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| This late-stage snowfield crossing exemplified the difficulties of the Gore-Tex Transalpine-Run. |
TEAMWORK TRUMPS INDIVIDUAL
JANUARY 2011
Cattle were a problem on Stage Two of the race.
Alaskan runners Brent Knight and Brandon Newbould tried to make
the best of the situation, but the bovine issue was difficult to ignore. There
they were, high in the Austrian Alps, running as a two-man team for a second
day in the arduous Gore-Tex Transalpine-Run, and even above treeline they were racing
by livestock. Cattle on grazing land, cattle behind
fences, and cattle on hillsides. Cattle nearly everywhere, on ranches and ranges up to nearly
6,000 feet in elevation in some of Western Europe’s most beautiful
alpine country.
It might have been pastoral, except for the associated drawbacks.
“Much of the course,” wrote Newbould in a race update to friends
and family later that day, “ran through cow pasture, which had been tramped
down into ankle-deep muddy excrement.”
On the first of their two descents that day, Newbould, who was
leading Knight, skidded to a stop into a three-line barbed wire fence that was
blocking the trail. Cut only slightly, Newbould collected himself and continued
downhill through more manure, once more leading Knight, and again encountered a
cattle fence across the trail.
This time, Knight and one member of a Russian team slid into the
fence, discovering to their misfortune that
it was electrified.
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| A cleaner and decidedly more cow-free section of the Transalpine route. |
The Russian seemed to be briefly entangled in the fence, but Newbould
said he was unable to render him any assistance because Newbould himself was
busy “wiping out in a foot of wet manure,” gashing one of his hands in the
process.
Knight and Newbould ran 20.6 miles on this day while logging a
cumulative elevation gain of 5,938 feet. The day before, during the first stage
of the race, they had run 22.5 miles and climbed 4,012 feet. The next day would
offer no relief: 29.1 miles of running and 7,388 feet of climbing.
After Stage Three, they would have five more stages to go. As
exhausted as they would feel, they would be only slightly over a third of the
way through what was scheduled to be a 189.5-mile extreme-endurance contest
that began in Ruhpolding, Germany, would cross through western Austria, and
conclude in Sexten, Italy. During all those miles of mountainous travel, they
were scheduled to endure a cumulative elevation gain of 44,291 feet.
Mutual Ambitions
The genesis of Knight and Newbould’s decision to enter this race
through Alps goes back to 2008, but the genesis of their lives as teammates ranges
another decade, back to the fall of 1998 when Knight entered Soldotna High
School as a freshman and joined Newbould, a junior, on the Stars cross country
running team.
Under Coach Mark Devenney, Newbould was flourishing as a runner.
He understood that a key to his own success was disciplined training, and he
also understood that a key to his team’s success was convincing the current crop
of underclassmen to adapt the same philosophy.
According to Knight, while Devenney was the driving influence for
the team’s overall success, Newbould was integral in holding the team together
and keeping it motivated. The following year, the SoHi Stars boys cross country
team won the borough championship, the Region III title, and the state
championship.
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| The place Knight and Newbould met. |
“We had nine guys on the team, total,” Knight said. “And we kicked
the tar out of those big Anchorage schools.”
During the cross country ski season, it was more of the same.
Under head coach Sarah Tureson, the SoHi boys were borough and Region III
champs and finished fifth in the State meet. And in the spring, the same crop
of SoHi boys, again under the direction of Devenney, finished high in the
standings at the state track and field championships.
After his graduation, Newbould continued to train locally in the
summer, and Knight and some of the others ran with him. “We ran together every
day,” Knight said. “And those are one of those things you kind of need if you
want to be a solid athlete. You need a training partner to keep you motivated
and to kick you out the door.”
As they trained together, a deeper friendship developed. “We learned to talk a lot, and when you’re on your runs, it’s a lot of time spent together. Brandon’s just one of those guys I keep in touch with on a regular basis, and he’s one of my great friends from high school.”
Their friendship led Knight—who lives and works in Anchorage while
skiing for the Alaska Pacific University development team—to visit Newbould in
2008 out in New Hampshire, where the talented trombonist works as a freelance
jazz and orchestral musician in the New England area, and coaches cross country
running and track and field at Phillips Exeter Academy.
