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By MATT CARPENTER
www.skyrunner.com
Matt Carpenter reports:
Distance: 50+ miles
Goal: Win
Results: 2nd
Website: http://www2.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge/
General Summary:
OK, rules are rules so I guess I need to do this R Report to get the R and have a perfect Sunday streak.
Had a great run for 18 miles, a good run for 18 more, hung on for 8 more and then the wheels fell off at 44 miles. Bottom line, the winner trained better for this course so he, um - won! I just have to admit I did not take my usual approach to this race.
Things Done Right:
I did it.
Things Done Wrong:
I was too cheap to fly out and check out the course. On the other foot, the winner made a trip out and ran the course beforehand. This forced me to run his race. Come race day he ran slow on the ups, medium on the flats and fast on the downs. That is not the way I run so I got pretty beat up. Along those lines, while I knew the general course from studying the maps, I had no idea that in CA if there is a little hill they put in steps - wood ones, rock ones or both. Thank goodness they don’t build the trails around here or the Barr Trail would look more like the Incline step-wise. I knew I was in trouble when we hit the first set and about 5 guys went blowing by me:-( Each set we hit tore me up a little more and I even crashed on one.
I had a crew person lined up but they pulled. Then I was lazy and did not want to go through the hassle to arrange for another crew. This would probably work most of the time. But at this level it didn’t. I would come into a station slightly in the lead or with the leader only to have to fumble for my stuff while the winner grabbed his stuff from his wife and carried on. At the 18 mile aid station they could not even find my drop bag and I lost some time hunting it down. Having to make it up at this level takes its toll and in this case I was stupid and tore my legs up chasing after him on a sick downhill. Bottom line, not having a crew was really stupid on my part!
I need to just admit that the Pikes Peak Double was not a smart move on my part if I was to do better at this race. While I won the Double, I lost about 2 months valuable training time recovering from it. Chalk this one up to greed!
Any Other Stuff:
I plan to go back with 3 major adjustments. 1) I will train for the steps on the course. 2) I will have a crew. 3) I will not have a Pikes Peak Double to recover from. Time will tell...
Mark Twain is often incorrectly credited as saying, “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” With all due respect to those that live there, I could not agree more no matter who said it. After 3 days I was just chilled to the bone!
The “official” North Face recap story is at:
http://www.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge/sca_recap.html
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