This was my second consecutive Death Valley Marathon/30k (first one here) and it was just as good the second time despite; pouring rain, mud, the use of the alternate running course and a lack of my running companions from last year.

A few days before the race the race director sends out an email warning us about the incoming storm and the fact that the park service may close Titus Canyon due to the incoming rain/snow.  That was disheartening, because Titus is a stunning place for a run.  When you’re running in Titus you are never more than one more bend in the canyon away from feeling like you’re all alone in there. The canyon walls are so narrow and it bends so often you are occasionally the only person in view in a specific section, which is a really cool way to do a marathon.

The canyon walls are remarkable for their multi-colored beauty and there are multiple layers of historic use of the canyon from the Native American petroglyph to old mining camps. So you get geology, history and great competition all in one race. The runners that make the trek all the way out to Death Valley for the run, both the marathoners and the 30k’ers are great people.  As a whole, they are the best race people I’ve interacted with consistently, from the director (who gave me a ride in his van when the bus was too crowded last year) all the way down to the runners who will occasionally cheer you on while running.

Well, like I said we got an email indicating that Titus might be closed for the run. In that case there is an alternate route that starts near Furnace Creek on West Side road, it’s a dirt road in the middle of a broad valley, Death Valley is scenic almost no matter where you are but 3 hours at a snail’s pace in a big valley can’t compare to Titus canyon. The day before the race we get an email stating that Titus was officially closed and the alternate course would be the venue this year.

Gant wasn’t going to be running this year, due to a flare up of his TG but he was willing to play role of race support crew. He performed his job with the gumption of a Grant. I’m on the verge of promoting him to full “R” status if he keeps this work up. So we rolled up from Gorman on Friday night, got to Texas spring campground a little after midnight and despite years of experience telling us not to sleep in the truck, we slept in the truck. It turned out to be a pretty damn good decision . All night long the rain was pouring down, but I slept well and as far as I can tell, Gant slept soundly as well.

Dawn broke and we made our way to the check in at Furnace Creek. We got our bibs and followed the bus caravan down to West Side Road. At this point it was still drizzling and in the low 50’s, the clouds were solid and there was a slight wind to the south. The day looked dismal and grey; there wasn’t much to see besides the clouds and other runners. People were wearing trash bags to stay dry and kinda warm and the race director was giving his speech about snow in Titus canyon and that was why it was closed. At that point most people were more interested in starting the race and trying to get warm than in listening to the speech. Minutes later we were obliged.

The alternate course is a dirt road with a slight down slope on the way out. Due to the rain the dirt road was a sloppy mess. The rain didn’t really stop, it let up at points but the cold was constant. On the way out there was a tailwind, which in addition to the slight down slope made for a pretty good time to the turnaround point, 1:16 for me.  Unfortunately that meant there was a head wind on the way back to the finish line and an incline. The nice thing about hitting the turnaround point and heading back was all the racers behind me. Seeing them go the other way and hearing the occasional cheer from them really helped me keep my motivation and pace up as the road got sloppier and the rain and wind was now coming directly into my face.

Eventually, there were no more runners going the other way. I knew there were 12-16 runners in front of me and a few somewhat close behind me. I passed a few in front of me and was passed by a few as well. My legs were dreading the final mile as it was the steepest climb and I hit it like concrete wall. My pace went from a mid to low 8 minute mile to over 11 for that last mile. I was out of juice and it was cold, wet, sloppy and steep.

But it was over. The post race food was GREAT, just like last year – peanut filled pretzel bits, oranges, trail mix, water, Gatorade and of course the complimentary T-shirt. I started to cramp in the cold and quickly changed into some warm, dry clothes and relaxed in the truck while Gant tried to get an inside line on becoming a Junior Race Director.

Death Valley was indeed in the process of flooding, I’ve never seen a storm like that there, the roads were covered with water, Towne pass was a snowy sight to see and I was more than glad to be warm and dry in the truck with my chauffeur race support crew at the helm.

