure always involves the crucial step of seeking out the person who has already conceived the adventure before you, and they do exist, and pumping them for crucial beta. Bill Wright, local figure and prolific member of the climbing and trail running communities, is the go-to guy for most of this kind of beta. If Bill hasn’t already done your kooky adventure, he knows someone who has and he’s got all their splits, to boot!
Bill hadn’t actually done the Audubon Duathlon, but he’d done the Long’s Peak version, as well as countless other days of stringing together peaks, climbs, sports and adventures over the course of a weekend or even a day - such as climbing the Nose on El Cap. Naturally, when I found a weekend would be a great time to go do Audubon, I shot Bill an email. He was immediately game and signed up his brother-in-law, Kraig Koski aka ‘Kraigzilla’, for the man is a human lung, an aberration in the world of endurance sports; he is a sixth sigma fitness occurrence, and a super nice, modest guy to boot.
Bill and I went at a manageable pace that day, and stayed together through the ride and the run. We hiked Audubon and jogged down comfortably. I took some time from him on the final descent, and we finished about a minute apart. Still, my time of 5 hours, 55 minutes and some change felt pretty good. Kraig, for his part, had absolutely blistered the course and turned in the shocking time of 4:38:21, so written in the dust on the back window of my truck. Upon seeing that, I immediately knew that I would have to face this monster once again, not so much to beat Kraig’s time (stop laughing now!), but more to see what kind of time I could turn in with a very hard effort.
I turned my energy to running and honed my ‘two hour fitness’ on the trails around Boulder. This came back to haunt me when, about 2 hours and 15 minutes into the Pikes Peak Ascent, on a 3 hour pace, I absolutely detonated and ended up with a time of 3 hours and 15 minutes – well outside my goal. That was a huge disappointment, but one that will serve to motivate me even further next year. Enough about that!
As soon as the Pikes debacle ended, I knew I needed more time on the bike if I was to take a large chunk out of my Audubon time, so I did one ride and then entered a small Category IV race. I ended up 7th in the race and actually felt somewhat fit, so I figured Audubon was a go. I set a goal of breaking 5 hours, not really knowing if this was doable, but it gave me a starting point for building a ‘split sheet’ to work from. Most of my split goals were random guesses where I just tried to figure out how much time I could take from my last effort.
I decided on Saturday, 9/7/02 – almost exactly a month
after the first effort. I advertised this event much sooner and more widely
than last time, and thought I had Kraig and Bill hooked for a repeat attempt,
but it was not to be. While the turnout was incredible, Kraig was sidelined at
the last minute with an injury, and Bill was drawn to break the record for the
‘Grand Slam’, which had been recently set by John ‘Homie’ Prater (see the
report here)
I did send emails to most of the folks I knew, plus the Boulder Trail Runners. Kraig spread the invites around to several other hard people he knew, but I did not know who would show, so I was not at all sure what the 'field' would be like. I was surprised and psyched by the turnout! When I showed up, only one other person was there and I thought it’d be another low turnout. Within fifteen minutes there were ten people gathered, eight of whom were there for the full event, and the other two there just for the ride – so a total of eight (very fit looking!) competitors, half of whom I did not really know. It was amazing and my friend Olan quipped, “This is Boulder – that’s what you get for sending out those smack invitations.”
He was right! It was not until later that I learned better who everyone was, but here's the field and what I know about them (a fair bit of which was learned from the patently understated Russ)
Russ Bollig - Cat II cyclist, perennial top 10 finisher on Pikes, holds records in skate racing, cycling, uphill running, but he had not been running this year. I’d met Russ when I got custom insoles from him.
Andrew Hamilton - training to ride across the US, a few years
back he held the record for all the 14ers at around 14 days. Very strong cyclist. I only knew Andrew casually from the Boulder Trail Runners.
