Stan's climb, excellent.
Stan is an old friend, former co-editor of
Ultrarunning magazine, now lives much of the year in Silverthorne, CO, elevation about 9,000'. Decent runner (though we are all getting old), also good skier, mountaineer, rock climber, also very competitive just like yours truly. One of his test loops for running, though it isn't actually a loop, just a climb, is across the valley from his house -- start at 9,000, climb to 9,600, a short drop to 9,500, and then a steady climb to 11,400, a distance overall of just shy of 3 miles.
When we made plans to visit a week ago, he immediately booked me for the climb, his best for the year so far was 61 minutes and he wanted to get under an hour. But then about 4 days ago he did 58:30, so the pressure was off, but knowing him and knowing me, it was impossible for us not to do it anyway, just to see what we could do. I figured I would end up someplace between upper 50s and mid 60s, although having spent a few days high up made me a little more optimistic.
So we were off just after 8, perfect morning for a workout, overcast, low 50s. Warmed up for a few minutes and then headed up. I let Stan lead and pulled in right behind him.
Now our history on hilly courses was that I was always a little better on the ups and he was a little bolder on the downs. His approach on the ups was, for ego reasons I assume, to run as much of the way as possible, no matter how slow he was actually going. Hence the term "Wagon steps," where the length of the stride is less than the length of the foot. And my approach has been to not hesitate to walk when things tilted up, but to try to walk as briskly as possible.
So I was curious to see if things had changed. And, maybe because one's essential character rarely changes, things had not changed much. Stan started running right from the go, up a moderately steep slope, I started walking right from the go, and we stayed pretty exactly even, but hustling pretty good. Hit the top of the first hill, he had run most of it, and he was pleased with the time. Down through the one dip, then up the rest of the way. Stan would run every time the grade moderated, I almost never ran, and we stayed about even -- he'd pick up a few yards sometimes on the running, I'd get them right back when he resumed walking.
I should add that throughout all of this I saw not a single Wagon step, not even close. And we were making what he said was good time.
Hit the last of my checkpoints (I had tried to memorize a few turns, and their elevations) at 42 minutes and a few seconds, a little over 600' to climb. Stan had said the last section took 15-16 minutes, so I figured 57 should be possible. But I wanted to do a low a number as we could. And so a couple of minutes later I shifted gears and passed him and pretty much red-lined it the rest of the way. A good effort, also good fun except for the couple hundred yards just before the last pitch where the trail leveled out and I was obligated to run to hold on to what was by then about a 40 yard lead. Up the last pitch, Stan had said to stay to the right of the rocks, the finish being on top of a rocky knoll just off the trail. So I stayed to the right and at the last moment hooked left and climbed up on the rocks, only to discover that there were two little rocky knolls further to the left, and a little higher. By the time I scrambled over there, maybe 15 seconds, Stan had almost closed the gap, but I still got him by about 5 seconds.
As we caught our breath, he asked what I had for time. 55:48, I said, very pleased. What did you get? 55:30. What? I got up here ahead of you. Now Stan is an very accomplished mathematician, and I used to be a pseudo-mathematician, and somehow we couldn't even keep time. And he was clearly quite happy claiming 55:30, I mean these watches don't make mistakes, and I clearly wasn't going to be happy with him claiming a faster time than me. So we argued a bit, well, maybe discussed it a bit, and after a while determined that his super-complicated watch with lots of extra buttons and him taking all sorts of splits, well, somewhere along the way 22 seconds had disappeared. Had we been going that fast? I was trying to remember what I had read about Einstein's stuff. Actually it just seemed that Stan had pressed a few too many buttons.
Nevertheless, still a mutual triumph. He was delighted (best time he'd done in 6 years), I was delighted. It's good to have friends.
The
route, including the round-about way back down.