A few hours later I was home and Gant was on his way to a half marathon in San Diego. I found out that I took 1^st in my age group and 20^th overall with a finish time of 2:40 which I was pretty stoked about.  I am definitely looking forward to my 3^rd consecutive DVM(e) next year. I’d even run the alternate course, It’s really that worth it.  Good job to my support crew and happy hypothermia homeboy as well, excellent job as a matter of fact.  The picture collection is incomplete for various reasons, don’t ask unless you’re curious in which case go ahead.

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Saturday broke bright and beautiful.  Convict lake is ringed by big bold mountains that were just glowing that morning.  We had a quick and easy breakfast and were on our way even further north to the Mountain Warfare Training Center for the race.
We stopped in Bridgeport, we saw the Walker river and we arrived at the base.  If there’s one thing that draws me back to the Marine Corps it’s this place.  In all the United States, this is where the USMC chose to put their cold weather survival school and mountain warfare training.  The place is like a forgotten fairytale for me, bits of magical memories and challenges.  It has always held my heart.

Well, we got there with plenty of time to spare so we wandered a bit and took some photos.  Unfortunately, based on my training and experience I’ll never see the photos, since the were taken with Gant’s camera.  But, I’m sure they turned out nice.  The crowd looked to be in pretty good shape overall, this was going to be a tough race based on who and what I was seeing on the starting line.  Gant got his IBS under control in one of the plethora of porta-potties they had as the start clock counted down to race time.

When we started the first thing I noticed is that the first two miles is a damn brutal uphill.  More and more people started walking and eventually I had to give in as well and walked.  Starting off at about 6,800 feet and running up another 800 feet was rougher than I thought it would be.  At about the 2 mile mark we hit the first two obstacles in the race; a 5 foot wall and a tire course (like in football).  Honest to god when I was approaching the wall I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to get over it.  I was hurting after that hill climb.  At the edges of the wall there are hay bales for the shorter people to use to help get over the wall, I was so damn tempted to hop on one of them, but I wasn’t sure if Gant or Jared could see me so I played it safe and went over the wall, if only barely.

Right after that is about 15 or 20 feet of tires to run through which at that point was plenty.  Sure it could have been longer, or have another section of tires to make it even tougher but that was good enough for me.  The good news was that the uphill was basically over.  We ran less than a mile after that and hit the first tunnel crawl, and there’s a technique for these.  You use your hands as skid pads, like a snowmobile and your feet just run while your hands slide across the tunnel.

Two miles later and we get to the hay bale climb, Jared said he got dizzy on this one becaue he went up too fast.  Right after that is the low crawl.  Nothing to this one but to get down on your belly and slide across the silt.  Another mile and half or so of nice long downhills later and you’re at the finish line looking like you just got beat up by a gang of tree huggers.

Here are the Mountain Warfare Training Challenge Race results.  So for next year I need to drop 11 minutes on my run and I’m going to do it.  Either that or the three of us join in the team category and take an easy 2nd or 3rd place finish.  Either way, I’m getting one of those sweet medals that Gant has a habit of wearing around.

You’ll notice on those results that the good Dr. Gant did finish third in his category.  Of course he did this with his usual flair for faggotry beforehand by saying, “I’ve only run once in the last 3 months” “My leprosy is really acting up today I don’t think I’m going to do very well” “I am a huge fan of Matt Damon’s body (of work)” and other such nonsense.  Then after all this crap he’s spouted like a fountain of feces he goes and dominates.  Seriously though, congrats to him.

We hit up lunch in the pickel chalet and what a view that is out the window.  If for nothing else, you should do the race to eat here and see the sights.  After all the racers were done we went to the PX and got some souvenirs.  We waited around for the raffle and again, Gant dominated by winning a bag of goodies.  Much to the dismay of all the little childrens waiting to win raffle prizes, he took it.  So now he has a child’s size MWTC sweatshirt and a calculator and some crayons I think.

