Crevasse Rescue Training: The Bob Report

Last weekend, Bob headed up to Mt. Rainier for more alpine training. Here's his report (image: Mount Rainier Cam, June 1, 2008):

Crevasse training was way cool, downright chilly in fact. Michele and the kids came down with me and spent the night. We went to Northwest Trek on Saturday and saw all the wild animals there. That was fun. We went up and hiked around some at Longmire and watched the pools bubble up. I had to carry the sleeping Henry - the boy refused to nap earlier - and now he couldn't keep his eyes open to check out the deer munching about. Not as heavy as our packs will be, nor as steep of a trail, but a start.

I was better dressed this time with lightweight nylon pants that the legs zip off to make shorts. Didn't do that, too cold and not a speck of blue sky. I was concerned that I would be underdressed, not so. Our guide was in a hurry to get up to where we could practice and I was soon sweating like an overworked peasant farmer. Plenty warm, shed the hat on the way and I remembered to put the hat back on when we got up to the precipice at about 6600 feet. I still need to figure out a sweat management system to keep my glasses from fogging up and becoming useless. Even remembered to reapply sunscreen frequently and happily my head didn't fry.

Before we took the bus up to Paradise, we spent an hour practicing knots, prussic, overhand, figure eights, clove hitch, etc.. At the precipice we started out building ERNST (Equalized, Redundant, No slack, Secure, & Timely) anchoring systems, dead men buried in the snow, stakes driven in, lashed together with rope and carabineers (scratch your nose, don't pick it...).

We then broke up into teams of three with one of us falling over the edge and the other two arresting our fall and rigging up the ropes to pull us up to safety. Single pulley, Z pulley, all pretty cool stuff. A little head scratching trying to remember which end of the rope to pull on after running it through pulleys and such and not let the pour sod dangling over the edge down any more. Realized that I need some more toys and chunks of rope so that I can practice pulling furniture around the house.

The weather was not quite miserable, but it was blowing, raining, and sleeting intermittently. Visibility started out at about 100 yards on the way up and shrunk to about 10 yards on the way down which led to an interesting trip down the mountain. We dropped into a bowl a bit prematurely and had to hike back up to get a better track down to Paradise. It was eerily quiet as we scrambled along trying hard not to lose sight of the person in front of us. We all made it safely back to the bus and made it back to RMI.

Back at RMI they had ropes hanging from the rafters and we practiced climbing up the rope using prussic slings. Felt a bit like Bond, James Bond (and Jim Whittaker) when he used his shoe laces to climb. Henry was cheering me on yelling "Yes! Dad, Did it!" as I rang the bell - that made the whole thing worthwhile, that and the big high five he gave me.

...To which JohntheClimbingMentor replied:

Wow-sounds great, Bob. Rob can regale you with our Vermont version of same, dangling from the warm and dry fly grid 30 feet over the Hyde Park Opera House stage. Thought I'd lost Rob in the lobby for a minute or two, but eventually we did manage to make it out the front door....

Hyde Park Opera House:

About the Marathon

By the way, the marathon went much better than I thought (or feared) it would (maybe this bodes well for the Rainier climb?). My time was about 4:20. I never even felt any tightness in my IT Band. And while my legs did start to cramp up a bit after the dreaded "Assault on Battery" at mile 15, by slowing down a bit it never progressed to the wrenching-and-stumbling pain that it did at the Cape Cod marathon. For this I should probably thank Michael Quinn, who paced us well throughout the race, and maybe to the massive doses of "NUUN" that I ingested in the last few days before the race.

Once again, I was the only marathoner running in cutoff khaki pants with pleats.

The day's miracle, however, went to the third runner in our group, Peter Newberry, whose training program maxed out with a 12-mile run, fell behind Michael and I at about mile 6, and was pretty much left for dead, but somehow still finished the marathon about an hour after we did. We were standing around the finish area wondering about all the ambulance sirens when Lauren spotted him crossing the finish line. Amazing.

Marathon Results (Sunday 5/25)

Sunday's Vermont City Marathon starts at 8AM. For those of you curious to see if I survive, race results will be available here sometime after the race is over.

Did I Mention...

...that I have shingles? Yee haw.

Can I reiterate, also, that I'm running a marathon in 5 days?

Let's see: Shingles + Marathon = what???

Pain? Damage? Glares from strangers in the showers?

(For some reason I seem to get those glares all the time anyway.)

I hope there aren't any lasting ramifications. A month from now I'll be headed West.

Last Long Run Sunday....

Tomorrow is my last pre-marathon long run--a twenty-miler. To try to avoid too much misery, I've mapped out a relatively level route this time:

http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=211174

Total elevation gain = 939 feet
Elevation change--ups plus downs = 1880 feet

The last time I ran 20 miles (closer to my house):

Total levation gain = 2580 feet
Elevation change = 5157 feet

On the other hand, the weather will be doing its best to promote a different kind of misery:

Sunday: Rain, mainly before 2pm. Patchy fog before 2pm. High near 53. South wind around 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

UPDATE: It's still not easy to run 20 miles (and I definitely won't be breaking any personal records with this marathon), but this run went much better than the last 20-miler. Almost no walking. Almost no "IT Band" pain.

