Training Log Archive: biggins

Yellowstone Equinox 24

C • Yellowstone Epic 2

Yellowstone Equinox Ski Challenge - 24 hours

The only real goal I had for this was to beat the last PR of 242 km. I figured if the weather turned out ok it should be doable, since all previous 24 hour attempts were all by myself or on junky trails. The stretch goal was that someday I wanted to hit 300 km on one of these, knowing that I'd probably just have to keep trying until conditions were good.

The plan was to go out with a steady 4:00/km pace, don't get tired, but don't stop. Eat and drink on the move for as long as possible. Holding this pace for 20 hours would get 300km, still allowing for 4 hours of downtime.

The first 50k went by in 2:50, which I guess is pretty respectable for a marathon (assuming you were going to do six more immediately afterwards). Its also 3:24/km pace, but it was icy fast and effortless, so while I was consciously backing off on the hills, the downhills and flats were just flying by.

I hit 100k in 6:05. This is when I started getting hopeful for 300k, knowing I'd slow down at night, but hoping it would be just my legs getting slow, and not also the snow conditions.

I had a bunch of driveby stops all day long to refill water and stuff more food in my pockets, but never longer than a few minutes. First real stop was at 8pm, 10 hours in, for 15 or 20 minutes. It was dark and I needed to wire the headlamp (the battery goes on a belt under most of my shirts and jacket to stay warm), so I did that inside the warming hut. I also changed boots from the Rossi's to the Fischers. The Rossi's had given me epic side/heel blisters, which had popped and were hurting a bunch by then. They're about the circular size of a tennis ball. They were better with the Fischers, but still hurt for the rest of the race.

I stopped again three or four times more overnight, about every 2 hours, to add more layers and go inside for 10 minutes to eat and warm up a little. We're not really sure how cold it got, no one bothered to look at any of the thermometers. I had a min/max one in my bag that said 2F by the morning, but the snow definitely never got that cold, Dad was skiing on 18F wax all night. But by early morning I had two long sleeve shirts, the neoprene bike arm warmers, and the heavy ski-o jacket on, along with two hats, a buff, and the lobster mitts, and I was just barely staying warm.

For food I ate mostly Gu/Hammergels, and those delicious Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Caramel granola bars. Usually a granola bar every hour, plus a gu every two. A salt pill every four hours, and vitamin I for thursday's busted shoulder every 5-6 hours. This was probably the best ultralong event ever for me food-wise. I had no stomach problems at all, and never bonked or dehydrated. A couple times I could feel myself dragging a bit, usually in the middle of the night when eating got hard (granola bars and gu freeze solid), but I'd notice that and then force something down asap and I'd feel better (and get warm again) within half a lap. I had a water bottle on a belt that I'd fill with Heed or plain water, and as it got colder I'd refill each time with some from the jug and some from the hot water boiler. By the middle of the night I was filling it up with 100% boiling water, then skiing for about 5 minutes until it cooled just a bit before downing the whole bottle while it was still hot. I did successfully resist picking up a cheeseburger from the grill they had set up at night, knowing I'd feel it for the next couple hours, though it smelled extra delicious every time I skied by.

By the time morning rolled around I was somewhere over 300k and I started figuring out how many more laps I needed to break the event record. I had thought that if I pushed each lap just a bit for the last 3.5 hours I would just make it with a couple km to spare, so I stopped taking breaks and rolled through the last many laps constantly. Turns out I had been counting laps wrong overnight, or their distance calculations were different than mine, but in the end I made it easily.

The gps tracker (which is only sortof good at tracking) said I had 22:35 of moving time, so just under 2 hours of downtime. Probably an hour of that was big stops inside, and the rest just a few minutes here and there for refills.

So I accomplished all the goals and super-stretch-goals for the weekend:
1. New PR (by 100-some km)
2. I hit 300km.
3. I broke the course record (by 20km or so)

All of these were km goals, not placing goals, because the race isn't really big enough to be consistent competition year-to-year. But bonus accomplishments:
- I won. By a lot.
- I might have skied further than all the 4/8 person relay teams.

I also didn't really break myself too much. My feet are pretty bruised from being in ski boots for a day straight, but the busted shoulder and back held up ok. I've been hacking some colorful stuff out of my lungs ever since the race ended, but I don't think that's getting sick, just important bodily juice leaking out from the cold air all night.

Having achieved the 300km goal, that takes a lot of the motivation out of wanting to do another one of these. Also the snow conditions were so good this time it'd be hard to randomly hit an event that is as good. But I won't bother saying never because it really wouldn't take much to talk me into this again. Also dad and I were just sitting here trying to figure out the best way to rock a 4-man team (the record is only 450km).

C • Amazing! Hope you'll foll... 18

Made it to Yellowstone, and dad and I went out to scout some race trails. Did a lap around most of the night loop, which looks to be fairly flat. Grooming was terrible, but rumor has it that they'll fix everything up by the morning. Shoulder hurt more than I'd like, but its still skiable, so hopefully that will last. This is gonna be awesome.

C • What's the event? 6

Easy ski around asc, until I caught a tip on a downhill and faceplanted pretty hard. Took a bunch of skin off my chin, and banged up a wrist and the good shoulder, but everything still seems functional enough.

C • Working on excuses? 3

C • Boreal 10

Easy ski, getting the pace ready for the weekend. Warm and sunny, with nice icy corn snow, so conditions weren't half bad.

Morning crust ski around dads house. No grooming, because one garage door was frozen shut and the other had a two foot wall of solid roof ice in front of it.

C • whine, whine 1

Warmup jog with alex to get warm enough to put the boots on and actually warm up.

Ski-o champs long distance. Mass start, but Jonis and Adrian both started on the other fork, so I was on my own from the start. No mistakes, and came into the second map exchange with no idea how I was doing, until Adrian popped out to the exchange 100m in front of me. Chased him for the long third loop, but was losing a little time on each leg. Saw Jonis about halfway through the loop, but he was a ways back so not really a worry.

Overall a good weekend. The double pole strength wasn't there, but I never trained it at all this year so that's understandable. Adrian was untouchable, but I managed to stay ahead of Jonis for two of the races, so that was good.

control pickup, no poles

Long Course 4AYXB - Splits