On the way south for our next night of camping we stopped by Bodie.  It’s a ghost town in a state of arrested decay as I understand it and was neat to see.  We hiked and looked around for awhile.  Gant didn’t disturb any of the remains of the town as he’s a good steward of California’s cultural heritage of course.

After all this was done we left and headed down to get our campsite and dinner.  We wound up cooking up some sausages in the community park in Bishop due to daylight constraints, but it was good nonetheless.  We then continued on to Grandview campground up in the White Mountains.

Bridgeport, CA.  MWTC

There were four of us and a truck bed full of gear leaving Gorman.  Truck being one of the key words in that sentence with gas prices being well above $4 a gallon for the entirety of the trip.  This was a big trip including five days of camping from the Sierra Nevada to Death Valley and excursions ranging from sand dune climbing to hiking around the remains of what used to be the second largest city in California.  We played catch in hundred degree plus temperatures and found a secret canyon in Death Valley with a plethora of petroglyphs.  The trip was based around going to run the Mountain Warfare Training Challenge 10k in Bridgeport, CA.

We left Gorman at a pretty decent hour on Friday.  We drove to Bishop and stopped by Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light gallery then ate dinner at the mexican food place just behind it.  After dinner we continued north, Gant has some buddies who are camphosts up at Convict Lake in the Sierra Nevada.  They had arranged to have one of their nicest sites available for us to use the night before the race.  We pulled in, found our spot and setup camp.  Convict Lake was a really nice campground, though it’s obviously popular and overpopulated for my tastes in general.

We went for a little dinner digestion hike around the lake until we were blocked by snow on the path and then called it a night.

Death Valley Marathon

I’ve never wanted to run a marathon. There’s a few reasons for this; 1) I don’t like running. 2) Running for 3+ hours seems particularly onerus to me. The Death Valley Marathon/30k has some good points that counteract my dislike of running. 1) The run takes place in Titus Canyon, a beautifully narrow, remote section of DV. 2) With the exception of one section, which was probably about 2 or 3 miles long it’s all downhill, 15+ miles of downhill. 3) It takes place in beautiful Death Valley. So, after weighing the pros and cons being and some cajoling from Gant and Jared I signed up and decided to go for it.

The three of us were to meet up in DV somewhere on Friday night, check in and run early on Saturday morning and then spend the rest of Sat/Sun/Mon exploring. Jared and Gant both got there much earlier than me and being the high performance (read as: high maintenance) racing machines that they are, both brought race support crews to handle such tasks as pampering and pandering their fatigued little feet. So, with a full night of restful relaxation under our belts, Saturday morning dawned on Death Valley.

Seemingly on cue, when there’s a solution in need of a problem Gant came up with some unnecessarily complicated, not to mention blatantly illegal plan to get trucks and people here and there. He thought that we all caravan out to the end of Titus Canyon and park two trucks, then all seven of us pile into the last truck, with only six seat belts, hence the illegal part of the plan and drive to the beginning of the race. Somehow this was going to save us some time, somewhere along the trip. I’m not sure if it did save any time anywhere, but it did almost cost Jared and I a bus ride saving us 8 miles of running (which may have been his goal?). 99% of the competitors just took the bus ride to the start and at the end of the race took the bus ride back. Us three being that other 1% as far as I can tell. Gant’s plan pulled through though and we all made it to where we needed to be by the slimmest of margins.

Gant ran the full marathon while Jared, I and the rest of the 30k’ers were bussed up to White pass about 8 miles ahead of Gant and the Marathoners. With this head start we began the race. That extra 8 miles the marathon runners had to cover didn’t look all that interesting or fun to me. To start with it’s uphill, it’s not in Titus canyon, it’s on the approach to the canyon and it just looked drab to me, so I was personally glad I didn’t have to run it. Starting on White pass we started off downhill for about a mile or so and then began the only climb up to Red pass.

