Week ending 19JUN2022

Monday AM - jumped in with the summer practice kiddos.  I went super easy as the gracilas is aggravated so I took to the run as a "blood flow" recovery sort of thing.  4.2 miles.  It is still a bit angry but manageable.  

Afternoon - 4 miles out and back on the ditch

Tuesday AM - practice, there and back, 6 miles.  Felt awful

PM - 3.3 miles on the 136-Ditch loop.  Better

Wednesday afternoon.  Full work day.  Missed practice in the AM (calls starting at 6).  Got out in the afternoon before heading to band.  5 miles on the Lake Link Ditch loop and moved all right.  It was hot so it was easy to get sweating and breathing hard.  Evening band practice

Thursday - 5.1 in the AM at practice and another 4 in the afternoon.

Friday - 6.1 with GW at practice.  Thought I'd get out in the afternoon but I basically fell asleep at the desk after a long day.  I guess picking up the adult offspring at 1AM at the airport caught up to me.  

Headed over to the Rails Mic in the evening.  Was pretty unprepared so I did some regulars.  Not a great, but not a bad performance.  Went to the yell voice a bit too soon but I tend to do that on these.  

Found myself getting irritated at a few guys in the later part of evening who took 20 minutes to set up their gear and kit, then play six songs and then break down into another 2 for an acoustic side gig.  Not cool.  It is not your concert man and it was just keeping the last act of the night there an extra hour.  Know the game.  

Saturday AM - 12.1 miles.  Figured to get a bit of a bigger run since I have been being a wimp on that.  Headed out on Super Ditch and up the hill towards 128 and back.  Did ok since the clouds cut most of the sun.  Definitely the longest run I have had in a bit.  Moved okay towards the end too.  

Sunday - headed down to Sharpetail Ridge and ran with my partner for Fairplay - Alice.  6 miles.  It was our first date so we were still figuring each other out.

Did a gig at the Swim and Tennis club for most of the rest of the day.  

56 on the week.  A little better than the last few weeks but still getting over the discipline hump.

Week ending 03MAY2020

Monday AM - 7.5 with strides out at Bobolink.  Started at near 9 minute pace and finished feeling "opened up" at near seven minute pace.  Beautiful morning.

Tuesday PM - 8 x "broken quarters" or 250 on/150 off/150 on 300 off.  The 250 on was supposed to be at 5:20 pace and the 150s on were supposed to be at 5:10 pace but I ended up getting ahead of that.  250s started 49 high but cut down to 46 and the 150s were at 28 and moved down to 26.  10.5 miles total.

Wednesday AM - 10 miles super easy.

Thursday AM - 5.6 with Cheeto.  Took about 40 minutes to cover that with the last mile and a half at 6:40 or better.  He hit sub 4:50 for a bit in the middle of it which was a bit of a wake up at 7:30 in the morning.

It only took 45 minutes to actually get him out though - the early morning back and forth creek crossings were perhaps as much of a wake up as the rich pace a little later.

Thursday PM - easy 3.7 miles.  A bit sore actually.

April wraps up with a hair under 280 miles, 37 and a half hours, and 12k of climbing (which about a fifth of that came in one run).  No days off.  It was a good month in terms of getting after some quality (8 sessions), but other things lapsed (long runs, vertical).  I just am not sure I can juggle all of those in there at this point.  On the year 1164.x miles, 156 and 2/3rds hours, and 41k+ of vert.  2 days off.  No travel in April for obvious reasons, but 28 travel nights on the year.

Friday - PM.  Warm (80).  5 x 800 on 400 jog.  Been a long time since I did these and was a bit concerned my mind was in the wrong place (thinking about how my legs felt like crap) coming into them but was fine once I got going.  Goal was to be right at six minute pace for these and that worked out:  2:59, 2:58, 2:59, 2:56, 2:53.  In the game of woulda coulda shoulda I almost sort of feel that had I had to do 10 of these at 2:59 at equal rest I woulda been able to manage that.  10.2 miles.

Saturday PM - cloudy, humid but a bit cooler.  8.1 miles easy.   A bit fatigued in the legs but not bad.

