Tim Cronk Mt. Lemmon KOM
No, not that silly KOM that Lionel Sanders and Sam Long are battling for on bikes.
The other day when I completed my EPIC run from house to top of Lemmon and back, I learned I had a 4th OA on the 12.6 climb segment with a total elevation gain of 6885'. This got the wheels turning. How hard could it be, I'm already 4th , but only 17 people have recorded an attempt. My original time was 4:34 with a pace of 21:46 and the time to beat was 3:28:26 with a pace of 16:31. Ooh that meant taking 5:16 or more off of each and every mile! Simple the goal was to run an average pace faster than 16:30 per mile for the 12.6 miles while averaging 546' per mile climbing :-)
Watched the weather and picked a day. Its getting warm here in Tucson. I chose a day with a high of 85 at the bottom and low 60's up top, sunny and light winds. Starting somewhere between 7-8am with a finish between 11-12 would ensure some pretty good temps.
I did not want to have to run down so I would need a ride down. On Monday Heather and I packed up the dogs and a picnic lunch and made the drive up to the top to recon/develop a where to park strategy and show her the trail and where I planned to top out.
Thursday was the day. Got up at 5am , had coffee, left over pancakes from the carbo load dinner the night before. Walked the dogs. Heather left for the top around 6:45am (a 1hr 30min drive) and I left for Catalina State Park around 7:00am (a less than 10' drive). Short 1 mile warmup , including walk to check out the first water crossing , then up and down the first hill about 2/10 of a mile, then back to the park for about 8/10 mile running with a couple of short harder efforts. Went to the bathroom, had a gel , drank some tailwind. And texted Heather my start time of 7:45am. I was traveling light, carrying only a 1 liter bladder vest, poles in hands, small flask with 2 caffeinated gels thinned with some water, phone, and small windbreaker just in case. Plan was to run via RPE hard , never looked at HR or PWR, looked at pace splits on the 1 mile beeps. I had run the first 7 miles of this a bunch so knew my best times, and also studied the average splits of the top 3 guys ahead of me. When climbing Mt Lemmon on a bike I always start to feel the lack of oxygen starting above 6k, so I knew it would be a put the money in the bank on the lower half and then just hang on approach. And so it began. First mile is the easiest non technical but still 260' elevation gain so this would be my fastest mile. After that it gets very technical and just goes up relentlessly. Numerous water crossing but able to keep dry. At 3 miles I was 10' ahead of my best time, at 7 miles I was 25' ahead of my best time. I was in a good spot here since I had calculated I needed to be thru mile 7 in under 2hrs to have a shot and I was at 1:45. However mile 7 has 815' of climbing and finishes at 6k elevation, so the wheels were starting to come off. Mile 8 is the worst with 990' of climbing finishing at 7k, this would be my slowest mile. This is where I started hearing myself whimpering and say WTF in my head. At 8.5 miles , standing in the trail is my secret weapon, Heather had an open Mountain Dew for me, stuffed a key in my pack, gave me a kiss, and said keep going, just leave the bottle in the trail when your done and I'll pick it up. I had been doing math and told Heather it was gonna be close. I walked a bit to drink the Dew. The wheels were wobbling after that monster mile 8, the air kept getting thinner and I felt like puking. Next couple of miles 9 and 10 had some runnable sections and only 300' elevation gain per mile so was able to recover a little bit through here. Then mile 11 crushed me with another 800' gain even though it was mostly power hiked. At least the math in my head was showing I had this thing , I just had to hang on, and hang on I did. Reached the parking lot, stopped my watch, found I was bent over forward just a bit from all that climbing so took a minute to straighten all the way up. My guts hurt more than anything and was coughing a bit while trying to breathe. That was kinda funny in the Covid Days since there were a few people around. One guy offered to help me and give me water. I laughed said thanks but I'm all set, I'm just trying to kill myself, he said looks like your doing a good job of it. Download complete and woohoo STRAVA says the Crown is mine. Time 3:22:57 average pace 16:01 . After taking some gear off, drinking some water, I walked around the parking lot cooling down some more, then walked very slow down to meet Heather. She ended up with 8.5miles down 2500' then back up in under 3hrs. Lunch in the car then the long ride home.
Some interesting metrics and comparisons.
Power- 154w , IF .86 , w/kg 2.71, TSS 194
HR- 168bpm (I consider my threshold HR to be 172-175) TSS 285 , fwiw I believe this TSS to more accurately reflect the stress of the event .
Pace- 16:01 , TSS 178
GAP- 10:11 usually I agree with GAP but this effort felt much harder than 10' miles.
To put this effort into perspective . I ran the 2012 Boston Marathon on one of the hottest days every recorded for that even in a time of 3:34 with an average HR of 168bpm at the age of 49 Yesterdays effort was same HR for 3:23 at the age of 57.
There are a lot of very strong Ultra Runners in Tucson, many of which can take this CR/KOM away , but for now its mine!
Comments
@tim cronk as always Tim, very inspirational.
Love the pictures.
Another epic achievement and excellent tapering for the FT100!
@tim cronk you are so gangster!
I wish I took advantage of the "mountains" like you do when I lived in AZ. Well done!
@tim cronk, i also lived in Tucson 25 years ago (Go Wildcats!) but at the time i was not into triathlons, and my wife is from there so we go back often.. Mt Lemmon is a beast, whether you ride it or run it, it will crush you. Congratulations! i would love to retire in Tucson and enjoy the mountains like you do.
Wtg. Sounds like fun. Way to try to kill yourself.
i’ll have to look for some ones to try around Kitt peak.
Congratulations! Awesome! Great report and pictures! Looks beautiful out there.
Would not even know what Mt. Lemmon was if I had not recently read "Life's Too Short To Go So F#cking Slow"
Amazing! Thanks for sharing and really, IMO, your win is Heather. Just sayin'. xoxo
Rock star! @tim cronk and great support Heather 💕
Congratulations and way to do awesome EPIC shit.
epic people doing epic things. Love it! Great work, nice plan and execution.
I love it. See the opportunity, investigate the possibilities, calculate the necessities, and then just go out and execute, all the way thru the finish. So proud.
This sounds familiar: "Plan was to run via RPE hard , never looked at HR or PWR, looked at pace splits on the 1 mile beeps. "
And I do believe your inner feeling of soreness and fatigue are diaphragmatic.