Training Log Archive: 'Bent

While Bash raced CCC, I went out with Leanimal, Phatty, Weeanimal and E-dawg for a light recovery stroll near the course in Switzerland. Of course this involved something like 500m of climbing, where Wee did blazing fast intervals up then waited up for us.

Nice spectacular views, then back down, where Wee demonstrated some Killian-esque descending style. I am known to be pretty good on the descents, but at 8 years old Mari already had me close to full speed in sections to keep up, on rocky terrain no less! My post-race legs were especially impressed.

Not to be outdone, Ewen ran with me on the road bits, and he’s got some serious running form coming on too.

Later we cheered on the CCC leaders at Trient, and patted dogs.
Great to spend time with the clan, and the kids are awesome.

C • Yay, for Bash! 2

Event: OCC
 

OCC This was a tough one.

OCC 2019 from Richard Ehrlich on Vimeo.

At the start I was stuck in a very slow-moving washroom lineup (c’mon folks, more veggies and less cheese!) so I ended up starting well back.

Traffic was jammed, stop-and-go. I was feeling strong and moving up, despite taking it fairly easy. The big climbs felt easy, and legs were good. I was slugging back Infinit, and had some coke at Champex-lac.

At Trient I refilled my bladder. Given the heat I put more Infinit in for the electrolytes. I had a soft-flask of water to sip too.

Unfortunately my dreaded 6-hour stomach quit right on schedule and the wheels fell off. I couldn’t take more than a couple of sips of the Infinit, and my water flask ran dry pretty soon. We did cross some nice streams- wish I had a filter!

At Vallorcine I finally got some water, and barely kept it down. I lay down in the medic tent for a while, puked a few times, but finally I could keep down some coke and a bite of watermelon, so I headed out. I dialed it back to a brisk hike with some light downhill trotting, but still couldn’t keep anything but water down. The last major climb up to La Flegere was basically a blur of nausea. I took a break there but couldn’t keep a single sip of coke down. Ugh.

I managed to shuffle-jog back down to town, and got a burst of energy from Mari and Ewan (and Lee, Phats and Bash) cheering me on to the finish.

I was toast from running 5.5 hours on zero calories.
It was still spectacular scenery and an amazing race in many aspects.

C • Oh dear! 9

C • Video is great 8

Shake-out run with a group including Zach Miller and others from The North Face team, as well as average runners. Met up with my buddy Alan Li from UTMR who is doing TDS tomorrow.

C • Have fun! 2

Another trip to Italy for lunch, this time under the mountain. We took the bus to Courmayeur, cable car up to the aid station rifugio and had a gorgeous hike up. I ran down and did some moderate hills.





Next up, lunch at the family-owned restaurant suggested by Meg-eh back in 2013, and the best gelato ever.

C • Pics 1

Hike from Brevent. Did a little running up and down too.
See Bash’s log for pics.



Nice dinner by the river.