{"id":465,"date":"2011-02-22T07:03:01","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T14:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talus-and-heavner.com\/blog\/?p=465"},"modified":"2025-09-22T14:59:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T14:59:37","slug":"mt-taylor-quad-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.talus-and-heavner.com\/blog\/?p=465","title":{"rendered":"Mt Taylor Quad 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mt. Taylor Quad<\/a> is great spring event that starts out at Grants, NM. The plan was originally for Max and I (Matt) to head down and give it our best. On Tues before, Max was out with a flu, and on Thurs I stayed home with a stomach virus. Luckily, mine was a < 24 hour thing, unfortunately, Max's was > 96+ hours.. Matt went down solo, and made two big mistakes–the spaghetti feed, and the all you can eat Best Western breakfast. The quad turned into a negotiation with my stomach about whether or not we’d complete the event. Complete it we did, but about two hours more slowly than I had hoped. It took 8 hours and 1 minute total.<\/p>\n

The event itself is a 13 mile road bike (1700′ elevation gain), 5 mile run (1250′ gain), 2 mile cross country ski (1200′ gain), and then 1 mile snowshoe (600′ gain) to reach the top of Mt Taylor:<\/p>\n


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That’s halfway.. Turn around, do it all again, and end up back in Grants!<\/p>\n

I’m trying to put notes here of things to remember for next year.. The night before, gear check in is quite a process. Using colored duct tape gear was marked for each transition (red was run\/ski and yellow was bike\/run). Then the gear for a single transition was all duct taped together, and upon delivery, volunteers un-taped, etc.. I had forgotten there was no ski\/snowshoe transition gear drop — I was happy to have a backpack for the snowshoes.<\/p>\n

Gear-wise, I had (and left) much more than I needed at each transition–this was a good strategy. Nice to have extra. I had gu and candy bars in every stuff sack, and had chips for salt — I had more food than I needed (but my stomach was not in a normal state for this event..). I wore long technical leggings (CW-X), shorts, a long sleeve technical shirt, and a fleece. I had fingerless wool gloves, a knit hat, and a fleece neck gator. It was fine for the bike, run, and ski. At the run\/ski transition, I picked up the snowshoes and my shell (coat, really..) because it was reported to be really windy for the snowshoe. I was very glad I did! The wind was strong and chilly. On the way down, I loved the coat for the snowshoe and the (fast!!) ski, then left it for the run. There was a hail storm that kicked up for the start of the bike ride down, and there were also some vicious cross winds. Ideally I would have had a shell or something, but I was so happy to be biking down to the finish and ready to be done, I didn’t really mind\/notice\/care.. I did have sunglasses on the whole time, but forgot sunscreen. Sunglasses were most important for eye protection from wind on the snowshoe and bike ride down. Sunscreen wasn’t a problem, but my lips got really chapped. I would take chapstick next time. I also would have put another pair of dry socks at the bike\/run (I had a pair for the uphill, but would have liked another for the down..)<\/p>\n

The gallery of bad\/random photos is at http:\/\/talus-and-heavner.com\/im\/gallery\/2011\/2011mttaylorquad\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I really had a blast (thanks to all the folks running it and volunteering!!) and I hope I’ll do it again (a little faster with a happier stomach)..<\/p>\n

There was a group doing photographs along the route. Their default purchase is a fake magazine cover, so here’s my favorite:<\/p>\n


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I will probably buy a picture from ’em (just the picture, not the fake magazine cover)– it is only about $10 for a 4″x6″ print. Bad enough.. But $50 to download a photo?!?! REALLY!?!? UG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mt. Taylor Quad is great spring event that starts out at Grants, NM. The plan was originally for Max and I (Matt) to head down and give it our best. On Tues before, Max was out with a flu, and on Thurs I stayed home with a stomach virus. Luckily, mine was a < … \n\n

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