Sunday AM - Flagstaff.  I'll flip these over to actual trail runs soon, but I do enjoy the grind of Flagstaff at this point.  10.5 miles, 90 minutes.  Overall I climbed it a bit better than a couple weeks ago, with what felt to be about the same effort (just a consistent run, not hard to start but it then feels pretty effin' hard in that last mile up).  I really struggled with "the wall of pain" segment this go though - that 16% average grade seemed to kick me a bit harder than typical.  Even with that, I got up about 40 seconds quicker than a couple weeks ago - and my best climb on it in 5 years (where I was about a minute faster than today).  Not great, but given the

66.2 miles on the week over 8 runs (155 runs on the year now), in just under 9 hours, and 3600 vertical feet.  Happy with the two quality sessions this week as well.  And a hill.  And a donkey run. 

Week ending 19APR2020

Monday - still snowing, but a nice light fluffy snow.  8.3 miles when done including the strides.  Chilly - humid.



And like that most of the snow was gone on the open stretches on Tuesday.  Afternoon - 20 minute plus easy jog warm up, 4 strides and then 2 x 8 x 200 on 200 rest with 400 rest between the sets.  Hit 39 high/40 low on the first few and then they were all 39, cutting down to 38 on the last couple.  Felt good, and tried to be tall and work on basic form mechanics.  On the last handful I could feel the last 40-60 yards the effort.  10 minute or so cool down - 8.7 miles.  I contemplated how I used to do 50 x 200 at that pace with no rest.

Wednesday afternoon - it seemed to be getting nice but then there was a bite to the air.  10 miles, easy out to Mayhoffer and back.


Thursday - really really snowing again.  Like the heavy spring stuff.  Not sure that shoveling for 2 hours goes into the log but it counts for something.  At least for catching up on some podcasts.  Got out in the afternoon for may or may not be one of the last winter slogs of 8.4 miles with some strides at the end.  Heavy legged.

Friday afternoon - tracks were socked in snow so this was on the roads.  But it was nicely sunny.   As it is a perfect mile around the high school, with it being a quarter on each side, I went there for 2 x 2 miles with a half mile jog in between.  Goal was 6:30's for the first, and 6:25 for the second - so more threshold sort of work.  Of course I jacked it by going 6:21 and then 6:25 for the first set.  Second set was 6:09 and 6:11.  I was definitely not threshold for the last half mile - but I was having fun as I was wanting to hurt a bit.    10 miles all told with the warm up, cool down, strides.

Saturday - recovery day.  6.4 miles - super easy.   Checked in on the donks.  Cheeto pretty much still wants nothing to do with me.  I have some work to do there.

Sunday - best I can tell, I have not been up and down Flagstaff Road in almost FIVE years.  Itching for some vertical, or maybe itching to not post yet again that I need it ... I decided I'd go and hit the road this AM.  I was not gonna fight the trails up Green with the ice, or the entire current circumstances there with current events.  I might have bumped into the Mayor out there, and if we did I can confirm we stayed on opposite sides of the road.  I am definitely a bit off my climbing game - and most certainly felt it in that wall you hit just past the mile 4 marker - but I held up okay for an "easy" run.  10 miles all told.  It was good to feel that burn in the quads when running 13 minute pace again.



A "neat" week for me.  61 miles, a climb, 2 quality workouts and a balance of rest and harder days.  I'd like a long run too but I can only get in so many legit efforts in 7 days.

No live or recorded videos of music this week, but have been "wood shedding" nicely.  The live streams definitely served a purpose in learning for me and nudging me but it feels like it is time to do something different for a bit.  I'll get back to that.  Been plucking at some new tunes, and working on a couple of my own.

Week ending 12APR2020

Monday - headed over to Mayhoffer to check on the situation there and then got Cheeto out for about an hour.  Coal Creek is crowded!




He is a good donk.  Definitely easy going, and there are a few new things we are working through ... bridges, turns, etc.  8.3 miles with a few strides at the end.

Tuesday AM - 20 minute warm up, four opening strides, then 2 sets of 5 x 1 minute, with the first set at a 7 PE on 60 seconds rest and the second set at an 8 PE with the rest at 90 seconds.  About a 15 minute warm down.  7.4 miles.  Good workout.

Decided if Pikes cancels, I'll just focus on a mile - see if I can get under 5:20 again.

Afternoon - 3 easy miles with KZ.

Wednesday - 10 miles, out and back to Mayhoffer to check on the donks.  JZ joined me.  Easy day.


Thursday- 8.1 miles along Coal Creek with strides post.


Thursday night did the Rails End Virtual Open Mic again.

In case I needed a reminder of how amateur I am at this ... check this out.  

