Well, another Elk Mountain Grand Traverse has come and gone.  This backcountry ski race requires teams of two to traverse 40 miles and 8,0000′ vertical from Crested Butte to Aspen.  The race started at midnight on Friday night.  Once again, the course proved as heinous as ever with 0 degree temperatures and 50 m.p.h. winds on top of Star and Taylor passes.  Faces and fingers were frozen, eating and speaking nearly impossible.

My partner, Bryan “Wick” Wickenhauser, and I ended up 4^th place after 9 hours 35 minutes of racing.  Jon Brown and Brian Smith ended up 7^th and Jari Kirkland and Tucker brought home 2^nd in the co-ed division.  Mike Kloser and Jay Henry won the race.  It was a decent showing for Team Salomon/Crested Butte in one of the toughest races we do all year.  Teammate Travis Macy opted for a summer option and won the solo division at the 12-Hour Adventure Xstream Moab race.

The week leading up to the Traverse is always fun as the training becomes a minimum, and arriving at the starting line, “the fresher the better” is my motto.  So Wednesday, Thursday , and Friday were total days off with jus a 10 minute ice bath Wednesday and Thursday.  It just gives me a chance to get all the gear totally dialed in and minimize everything to the smallest degree in the pack.  So here is what the rest of the week looked like:

• Monday – Rest day with a 12 minutes ice bath and foam roller session on the legs.
• Tuesday – Ski previewed the first 2.5 hours of the Grand Traverse course and evening ice bath.
• Wednesday –  90 minute massage, ice bath.
• Thursday- Rest day.
• Friday- Race begins at midnight!
• Sunday – 45 minute run and 30 mile road ride to Crested Butte, ice bath.
• Monday – 1 hour on the HALO swim trainer and 90 minutes on the stationary bike with some muscle tension intervals to a 30 minute treadmill run as it was snowing again and blowing 30 m.p.h. outside.  Ice bath and I am ready for Spring!!

As a team we didn’t work on anything for the week together, however we all had to have our gear dialed in for the race so packing and gear minimizing were key components for everyone, which will make it easier to know exactly how much food and water to bring out on a 8-9 hour section in Primal Quest only a few months away.  Remember the 6 P’s of racing folks, “Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance”!!

Some gear modifications that we made especially for the Grand Traverse were attaching retractable dog leashes on the inside of the pack with the leash exiting at the bottom, making for a non swing tow-strap that zips back inside the pack after use; it’s a hands-free towing device!  Another was the hand warmer taped up H2O bottle to prevent freezing your water instantly.

The next event to start looking forward to for me is the Foster Grant Ironman 70.3 event in Orlando , FL on May 17^th.   So putting away the skis for the season yesterday felt good as I am as jazzed as ever to get in the pool and swim, swim, swim.   Now I know swimming isn’t the funnest thing ever but I can guarantee that hard swimming with intervals will make any athlete no matter their fitness a whole heck of a lot better, especially for the paddling sections in these long adventure races, which is where more racers lack than any other department in a race such as Primal Quest.  So try hitting the pool 3x’s a week and work on your weaknesses this pre-season and feel confident the middle of August!

Cheers,

Sully

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Adventures, AR Tips, News, Primal Quest, Sponsors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.