Thru Endurance We Conquer!

 Pro Women XC Podium - Rebecca, Sarah and Me  Another fun weekend of mountain bike racing is in the books. Nick and I headed up to Keystone for the MSC Keystone Classic last weekend. I raced both the XC on Saturday and the STXC on Sunday and had a really good time. For whatever reason, there weren't that many pro women toeing the line for either race. Rebeca G from Velo Bella took the win in the XC, with Sarah R of Yeti Beti in second and me rounding out the podium. For the STXC, Rebecca again claimed the win, with Sarah and I swapping spots. Nick also had a good weekend, taking 2nd in the XC and and 1st in the STXC. It was a great weekend with some fun trails, an awesome XC course and fun times all around.  Men's Single Speed XC podium - Mark, Nick and Doug  

Getting bad news is never fun, even when it's expected. I brought my cat, Isis to the vet on the 13th because there was a strange lump on her right flank. It didn't feel right - hard and mixed in with the muscles and ribs and right next to the spine. The vet agreed and did an aspiration sample and took some blood work. He looked at the sample, but didn't like what he was seeing. So he set the samples off to a pathologist to get a better diagnosis. That alone didn't make me happy - I've had Isis for nearly 11 years and she is really part of the family. The vet said that he would hopefully have the results of the blood work and the pathology report on Friday. So that was on my mind throughout the weekend of the Xterra Mountain Championships. Not a good way to prep for a big race. Luckily, I didn't get the results until Monday. The news wasn't good. Her white blood cell count was three times normal, indicating a severe immune response to something; her platel...

This was not the race I had hoped for. I had a good swim, but things went south on the bike and I plummeted from T1 all the way to 10th pro at the finish. The racing up the trail was intense. Shonny V won for the 3rd year with Mel finishing second. Kelly C took third in front of Sara T and Emma G rounded out the podium. With cooler temps and overcast sky on the run it was a perfect day for the race. A well deserved congrats to all the speedy age group racers - some of who put me to shame yesterday. Back to the drawing board before Xterra USA at Ogden!

Well then. The first week of July has been quite amusing with trying to get training done and avoiding the weather. Welcome to summer in the Rockies! On the 4th, I went up to the Chatfield gravel pond for a good open water swim, and some practice with my wetsuit before Beaver Creek. I was a little worried about getting caught in a thunder storm since the Monday swim time is in the afternoon. The afternoon thunder storms hadn't been too bad yet, so I was hoping to be able to sneak in my swim. When we got to the pond, the air temperature was in the mid 90s, with the water temp in the mid-low 70s. So much for practicing in my wetsuit! I might have considered wearing my wetsuit if either the air or the water temp hadn't been so hot. Into the skin suit I went. And the water was perfect - it was a great day for a swim. I did two laps of the pond, got out and was planning on running. But after bumping into another Xterra athlete, it was more fun to just talk and get the latest gossip ...

For our last ride in our weekend of adventures, we had a choice. The fun and consistent riding at Buffalo Creek or a new trail that might be fun or might not be fun... Buffalo Creek we knew would be lots of fun, but all really crowded with the holiday traffic. Since this was the weekend was for exploring, we decided on the unknown trail. So it was down to Tarryall Reservoir and a tiny county road to find the trail head. The plan was to ride this trail across to Lost Park Road, then connect with isolated non-wilderness section of the Colorado Trail. On the map, it looked like a few solid hours of riding, with some good climbs and some dirt road sections. That was on the map - and the plan looked good on the map. However, reality and maps tend to be very different in the Colorado back country. Adventure started a little early as we decided not to take the Turtle up the road leading to the trail head. The sign about no passenger cars seemed to indicate that we might be safer riding from...

Okay, so this was technically day three, but... Nick went exploring and I did a long run on Thursday, so it really didn't count. Friday was long ride day. The plan was to head north on the CT and top out at Georgia Pass. Again, this was a new trail for me and Nick warned me it would be a long day with lots of climbing. Because we were riding long and heading up into the higher altitudes, we were both wearing our back packs. I had rain coat, arm warmers, knee warmers, spare shirt and wind vest, as well as hat and warmer gloves. Nick had the same, but also some first aid stuff, spare parts and more water. We were hoping not to need any of it, so we left early under a cloudless azure sky. (Nick had left late for his ride on Thursday and was rained, hailed and sleeted on most of the day.) Right out of camp, the climbing began. The trail was wide and filled with roots and Nick told me about the mini waterfalls he'd seen on that section of trail during his CT trip last year. It ha...

Finally, a weekend with no races and nothing else going on. It might have been a holiday weekend, but Nick and I made our plans to avoid most of the holiday traffic. We loaded up the Turtle and hit the road with one agenda - find a cool place to camp and some trails to ride. Well, we made good on one half (the trails were really fun, but the camping was so-so.) We decided to camp at the Kenosha campground since there was good trail access and some new trails. Nick really wanted to ride the chunk of CT that headed south towards the Lost Creek Wilderness. It was also a good place to set up a base camp for a few days of fun. Nick likes to explore new ways to get from point a to point b. This time, we decided on a little used dirt road - County 15 - as the cut between 24 and 285. It was not the nicest road we've driven on - really rough and washboarded and hard. Imagine our surprise when we see a cyclist on a mountain bike all loaded down. And by loaded down, I mean bar bag, seat bag...