JW's 2014 AmZof Long Course
This story starts ~2.5 yrs ago. I never met Chris Gleason, but his death at mile 25 of the Philly marathon hit me pretty hard. He was a successful father, husband, and very active and fast triathlete, runner, and endurance sports junkie. He was active and well respected inside EN which I had joined about a year prior to Chris’ passing. I looked at Chris and saw a lot of myself and couldn’t imagine what his family would be going through after losing him. I also thought long and hard about my own personal situation. I realized that I would rather take the risk of being super fit and healthy and racing to challenge myself to the extreme and pushing my own mental and physical limits. I strongly preferred this risk than to the much greater risk of being fat, lazy, out of shape and unhealthy (how I was just a few short years prior). Anyways, The American Zofingen duathlon was known to be Chris’ favorite race so a group from EN decided to rally to do the race in memory of him and in support of his wife and kids.
So in May, 2012 I did the newly named G. Chris Gleason (FKA F1 or Middle Distance) race. This was a run/bike/run/bike/run of 5/29/5/29/5 and from reading prior reports I knew it was bound to be a brutally hilly race. The hills on the run seemed to get steeper as the laps added up and the bike had crazy scary downhills and never-ending climbs. Chris G. Must have added his personal twist to this day’s race because the temperatures were ~15 degrees higher than normal for this time of the yr. Yup, it was HOT! My quads hurt so bad on my last lap of the run that I had to actually grab small trees on the steepest parts of the trail to help pull myself up. I was so exhausted after finishing the race in around 6.5 hours, but I was completely hooked. This race had no pomp and circumstance of “branded” races, but was simply a small group of good people out there testing their limits. I called my wife Jess on the way home from the race and said “This was a great race. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I can tell you one thing... I will NEVER EVER EVER in a million years EVER do the long course race. Those guys are insane and if I ever even consider thinking about doing that race, remind me about this conversation!”
Fast forward to May of 2013. I had lobbied more friends to join me for my now “favorite race”. And on the Saturday before the race the forecast for the next day was 65-70 degree temps and 0% chance of rain. Well. When we woke up it was cold and dreary and proceeded to get colder and rain for most of the race. Thanks Chris. Well near the end of my first bike loop I got a flat and my hands were so cold it took me over 10 mins to change it. All in all though I had a pretty successful 2013 race and took a bit of time off of my previous year, finishing just over 6 hours, even with the flat tire. My quads were still shattered at the end, but not quite as bad as the previous yr. I turned to Jess after the race and said, “Do you see why this miserable thing is my favorite race? And I will NEVER EVER do that long course... Those guys are crazy!”
The day after doing IMLP last yr I was sitting at brunch chatting with the guy who passed me on the run in the XC division the day before. He said, “One of the things that prepared me the most for this race was doing the AmZof Long Course... I knew that since I survived that, I could do anything!” hmmmmm, did somebody just flip the JW stupid switch...?
Well when the registration for AmZof 2014 opened up I went ahead and signed up for the Chris G. Distance again, but was thinking in the back of my mind about “possibly” switching to the long course. A couple of weeks later I was talking to my friend Colin Martin who was 2nd overall in the long course in 2013. He was trying to goad me into doing the long course. Little did he know, I had already decided to do it, but I thought I’d have a little fun with him. I told him that I’d do the LC if he’d run my final run loop with me after he finished winning the race. He said it was a deal and I committed to doing the LC!
May 2014. I was ready for this race. I had done a bunch of bike training and had become a much better runner... I have been eating Gluten Free for about a yr and have swithed to a fairly high fat diet. I wouldn’t say I eat “Low carb” but more like “less carb”. I do most of my workouts in a fasted state and can do 3-4 hours of hard workouts fasted in the morning with nothing but water. I have certainly become more “fat adapted” so I thought to myself “Self... Let’s do an experiment with this race and see how far I can go with minimal sugar... What’s the worst that can happen by doing something completely new on race day???”
So On the Saturday morning before the race I “invented” my own bars that I made with mostly ground up nuts, coconut and oils with some UCAN powder and a few raisins and a bit of honey. I wrapped them in rice paper and put 5 of them in each of 2 Ziplock baggies for my solid nutrition.. I also made 2 liquid bottles of UCAN and crushed up Amino Acid pills, some Energy 28 natural fluid, and a few salt sticks and 1 serving of Skratch labs split between the bottles for electrolytes. What’s the worst that could happen, right?
