Training Log Archive: matzah ball

cross bike w/ light pack

Grants trail now semi-regular to help parents and do some work for an architect friend in Kirkwood, though I might start going the northern route to pick up more gravel and grass - though I suppose there's nothing stopping me from riding next to Grants Trail - but the asphalt is too seductive. The parking lots are starting to look like Walmarts!

and a little gravel trail along River Des Peres for good measure. I feel stronger on the cross bike than the road bike.

to and from Carondelet Park

jogging next Sundays course w/ Mark G.

general urban riding - rode along train tracks to wait out a train, as a result had a flat, lunch w/ folks. then to bike shop to trade off bikes, felt good to get on cross bike again - could feel the mountain geometry of the last few weeks kick in a little. stopped off to get ice.

funeral in s. s.l. -slow

to buy food - the pack actually seemed to make it go faster. I have definitely burned up in the re-entry to st. louis heat. Every day I seem more exhausted, and I thought the trip out west would put me in fighting trim.

errands - hot

retracing Grants trail to look for glasses, nursing home, parents house, back to meet fridge repairman

easy ride to small job in the city

to parents to help, and back, via grants trail. not very focused- errands and other interuptions along the way. Want to build up my base road bike miles a little before I start going faster, doing tempo, speedwork etc.

backtracking looking for my glasses that slipped out of my pocket

Rest day - 24 hours of our third world bus system. (rode standing from Laramie to Fort Collins, mysterious hours long delays, stopping in the middle of nowhere at night (twice!) for the cops and ambulance to check out the poor sick kid who seemed to be on drugs or on theverge of a breakdown or both. Good to be home.

So, I did not make it all the way from Boulder to Laramie. After pushing my bike up a few rock-strewn gullies on the way to Estes Park, sleeping on a high mountain ridge, and riding some really fun mountain bike trails, back roads, and a whole lot of Peak to Peak highway, I decided my bike and pack were too heavy to hike up 3000 feet to Donner Pass, so rode back down to Boulder and took a bus to Laramie. I met a bike shop owner in Laramie who had ridden the other way to Cache La Poudre Wilderness. It was the Donner Pass climb that was the ride-killer. Realistically, I was close to overstepping my limits and it was a good decision to turn back. On the other hand, I wasn't all that far away from being able to do it, and it was very encouraging for future longer distance rides.

This fall I want to concentrate on true cyclocross fitness, training 200-300 miles per week, and on building on the 1000 day orienteering experience. I will try to ride to all the local meets, including the ones that are 1-2 hour auto drives out of town, and also try to attend KC and Indiana/Chicago/Ohio meets (probably not by bike, but by train/bike combination, or ride sharing)

mountain bike trail from campground to highway. what a much nicer way to leave the campground than in a car on a dusty road. Even though it was just dawn, it looked like somebody had been ahead of me, maybe Eric Bone. Beuatiful luxuriant pines along the winding generally uphill trail.

Then over the highway overpass onto forest roads - had trouble picking up the 'road' indicated parallel to I-80. Ended up im some fields and then some gullies before I backtracked and finally found the barest jeep track pointing in the direction of Laramie. My heavy-full suspension seemed made for this kind of trail: rocky and downhill.

C • Wonderful! 3

after having breakfast with the Gookins and Rose at the organic cafe, dropped the bike back off at the bike shop and hiked back to the community center through town and campus. Shower sure felt good, and I've lost close to 10 pounds in the last 10 days! (148) Got to hold on to that!

another physically demanding course. all the wheels seemed to fall off, but I am totally psyched.
The people and the scenery have been so beautiful, and I have no doubt I have become a much better orienteer, even though my results probably indicate the opposite.

cooldown from meet, stretching on the rocks

hiking back from telephone road boulders to campground, this time cut across prairie, missed campsite by about a hunderd yards

spent a lot of time at #2, because the clue said it was at the bottom of the re-entrant and it was at the top - threw me becasue unlike most I approached from the bottom

from intersection of telephone road/happy jack road to campground - off tent site by 50 yards

mountain biking to race site

mountain biking back from race, really tired, had to stop a lot, push uphills. The open prairie is remarkably rideable though. yippee-i-yay.

prologue - no 'major' mistakes

zoned totally out on #3 or 4, but kept running - should have stopped

Stampede - managed to screww up the three maps - pulled out the first map for the third loop and so didn't run the big third loop.

Event: Rocky Mountain 1000 Day
 

sprint - just glad to be here - viewing the whole thing as a 'orienteering training camp'

mountain biking to and from event

mountain bike form laramie bike store to campground mostly on the interstate - ugh! 1500' elevation gain.

hiking from downtown laramie to the bike shop

warm up trail run at campground