A few snow piles later we dried our shoes out, dodged the vertical streams and got on some rock.
Nothing like the flatirons in the morning to make you appreciate living in CO.
And turn around at the IPW and RMNP are right there
Chris up the last few feet to the summit proper.
Topped out
We brought our thongs and skinnies to test before some alpine adventures this summer.
A quick run back to the car made for a casual 2 hour round trip and ready to start the day. Yea!
Sometimes you have to covet something for a long time to make it really good. Apparently as far as racing goes, that seems to be my modus operandi. I'm off to the AZT 300 with Kurt this afternoon. Let's hope I can get to the start successfully and we'll go from there...
Another beautiful week here in Denver. Man winter has been mild this year, I'm actually hoping we get a spring blizzard because we *need* the moisture. But since I can't change the weather, I might as well take advantage. Riding in shorts and a jersey most of the days is sweet. And yesterday I went hiking and rock climbing up on Lumpy Ridge above Estes park. I climbed a bunch of pitches on The Pear and had an all around awesome day. You really can't beat climbing at 9k+ feet in the sun in the winter.
After a tough week, nothing beats a weekend blitz to salvage the mind. Friday I was able to sneak a ride in between study sessions. Saturday I took my test and feel pretty good about it. One month of waiting and I'll find out how I did. After my test I ran a few quick errands (post office, got to make that money) and then Marni and I took Turbo to the dog park for a long walk. He was extremely happy and we took him by DQ on the way home and got some ice cream too. Marni was off with the girls that evening and I was eager to test out the newly tubeless tires so we went out separate ways. I stayed out pretty late, enjoying all manner of dirt, road and bike path options with a quick stop for dinner in Boulder at the Qdoba. Refueled I rode a bit more, taking the long way home and enjoying a nice night and what felt like the stars all to myself. The new EOS II worked really well (thanks Betsy!) and I never even dug the "big lights" out of my pocket. Marni and I arrived home about the same time and lucky for me she brought me dinner from Pasta Jay's. I chowed down and went to bed, another ride planned for the AM.
This morning I took Turbo for a walk, getting a slow start to the day with a lot of workout hours in my legs. One of the best things about this extended time off I've been having is getting to really appreciate life and slow down a bit. It's all too easy to rush from one thing to the next, squeeze a huge weekend in between weeks of work, be unhappy with where you are and think only of where you want to be. We all strive for perfection but thinking only of what is better leads generally to unhappiness. But with a little time for reflection it's easy to see, this is good. Here and now. This is where I want to be.
Spring Break 2008, Figueroa mountain road, Solvang, California
This past weekend was a lot of fun, just not quite how I had hoped it would go. Since then it's been generally worse with me fighting off the plague. Friday I watched little Zuri in the AM and went to climb in Eldo with ChrisG (Green Spur, sweet!). My cough was getting worse Friday night and by Saturday I could no longer ignore it. All manor of symptom supressors were experimented with, none exceptionally useful but perhaps the Nyquil that let me sleep. Still I had a great "meetaversary" weekend planned with Marni and I wasn't going to bail. I scratched the time trial from Saturday morning and ended up resting as much as possible Saturday. We drove up to Leadville early due to the time change and early AM start on Sunday and stayed at a kick ass place thanks to Chris and Kathy of Cycles of Life and Proving Grounds fame.
Saturday night Marni and I hit up the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse which was awesome. We lucked out and got bumped to a Saturday reservation which worked out really well. Cannon got us setup with gear and sent Marni and I out on XC skis for the first time. It was beautiful out there and even for total noob XC skiers we made our way up the hill and to the yurt for dinner without any major problems although I'm not sure we were fast than walking.
Dinner itself ruled. I had the Elk and it was fab. I really enjoy dinners where you don't pick your items as you get to try a lot of new things that way and the chef didn't disappoint. Scallops, elk, potatoes, green beans (gasp mom!) , a wild mixed fruit pie, great salad, man I was stuffed. Hopefully I didn't annoy the rest of the small yurt with my coughing. Some hot tea at least helped supress it a little bit. After dinner we skied back to the car by headlamp and that was great. Definitely faster than walking :)
Sunday morning I woke up feeling pretty terrible but I was willing to give the race a shot since I was already there. We snagged a pancake breakfast, got registered and generally enjoyed a really nice early and crisp morning in leadville. I made a halfhearted warm up, finally relinquished my puffy and it was time to race. Luckily the lead pack didn't charge out of the gate too bad but Shawn eventually took the lead and set the pace. I snuck on his wheel for a while and tried to get my motor going. Unfortunately the legs just weren't there and my cough was terrible so I eventually said goodbye to Doug who was riding near me and called it quits. The course was awesome though so I at least soft pedalled the rest of the way around to enjoy it. I really do like riding in the snow a lot, perhaps next year I will prep my snow bike properly and see what can be arranged to go to Alaska. Near the end of the race I even stopped to write Marni a "C heart M" note in the snow but she missed it. Bummer!
