A Tumbling Pace

Does waking up at 5 am, to race to a race to ride a mountain bike fast for 60 miles sound fun?  It does to me and that is what I did this morning to get myself into the Front Range 60, a local Denver race, the second in the Warrior Series.

I arrived at the race in plenty of time and was able to pre-register early and was ready to go well before the race (unlike my South African friend who rolled in 30 minutes before and put on music while getting ready, you know who you are, and you kicked my ass today).  I had a new Performance bib and jersey to keep me comfortable as well as some Belgium Budder, haha.

The race was at Bear Creek Park and consisted of 6 10 miles loops of very smooth single and double track with some sharp but short climbing.  I brought my one and only single speed and was registered along with 26 other racers in the men’s singlespeed division.  

A typical lap for the few of you who never ride at Bear Creek:  A mild climb to double track, race around to a medium sized sharp hill.  Climb it; scream down!  Curve left onto double track, back onto single track, fly down to another off camber climb, scream down again, scream down some technical stuff (watch out for that one little rock!), ride over to an extended climb.  Climb gradually for several minutes.  Scream down an extended single track.  You will be flying.  Climb a mountain, not a big one but you will hurt just a little.  Go down the back of the little mountain, be fast.  Fly down double track.  Play in the woods.  Climb a little hill.  Ride alongside the road.  Fly through wooded double track.  Climb a short very steep road.  Rinse and repeat 5 more times.

I started off very smooth and regular and the first 3 laps went off without much of a hitch.  I found I wasn’t losing any spots to any other single speeders but was getting passed by a ton of geared bikes.  The reason was NOT because I was on a singlespeed.  Single speed times seemed in step with regular geared times.  My time was in bottom third of single speed and regular times.  It’s not the bike, it’s the rider.

My main problem was fitness.  At the end of the third lap I was riding regularly with another single speeder who finished 25 minutes ahead of me. By the end of the 5th lap I had fallen back to the bottom third of the pack and was “seriously” thinking of not going for the sixth lap.  A 43 year old pro passed me and told me “finish strong boy” emphatically.  That lit a bit of a fire under my ass and I picked it up a bit.  I forced myself out for the sixth lap and to my surprise I found my legs again and had excellent rhythm around the final lap, probably clocking one of my best laps.  My time was 5:12.

Kudos goes to the really strong racers out there today like Sonya Looney, my friend (and tons of other people, she is awesome) and second female after flying in last night.  Also Ralph Kuhlemeier had a time of 4:21 (super solid mate) and Tim Hoppin had an amazing time of 4:06; man is a monster.  Also Lance Risi clocked a 4:15 or so, another very talented athlete, and the Nazman, fighting some serious sickness recently, had 3 solid laps with a great attitude, including cheering me on a bit.

Some good lessons learned today: first, smooth and consistent and strong makes a good single speeder, and this was exemplified by the single speeder I rode with named Jay, a man in his late 40s, early 50s, who finished 15th in the SS open and told me this after the race. Second, I learned that although I don’t give up that easily, even when I am feeling really bad, racing could be a lot more fun if I was in a lot better shape.  Third, I found some subtle position lessons with weighting my feet properly on downhills that did me very well and gave me really good form for most of screaming downhills on the course.  

Post race pic: I was really, really wasted but I don’t think you can tell, right? :)

Today I raced in my first ever mountain bike race (I have raced cyclocross 3 times so far) at the Voodoo Fire Mountain Bike race at Lake Pueblo State Park just outside of Pueblo, CO.  I went down with the Nazman, who is an experienced mountain biker and helped guide me through the weekend a bit.  I would also like to thank Sonya Looney and Collin, my boss for some helpful advice. 

The night before the race we ate at the Bingo Burger in Pueblo.  They mix green chiles into all natural beef and serve them with a heaping plate of fresh cut sweet potato fries.  Along with a Mexican lager from Durango, we enjoyed an authentic southwestern Colorado meal. 