There, Knight brought up the idea that the two of them should do a
“cool” race somewhere together. Newbould concurred, and they began to consider
options. Knight had read an article about the Gore-Tex Transalpine-Run and decided
to further investigate.
“I was reading through (the article), and I was like, ‘Holy crap!
When you think about it, looking at it on paper—man, you’re racing across the
Alps. I mean, I love trail running. I love mountain running. This sounds like a
great idea.’ The whole magnitude just doesn’t sink in,” Knight said.
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| Before Stage One began, Team Raven appeared ready to go. |
Actually, Newbould and Knight are always training. Newbould, 28,
is a 5-foot-10½, 150-pound marathon runner who hopes
to qualify this year for the next Olympic Trials marathon. Knight, 26, has won
the Government Peak Hill Climb, the Robert Spurr Memorial (Bird Ridge) Hill
Climb, and the Alyeska Mountain Run.
At six feet tall and about 175 pounds, he has also been a Top Ten
finisher in the Mount Marathon run in Seward several times. He was winning
handily in 2008, when he collapsed and passed out from dehydration only about
200 yards from the finish line. He awoke four hours later in the hospital, an
I.V. in his arm, and learned that he had lost about six liters of fluids.
Newbould and Knight hoped that their levels of fitness and their
individual strengths would play an integral role in the Transalpine-Run.
According to several sources, no American team had finished high in the
standings in the five previous incarnations of the event, but by combining
Newbould’s abilities in long-distance endurance running with Knight’s powerful
climbing abilities they hoped they could work together for success.
“I had never raced more than three days in a row before, and that
was in track or nordic ski meets, short races,” Newbould said. “This race was
totally different, uncharted territory. I knew I would need to alter my
training to prepare, and I knew that this was a chance to back up my
self-confidence as a long trail runner…. The allure was immediate—for those
reasons and because Brent is a close friend. I was interested in the
opportunity to do this with him, and confident that we could make a good team.”
According to Adventure World
Magazine, the Gore-Tex Transalpine-Run—with its near-marathon length of
running per day, its multiple stages, and its numerous difficult ascents and
descents—presents a formidable challenge to the human body. “The force exerted
on the joints, muscles and cartilage in your knees when you run down hill
represents seven or eight times your own body weight,” the magazine said.
The magazine also estimated that a 5-foot-9, 152-pound male would
burn 4,000 to 4,500 calories per stage—the equivalent, according to the
publication, of 8.8 pounds of potatoes, 10 eggs, and three-fourths of a packet
of butter. The estimated fluid loss per stage would range between 1.32 and 1.58
gallons.
Additionally, since about 60 percent of the course was slated for
hiking routes and narrow mountain trails, runners would have to be sure-footed
at the same time they were expending all that energy.
Getting Started
The sixth annual Gore-Tex Transalpine-Run was slated for Sept. 4
to Sept. 11, 2010.
Before the first stage began in the broad valley nestling Ruhpolding,
Germany, a race official checked the runners for their required gear: Each athlete
had to carry or wear a set of rain gear, a hat and gloves, and an insulating
top layer. Each team had to carry a first-aid kit, a space blanket, and a map
showing that day’s course.
Both Newbould and Knight wore Brooks Cascadia trail shoes and
low-cut athletic socks, running shorts and t-shirts (always bearing the word
Alaska, and usually containing a reference to Skinny Raven Sports, the
Anchorage store where Knight has worked for the past five years). On their backs, Team Raven wore narrow
Gregory hydration packs containing a bladder for water that added two to three
pounds of weight.
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| Chowing down on carbs on pre-race day. |
Just before the starting gun, Newbould spotted the defending
champs, a pair of United Kingdom runners: “I respected them instantly. Like us,
they came to the line in runner’s attire. One of them had nothing on his head;
both wore a basic black singlet. They were shockingly gaunt, spare bodies on
fragile-looking legs. I admit I was intimidated, but I also instantly wanted to
duel with them.”
Then the race began in earnest, and Knight and Newbould were to
learn over the course of the next eight days whether all of their experience,
all of their time learning to communicate as teammates, and all of their
willpower were enough in a race that would test them physically, mentally, and
psychologically.
Figuring Out What Works
As they iced their aching legs in the frigid alpine creek running
through town, Newbould and Knight shivered in a state of near-hypothermia and
reflected on the day’s accomplishments. On the bridge above them, locals and
tourists eyeballed the chilly pair, who sat hunched in their running shorts in
the clear, shallow water, their bare legs extended across the sandy creek
bottom, and their arms curled about their chests. Passers-by cheered them on and
paused to take their picture.
