Rattlesnake on the Road

Day two of my Ridgecrest training adventure began at 5:45 on Sunday morning. The previous night had been a retirement dinner/party for my Mom and two other teachers at the local college. It went to about 10:00 and I spent much of the time re-hydrating from my 90 miler that morning. During the presentation, a full pitcher of water was placed on the table. By the end, it was empty, and I’m fairly certain that I was the only one drinking.

Sunday was the “Over the Hill Track Club 10 Miler.” This is a 10 mile run that my mom has done most every year for the last 25 years. When I was growing up, I could never imagine running 10 whole miles. Today I was going to do 15. My idea was to start at mile 5 about an hour before the race, run to the starting line, then do the race. I wasn’t exactly rested, so I slept as late as possible. I got up at 5:45 and was out the door by 6:00. As my dad drove me out to mile 5 I asked him if there were porta-potties on this run. He said no, but there’d be one at the start line.

With the sun low in the sky and the temperature in the low 70s, I started up the hill. As it turns out, this race is point-to-point, all downhill. So my extra five - straight up hill into the sun. I practiced my 5:2 run/walk intervals. I felt ok, but definitely tired. The miles went by pretty slowly, but soon I ran into the walkers (they started at 6:30). Eventually I made it to the start line and got my number. The quote from my dad - “No porta-potties, but plenty of bushes.” Ok. This will be interesting.

It was much easier to go down the hill than climbing it. There was a slight headwind - just enough to make it cooler - relatively. This is a pretty small race- total of walkers and runner is probably about 50. So it spread out pretty quickly. With my Ironman-pace running, I was near the back pretty quickly. At mile 2.5 was the first water-stop. A nice woman offered me Gatorade and/or Water, then warned me to be careful. “There’s a rattlesnake on the road up there.” A few minutes later - there it was… A three-foot mojave green. I’m pretty sure it was dead.

I continued my run/walk. I was surprised at how slowly the miles were passing. I guess I wasn’t very recovered from the ride and the party, and frankly, I had to go to the bathroom. I trudged on for a while until it was just too much. This is 10 miles of road with literally nothing around it- no buildings, no gas stations, just rocks, scrub-brush, and, apparently, rattlesnakes.

So I thought… what would Dana do? I remembered a conversation - or maybe I just imagined it in her voice. Either way. I stopped, took off my right sock, and ran off the road. I climbed over a little rise in the desert and squatted behind a creosote bush. I saw a few lizards on the way, but luckily no snakes. With that done, I headed back to the road and towards the finish line.

I had about 4 miles to go, and I decided I just wanted to be done. I gave up on the run/walk and just ran. The good news is that I had energy, the run/walk left me plenty of energy to just run. I passed a few people and caught up to my mom about 1/2 mile before the finish, we ran in together.

I came in 2nd in my age group - my brother came in first, even though he finished at least 30 minutes before me. There was no third-place. As I look at my time, I realize that I was running slower than I did at any of the long runs over the past month - including the 13 miles on the Wildflower course. Once again, I’m pretty sure that heat is the main factor. I was able to finish without trouble, but it required me to slow down. Strangely, nobody noticed I finished wearing only one sock.

90 miles - 95 degrees!

I spent the weekend visiting my parents for my mom’s retirement party. Training doesn’t stop - so I brought my bike and run gear. My schedule called for a 90 mile ride on Saturday and a 15 mile run on Sunday. My parents live in Ridgecrest, CA which is in the middle of nowhere, (http://tinyurl.com/ob8wv) so there’s lots of land to bike and run. It’s also in the middle of the Mojave Desert, so it’s HOT.

Saturday morning I mixed my sustained energy packed my food and four bottles of gatorade onto my bike and headed out by 8 am. I started on the “Inyokern loop” which is a gradual climb of a few miles followed by a gradual descent for about 10 miles. I say gradual, because none of these are “hills” in the sense of the bay area. There’s not much but desert out there - the air was calm and warm, and I felt good. The first 25 miles was all road I’d ridden before, but at mile 25 I turned north on highway 395.

395 runs along the east side of the Sierras. I’ve driven it a million times, but never ridden it. As I headed north towards Coso Junction, I had 8000 foot mountains on my left and rocky desert on my right. I had a slight headwind but it wasn’t too bad. I felt a little tired but chalked it up to being jet-lagged from an all-night flight from Hawaii followed by a 6 hour drive the night before.

As the road wore on it got worse. I was weak and slow and my heartrate was way too high for the speed I was going. The wind was minor and I felt like I’d never get there. Finally I saw a sign - Coso Junction 5 miles. I looked ahead and could see some trees and a building or two but there was no way that was it, it was too close. Beyond that was another hill. Ugh. So I trudged on, fighting the urge to call my dad and ask for a pickup. The trees got bigger, and 5 miles later, I was at the Coso Junction rest-stop.

There’s not much there - a gas station and a rest stop. I pulled off my bike and walked into the gas station. I grabbed a bottle of water and drank half of it between the fridge and the counter. The lady looked at me kinda funny - “Did you come here on a bicycle??” Yup. I sat down on the porch in the shade and drank the bottle of water (about 32 oz). I had run out of gatorade, so I went back in and bought more. As I packed up the bike, I looked at the thermometer on the gas station. It was in the shade and read 95 degrees. Oh.. That explains it.

The ride back was better - mostly. It was into the wind - so much for that slight headwind on the way out… I must have imagined it. It was also downhill. The last 20 miles of the ride had been a very gradual climb, so gradual, that I didn’t really know I was going up. But I sure knew I was going downhill on the way back.

I decided to take a slightly different way back, spending more time on 395 rather than retracing my steps. My goal was the big downhill into town. It’s a fun long downhill, so if I stayed on the highway a bit longer, I’d get the downhill as a reward. It was a bad choice. The last few miles were much windier and hillier just to get to the top of that hill. And, when I turned down the hill, it was in the process of being re-paved. So it was rough and gravelly. I hurt more going down that hill than the previous 80 miles in the heat. Finally, down the hill, I stopped again to refuel and rode the last 10 miles home.

In retrospect, my whole ride was affected by the heat. It’s really insidious - since you’re riding and have a constant “wind” in your face, you don’t feel that hot - but it saps your energy. I couldn’t drink any more sugar- hot Gatorade is not tasty. More water, more endurolytes, less food. Ultimately, I had to slow down. I ended up eating only about 200 calories/hour instead of 300. Flexibility is the key to Ironman training.