Thanks to my faithful readers who check my blog daily. I’m sorry it’s been so long. I admit that sometimes facebook or twitter takes the place of blogging, but my blog allows me to be a little more long-winded, which we all know, I can tend to be!
I’ll pick up where I left off. Sea Otter was last Thurs-Sunday. It was the first Sea Otter I have been to where I didn’t race. Oddly enough, I didn’t miss it there. Working the booth AND racing is always a great challenge – and I’ll get to deal with that at the Whiskey 50 next weekend. Everything has a trade-off. SO instead of RACING at Sea Otter, I rode to and from the venue every day which was only 10 miles each way, but 2000′ of elevation gain and my legs were completely destroyed from the Julian Death March. Sometimes, a lack of fitness shows in recovery and it took forever to recover from that! Jeff and I did the Grand Fondo mountain bike ride, which was 22 miles and it went on a big portion of the old XC (or current amateur) course. I had raced this course in the past before they shortened the Pro XC race to 3 mile loops. It was fun to ride and encourage all the people on the ride, give them free stuff from Ergon and some of our other sponsors, and actually get to “see” the course. There were sections where in the race, my head would be down and I’d miss out on the cool trees and views.
Fun rides are fun!
Some Grand Fondo riders!
There was also some social fun going on since I didn’t have to worry about racing! We got to go to some cool restaurants and bars in Monterey!
One of my best friends from high school, Jessica, came down from San Fran (she moved there a few months ago) to hang out. That was icing on the cake!
After a 2 day and 21 hour drive back to Colorado(you can imagine how the legs feel after that!), I got home on Tuesday night and immediately dove back into my routine and headed straight to yoga and the gym. It had been 2 weeks since I had been and for good measure, I went again the next morning (which unfortunately guaranteed sore hamstrings!) Being at sea level for 2 weeks also makes things tough when coming back up to 5400′!!!! I was huffing and puffing on my bike at home which is something I’m not accustomed to! It was annoying, but also funny and it gave me a slight idea of what it’d be like to come from sea level and race in BRECKENRIDGE at 10,000′. Wow! You flatlanders are tough!
Over the next month, I’m hoping my fitness will be where it was or better than it was before I got sick. I’ve been off antibiotics for about 17 days, and it normally takes about 12 days to return to homeostasis so I should be good to go on that front. This week, I did 3 moderate days in a row with some hard efforts in preparation forTransylvania Epic in about a month(EEEK!!!!), but also trying to gain benefits for the one day events I have coming up. My lack of high end is going to show its ugly head, but I’m salvaging what I can. I’m racing short track in Fort Collins on Tuesday!
I haven’t forgotten the 4 mile fire from last year. I see its effects daily…and it is beautiful to watch the healing process.
Every time I go mountain biking, I think, “This is one of the coolest things you can do!”
It’s snowing today, so I’m glad I got out there yesterday.
Be careful when you ride singletrack. It could make you insanely happy!
I was going to race the Voodoo Fire in Pueblo, but my parents had a free weekend this weekend and decided to come up to Boulder for their annual visit. We will definitely have fun and I’m glad to see them! My next couple workouts will be short and very intense, and I leave again on Wednesday for Arizona. The Whiskey 50 is next weekend followed by our Topeak Ergon Training Camp in Sedona (and Tiesto show in ABQ on the way back!!!)
There is a lot to look forward to, a lot of fitness gains that have to be made, and SUMMER coming in a couple months! I cannot wait to get my butt on top of the biggest mountains around here, far above treeline!
Thanks for reading!
