Elbrus Race 2013 Facebook Video Plus Teaser

Elbrus Race 2013 - the book It's available on Amazon right now, and I recommend that you get it and read it just for the adventure, if nothing else. In a nutshell, I returned to Elbrus after my attempt at Elbrus Race 2010, in which I aced the Qualifier (essentially a VerticalK Race) but was pulled from the main event, The Classic, after a serious case of food poisoning left me too weak to run.

I took my padowan Todd Gilles with and together we shared a hut with Kilian Jornet and his entourage. It was all great fun, despite running the Qualifier and Classic in storms. Todd took 3rd and I took 5th. Near the end of every winter season I sell a lot of these in Europe as people begin to wonder if they'll be entering or not.

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I've been on a wave of PR's on both Quandary and the Manitou Incline, and have been considering that I'm in excellent shape for how early in the season it is, and maybe I should make a run at Elbrus Race 2015?

Top of the Manitou Incline after shaving 3 minutes off my previous effort

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Elbrus Race 2013 - the book - one of my best selling books on Kindle - get it now. Share this page with all your friends who climb, run, train, and increase the tribe. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FMBBRJU/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FMBBRJU&linkCode=as2&tag=imbizwebcom&linkId=64T2EUJONUERR7JF
Posted by Seven Summits Body on Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Elbrus Race 2010 - Looking Back from 2012

It's been two years now, and I've been avoiding looking back at this for a number of reasons, and have just reread some of my old posts since I put up a story and links on my other Seven Summits Quest Blog. I have been thinking on and off about this for the last couple years, and mostly stifling my own feelings about it, but now I've begun seriously thinking about doing it again this year, which stirred the pot.

I think first I'll clear up some of my previous intentional obfuscations.

1. One of the people there, supposedly a well-known climber in their own country (which I know to be true since another climber from that country met them warmly in a strange coincidental meeting) appeared to require a great deal of assistance of a general nature. Like how to wear socks. Seriously about that bad. For some ridiculous reason I ended up being the sock instructor so to speak, and general living coach. I have since pretty much stopped that on a non-professional basis. This is what I referred to as "babysitting" in an old post.

2. Like I had mentioned before about food, and group endeavors, I did end up on another group endeavor, and ended up with what was later diagnosed as an inflamed gall bladder most likely caused by having a fatty diet with coconut milk in a casserole. The normal USA way to eat on a glacier expedition requires a lot of fatty meals to help you stay warm. I suspect it's also because most "normal" USA climbers eat that way anyway, and it helps them feel more like home in the wild. I'm not sure what to do about this. Most of the foreign expedition food I've eaten was a lot lower in fat. The Russian food was awesome. The Argentinian food was awesome, but way too much meat. The Kili food was barely tolerable, and I did end up with diarrhea on summit eve. The problem with these is that as a training athlete, I've got an eating schedule that doesn't jibe with the Euro plan of donuts and tea at 10:00 AM. Sliced meat and cheese on pastry sometime between 1:00 and 4:00 PM, and then 5,000 calories of full-on meal at 10:00 PM. If you eat on that plan expect to have a tough time acclimatizing and training and making any kind of progress.

3. Russians in the barrels partying all night, then getting dressed to leave, then canceling the snowcats, then getting dressed to leave, then deciding to just stay put. Good night sleep, right? Also, inviting all your friends from among what passes for sponsored climbers there to sit and eat and not announcing dinner until they've finished with their portions. Not too bad, except they bring the food up the tram in measured portions according to who paid to be fed. The last two days up there those who paid got very slim pickings. 

4. It's my understanding that the Redfox Elbrus Race in May is in the official Skyrunning Series, so anyone wanting to set a record, and sneak in a ringer, should be doing it during that race, since it's sanctioned and they won't recognize your record in this race in the Autumn, even if it is 10 minutes faster than the amazing record they just announced recently.

So do I want to do it again? There is a part of me that really does. I love the mountain and the people. I love going uphill at a speed that I feel for me is very fast, though I know among these elite athletes I'm just a tired old snail of a man. I wandered around lost after my massive failure last time. I know it was just a weird set of circumstances, and whether it was the exposure to bronchitis, the dysentery, the 3 hours of sleep the two nights in the Barrels with the Russians, the hassles over begging for water, or some combination, at some level I failed. I beat myself up over it for a long time. 