Long Run Sunday Pain Report Redux

Aside from getting ready for the Mt. Rainier climb, I'm also trying to get ready for the Vermont City Marathon at the end of May. This means that Sundays are usually set aside for long runs, like today's 18-miler. It was a lovely morning for a run, and below-freezing overnight so the dirt roads were not too sloppy. And suddenly the air is full of birdsong we haven't heard in six months, the angry chirrups of hungry robins, and the creaky-screen-door sound of red wing blackbirds--birds that winter south of here. Sure signs of spring (even if I can still climb onto the roof from the snow piles next to the house). It was great to be able to run on the roads again, after months of icy conditions, and I should have been a happy little running-sprite, relaxed and taking my time, joyous at the change of seasons.

But man, what a lousy run.

Every little hill set me to walking, and by mile 16 or 17 I was pretty much spent. Leaden, dizzy, hungry, and unable to will myself to run any more. By the time I got home (3 hrs and 43 minutes after I started), Lauren and the kids were literally heading off in the car to look for me. Am I too focused on Rainier to give running its due?

Tomorrow: Training Climb Two

Tomorrow afternoon, JohntheClimbinggMentor and I are meeting at Vermont's Smuggler's Notch (basically a pass on the shoulder of Mount Mansfield) to do some more training: crampons, ice axes, and ropes. We're approaching from opposite sides of the Notch, climbing up the closed-in-winter part of the road (highlighted in yellow).



...If I'm going to stay on track with my training for the May 25th Vermont City Marathon, I also have to run 17 miles tomorrow.

Somehow.

Glissading down a snowfield with an ice axe in my hand sounds like more fun.

Training Climb One

Okay, I wouldn't exactly call it a "climb". Vermont's distinctive Camel's Hump is more of a hike. But we DID use ice axes on the way up and even, for a short stretch, crampons. Mostly we slogged along in snowshoes. But JohnTheClimbingMentor and I appeared to have the mountain to ourselves. It was a beautiful day, with hazy views from New York to New Hampshire. And a great opportunity to learn a few things about mountaineering stuff. Thanks John. And thanks heaps to Sarah for hanging out with Fergus and Norah so I could have this opportunity. When you add it all up, our debt to Sarah and Todd is enormous. Thanks.

Long Run Sunday (AKA "Long Run Sunday Pain Report")

Well, I ran 10k on the treadmill yesterday, and my aching back isn't any more aching--and my tendency lately toward waves of queasiness has not gotten any more wavy. So I'm going to try a long run, on a route I'm calling the Snow Hill Nine-Miler (since the hardest part is an extended hill on Snow Hill Road).

The roads are covered with snow, it's 16 degrees (F) with happy little flurries coming down. It won't be fast. But it might be fun. Or it might be kind of endless. We'll see.

---

So the run is done, and here's the report:

• Even though the roads were not "icy", they were mostly covered with loose snow, which meant a little bit of slip underfoot with each push-off--kind of like running nine miles on loose sand. I didn't exactly break any speed records.
• I had to walk several times, especially on the hills, which seemed particularly daunting today. Still recovering from that virus, I suppose.
• I very quickly felt tightness in my right knee, which became more and more distracting along the route. This is most likely an ITB issue that I need to stay on top of--probably with the help of a physical therapist.
• Dismayingly, after about 7 miles my left calf started cramping up intermittently, in that sudden way that makes you stumble and almost fall. This is the sort of thing that started up around mile-20 on the only marathon I've done. I'm going to blame this on The Virus, too, but I also wonder if I should be taking some supplements or something to maintain my, um, electrolytes.
• The good news is, I did the nine miles, and I'm I'm not (yet?) hobbling around like a broken man.
  

This Looks More Like a Descent....

The punishment for Mystic-Leg-Press Hubris, apparently, is back pain. Two days after impressing myself with my own leg strength at the gym, I tweaked my back badly enough (moving a bed) that I've only been able to work out twice in the last two weeks (my house has also been plagued by a nasty, lingering, flu-like virus, which we've all had to one degree or another).

All of these things are making me cranky.

It's not like I'm running out of time to train for the Rainier climb. But I'm also training for the Vermont City Marathon (my second marathon), which is at the end of May--about a month before the climb. And I'm kind of assuming that the marathon training will do a lot to get me ready for Rainier.

But this is Week 6 of an 18-week marathon training program, and I'm supposed to be building my weekly mileage from 24 miles to 44 miles.

So far, I'm going backwards. Planned mileage in parentheses.

Week 1 actual mileage: 12 (24)
Week 2 actual mileage: 22 (25)
Week 3 actual mileage: 11 (22)
Week 4 actual mileage: 10 (29)
Week 5 actual mileage: 9 (30)
Week 6 actual mileage: 0 (26)

It makes for a sad picture:

Mystic Leg-Press Breakthrough

Just a week ago my standard leg-press weight was 170 lbs. But at the gym last night I had some sort of mystic leg-press breakthrough, and suddenly I am leg-pressing 230 lbs.

Maybe my legs are nervous about this climb too?