That climb was a bitch. There was snow on the ground, as we were topping out above 5,000 feet and it was cold as balls out there for the first hour or so. On the climb up to Red pass Jared left me in the dirt and I ran alone until the end of the race, 15 miles later. Once downhill on the backside of Red the entire race is a downhill or downslope. The snack tables were well placed and well stocked. The canyon was breathtaking. The requirement not to wear headphones while at first seemingly an arbitrary assholish move by management turned out to be quite nice. The canyon is so narrow at points you can hear the echo of your breath and your footsteps on the canyon walls.

This was the farthest either I or Jared had ever run. Our longest training run was 14 miles and it was rough. 18 miles went much smoother than I thought it would. When the canyon abruptly ended and we were on the final 3 miles I got my second wind. Jared was no more than 100 yards in front of me and I was flying to catch him. We ran together again for a few minutes and then I took off for the finish line. I came across the line so fast that Liz didn’t even get a picture of me doing it.

2 hours and 41 minutes after starting I was done. I felt great. Jared finished 1 minute behind me. I was 37th overall and 3rd in my age group. I am happy as hell about those results. When Gant finished at a brisk 4 hour and 10 minutes we sat around and waited for the racers to clear out the way so we could go get to the trucks that we had parked earlier, at this point I’m sure that Gant’s plan was as well thought out as my decision to enlist in the Corps.

Cut to acouple of hours later and we finally got our trucks and got out of Dodge. We went to spend the night at the Mesquite springs campground.

Here are the results.

Ubehebe crater, Teakettle Junction and the Racetrack

Sunday morning came too early, a bit too cold and with some light rain. This makes three years in a row that it’s precipitated on us in some form when visiting DV, from a snow storm on Telescope peak to snow at the Racetrack. Either way, it smelled like wet sagebrush and a new day. After another lengthy and laborious decision making process we decided to go to Scotty’s castle for the tour and then decide where to go from there after the tour.

The tour at Scotty’s castle was interesting. The castle itself was amazing and the guide did a nice job of passing along his knowledge to us. The only warning I would give is that the little deli there only takes cash, which is odd since the gift shop that shares the same building takes any kind of card.

At the Castle while Jared was trying to impress some random Rangers with his marathon exploits, without bothering them with the relatively inconsequential details like the fact that he ran the 30k, not the marathon. During this whole conversation he somehow worked some strange Palmdale desert magic and got some great information on an unpublicized canyon with the greatest collection of petroglyphs in the park.

I’m not going into details here, but we did scout the approach later that day and took a picture from afar. It’s an obscure little canyon, hardly looks like much but from what it was described as I wanted to make the hike despite the pain coming from my legs. I was outvoted and we went to Ubehebe crater and the Racetrack.

So, Ubehebe was cool. Scouted out little Hebe crater for the first time. Then after everyone got a good look at the crater and saw the location of Gant’s death defyingly dramatic descent and accompanying asinine ascent, some of us were caught napping. When everyone awoke we continued on the horrible, horrible road to the Racetrack .

Some of us climbed the grandstand , while others looked for moving rocks, and of course there was that 1% that stood around showing off medals to anyone and everyone that was looking, which I believe led us all to eventually split up. I took pictures.

Jared, Liz and I left after all that and journeyed back to a snowy Gorman. Gant and his crew stayed late into the night with raging bonfires, alcohol and hot dogs. I’m slightly jealous of them.

We are already planning a trip back to XXXXXX Canyon, in the next month or two. All in all, I loved the run and will be returning next year for it and would reccomend it to absolutely anyone, even if you don’t like running.

Album of pictures from trip

PS. I would be remiss if I did not mention the abundance of awesome that Gant produced in his Burrito Bar.

I’m just going to ride my mountain bike…

The Carp tri was finally here. All the training and planning and organizing had finally come to a head. We were in Carpinteria, waiting for the whistle to blow to start the party. I was anxious to get in the water, get that initial shock of cold over and start the race so the knot in my stomach would go away. I’m sure Jared and the two Gants felt the same way. That’s not how this story starts though.

