Eric Sigler's Race Day Perspectives

Submitted as an e-mail report, Tuesday, August 19, 2003

(I have edited this very slightly for formatting, content, and accuracy, but is largely unchanged -- Jonathan Vigh)

Many of you have expressed interest in last Sunday’s race and I wanted to let everyone know how it went. Also, thanks to everyone for your good wishes before the race. They really helped to get me excited before the race. So anyway, last Sunday I ran the Pikes Peak marathon with several friends of mine. Turns out, it's actually a pretty decent race. (I hesitate to call it fun, because well, I'm not sure that much pain could ever be categorized as fun.) For those of you not familiar with the course here’s a brief description. The race starts out in Manitou Sprints and follows the Barr trail for 13 miles up 7800 feet to the summit of Pikes Peak (14,110). At the summit you’re supposed to turn around and run back down the trail to the start line. That’s pretty much all there is to the course, but it’s challenging enough to make for a long day.

At the start line, Dan Turk and I lined up together. We planned on making it to the top in 3 hours which was really quite optimistic. When the gun went off, Dan took off. It didn’t take too long before I realized if I tried to keep up with him there was no way I'd finish. So I backed off again, and he slowly pulled away out of sight. The first section is really pretty steep so I was walking after about the first mile. I thought about trying to run a couple times, but I was pretty much keeping up with the people running so I figured there was no point in wasting energy. I kept telling myself I’d run once the incline eased back a bit.

Well, the steep section never seemed to ease off so I just kept walking. About tree line the people around me slowing down and I started passing people. The higher I went the more people I passed. With about 1 mile to go to the summit, I was surprised to hear someone calling out my name. Looking up I realized I had caught back up to Dan. He had started to get some leg cramps which slowed him down enough so that I could catch back on.

By this point I was pretty focused and going about as hard as I could. I guess all the training on other Fourteeners this summer paid off because at that point I really felt pretty strong. I pushed through the last bit of trail and finally made it to the summit at 3:28. But in reality, I guess I wasn’t feeling all that great. I kept following what I thought was the course, but one of the officials caught me and asked me if I was headed back down. When I told him I was, he turned me around and pointed me back in the right direction for the descent down the mountain. The combination of altitude and exertion can do weird things…

Once you start down it's a totally different race. About 50 feet down from the summit, it was great to see Stephen Turk and his wife cheering me on. They had driven to the top to watch the race and hand us Camelbak refills. He told me they were yelling out my name and waving when I passed on the way up, but I never noticed them. After leaving the summit, it was actually kind of fun running for awhile. I had to be careful with each step because my calves were cramping but for the most part I was just cruising down. I was pretty tired so I couldn't push the pace as much as I had hoped, but at least I was running. About half way down with something like 6 miles to go, I started to get pretty tired. Right then, I decided that the race wasn't that much fun anymore. But there's not too much you can do about it except keep running. I thought about walking, but if I stopped to walk I was scared I wouldn’t get started again. I kept telling myself the faster you get to the finish line the faster you can stop.

Somewhere along there, Dan caught back up with me and we ran together for awhile which was nice. We came to an aid station and he stopped for some food, but I decided to keep going. I expected him to catch back up immediately but it was awhile before I saw him again. Finally he caught back up and was moving pretty fast. He had had some problems at the aid station but said that he felt much better now.

I tried to stay with him, but couldn't and he motored off towards the finish line. From that point, I pretty much ran or should I say jogged slowly at my own pace and finally the finish line came into view. I finished in 5:42, about 3 minutes behind Dan. Looking back, the race was a good experience. During the race, I actually felt better than I had expected too and after the race, I could actually walk and even managed to eat a bit in the hours after the race. On Monday after the race, I thought I might not even be sore, but today, the second day after the race, my calves are really sore. I’ve been hobbling around the office all day.

So anyway, thanks for reading. Hope my race report didn’t put you to sleep too fast. I really recommend this race if you're looking for something that will make you suffer. Don't be too scared of it though. The mountain can be conquered.

Eric Sigler

Statistics and Such

Here are some statistics that Eric sent me the day after the race:

Anyway, since most of you seem to be interested in statistics, I thought I'd share my split times and heart rate numbers. I'm not sure how my watch calculates some of the numbers since in some cases the average is higher than the max, but the numbers are interesting anyway. Just looking at the heart rate numbers you can really see where the tougher parts of the course are.

(Here are Eric's unofficial splits. The split # refers to just a set split, not mileage. The first split is 1.32 miles and the last one is 0.89 miles. All the splits in between are 1 mile. For comparison with Jonathan's and Dan's splits, click here. -- Jonathan Vigh)


Pikes Peak Marathon	Eric Sigler

		Heart Rate
Split #	Split Time	Avg	Max

1	0:13:28	176	191
2	0:14:08	192	190
3	0:15:37	188	185
4	0:13:22	185	181
5	0:11:46	183	176
6	0:12:39	177	173
7	0:11:25	174	177
8	0:17:16	174	171
9	0:17:56	175	177
10	0:21:17	173	173
11	0:18:42	173	170
12	0:19:02	170	170
13	0:21:53	168	172

Ascent	3:28:00

14	0:14:36	157	156
15	0:10:11	159	159
16	0:10:16	163	164
17	0:13:22	162	163
18	0:10:45	163	163
19	0:10:40	164	164
20	0:09:47	165	164
21	0:11:35	158	156
22	0:07:11	159	155
23	0:08:44	160	161
24	0:09:20	162	163
25	0:09:02	164	163
26	0:08:25	168	175

Descent	2:13:00

Total	05:42.3	171	196

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