After the meal we returned to our campsite near the race start. The race was the first time the Voodoo Fire had been run and as you can see it was beautiful setting:

Naz and I got up at 6:30 and went down to to the start to prep for the race.  We learned that the start had been pushed back 45 minutes to 8:45 and that the race course had been changed.  The race was now 3 tighter loops, at least for the full marathon, adding up to about 66 miles.  The race had to be changed because of excessive water on one part of the original course.   I took the news in stride realizing that with a long day ahead of me, and my first race, I just needed to be really flexible with whatever happenned.

We had a mass neutral start and headed up the highway for a bit to the start of the single track.  The course was about 90% single track.  I fell back to the back and as I looked at all the riders I felt the excitement of a bike race with all the helmets in view  from riders with cool bikes and lots of energy.  

The start of the single track backed things up for about 10 minutes and I regretted my cautious approach.  But soon enough we were all flying down single track and there were people itching to get around me.  I quickly found out that the biggest limiting factor of the day would not be my fitness but my technical skills on the bike.  I was riding my white Gary Fisher Rig, a 29er singlespeed.  I had a new front tire put on it with a lot more knobby grip and the bike handling felt great.  Nevertheless, with my relative lack of experience on flowy tight single track I had to let a ton of riders past.  I didn’t worry about it but focused on learning how to flow.  

Each 23 miles had 5 or 6 major sections.  There was a windy open plain start.  Then a crazy bumpy sandy section across a field.  Then about 12 miles of flowy very tight single track on a ledge above the resovoir.  Then 9 miles of a really fun mix of things including a rollercoaster like section with very steep short climbs, and creek riding back to the finish/start.  

Here were the chief events of my 7 hour, 20 minute ride (yes it’s slow).  On lap 1 I stopped to offer a guy air who was asking and then refused (jackass) and I got a flat after pulling off myself. I had to put a tube in my rear tire, my first every race tire change, emptying out my No Stan’s tubeless goo.  I was really proud of how fast I did this probably just over 5 minutes.

Event # 2: I bonked near the end of lap 1.  I started to cramp a bit because of all the power single speed moves in the final section.  Leaving for lap 2 I felt pretty bad but a little nutrition later and I was feeling great.  I finished Lap 2 really strong.

Event #3: starting Lap 3, I stopped to adjust my contact which was really blurry and I lost my contact.  I had to ride lap 3 with one contact.  It didn’t really affect much actually until the final section when it was getting a bit more dark and overcast.

Event #4: I crashed minorly on lap 3 gashing my leg.  I got up laughing

I finished and headed home.  I had about 80 to 90% fun.  The fun thing about bike racing is…you are on a bike!  You can have fun even when you are hurting because being on a bike is playing.

I finished and found Naz who had finished in 6 hours!  He is awesome.

I can’t wait to race again.

I am writing this really late but I can’t put this off any longer.  The Grand Canyon trip deserves some attention.

My friend Deanne and I went back to the GC this year, something I have been doing the last 3 years.  Deanne picked me up in Phoenix and we drove up.  We are both very chatty types and we had a blast catching up.  Deanne is my second mom, and just like my Mom is a very cool person.  She is also a pretty private woman so I won’t tell the world all the reasons why she is so cool; suffice it to say that she is a 50+ year old women who loves the outdoors, travelling around the world, and is in fantastic shape.  

A few weeks before the GC I had fractured my right arm (see the last post) so I was a tad bit worried about hiking with a pack.  I shouldn’t of been because it turns out we didn’t get a lodging spot at the bottom of the canyon.  Instead, Deanne decided that she wanted to hike down and up in one day, something she had never done, and I decided to try to run as far South Rim-North Rim-South Rim as I could.

