Mountain Man Olympic Race Report

I always debate doing Mountain Man because it’s HARD. This would be my thirteenth one, so I knew better. Did I really want to swim in a lake at 7,000 feet? Climb the hills on the bike and the run? All with a lack of oxygen? But it the summer had been sizzling hot and miserable and the race would be a distraction in a cool place. Plus it would be a reason to train in the ninety degrees at dawn weather, which it seemed pointless otherwise.

So I swam in bath water temperature pools and lakes, sweated on the bike and run and came home to collapse in a dehydrated state of semi-heat exhaustion. This summer exceeded itself in pure crapitude. Even normal thriving trees and Saguaros were dying in the excessive heat.

I regularly do things like this to myself. Normal people think I am nuts. You rode or ran in this heat? It was uncomfortable, but bearable up to about 93 degrees, depending on the humidity.

 The hassle of driving to Flagstaff did give me pause. The day before the race, I drove up on I-17, which was more clogged than usual on a summer weekend when Phoenicians are desperately trying to escape the heat. Parts of the road were under construction, which was a perpetual endeavor. The drive took thirty minutes more than normal.

 I always hate pre-race, getting hyped up and wondering what will go wrong and what essential thing will be  forgotten. I didn’t sleep very well. The hotel is close to a busy street and it was noisy. I used the fan feature to drown out the noise, but didn’t get much rest.

I got up at 3:50 race morning, packed up my stuff, forgetting a pillow and drove in the dark to the lake. It was warmer than usual, in the 60's. One year the car windows were fogged up, a baffling condition to clear up. Another time it was foggy, which delayed the swim.

The swim was always tricky for me. To get out of breath and hyperventilate, was difficult to impossible to recover from. Usually, my chest gets tight and I have to go slow and rest a lot to avoid panic. This seems to go on forever, but I always finish. 

We had a rolling start and I seeded in the back. It started and ended at the ramp by transition. The swim went clockwise south instead of going north. The lake looked like it had more water in it than in the past, but also more weeds and was fairly calm. I didn’t panic, but found it hard not to stop and rest often, especially in the beginning. I swam by people freaking out and had to avoid a back-stroker most of the swim. It got better the second half, but not by much. I resorted to inhaling deeper to suck in more air, but it was hard to get enough oxygen. The water temperature was stated as 68 degrees and was 70 degrees by my watch. It wasn’t as warm as in years past, though not by much. It took 50 minutes, but seemed longer. It’s always a relief to get on land.

My fifteen year old bike had been giving me problems two weeks before. The hub on my expensive wheel had given out and it wasn’t shifting well. The bike held up on the hills and the chain rubbed the gears sometimes, but was much better than before it was fixed. I didn’t hear any tire squeals from brake rubbing on the downhills. I admired the wildflowers on the side of the road, though they didn’t seem as lush as other years.  Sunflowers, Indian Paint Brush, some pink flowers and scarlet penstemon dotted the roadside. Goldfinches sang in the fields of sunflowers and crows screeched in the pine trees. 

Off the bike, my legs felt clumsy and stiff. Running was painful, but I pushed myself anyway, though not fast. My body felt miserable, but my mental state was okay. The goal was to be faster than the last time here. I had given up beating myself up for not conquering this course with the hills and altitude. I argued with myself to move my feet faster.  The cracks in the road didn’t trip me.

Moving up the long, steep hill, white blossoms from the bushes growing on the hillside smelled fragrant. This was a unique experience on the run. Finally, the top of the hill and a half mile of dirt trail. The lake road at the bottom looked far away.

Running downhill was a relief, except for feet snaring road cracks. Too bad it wasn’t all like that to the finish line. A mile to go, a truck was blocking the way. Thankfully it backed away. With a tank in back, it looked like a septic tank emptier. Almost foiled by a outhouse shit collector. Weird.

The end didn’t come soon enough. Random people cheered, but not anyone that I knew. In the past, I would bemoan lack of support, but the finish line was all that I cared about. That and stopping the pain. I finished twenty minutes faster in total time than the last time in 2021.

Since only three people in my age group showed up, I was third and got one of the tree stump awards. Of course we had to nag the awards announcer because he didn’t have the results yet. Not everyone can finish in two and half hours.

As hard as this race was, it was a nice distraction. I always get sucked into the “can I really do this?” trap. Olympic races don’t seem like a given anymore. I used to worry about how fast I could go, and now lingering doubts in my abilities makes finishing is a goal in itself. It’s fun to find out that I CAN do it.