A day to remember

(Photo note: The end before the start)

So, I've been training very hard for months. At first, I was just trying to get stronger and improve my overall fitness. As time progressed, I realized that I was doing a substantial amount of work: My typical workouts were an hour of weights followed by an hour of cardio. I’d break the cardio up into 3 or 4 different exercises to avoid boredom etcetera. So, about 8 weeks ago I realized that if I tried I could likely complete a triathlon. I’d wanted to do one for a long time, but the bone spur in my heel made running to painful. Thanks to Nike’s Max Air shoes, I can run without pain.

In the course of working on my fitness I lost 30 pounds of fat and put on about 5 pounds of muscle. Running with less weight must make a difference as well.

I’m terrible about spending money on myself and was going to take a pass because of the cost of entry and Kira went ahead and signed me up anyway! At that point I was committed.

I took it seriously (surprise) – went on youtube to study transition strategies, how to put on a wetsuit to maximize shoulder mobility, etcetera.

It really helped.

(Photo note: Not my racing set up - just got there)

In the course of my training I got to the point where I was training at race distances. For example, I’d do a 15 mile bike ride followed by a 3 mile run – just like the race. This gave me a lot of confidence.
As mentioned, I did rent a wetsuit, and at the last minute a bike as well. The $40 I spent on the bike saved me about 15 minutes compared to my mountain bike.

On race day, I got there pretty early – no lines for body marking, and I got an aisle for the bike and to set up my transition area. Though I didn’t feel nervous, I clearly was as evidenced by the 3 trips to the porta poties.

I waited until 30 minutes before the start to put on my wetsuit. Kira did a great job helping me and when I got down to the river to swim across to the starting area I felt really good.

As I swam I was focusing on what it was like being in open water – I hadn’t trained for that. The novelty of seeing the weeds under the water, and trying to figure out how often to raise my head to sight where to go (I’d been advised and practiced every 6 strokes).

However, there was some chop, the water was very cold, and by the time I got across I felt woozy. I asked some of the others around me and one suggested that maybe I was seasick. I’d never been motion sick before and didn’t think that was it. Anyway, I had plenty of time to calm down as we waited 15 or so minutes. The first group went off at 9:00 and my wave went off at 9:10. I had aimed to be on the side but ended up kind of in the middle towards the back. They counted down and we were off. I went out at what I thought was a solid but relaxed pace. Problem was I was immediately swimming on top of the person in front of me. So too, I had to raise my head because there was so much commotion. After about 100 yards my chest started to tighten and I had a hard time breathing. I started to panic and swam over to the side, rolled on my back and let everyone pass while I hyperventilated. I was very afraid that my race was over before it had begun. I asked the kayak guy (there to save us) , ‘what is going on? I swim this in 16 minutes?’ He didn’t know, but suggested that I swim to the support structure under the bridge, take a hold and rest for a minute to calm myself. I did and was soon going again, but I couldn’t get myself to stop hyperventilating.

I swam primarily side stroke for the rest of the race. Often going onto my back for a breather. The current was strong against me, and it took some determination. But once I’d figured out how to make progress without increasing my hyperventilating I knew I’d get there eventually.

When I went past the pylon in the middle of the river and started downstream I realized how profound the current was. Basically I could have done nothing and just floated in the wetsuit, getting there eventually. As the end approached I tried again to swim freestyle with minor success. Still, my breathing was overly labored, I was pretty miserable, and couldn’t wait to touch ground. As I did, I immediately went through my transition routine (reach back, undo Velcro, pull cord, pull out arms leaving cap and goggles inside one arm) all while running. As I got to the top of the steps my son was there to cheer me on and after the hardship of the water I was inspired and deeply moved.

He ran next to me to transition. Here again watching the youtube videos and practicing really helped. Take off rest of wetsuit (stomp on opposite leg and use arms to pull it out), put on jersey, sock, shoes, shock shoe, tie shoes. Sunglasses, helmet, buckle and go. I did it in a minute or so and was very happy.

(Photo note: Transition from swim to bike)

I’d rented a trek, 2.1 (I think) for $40 for the day. To me, it seemed light as a feather. I’d practiced the shifting briefly the day before and had no trouble getting going. As I approached the first hill I pulled one of my water bottles because I was so thirsty from the swim. However, I was still shakey and confused and dropped it when I tried to recage it.

Once I was going up on a flat, straight part I had my first “Gu.” It’s fairly gross
Somewhat glue like substance. Mine, recommended by the triathlon guy at “Fleet Feet” was pineapple flavored ‘Rocktane.’ 100 calories that get digested almost instantly. Anyway, based on yet another tip I had taped a couple of these to my handle bars for easy access and so they didn’t get lost. I had also filled my water bottle with 160 calorie crisp apple cliff bar shot – or something like that. Anyway, the Rocktane was sort of like toothpaste but easy to swallow – and it really worked.