We got a late start; here is a video of us descending down into the canyon:

The first step into the GC is magical (an overused term but one very applicable here).  You know that several hours of peaceful activity await you.  I couldn’t wait to start running and soon enough Deanne pushed me on ahead.  We agreed to meet later in the day on my way back up.  I had a good pack worth’s of food and it wasn’t hot but I had no headlamp so I wasn’t sure how far I could make it.  I descended with a very loose rhythm and soon was down at the bottom running across the bridge.  I stopped and refueled and headed up the North Rim trail, into the Box Canyon.  I felt good as soon as I got out of the sun and into the canyon and I climbed fairly comfortably well out of the canyon.

I calculated in my head what time I needed to turn around, which turned out to be about 6 miles up the North Canyon trail.  I decided to climb one more little hill and when I was taking one final step up onto a big rock, I fell hard with my hands catching my fall and sending the most unbelievable pain through my fractured right arm.  I yelled out, as the pain soared through my body for about 30 seconds, never having felt anything like that.  But it went away and I decided a bit sheepishly to turn around and head back.  I soon realized that I had sat on a cactus and had tons of little needles in my ass.  I tried to pick them out but had way too many.  So thinking that the canyon had cursed me, I headed back.  

As I ran I quickly shed the silly idea that the GC had cursed me or something and just realized that it had happened and it meant nothing, other than that the canyon has lots of needles and every step counts.  I started to run with confidence again and came back up the South Rim trail after stopping for a traditional short swim in the Colorado.  By this time I had run over 20 miles, a lot for me, and was climbing the very steep South Rim.  But I felt great and kept a nice running pace uphill.  Here is a short video of my sweaty self heading up the South Rim.

After about 1 hour of climbing and not seeing anybody else climbing back up I came across Deanne taking a break.  It was great timing and we were able to finish the final hour of climbing, hiking together.  She was pretty tired but soon enough we were back at the top of the South Rim, just in time to catch a bus back to the lodge.  We changed clothes and had a nice cheap steak dinner.

The next day we drove back to Tuscon and Deanne hosted me for 3 days straight.  I had food like this:

and every morning we got out on the amazing Tuscon trails.  I had some fantastic runs with views like this:

As usually happens every year, Arizona reinvigorated me and gave me a nice piece of peace that I have carried with me since.

10 days ago I was at the Aspen Lodge Cyclocross trying out the course the evening before the race.  The course meandered through the Lodge grounds and was pretty gnarly.  You can see great pictures of the course here.   While riding and learning this fun  course on my singlespeed 29er, I was finishing the 5th and final lap as it was getting a bit dark.  One especially tough part for me on the single-speed was a really steep and short runup that I had only cleaned once and I wanted to try it one more time.  I got some speed going but then noticed that 2 other bikers were walking it.  I tried to go around them to the left but couldn’t make it and started rolling backwards.  I fell backwards off my bike and landed THUD!!!! with all my weight on my right arm on a rock.  I got up, felt dizzy like I was going to faint and then sat down dazed for about 1 minute.  I got up with thoughts of trying it again until I could do it.  As soon as I got on my bike I realized that my right arm was shot, I couldn’t even put weight on my handlebars through it.  So I rode back with one arm and went aside too embarrassed to tell Jacob my brother or Renee that I had crashed while trying out the course.  But the pain got so bad that I had to get some Ibuprofren and tell them.  Jacob went and got an EMT who was around and he took a look and said nothing was broken.

I was hoping to ride the next day but the pain was too severe the next morning so I swallowed the bitter pill and took my name off the race list.  I couldn’t drive back to Boulder with my stick-shift Honda so Jacob drove back.  For the next 3 days the pain was really bad but I ignored it thinking it would get better soon.  After 3 days the pain was better but then I just had flatline pain for 7 days straight with no improvement.  My friend Alec said it sounded like a radial head fracture so today I went in for a XRay at the Boulder Center for Sport’s Medicine.  I do have a fracture but it’s not a quite a radial head fracture.  As this picture shows, it’s a small fracture right below the radial head.

Diagnosis looks good.  After 10 days there is no displacement of the fracture and the fracture is far enough away from the radial head to have avoided any fragmentation.  I should be ok in 6-8 weeks but the doctor said the big danger is a loss of a range of motion so PT will be necessary as well.

