1st Flatiron Race Report, email to Satan's Minions 9/29/2010
Yo Minions-
Turns out I had the perfect number of beers tonight as only 6 people
raced. And in fact, only 5 of us started together. Even though Bill
was adamant about starting on time, we still started a few minutes late,
but unfortunately not late enough for Christian and Willie. I bet
they'll be early next time!
Well, actually, I wished I had 2 more beers for Tony and Maria since
they took the time to rig for us. Beers on me next time we're out you two!
For the past month or so, I have been scrambling very, very regularly.
In fact, you could almost say I've been "training" since I would
occasionally even do uphill intervals (!?!) on the approaches to various
Flatirons. And what's even crazier is that my mountain bike has been
hanging in my garage, untouched, for almost the whole summer! While a
big reason for this is the time required for work and a second baby, a
not insignificant secondary motivator was Dave Mackey's 1st Flatiron FKT
of 33m19s set in 2004. When Dave is fit, I can't come close to matching
his speed on the trails -- *extremely* few people can -- but the 1st
Flatiron is no trail run, and I've thought I could do it under 33
minutes for a couple years now by simply having the scramble and
downclimb so wired that I could do them with my eyes closed on a new
moon after 3 beers wearing snorkeling gear. While any of us can go ITT
the 1st Flatiron any day of the week, the competition provided by racing
others is a tremendous motivator, and tonight was my chance to see if
all the recent running would pay off.
Dave set a tough pace from the start, but he clearly wasn't in peak
fitness as Matt Huntze and I were able to keep within a few seconds of
him all the way to the base. Within the first 10' of rock, I was
already eating Dave's heels, and I passed after a few more seconds once
the climbing eased up enough for me to go around safely. Dave has
climbed the 1st Flatiron only once in the last 2 years while I have done
it, ohhh, maybe 50+ times... While I (we all?) do it slightly different
every time, there are a few sections that I do *exactly* the same every
time, and the first 50' are one of those sections.
Once I squeezed by, I pushed as hard as I could to put a gap on him as I
knew he was going to rappel and he would be trying hard to catch me on
the run out. My legs were just screaming the whole way up the face, and
I actually felt much slower than usual. When I topped out with a 10m45s
split, I was astounded! I didn't think I was anywhere close to breaking
11 minutes. The downclimb flowed like a Nitro pour of GUINNESS, and
before I had a chance to gain any recovery, I was running down the
trail. Scared... Scared of busting an ankle, and scared of getting
caught! Once out of the technical terrain, I hit the gas as hard as I
could The bottom of my feet were burning with the pounding/braking
friction, and I could feel blisters starting to form in just those few
minutes. Ignoring the pain, I strided out to the finish with a 10m18s
downhill split - a full 20 seconds slower than my typical downhill, but
still enough to come in at 33m05s!
Being the analytical dork that I am, I find it quite interesting to see
how different my splits are from Dave's, and yet the finish times so close:
To the base: Stefan 2010 - 10m41s, Dave 2004 - 10m10s
Up the face: Stefan 2010 - 10m45s, Dave 2004 - 11m30s
Downclimb: Stefan 2010 - 1m21s, Dave 2004 - 2m10s
Run out: Stefan 2010 - 10m18s, Dave 2004 - 9m29s
Sorry for the long trip report, but I'm 3.5 beers in and still giddy!
Be safe, have fun, go FAST!!
Cheerios,
Stefan
---
10m41s - base
21m26s - summit (10m45s)
22m47s - ground (1m21s)
33m05s - Chautauqua (10m18s)
35m38 - Dave
42m45s - Dan
43m14s - Bill
44m00s - Matt
56m34s - Willie (he started a few minutes late though)