Maybe I still am.

Elbrus Race 2010 - What Happened and Why?

Now that I've had a month to recover, rejuvenate, relax, and sort out my thoughts, I'm going to talk about the different things I discovered on this particular phase of my journey. Note that I'm not blaming anyone or anything, just pointing out some simple basic facts that had an impact on my performance or lack thereof, in retrospect.

My acclimatization schedule was pretty good, overall, and instead of spending a few days in Colorado at 10,000' prior (I didn't receive credit for the days I worked from home in CO while acclimatizing or recovering), I would prefer spending more time in the barrels. I did a hike first thing after lunch on my first day, and it probably would have been better to just wander around taking pictures, and have a couple more days to do the hiking. The second day I went up to nearly 1000' above the Qualifying checkpoint, which was probably one day early. I should have had two more days, one to go to 17,000' and one to 18,000'. Then relax for the Qualifier.

As I had experienced in Argentina, I have a tough time working around some random foreign eating schedule that breaks the day up into periods in which I cannot possibly recover or train. I would take a lot more food, especially meal replacements like Shawn Phillips' Full Strength, and arrange to only have Dinner, which really didn't interfere with my training much at all.

I trusted the water that the cook was giving us in my first stay at the barrels. I used my SteriPEN Classic Handheld Water Purifier until I managed to break the tabs off the lid. I'd had it for a few years and used it in several countries, so I didn't feel too bad. I did finally figure out how to hold it so the batteries made contact.

In that gap time, due to the complacency of the first cook, since she wasn't boiling the surface water they were gathering from a pipe near the barrels, I managed to contract a major case of diarrhea (our second cook was great and I managed to get only boiling water from her). While I was sick everything I ate went straight through as water. Yuck. Totally sapped me of strength, and I had to pause in my Qualifier to let some out, after very tightly holding it in all the way up. If you look at their video on Youtube you can see how weirdly I'm walking uphill.

Sleeping in the barrels with the officials sounded cool at first, but in typical Russian fashion they partied late watching movies and stuff, and then twice started up to the checkpoints at 2 AM, which resulted in my not getting a lot of sleep for my second stay at the barrels. That, with the diarrhea (and starving) really impacted my acclimatization.

For one reason or another I don't really want to go into the food issue in the second stay at the barrels. Maybe I'm just being nice ...

Staying on the wrong side of Cheget added about an hour or so to all transportation events. For purposes of normal training and acclimatizing, it would probably be a lot better to stay in Azau. Especially if you're doing the Extreme.

My music issues totally confused me. I managed to have no music because of some mystery with my Nano locking up until I could plug it into a PC. Because of some glitch in the programming of Creative Centrale that allowed my Zen MX to believe that the hard drive had more stuff on it than existing space until I could plug it into a PC and delete the imaginary files. Because I hadn't put any music on my phone. Because I had trained with music and it threw me a bit to have none.

I had some major babysitting problems, which of course I allow myself to get sucked into, and have for a few trips now. Alas, I think I'm going to just skip all group endeavors forever. And skip offering niceness. You hate to flush all the traveling and money and training.

This isn't the Boston Marathon, where you can show up two days early, fly to in less than 5 hours from most of the USA, run around in nice safe prepared park trails to figure out the climate and kick the very small amount of jet lag to the curb, stay in a hotel 5 minutes from the start and finish, eat whatever and whenever you want, and buy anything you want or need within a 10 minute cab drive. Best of all, your boss probably wouldn't even miss you.

Again, not blaming anyone, just pointing out some glitches that for the most part I could have worked around if I'd been more alert and prepared myself. Now I know.

Elbrus Race September 2010 Photos

My photos are up on picasa:

Picasa Web Album

Most are captioned. Enjoy ...

Sadness & Joy - Elbrus Race Sept 24 2010

Yesterday, 9-23 there was a storm, and the race was postponed for today, assuming the weather cooperated. As night fell, the clouds parted, the temps dropped, and the wind picked up.

