Yak Attack, Part II, The Prelude

“You don't have to be a hero to accomplish great things---to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.” ― Ed Hillary



It’s the middle of the night and I’m lying in bed, kept awake from a cough that’s persisted since coming down from Everest base camp a few days ago. To make matters worse, I think I’m starting to feel the onset of dysentery that’s had Romney bedridden for the last 24 hours. We ate the same thing, after all, so why wouldn’t I be? Good timing for her, since she’s accomplished her objectives and will be heading home in the morning. For me, however, I’m a little over a day from beginning one of the harder bike races on the planet. Hopefully, all of my discomfort can be chalked up to nerves.

When I look at my prep for the Yak Attack race, in comparison to what I’ve done in the past, I can’t help but get nervous. I’ve trained a fraction of what I used to when I raced bikes all the time. Yet here I am, about to mix it up with a bunch of serious racers on training schedule that’s featured about an hour a day on average. My head tells me I can pull it off, but until my body follows suit, I won’t really know.

I probably shouldn’t worry about fitness, since the Yak Attack can force you out for any number of reasons. Besides the obvious mountain biking obstacles, like crashing and equipment failures, you’ve got third world cuisine, strange diseases, dodgy water, Spartan accommodations, and many days, and more importantly nights, at very high altitude any one of which can force you to be carries off the mountain by a yak, such as what happened to professional racer Jeff Kerklove last year.

Not that I’ll see much of it from my perspective of eating everyone’s dust, but the race itself should be outstanding. There’s even a chance someone could beat the locals (Yuki, from Japan, comes to mind though I wouldn’t bet on it). The field is loaded, with 11 countries (at least) represented, that includes a professional adventurer followed by a film crew as he tries to tick off all the hardest challenges in the world, a stack of professional riders, a slew of eccentric, adventurous types, the crème de la crème of Nepalese cycling, and another bloke named Steve Edwards. We did a group ride the other day and everyone is flying. I know the the Yak Attack is more about adventure than racing but with all the talent here there’s no way it won’t be heated.



My only objective at the moment is to survive day one. I’m not feeling very good and I don’t think I’m the only one. Once the race settles into a rhythm it should be easier. We all suffer well or we wouldn’t be here. I think it’s the waiting around that making everyone crazy.

Anyway, it’s good to be back in Nepal with a goal instead of just touring. It’s not mountaineering but, in a way, more adventurous as the Yak Attack is a new kind of adventure with an unknown quality. The last time I was in Nepal one of my heroes, Sir Edmund Hillary, died. If you read this post from then you’ll see it was an oddly serendipitous thing. Now I’m back with what I hope will be an Ed-worthy adventure in store. My goal, like Ed, is simply to “knock the bastard off”. That said, if I can break 30 hours it’ll mean all of the prayer wheels I’ve been turning haven't been for naught.



This is so strange. This is a man who was profoundly influential on my life. The first thing that inspired me to climb was the book High in the Thin Cold Air, by Ed Hillary. On the cover was Amadablam, the mountain that inspired me to climb mountains. In fact, I was writing a blog on this topic, still unfinished, just this morning. I read everything that Hillary had written prior to ever lacing up a pair of boots. Hillary always reminded me of my dad. And here I am, in Nepal, Hillary's true home (he was the New Zealand ambassador and did a ton of work on the schools here) and most likely even drinking Everest beer, with Tenzing on the label, when he dies. Life can be poetic in the oddest sense.

This will likely be my last post for a while. We might find an internet connection over the next 4 days. Then we hit the mountains and will be limited to 10 kilos of stuff, which must include enough gear so we don’t die of exposure at 18,000’. When things get grim, I'll focus on one of my favorite quotes from Sir Ed.

"I don't remember much about those seven days (stuck in a snow storm on Cho Oyu) except that somewhere around day 4 or 5 George (Lowe, Kiwi not ours) came over, stuck his head inside my tent and said, 'You know, Ed, some people wouldn't think this was fun."

vids: the first is from our training ride this week, courtesy of nepali tea traders. the second is from 2011, which i'd heard about from andre, 60 years young and back for his second yak attack. it's a little tedious but starts picking up at minute 18:00. "i never want to see another mountain bike race in my life..."

In The Wake...

This week’s Psyche offers some reflection in the wake of part II of my November trilogy of pain, along with a couple of short videos that are follow-ups to earlier posts. First, I’ve cancelled this weekend’s trip south because moving is such a chore that I doubt its training effects would have been positive. In the last 7 days I’ve completed two big days that offered up completely different experiences. Here’s a little comparison.

