Race Report: CDTR

The Continental Divide Trail Race, or CDTR, takes place in Steamboat Springs, CO. It had been recommended to me by two friends from work as 1)  cheap (with a  $40 entry fee) and 2) a fun and beautiful race. They may also have called it “brutal” and “difficult,” but those are the races I tend to pursue in any case, so no surprise there.

Short version: the race heads from the Fish Creek Falls parking area, uphill for 6 miles to Long Lake, from whence it takes a forested ridgeline to the top of Mt Werner. From Mt Werner it takes a 3 mile drop down a service road to the finish line at the top of the Gondola.

My fiancée and I decided to drive up the night before, and take the nearly unprecedented step of staying in a hotel for the night. By sure chance, and luck, I managed to secure a hotel room in a place that was near both the pickup point for the shuttles to the start line, and the Gondola that would take G to the finish. Staying in a hotel turned out to be both relaxing, and relatively economical during the off(ish) season at Steamboat.

I had very low expectations for my own performance in this race. Naturally, I always want to do well in races. But with about a week of solid post-abdominal sprain training under my belt, my expectations hovered somewhere around “finishing.” Nevertheless, even with a mile or so added to the course this year, allowing a second aid station to be placed at Long Lake (there had previously only been one aid at Mt Werner, where with a 3 mile drop to the finish very few people would take aid in any case), I thought a 2:30 finishing time was within the realm of possibility.

The race started as most trail races seem to: with a mad dash out of a parking lot, onto a brief double-track portion that quickly condenses into single track. As usual, the lead group of 15 or so, including myself, jockeyed for position before settling into the 5 mile, 2000+ foot climb to the lake.

At the start line, a fellow Boulder runner had described this section as “Gregory Canyon times 2.” And that about sums it up. There were switchbacky, buffed out sections as well as bare rock portions. The grade was entirely runnable, but occasionally the technicality would be such that most people dropped to a swift hiking cadence. After several miles, the climb flattened out significantly, and the trail entered what I would describe as “moose territory:” a broad, flat, marshy section where the creek meandered through an alpine meadow.

I had settled in behind the three lead women early on, but found my lack of general training quickly catching up to me and watched two of the three recede into the distance. Normally this would bother me and I would not let competitors get away, but I knew that if I was going to finish this race, I’d have to pick my pace, and theirs was too quick for me this time.

I came into the first aid station at Long Lake in about 1:07, a little slower than I would have liked, but still not too terrible. I grabbed some water and, not stopping at all, turned around and followed the third woman (Hannah, as I found out) back on to the course. Slightly behind me was a guy in a black shirt.

A quick aside: I discovered some time ago that what music I have stuck in my head can definitely affect my running cadence and general emotional state. Last year on Longs,  I discovered that Churchill’s “Change” could really motivate me on a long climb. This summer, I discovered that “I’ll Fly Away,” of all things, helped me feel lighter on my feet and helped me ease through rolling, semi-technical trail. With that in mind, I put “Change” on repeat in my head during the climb and “I’ll Fly Way” in my head during the middle portion. “I Feel Good” remains my go-to, sing-out-loud song for the downhills.

With “I’ll Fly Away” floating through my head, I set my sights on the runner in front of me and settled in for the ridge run. The initial climb had left me with little in the way of extra energy, and my legs felt like dead weight already. But for me, there was never any question that I would finish. I focused on two things: staying with the runner in front and keeping a positive outlook.

Somewhere around mile 3.5 of this middle stretch (just an estimate) the runner in front pulled away. Fortunately, or otherwise as the case may be, I was also caught by a runner from behind at this time. Ian, I would later learn. I had beat this particular runner many times before, though during the race I didn’t know that. We paced each other through the next  mile and a bit, until, sadly, he dropped me on one of the final climbs to Mt Werner. I was a little mad that I let him get away, as I think with just a touch more effort I could have kept up with him through the climb and the subsequent downhill.

The downhill was a bomb. I came through the aid station at 2:09, slower than I would have liked had I been at full fitness but good enough in my state. I knew that my 2:30 goal was easily within reach as long as I could press the downhill.

And press I did. Within 400 meters I was passing the Boulderite I mentioned before (turns out he works less than a block from me and we run many of the same routes). He’d had a tough race, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy passing him.  Save for a minor encounter with a construction worker (the course marking were the same color as the markings for the no trespassing zone around the construction site) I kept the cadence high and my feet under me on the descent, and made it to the finish in just under 16 minutes even with the slight uphill at the end. 

August Update

The first three weeks of August.

I left off the last post with a bit of a cliffhanger. I had done something to my abdomen, and did not yet know what it was, and was heading to the doctor the next day.

I duly went to my doctor appointment, and after a few minutes’ poking and prodding my abdomen and asking pointed questions about the pain, which was still acute at that point, he announced that I had pulled a muscle in my abdomen.

