Iron Horse Weekend

It was a big weekend of racing in my hometown over Memorial Day, and I'm happy to say I came out the other side with some great race fitness and a new course record in the Narrow Horse Triathlon.

Things kicked off with my parents coming down for Grand Junction. They visit every year now to ride in the tour portion of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, and it was great to have them. We played a little golf between my training sessions, shuttled a car to Silverton for post-race, and then took it easy in anticipation of the 50 mile road race on Saturday. I'm always impressed when they rattle off another 50 miles of riding at high altitude.

I was up early to get in some "warm-up" riding, in case there was an early break that I could be part of. It was chilly, but I still got in some miles before our 7:20 start. Just as I thought, there were attacks immediately after the neutral section through town. I must have gone with 4 moves and initiated 2 of my own before I finally got free with 5 or 6 other guys. It was my plan to hit the first climbs with a little lead over the peloton so I could ride my own tempo. I held steady on the first climbs, latched on with the chase group led by Ned Overend, and then got shelled on the later climbs. Still, I rode 5 minutes faster than last year, and I felt like I gave it everything.

Sunday was the local ten mile running race, and I jumped in with heavy legs. The run has one big climb, and being at altitude, it's never easy to go under an hour. Last year I was close, so it was my goal to improve on my time and hopefully break an hour. I took it out a bit too fast, but eventually got the heart rate under control. I pushed hard on the climb, and then started to feel good again around mile 7. The last mile was straight downhill, and I came in at 58:42, so I was content with the effort.

Monday was the pool swim 1500m time trial, where I cruised to a 19:58 clocking. I dropped my course record in the Narrow Horse stage race triathlon by around 7 minutes, and topped everything off by racing the 14 mile time trial right after. I came 6th in the pro men, happy to be done with the stabbing pain of the open tt.

A big weekend of racing, and now I feel like I am finally back from the post-Ironman funk. The body is tuned up and ready for the sharp effort of Xterra Four Corners on June 5th, and then Boise 70.3 a week later. Check back for reports from both races...