the Dilettante

Anybody ever heard of a little race called the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon? No?

Well you'd be forgiven for not knowing about this little gem, since Mt. Taylor is located in the tiny hamlet of Grants, NM (or as I came to know it from my childhood, the armpit of nowhere). Grants is an hour away from any large bodies of civilization. It's a railroad town. There's not much there except Mt. Taylor. Even so, I cannot say enough nice things about the town of Grants and their wonderful race.

I think it was about this time last year that the Quad (as it's locally known) came to my attention. I remember reading about it and distinctly thinking that anybody who would want to do that had to be crazy. Like, certifiable.

I have developed a few personal rules of racing, which I call Rackham's Rules. One of them is that I will enter a race if it fits at least one of two criteria: Good t-shirt, or interesting course. Interesting is a wide field - it could be pretty, technically difficult, challenging, whatever. The Quad easily fits both these criteria in spades. Here's an excerpt about the course from the Quad's website:

Mt. Taylor is 11,301 ft. high. The race consists of 4 parts; road bikes, running, cross country skiing, and snow shoeing. If this is your first visit, here is a description of the race:
Bike:
Racers begin with a 13 mile road race through the streets of Grants and begin the 1,800 foot climb from desert cactus to ponderosa pine.
Run:
At the end of the paved road, bikes are parked and racers must run the next five miles on gravel roads. The road generally starts out dry but usually turns to snow pack. This part of the course will climb 1,200 feet in elevation.
Cross County Ski:
Runners then turn to cross-country skis to challenge the next 1,200 foot climb of the mountaineering ski course that covers two miles. During the final yards of this course you must face the notorious "Heart Break Hill" that lies waiting for weary racers.
Snowshoe:
The remaining one mile climb on snowshoes gains 600 feet to reach the 11,301 foot summit of Mt. Taylor where a person can see for over one hundred miles on a clear day.
and then...
The race is only half over. You must reverse the four events and race the 22 miles back to the Start/Finish line.

(They are not kidding about any of this, by the way).

So anyway. The Quad. I've been entertaining thoughts about it for a couple months now. At the last minute, we entered as a mixed relay team - because this is evidently what crazy people do for fun these days. My husband agreed to the run, my friend Dave was the clear favourite for the cross country ski-ist (since we all suck at skiing, except Dave, who is really awesome at skiing), and his friend Dallas said he'd be the bike-ist. I was the snow-shoeist. I don't even own snow shoes, but there really was no place on the team for popcorn maker or mommy. And all other team-members were clearly skilled at their chosen sport. So I got to do snowshoes. (This is OK, it turns out I like snowshoeing).

We called ourselves CFC which stands for Channeling Furnace Creek. This was kind of Dave's idea, he crewed somebody who did the Furnace Creek 508 and has told me a few stories about what comes with that kind of crazy. Plus, the weather for this race is notoriously bad. I figured we'd need to channel a little furnace creek to get through the cold conditions.

For a solo effort at the Quad, the logistics are relatively simple: you start out at the bottom and the nice volunteers haul all your gear up to the transition areas on the mountain and you make your gear changes at the 3 transition areas along the way.

For teams it's a bit more complicated. We had to exchange gear the night before so that each member would have something warm and dry waiting for them at each transition, so we each got to haul each others' gear up the mountain. The buses started leaving Grants to haul people up the mountain at about 6:30 in the morning, and kept going until the soloists started at 9 (teams started an hour later). Once the race starts they close the roads to all traffic, and all persons must make their way on foot. You're basically stuck on the mountain from early in the morning until they decide to haul you down at the end of the day. That's a lot of time to get cold or hungry or both - so we had to pack accordingly.

Transport to the snowshoe transition was tricky, the buses don't go all the way to the top, since there are no roads that go that high up on the mountain. I got onto one of the early buses going up, and it stopped somewhere past the run transition. The buses could go no further due to the snowy roads. From there, we all hopped off the bus and into the backs of private pickup trucks - like laborers headed for the fields.

I half expected to be taken up the rest of the way by pack mule, but from the run-ski transition, I had to snowshoe myself a further couple of miles up the cross country course to the ski-snowshoe transition.

The weather, by the way, was completely awesome this year for a change. The Quad has a rich history of epically bad weather. Last year we were plagued with drought, though the lack of snow did not cancel the event. Instead it was a solo only bike/run affair, which I understand was brutal in its own right. The year before saw white-out conditions and 70 mph winds. This year it was positively tropical - easily the best conditions in a decade. It was sunny, warm, and no wind.

Not even at the top.

