Thru Endurance We Conquer!

The loop seemed pretty straight forward when we looked at on the map. Leave the campground, cruise down 50 till County 210 and then head west(ish) until we reached the Little Cochetopa Trail. Then it was just shy of 4 miles of trail to the reach the Continental Divide, with maybe the last mile requiring some hike-a-bike. Even the trail looked pretty clear cut - stay north of the creek for halfway, little jaunt to cross the creek twice, then climb up out of the marshy area before the push to the pass. Once at the summit, fly down to the Monarch Crest Trail just before Agate Creek and then ride north to Greens Creek. From there it was all downhill until we reached 50 again to return to the campground. At least that's what it looked like on the map... Pedaling up 210 - not a bad start to the ride!  It was that simple for the 10 miles. The county road was easy pedaling despite the gradual climb. Even when it turned to a forest service road, it was still pretty smooth pedaling. A

This year was always confused - I never was able to commit to what I wanted to do. Ride or run. Run or ride. What is calling to me? I don’t think I’ve figured it out yet, even though the year is over halfway over. My original thought was that I’d take a break from the long bike races and focus on some running. The 105k race in Crested Butte looks super interesting and my kind of challenge. But then I felt like I didn’t want to give up the hard earned cycling fitness from the Breck Epic and Vapor last year. I felt more drawn to Vapor then I did for running, even as I signed up for some challenging running events. So I halfway committed to Vapor - sending in my money, but wanting to keep my name off the list until after the Pikes Peak Ultra 50k. I built out the training focused on long run and maintaining the cycling fitness after Growler. I put thoughts of Crested Butte out of my mind. Then Vapor was cancelled for reasons beyond our control. And my entire second half of the year was t