Today we(Jeff and I) stayed local and met up with Nick Martin, Dejay Birtch, and Jake Kirkland for some more riding up in Nederland. I got to deflower my brand spanking new Rotwild Hardtail.

We headed up to the Eldora Ski Area on the road.

Fighting with all my might to keep up with the guys up the road climb to Eldora

Up, up we go.

We started with the trails up at Eldora and made our way down to the West Mag and trails behind the high school.

I instantly noticed that when I would put power to the pedals, the bike would lurch forward… sort of like touching the gas on a high performance car with your toe.  It was a delight.

Thanks to Mr. Kerkove for taking all the photos! I was too busy with my head down!

The trails around Eldora can be respectably rocky in parts, so it was a good test of my hardtail skills.  I have only ridden one for about 7 months before.  It is definitely bumpier, but also lighter and stiffer.  I am debating riding this bike at the Marathon Nationals next weekend.  It’s looking like a go.

Craziest idea of the day:

We first saw this guy riding down a rocky, loose dirt road… with a small child attached to the front of the bike.  None of us said a word… our mouths were agape.  It’s one thing to risk it on the paved roads (which also makes me nervous), but the consequences of crashing to the child are… insane.  It’s called crashing.  Excuse me sir, have you ever heard of “endo?”  Oh well, to each his own.

Great day in the saddle. It was awesome to ride with the guys. I am pretty tired after the weekend, but felt good and got some great work outs in.  Now it’s time for work once again, and time to start tapering.

The time is coming. Marathon National Championships is coming one week from today. It is touted at 50 miles and 10,800′ of climbing… although I think it’s more like 9000′ total.   All the big dogs come to this one, so competition will be fierce (like david and goliath), so I need all the possible advantages I can get. The part of the loop last weekend covered in snow is now clear for riding. Lucky me! Today I had a whole posse to ride with. Rebecca Tomaszewski (WICKI!), Deejay Birch (both are on Ergon Niner), SS Jake Kirkpatrick, old guy hammer John (I swear, everyone I have met from IA is tough), Mr. Kerkove, Carney 1, and Carney 2 were in in tow.

Last night’s dinner fueled me well. mmm sooo good, especially after living on peanut butter and oatmeal all week! We went to 14th St Grill with Rebecca and Deejay in Boulder.

Riding with my homies.

Rebecca and I.  She’s my buddy!!!

Our group split up a bit during the ride due to different ambitions for the day.  I found myself riding with Jake, Deejay, and Carneys for most of the day.  I was trying to make them work a bit.  Key word here is “trying.”  I was probably the only one who was actually working though. ha!

Today was a perfect day with 70F temps, clear, sunny skies, the smell of fresh pine and mountain earth, and the best company I could ask for.

The snow may have been gone, but there were a bunch of huge fallen trees. Everyone through the hole!

I love Wicki!

Wet Trail!

No ornaments on those trees.

The full lap wasn’t as bad as I remembered, but at race pace it will be!

Tomorrow, it’ll be the first day I have ridden up at Nederland all year… and the first time my brand new hard tail will ever have been ridden.  YEAH!

Wow, I feel so disconnected this week! Now it’s early Saturday morning, so I finally have time to blog. Jeff, myself, Rebecca, Deejay, Fuzzy (Niner crew), and one of Jeff’s friends from Iowa are riding up in Breck for the day. Jeff and I will be coming back to Boulder, and one of my lifelong friends FINALLY came up this way from ABQ, so I’ll get to see her tonight.

Yesterday, I had time for a quick 1 hour spin. I was going to make it longer, but the lightning bolts, forming funnel cloud, and rain deterred me from that. It was kind of funny and ironic that the one hour I had to ride was the one hour the weather got crazy yesterday! After work, it was sunny and warm. Good mental training I guess!

I left my coffee at home in a mad rush to get to work at 730 AM. Son of a!, but it was not wasted. Add ice and it becomes my recovery ride drink.

I started on one side of town, and you could see the mass of clouds coming, so I went the other way thinking i was safe!

but then clouds came at me that way too. You can see a lightning bolt on the left side of the photo.