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| Icing down in a cold, cold stream after Stage One. |
The two young men had just completed the 22.5-mile first stage and
were now resting in St. Ulrich im Pillerseetal, Austria. They had traversed
that distance in three hours and 14 seconds—12 minutes behind the leaders, the
defending champs—but good enough for third place out of about 100 men’s teams,
and for a spot on the podium at that evening’s post-mealtime awards ceremony.
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| On the awards platform after Stage One. |
The majority of the 250 running teams in the Transalpine-Run stayed
each night in the gymnasium-like quarters afforded by the race committee in
each host town along the way. Paul Knight, who had originally traveled to
Europe solely to be a spectator, said he learned that he could “be of some use”
by supplying the van and by helping Knight and Newbould just after and just
before each race stage. “They discovered that it would be much more comfortable
to sleep up top in the camper van and have some privacy,” Paul said. “I
consider my role minor, but I think the boys appreciated it.”
Brent clearly considered his father’s role crucial: “Thanking my
dad to no end, he had everything laid out for us. Like, we’re across the line,
and he’s, ‘Showers are right here. The icing is right over here.’ He just kind
of guided us into each place, so that way we weren’t really thinking about how
to find things when we got there.”
Each day, which usually began in the chill of an alpine morning,
Paul accompanied Knight and Newbould to the staging area. He collected their
warm-ups and any other gear they left behind, and then loaded up the Vanagon
and used his GPS to guide him down narrow, winding mountain roads to the next
venue.
There, he located a nearby campsite, parked the vehicle and scouted for a handy stream, for the showers, and for everything else the runners might need. When they finished that stage, he met them with fresh clothes and sandals, clear directions and plenty of encouragement.
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| Exhausted on the trail during Stage One. |
And frankly, they needed the help. The Gore-Tex Transalpine-Run is
a grueling, punishing affair. During the latter portion of Stage One, Newbould
and Knight were wobbly from their final descent, and Knight was hurting because
he was inadequately hydrated and had eaten too little.
In Stage Two, Knight again had problems, this time during the
final climb—a tightness in his right quadriceps that was threatening to turn
into a cramp. He and Newbould were forced to walk and then to stop so that
Knight could massage the leg before continuing. They finished the stage 30
minutes behind the leaders and slipped to fourth overall.
Newbould, who referred to his teammate as a “large aerobic
machine,” said that it would be essential to keep him well fed the rest of the
way.
Stage Three was the longest stage (29.1 miles) and featured the
most elevation gain (7,388 feet). It also became arguably the best stage in the
race for Team Raven, propelling them back into third place and back onto
the evening podium.
“Our strategy today was two-fold,” wrote Newbould at the time.
“(1) Run a steady pace, avoiding even slight over-exertion at all costs,
regardless of position. (2) Make sure Brent eats something every 20 or 30
minutes! Brent must have knocked out a couple gallons of fluids yesterday
afternoon in preparation for today … and today he carried a full water bladder
on his back…. In addition, he ate all of my energy gels (I volunteered them),
took gels at all three aid stations, in addition to other food and drink at
each aid station. It’s like fueling a Lincoln Town Car on a road trip with that
guy.”
The Town Car purred right along. And so did Newbould, revitalized
by the terrain and his partner’s improvements: “The course felt like an Alaskan
training run in the mountains. We even had to use our hands to climb the
steepest sections of trail. Brent came to life in the roughest single track,
reverting automatically into a power-hiking rhythm that I could never match. He
was a sight to behold, monstrous legs stomping up the steep faces like pile
drivers.”
During Stage Four, the runners crossed out of Austria and into
Italy. They also raced in drizzling rain, endured occasional blasts of wind,
and, at 8,750-foot Birnlücke Pass, scaled the highest point in the race.
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| Racing through an Alpine city during Stage Four. |
Knight and Newbould once again managed to finish in third. “It was
a great stage, but we are banged up” Newbould wrote. “Both of us have acute
soreness in a couple of places, while the general soreness in our legs is
somehow becoming status quo.”
As they had done throughout the race, the two men communicated
well and used their individual abilities to boost their performance as a team.