The century crew knocked off a last day of February century today with Erik, Brett, Jeremy and new this month Brady following me around a tour of Denver bike paths with a detour over Lookout Mountain. 108 miles and 6k feet of climbing on a nice, sunny, if slightly chilly day. Nice late AM start and sunset finish, sweet.
Looking forward to March boys!
Last Saturday morning saw me up early, driving once again to beautiful Leadville for Winter Race #3. After a nice birthday party on Friday night, much of the same crew packed their snow bikes and headed up for a little fun racing.
Thanks for my new hat mom :) It was sunny and warm enough when we rolled up to the Mt.Massive golf course to check in. This race was a relay and we all managed to find teammates. Erik and Brett were the SS class entrants, Marni and Michelle were the all girl power team and Shawn M emailed me to and I gladly accepted Mr.Speedy onto my team. They started the race at 30 second intervals which made it harder and more fun because you didn't know where they other people were in relation to your position. All out TT effort!
Lap one we got to race around the golf course with Elbert and Massive towering above us. After Marni and my hike on those this past summer, it's always really fun to see them. Plus we could see Sherman too which we hiked with Jessie and Mom.
Brett heading out for lap one.
Michelle on lap one.
Shawn about to blaze lap one in just under 10 minutes.
Marni and I waiting for our turn. We both decided to go 2nd since we would have better setups than our partners for choppy snow conditions.
Erik headed out on his big road lap.
Me finishing up the big road lap.
Post race beers from Dale's, just one of the awesome benefits of doing these races. Shawn and I managed to win the race, big thanks to Shawn's 2 fast laps and no thanks to me crashing on both laps, whooops. Luckily no major injuries, just a bump on the knee and a hole in a jersey. Two other teams were right behind us though with Sterling and Chad only a minute and a half down. I was really feeling my training in my legs and luckily the next race will hit me at a bit fresher spot in my cycle.
Erik and Michelle with Mt.Elbert in the background.
Marni finishing up her road lap. She did so good on both laps!
Post race kiss :)
This guy rode a Muni for his laps, super duper impressive!
The gang.
After the race we stopped into Melanzana and the Ugly Cookie company before heading home. Yum!
The next race is March 8th and it should be a good one. That course took me about 45 minutes last year and this year they're starting at 9am to try to beat the warm up and snow softening on the course. Can't wait!
after!
Thanks everyone for all the nice emails and Facebook messages today, I really appreciate it. Now if you'll excuse me, Marni just got home with some wings, yum!
Me gearing up.
There was another group of 3 already on the ice when we arrived but luckily they were very nice and didn't mind if I setup another top rope. I even got an "Ice screws 101 lesson" at the base of the climb which was cool.
I hiked around back and setup my top rope, throwing it into the trees (ooops) to avoid everyone below me. The rappel down was 3 distinct steps however so it was easy to straighten out my mess. Here you can get a little sense of scale of the lowest and largest of the 3 steps.
Marni was having a lot of fun with the camera and got some really nice pictures of me. Thanks babe!
The view from behind an ice curtain.
Coming off one of many rappels of the day. A 60m rope was just long enough to toprope the lower pitch of Coors Lite as long as you extend the anchors with some long slings.
My tools in pretty soft plastic ice. Good for a first day. There had been a lot of traffic so you could hook your way up most of the time without having to swing.
Climb up, rap down. Repeat until you figure out what the hell you're doing.
Ice does make for some cool pictures. Can't wait to get out to Vail or Ouray.
Wheeee!
I did about 6 laps on the wall, gradually getting more and more comfortable. Swinging the tools was pretty much like I imagined it would be and I had the most fun just hooking interesting features. Getting the hang of kicking my toes in properly took a little getting used to but by the end of the day I was getting it and at least my calves never bothered me so I must not have been doing too terribly.
By later in the afternoon the ice was starting to get pretty wet soo I decided that was enough. I didn't want to destroy anything for other climbers and I was able to climb the most vertical section of each step easily. My last lap I tried some mixed climbing on the rock to the right of the ice and that was a lot of fun too. I felt pretty comfortable on the tools, mostly it will take getting used to the crampons on my feet I think and generally a lot of practice.
All and all it was an awesome day. So many people seem to think ice climbing is scary and cold and just insane but I really don't feel that way. With proper gear, clothing, a little (or a lot in my case...) of instructional reading before hand it can be a lot of fun, at least on easy climbs like this. Sure you should take it seriously from a safety perspective as you should all things climbing but otherwise it's not such a crazy thing.
Until I get my next fix I'm back to playing in the garage but at least I've finally tried it and had a great time to boot!
