No Burpees this weekend.
Zero.
I hate to give away the whole plot of the story like that, but this is the first time I've ever raced clean over an entire weekend. An Ultra and a Sprint, no less.
I had high hopes for this race, that were slightly dashed, but that's part of the story too. My first Ultra of the year was at Aspen Snowmass in Colorado. Starting elevation was 8200 feet, and we would climb up to about 9700 feet of elevation...not much oxygen up there.
An Ultra Beast is two laps of a Beast course, plus a little, to add up to 30 miles, with about 70 obstacles. But who's counting that high, really? In this case the "extra" bit was a third loop of a six mile section of the course, which included my hardest personal obstacles, the Olympus Wall, the Beater, and the Box. As if doing everything twice wasn't hard enough, we would have to pass these three times!
The course, which was predicted to be hilly with about 10,000 feet of climbing, started off deceptively easy with a runnable loop through town on nice single track. It was great to get ahead of my predicted pace right off the bat. At mile 2 though, the loop started, which included the longest sustained climb of the day. Even the first time, it was pretty hot, and I made a mental note to fill up my water bottle the next two times around on this climb.
With all of the Age Group participants starting together, it was hard to tell which women I was competing against. As I approached the Box for the first time, a women went up and over ahead of me. I could only stand and look at it will my mouth hanging open. The Box is "just" an 8 foot wall with a rope dangling over it. Simple, really. Except that the rope, which before had always had a few knots in it, was shorter than ever, and no knots. Eventually I used a rope in each hand to walk myself up the wall, and then get my feet up and over first. I was momentarily dangling upside down precariously. It would have made for awkward video. Not pretty but I managed it, and avoided a long penalty loop. Only twice more...could my arm muscles hold out?
With an effort I caught up to the woman ahead of me, and made the mistake of asking if she was in my Age category. Dang it, she was, and we raced hard to keep up with each other. For a long time, we stayed very close. We matched each other move for move on the Beater (my favorite obstacle) and I joked that she would have to fall off of something for me to get ahead of her! At this point we assumed we were racing for first in our division so there was a lot at stake. She pulled ahead and I lost her for a while.
Another trip around the loop and it was getting hotter already at 9 am. Finally I caught a break, the woman ahead of me couldn't get up the Stairway to Sparta, made harder this time with the addition of climbing holds above the normal wall height. I got ahead and put her away, I thought.
After 15 miles I finally got to the dunk wall, after sticking the spear decisively into Mr. Spearman. Cool water never felt so good, I was really hot. A few more needless hill climbs and I was careening down hill to the finish. At least, it would have been the finish if I had been running the Beast course. I diverted into transition and refilled my pockets with fresh drink mix bottles. Actually I sat down and spent a few too many minutes doing so, but at least I remembered to put on sunblock, it was so hot and sunny. A woman in transition handed me a white jersey instead of my purple one. It said "Lap Leader" on it, and said I was the 7th women to come through transition. I hoped most of them were the Elites who had started a few minutes ahead of me!
With 18 miles done in 5 hours, I knew the worst was behind me, but the heat was pressing down like an oven. My mouth would get dry, and I would take a big drink but still felt thirsty. My stomach started to slosh a little on the downhills, meaning that I wasn't digesting my liquids and that's never good. I later concluded that I had switched electrolyte brands, and clearly the new one didn't have the right osmolality to digest quickly. I'll be swapping back immediately! All I ate all day were 4 bottles of my drink mix (UCAN, Essential Amino Acids, MCT Oil powder and electrolytes) and a packet of energy chews. About 900 calories.
One last trip through the "loop" and I got the Box and Olympus wall for the 3rd time, not pretty but my arms were holding strong. Beast competitors around me were complaining on the long, long hill climb. Often overheard were the words "I PAID to do this?". My white leaders jersey generated a few questions, as no one including me had seen one before, but the Beast'ers quit complaining a little after I told them this was the 3rd time I had climbed this hill already, not the first!
My stomach and the heat slowed me down a little bit with an hour or so to the finish. I may have even sat down on my bucket during the bucket carry, a first for me! I guess I was feeling overconfident, because the woman in my age group caught up to me soon after that! Dang, now I would really have to race again. I offered a few minutes of truce to slow down but she wasn't having any of that... We raced hard again and were side by side on the Twister when she fell off on the third section and I rang the bell. She went to do the penalty loop and I vowed to hit the Spear and stay ahead. I wouldn't know until the finish, that she had ripped all the callouses off her palms as she slipped off the Twister and that would slow her down further.
There were lines at the Spear of Beast competitors, but my leader's jersey got me straight to the front of the line. I sunk my second one of the day and raced to the dunk wall drunk on adrenaline. Unfortunately I couldn't stay and cool off in the water.
It was a hard push to the finish. My stomach was rolling like the Titanic in high seas, so I pinched my side on the steep downhills, and tried not to look over my shoulder too often. It was my race to lose, I told myself. We were evenly paced so I just had to keep moving to stay ahead.
Stay ahead I did, to finish in 9 hours 1 min. It was hard to get the news that some woman had been ahead of us the whole day, in our Age Group, making us not only the first 3 women in our Age Group to finish, but the first 3 women overall! Talk about a competitive age group, dang. My first place finish will have to wait for another day (hopefully!).
My next move was to plop myself at the bar of an Italian restaurant in town and drink about 10 glasses of ice water. I couldn't get enough. When I finally came up for air, I ate a slice of pizza and waited for the awards ceremony.
Here's the results:
https://admin.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-43038?entryID=42714003
Jim and I came back the next morning for the Sprint, a modified version of the course, which basically went straight up the entire mountain and back down again, in 4 miles. I was tired and sore and skipped my usual Age Group start and went late with Jim. I was the only one to raise my hand in the starting corral and admit that I was dumb enough to run the Ultra yesterday and come back for more today! Jim beat me soundly on the Sprint. Still no burpees though, and the views of the Maroon Bells mountains in the distance were beautiful.
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| Morning shade on the first lap... |
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| ....wishing for shade on the second lap! |