Looking back to where I just came from. 3 tornadoes touched down on the eastern plains as a result of these clouds!

and then I knew it was only a matter of time….

And then the inevitable… I didn’t really care. It was nice to just be on my bike and dissolve the stress.

I also finally got my hardtail!!! It’s ALMOST done. Needs a chain, Topeak bottle cages, and some grips. I will be taking it out for the first time tomorrow.

Time to head to Breck! I hope that the upper part of the course is clear this weekend… but fun lies ahead no matter what. I love mountain biking in the high country!

Sorry for the lack of updates this week! Pretty much all I have been doing is (in cyclist slang), “nailing my head to my stem” at work. I did manage to make it to the Boulder Short Track last night, but only got a 20 minute warm up which definitely showed in the race when my legs loaded up after only a few minutes and I couldn’t really go hard. I ended up in 5th. Full report to come later tonight, but for the sake of entertainment, here are some photos:

Short track socks of the week.

Lining up.

Race Start. I got the hole shot!

See the video here. Make sure you click view in HQ!

I was heckled for smiling too much, but when your legs are dead, you still gotta have fun!

Everyone coming for me once I hit my limit.

Still smiling…

1 more lap of shame!

Thanks sooooo much to the people taking my photos (Cyntha, Junko, Sinjin) and everyone cheering for me. Probably no short track for me next week….

Sometimes supporting “the corporate man,” i.e., Starbucks, cannot be helped. I have been in situations where it’s the only coffee I can find, I want something consistent, or I simply don’t know any better. That said, 90% of the time, I like to support the little guy… which is often better quality and more unique. I use my French Press on a daily basis and always enjoy that wafting aroma of fresh coffee. I also like to try different blends and coffee roasters from all over the place. Copper Door Coffee is something that came along by chance – one of those great finds that just falls into your lap. So as you know, I race mountain bikes, which has introduced me to some great people. Sinjin Eberle is one of them, who owns Copper Door and has enlightened me to his quality roasting.

I’m almost out of the Brewing Market Europa Blend I got last week, so I planned ahead and ordered two different kinds of beans. (Brewing Market is a local coffee shop in Boulder). I also like Allegro beans, particularly the Vail Blend.

Click photo to check out the selection.

I really like dark, full-bodies roasts. Kind of like my wine…. and beer…. something with character that wakes up my mouth and says, “Wow…..” That can be taken to the gutter quickly, so I will not continue further with that.

Sooo… on the way, I have coming (per Sinjin’s suggestions) some South American beans. The Columbian and the Brazilian. That is pure motivation to hop out of bed in the AM, even if I am trashed from a 100 mile race! Can’t wait!!

My last day in Breck was greeted with morning sunshine. I got to do the full third lap of the Breck 100, re-rode some of the Firecracker course, and a few extra miles from getting lost. I felt the best today, which was funny b/c I had 7.5 hours of riding at high altitude in my legs from the last 2 days. I got to do some hard tempo, about 50 miles about about 6000′ of climbing. Marathon Nationals will be 50 miles, and almost 11,000′ of elevation gain. Ouch!!

I had a great day, and will simply sum the day up in photos.

Valleys surrounded by purple mountain majesties

Views from the Gold Dust Trail

Cool, clear water….

This will be a little harder than it looks at mile 80 something of the Breck 100!

and this will be a hike a bike

The singletrack came to an opening and I almost missed this wide open view.

Breathing in… taking it allll in….storing these moments so I can go to my happy place when I’m desk jockeying during the week.

View from Como.

This woman was running up the rode, having her mule carry all her exercise stuff, and she kept whipping him b/c he didn’t want to go uphill. I know how he feels sometimes. hehe  Mule: “&#%*!!! Why do I have to run up this mountain too?!?!”

Panting back up Boreas Pass from the Como side… 11,000′ and 500 more to go.

Now it is Sunday night… we all know what Sunday night feels like.  Still buzzing off the weekend, but knowing that you’ll probably have a case of the Mondays… oh the impending doom of Monday that awaits.