I have been shifting a tiny bit on my music - and will likely take a break from regularly posting on-line "shows" (it sounds a bit weird to call them that), and focus a bit on some tunes I am writing, and  building out some other tunes I have been working on.

Friday - 3 mile warm up with strides, then 20 minute tempo on the track.  Covered 5100 meters on the nose.  10 minute cool down.  Was a bit apprehensive coming into this but figured I'd just try to start at 6:40 pace and carve down from there.  First mile was probably just under 6:30, and I slowly picked it up.  Felt really controlled and on top of it and only had to "think" about it a bit at maybe 3 minutes to go.

Saturday - 10 miles with Cheeto, getting this in on Saturday before the snow blows in on Sunday.  Took almost 90 minutes to warm Cheeto up to the halter ... a complete shift from where he was earlier in the week.  JZ finally sweet talked him into it.  Once we got going it was a fine run, but I did start to feel a bit of the work from yesterday in the last couple of miles.



Sunday  - 10 miles - super easy in the snow.  Tired.  Yeah, it was one of those typical Colorado spring things - a 55 degree swing in a day.



64 miles on the week, but two good workouts on Tuesday and Friday.  Also got in two burro runs, which usually means a little less mileage for the per minute buck, but a different workout in its own way.   The Friday workout was probably one of my better ones in the last year or so.  Normally I'd say that a 6:20 mile is no biggie but I have not really run that fast for three in a long time. Rolled through a 1000 miles on the year this week too.

This next week should be more of the same - a little less quantity and bit more focus on the quality of specific efforts.  Third winter is here so it will be a bit of more of a challenge then the perfect stuff we got dealt last week.

Clearly some of the turn in my fitness as of late is because of some more time.  This is not directly because of the current pandemic events, but indirectly - I am not focused on coaching the HS kids and so I get to focus more on my training.  An interesting ripple.

I have totally done crap for any sort of upper body work since the start of March because of this turn of events, so I need to get to doing something on that.  I was giving thought to heading to Boulder next week for some Green Mountain, but apparently the scene out of Chautauqa is rather nuts - so I may avoid it for a bit and if I hit any hills, they will be elsewhere.

Been doing some work related podcasting too.

Week ending 05APR2020

Monday - 10 miles, playing on a few of the hills in the area.


Tuesday afternoon - windy out of the west and so I did 10 x 300s on 200 rest at the MS track leveraging the wind as much as I could.  Slowest was 62 (5), and fastest was 57 (last), with nearly all the rest coming right in at 60.  Fun workout and a bit better than I expect.  I was sort of thinking I'd be around 65-67 for these.  8.8 miles when all done.  JZ was out there doing quarters and so he did part of his work to coincide with mine.  More fun.



That finishes March - with 311.4 miles, 41 and a quarter hours, and just about 10k of vert.  All the weeks were pretty solid.  The travel to California week was a bit of down week on whole.  I had 2 decent long runs in the month, and managed to start to get in some quality (3 in the last two weeks and 4 on the month.  In some regards, current events have helped training.

I hope to start to shift some of the training up in April - a few more trails, some more vertical, a bit less focus on miles as the measure and a bit more on minutes and vert.  Other stats so far on the year:  885 miles, 119 and a quarter hours, 29k of vertical, 2 days off, 28 travel nights, 2 camping nights, and an average velocity of 7.4mph.  I have gone running 119 times so far this year.

Yeah it is probably a bad coin flip to consider that even August races like Pikes are gonna happen but I'll train anyway.  It just feels good.  Oh, there may be some more donkey running soon.

Wednesday - 10 miles.  Got out mid day on a shirtless sort of day.  Wonderful.  Legs were tired but I was just moving well.  So good for the head.  I had a biker flip me off though.  I think it is because I passed him and he got pissed off.


Thursday AM - 5.2 slow miles in a freezing mist before heading to Edwards for a post op review with TZ.  Her review went well - and the doc is happy with her progress (although it has only been a week).  PM - 4.3 miles in the snow, back in Broomstock.  Easy easy.

Friday afternoon - sort of tired but rolling pretty good once I committed to it.  11.3 miles, with a 25 minute progressive sort of tempo, 6:45 down to 6:20 pace.  Felt solid.



Saturday AM - 10 miles.  Tired and slow.


Sunday - 12 miles at RFNWR.  First time there and it is pretty nice.  And I went on a first date with Cheeto.  He can move.




A run with a donkey like this might be the purest form of fartlek ... you go slow, you go fast, except you have very little control over it - the donkey decides.   I was nicely worked at the end of our first outing.  There will be others.