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| Ready for some recovery time after Stage Four. |
“We’re both comfortable in the mountains,” said Knight. “He trains
for marathons, so his technical mountain training was not as good as mine,
because he’s been away from it for a few years. But his durability was better—the
day-after-day high-mileage—where my mileage running is not as much. So we kind
of had some in-between. If we both played to our strengths, we’d have a chance
to do pretty well.”
And they did do well, but it certainly was not easy.
The Going Gets Tougher
Before Stage Five, an avalanche on the course required a course adjustment,
which added 3.1 miles and nearly 1,000 feet of vertical to the stage. In
addition to this increase in difficulty, Newbould also found himself nursing a
particularly tender area high in his left quadriceps.
As the terrain took its toll on them both, Newbould felt the
tender spot becoming a muscle strain. He also feared that he was holding Knight
back—and that it would take a great effort just to finish.
Fortunately for Newbould, he was able to cross the finish line,
with Team Raven finishing fifth for the stage. Even more fortunate,
however, was the post-race “rescue” he received. A Dutch runner—a licensed
physical trainer and member of a team forced by injury to drop out of the race—
offered to massage the strain and to tape the leg for the next stage.
As a result, despite continued soreness, Newbould performed well
in Stage Six, and he and Knight were once again on the podium.
After another massage, a restless night with his legs in
compression socks, and another tape job from their Dutch friend the following
morning, Newbould, along with Knight, hit the trail out of St. Vigil, Italy, at
8 a.m.
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| Stage Seven was especially tough on Team Raven. Here, they salve their racing wounds in a public fountain. |
Stage Seven was to prove the most difficult for both men. As they
reached the first major climb, Newbould found himself falling behind. “I felt
as if I had no power in my legs,” he said. “I was a heavy, hollow shell of a
runner.”
A few minutes later, Newbould said that Knight “bent down and
picked up a stick. In my fatigue I barely took notice, but then saw that he was
offering it to me—Brent wanted to pull me up the mountain.”
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| Knight's expression is revealing as he recovers from Stage Seven. |
In the 20.7-mile, 4,163-foot final stage, Newbould once more
struggled with his wounded quad, and in the end he could not swing his left leg
in a full running motion. As a result, Team Skinny Raven finished fifth for the
day while landing comfortably in third place overall.
Aftermath
After eight days, they had finished 53 minutes behind the
second-place German team and more than two hours behind the repeat-champion runners
from the United Kingdom.
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| Emotions ran high as they crossed the final finish line in Sexten, Italy. |
Later that day, Newbould, who had earlier imagined the end of the
race as a triumphant surge to the line, wrote that “a feeling of completion”
was, instead, his dominant emotion. More recently, he said, “Afterward it was
nice to know that I could simply sleep and recover. The stress of wondering if
I could finish the race was finally gone. I felt pride in Brent and gratitude
to God for the race.”
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| Time to toss an old pair of shoes. |
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| Newbould celebrates a successful ending. |
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| One of Knight's feet after the race. |
Knight came away with a strong sense of the camaraderie among the many runners: “You don’t care where you finish so much sometimes; it’s more of an IF you finish. Even those guys who are finishing in 200th place, you’re so proud of them when they finish because they just did something huge.
“In the end, in the last stage, the guys that won are standing
there with the guys that are finishing in last place—but finishing—and sharing bottles of champagne because it’s such a huge deal to finish that race.”
Knight had blisters on his feet and later lost one of his toenails
but said that those injuries were “no big deal.” Newbould added: “Physically,
it seemed that some of my leg muscles were destroyed, but we were able to jog
again in another day or two, and things healed up well.”
Both Knight and Newbould are considering participation in another
race of this type this year, but they’ve made no decisions as to the venue.
Meanwhile, Knight just finished competing in the U.S. National
Cross Country Ski Championships in Rumford, Maine, and out in New Hampshire
where he lives with his wife and children, Newbould continues to train for
distance, hoping to qualify for the Olympic Trials marathon.
And despite the distance between Alaska and New Hampshire, Knight
and Newbould remain close—perhaps even closer because of their experience in
the Alps.
“Brandon and I accomplished something that was beyond ourselves,
beyond what we thought was accomplishable for both of us,” Knight said. “We had
to rely on each other, and that reliance on each other was what got us
through.”
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| The top three finishers included a jubilant Team Raven. |
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