I had a pretty good plan on deck today. Ride loop 3 of the Breck 100, and see how I feel, and keep going after that if my legs were happy. Juli and Chuck came along today and it was nice to have the company. We headed up Boreas Pass Rd, and 9 miles later, we arrived at the top.

Boreas Pass 11,500′

Right at treeline.  I joked to Juli that we should leave our bikes and hike to the top of that hog.

My riding buddies for the day.

Next, we were going to descend on some (from what I hear) fun singletrack into Como, but the sky was not looking so good. I had my gortex suit, but didn’t know if my buddies did, nor did I want to have to ride back up that pass in a storm.

Clouds were building.

And dropping fast….

This was the singletrack I wanted to ride down to Como(about 11 miles)… but the weather was looking ominous, and we’d have to ride back UP to the pass after, which could be pretty threatening in heavy rain or a thunderstorm. I will return tomorrow and rip that trail into submission.   Only 30% chance of rain tomorrow.

Good views up high.

We took the Baker’s Tank Trail down (the one I accidentally rode up yesterday).  Needless to say, it was way more fun, and raging fast coming down.

Aspen Grove trail was another fast, fun descent.

I heart singletrack.

We found some other trails in the Blue River playground and Spruce something ‘er other area too that were sweet!

Then, we hit up some of the trails behind the ice rink where were fun, with short, steep climbs. The trails seemed to go every which way. One of ‘em dead ended here.  I loved today b/c usually I come to these awesome areas and have to only ride the designated race courses.  Today, I got to explore!

And then…. WHOA!!!

Near the end of the ride, we turned back up Boreas Pass Rd, and about 15 ft later, I saw a guy on a fixed gear bike, riding with his feet up while it “coasted” down. I realized it was my buddy, Dave Nice, aka “Fixie Dave!!!” What an amazing coincidence. The timing was within seconds of missing him. What was he doing you ask? He is doing the Tour Divide… so the man has been riding for 2 weeks and 1100 miles, starting from the Mexican Border. The fact that I randomly bumped into him, and if I was 20 sec later, would have missed him, is pretty amazing. He said he was cooked, but this was the best he has ever done. He is a tough ass, that’s all I gotta say. Fixie, and no chamois…ever.  GO DAVE!

and then it was onto the pump track to finish out the ride! I wasn’t cool enough to jump anything.

Not 5 minutes after I got in, it started pouring rain… and is still going..

Hey Coach? How is this for recovery drink? It has antioxidants!

Not a bad view last night… it’ll probably be cloudy all night today. i.e. no mountain views.

So one more day in Breck (Tear… I wish I could stay here all summer and fall… maybe I can dirtbag it and live out of my tent for a summer…somewhere)  The plan for tomorrow is to retry loop 3 and hope the weather cooperates, and then go ride part of the Colorado Trail out near Tiger Run Rd.  I have done that part before, but I want to refresh my memory (it is part of lap 2 in the Breck 100).  It is a SUPER fun loop.  I can’t wait!!! …and I hope the sun is out b/c it’s mid June and I am still wearing knee warmers for over half my rides!

Breckenridge day 1.  Jeff and I are staying at a place we booked through Great Western Lodging and it rocks! I love coming up to Breck. The surrounding mountains always offer a great view, and the riding never disappoints.

My plan was to ride as much of the Marathon Nationals/Firecracker 50 loop as I could. The word on the street was that some of it was still completely covered in waist to chest deep snow.

I bring everything with me and prepare for the worst when riding at high altitude like that. Gotta respect it.

My friend, Mark, was so kind to lend me his Garmin 705 GPS. I was relieved because I was going to have to ride alone and didn’t really know where I was going. That puts me way outside my comfort zone. I was super excited to have a GPS to use(never tried it!). I almost won one at the Dakota 5-0 last year, but ended up losing the race on a hairy descent with a catastrophic crash. I think I was more disappointed about the Garmin than not winning. I sent Mark some GPS tracks I found online. Once I got outside, I found out that the track I had given him was one that failed on the Garmin. I think the file was probably bad. I was super bummed, but I went back up to the hotel and hand wrote out all directions and tried to trace the route out on the map I had (but it was missing part of the course).