Good week.  70 plus miles, 2 workouts and a run with a donkey that sort of was near a long effort in terms of time.  Need to get to the hills soon.

Week ending 15MAR2020

Monday AM - in the dark in Santa Ana (or Orange County if you prefer) ... 5 miles, slow, shaking off yesterday's long run.  Long day at the plant followed by the corporate weenie dinner so no evening run.  Dinner was ridiculous - probably top 3 ever.

Tuesday AM - slight rain, in the dark.  Found a legit bike path.  Easy 7.3 miles.
Tuesday PM - 4 miles, got rolling a little towards the end.    Legs were sort of sore and tight to start.



AM - 6 miles.  A bit rough.  Super tired and slow to rise.  And it started raining.  Not bad but ya' know.  Headed down towards the San Diego Creek.


Didn't run Wednesday night.  Headed to see some of TZ's cousins who moved out here from the midwest.  Fun to hang with their kiddos for a bit.


Thursday AM - I slept poorly.  Up and then back down, and then fretting about various things (a daughter in Germany with the virus and then this travel ban back thing).   I decided not to do the early up and get some miles in but to try to capitalize on a bit of sleep in hopes for a better evening showing.

Thursday PM - 11 miles.


City 18 in Santa Ana.

Friday AM - 3 miles on the mill.  Slow.  Tired.  Pouring out and had to then travel back home.  Airports were a bit weird of course.

Saturday AM - 15 miles.  First 9 and change were with JZ and we ran in to some burros.

\

Ended up averaging 7:40 pace for this.  Not bad.  Not great but not bad.

Sunday AM - tired legs.  Got together with GW for a handful.  Totaled out at 10.

Not a great week.   Long work days, and the odd stress of the entire globe coming to a halt.  No harder running but my legs felt beat most the week.  Ended up with 60 plus on the week, and was happy to get a pseudo-long run in on Saturday.

Like nearly everything, HS track is on hold.  A lot of my work engagements have also been postponed.  Looks like I should still be able to get out a bit and get some miles at home for a bit now.  I wouldn't be surprised if that gets challenged too though.

Rest of the week ... ending 14JUL2019

Thursday - just 3 miles first thing in the morning.  It was hot.  Escaped out of PHX in the evening but didn't get back home to CO until 1:30 Friday AM.

Friday - back in CO.  Jumped into practice but had a conference call so it was a bit of a mess of a run.  5 miles.  Back at it in the afternoon and did the Lac Amora loop - 6.2, and felt pretty good.  But it was hot.  Not PHX hot, but hot.  Good to be home.



Saturday - ran down to the farm to run AJ to give JZ some reps with him.  92 and I was pretty cooked by the time I got down there.  Ran with JZ and AJ for a few more miles but gladly took the ride home with JZ.  7.7 miles.



Later in the afternoon, another 3.7 on the ditch, easy.

Sunday - up early as I am back on the road again.  9 miles.  I ran pretty well but the legs definitely were zapped from yesterday's hot outing.



Finished the week just over 60.  Not a great week as the travel and the heat threw me but there was at least some consistency.

Pittsburgh this week.



… did some picking at the park as par t of the 20 city project. 

Creede Pack Burro Race, Week wrap up

Finished off a couple of days in PHX and had some nice runs.

Wednesday AM - 6.2 miles
Wednesday PM - 4.2 miles

Thursday AM - 8.2 miles


Traveled back to CO in the evening.  It was just about 102 when I left PHX.

Friday ended up being an off day, the tenth on the year.  I was scrambling in the typical "get back" sort of thing - laundry, wrapping up an engagement, getting ready for the next one, and the like.  We headed out for Fairplay mid afternoon, shortening the day.  I decided with a Saturday race to let it go rather than try to over grip getting the run in.

It is still a different land up in Fairplay ... the buds of the aspens are still working on coming out at 10000 feet.

Hung out in Fairplay for the evening ... it has been too long since we did that.

We headed down to Creede on Saturday morning.  Creede is a bit of a ride - about 265 miles or five hours from Broomfield and three from Fairplay.  We coincidentally came up on Bob just south of BV while making the trek.

We caravan-ed it to Creede.  It is truly a spectacular drive across that part of Colorado - it is as if you are driving through a John Fielder photo or some sort of post card.   It is really beyond description and I don't have a camera that capture that.