It was supposed to be cold, but on the morning of the race, the weather looked perfect. It would be between the mid 50’s and low 60’s and no rain, perfect. What’s wrong Chris, aren’t you still watching...? My plan wasn’t to race this thing, but simply to survive it. I love bombing down hills on my bike so I was looking forward to that. I wasn’t afraid of the climbs anymore. I simply wanted to conserve enough energy to actually be able to keep running on my last lap. The Long Course has the 5 mile run loop and the same 28-29 mile bike, but you do R-B-B-B-R-R-R. So you essentially do an extra full loop of each (or ~3 hours more at my pace).
This race is unique in so many ways, but one of my favorites is the start. The race director dressed in a kilt plays the bagpipes, makes a few short announcements and the group of 42 LC’ers stood near a rock beside the transition area. He says go and we all take off in a pack up the dirt road and down a muddy path through a field and up into the woods. I took off at a sociable pace as I fully wanted to conserve my legs for the long day. When we were about a mile into the race the single track gets steep and intersects with a bridle path. There was an orange ribbon across the path on the left and a large arrow pointing to the right. I was about mid-pack at this point and the first 20 or so people had promptly made the very well marked right turn and headed up the path. About a half a mile up this path I turned to the person next to me and said “did they change the course this yr? I swear we turned left back there last yr...” He responded that this was his first yr doing the race and he had no idea. This path continued away from the main park and went over the road on a bridge and continued further away. When I was almost 1.5 miles up this path, I saw the entire field in front of me coming back towards me telling everyone to turn around that we were going the wrong way. So I guess this first loop was now ~8 miles instead of just 5. Thanks Chris, I guess you are still watching!
I finished the rest of first run loop and got on my bike (~3 miles and ~25 mins behind schedule). I forgot to mention that on Friday night when I changed my chainrings (to my Ossymetric) and was hopelessly trying to adjust my Front Deraileur, I discovered that my 11-28 cassette was bent (or warped). I took it off, and luckily had an 11-27 in my basement which I promptly installed. What’s 1 extra tooth, right? Well, when I was about 50 meters up the first steep hill in my 28 gear (easiest gear) my chain dropped to the inside. It managed to jam past my chain catcher so it took me a few minutes to get it back past the tight chain catcher and put it back on. About 30 seconds later it dropped again and yup, behind the chain catcher once again... a few minutes later I had my chain back on and made the decision that I’d not be able to use my easiest gear. My cassette was now a 9-speed 11-25. Doh! I was on the hilliest course I have ever ridden and now I was stuck with just a 25...
In addition to the crazy long climbs, this course has the sketchiest downhills you can imagine. It has off-camber blind lefts and blind rights. The road surface is “okay” but that’s not ideal for these speeds. If you misjudge a turn, you will either find yourself in the middle of oncoming traffic or off the side of a cliff face. Oh, did I mention that there is a bit of gravel near the edges. My top speed was 55.2mph on this downhill which allowed me to collect two more downhill KOM’s on Strava. I get to add those to my “in race” KOM’s from the downhill section on the IMNYC course in 2012 and the downhill into Keene at IMLP last year. I may not be a fast climber, but I really like going downhill!
On the second lap, the hills were tough, but not brutal. The downhill was a little tricky because I could see another rider way up ahead with an SUV following not far behind (maybe it was the 3rd lap, remembering now is a bit of a blur). I knew this might be a problem because I was going way faster than them. As I got closer, the SUV passed the rider and I did the same. The problem was, he was still going too slow for me. This stupid car was touching his brakes around this gnarly tight downhill turns... What a jerk! When the road straightened out a bit he was still going slow and I could see a kid in the back seat waving to me. I did what any normal “downhill specialist” would do and crossed the double yellow line and passed him at ~50 mph. I know my wife will read this and be mad at me and I also know the purists among you will claim that I am either crazy or cheated for crossing the center line. But frankly, I didn’t feel safe immediately behind this truck riding his brakes and I knew there was a 90 degree right turn coming up at the stop sign ahead and would rather have him follow me than me follow him. C’est la vie...
The rest of the bike was mostly uneventful, but I will not two other strange things that you’re unlikely to see on any race course. On the back part of the course I was grinding away and looked down on the side of the road and saw a machete with a red handle sitting on the ground about a foot off of the side of the road. Weird... Then several miles later, there is a fast but sharp and sketchy off-camber right turn onto a bridge. As I was making this turn, there was an old shoe right on the centreline almost perfectly on my line of travel. Weird...