A few months back, I don’t even remember how exactly it came up anymore but Gant was planning on running a couple of triathlons. Knowing that I need goals to work towards and this was to be a kind of long term commitment to train up for I was pretty excited. Jared was a lifeguard, so I could drain him for swimming tips and tricks and plenty of practice as well. So, the three of us started getting ready.

Doing an initial inventory of what we had compared to what we needed was unpleasant. Since it was going to be an ocean swim, most people would be wearing a wetsuit. I didn’t have one. Jared has one, but it’s old and ratted out. Gant has one, and even had a spare that fit me, though he failed to mention that until one week before the triathlon. The tri was also going to involve a 26 mile bike ride, on the road. I have a mountain bike; have only ridden a road bike like once or twice in my life. Jared has a mountain bike and has never ridden a road bike. Gant has a road bike (though no spare).

At first I planned on swimming once or twice tops before the race, and concentrating on my strengths, which I thought would be the bike primarily and the run secondarily. Jared and I drove out to Carp to meet with Gant and go for an ocean swim. Gant wore his wetsuit, Jared and I had boardshorts. The Pacific Ocean near Carp is a big ball of cold as far as I’m concerned. That swim sucked. The cold and lack of recent swims conspired to keep me from catching my breath at all while in the water. Gant and Jared both had worried looks on their faces as they hovered around me on the swim. One of the main things that kept me afloat was my fear of mouth to mouth resuscitation from either of those two.

That swim scared me. I was slow and sucky and the water was cold. I went home and ordered a wetstuit online from a place called wetsuitrental.com. A few days later Jared did too. We also started scouring craigslist for road bikes that were affordable-ish. Unfortunately there wasn’t much. There were some old beaters for a hundred or so and some big baller bikes for a thousand and more but not much in the mid range. I asked everyone I knew, Jared asked people he knew and we hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst by mountain biking everywhere from here to White Mountain.

Weeks went by with no sign of anyone with a decent road bike to borrow or a moderately good deal for sale. We continued to swim, Jared and Jackie both showed me a bunch of little things I was doing wrong, or inefficiently and I showed both of them my appreciation with a quick display of my middle finger.

Jared’s brother actually wound up tracking down two nice bikes to borrow two weeks before the race. So, we were set, wetsuits were soon to be shipped to us and we had road bikes for the race. Life looked good.

Those last couple of weeks went fast. We rode the road and realized how different road vs. mountain bikes are. To me personally, the road bike seems to use more of my quad; the upper and middle section of it, whereas the mountain bike seems to work my lower quad more. So, each road ride was quite difficult as my mid and upper quad seemed underdeveloped. That in addition to the fact that road bikes are geared much higher, so don’t seem to climb nearly as well and are a much rougher ride, due to the lack of a big padded seat and suspension.

Gant was still complaining that he wasn’t working out enough and his 14 mile run one day really left him tired. He also tried saying that him and his brother were just going to chill on the tri, and generally cruise. I know what that means from Gant. When Gant says that it means he’s going to pass you, but when he passes you he’ll stop to chat. That actually does a couple things;

1) It makes you doubt yourself because he’s just chilling and he’s passing you.

2) It shows you how he’s going to carry on conversation without breaking a sweat while you’re at your max output (this picture is of Gant and I on a Special Olympics torch run in Ventura county. Yes, he’s on the phone, yes I’m sweating).

3) It then shows you how he can just wrap up the conversation, (generally because you can’t reply to him because you’re out of breath) and then speed off like you’re a paraplegic on a NASCAR track.

4) His brother is the same.

Early morning on race day came; we were all in Carp ready and waiting for the starting whistle. It blew and we started. Jared and I started in the same age group, and Gant and his brother started in the same group six minutes behind us.

Of course, Team Gant wound up passing both of us in short order, even with one of them getting a flat tire on the bike portion of the race. Yeah, they are that fast.

