Recently in sporty Category

I'm not sure how I feel about the Leadville Trail 100. After spending the weekend spectating/cheering/learning I can't quite decide if I want to make it a long term goal or stay far FAR away.

We rolled into Leadville (yet again) Friday evening. We ate some pizza, pitched the tent, and set my phone alarm for 3 a.m. Yes, 3 a.m.. Why this race starts at 4 a.m. is something I still have yet to understand. Saturday morning we threw on our fleece and headed for town to watch the start.

At 3:45 there were 592 very lean bodies milling around the start area. At 4 a.m. the shotgun blew and those 592 bodies headed down the dark roads of Leadville to the even darker trail that circles Mirror Lake. The sea of headlamps bobbing down the road into the unknown was a truly breathtaking sight.

J, Maddie and I met up with the runners again circa mile 13, after they made their loop around Turqoise Lake, and before they really headed off into the mountains. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, the steam was rising from the lake, and most runners seemed to be in good spirits. It was a nice morning for a little run. There were a few runners who even at mile 13 looked like they were struggling and many would drop out at the next checkpoint. It was going to be a long day.

After a nap (we did get up at 3 a.m. remember?) we headed out to Twin Lakes where we spent the afternoon cheering on the runners at the mile 40 checkpoint. We saw the race leader, who would eventually win by three hours, running the other way. Just as most runners were about to head for Hope Pass (topping out at 12,620 feet), the sky opened up and the rain came down. Along with thunder and lightening. I wouldn't have wanted to be going up there.

We met up with the runners again later that evening at the Fish Hatchery aid station, circa mile 75. The sun was beginning to go down and the temperature was plumetting. At this point most runners had pacers with them (allowed after mile 50) as they headed off into the darkness. We stayed for a few hours and then went to grab some dinner. As I walked out to the tent at 11 p.m. and realized just how dark it is out there, I wondered how these people could do it.

Morning came and we headed back to town. We hung out at the finish line for the final two hours (that would be hours 28-30) (yes, twenty eight to thirty hours!) trudged in. All late race finishers were welcomed back to Leadville by a huge crowd. They ran up a red carpet and each one received a hug along with their finish medal from the race director. Belt buckles will be doled out at the awards ceremony this evening.

In the end, roughly a third of those who began the race Saturday morning made it to the finish line. One third. Part of me was terrified by this experience. Part of me was inspired. I am a long way from being ready for anything like Leadville, but I definitely want to give ultrarunning a try. I was already planning on running the Leadville Trail Marathon next year but I might also try to find a 50k and maybe even a 50 mile to do. I'd also really like to be a pacer at LT100 next year. We'll see ...

As I type this, 2,000 athletes and their friends and families are descending upon a little town in North Idaho for a week filled of excitement and adrenalin and pain and dreams coming true (and some being shattered). Its Ironman week. And I'm not there.

The fact that IMCDA is this weekend also means that it has been a year .. a full year ... since I have been in tip top shape. This year off has been fabulous for me. I've rested and recovered and hung out with friends and moved and gotten back on the trail. And I've also rekindled the desire to train.

Apparently nothing gets you off your ass like a year spent sitting on it.

I've yet to really ride since we moved to Colorado but I have been running and lifting regularly. And it feels SO GOOD to be getting back in shape. After five straight years of taking "Ironman shape" for granted - now I'm able to appreciate it. I still have a long long way to go before I'm even remotely close to where I was, but its just nice to want to do it again.

The fact that IMCDA is this weekend, and the ridiculous rate at which these things fill up, also brings up the question of what happens next year?. My pal Katie has not forgotten that on a slightly drunken night in Denver a few months back we toasted to Ironman Wisconsin 08. I'm considering it (as well as maybe Lake Placid or Canada - but probably Wisconsin). There's a few things I need to figure out first - whether I can afford it, whether I want to commit to something that big right away ... but I'm really excited about the possibility. And it would be really fun to have someone doing the same race at about the same speed to train with. I've never had that before.