Through almost 2 straight hours of cardio I never got tired.

The bike went well, I was really pleased. Transition to run was easy, all I had to do was clip on a little belt with my number on it and take off. As I started, I felt very good. My legs were a little strange – this always happens when you are using running muscles while your biking muscles are pumped with blood. Anyway, I felt smooth. Usually, my hips get a little tight, but not that day. In fact, I can say I don’t remember ever feeling better running. The first aid station was at the mile mark and I did the whole ‘grap a cup of water and down it’ while running thing. It was kinda fun. Once I got to the turn around point, where I knew I only had 1.5 miles left I decided to pick up my pace. My intent being to increase speed till 1 mile left, increase again, and so on until I’m sprinting the last ¼ mile. Again, props to the rocktane (I had some just as I rounded the last turn around point on the bike, figuring 10 or so minutes later I’d be running). Though I went beyond lactate threshold, then into low anaerobic, and finally into seriously anaerobic I felt strong the whole way. I didn’t really know I was in pain.

Until I went under the finish line and stopped running. I went super hard on the final 100 yards and was surprised when I was finished. My momentum carried me forward as I stopped. When I stopped running my body was engulfed in a sea of pain. I was panting and pacing, with a wince and ‘uh, uh, uh’ of pain with every breath. I found myself pacing. My son was the first to find me – he ran up and threw his arms around me. His eyes were shining with a pride I’d never seen in my life. I was overwhelmed with wonder and gratitude. “Dad, you’re a Beast.’ He said.

(Photo note: My group launched 10 minutes after the start so my time is ten minutes less than shown)

Soon, my sister, daughter, wife and finally mother gathered around me to congratulate me and ask about the race. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of caring and connection – it was awesome.

After the wind down we went our separate ways. I headed back to transition to get my bike and things and head off to my car. Then it was a shower, and my mom took us to Mexican food at Ernestos.

What an immensely magical, insanely satisfying day.

(After the race, loading up the car)

Final note: Got my splits. Apparently my swim was faster than I thought. They don't separate out transitions from the bike - seem to lump it all in. Here's a link to the results:

http://tbfracing.com/results/results/2009/goldenstate/gstritroverall.html

Overall place: 220 Paul O'Donnell, 45. M, Clydesdale (this is my category, men over 205lbs.) swim: 0:22:13. place 250, bike 0:58:32, place 216, Run 0:28:03, place 225, overall time 1:48:48

The value of misery

So, two weeks after my leg surgery, I finally got up the gumption to try to climb Pyramid Peak via the Rocky Creek Canyon route. I knew the math of it was daunting: 4250 vertical feat over 3.3 miles (that's just to the top) - the highest vertical climb in the Tahoe Sierras. I started putting it into frames: hmmm, that's 1.5 times as high as El Cap, that's like hiking the Yosemite falls trail 3 times in a row ... Ouch!

So, I get up at 8:30, finally get on the road by 9:30 after Gas, Starbucks, etcetera. When I arrive in the general area between Strawberry and Twin Bridges I start looking for the semi-hidden start to the route. Of course, I miss it on the first run but as I'm going back down hill see some cars parked in a small pull out and figure it must be around there somewhere - no other reason to park.

I had read that there was a hubcap attached to the rock near the start of the route, but there wasn't. Instead, I saw some spray paint and thought that might be it. Relentless steepness and small cairns proved the path. The entire trail took some route finding ability and faith, especially the top. However, the good climbers of the Sierra were kind enough to set and maintain a series of cairns, so I never got off route.

The lower valley, from the road to the rim, is across the highway from Lover's Leap. I knew the Leap was a few hundred feet high, and so tried to get a sense of my progress by measuring its comparative size. It quickly got smaller.

There are some beautiful falls in the spring and I stopped for a minute or two to look around. However, I couldn't allow myself to get into a frame of mind that wasn't about motion. I was using my old Sugar Bowl blue pole like an ice axe, and used my upper body to help me up in many sections. Interestingly, as I was climbing I never thought it was particularly steep, it was only on the decent that I kept saying, 'I came up this?!'


At that top of the canyon, there is of course a break in the trees, you see the sky and start thinking, "I wonder how much farther?" I had no sense of the mountain - you can't see the peak from the route until you are out of the canyon. So, I was tremendously excited when I could finally see the peak. In the altitude (more about that later) the distance was foreshortened and I thought, hmm, maybe an hour to the top.

Ha.

