Denali/McKinley - Not the standard route

Okay, just a quick post that I'm going to do Denali this May via the Northwest Buttress Route. This is the next ridge to the North from the standard West Buttress "tourist" route, and is considered between West Rib and Cassin in difficulty. Going to go train now, so I'll say more later.

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.