Much as I try to deny it, this stuff is in my blood. Its not easy to leave behind. After how horrible last year was for me, I didn't know if I would ever go back. And the truth is, I'm a little scared. Which, for me, is all the more reason to do it.

I have a stalker. And this isn't any garden variety stalker. This is a stalker with a wetsuit fetish. Weird.

J just stormed into the living room saying "holy crap! some guy just favorited a bunch of your pictures!". And he was right. Some random guy on flickr had marked five or six of my pictures from Ironman CDA this summer as 'favorites'. He has no pictures of his own and I had NO idea who he was based on his screen name. So we looked to see what else he has 'favorited'.

ALL OF HIS FAVORITES WERE GIRLS IN WETSUITS!

Triathletes, surfers, scuba chicks.

It's pretty creepy isn't it? I mean, there are all sorts of situations in which I look reasonably attractive. But in a wetsuit?! Noone looks good in those things ... ESPECIALLY not me.

*shudders*

I guess I should tell you guys about last week.

How about a cliff's notes version?

There were five nights and three houses in three different towns. There was a get together with a bunch of tri freaks, three dogs, a full bar, two waterfalls, one miniature horse, and one pair of fake boobs. There was a cabin in the mountains with four ironchicks, one guy, and two dogs. There was a car spinning incident which resulted in my car stuck in a snowdrift that prevented it from going down the side of a hill. There were snowboarding lessons and two and a half hour runs. There was one knee twisty incident that still hurts a little bit. There was an impromptu snowboard lesson from a hot ski instructor dude who promptly left after I used the "f" word. There were four girls and one shot of Tuaca. There was wine, beer, and hot chocolate spiked with Grand Marnier. There was a passing out incident on a friend's bathroom floor. There was a house in the foothills outside of Boulder that I would pretty much kill to live in, complete with a whole herd of neighborhood dogs who know how to enter through the doggie door. There was a drive across western Kansas in the snow, an avalance that covered the highway (the day after we left), and not one but two meals eaten at Pizza Hut?! Yuck.

It was pretty much heaven.

Here's some evidence:

There are more pics from the trip up on Josh's flickr site.

This was the view on my MTB ride this afternoon:

This was how we looked when the nice hiker man offered to take our picture:

This is how the river looked during the last mile of our ride:

This was how the bike and the dog looked after a loop on the river trails on a beautiful December afternoon:

Happy Holidays everyone!

I have always wanted to mountain bike with a dog. Long before I had a dog I had dreams of flying down trails with my best pal just enjoying the world. When we got Maddie I became an overprotective mom and refused to do anything that could get her hurt.

Yesterday when I was out on the trail I saw a guy with a beautiful husky. Both dog and rider seemed to incredibly happy and that got the fire burning. What if we tried it? Maybe I could work with her for a while to get her used to it ...

This afternoon Maddie and I found ourselves on the levee next to the mountain bike trails. Not on the trails themselves, mind you. Riding the actual trails was never part of the plan. I figured we would go for a ride on the levee with her on-leash, learning to stay next to the bike. After just a few hundred yards I decided to try her off-leash. After a half mile or so I decided to drop down onto the singletrack and give it a try.

Next thing I know my dog and I were what I had always envisioned us to be. For the most part she stayed right in front of me. It took a few close calls for her to understand that she couldn't just stop in the middle of the trail and stand there. She quickly learned that when i said "Go!" it meant she had to speed up.

I was in absolute heaven riding with my dog. Watching her fly down the trail, race around the tight turns, and leap over the log crossings was amazing to watch. She's fast and agile and you could tell that she was absolutely loving life. When we would stop she would stand there looking at me, tongue lolling off to the side. I couldn't tell if she were saying "Would you hurry up already?!" or "Why did you not bring me out here sooner?!?!". The whole experience was absolutely fantastic!