So, the snow begins. Patchy reminder to keep my feet as dry as possible. Gortex doesn't do much good when the snow comes in tops of your shoes. Anyway, route finding in the upper two thirds becomes more challenging, but the general idea of 'go up to the top' kind of straightens things out. About 1/2 way up the route, you finally cross the creek and from then on stay on the left side all the way up to the summit. (I think - there is a snow melt creek you cross but I don't think it's the same thing on the upper slope.)

I finally meet the first people of the day on the upper section of the route, before crossing over to the summit pyramid. Two ridiculously fit 20 year olds with a modicum of misery in their eyes. They wish me a good climb and depart downward. All in all, there are only 6 people (besides me) on the route that day. I don't know how many came up the Rocky Creek canyon route. As I get on the final, truly evil, talus slope leading the last 500 feet to the top I'm joined by someone. When we get to the top we exchange cameras for some photos and he tells me he is from San Jose and that he came up the Horsetail Falls route - a greater distance but much less steep.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Crossing the upper section of the summit pyramid is very windy - maybe 40 miles per hour, and very cold. My hand are nearly numb. I find myself climbing up the ridge side of the talus slope - thinking I can avoid some of the wind - and the boulders are very big - maybe 3-4 feet high. This make the going very hard. By this point I am miserable exhausted. My lungs and general energy seem okay (gaspy and paralytic, but okay), but my legs and particularly my right gluteus are destroyed. They were killed off by the lower canyon climb. I keep thinking how stupid I am to imagine climbing 5.7 on the east face of Whitney, at 14,000 feet is going to be easy. Here I am at 10,000 and heaving for breath every 5 steps. I now realize that I was complete glycogen depleted at this point and If I'd eaten more it wouldn't have hurt so bad. However, I had no hunger. (I later learned that I burned something like 6,000 calories over the course of the day).

Hard to describe the feeling of the talus slope. Very cold, very windy. Incredible views - though I didn't look around much. I was too focused on just getting to the top, knowing I'd enjoy the view there. Moreover, the summit truly blocks all sense of a view of the other side, so when you get to the summit and see the view it is both arresting and breathtaking.


There is a USGS marker, and a little pyramid.



Like so many, I felt great triumph at having climbed to the top. When I looked down, I could see that 300 foot high Lovers Leap was a tiny mound on the horizon. Man,that's a long way down. Again, both astonishment and disbelief. I'm 44, weigh 250 pounds, and climbed it in about 3 hours and 30 minutes. If I take out breaks, call it 3 hours and 15 minutes of straight aerobic output.


I'm not sure how to think about it.

I figured 2 hours for the decent, and it turns out I was right. What I hadn't counted on was the misery.

When I train, it's the climbing muscle groups that get the work - inclined hiking, stairmaster, etcetera. There doesn't seem to be a way to train the quadriceps (and calves) for the punishment of deep downhill climbing on a gym machine.

The first part probably screwed me up the worst. Going down the talus slope mean jumping down on one, off balance leg, 2-4 feet per step. That's just too much impact for me to shake off I guess.

I felt wicked tired, but mostly made my way down fairly quickly. It was steep, and there was a lot of ankle challenging twists and turns, but I don't remember, at that point, feeling very bad.

When I finally crossed the river and started down that canyon proper the angle increased dramatically. Suddenly, I could feel that my legs were getting wobbly. I started to feel some anxiety because I knew I still had a long way to go and each step was getting to be hard. I soon found a walking stick and realized two would be even better. I used them with every step and now think I'd still be up there if I hadn't found them. I was able to transfer a lot of weight onto my arms and they provided much needed stability. At this point, I started to feel what marathoners call ' the bonk' - total glycogen depletion. My legs were getting to where they wouldn't obey my thoughts. That was very scary. It was too steep to really rest - at most I would stop, heave for breath (going downhill no less!) and then quickly move on. I had a real fear that if I actually sat down that the muscles in my legs would sieze. So it continued all the way down. I kept pushing on while simultaneously begging for it to end. I just wanted to get down.

I remember reading Joe Simpson's book, 'Touching the Void' where he said that while he was struggling for life on his decent, that he said the most insipid pop songs kept going through his mind. Here too, I had the cheezy Will Smith's 'Welcome to Miami - Bienvenido a Miami' running through my head.

Too weird.

Anyway, I finally got down to the road. I hobbled across and on down to my car. I was so tired that I collapsed on the hood. Just then my wife called. Great timing.


I took a picture of my exhausted face after I stretched (I feared siezing muscles on the car ride home).

Overall, 8500 vertical feet over 6.6 miles in 6 hours.


I seriously question whether I'll every do that again, but I'm glad I did it at least once.

First on Judah this year?

I had a day to myself and decided to wander up to the Sierras to see if there was maybe something to hike. I brought a book (Diemberger's Omnibus) and figured I would hang out and read. I was thinking that the next day I would finally take a shot at doing Pyramid Peak in the Desolation wilderness the hard way - via the 4000 vertical feet in three mile Rocky Canyon route.

