Windora and A January Re-Cap

Last night was the 2nd race in the Eldora Nighthawk Series.  Last week was warm, dry, and calm.  Odd conditions for Eldora.  And only a handful of people did the snowshoe race.  Turnout seemed down.  Last night things were back to normal.  Cold with hurricane like winds.  I don't think it was snowing, but with the winds, snow was blowing so badly, there were whiteout conditions on the drive up from Nederland, and on portions of the race course. 

Blustery Night at the Base of Eldora

Now this is the Eldora I remember.  And apparently, by the larger turnout, what others were waiting for.

The Nighthawk series runs 6 consecutive weeks on Wednesday nights and includes ski races along with the snowshoe race.  I have done the series for 4 out of the last 5 years.  The snowshoe race, run mostly on the nordic trails, range from 2-3 miles each week.  You never know what to expect until you get there.  Tonight was a relatively simple course, about 1.3 miles for the loop, which was done twice.  But there usually is a pretty solid hill somewhere along the way.  And on the Gandy Dancer trail, there was a doozy.  Relatively short, but steep.  And with the added 4-5 inches of snow that had accumulated in the past day, it made for even slower going. 

Typically, I am either way out in the lead or solidly in 2nd with no chance to catch the leader or be caught.  This tends to allow me to sort of bag it later in the race.  I'll run hardish, but not gut busting, racing hard.  Tonight was different.  A newbie showed up and we ran side by side up the bunny slope, onto the Training Ave and made the turn up 17th Ave together.  At this point, I let him pull away.  I'll take the uphills at a consistent but easier effort.  I have found that when running above 8000 feet, a hard effort uphill can quickly become an anaerobic effort which one never recovers from. 

So a 15-20m gap formed.  This would stay fairly consistent thru the rest of the 1st loop.  Toward the beginning of the 2nd loop it looked like he might pull away, but on Gandy Dancer, he hit his wall and walked a few steps.  This allowed me to close the gap back to 10-15m.  Now it was a question of whether I could get him on the downhill.  

Noureddine Morceli had a quote in a Nike ad that I had hung on my bedroom wall while I was in high school.  "When I race, my mind is full of doubts, who will come in second?  who will come in third?"  

Like Morceli, when I race, my mind is full of doubts, but they usually are, "why am I doing this?  do I really want to try to catch that guy?  whatever place I'm in is good enough.  Who will finish in 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th?"

After all these years, the same doubts always emerge.  Which is odd, because I normally don't fall victim to them.  But they continually re-emerge.  On the beginning of the downhill, they re-emerged again.  And I was close to falling victim to them.  I ran hard, but not all out crazy that I know I am capable of doing on a downhill.  I sort of closed in on the leader, but wasn't right up on his ass.

As we came out of the woods onto the top of the bunny slope, I finally got it together mentally and hammered down the bunny slope.  In the woods, the wind wasn't bad, but out on the bunny slope it was gusting hard.  With the blowing snow, my headlamp was doing no good.  I was pretty blind. It was a complete whiteout.  I had no real feel for the degree of the slope or any undulations.  I just ran as hard as I could.  I passed him with about 100m to go and got a few steps on him.  But I couldn't finish the effort.  He caught back up and we ran side by side for about 30m before he gained a couple of steps and took the win.

Thank You .... (already forgot your name even after chatting while we did a cool down. I'm bad with names) for a great race and making me hurt.  And of course, now I have the Eldora hack for the next 24 hrs.  Racing in cold at 9000 feet really hurts the throat and lungs.

Let's look back at January.

Races in January
Jan 19 : Colorado State Snowshoe Championships 10K at Ski Cooper - 6th 1:13:53
Jan 23 : Eldora Nighthawks Race #1 - 2nd 20:49
Jan 27 : Frost Giant 5K - 9th 20:12
Jan 27 : Frost Giant 5K - 4th 41:28
Jan 30 : Eldora Nighthawks Race #2 - 2nd 22:10

Almost 200 miles, a couple of fun races with good effort.  3 days of skiing with total of 70 000 vert feet.  Visits to 7 different breweries.  That's a pretty good month.  Started training with the Boulder Track Club's Mountain/Ultra/Trail group.  That has been very good.  So I am happy with January.  Probably one of the best January's I have ever had.  And now on to February, the greatest month of the year.  Not only because my birthday is in February, but also because it is Stout Month at the Mountain Sun/Southern Sun.  Mmmmmmm ......... stooooouuutieeeeeeee.