She has a lot to learn still. She has gotten better about staying out of my way but she really needs to become more reliable about it and she needs to learn to move away from other riders on the trail too. Generally, though, she was great.

We only rode three or four miles. She's done 9 mile runs with me but she's not in that kind of shape right now. I need to spend some time building her endurance back up. I can't wait to get her back out here though. I don't know if I've ever seen my dog look so happy.

I got my new mountain bike in July which means that I have now owned said new mountain bike for *counts on fingers* six months.

I haven't been nearly as good about getting out to the trails as I had hoped. Its not because I lacked the oppurtunity. Its because I was scared.

Sure, I went every couple weeks. Quite often the only reason I actually got my arse out the door was because the boyfriend dragged me kicking and screaming. After an especially mentally difficult ride on the more technical trails a month or two ago, I cried. I was just soooo disappointed in my complete and utter lack of nerve. I HATED that it wasn't my body that was limiting me ... was my mind. And I hated that I can't seem to get past that.

And then it clicked.

Today was a beautiful 40something degree day. Absolutely perfect weather for mountain biking. I hit the trails alone and quickly fell into a rhythm. I found myself not even thinking ... just riding. Sure, there was still plenty of stuff (and I do mean PLENTY) that I walked. The amazing thing tough was that when i was on my bike riding ... I was actually RIDING. Not just slowly coasting along with my arms shaking and my knuckles white feeling like every moment was bringing me closer to sudden demise. I was pedaling hard and trying to go fast instead of simply trying not to die.

It was heaven. And now its all I can think about.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nice again. I have to go to the BigCity in the morning to get a dress for my cousin's wedding, but I'm hoping to be done in time to ride again. Wednesday brings rain (and work) and that means the trails will be unridable for a week or so. I have GOT to ride this wave of confidence while I can. It felt so so good.

The rule was no Ironman this year.

Never did I say "No long course triathlon this year".

I was planning on taking the year off from IM to do a lot of things, including try some other races. I had mountain bike races and ultras in mind, but when this was announced today, I found myself getting the giddyness all over again.

These races are shorter than IM, but still long enough that you really have to work for it. It will cut out the really miserably long rides and runs but leave everything else. I am so excited.

And it doesn't hurt that one of the races is in a place that has always sounded really cool to me.

The boyfriend and I are thinking of signing up for the Halifax race. The timing is pretty perfect as it is over a month after the bar and falls on Labor Day weekend. From what I hear, studying for the bar is pretty intense, but I'd like to try to do this to. I am better at life when I am balanced and I feel that having this race in the future will help to force some balance. And the good thing is that if it ends up being that I can't get the training in, these entries are actually transferable!

I think these races will do very well. People (myself included) as of late have started to have a lot of very valid complaints about the IMNA races. My biggest concern is the swim start. Even as a very experienced swimmer I have been pummelled the last two years at CDA. As the races have grown those starts have become more and more brutal and IMNA seems to be doing little to keep entries low. Every year the field is bigger and its starting to really show in the swim. Someone drowned this year at Ironman Florida. Who knows if the size of the field played a role in that, but its starting to feel just a little too risky. According to the website they are limiting the field at these races to 1500 competitors which is just about perfect. And I think they are doing wave starts, so start size shouldn't be a problem at all.

I'm so completely psyched its unreal. This will be a new and fun challenge in a beautiful place. I haven't officially registered yet but I think I will pretty soon.

I'm (hopefully) going out to Colorado in a few weeks to hang with some of my favorite people in the whole wide world. When I get back, the easing into real training will begin!

** Please note that this is ALL speculation at this point. I keep going back and forth about whether i can or should do this race ... I'm making NO promises either way! **

There is no better time to be a mountain biker in this part of the midwest than October and November. Sure there are some really great winter days, and the first signs of spring are always exciting, but you can't beat riding through fallen (but still colorful) leaves and crisp, cool temperatures.