At last! As a mathematician such as myself might say, I had reduced it to a previously-solved problem. I knew how to deal with a pulled muscle: rest, a little ice, and maybe some heat. I was even cleared to run as much as my stomach allowed, though I knew it would probably be at least a month until I could try parkour again.

I took a few more days off before slowly starting to run again. That first week, I didn’t run more than 4 1/2 miles on any given day. By the end of the week, I was feeling pretty solid on my feet again, and decided to push it a little bit harder over the weekend.

Sunday, I headed up I-70 towards the tunnels, and took a run out of Herman Gulch trailhead. I had read in a guidebook about a rock formation called The Citadel, accessible from Herman Lake, which seemed like a good target. I only had a few hours to get my run in, though, and that proved to be too short to make the off-trail hike/run up from the lake. After a few minutes of traversing a steep, grassy slope, I realized there was no way I was going to make the whole distance and still get home at a reasonable time, and so I bailed.

The Citadel.

The route ahead. You can see the trail heading up into the saddle.

The slope I was traversing after the trail ended.

The next week was the best week of training I’d had in a month or more.

Monday: 5.5 miles, 700 feet. Ran easy up Sunshine Canyon.

Tuesday: 6 miles, 1500 feet. Tempoed up Sanitas in just under 21 minutes. I ran into my friend Chris on the way to the trailhead, and my friend Tony (not Tony Krupicka, a different Tony) at the top. Both were preparing for the Pikes Peak Ascent, and both turned in times under 3 hours.

Wednesday AM: 3.5 miles, 500 feet. Scrumbled a bit around Red Rocks Park in Boulder.

Wednesday PM: 5.5 miles, no gain. Boulder Running Company fun run. Took it easy on this one for once, relatively speaking.

Thursday: Off

Friday: 3.5 miles, 500 feet.  Scrumbling around Red Rocks again.

Saturday AM: 5 miles, 300 feet. Ran to pick up my car at the Park’n’Ride after leaving it there the night before. Hit 5 miles in 32:40 for a good effort. I was really surprised by how easy this pace felt, especially given the way the BRC run felt on Wednesday.

Saturday PM: 4 miles, 500 or so feet. Hiked around Paint Mines Park with my fiancée. Words can’t really do this park justice, so I’ll leave this to the pictures.

Sunday: 8 miles, 3500 feet. Ran from the St Mary’s Glacier trailhead up (almost) to the top of James Peak and back. Suffice to say I loved this run. After the half-mile trek up the snowfield, the way opens up into, of all things, a broad, relatively flat tundra stretching over a mile to the base of James Peak.  This expanse is in turn crossed by a 4WD road, which every so often throughout the course of the run would produce a Jeep or similar truck, crawling across the tundra at little better than a walking pace.

The trail I was following was lost when I crossed the dirt road. After following the road for a few hundred yards, I gave up on finding another trail and headed west across the tundra. I could see a trail winding up the side of James Peak from where I was running, and rather than poke around any longer for an official trail, I went bushwhacking.

After a mile or so of this, I hit the trail 200 or so feet up the face of the mountain, only to decide once again that I would head straight up the talus field that makes up much of the east face of James Peak. I often find this method to be much faster than following a, to me, arbitrarily switchbacking trail that takes the gentlest possible route to the summit. Simply put, I don’t have the patience for that, and I am going to do relatively little damage to the rocks I traverse this way.

I did not end up making it to the top of the peak. I hit the false summit on the east side, and decided that, given my time constraints, I would head back down. I probably only had 400’ and less than 10 minutes of climbing left, but nevertheless I turned around to head down the grassy southeast slopes rather than the rocky east slopes.

Looking South at Grays and Torreys in the background. Bancroft in the foreground.

My second time across the tundra was something close to transcendent. Something in my body clicked, and I ended up bounding across the tundra, off trail, at what felt to me like sub 6-minute pace, but was likely closer to 7. Simply put, I have never felt that much joy in simply running. It felt like I couldn’t put a foot wrong, like every step was as efficient and smooth as it could be. My whole awareness was bent on the task of traversing ground as quickly as possible. Moments like that are why I’m a runner.

Looking North towards Indian Peaks

I think I startled some other hikers when I popped back out onto the road. I know I startled the people in the FJ Cruiser when I emerged right next to their car, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

The rest of the run was pretty standard. I dropped back down onto the snowfield, passing a number of people who where either too nervous to climb and descend the snow, or didn’t realize how much faster that is than picking your way among the rocks to either side. Back down the 4WD road to the trailhead, I skipped along the top of boulders rather than weave around them, to the point where I’m quite sure people thought I was showing off. I’ll admit to a little showboating, but mostly that was more fun to me than avoiding the boulders.

Over all, this was easily my favorite run of the summer, despite not making the summit.

After a rather long, hard week, relative to those preceding it, I was tired and ready for my taper. The next week I took very easy, never pushing beyond 6 miles and a few hundred feet of vertical in preparation for my race on Saturday.

And that is where I’ll stop for today.