My nutrition worked pretty well. Before the race, all I had was 2 servings of UCAN and 2 boiled eggs. I had nothing but water beforehand and on the run. I had eaten 3 of my small homemade bars per lap (they were freakin’ delicious) and had gone through my full bottle by the end of the 2nd lap whan I got to the BSN station. I grabbed my 2nd bottle and some more water and was off. I think I had eaten too many of the bars as I could now feel a lump in my small intestine (or was it my colon... I’m not sure...). I decided that even though the bars were delicious that I was done eating solids and would depend on the water and fresh bottle of UCAN for the remainder of the bike. I learned afterwards that this was a bit of a tactical mistake. Because the bottle had been sitting stagnant for the last ~5 hours the UCAN and crushed Amino Acids all settled to the bottom and turned into a cement in the bottom of the bottle. I only discovered this that night as I was rinsing my bottles. So my nutrition for most of the 3rd lap was mostly just water with trace amounts of UCAN in it which is “not ideal” for hours ~5-7 of a ~9.5 hour race. I started to feel a bit weird 2/3 of the way through this lap and made the executive decision at 6:20 into the race to change plans and switch to sugar products. With about 20 minutes to go in my last bike lap I ate an Accel Recover bar and felt the sugar immediately course into my veins.
As I was coming into transition I saw Colin finishing his 3rd run lap and starting his final. I guess he earned his “bonus” lap as I hadn’t started running yet. I knew I had to pace myself and walked all of the big hills. Over the course of the 5 mile loop I ate a package of Honey Stinger chomps and drank a bit of water.
As I came through the Gazebo to start my 2nd loop I saw a lot of familiar and encouraging faces. My good friend Eric Bachman had agreed the previous night to run one of my laps with me. He had just finished the Chris G. Distance taking ~1.5 hours off his time from last yr so he was in great spirits. It was nice to have a familiar running partner as much of this race is actually done solo. Shockingly, I was able to drop Eric on one of the long climbs and he yelled up ahead to keep going and he would wait at the aid station for me to come back around. We ran together for the last 2 miles down the hill and the time just flew by.
As I approached the Gazebo for my final lap I had decided to take a page out of my friend Robbie Goffin’s playbook. Last yr he famously downed a shot of Jameson before his final lap to the rousing cheers and jeers of the hecklers in the Gazebo. To my chagrin, there was no hard liquor. For the first time ever, there was no Jameson at the aid station... I even asked the people standing around. Nothing. I guess water and another gu would have to suffice. True to his word, and 3 beers deep already, Colin grabbed a 4th Rolling Rock for the trail and joined me for my last lap (btw, he won the Overall long course race this yr by over 15 mins). We chatted and ran and he snapped pictures and some video.
Colin commented that he was surprised I was still running many of the uphills and frankly I was feeling better each run lap. The final couple of miles is mostly downhill and I decided to let it fly. I increased my turnover and just let it fly down the home stretch. I was honestly surprised I felt this good. Yeah my quads hurt, but I was certainly running strong.
My final time was 9:39:23. I was expecting to be in the 9:00-9:30 range, but I wasn’t quite counting on the ~2.5 bonus miles in the beginning. I truly wish you will all join me for this race next yr!
Final stats:
Run: 3:56:55 for 22.4 miles with 3,410’ of gain http://www.strava.com/activities/142895758
Bike: 5:35:14 with a NP of 212W (after fading a bit each lap) for 84.0 miles with 9,483’ of gain http://www.strava.com/activities/142875046
Comments
JW...great story and report. That does sound fun in a sick sort of way. Did you do this on a road bike?
What a great tradition to remember and honor a friend and teammate. Very cool.
Congratulations, JW. Sounds like a pretty awesome experience on a number of levels. Your report makes me want to do this race.
JW, great racking next to you and sharing another fun weekend in new paltz, looking forward to '15
@Bruce- when you come back, no more CWD...
@Jeff- tri bike for me, but you do see a lot of road bikes. The roadie would give you an advantage on the climbs, but there are actually a lot of fast sections on this course, so I think the tri bike is still better.
@all- this is such a unique race. If you're local, you should definitely do it. If you're from far away, I realize travel is difficult, especially for a non-branded "local" back woods race... But it's my favorite race venue of all the races I do.
You always make it sound so fun. Those of us who;ve been there know … it;s even better.
Interesting nutrition. Do you and Sukhi talk? Doing similar approaches?
Maybe some day for me.
See you in tremblant.
Up until a week and a half before this race, I'd been signed up to do Gran Fondo NY which is on the same day. After much goading from JW (and colin), I relented and agreed to do the CWD. This truly is a great race, and would agree with jw, that you should definitely do it. As an Amzof virgin, I felt like a bit of an outsider at first, but quickly realized that not to be the case, as it truly does take a special breed to do this race. I can honestly say that this is the anti-WTC race. I'll be back next year for the GCG, and just to insure that JW is not let down, I will be bringing all the appropriate nutritional supplements for the gazebo.
I can honestly say that I hurt more from CWD than I did from quassy this past weekend, if that speaks to the brutality of the course.