It's been a long time since I've done a workout double. That is, two workouts in one day. On this particular Wednesday, Tygh had daycare and Hazel was in day camp at RMBL (mountain living FTW), leaving me with a free day in Crested Butte.
How could I resist? I rode 401 again, this time from the Rustler Gulch trailhead. From that trailhead, it's only 1600ft. of climbing and 8.5 total miles of riding so I figured my "race" later that night at the resort wouldn't hurt too bad (HA HA HA...anyway...).
While riding 401 with Sarita a few weeks prior was pretty damn magical, I had a blast this time too. I rode it faster, with more skill and more confidence. I felt really good about this but it made it a lot more difficult to take pictures. Due to recent rain, the trail was definitely tackier and the flowers were OUT. Like, really, really OUT.
On rides like this, I think DAMN. I LIVE HERE. And then I have to pinch myself.
After day camp, Hazel and I had the afternoon together. We had ice cream, played around at the adventure park in the base area and took a nap in the car. I mean I took a nap in the car. I was tired which bode well for the race at 5:45pm that evening.
Yeah, I raced. The race at Crested Butte Mountain Resort is free and entry includes free dinner, free beer and awesome raffle prizes. I figured, heck. I could just go out for a leisurely mountain bike ride and still score!
Oh man. That was hard. I know absolutely nothing about mountain bike racing. I do know I don't have a top end, so I just tried to maintain a steady aerobic state. That was hard when I had zero warmup due to scrambling to find someone to watch Hazel. At the last minute, I pulled up to the start line, heard the gun go off and proceeded to climb 900 feet.
Cue the heavy breathing.
I raced sport because my ego won't let me race in the shorter distance beginner class. There were two women in the sport race. I came in 2nd, 11 minutes behind the winner, not such positive numbers.
I will say that I have never before ridden the trails at the resort (they are rad, by the way) and had I at least done a pre-ride (and not stopped to take off and put on and take off and put on and take off and put on my glasses on a seriously humid evening), I could have shaved almost 10 minutes off my time. Had I ridden them several times prior to the race? LOOK OUT. I was 22 minutes behind the elite female winner who did the exact same course. So now I am contemplating mountain bike racing in 2014 because maybe I can do this?
Hazel and I made it home at 9:45pm and dragged ourselves upstairs where we promptly crashed in to bed. Her day of day camp, ice cream, adventure park, outdoor concert, bike race? It probably couldn't get any more full. I felt the same way. Full day. Good day.