I got up around Donner and was looking at Castle - it looked too snowy and I'd been on there in winter. I was going to just go take a look at Judah since I've never actually done the liberty trail hike that everyone else uses to get to the top.

When I climbed it with my son before I found a broken plastic marker pole for Sugar Bowl. I pulled it out of my trunk figuring I would use it as a walking stick - much smarter move than I ever would have thought.

The steep initial section of the trail normally has switchbacks, but on this day it was just a wall of snow. The snow was soft and sticky and easy to kick steps in - steps which held. The stick worked like a much lighter version of my ice axe, allowing me to dig in for a good hold and feel comfortable on the exposed slopes.

When I got to the main trail there was the typical creek running down the middle of it. Also, large sections with lots of virgin snow (no one else was on the mt. as far as I could tell). It was only about noon and I was still in the 'I'm just going for a little walk' frame of mind. It was much more snowy than the previous year and the walking stick became more and more of a need to have item. When I reach the point in the trail(after some route finding) where it reaches the wide ski runs of sugar bowl before circling back I looked up to see if there was a way that wasn't snowed over. Sure enough there looked like a viable route up the Western headwall, via some weird, steep rocky areas.

I kept thinking I wouldn't do it, but then quite suddenly decided to.



It was steep enough that again i used the pole like an ice axe - both for distributing weight, and to use as a hold. On some very steep parts I'd transfer my weight over it to relieve my legs. I'd never done that before (a standard ice axe move) and enjoyed it. As expected, I was able to skirt much of the snow. However, there were the occasional mud rivers that almost sucked my shoes off.

The top was different than last year. There was a lot of snow on the top with a huge overhanging cornice all along the eastern exposure. I was very careful to climb the 1/2 mile or so to the true summit well back. It was windy as always (20 mph), but i was fine in shirt sleeves. My new mountain hardware shirt - supposed to wick the sweat away - acutally worked. It was great.

Saw the mountain marker on the ground and figured I must be first up this season. Replaced it and rebuilt the cairn.

Going down was easy, and I really felt how all my conditioning this year was paying off.

Till next time.

Back with my boy

So, father son bonding can still happen in the age of 'Call of Duty, 5: World at War.' Yes, somehow I pried my son away from his beloved Xbox live to engage in a very easy hike up in the Sierras. He hasn't been terribly interested, but was willing to indulge me.

I was looking for the road to Phantom Spires but couldn't find it. First, I accidently turned into a Caltrans station. Then, I took a dirt road up to a plateau. The road was a little aggro for my Volvo, so I stopped. After lunch, my son and I figured we'd just hike up a bit to see where the road led. Turns out that it stopped about 100 feet further and became the Pony Express Trail! Yep, the real thing.

Anyhow, would took a leisurely stroll (or so it seemed to me) for about a mile or so until our path was stopped by fallen trees and foliage. Actually, that's not exactly true. Really, I was ready to bushwhack and my son wasn't. I continued up to a lovely 30 foot waterfall. Lots of leg scratches, but worth it. We were at about the same height as Sugarloaf and had a great view.
We were supposed to go skateboarding but instead he wanted to go straight home, where we ended up (you guessed it) playing CoD5 together.

He let me use his mod controller, so I won!

A great day.

Castle's winter spankage

Back to Castle. I bought some used Koflach Viva Soft double boots of a craigslist ad for $25. Since they are $300 shoes I thought this was a great deal. Gotta love CL.

Anyway, wanted to try them out in the snow. I knew that the mountain would be in deep snow, but hoped the major paths would be stamped down and stable - which was mostly true. I figured the upper slope might be icy, and brought crampons and an ice axe. What a joke.

I got a late start and didn't arrive in the Boreal parking lot until about 10:30. Bad for two reasons: The first is that scads of weekend hiker, snowshoer, and grandma types were all over the trail. Far worse however was the temperature. It had risen to like 60 degrees. The snow was very soft. Even one step off the center of the trail was a thigh deep post hole. The snow itself was glucky and yielding.

As such, it was like climbing 2000 feet of sand. Can you say aerobic?

As you can see, getting to the saddle was a grunt - the snow was unkind and I was unprepared - no snowshoes. I went about 1/2 way up the ridge to the summit, but the trail was basically non-existent and i was post-holing to my knees and thighs. Essentially, I got spanked.

This is great because it motivated me to train like a psycho. I'm getting in 600 calorie workouts 4-5 days a week now. By June I'm looking to do Whitney in a day.

Next year is my time to winter climb for real. I'm hoping to climb in the Palisades if I can find a partner. Too hard for my boy.

Until next time.