Slow Traffic Keep Right

The Snow to Surf took place on Mt Washington this past weekend. I’d never taken part before but I’d heard tales of agony and ecstasy over the past twenty years. Last year I had to miss the show because I was in India and this year it looked like I was going to have to miss it again. Wildflower is in two weeks and if I was to take part it would be in one of two downhill run legs. Pete really had trepidations about me doing the race so to play it safe I gave my regrets to the boys. I was disappointed but I’ve been working hard toward WF and I didn’t want to cripple myself on what was a legendary leg breaker of a section.
Then last week I got a short note from Pete – “Do Snow to Surf. Wear the flats you plan to wear in WF.”
I was in.
The night before the race we stayed at the Pacific Shores resort in Parksville. Pure luxury but the capper was the PPV of the UFC fight between Matt Serra and GSP. 12 adults, 2 babies, lots of beer and a stack of pizzas. Now that is a good night!!
The morning of the race was clear and cool – really cool. It was -9 on the top of the mountain.

The race went like this:

1^st leg – 4’ uphill run in ski boots then a quick down hill ski (Ed Wellwood).
2^nd leg – 20’ X country ski (Jim Pearson).
3^rd leg – 25’ downhill run (me).
4^th leg – 25’ downhill run (Sean Cruickshank)
5^th leg – 40’ Mt bike (Johnny “Strawfire” Fokkema)
6^th leg – 25’ Kayak (Kenny)
7^th leg – 40’ Road Ride (Troy “Woodie” Woodburn
8^th leg – 34’ Canoe (Phil Montgomery and Rob)

The race was to start at 9:15. We drove up the Mt where Jim and Ed dropped me off at my leg start and headed up to theirs. The problem was it was 8:00 in the morning and as I said before, -9! I calculated it was going to be an hour and forty minutes before I started running.

Me at Base Camp?
Nope. Waiting for the start of my downhill run.

There were two volunteers there setting up the transition and me. I had my bags with me so I pulled out all my clothes and layered up. Still I could tell I was going to get cold – real cold, so I started walking. I walked for an hour, which took me up to the lodge and back again. By then other runners were arriving. The sun had come out stronger and it was starting to warm up. At 9:30 they announced the race start had been delayed 15’. Kinda screws up your warm up but that was okay. I just kept jogging back and forth and doing drills. I really felt like ass. I couldn’t believe how sluggish and weak I felt. I’ve raced hundreds of times in my life and I’ve found more often then not, the warm-up is no indication of how the race will go.

The first skier showed up almost two hours after I’d been dropped off. What a relieve. This cat looked super human. I’d never seen a guy ski so fast. It didn’t look natural. At least three minutes later the rest of the crowd started to filter in. Jim rolled in around 11^th or 12^th. Pretty good I thought. I think there were around 200 teams.

I grabbed the wrist band and headed down the mountain. Legs were moving well, heart and lungs were cooperating. I felt good. I knew I was certainly one of the weak links on this team. All of these guys were good at what they did. My goal was to minimize the loss during my leg. Being so close to the top 10 I knew the other runners around me were going to be skilled. There’d be no holding back. I didn’t.
Right away some 97 pound dude just rolled by me. Getting passed with such authority is almost better. You don’t even consider trying to go with them.
So that was one lost position. Up ahead I saw a woman moving along and figured I could likely catch her and make up the loss. I did fairly quickly.
After that I ran a long time without seeing anyone or getting caught. My legs were really starting to scream. The knees were good but the rest of the majors were complaining – calves, left hamstring and quads were all bitter about what was going on. My right hamstring felt okay.
I came across a sign on the road – one kilometre to transition and up ahead were two women pretty close together who were coming back to me. Behind me I could hear some loud approaching feet. It’s hard to run downhill quietly.
I tried to pick it up a bit but I just couldn’t find another gear.
Then we came to a section of road where there was a long strip of soft new gravel on the side. I thought I could likely turn the legs over faster with the soft landing. It worked like a charm. I was able to really turn it up for those few hundred meters and the girl came back to me like she’d stopped running. But action always has a reaction and in this case it was my left hamstring. Already tight, it cinched up to piano string tension. I had to back off and focus on staying lose. I’ve had that hamstring go before and I knew if it went again, I’d be on the side of the road screaming. I passed the girl with about five hundred meters to go. We were up a position.
The loud feet caught us both. Turned out they were so loud because there were two runners. We were down a position.
Up ahead was the transition area and one more woman coming back to me. I had to weigh a possible serious injury and Wildflower over my pride and the team. It was an easy choice – I put some smack down and caught the call with less than 200 meters to go.
I’d held my teams position.
I handed the wrist band off to Sean and away he went.
For the next twenty minutes, my legs sang like a gang of drunks in a karaoke bar.
Eventually they calmed down and this morning I’m left with a little soreness in the calves. Hardly worth mentioning.

Sean passes off to Stawfire. As you can see, Sean is rolling so
fast he ran past Johnny before he even realized what the hell
was going on!

The rest of the race went off as expected. Each of our guys performed outstandingly!
Sean caught a few guys. Fokkema caught a few and our kayaker Kenny caught one more. By the time Woodie was able to head out on the time trial bike we were rolling in 5^th place but 3^rd and 4^th were at least 8’ ahead of us. Woodie was fit and really keen to catch those guys but making up 8’ on a ride that would likely take him 40’ would be a tall order.
The riders went for about 30’, then had to do a little out and back before riding the highway to the canoe transition.
A bunch of us were on the side of road waiting to see how things were sitting after the out and back. 3^rd and 4^th went by and we started are watches. We waited and waited and waited. Woodie was not going to catch these fellows. In fact it looked like he might have been getting caught himself. We were all thinking ‘flat’ because everyone knew he was really fit. Finally he rounded the corner and rolled past us. He was absolutely rocketing! WAY faster than the two previous guys. It had to be a flat.
We jumped in the vehicles and drove the final 3k to the transition area. Woodie got there before we did. I found him sitting on a log just shaking his head. He’d missed the turn around at the out and back. He saw a volunteer there but the guy just watched him roll by. Woodie thought he was just an intersection guard. After a few kilometres he started to hit lights and intersections with no one there. He realized something was wrong and made the tough decision to turn around. He went back to the volunteer and asked him if this was the turn around point. The volunteer informed it was indeed that place and good luck with the rest of the race. Woodie said he’d seen the other guys coming back only moments before reaching that point. He was sure he would have caught them. Oh well, we’ll never know. Still no one passed him and he’d held our 5^th place. Our canoe paddlers also held it and we finished 5^th – 4^th when the results came out. I guess one of the teams in front of us got DQ’d for something.
From there it was beer and burgers and a pleasant drive home, listening to the CBC.