We got to Creede a little before 10, and quickly learned that the typical 10 mile lollipop course was not going to be run as tributaries into the Rio Grande (the Willow) were gushing hard with recent snow melt.  Roads on the course were washed out or with significant water flowing over them.  The sheriff had closed large portions of the typical course.

There were no lack of opinions as to what to do from folks.  There were different suggestions to do an out and back, laps and loops.  Suggestions were coming in with races anywhere from 3 to 12 miles.  I decided to not get overly concerned about it and roll with it.

Did the typical sort of prep stuff, and did even a little warm up jog with Bob to eyeball any damage we could see.


We didn't see any for as far as we were willing to jog in jeans and sandals but it was clear with the amount of heavy equipment and sandbags they were throwing around, stuff was pretty serious.

The race was supposed to start at 1, but as is typical in a small town race, it was just really gathering at about 5 after.  The race announcer decided to read every participant's name and their burros names so we really didn't get going until about 20 after.  Right before the race, Brad announced the course - we'd head south back out of town and up on the Bachelor's Loop, and up to the third aid station before coming back exactly the same way.  He said he thought the course would be about 11 miles, but admitted he really was not sure.

Jack and I got less than a stellar start two blocks up but even by the first turn we had moved up into the top 10.  All the typical players were there with a new face or two.  We took a short turn, west, then another south and were heading down out of town.  I think it might be the first burro race I have been in with a DOWN start - and the burros were really getting on it.  Jack punched up to sub five pace and I was quickly realizing the elevation of 8900 of Creede.  Jack took the lead and I was wondering if I was going to be on my face with any stride.

Things quickly got back to normal with a couple of turns that had us going up to the west and to the north (within a kilometer of the race).  Everyone slowed and about a dozen teams were in it.  It would stay this way for the next 9 miles (with the only thing really changing is that maybe four teams were whittled off).  The lead would change, the pack would stretch and collapse over and over.  This is the case of the burro race.

No one however knew when we were turning around, and so the question kept building ... 3.5 miles, 4 miles, 4.5 miles.  No turning.  The tension was building but no one really was saying anything about it so we just kept rolling.  We saw a photographer so we knew we were not too far yet.  At the 4.5 mile mark, the big climb ended and we started a drop back into the woods.  5 miles, 5.5.  No turn around.  8 teams there, including the minis, Hal and Ricky Bobby, Hal and FTB, Pat and Alice, Joe and Jake, Bob and Yukon, and Jack and me.

Jack never really led on the way out.  I kept him in sight of the leaders on the climb but it was clear he was not going to gallop up the hill.  It was warm and he was only having so much of it.  But we kept enough contact.

6 miles.  6.5.  Then at 7 we came across the final station and the turn around.  The next race started.  Everyone tried to get a jump back up the 2.5 miles to long downhill back into town but the pack just did its taffy thing.  There were some pissed off folks coming at us though wanting to know where that turn around was.

We started the down and the butter nature of the road was right to Jack's liking.  He opened up and we took a lead.  On some of the turns or more shallow sections down he slowed and I could see the whole train of folks not far behind.  It was still anyone's race.  Patrick and Alice caught us and stepped up ahead of us.  We locked into that.

On a section a bit steeper than the rest down, Jack opened up and we took a bit more of a lead.  We got some daylight between us and Patrick and Alice - maybe as much as 150 yards.  There were a few sections where we hit sub five - and I was feeling for a bit like some of the days of old with this great donkey.  We might not have other days like this anymore but at least for today we had the wind at our ears.

We had a good gap, but I was questioning if it was going to be enough as we had to climb the last half mile back into town and then in the town area for the finish itself (Jack is usually not great at that).  As we hit town, I could see Patrick/Alice closing on us, chipping away at the lead.  But we had generated enough of a gap that we were able to hold on for the win. 

Patrick and Alice came in just a few strides behind us.


Certainly Jack and I have had a great early season with two wins and a third.  But the mid summer and Triple Crown races are different ... longer, harder washed out roads, and three weeks of it in a row.  Just have to enjoy each one as they come and not get too worried about the actual result.

Long ride back on Saturday night after all that, but again beautiful.

Sunday - back at it in Broomfield.  I did an easy six on the Lac Amora loop.  Legs were pretty tired tho.



Good week for travel - a nice hill workout in AZ, the race on the weekend with 14 miles and 2400 feet of climbing.  I need to get to altitude a bit more (I felt it in Creede and that is only 8900 feet).