Due in part to my horror story experience on Rainier, the wind freaks me out some. I'm working on it. The wind was pretty tough on qualifier day, 9-21, yet I came in @ 1:41, not a bad time, but my fingers froze and my facemask made me freak & hyperventilate. As well, I'd had two days of frequent diarrhea (including painfully needing to go all the way up requiring great muscle tension), and it was sucking the life out of me.

I spent the 22nd putting together a sleeve/glove/heatpack combo that I figured would do the trick, and cut out the restriction in my facemask. Ready to go for the 23rd, but delayed to the 24th.

One consequence of planning for feeding 10 and somehow 20 start showing up is that everyone gets half rations, so I had pretty much used up all mine and was really hungry and working hard to store energy. And the diarrhea finally cleared mostly up late 23rd.

After the little dinner on Thursday, 9-23 I climbed into bed while the Marshalls and Lodi spent an hour getting ready for their 3 AM departure, a repeat performance of the night before. I kept drifting off being suddenly woken by the sensation of drowning. Sitting up I could breath okay, but lieing it was very difficult.

I started sweating good too; odd since I had no caffiene that day. I tossed and turned fretting until they all got up, and then noticed I was wheezing. Wow. Sounded like HAPE. I messaged Angie and she looked it up and I did match many symptoms.

I tried sleeping sitting up but kept sliding down till I dove up for air. This really sucked. If it were bronchitis (possible I picked it up in Colorado) it could become HAPE if I went up, and if it were HAPE I could die if I went up.

I talked to the race organizer & he got the race doctor (didn't know there was) who checked me out, said I was mild enough to not require evac, and gave me some pills. I am now a firm advocate of Russian Pharmacies now ;)

I faced my wind demon head on, getting smacked down by a simple cold or flu or bug. Working hard on the qualifier while really sick and weak and majorly underfed (my fault at that point since everything I ate turned to a jet of Yoohoo out the rear & not at all enticing) is a textbook example of "how to give yourself AMS".

We're all going down today after the race (heads-up: 1 runner was way out front and looking like a record).

Sadly, I missed it. Joyfully I'm alive and will recover over the next few days of jetlag-inspired rest. I also have plans for next year...

Descent - 9-19

I got 5 good hours sleep and 4 hrs tossing'n'turning last night, so much better overall. Maybe I'm addicted to melatonin?

Breakfast of thin oatmeal so I added some condensed milk & butter. Again dark bread w/butter & cheese. Packed up and rode down to Azau.

Elana, our cook, took us to a cafe where I had chicken shishkabab cooked on a wood-fired grill as we watched. Also cabbage salad. Then our driver took us to Alpindustria, a mountain shop in Cheget. I got a nice midlayer with nice long arms.

We went to the Hotel Elba and started repacking for the days ahead. Lodi took 5 hrs to get to about 14500', where I passed him @ my 1:15. Anna told him it wasn't realistic for him to race, so he might try another option.

Tonight is the "opening ceremony" so I might have more later.

Final check - Elbrus 9-18

Breakfast @ 8 then 2 hr nap. Got gear on. Tricked my Polar FT60  into working 2 days in a row. Put 'Little Hotties' in my socks and shoes fit good. UA long underwear. Kuhl Renegade pants. Put in contacts. Turned on SPOT. (Remind me to add link). Kept heart rate down for 2500' then cut loose. 3500' in 2:19 including 21 minutes of rest or talking. Going down easy in 1:25 inc a talk stop with a female racer training in Millet 8000's.

Note on music this trip. None. Some da @ Creative wrote software that allows you to add more music than it will actually hold. Turn it on & warns you to hook to PC to delete the imaginary music. Yeah. I'll do that in a couple weeks.

Took a 2 hr nap then dinner was some bony dark sheep or chicken part w/rice. Going down to Cheget in morning to get some O's & meet group. Then back on Monday.

Barrels - 9-17

Hard staying asleep, drat jetlag. Groggy waking  up @ 6:30. Shower, repack. Breakfast @ 8, met Sasha, another racer. Bus @ 9. Stopped to get food. Then trams up. Little chair off, so we shouldered our bags and boogied up. Mine is a 50+ lb duffle, so i was sore @ the barrels. Ironically the chair started when we arrived. Lunch of meatball soup and 90 min of laying stuff out unpacking. Then a fast hike up to see what I can do on 7 hrs sleep in 2 days.