I am probably out for the rest of the cyclocross season.  I have already been running which I will re-focus on.  I have a race next week which I am not ready for but I am still excited to compete again.  I hope to do more back country skiing this winter and lots of snowshoeing.  The biggest impact on my fitness will be the loss of ATC workouts which I won’t be able to do for a while.   Cycling I am painfully MISSING already but I will be back soon enough.

Today I ran this small but really awesome race for the 4th time.  Adam Feerst of the Denver Trail Runners puts on this race and to me it has a special flavor I haven’t found at many other trail races, although I am probably not looking hard enough (next year I want to run more small trail races).  It’s small, it’s has a scenic and challenging course, it has a community feel as everybody is perched around a few picnic benches by the pond at the start. 

Renee and I drove out this morning and got to the race an hour early.  Renee helped Adam and the other volunteers setup for the race while I waited in the car and kept warm.  Renee is a very good volunteer, I have always seen her work from start to finish really hard.   All the runners huddled around waiting for the sun to arrive and the race to start.  At 8:30 I said goodbye to Renee and headed out onto the course with the other runners.  

I started fast but I felt fine so didn’t think it was a big deal.  At the top of the first climb I was in about 6th place.  About 55 minutes into the race I still felt solid, having endured 2 climbs and with a good downhill ahead, and on schedule for a sub 2 hour finish like last year.  I had lost about 6 or 7 places but figured that was just because I started a bit fast.  My stomach felt slightly funny but I didn’t worry about it much and kept on going.  About this time I was passed by the first female and couldn’t stay with her.  She was a former college runner at Syracuse who I met before the race and she went on to become the first female.  In the next 1/2 hour I was passed by about 3 or 4 runners who were better downhillers.   On the way down to Bootleg Bottom my stomach really started to yell at me, I felt like I was about to come apart.  The final climb up from Bootleg Bottom is steep and I slowed way down here, getting passed by 2 more females (one was Kristen Moureau who ended up having a great day and was the second top female I think) and a few other males.  I knew I was struggling.  At the top of climb, I started running and my stomach just knotted up.  I could barely keep a 10 minute pace.  I knew my race was shot if I couldn’t turn it around soon.  I tried resting for 20 seconds to see if my stomach would snap out of it but it wouldn’t.  I was forced to jog into the finish line for time of 2:08, losing another 1/2 dozen or so more places, finishing around 28th and 10 minutes slower than last year.

Perhaps I went out too fast or perhaps I just had some sort of stomach imbalance, or both.  I probably should of gone out slower because it’s almost always good racing strategy.  I did think I had good turnover, my legs felt fine, and my lungs felt fine, but a bad stomach can kill all of those things fast and in a race as short as this you don’t get a chance to come back around with a good time.

The post-race activities of soaking tired legs in the pond, awards, chili, cheering on other finishers, meeting other racers (including 2 guys who were in my cyclocross race yesterday!) cheered me up.   Renee worked the finish line until the last finisher (a 72 year old man) and then we helped Adam clean up and went home, both fairly tired.  It was another great racing day with Renee, and this race is a fine local start of fall tradition.   Soon will be another one of Adam’s fun races, the gnarly and very spectator friendly Bear Creek 10 Spot on October 30th, a great chance to try my hand, or rather legs, lungs, and stomach, at racing again.  

Today I raced in my first cyclocross race in the Boulder Cross Series at the Xilinx complex in Longmount.  I have been watching my friend Naz race for a couple of years and have always thought it looks like a blast.  The spectators crowd along the race course and get in your face as a racer, which as anybody who has raced anything knows, is exactly what you need when you are racing.  It’s a great spectator sport for Renee, who loves watching races anyway.  The races are 45 minutes and are a real power anaerobic challenge, something that would seem to fit me well.  

