OK, back to posting about a trip from 8 months ago... this is quite painful, but this is the last post!
A quick flight... a short drive... and soon we went from the heart of the jungle to the thin air of Ecuador's mountains. We rented a car from the airport and drove to El Chaupi where Fernando, a friend of Dres runs the Hostal Andes Alpes. We only had a day in the mountains with him, so we just went on a half day stroll up to the Refugio on Cotopaxi.... actually it's closed as the volcano is too active, so that's about as high as you can get these days.
Here's a soundtrack for ya. Loved going to Mars Volta shows in college...
He's got a nice view...
The next morning after a quick run we went up to Cotopaxi National Park.
second highest in Ecuador at 19,347 ft! Cotopaxi is quite active and has erupted more than 50 times since 1738.
The last eruption lasted from Aug 2015 to January 2016...
And since then Cotopaxi has been officially closed for climbing.
no trees... Lorax sad...
This made the trek quite windy.
Almost up to the refugio...
Huzzah!
Tea at the hut to warm up. I think I had every single layer on that I brought.
The Jose F Ribas Refuge was built in 1971 and updated in 2005.
Elevation of 4800 m! Almost 16,000 ft. From the jungle to 16,000 ft... quite a difference. One the draws to Ecuador it this ecological diversity.
Not sure who this was, but he was important... and came with an entourage.
Including a few of these guys.
Wild, wild, horses...
after the hike, we bid farewell to Fernando and drove back to Quito.
Returned the rental car...
And made it to the White House (Estadio Casa Blanca)! I love going to soccer games in foreign countries...
For some beer with ice...
and some Ecuadorian food tipico...
Barcelona vs LDU Quito
That's the LDU Quito fan area... lots of flares...
after the game we got some street food...
This might have been the best meal of the trip...
and soon enough we were back home with our boys....
This was a race I was looking forward in much the same way that Nikko looks forward to getting an flu shot.
A few things went wrong in my lead up to this run. One of my goals of this year was to ride a 1000+km bike ride. Initially, I was looking at the DBC's Gold Rush Randonee... then Sigman said he was going to sign up for the BC Bike Race... which was at the same time. So then I proposed that we should do SFR's Spring 1000km ride. By this time we were having record snowfall and Squaw had already announced that they would remain open on weekends until the 4th of July... so I assumed this race would get pushed back and rescheduled.
But it didn't... and yes it was a lot of running on snow, and yes there were skiers and boarders on the mountain while we ran. A bit ridiculous IMO.
Anyhoo, I wasn't that worried about the 1000k as I've done many brevets and long rides every year. But this would be my longest race, my first ultra race, and I hadn't run consistently over the last few years. So I focused much of my training leading up this race just getting time on my feet. Not necessarily long tempo runs, but just slow runs, with plenty of hills, getting used to walking. This plan was conceived by Sam, Seth and I... but Sam couldn't do it as Ollie qualified for regionals in some climbing comp (Go Ollie!). So Seth and I were planning to head up with the fam and spend the weekend up in Tahoe.
Seth told me that his fam wouldn't be making it, so he'd be going solo... and about the same time I had been told that one of my high school buddies was planning to have his bachelor party in Zephyr Cove that weekend. So... I figured I'd recover from the 1000k/50k by drinking beer, tossing bags, playing spikeball with about 20 of my buddies. Which worked out quite well...
Got there a few days early to start working on the house, and loosen up my legs which were recovering from the 1000k last weekend...
My deck took quite a beating this winter...
but at least my house didn't blow up like this one...
Warming hut still open! I remember having to walk down quite a ways to get to this one mid-season.
Finally got to Long Lake... which was a bit too cold for the day.
I was tempted... but not at 7:30 pm with 5 mi to go...
The next day, I did a bunch of work from the cabin while the deck was being worked on... and in the evening I drove into Reno to get some more supplies at Wal-mart and rode some trails with Nick.
Fun trails within minutes of downtown.
Definitely not real...
After riding, Miley and I had a beer and grabbed a Shawarma downtown... and soon I drove to the bachelor party. Some folks were already getting ready for bed (Jake...) as they were tired from playing in the beach all day. This place was rediculous... 4 stories with an elevator, a pool, hot tub, etc...
Pool with a fountain...
really, really bad tequila...
Next day...
After playing a million games of bags and spike ball... I took off so that I could get some sleep. Plus I knew I had an early morning... I met Seth at Pahatsi and we went to bed early. I slept outside on the deck, which was lovely.
Race day... we ran into Steve, Drew, and saw a few other familiar faces. We figured we might as well start in the back so that we can pace ourselves. But turns out passing folks the whole time takes a lot of energy...
Long lines of folks... I think I must've passed 150 folks.
Here's the "stairway to heaven"...
by the second lap folks were shredding the perfect spring snow. I was very, very jealous...
I finished my first lap at 3:30. I told myself that if I finished by 4 hours, I'd keep on going... as I was ready to bail and head back to the party... but had to keep on chugging along. After that lap, I waited for 10 min to see if I could find Seth... but couldn't so I kept on going. Came in at 7:14.
Splitboard Stevee and his lovely daughter...
Seth coming in for the finish. I was 20 min from leaving to be honest...
Seth had bonked, overheated, and was a bit miserable...
We went and cooled off in Cushing's pond along with the doggies...
and remote controlled boats... this one was towed behind a remote control car... seriously...
While the skiers were in their shorts, bikinis full on party at Squaw...
And after the race, I went right back to the party and played a few games of spike ball...
Here's the course...
I think this course played to my forte. There wasn't a whole lot of running, but tons of hiking up steep snowy hills and running down slushy snow melt. This was a bit like doing Shasta but missing the whole point by just running down vs skiing down... with aid stations and surrounded by masochists.
I was really planning to bail and go back to the party after one lap, but I told myself that if I did one lap in 3.5 hours and I felt ok, I'd have no reason to bail. So I finished the first lap in about 3:28... so after waiting to see if I'd see Seth for 10 min, I took off the second lap.
For this race, we just started off near the back of the pack, figuring we'd just take it easy all day... but
In the end I felt pretty good and came in at 7:14:02, which put me in 55th out of 175. Not to bad egh?
There were some famous runners doing the race, and some famous non-runners like Emily Harrington, who I ran a bit of the second lap with.
After our complementary dinner (pizza, pasta)... we went our separate ways. Seth, back to his fam... and me back to Spikeball. All in all, it turned out to be quite a fun weekend.