The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow – Spending 12.5 on the bike in a day in every-other-lap fashion is a strange lesson in suffering. The down time between each lap is mainly spent refueling and arranging things for your next lap. You end up with about 15 minutes to relax before you need to get moving again. While it’s less painful than soloing, because you get some rest, you also can’t cash it in and nap when you’re tired because you know you’ve got a partner counting on you to show up every hour and ten minutes or so. Sitting on a bike for this long is simply painful, especially for your butt, feet, and hands. The latter got so pounded on the rocky descents that Jeff, my partner, switched to his suspension bike during the last few laps. And while you’re very tired at the end recovery is quick. I was back on my bike feeling decent (though not strong) in a few days.

11 Beachbody workouts – I’d stacked Beachbody workouts together before but nothing like this. The first four felt good but all of our workouts (unless you only chose recovery workout which wouldn’t be very interesting) break you down. I was slightly surprised that Power 90 and Slim in 6 still felt like exercise at their easiest level even though I’m fairly fit at the moment. These workouts shouldn’t be discounted. They’re the real deal. Reversing the order would have made sense but I was also after a chronological experience and, unfortunately, our workouts have been getting harder over the years.

And so Asylum Game Day (and last-minute addition Overtime) at the end were a fantastic trip to the pain exchange. Not surprising, since these workouts are extremely difficult and painful when done fresh, it was simply a bizarre experience to be screaming to keep up after many hours of training featuring workouts designed to be your only activity of the day. And while my explosiveness was kaput I managed to hit Shaun’s number benchmarks for “winning” (I think it’s 40 jump shots and 50 home runs) meaning that I never slacked off. In Overtime I hit a wall, big time, struggled mightily not to puke but this didn’t surprise me at all since that is certainly the hardest 12 minutes of exercise ever put on video.

By comparison the gym training is somewhat easier in that it’s got no outside elements such as cold and wind and no single points of overuse where your skin becomes a limiting factor. You can always turn down the intensity a notch and minimize the pain. However, because the workouts (by my designed line up of choice) systematically targeted all elements of body movement and fitness the overall breakdown factor was far more complete. Last night, trying to sit through a symphony, I could feel every muscle competing for limited resources for recovery and it was a struggle to stay awake. This morning, with the healing process still in its infancy, it took a big commitment to force my body out of bed. And while, in contrast to the 24 hour race when I had hot spots of pain, nothing really hurts; it just refuses to work. Translation (which should not be a surprise): the home training is better for you than playing a sport. Also, because the breakdown is specific the process of replenishing full body strength is going to take a lot longer.


And with that, here’s your weekend entertainment, both in the form of trailers. First (top), we have a video on the El Cap races. I’ve written about this a lot but this year, Hans again got himself fit enough (at 47 with a full time job) to have a go. In three tries with young hot shot Alex Honnald he’s come within 45 seconds of the record set last year by Sean O’Leary and Dean Potter. He says he’s now got the fitness to break it but the duo is waiting for the weather to improve and may not get another attmept 'til spring.

I’m saving my Wideboyz follow up for a training Psyche in the depths of winter but those interested know what they’ve done. Here is another trailer for what promises to be a cracking good time at the movies (silly pun not intended. I'm tired). And you want to take about pain? Well nothing I’ve described in the post comes close to this.


Wide Boys climb Century Crack from chris Alstrin on Vimeo.

12th Fastest 50 YO Short Course Duathlete In The World

My race didn’t go quite as planned as you might guess from the self-deprecation in the title. Actually it went very well given that I couldn’t run two steps 24 hours prior to the event. But, still, it’s not what I was envisioning whilst training. The title’s a play on an old birthday challenge video on one of Todd Mei’s challenges where everyone kept referring to Nate Emerson as “the 27th fastest ultra runner in the United States. 27th ain’t bad. Neither is 12th. It’s only bad when you could have gone faster.

so easily could have been 13th

“I’m running better than I have in years.”

Never say things like that. Especially right before a race. It virtually assures something bad will happen. And, sure enough, a couple of days after this utterance I’m pushing my training a little beyond normal (since, ya know, I was running so well and all) and, boom, one step too many. I knew right away what I’d done but didn’t think it was too bad. I’d aggravated an old soleus injury that manifests in the Achilles. I stopped immediately, walked home, and put my calf on ice.