I raced in the Cat 4 on my singlespeed mountain bike.  I have been researching cyclocross bikes but can’t quite decide which bike to buy so thought I would try it and see some of the other bikes out there first.  There was a singlespeed division I could of raced in but I wanted to see what Cat 4 would feel like.  I pre-rode the course and quickly discovered that I felt pretty great on my 29inch tires.  They rolled over a big log obstacle well and made me very stable, of course too stable and slow for real racing, but great for my first race.   I pre-rode the course twice and was pumped to actually race because even preriding the course was really fun.  The course was very open and rolling, perfect for how I love to ride my singlespeed.

I started in the very back of the pack because I was worried about the first technical section.  It turned out that it was crowded even in the back and all I did was lose some places by starting so far back.  Next time I will push ahead from the beginning.  I was able to ride over the log and technical section the first time and all 5 times, although I had a minor crash on the 5th lap.  I quickly realized that the game was pretty simple, pick off people in front of you one by one and get over obstacles as quickly and smoothly as possible.   I loved it!  I was totally in the zone, trying to pick off guys in front of me and did so one by one.  I am not sure how many people I passed, probably over a dozen.  Nobody every passed me, I kept a very aggressive mentality the whole time, and never felt like I was bonking, although I was giving my best.  It was a whole lot like an ATC workout, just a bit shorter.  ATC is great training fitness wise for this sport.

On the road straightaway I always enjoyed passing guys on their geared bikes and on the last lap I got into a total sprint with another guy.  I almost passed him but couldn’t quite do it, opting to wait for the technical section.  I passed him but then braked on soft dirt and fell in front of him.  I apologized and then we both took off again.  I was never quite able to catch him again but I tried the whole last lap as fast I could.  

I am not sure what place I got, probably in the final 1/3. Many thanks to my photographer Renee Wright. She was patient and took all the videos. I rewarded with her with gelato (it was a hot day for cyclocross). This is going to be a fun fall if I get to do this every weekend.

Today I rode Golden Gate Canyon by myself.  Sunday I race the Golden Gate Canyon trail run.  There was a light rain today and I hesitated starting wet but it wasn’t that hot and since I am a fat fuck anyway, and hence never a problem in cool weather, I went for it.  It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon of riding but…I got my ass kicked by the technical nature of most of the trails here.  I parked at Kriley Pond and rode up, not able to clean the whole thing but most of it was ridable.  Then I rode out into Frazer Meadow and followed the running race course up the doubletrack and down to Snowshoe Hare trail.  I fell yesterday on loose double track like this so I was proud that I had no problem today.  I took the Snowshoe Hare trail past another pond and then up some very steep loose sections which I mostly had to walk.  I did ride enough of it to know that it was possible if I could keep the momentum going.  The descent down to the road from Snowshoe Hare was faily easy but a stick got caught in my wheel which cost me a face plant and a little bruise on my face.  I rode down the road a bit cautiously pondering if I have it what it takes to stick with this sport.  The sport makes me nervous but I am less scared and less rattled after falls than I thought I would be.  I think if I am patient I can become a lot better  technical rider.

I rode over to the Mountain Lion trail and cleaned the first little section and then took it down to the road.  This involved some really fast fun downhill and I felt a great flow and control over my bike.  There was one really tricky part where a giant bern comes out of nowhere on a fast downhill.  I let off the front brake, went over it and then had to semi-crash onto my side a bit later in order to stop.  I need to fight that impulse to stop on technical downhills, and just ride them through until they get better.

I jumped out on the road and road back to my car, instead of taking a 2 hour climbing trip back.  Between this trail and 2 rides on Walker Ranch, I have been challenged recently in my skills.  I am trying to slow down enough to feel my bike and learn to maintain a connection with it so I can control it, instead of just hanging on for dear life.  

I am excited about racing this course, the first trail race I ever did in CO.  Last year I ran 1:58.  It will be interesting to see if I can beat that time this year.   The last few weeks have been more mountain bike riding than running.  I hope to make things more even soon but I am in this honeymoon phase with riding right now, where I can’t resist it.