Chip Tabor - XC skier and cyclist, apparently one of the top XC
ski racers around. A friend of Kraig’s, Chip made the unfortunate comment that "Kraig will be back once he hears we broke his record." Certainly it was in jest, but Kraig’s spirit was not to be denied.
John Ortega - perennial top finisher on pikes, Cat III Cyclist. John was coming off a summer in the midwest and an injury, though. Also heard about the event from Kraig.
Bernard Vachon - Canadian hardman, alpine climbing every weekend, former Cat. III, set the time of 6:15 from a farther starting point in June. I goaded Bernard into coming out so that he would feel better about beating up on me the next day, when were to go climbing in the Flatirons.
Darren Berns - duathlete, cyclist, trail runner, and all around hardman. I met Darren through our wives’ running group, and he had worked me over in at least one early morning run.
Bill 'The Finger' Caroll - 1/2 Ironman triathlete, wicked fit on the bike (top 10 bike splits), prone to bursts of expletives which provoke frightening moments of speed and stamina. Good friend and training partner.
Kreighton - was about to get shot out the back.
Olan Young - former Cat II cyclist, skate racer (duked it out
with Russ B.), 34 minute 10k-er, and all around freakshow, but a bit out of
shape - along for the ride to mess with us. I’ve known Olan since 1988, I think.
A friend of Olan's out for a ride. Olan told him "these guys are kind of
fit, but they'll all be wearing backpacks". I think we lost him before we
got onto Lee Hill, poor sod.
We agreed on a mass start, feigning casualness, but I was openly out to set a better time, and I suspected that there might be some interest in at least poking around Kraig’s time. My susicions were confirmed once we hit Lee Hill. The Finger went straight to the front and started to mix it up, whereupon Russ, Chip and Andrew casually rolled up to him. I was beginning to suffer and wheeze within the first five minutes, seriously.
Andrew, Russ and Chip caught the Finger and set a wicked pace on Lee Hill. Eventually, the Finger fell back a bit, as did Olan, Darren and Bernard. Bernard had a clear look of consternation on his face as I passed him, and he would later confirm that he was having serious doubts about having gotten out of bed that day. He was not alone in that regard.
Frighteningly, with these guys being shed like so much deadwood around me, from the back came John, calmly rolling past us. He would crest Lee Hill with Darren and Olan, the three of them losing ground to the front three, who had absolutely smashed the hammer. I wondered what was to become of Kraig’s time.
I was not to see the front group for a while, and the Finger spent the rest of his ride in time trial mode behind them. I later heard from Russ that Andrew and Chip were actually attacking one another and he was matching them. Chip was a bit off the back when they went through the fee station, and the attendant told Darren that “the third fellow just rode through and tossed a dollar bill at me.” I’d say he was going hard…
Andrew and Russ beat Chip to the traihead, but his lightning fast transition put him ahead of them. That he did not bother to stop and eat or bring along water was noticed immediately. After some fast hiking, the three were together and agreed to hike, rather than run. It is my personal feeling that the weight of Kraig’s effort hit home at that point – they had ridden up there in a slightly faster time, but to match his run was going to be another feat indeed.
The Finger was on the trail in 2:13 and was making good time on his own. He later admitted that when he saw my red jersey he started going harder. This made sense because I hit the trail ahead of Darren in 2:20, and passed John shortly thereafter. We’d arrived at the trailhead together, and I was going hard, both to break five hours and to catch the Finger. I had no idea how far ahead he was, though, so I just ran until I could see him. I was well above treeline the first time I got a look at him, and figured I was about 2 minutes back. He must have seen me then, because, despite my continued efforts, I never got closer than a minute, and would summit about 30 seconds behind him.
I also passed Chip on the boulder field below the summit, and he was weaving badly and looking very bonked. Unfortunately, I was out of water and food at that point, so I simply offered some encouragement and continued on.