Yesterday the boyfriend and I hit the trails for a little 8 mile loop. As (I think) I have said before, we have two sets of trails within ten minutes of my apartment. One is easy, non-technical, fast, very flowy, and very rollercoasterlike. The other is way way more technical and kicks my ass, both physically and mentally every time I go out there.

The problem with the easy trail here is that there are a few things that, a long long time ago, I got in my head that I couldn't ride. And overcoming that thought has been a constant battle out there for me. There's this little section at the very beginning ... its just three little drops followed by short climbs ... one is off-canter ... nothing too serious. A few rides ago I cleared the first one for the first time, yesterday I cleared both the first and the second (and then used that as an excuse to bail out and walk the third) - hopefully next time I can nail them all which will mean I can ride that whole trail without putting my feet down. That'd make me pretty happy.

Part of why I was able to ride it yesterday was because the boyfriend stayed behind me, barking at me ... Ride it! Ride it! RIDE IT!!. And with the exception of the last one, I did ride them all. It felt great.

Usually he drops me on these three stupid little climbs which come very early in the ride and then I don't see him again. This time he stayed with me and pushed me which meant I was riding faster than usual. And I am SORE today. Mountain biking uses all kinds of core muscles that I apparently don't have (yet) and I'm hurting ... but its a good hurt.

On the way to get barbeque after our ride the boyfriend said to me "Yanno, you're a much better mountain biker than you give yourself credit for ... I could tell that riding behind you. You KNOW how to do this, you just don't have the confidence." And thats totally true. I'm working on overcoming the fears that keep me from making the progress I should make ... and I'm getting better. I had an epiphany about all of this on top of a mountain in Colorado that I keep meaning to tell you about, but just haven't had the time ... remind me.

Yesterday was the most confident I've felt on my MTB in a long time. And it felt SO good. I'm not sure that there is a more perfect sport than mountain biking. The folks who are good at it have an enviable mix of speed and stength and skill and nerve. I'm hoping to be there someday ...

I have a confession to make.

I miss Ironman desperately. I'm a bit lost without one of these races in my future. I don't exactly know what to do with myself.

Yeah I've talked about mountain bike racing and maybe cross and shorter triathlons and xterra, and I want to do all that, but I want to do it along with Ironman. I swore up and down no more Ironman for a while, but the truth is, its a large part of who I am. Yeah, I pretty much suck at it and yeah, I have had as much (actually more) "failure" as "success", but I miss it. I miss having that kind of structure. Sure, having the time to sit around and twiddle my thumbs has been great, but there's something missing.

When I was in the water at CDA getting pummelled I swore to myself "never again ... at least not until they lower the number of entrants at these events". I hated that swim, and I'm a strong swimmer. But now, looking back on it, I keep thinking ... it wasn't so bad ... was it? And I remember how my feet felt like they were absolutely on fire on the run at CDA and how, again, I said "never again ... this is stupid" ... and yet I miss that. I miss the intensity and feeling like, whatever happened, I was sticking my neck out and giving it everything I had.

CDA is sold out for next year. So is Placid. Arizona is too early in the year for me (long rides in winter just ain't gonna cut it). Canada isn't a possibility because of the crazy entry rules this year. Florida doesn't excite me. Wisconsin I love ... and I mean I REALLY love ... that race. But July and August are freakin' TERRIBLY hot months to be doign lont rides around here. BUT its a cheap trip from here, its a few months AFTER the BAR ....

Not that I'm really considering it.

Of course if I really wanted to avoid those crazy swims, I have two other options. One is to do one of the smaller "iron distance" races like Great Floridian, which doesn't really get my blood pumping (call me shallow, but I like the big glitzy races). The other option is of course a race that is at a perfect time of year, in a beautiful and exotic locale, still big and glitzy, but with a slightly less crowded swim. Of course that race would cost more than I'll make in my first year after graduation (ok, not really, but close!).

Not that I'm really considering any of these ...

I'm not an addict. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to quit.

And in my less missing-what-I-used-to-do moments, I think that it would be really really cool to try something like this.