Today I did a “Super Walker”, ride up Flagstaff from my house, ride Walker Ranch and ride back up Flagstaff a bit and down back home. I did this ride last Thursday minus a complete loop around Walker Ranch because I ran out of time in the late evening. I went to Chicago the next day and dreamt of Walker Ranch the whole time I was there. So when I got back the first thing I did was try it. I took off around noon on a pretty warm day, around 88 degrees. I worried about overheating a bi taking a single speed up Flagstaff. It’s not really that hard of a climb until the mile after Realization Point. I find that section really tough and always get pretty frazzled until I hit that last parking spot with the famous spot to look at over Boulder Canyon. I usually have to stop there but I managed my effort better today despite the heat and was able to ride all the way to the top. I charged down to Walker Ranch eager to ride, but quickly found I was pretty frazzled from the climb so had to stop and eat a gel.

I rode the loop clock-wise and I quickly found that there are some big rocks on the climbs on that loop, a few well over my head on a single speed. So I walked them and then rode the loose fairly technical descent down to the creek. Some of the sections pushed my beginner skills a bit and I still felt a bit frazzled but was able to to roll over most everything by simply letting off the front brake whenever anything got too hairy. The road has some loose fun descents as well and soon as I was the creek. I was worried about being really short on water and it was really warm so I took a risk and drank out of South Boulder Creek. I have never had a problem before but I will let you all know how this goes, probably a bit stupid, but it was really hot. I carried my bike up the stairs out of the creek and then headed up for the sustained climb for the next few miles. This was more climbing on a hot day than I had expected and when it was all done I had climbed over 5500 feet. Next time I might ride it counter clockwise, it seems like more fun smooth downhill. Soon I was back to a final descent which I did well on and then the final mile climb to complete the loop. Last Thursday I was able to ride this really well but today I was so tired and beat I had to walk for a good few minutes in the middle to regain the energy to finish the climb.

Then I rode back up Flagstaff, hoping that I wouldn’t keel over with heat stroke ha, and then flew down Flagstaff to Whole Foods where I bought some lemonade. Btw, 29inch wheels make you feel really stable on fast road descents, they are really fun. Walker Ranch is a gnarly loop, in both senses of the word. I CAN wait a bit to try it again however, ha.

Thursday I headed out with my friend Kim for Telluride to run my third annual Imogene.   The tradition started about 3 years ago and I have been hooked ever since.  I meet lots of people who have run Imogene several years in a row, e.g. one couple from Flagstaff who we met on the bus had run it 19 times!   I can’t think of a good reason to ever stop making this a fall destination race.  

On the way down we stopped in Gunnison for the night and the next morning I called up my friend Eric, who introduced me to singlespeeding a few months back.  We decided to ride Hartmann Rocks with him the next day, keeping it light because of the race the next day.  Hartmann Rocks is the site of the Sage Burner and has a really large amount and variety of trails for mountain biking, among the other recreational uses of the area like climbing and hunting.  Eric also owns a Gary Fisher Rig 29er singlespeed.  It was the first time I had ever rode with another singlespeeder and I noticed Eric was an excellent climber, beating me up most of the sustained climbs.  He had tons of good tips as well.  We only rode for about 2 hours, and Eric was nice enough to take lots of breaks, knowing we wanted to save our legs.  I can’t wait to get back and ride with him some more.

We then drove to Ouray and stayed at our usual camping spot in town that the 4J RV park.  I was feeling really calm about the race.  My plan was to treat the first 1 hour of the race very lightly, because the climb would be over 2 hours, and I rarely climb that long and steep.  Most of my climbs, even on 14ers only take about 1 1/2 hours.  I didn’t want to blow up.  

Our pre-race routine was perfect and included ginger cookies that made my stomach feel especially calm.  We arrived at the finish line with 3 minutes to go and placed ourselves about 1/3 back, a very unaggressive position for me.  When the gun went off I quickly realized that being that far back in the crowd was pretty wasteful so I worked my way around everybody and placed myself more in the top 1/4.  