Russ and Andrew were smiling and looking relaxed on the summit, while the Finger and I just took a split (I did at least – 3:33:45 – 1:13:03 to summit) and headed down. We took it pretty mellow through the boulders, and once we hit the trail I announced that it was time to open it up. Almost immediately the Finger turned his ankle and slid onto the ground. He was with me for two of my nasty sprains in the winter, and both times helped me to the car and was a shoulder to lean on. I was not going to leave him behind, and we agreed to ease the pace, spread out and focus on the trail. Sadly, he turned his ankle several more times before we hit tree line, but none of them were terribly bad, and we continued down the trail at a leisurely pace. We were down in 50:48.
We had passed the smiling but tired-looking Bernard on the way down, but had missed both Darren and John. I was very worried, but Bill reminded me that they were big boys, and I remembered that no one signed a waiver for the event! It turned out that we’d just missed John and Darren had been in the boulder field when we were coming down.
After a lightning fast transition, the Finger waited for me to join him, and we started the descent. I lost a bit of time initially, but regained it when I shot the gap between a slow moving car and a parked car. In retrospect, this was very stupid (the gap was probably less than 2’ wide), but it gave me a little thrill and reminded me of the old days of racing with a caravan of wheel cars.
Coming out of Ward I kept up through the steep turns, but once things eased off I could not match the pace. My steadfast refusal to draft (it was a time trial!) combined with the stiff headwind conspired to give the Finger a 35 second advantage by the time we hit Lee Hill.
On such a steep hill the gap looked laughably small, but my tired legs were not match and the gap was an even 35 seconds at the top of Lee Hill. With only the descent remaining, I poured on everything I had and did not touch my brakes until the first of two switchbacks which mark the end. My top speed here was 48.6 mph, with most of the descent above 45. I braked hard and threw many years of cycling experience into those corners, then spun wildly down the last stretch of road to the finish. Due to the inaccuracies of start/finish times, I’m not exactly sure of the Finger’s time, but our best estimate was that I was about 10 seconds behind him. My time of 5:18:40, while a vast improvement over the previous effort’s 5:55:00, still left much room for improvement.
We rode slowly to the gas station for snacks, then went back to the parking lot to wait and chat in the shade. Eventually Russ showed up at around 5:45 and we talked to him (which is how I got so much detail on what happened at the front). He said he did not realize it was a serious TT and had only found out about it the night before. Andrew has since confirmed that Russ was not going very hard on Lee Hill, so a hard effort by Russ would be scary indeed. He had not run all year, however, thus underscoring the immensity of Kraig’s link-up. Andrew had ridden home to Jamestown and we wondered together about the state of Chip and John. Again, it was from Russ that I found out who these guys were and their amazing credentials.
After Russ left, Darren and Bernard came in for a time of 6:18. This was much, much slower than Bernard’s last time, a solo effort that went in 6:15, but started and finished from a spot at least 20 minutes farther away. He was typically good natured about the whole day and admitted that he wasn not as into it as he should have been.
Darren, unfortunately, took a nasty spill when a car pulled out in front of him leaving Ward. He missed the car, but went for a tumble when he banked hard to avoid it. He had road rash on both sides, pretty much head to toe. He joined up with Bernard who’d caught him while he was getting the triage treatment from the driver of the car. In a sad footnote, over a week later he is still having knee swelling and soreness. We decided that his approximated time would probably have been right around 5:40 without the crash. Fortunately, he still had a good time and will probably be back to whittle it down.
We waited until the 7 hour mark passed and then decided it was time to head home. Knowing how experienced John and Chip were, I felt more comfortable with that. It later turned out that they had decided that in their mutually bonked state, the more casual trip all the way down Left Hand (thus avoiding Lee Hill) was a better option.
All in all it was a great turnout with great weather and super nice people to ‘compete’ with. My appetite for more mountain duathlons has certainly been whetted, and I think I piqued the interest of a few people. Hopefully next year will bring a new level of competition and possibly a challenge to the record, which still stands!