Thru Endurance We Conquer!

Last year, Nick and I rode up to the Red Gate on Almagre , with the plan of hitting both the Radio Towers and the Almagre summit. We made it to the Radio Towers, but bailed on Almagre because of the weather moving in. So we descended Smokey City, riding out of the clouds and thunder. I figured that we would make back up there as part of the training for Vapor Trail 125. Then Vapor was cancelled and I refocused on running long distances instead of riding. But missing the summit of Almagre always came back to me whenever I looked west. The second highest mountain in the Colorado Springs Front Range and I hadn’t gotten there yet. It remained unfinished business that gnawed at me. That all changed yesterday. Almost exactly a year to the day from the ride up, I caved to peer pressure and decided to join a group of friends who were running to the summit. The route would be a little different then the ride - taking 7 Bridges and Pipeline up instead of the road. The goal was the same though....

Back to Casper Mountain for our second time at the Bear Bait 8 hour! What would a little experience on the course, more focused training and better prep lead to? We were about to find out! Like back in Colorado, winter seemed to be hanging on atop Casper Mountain. Huge drifts of snow dangled right up against the singletrack, forcing a course change at the last minute. I’m not sure I would have remembered the course from last year, so outside a few sections I didn’t even notice the changes. Because of the timing of the trip, we didn’t get a chance to pre-ride. It was going to be new to us! This year, we did have a plan in place for the race based on our times from last year. The goal was 11 laps, but it was going to be close. We both had to be riding strong and not have any issues for us to reach that goal. And I needed to have my head 100% in the cycling game -  not thinking about anything else. At least the sun was shining! Nick all bundled up as he headed out for the start, ...

Race 2 of my Transcendence challenge for my 40th trip around the sun - the reschedule Tommyknocker 12 Hour. This was the race that promised to be the most fun if you accepted the challenge and also one of the hardest. I had to make sure I got at least a 50k on "Official Distance," which meant trying to figure out how much my Garmin would be off for distance on the fly. Nothing would have been worse then having a nice 50k on my Garmin and then having the official distance be something like 30 miles. Then it all would have been for naught. So my plan was to hit 50k on my watch at the top and then head down. I anticipated the run back to the finish would be enough to buffer any Garmin weirdness. I also wanted to run every loop on the course if possible! Sunrise from the White Ranch Parking lot  The format was simple on the front - run as many miles as possible in the 12 hours. But there were some catches - instead of running on the same loops in the same order for the dur...

Finally. The weekend I’ve been both eagerly waiting for and silently dreading has arrived. A rare double header weekend that has morphed from primarily being a mountain bike focused exploration weekend to a jam packed race weekend. Originally, we were going to take advantaged of racing up at Casper for the Bear Bait 8 hour race to check out some of Wyoming’s state parks. We’ve ridden at Curt Gowdy - super fun, techy and rocky trails, but not at Glendo State Park on the way up to Casper. Given that there’s a small 24 hour race there in September, hitting those trails seemed like a good idea after the race. Camp there, ride a few days and head home. Then the mid may snowstorm hit and everything changed. With the new date for the Tommyknocker 12 being June 23rd, our planned camping trip was upended. I didn’t want to miss Tommyknocker, even with the mountain bike race being the day before. Luckily, Nick was willing to adjust things. First up - Bear Bait 8. Last year, this was a whim race...

Last year, the Garden of the Gods 10k was one of those FOMO things. Everyone was racing! I wanted to join the fun - even if it was the shorter distance. This year? The race was planned and I even made the effort to go to the Garden to get a few training runs done. After all, it's not every year you get the chance to defend a win! I have a hard time actually tapering for these kinds of things though - riding for about 2 hours in heat on Saturday with friends definitely counts as a taper, right? I know full well that I'd have a much better performance if I really tapered and came into the race rested. But at least I didn't run to the summit of Mount Rosa the Wednesday before the race this year! Anyway, after the 80s of Saturday, I was looking forward to the cold front that was supposed to blow in Saturday night. I really didn't feel like dealing with the heat for a hard race. With the expected high forecast as mid 60s, it was looking like perfect running weather - nice ...

When I was in college, working on my psychology degree I read a 1995 study on how Silver medalists were often the most disappointed person on the podium. They are doing an upwards comparison towards the person on the top step, while bronze medalist is doing a downward comparison of everyone one else. In other words, second place is looking at first, going “what if I’d done this or if that had happened?” while third place is standing on the smallest box, thinking “I beat everyone else for this last award!” Third is ecstatic to be standing on the box, getting the medal. Second is stuck in the middle - happy to have won something, but feeling so close to having won everything. I thought it was an interesting study, but never really paid much more attention as I transitioned into different phases of my life. Looking out over the sea of sage, the riders on the road and the mountains of CB in the background For some reason, standing on podium at the Original Growler brought back the id...