For the first 4 miles I looked around at others a lot and never felt like I was working that hard.  Perhaps I was going too easy.  I knew however that there was a lot of work ahead.  I hoped to run until mile 8 and then hike the final 2 miles.   The climb up to Upper Camp Bird is where I have started walking in years past and this year was no exception.  Except I felt a lot more clear minded.  I wasn’t climbing any faster but the altitude was getting to me less. I reached Upper Camp Bird and then as in years past I worked my way up the final 2 miles.  It was not nearly as painful as in years past, although I rarely felt like I could run.  I reached the pass in 2:25, the exact same time as last year, very disappointing for me to consider as I had worked so hard at climbing better.

I then realized that I was cramping on the way down and couldn’t get much of a rhythm for the first few miles.  Things got really bad about 1/3 of the way down and I wondered whether I would ever be able to get a running rhythm back.  I think this happenned last year as well.  I was descending with a lot more confidence because of the Hokas.  I finally found a nice rhythm which only got better the lower I got.  I finally ran sub 7 minute miles and finished in 3:23, 2 minutes better than last year.  

I ran this race with a lot less drama than last year and it felt a lot easier.  But I only finished 2 minutes faster.  I also didn’t climb any faster despite all the weeks spent climbing local Boulder peaks.  This really confused me but after a few days of reflection I think I have figured it out.  In order to get a much better time, I think I need to do 2 things:  

1)  Radically change my endurance fitness.  I did this once 2 years ago when I started ATC, which dropped my time by over 50 minutes last year!  I have been looking for a way to improve even more but I don’t think it is going to happen unless I lose weight.  Losing weight is not a good thing to focus on for most runners so I don’t want really want to fret about it constantly.  But I do want to eat a cleaner, lighter diet and hope to drop around 10 pounds.   Kim told me I am one of those rare types who can carry extra weight without noticing it easily.  When she said that, something snapped and I realized that I had been fooling myself by being sloppy with my diet.

2) Focus on running fast.  Races are about speed obviously.  I have approached running more as a power-endurance sport, grinding out climbs and long mountain runs, but I really need to take the speed dimension seriously.  To me this means more time running flatter and faster, and running with people faster than me.  I think this will do the trick but if it doesn’t then back to the drawing board again.

Ok, back to the rest of the weekend.  The day after Imogene has traditionally been a day to do something uniquely hard.  Last year Kim and I climbed Mt. Sneffels.  The year before we (and Naz, Ralphie, Mary and Steve) rode down and out of the steep Black Canyon of the Gunnison on a very hot day.  This year we drove to Crested Butte and rode the whole Deer Creek trail.  We started on the southeast side of the trail.  The first part was really steep and on my singlespeed and with tired legs, I wasn’t cleaning much.  As soon as we got to the top I started feeling really good and we rode miles of beautiful aspen forest and rolling single track until the end of the trail.  Actually we missed the end of the trail and rode for 1.5 more hours on cow trail before realizing our mistake.   So 5 hours of hard riding had us feeling that we had met our post Imogene challenge requirements.

The next day we rode the 401.  I cleaned the whole road, and about 90% of the switchbacks leading up to top of the trail on my singlespeed.  Then on the downhill I felt really stable and smooth and rode over most of the technical sections I had been unable to when I had rented a bike and rode this trail in July.  

I am entering a transition with trail running in my life.  For the first time I feel as passionate about another sport as I do trail running now or basketball when I was young, namely single-speed mountain biking.  So trail running has to move over to accomodate time for mountain bike riding.  I plan to try generally to run one day, bike the next.  Since I will be running less, I will concentrate on much higher quality runs, faster, longer, steeper.  I am excited about where mountain biking will lead me and want to quickly jump into racing and long adventure-like rides and races.  Most of all I feel more grateful for everything in my life that is so good and there is a lot of it.  Happy Fall everyone!

I am in Gunnison heading to Ouray for my third running of Imogene. A is anything under 3:00 to 3:10. B is 3:10-3:20. Race report next week.