I may have said this before, but I am not a morning person!! Like in the morning, when I’m making my oatmeal and coffee, my roommate, bless his heart, will come downstairs all cheerful and yell, “HEY!! HOW ARE YOU?!?!” and start rattling on about all kinds of things really loud and start asking me questions. Finally I said very nicely, “I don’t want to talk this much in the morning!” Shocking – me! not talking. I know. So you can imagine how it was peeling myself out of bed to head out to Winter Park this AM. Once I get over the first 15 minutes of it, I’m ok. Mr. Kerkove makes it much easier to rise and shine.
After some eggs, toast, and coffee, I was fully awake and excited for the little 5.2 mile hill climb(it is all a dirt road). It started at 9,000′ and ended up at 11,200′. We took the scenic 1.5 hour ride up to Winter Park. I have to say it, the Berthoud Pass road ALWAYS has some kind of traffic obstacle. This morning it happened to be a drunk guy pulling a boat, driving all over the road. This afternoon, it happened to be some older people on 3 wheel motor scooters going infinitely too slow. 🙂
Hey!!!! Let’s go ride bikes!
I rode about halfway up the climb to warm-up. They started the pro and expert women together, and there were some pretty strong expert women present who probably should upgrade to pro. 🙂 Basically, Eszter and I rode together for a short while and she went up the road and kept opening the gap on me to 1 minute, I rode my own pace and rode away from the field as well. I had my HR between 187-198 for the race up, up, up! About 20 min in is when I felt the best. At mile 4, Jeff was waiting to cheer for me and to tell me my split from 1st place.~ 1 minute. So instead of maintaining my pace, I tried to stand up and give ‘er. I ended up exploding up there at 10,500’ and slowed down. Woops. I still finished solidly in second place, had fun, and felt great about it! Plus, I got a KILLER work out! It BURNS!!! 🙂 After that, Jeff and I rode singletrack until the awards ceremony.
Riding some trails with Jeff right after the race. I love the riding in Winter Park.
Women’s Podium, now where are those cookies…..
Tomorrow will be riding up around 12,000′ on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park (and another early morning. aahhhh! coffee coffee coffee)
One Comment