Timing was pretty bad as it was during my last hard session before leaving for Europe, meaning I didn’t have time to see Geoff or Mike at Elite. Where I was heading, rural France, wasn’t going to have anyone to see either so I was on my own. This seemed fine as I know the rehab protocol well and I left optimistic.

hard to complain about lack of hard training in this setting

It improved over my two week race taper but not quite fast enough. Three days prior to the race I landed in Gijon and went straight to the Team USA medical team. After some consideration they decided on a light course of therapy. It was a gamble but given it hurt too bad to be competitive, and perhaps even race, it was worth a shot. A few hours later, as the team paraded down the beach to the opening ceremonies, my Achilles felt as though it had been replaced with a burning iron rod. I listened to the festivities at a hotel bar while icing my calf, figuring that my race was probably over.

But I had two days so I kept trying. Ice, therapy, ice, rest, ice, sleep, ice. Repeat. Miraculously, the day before the race it felt ok, at least to walk. So I put on my shoes and warmed up, going through my series of warm-up drills. A okay. I then ran a little in my Hokas (huge crazy-looking shoes with heaps of padding designed for ultra runners), which went well enough. So I tried my race flats. Step one, yes! Step two, damn!

In a last-ditch effort I went back to the doc (and chiro) for a more aggressive taping job and some meds. He said he’d found heel lifts in a random store (I’d already tried the local sports store) so I bought three different styles. I also picked up some compression socks on his recommendation. I was going to try every possible option to keep my soleus together for what I hoped to be about an hour of hard effort.

In the morning the pain was still there so I added some old school cast-style taping to the new-fangled physio tape I’d been given. I then quaffed down some new meds provided to me my friend Spider, that the team doc told me were now banned. Spider assured me that with a prescription they were legal (he is a doc so I had one) and that he’d been tested at Nationals while taking them, told them he was taking them, and was fine. Plus, I had to medal in order to be tested anyway, the odds of which seemed precisely nil even if I could run pain free given:

I had the wrong bike set-up for the hilly course

there was room for one wheelset so I gambled

I hadn’t been able to do a hard effort in three weeks

I could not warm-up properly since my bike was already in transition and I wasn’t going to waste precious steps before the race

I was running in what would look like clown shoes to the other competitors

admittedly the entire outfit is clown worthy

Then I added more tape outside of my compression sock, stacked two heel lifts inside my shoes, and was ready to square off against the fastest age-group athletes in the world. As the pic shows, I’m pretty confident.

About 400 meters after the gun my “race” was over. I started slow—needing a proper warm-up—and hoped if nothing hurt I could steadily speed up throughout the race. But after a quarter mile or so it already seemed as though I was far too far behind to be competitive. And my calf hurt. A lot.

But I really wanted to finish as long as I wasn’t going to do any lasting damage. My thoughts were that if I made it onto the bike I’d be in there, which I still felt was the case until I had to do the short transition run in bare feet. By the time I’d clipped into my bike I was no longer sure I’d even finish the bike, much less the final run.

As I rode it began to feel better. There was a 5k climb on the bike course and quite a few riders passed on my way up. However, I was able to keep them in sight and at the crest of the climb, with everything seemingly intact, I got to thinking I would finish and decided to race a little bit. On the downhill and subsequent flats I passed everyone who had passed me and quite a few more. For the only time during the race I was actually flying. It felt good, until...

I had just caught some guy coming into the last transition and we started our few hundred meter transition run together. I lost at least 100 meters to him over the course of my barefoot hobble. The last run, however, started oddly fine and in the first half I caught this guy and a couple of others. Then I felt a bad twinge up my calf and spent the last mile or two running slow and worrying about the hot poker someone had rudely shoved inside my calf. I got passed by a couple of Spaniards with nary a reaction but, upon entering the stadium, when I heard a guy closing quickly I managed to summon up a kick feeble enough to fend him off, which I’m pretty sure bummed him out based on the scream he let off when he didn’t catch me by the line.

the more i look at these the more i think that he really deserved to catch me.

I had no idea what place I’d finished and I didn’t care (I only found out when Bruce posted it on Facebook). All I knew was that it wasn’t last and that I’d managed to finish the race, which made me happy. I hobbled out of find Romney, who helped me into the med tent, where I needed to spend some time before starting our actual vacation.

romney properly holidaying

Lying in the tent I asked her—and myself—why I did these races when it’s so much more fun to climb, or ride, or just run through the mountains without a thought of time or speed or placing. I didn’t have an answer and started wondering how much money I could get for my bike in Spain (someone asked to photograph my bike—just the bike) so I wouldn’t have to cart it around. But as people wandered in and out of the tent, all psyched just to be at this event, no matter how injured they were or how they finished, the vibe grew on me. And I started wondering what it would be like to come to Worlds and have a race where everything went perfectly....

