Here are the results: Overall
Age Group
Here's a quick write up I sent out:
Oh yeah, a lot of junk food for me on the way home. Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts, Doritos, Pop Tarts, Mountain Dew, etc. It was a perfect weather day. With the leaves changing in the Catskill Mountains country, you couldn't have asked for a more scenic day.
Ted crushed me on the first run by like 3 minutes and kept up with the big boys. There were a bunch of fit looking dudes toeing the line. I was a little nervous, thinking “what the hell did I get myself into”. I took it fairly easy (like you really could on the climbs. They were brutal) on the first run just trying to get my bearings for what I’d be in for with the last 15 miles. Darn near even split each bike loop. My NP for each loop was 255 / 255 / 253. I didn’t run fast enough to get out with the fast bikers and once I passed 5-6 guys early on in the bike, I rode in no man’s land until midway through the 3rd loop when I ended up passing another 4-5 guys and caught Ted about 1 mile from the finish. It was pretty cool. We rode back down the packed gravel road to transition together chatting about how the hell we were going to run another 3 loops. Very weird that we ended up in T2 together, again. This is becoming a routine! Ted held up a bit leaving transition to wait for me. We figured it would be a good plan to run together for motivation. I had to stop and pee before the first big climb and although Ted slowed, I couldn’t quite close the gap during the first loop. I think he was about 30 seconds up on me, but since it was a trail run, unless the runner was within 10 seconds of you, you pretty much didn’t know where any other competitors were.
After I passed through the Pavilion (a really unique aide station setup where they had a table filled with gels, Endurolytes, water, Heed, coke & Redbull. You just grabbed whatever you needed), the announcer said I was in 8th. I was like holy crap. I couldn’t believe it. I slowly caught back up to Ted on the 2nd loop and kept the motivation going. There wasn’t a lot of chatter since we both were on the verge of cracking, but it went along way having company out there to keep us both pushing forward. I was relegated to power walking the climbs. There was no way to actually run up the climbs. Every muscle from waist down was screaming mercy at any hard effort. I actually think the downhills hurt more than the climbs. The pounding was unrelenting.
I was right behind Ted when he clipped a root and went down on one of the climbs midway through the 2nd loop. Thankfully, he was uninjured. It’s at this point that Ted hit a bad spot for a few minutes and I gained a few minutes. I hit lap 3 in 7th place, what the hell? I just tried not to stop and kept power walking the steep, rocky climbs. I kept thinking Ted was going to catch up at any moment. With about 1.5 miles to go, I passed by 5 horseback riders on the trail and they said “runner back” as I approached so I wouldn’t startle the horses. Well, about 15 seconds after I pass them, I hear “runner back”. CRAP! Someone is closing on me. Maybe it’s Ted? I look back and it’s not Ted, but it is this young buck who passed me early in Lap 1, but bonked shortly after passing me and I re-passed.
I really didn’t know what I had left, but figured I’d try to give him a fight to the line. I gradually picked up the pace and tried to put in a couple of surges through various parts of the trail. I came out of the woods to a little flat section and really picked up the pace, but David (which I now know his name) crept up alongside of me. I looked at him and said, “damn, I can’t believe you’re going to make me try to sprint this last little uphill section to the line!” He said, “we can cross the line together.” We chuckled and I told him “No, one of us has to go for it”, but he didn’t move so I put in a little surge. He dropped behind me, but with about 100 yards to go he came storming by me and nipped me by 6 seconds as I very nearly stumbled up the steps to the pavilion where the finish line was. Good kid. Turns out he was 20 years old and was in first place after the first run in a smoking time of 33 minutes. After the race, we chatted and he said this was his first try at a long distance event. Boy, that kid has some potential.
After a couple of minutes, I see Ted approaching the Pavilion. He made it! But, I have to give him a little grief because he had a few more scrapes and dirt on the uniform than when I last saw him! It turns out Ted was starting to gain back some time on me during the last loop after he was able to get things back on track during his low spot. I think races where you have to dust yourself off, pull your boot straps up and get back after it are some of the most rewarding experiences. Great race, Ted! It was awesome to challenge each other along the way and who knew we’d be seeing so much of each other?
Here's Power Profile (click to enlarge):
Ted- quick bike comparison of Savageman to Amzof from powermeter
Amzof: TSS= 301 IF=.794 Normalized Power= 254 AVG= 226 VI=1.12 AVG speed=17.7mph Work=3,891kj
SM: TSS= 225 IF= .864 Normalized Power= 272 AVG: 244 VI=1.12 AVG speed= 18.6 Work= 2640kj
Interesting to look at Placid:
Placid: TSS=273 IF=.71 Normalized Power= 223 VI= 1.09 Avg speed=20.7mph Work 4,024kj
Although I think it’s hard to compare apples to apples since the distances are different (along with the 5 mile run beforehand) Amzof did produce a much higher TSS, it appears that it was only due to the extended duration. It is interesting to see the IF (intensity factor) was much higher at SM. For me, I never really felt like I went in the red zone during Amzof on any climb, very unlike SM. From a nutrition perspective, Amzof requires about the same nutrition plan as an IM based on the kj burned.
And if you doubt which is harder, here’s some interesting stats:
Peak 5 minutes
SM 361
AZ 313
Peak 10 minutes
SM 338
AZ 301
Peak 20 minutes
SM 308
AZ 284
Peak 30 minutes
SM 299
AZ 275
Peak 60 minutes
SM 287
AZ 265
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