2000' in 1:03 not bad. It got windy cold & I wasn't dressed for that so I froze and managed only 600' in the next 24 min so I bailed. It was tough going, too, with all the snowcat traffic. Like 3" square ice cubes in a loose pile. Made my knee & ankle very sore. Slow going downhill. Lots of water in track low & socks got wet.

At barrels slid into bag & set stuff to dry in hot sun. Schnitzl & mashed potato for dinner. Filled bottles, now in bag blogging.

Feet warm enough despite wet, fanny pack not big enough for Elbrus cold windy gear, ankle hurts good.

SVO 9 16

Moscow customs & immigration went smoothly. Checkin for domestic flight to Mineralnye Vody smooth. Went to the train station and finally got my cheesecake! Feeling strong, healthy, though i only got 2 hours sleep on the ATL-SVO flight. Feeling lots of love & support from my FB friends. Awesome!

Pre-elbrus days

Spending a couple days at 10,000' in CO mostly just enjoying the family, eating a few carbs and treats and some non-training activities like gym climbing. I've put a lot into this and given up much, and it's almost payoff time.

Rainier Speed Test for Elbrus Race 2010

This is my gallery from the speed and gear check I did on Mount Rainier, Sept 3 and 4. I learned that my normal light boot technique works fine in crampons, and I could do a great 1900'/hour uphill pace. That's good enough for Elbrus Race, and I hope to keep my fitness and health up for the race.

More later ...

Running Quandary - Gear Check

Did a great test on Quandary today. Up in 1:35 and down in 1:10 - 10 minutes faster both up and down than my previous best. It's getting close to the end now, so I'm figuring out my gear and finalizing.

In this test, I managed to maintain 2200'/hr for the whole 90 minutes, which is my goal, and it's the first time my speed didn't lag in the last 1200' or so. Yes, it was slower in the rocks, but I was jogging on the flatter sections, so it averaged out. If I can double my endurance, I have the opportunity to crank out a sub-3 hour race pace on Elbrus.

Based on input from a participant in last years race, I tested the Salomon XA 3D Fastpacker (basically a high-top version of the XA 3D). I like the high-top because I have a tendency to roll my ankles if I'm fatigued, but it's only a little heavier than the trail runner. They've been working great on my machines, and sure enough, were awesome on the trail. Fast and light.

I've been using LEKI Corklite Aergon Speed Lock Trekking Poles, and I totally love them. They have traditional style adjustable straps, so if you know how to use cross country ski poles the "right" way, you'll be able to use these. The clip-locks are great, and way better than the twist-friction-locks. Speaking of cross country skiing, I did great with the poles today, even double-poling, and with the CNS training I've been doing, had a lot less mental fatigue from placement issues.

I'll be getting my crampons worked out in the next week, and I might go to Rainier to do some laps and test everything out in the cold and snow. That's enough time and space for now - more later ;)

Training for Elbrus Race 2010 - August 11 2010

It's official. At this point in time I have been accepted as a contestant in the Elbrus Race, the highest race in Europe, this September. I've been training very hard, as I'm very serious, and aside from the Russian Visa, need to qualify.

It appears as though twice as many are accepted as actually qualify. To qualify you have to run from the Barrels Huts to Pastukhov Rocks, about 3570' of elevation gain over 2.5 mi in less than two hours, then return to the Barrels by a set time (I think 4 PM which is about 5 hours round trip).

I've been training hard for this by running in Colorado on 14'ers and 13,000' ridge lines. I've maintained the requisite 1800'/hr of vertical gain pace over about 3.2 miles, so I feel pretty good about that. As well, I have access to a Stairmaster, an elliptical with a lot of leg raise in the front, and an Incline Treadmill that angles up to 40%, which is pretty steep.

I've been working out about 3 hours a day, and have done 4 hour days. Now as I taper into peaking on Sept. 21 and 23, I need to focus on my rest days to learn how to recover fully in 36 hours.

I'll put up more training, and some pictures, in the next week. Wish me luck...