I headed out and immediately got lost and missed Boreas Pass Road, and went out of town and up a road called Wagon Rd for awhile. How I missed it(it is an obvious stop light), I have no clue… but regardless I got in some extra miles of climbing! I went up Boreas Pass Rd, huffing and puffing….

…and the directions said something about a Baker’s Tank Tr, and I saw it at the trailhead. (I was supposed to keep going and go up that trail at another point). The trail was pretty steep, and seemed extra hard with all the extra weight I had in my pack. I got up to a T, and I saw a guy coming by. His name was Russ and he has won the master’s category as this race the last 2 years. Sweet! So he informed me I was off with my navigation (haha, figures) and I got to follow him for several miles. He headed back to town once we got to Sally Barber Rd (he had been riding for a long time)….

…and I tried to go up Little French – the part rumored to be covered in snow.

I kept stopping to check my map to see where the heck I was, only to find I was off the map, so I reverted back to the hand written directions.

Ummm… I think this is the trail?

I somehow found my way to the right trail (nothing is marked out there), and rode up to a stream crossing at around 10,600′. After that was snow.

Not too burly at the start, but it would only get deeper from there.

Not feeling like hiking for several miles through waist high snow (yeah, I got my fill of that 2 weeks ago!), I turned around. After coming down about 100 yds, I ended up running into 2 cyclists… and what do ya know, Juli and Chuck!! It was awesome.

So I started chatting with Juli and Chuck for awhile when 3 more cyclists came up. One guy I had actually met in Boulder in the fall awhile back. Small world in the backcountry! We all decided to skip the rest, and ride back on the route (there is 2 way traffic on part of it, so you can head back). It was super fun to ride with the group and we descended back into town on the race course.

I think we rode about 20/25 miles of it (plus all my little detours). There was lots of stopping on the ride today too, so I need to redo some of it to get a better idea for pacing and timeframe. I’ll probably also try to go up in reverse the spots of the trail I missed and come back down it on Sunday. They will shovel out the trail for the race. Cool huh?

Map with some info I added:

Building berms on the descent to Carter Park. SWWWEEEET

I put some fresh Crank Brothers Egg Beaters on yesterday. I was using the 4 ti (they were beat to death and 2.5 years old). They had tons of play and parts of the metal were worn WAY down. Rebuilding them wasn’t doing the trick – I did some experimenting with new pedal bodies and discovered the spindle is what is WAY worn out, and the body is too..but the worn out spindle was causing the 1/4″ of play. RIP little buddies. I had to do a bit of work (it was easy), and put the short spindles on the 2 ti pedals I got this year.
. I love how light the 4ti are(.11 lbs or 50g lighter than the 2ti), but I simply couldn’t afford it. I have a pair of the SL to put on my other bike (it’s finally coming!)

Tomorrow, Juli, Chuck, Jeff, and I will be heading out to ride a loop of the Breck 100. Looking forward to riding above treeline and spending some time with the fragile, patient, high alpine tundra.

The past 2 Wednesdays, I have been meaning to go out and throttle myself at the Boulder Short Track to try and hone in on some high end fitness. Mother Nature had a different plan, and it’s been canceled due to severe weather (crazy thunderstorms) for the past 2 weeks. The moisture held off last night, but the clouds were ominous. The most exciting thing of the evening was the spinning funnel cloud that formed during my short track, which was causing a deafening silence by the time the men’s A race started due to the shock and awe. Fortunately it kept on moving.

In the past, I have specifically gone shopping for short track glasses and socks.  If you know me, you know I am a total goofball who is always looking for new ways to have fun.    I didn’t really feel too perky at any of the June/July races last year due to being anemic, so the short track socks never appeared.  So back from 2007, live, and rockin’ and some new short track socks.  I didn’t wear the glasses… yet.  I was wearing them at the booth at Sea Otter though.    They will return.

Short track socks are back!  I got these babies at Urban Outfitters awhile back on sale!