Non-Race Report

After crashing hard on a ride Sunday it now seems official that my only races this year will a state championship, national championship, and world championship. I guess if you’re going to race you might as well go big. I will also add that this is not the best way to prepare for racing, especially if you’ve any interest in your results.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. At the beginning of the year my calendar was filled with preparatory races. Duathlons are scarce in my part of the world but I travel a fair amount so it didn’t seem like such a task to run into a few here and there. However, my work and race schedule’s never synched up and the closest I found myself to a duathlon on any given weekend was a nine hour drive. I’d also circled some tris, runs, and bike races to do and none of them worked out either.

Other than Duathlon Nationals, which I had to do in order to qualify for Worlds, the only race I made it to was our mountain biking state championships. This had nothing whatsoever to do with prepping for multi-sports. I only entered this race so I could qualify for nationals, visit my friend Rebecca, and ride all the trails she’s always going on about. I did manage to qualify, traveled to Ketchum for the event, which leads to this installment of the non-race report.

biketown.


The non-race report requires some back story. Cycling and triathlon teams have tradition where the best placed rider on the team writes up a race report and submits it to the team mailing list. During the end of my race-every-weekend stint as a road racer, when I missed a long stretch of races for strange, amusing, and downright lazy reasons, I submitted a “non-race report” that seemed to entertain the lads as well help them not feel bad about calling early on a race morning to make sure I’d show up.

reed on a night where we probably weren't making the races in the morning.

Most of these tales included my friend Reed. We were on the same team we lived an hour apart. This meant that it generally made sense to stay at whomever’s house was closest to the next day’s race. And this led to a series of last-minute decisions about things to do that might be more fun than riding our bikes in circles as fast as we could. These might include an epic road ride, a long climb we’d been wanting to tick off our list, a casual group ride that was supposed to be attended by cute girls, mountain biking, rock climbing, or simply a long night of drinking and socializing leading to us wanting more sleep. The first few excuses were legit but, after a while, we decided that it really was more fun to just ride our bikes on our own time than it was to race. I haven't raced much since.

who looks like a pig?

yep, biketown.


So I’m in Ketchum, a few days before Nats, and not exactly tapering. In fact I’m trying to ride as many of the classic local rides as possible before the short holiday is over. I’ve got two races on the schedule, neither of which I care too much about. The morning of the first race I head out early to pre-ride the course, and crash. Hard.

reba got this call while we were at breakfast. it's mountain biking. sometimes you crash. at least my crash didn't turn out like this.

It’s a stupid crash because it’s on a part of the course that I’d already determined to run because Rebecca told me it would be much faster. But I’m going slow and warming up and just want to see if I can clear the obstacles. I don’t preview anything and one second I’m hopping over a tree and the next I’m doing cartwheels down a mountain side. I’m shocked, because it looked rather innocuous, but if I’d bothered to glance at it beforehand I would have seen a root shooting out from the back of the tree that was like a small ramp leading off of the trail. I’m pretty bloodied but everything seems to be working so I ride the rest of the course and then head to breakfast. The next morning one hand would be too swollen to grab my brakes—and is still bothering me a month later—but that’s an aside.

A little later, Finnegan and I begin a nice long and slow warm-up for the race. Norba (now USA Cycling) races are short (usually 10-20 miles) and ridiculously fast out of the gate. They are hard to warm-up for because the first few minutes are absolutely full gas. Since I often settle in about hour three (too much enduro stuff over the last decade) I decide to warm-up for an hour and a half; riding aerobic for most of it and putting in a few hard efforts to “open the pipes,” as cyclists say. This also doubles as a workout for Finn and allows me to preview another classic trail.

At some point along this trail thoughts of the long-forgotten non-race report start to trickle into my head. The trail is great. It’s empty. We’re surrounded with quiet, just a few mountain sounds, and jillion-dollar views. I hit the end of my warm-up and sit down to have a snack. I can faintly make out the race announcer, far below, and picture the mayhem of 100 guys all redlining to be first into a dusty stretch of singletrack. I look in the other direction, where empty trail stretches forever into a mountain range I’ve yet to visit. Finnegan has never looked happier. I ask his advice. Needless to say, the non-race report is alive and well.

at this point there's only one rational decision that can be made.