After saying goodbye to Dave at the ski-run transition I strapped my borrowed snowshoes onto my shoes (for the second time in my life ever), and made my way up hill to the ski-snowshoe transition. It was at about this time I started to think that I was in way over my head. If this was the approach to the race it was gonna be a really, really tough race...and I was walking! How do people do this thing when they're racing? By themselves? I mean, I have a team - I'm only expected to do a measly 2 miles of this beast - but the whole thing? Wow. But we had agreed to sign up for fun, not bloodsport. I relaxed into my hike and enjoyed the weather.

CFC indeed - I was drenched in sweat at the transition area, where I waited and dried out. The hike to the transition area was an energy burner. I spent my last hour waiting for my skiier and fueling up. At 10,000+ feet my heartrate was already high, I knew if I didn't get in enough fuel to make up for the hike I'd be suffering when I should be racing.

Somewhere in there, the race began for teams and Dallas did his 13 mile climb in 58:50. He later claimed he "didn't have the legs for it" but I'd hate to be against him when he's on form.

My beloved husband took the chip from him and shot up his 5 mile climb in 51:22. With a 1200 ft climb in elevation, he left it all on the course and handed his chip to Dave...

Magical Dave, who was the only team member among us who had done this before. He'd told us about it, we knew it was coming. Dave is an awesome biker, but clearly had some skill on skis - because at 31:26 he pulled the second fastest ski time of any of the teams before he handed the chip to me.

I took that chip and ran with it as best I could - which at that altitude, isn't saying much. The snowshoe leg was a gentle slope upward followed by a steep final climb of about 463 miles straight up into the sky. On the gentle slope I mostly trotted. And hiked fast. And then I got to the final climb - straight up to the top.

It was really long. And quite vertical. My glutes still hurt right now.

I don't want to talk about it.

I arrived at 24:27 and was happy to be there.

Dave had insisted that I take in the view at the top, so I brought a camera and gasped at the people at the top. I couldn't really form words. They asked how to use the camera and I must have told them three different wrong things before I spat out the right sentence. I mean, you can't tell from this picture, but I really was shaky and out of breath.

In retrospect, I look way too calm here.

I grabbed my camera and headed back down the slope. Everyone had told me that the down part of the snowshoe was the best part of the whole deal, but me and gravity are still learning to be friends. I have serious improvement on the whole "down" thing on the vertical part of the course. On the plus side, the gentle decline enabled me to actually do a bit of good trotting back, so I did make some decent time.

I thrust the chip back at Dave at the transition and said Adios. And then hiked myself back down to the ski-run transition.

It was an uneventful cool-down hike. Except for the fact that my pack burst open on the way down, and I left a trail of my gear for a couple of miles, and I didn't even know until I got to the bottom and somebody said "hey your pack is open."

Luckily, the nice people in Grants hauled my stuff down the trail for me - thank you so much, nice people.

We waited for awhile longer for a bus to take us down. I understand that the waiting part is normally the hardest part of the Quad Relay experience. The logistics combined with the above crap weather can make for a long wait and a very horrible race. Yesterday, the weather was not a factor, so we got to enjoy a lovely sunny day on the mountain.

Dave decided that we snow folk were the Dilettantes of the race - the specialists. We come, do a couple of miles of our little thing, and then go home. Those bikers and runners were doing the real graft. He's right, of course.

After a truck ride and a bus ride we arrived safe and sound back in town in the sun and dry air, and finally I could remove my sodden socks.

Since both me and my husband were doing the race, we had decided to book our People into the Quad Daycare. Yes, the City of Grants really loves this race and really wants you to participate. They even provide childcare for your People whilst you go out and sweat blood in the elements. The rate for childcare was peanuts, and the kiddos had an excellent time. I was more worried about them than about anything else during the day, but when we arrived at the bottom and found them safe and happy, they announced that this was the best vacation ever, and asked when we were coming back.

It was about then that I found out from my husband that um, by the way, we were 4th overall in the teams, and 2nd in our age group - the team faster than us were ahead by 13 seconds.

13 measly seconds.

So many errors...so many places we lost that 13 seconds. Then we started with the second guessing...the swearing...The joking...

At least a minute was lost taking that picture.

At least 2 more were lost by me hiking when I could have been trotting harder.

And another getting the damned chip off my leg and onto Dave's.

My husband says Dallas was caught completely unawares at the bike run transition when he appeared far sooner than Dallas expected, and found him in his warming up clothes, having a snack - his bike on the rack.

D'oh!

Already the planning has started. The bloodsport will really begin for the 25th annual Quad.

Dave says next year we should actually train for this thing.