Dude… 

                             

                                where are you?

Grant Lake in Crested Butte

I’m continuing to build up to the Xterra Mountain Championships on August 16th. The last two weeks have been filled with a mixed bag of training and racing. Basically my weeks have been training heavy Monday-Thursday and then recovery at the end of the week and racing on the weekends. I’ve been riding my bike only 2-3 times a week, long and hard, and running and swimming almost everyday. 

Two weekends ago was the Crested Butte Xterra. I had a solid third place finish behind Brian Smith and Branden Rakita. I was seven minutes faster over the whole course from last year which is a huge improvement. My bike riding is as strong as ever (getting close to where I was several years ago when I was a stand-alone bike racer) and my run and swim were faster as well. I lost second place in the swim as I out-rode and equaled Branden on the run. Brian, as usual out ran me and won the race there. Anyway, solid race and good progression towards Ogden. 

Last weekend was the State Championship Mountain bike race in Sol Vista. I continued my dominating season by winning the weather-shortened Semi-Pro event by nearly two minutes. The four-lap race was cut to two after a massive rain/hail/lightning storm rolled in and unleashed it’s fury. The rain and mud wasn’t so bad (although muddy conditions are my weakest area of skills) but the lightning strikes at the top of the mountain were super gnarly. I unknowingly made my race-winning move up the climb on the second lap when I decided to bridge the 30-second gap to the lone leader. I was feeling super strong strong and pulled through over the top of the climb and then lead the technical downhill as the rain began to pour. Second place ended up having a mechanical and then all of a sudden I was in the lead, alone, up two minutes on the chase group. As I came around for the third lap (feeling awesome and anxiously waiting to rip the climb again) I was told by an official standing out a 1/4 mile form the finish that when I cross the line the race is over. Oh well. I was kind of disappointed as I was feeling so strong and wanted to see how much time I could put on the chasers. I’m just thankful I decided to close down the leader on the second lap rather than leaving him dangle until the third lap. That would have been real disappointing if I would have lost the race that way. 

This week has been my first of two peak/race weeks. I recovered over Sunday and Monday. Then Tuesday I did my traditional test workout up Chimney Gulch Trail on Lookout Mountain on the mountain bike and trail run. My times (29:56 bike and 31:15 run) were PR’s over last year, however I can’t take all the credit, as the trail had been “improved” by the parks service people removing all of the rocks in the trail near the top of the climb. This no doubt resulted in faster times. Although I think and feel like I am at least as fast, if not a little faster than last year when I did this test before Ogden. Absolutely fast when compared to tests from earlier this year. 

Wednesday I put in a long road ride in the hills followed by transition run. Feeling so strong on the bike right now! Thursday was a recovery day and today a race prep/course pre-ride of the Beaver Creek Xterra tomorrow. The Beaver Creek course should be a great prep race for Ogden. The course format is similar with two transitions and big climbs on the bike. There will be some stiff competition on the course as well (Mike Vine, Josiah Middaugh, Brian Smith to name a few) so I can really get a feel for what to expect next week. I’ll let you know how it goes.

CW