Tri for your Cause race report

Today i raced in the Tri for your Cause triathlon in Boulder. the race director is a guy named Brent Herron, who is currently applying to med school and will hopefully be a R4WH'er next year. He definitely put on a sweet race, and i'm glad i stuck around town to race. Yesterday i had to pick up my race packet and got a chance to jump in the water. i promply jumped right out, because it was 55 degrees and i had no wetsuit.....this wasn't looking good for the race... while on the ride or camping by bike, i often complain about being cold...this doesn't compare to what i felt in that water. it was like a new years polar bear plunge. i used to think it was BS when people said the water was so cold it took their breath away, but now i've experienced it and it absolutely is for real. yeah i just cited wikipedia.
Anyway i knew i was going to have to get used the water for a good 5 min before even taking a single stroke. So after a good warm up on the bike i literally sat in water for as long as i could stand. i only got about 3 minutes of swimming in before the race, but it was enough to make sure i wasn't going to pass out or hyperventilate....i'm not even overexagerating, it was cold! The swim itself was uneventful luckily, but i was pretty slow without a wetsuit and suffering in the cold.




After the turn i was definitely a little shaky and not holding a straight line, but i think i was delirious so thats OK. The bike route was actually pretty tame considering the terrain boulder has to offer. the first 20 minutes on the bike i was still battling the cold from the swim. I was moving pretty quickly, passing a ton of people. i was riding more aggressively than normal, just to warm up. i actually was seeing double for the first 20 minutes....thats how cold i was. by the end of the bike though i felt pretty good, and in the end i only got passed by one guy, Steve Pyle formerly from connecticut....small world again. i had pretty solid bike time, averaging 23 mph.

The run went just as expected. i knew i wasn't going to be able to run my normal pace at altitude and going off of 3 weeks solely on the bike, sans running. The funny thing about the run was that my feet were still freezing, and the feeling of running was really quite odd. it actually felt like i had super springs in my shoes, and although my feet were numb, it felt quite comfortable and efficient. Overall the run went pretty well and i held 6'30"s the whole way. i think thats a pretty good sign for the summer, considering i did a total of 20 miles for april.

I ended up 13th overall out of probably 250-300 people so i was pretty happy with that. Time to rationalized....being at sea level and with a wetsuit i could have taken about 3 min off my time and been well within the top ten....but whatevs. It was a fun day and afterwards Megan and i checked out Pearl street and got to see a "Boulder Freeze" in action (or inaction.)



Oh yeah, this is for Jen. it happens to all of us.

Denver and Boulder

i've got a couple days before i head back to boston, so i'd figure i'd try and get some skiing and riding in if possible. on friday i headed up to A-basin for some early May powder. it was sunny in denver, but as soon as you passed through the Eisenhower tunnel it looked like this...


The skiing was pretty sweet, with about 6 inches of new stuff. A-basin's got some good terrain, but unfortunately most of the new Montezuma Bowl wasn't open. The winds were pretty high and the snow plentiful, so i couldn't really get the full scope of the mountain, just the 20 ft in front of me. Good stuff, though. especially the tree runs, i love those. i ended up skiing for an hour with a girl from boston who i met on the lift. small world huh?

Here's me skiing with a cycling jacket and other assorted borrowed apparel (thanks katie!)


The ride home was about 4 hrs because of some accident in the tunnel, but i got some Beau Jo's and made it all better....

Today i headed up to Boulder to pick up my packet for the "Tri for your Cause" triathlon (tomorrow) This should be a great race, although the H20 is 55 degrees and i don't have a wetsuit....i'll have to swim pretty fast to stay warm! After testing the water and only lasting 5 minutes, i headed out for a ride on Left Hand Canyon Rd. This place is un-freakin-believable. i probably saw 50+ riders out there at 4pm, and the scenery and terrain is second to none. This place truly is a cyclists mecca. (i'm pretty sure i saw floyd landis too....or a perfect look-a-like) The ride i did was about 2hrs with 3500ft of climbing and headed up to Ward, a small seen-better-days type of town.
Here are a couple of pics from the ride...

Tomorrow's the race (hopefully i don't hit an iceberg) and then a midnight flight home to Beantown.

End of the Road....for now...

The last portion of the ride that i am officially scheduled for took us from Telluride, CO to Pueblo, followed by a quick van ride up to Denver. Leaving Telluride we saw some really cold temps, probably in the upper 20's or lower 30's. Linc left us today, and headed back to Georgia (warm!). Too bad, it was a lot of fun riding with him!


We picked up a couple of new riders too though. Daniel, from T-ride was a buddy of Scott Elkins (our main contact man in telluride, and a pretty strong rider as well). we also we blessed with the presence of all former logistic directors, Chris Connelly and Andrew Suchocki. It was great to see those guys again, and they managed to pack alot of fun into their 2 day stay! So anyway the day out of Tride starts out downhill for 15 miles, and boy they were cold. Afterwards we climbed gradually for 12 miles so that warmed us all up. Daniel gave us a little verbal tour of the MTB'ing in the area, as well as some of the other good road rides.

Daniel and Jen with a sweet background shot.


The downhill was a blast, and Dave, chris, daniel and i flew down all the way to lunch. the remainder of the day was relatively flat ride into Montrose, where we stayed at a methodist church.

Heres Nate and Anuj suggesting a new rest stop sponsor. Suchocki would be so proud.

And Steph and Katie riding a goat.....



The next day's ride took us from Montrose to Gunnison. We had two decent climbs back to back in the beginning, followed by an easy ride past Blue Mesa Lake and into Gunnison. Chris and I had a little race to the top of the first climb, and chris got the better of me by about 10 seconds.... we were both about to pass out at the top, and ashley thought we were totally crazy.
Here's the first group up to the top.

Here's Nate getting an obviously fantastic backrub....these should be standard at all rest stops.


The next day was Continental Divide day, as we rode from Gunnison to Salida. the day starts out easily and relatively flat for about 35 miles. Then we climb for 9 straight, at a consistent grade with no breaks. Then its downhill all the way into Salida.
Heres a google earth view of the Divide


i was hoping to beat Chris and I's time up the hill from last year, which was around 51 minutes from the bottom (avg 10mph). I took the climb pretty hard from the get-go, but it was a little tough without chris there to pace off of and chase after. i was able to keep the pace pretty high for first half, which let me reduce the effort just a tad up by the top (more likely i was just tired!) anyway i made it up to the top in 47:40 or about 10.9 mph. so i was pretty happy with that, chris is going to have to come back next year during his research block and give a shot in 2009. Nate was right behind me in about 50 minutes, followed closely by cory, anuj, jen, joe and kel. Everybody did a great job, and the rest of the hills will be easy now! The way down is super fast, we probably were well over 40mph for 20+minutes. Before we hit Salida HS for the night we stopped at sonic because it was happy hour, and Carissa had never been before. She loved it...Bobby didn't...
Here are the girls at sonic


To cap off a great day a small group of us had some fantastic pizza dinner at Amica's in Salida.

My last day riding with the group was from Salida to Pueblo. This was a ride we didn't get to do in 2007 because of a freak snow storm (actually snow in CO in april/may isn't freak at all, as i learned today) This ride was beautiful! we started out going along the Arkansas river and through a small canyon before our our last bit of climbing in the rockies. it wasn't too difficult, but the scenery was spectacular!
Here's Anuj with the end of the Sangre de Christo mountains as a backdrop.


The day ended for me with a sweet downhill (definitely a little sketchy at times, and Anuj's battle wounds tell the tale here)
After packing everyone into the vans we headed up to Denver for our event at the med school, and maybe i'll write a bit more about that tomorrow....