Durango Training Camp

We just spent 5 beautiful days in Durango, Colorado. It was called a team training camp. Wendy is training for her big event in 4 weeks in the Rockies, and I was just... well... having fun riding my mountain bike. We rented two houses. House 1 was occupied by Wendy and I, Stu, Wendy's running teamate for TransRockies, Jeff, damn fast (and small) mountain biker, Jay, whose wife decided last minute to not go, and Greg, who ended up playing golf instead of biking - more on that in a second. House 2 was occupied by the Long's, the Hammond's and father and son combo - the Lee's.

Jay, Stu, Jeff, Wendy and I left Tuesday night and drove to Gallup, New Mexico, so we could ride the next day in Durango. We arrived in Durango around 1 PM, after watching the Tour de France in our hotel room in Gallup. We got to watch the last stage in the Alps, the one that decided the winner of the Tour.

A few of us got ready to ride, and drove off to the trailhead. Unfortunately, when we got there, Jeff forgot his front wheel and I forgot my helmet. Not the start we were planning. Jay and I ended up riding back to the house and Wendy and Jeff drove back. Once at the house, Jeff, Jay and I headed for some trails near the house.

The next day was better. The whole group - Rick, Greg, Brian, Wilson, Jay, Jeff and I, all headed to Dry Fork via the Colorado trail. Jeff, Jay and I ended up riding about 4 hours that day. I unfortunately, hit a rock with my pedal during our third hour and went down pretty hard. Bent my pedal axle, but the rest of the bike was ok. My right leg was a bit bloody, but nothing serious.

Day 3 was a blast. All of us, except Rick - who also went down the previous day - headed up to ride Hermosa Creek. Jeff, Jay and I rode from town, while Brian, Wilson and Greg, drove to Durango Mountain Resort and rode from there. We all met at the trailhead and started our 19 mile downhill ride - awesome. We all had a blast. Except for Jay's flat tire, Brian's crash, Greg's broken bike (that's right, broken rear traingle) and my broken chain, the day was great.

Greg discovered he broke his bike after we got home and washed the bikes. Fortunatelly, Greg brought his golf clubs (and a collared shirt) so he was able to play golf a couple of times. See the picture of Greg at the training camp :-)

We all had a bit too much wine on Friday night - Jeff cooked for the whole gang - so we eneded up doing some exploring and riding for only a couple of hours on Saturday.

Sunday was the big day. Jay, Jeff and I headed toward Kennebac Pass - a 11,775 ft. high peak. Unfortunately, we missed the turn off and rode another 11 miles before we decided to turn around. Jay was not having a great day and went back home. Jeff and I continued. The climb to Kennebac Pass was not too bad until the last 6 miles, where you climb 3,000 ft. to get to the top. Once you reach the top, it's another 20 miles back to the car, all of it on singletrack... and not flat either. We both almost ran out of water, and couldn't really eat, because we didn't want to use the little precious liquid we had to wash down the food. We ended up riding 6.5 hours and climbed 8,000 ft. in just under 70 miles.

While I was having lots of fun riding my bike, Wendy and Stu ended up running about 65 miles in 4 days. It's hard to believe that they'll need to run twice that much next month when the tackle TransRockies. There, they'll need to run 120 miles in 6 days. Ouch!!! I'll be there as driver and support.... of course I'll have my bike with me and I'll be doing some nice rides in cool weather.

Well, that's all for now. We're headed to Flagstaff Friday for the Flag to Grand Canyon bike ride. A 65 mile easy mountain bike ride, unless I decide to push the pace :-) I'll give you an update next week.

Thanks for reading and feel free to post comments.

Utah - Epic running and cycling adventures

Running...
RAGNAR - let me explain what a RAGNAR is, it is a long distance relay race for teams of 6 or 12 runners. Wendy was doing this 180 mile relay running race from Logan to Park City in Utah. This is a pretty big deal as each runner has to cover 30 miles in less than 2 days. What made this even harder is that 2 of the runners had to pull out the day before the event. That meant that each runner (all 4 of them) now had to run 45 miles each in less than 2 days. I can't even run 4 miles!! We'll they did and they won their category. It took them just over 30 hours to run the 180 miles, that an average pace of about 6 miles/hour. Not too shabby, huh?

I'm very proud of Wendy, she had some physical issues during the night, but pulled through and kept going. Amazing!!! Next for her is TranRockies in August. This is a 6 day endurance running race with an average of about 20 miles per day... at elevation!!! ... In the Rockies!!!

Cycling...
I, instead of supporting my beautiful wife, decided to go mountain biking in Park City with my friend Dan. We did two rides. Friday we rode for 5.5 hours with about 6,000 ft. of climbing. The trails were awesome and we did quite a bit of exploring. All the riding was on singletrack. Awesome. The next day we rode another 4.5 hours, with 5,000 ft. of climbing. Again, 90% of singletrack with a little pavement to get to the trailheads. We ended up finishing about 500 Yards for the RAGNAR finish line.

This is some of the best riding I've done in a while. All the trails are awesome. Next year I plan to arrange a week long trip to Park City to do lots of mountain biking. Hopefully other folks are interested and we can rent a house or a condo. Can't wait!!

Our next adventure is in about 4 weeks. We're headed to Durango, Colorado to do some cycling and running. Although I probably won't be taking part in the running thing :-)

UK World Family Tour

Our trip to the UK was a whirlwind tour. We saw lots of family, but unfortunately I was not able to take my bike with me :-) We left Phoenix on Saturday morning, flew to Charlotte, NC, then got on our connecting flight to London. Sunday was our 11th wedding anniversary, so our present was to upgrade our seats for the tranatlantic flight to business class. It was a nice present, but the funny part is that even though we had the "bigger" seats, Wendy decided to sleep on the floor. She said she was more comfortable, but I'm not so sure.

When we arrived in London, we went straight to the car rental agency and picked up our car, and started our drive to Scotland - an 8 hour drive!! Jet lagged!! and pouring rain!!! It was not fun. Wendy drove at the start - she didn't trust me driving on the other side of the road - but eventually I took over, at least for a little while. We took turns driving and finally made it up to Wendy's parents house in Crieff, Scotland. We spend 3 nights there. Did a little walking, some running, and lots of eating and drinking.

We left Wednesday and returned South to visit sister #1 - Sue (and her husband Mike and son Daniel). We had a nice picnic and later on, we went out to dinner. Next stop was Friday morning to visit sister #2 - Pam (and husband Steve, son Ben, and daughter Kate). We had never met Kate (now 5 years old) so it was great to meet her. Wendy's brother Steve (and wife Claire and new born baby Emily) joined us at Pam's house for dinner.

I know Wendy really enjoyed being with everyone in her family since we don't get to come back as often as we should. I had a good time seeing everyone, but I had more fun playing with the kids. All of them are gems. Very different personalities, but all good kids.

We made a commitment to go back again every year to see everyone and see the kids grow up. Pictures will be posted soon.