The swim went remarkably well for me. 34 minutes to do 1500 meters, well better than I expected. The run went worse though, so my total time was 3 hours, 8 minutes. Which was pretty good for me, my goal was to get under 3 hours. So I have something to strive for at the next one. Jared was about four minutes behind me and the Gants were about 12 minutes in front of me. It was fun, quite a bit of fun actually.

Here are the results overall.

Here’s about the only picture I’ve got. Hopefully more later, though none from me. All the pictures were taken by Jared’s and Gant’s families whom were all present to cheer them on.

Here’s one of the two Gant brothers, taken by their dad, just before Project Triathlon Domination began.

No CF card present

So, Jared, Gant and I had a plan to go up to White mountain and do some high elevation training prior to the Triathlon at the end of the month. Gant couldn’t make it for various reasons unfortunately. So it was just Jared and I this time.

We got up to WM relatively quickly, about 4 hours from my house and went up to about 11,000 feet to Patriarch grove. Going from 3,000 feet at home to over 11,000 feet within hours is a tough transition. But we needed to acclimate for the next day, so we had to do it. At Patriarch we went for a small warmup hike and then ran 3 miles. Lungs just can’t process enough oxygen at that elevation to maintain much cardiovascular activity, and 3 miles was about my limit at that point.

I tried to take a picture, and got the dreaded, “No CF card present” message. I forgot to bring any storage for my camera, absolute moron. So, we went down to Bishop, through the Silver Canyon shortcut, which is a notoriously tough road. I’ve been up it once and never wanted to go that way again. Now we are going down it to get to town before everything closes. I wound up with one flat and high blood pressure by the time we got to town. The only flash cards I could find were 256 megs, which hold about 25 pictures on my camera and cost 20 bucks. GREAT.

After this we went down to Grandview campground, which is at around 8,300 feet to setup camp. Grandview is one of my favorite places to camp. It’s a large, underpopulated campground, each of the campsites have quite a bit of privacy, there’s absolutely no light pollution, and it’s pretty high in elevation so there’s less atmosphere to look through at the stars. It’s a beautiful place to go to look at the sky. This place generally has a few amatuer astronomers scattered about because of how great a place it is. By amatuer I mean guys with telescopes that are bigger than Andre the Giant. They need ladders to climb up and look into the eyepieces. Amatuer might not be the right word for these guys, I’ve never seen telescopes this big and every time I go up there, there’s always one or two setup.

So, we setup camp, lit a little fire and had some kielbasa. Since car camping has no weight issues, we both brought inflatable mattresses, Jared’s was a queen sized one, mine was a twin. Lord I wish I could bring that thing backpacking. In the morning we suited up and got to the trailhead with our mountain bikes. We started at 11,000 feet again and had about 7 or 8 miles of riding ahead of us to get to the top of the mountain at 14,000 feet.

As usual this is a very tough ride. I did it a few years ago, and it’s not any easier now. We both made it with bikes to the top, both completely exhausted. We took some pictures and bailed before Jared felt too naseaus. I saw for the second time ever on White a large herd of big horned sheep.

I also returned to the Bristlecone pines for some more pictures before leaving the next day.

Album

What’s that picture got to do with anything?

Well, that picture really has nothing to do with training up for a triathlon, but Gant is the one who initiated this triathlon nonsense and that picture pretty much defines hardcore for me so I used it. Gant’s idea about running a tri spawned with his brother as far as I can tell, but now that Gant’s got his panties all bunched up about it, I think he’s just as excited.

I’m excited, just afraid of deep water in some ways. I don’t like not knowing what’s underneath me. So flying and open ocean swimming are in the same category, except for a few differences; sharks being one of them.

This will be the Carpinteria triahtlon, olympic distance. 1.5k open ocean swim, 40k bike ride and 10k run. As long as I get out of the water without being dragged out by lifeguards, I shouldn’t have a problem with any of it. Just that swim kind of sketches me out. We’ll see, either way, it’s been a good excuse to get into some really good shape.