This was my first Boulder short track of the year, and second short track (first was Sea Otter).  If you’ve been following my posts, you know that June is intensity month for me.  Time to crank it up and work on the high end.  In the past by now, my high end is raring and ready to go, so it’s been an interesting experience to start with long endurance rides and races with little to no intensity, and build up.  Coach has been kicking ass!  This is the first year EVER (my 6th year cycling) that I have not gotten overtrained.  Having a coach helps so much so you can have an objective opinion and someone who can really see the bigger picture on your training.

This particular Wed was a great turn-out with some of the Boulder pro XC women showing up to contend!

Women’s A Start.

I managed to get myself into second position into the singletrack behind Karen Hogan. She and I duked it out a lot in ‘07 when I did a lot of the Boulder Short Tracks.  I sat behind her for the first lap, guaging my effort since I was not used to riding hard for very long and to my surprise, I was able to stick my HR around 200 for the duration of the race (30 min).  I usually ride around 175-180 for endurance races.  Lap 1 was cool, and Karen and I had a gap on the rest of the field.  I didn’t see anyone when I looked back.  By the second lap, I was feeling ancy, so I took a pass (and a pull).  I tried to put a gap on her, but felt myself growing tired when I upped the anty.  Somewhere in lap 2 or lap 3, Caitlyn Tuel caught me and passed me taking the lead.  I remained in second, about 5-10 sec back for a few more laps.

My lap of glory leading the race before Caitlyn dropped the hammer on me.

Eventually, Karen ended up passing me too, and I dropped back to third.  I was still putting out what felt like the same effort, but 20 min in, it was clear that my high end was running out and I was slowing down.  I glanced back and saw Erin Huck coming up on me for a lap, and she ended up passing me with 2 laps to go, and I dropped back to 4th.  I looked back to make sure no one else was coming, put my head down, and groveled for the last 2 laps to finish in 4th.  I’m excited to race it next week after making the fitness gains from racing this week.  I am now 2 weeks in to interval training and I think it takes about 3 weeks for full adaptation.

Dark clouds and my wacky short track socks to contrast.  This pic was snapped by one of my awesome blog readers… with a CELL PHONE!  Dang!

Coming through the start finish near the end. Sinjin laughed and said that it was fun to watch my face change as the race went on. The first 2-3 laps, I came through smiling… after that the smile was slowly diminishing and ended in a grimace.

Suffer face through the berm.

Finishing up in 4th, with the men waiting to get their roll on.

During our race, a funnel cloud was forming.  I told ya we have been having lots of tornadoes lately!

Funnel cloud!  You could actually see it spinning!

Crazy Boulder weather.

HUGE HUGE thanks to everyone there cheering for me.  It really helps and is much appreciated.   YEAH!

The men’s race was exciting.  Basically Jeremiah Bishop and Bryan Alders went off the front and lapped part of the field.  Mike West was holding on tough in third.  I’m not sure how everyone ended up, but I think it was Bishop 1st (Bryan laid it down in a corner at the end), and Bryan in 2nd.

Jeremiah Bishop was so fast, he was a blur!

Bryan Alders led most of the Men’s A race!! In front of Jeremiah B which is no easy feat. GREAT JOB Bryan

Mike West raging through the corner.

Big thanks to YUKI for all the photos

That’s it for Wednesday night Boulder Short Track. Will I be back next week?  OH YOU BET!

Tomorrow morning, Mr. Kerkove and I are headed up to Breck for some weekend training and course recon.  Stay tuned!

Just starting a couple months ago, I have been doing a bit of writing for various groups. I am also involved with the Full Cycle bike shop and their Venus Di Miles ladies cycling club. It is a really amazing group of women and the organization and group events are super awesome.

Here is the latest for them that you may find interesting. Click it!

The clinic at REI Boulder last night was a smash hit with about 25 people showing up!! The BMA also came and set up a table, so the event was awesome. Thanks to all who came. We loved chatting with you and answering all your questions. Doing clinics makes me feel energized and excited. It was hard to fall asleep!!

Now it’s time to do a recovery spin before the crazy thunderstorms move in. We have had tornadoes in the Denver area almost daily! Tomorrow is supposed to be nice, and I am very much hoping the Boulder Short Track doesn’t get rained out for the third week in a row!