Things are on the up and up. Literally. Last week, I had three big rides and a couple easy rides. Thanks to all who participated in the contest to win some free grips on my facebook athlete page. 3 hours Wednesday, 5 hours Saturday, 5.5 hours Sunday totaled 20,182′ of elevation gain. Ye-yeah! It actually wasn’t too bad, you just go. The wind was the real challenge. I got blown off the road over 15 times, so many times that I stopped counting.
I love riding uphill and training hard! It’s just so satisfying. The Yak Attack has tons of climbing. You might say, “It’s only January. It’s too early to train that hard.” It depends on when your first race is. Normally, I am not training like this and doing flat road base miles this time of year. The Yak Attack is 10 days long starting March 3. It’ll be here before I know it and I’ll be in a completely different world – a world I can’t even fathom. I can’t believe I’ll catch glimpses of Everest too.
My weekend looked like this:
and this
I’d throw in a a hard effort on a climb near the end of the rides to see how I felt. The stages for Yak Attack aren’t really long – for me, I’m thinking about 3 hours, but day after day builds fatigue. That’s just stage racing.
Sunday, I rode with some of the man buddies. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up after the ride I did Saturday(or ever…), but it got me out the door early. I didn’t last long as they started going full bore up Sunshine Canyon out of the saddle! After awhile, Jeff decided to drop back and do some lower RPM work and keep me company. The wind was frozen and raging at 9000′. My bottles and hair froze solid as did my hands. I got some leather Hestra bike gloves, but I think I need some alpine mountaineering gloves for the winter canyons. Fortunately, I brought a backpack full of extra layers to add to my body…and Hot Hands. How could I never have used these? I liked them so much I took them with me to Denver to a friend’s bday party after the ride on Sunday and they stayed warm allll night long. ha!
The coldest moment of the ride. Layer up!
This was actually another day, but I was so thankful I had something to cover my face.
I had to turn around during this ride because I was not visible to cars. I didn’t think it put blinky lights on my bike! This ride was this week on Tuesday.
I’ve also been doing a little bit of hiking to get ready for Thorong La. It’s so simple and fun. Urban hiking – not a lot of equipment needed. It’s relaxing.
Some hiking and nature inspired asanas. I wasn’t happy with my form with Wheel here, but I had a 10 sec timer on my camera 
My next venture is Kapotasana, but I’ll have to work shoulder and chest flexibility. It feels really good to open out like that after always being scrunched on a bike.
I love this tree. It would be cool photograph it at night.
From here, I’ll continue trying to make gains. I have a few more weeks to get ready and then the taper starts to the event. I have my travel visa, some books on Nepal, updated my shots, and am now studying on high altitude supplementation to see if there is anything I can do. Friends have recommended B12 and Chlorophyll…but I need to research that a little bit more.
Here is a crack I made at a video from the weekend rides using my Epic Action 1080HD cam. My editing skills are improving, but still have aways to go!
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Ready for another big weekend! Bring. It. ONNNN!