Week wrap up 26MAY2019

Haven't posted since Monday of the week - really reflecting long days of work when I was in Carlsbad, and then a busy weekend when I got home.  Let's see if I can recall it all.

Tuesday AM - 4.3, easy and slow.
Tuesday PM - escaped for a bit and banged out a six miler along the coast in tempo fashion.  Good run.



Wednesday - tired, both from work and from the run last night.  AM - 4 miles

Thursday - nada.  Too tired to get out in the AM, and did a business dinner after work.


Friday AM - four miles, again - slow and REALLY tired.

Flew back to CO Friday evening and landed around 10PM.

Up and at it at 6AM on Saturday for the first race of the Pack Burro season - Georgetown.  I went in with no expectations really - as I have not trained a lot with Jack, we are getting older, and these early season races are not always the best indicators of what is to come.


All the typical pre race burro stuff - saddles, catching up with everyone, missing gear, etc.  New to it all was that it was to be JZ's first official burro race!



The start to all burro races is always interesting, but I had my share of the donk-drama this time.  The race organizers had set up several barricade saw horses to funnel us through a small section of the street.  Before the race started, I spoke up along with a few other racers and said this was a bad idea.  One of the organizers said it was to assure that we all went by the chip timer appropriately which was on the left side of the street.  BR said, "yeah but we don't want to die" - as when you try to get some 50 plus sets of burros through a start like that it sets up to be a bad idea.  I walked out and started moving the barricades.  BR held my rope for Jack. As I finished the third barricade the gun went off - I had not yet made it back to the start line.  Some one got this shot.



I scrambled back to the start, swimming up stream against burro teams and grabbed the rope and then tried to get Jack going.  It made for an interesting start!

We got out of town well enough.  As we went under I-70 I felt we were well positioned somewhere between 3 and 7th.  Just over a mile into the race, on the dirt path (still double track) Yukon (with Bob S) kicked Shad in the hip and he went down hard.  I stopped, quickly got AJ and checked on Shad.  He gimped up, and got going again.  We probably lost 30 seconds or so and thus we were now somewhere in the teens getting ready to get onto the single track climb.

By the time we got that, we recovered enough to be in 8th (I think).  As we passed Union Gap and started the climb to the turn around, we were anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds behind the leaders but keeping a fair position.  But as we hit the turn around, Jack and I fell WAY back.  The lead teams were quickly out of sight through the turns on the upper road.

As we came back over Union Gap coming down, I could see the teams anywhere to 200 to 300 yards ahead.  And I could see as time marched on, we were closing.  By the time we hit the double track back to town, we caught the group and were in the hunt for the top five.  The back stretch of road back through town whittled that down to four.

Jack is usually not a great finisher in tight town settings when sprinting against other donkeys, so I was fairly content that we got as close as we had and figured it was all gravy now.  As we crossed the final bridge, all the donkey got going in different directions and I managed to get Jack to get a little lead.  It was a tough go over the last 20 yards as I could hear Bob and Yukon closing but we eked a win out by some 3/10ths of a second.

Apparently we ran the race about 9 minutes faster than last year too (and we finished second by a nose there) so I will take positives from that as well.

JZ came in a short while later with tenth!

I was super stoked for him and then I talked trash for the rest of the afternoon.  These burro race affairs are probably the only thing less than 10k that I can still have a shot at beating him at.
Got home, cut the lawn and then saw Rails End was having an open mic.  So at the last minute, I jumped in.  Did four tunes, about 150 people out there watching.  Screwed up a few parts, still have quite a bit to do to be more confident in my singing, but have improved with the few reps that I have put in.

We were back at it in Idaho Springs.  If Jack and I could win the second day we'd win the Red Tail challenge.  It has not been won by anyone yet and the pot of money associated with it keeps growing each year.  This year it would be six hundred bucks.



I had little anxiety about this.  Jack and I have never won this race and it is not suited for our strengths.  We don't climb up Virginia the way we used to, and with typically seven teams coming out of the woods together and another tight in town finish,  and it only being five miles, it does not set up great for us.

We stuck with the lead teams on the climb up, and were even with everyone on the downs to the trails in the woods.  It became a bit of a show in the woods as several teams got off course, and were fighting the scrub and scree in the ravine.  It screwed up several teams, including Bob and Yukon who were driving the whole race at that point.

As the teams came out of the woods, a group of seven teams came together to race it out over the last half mile.  As is usual, one of the minis - Crazy Horse with Andrew this time, had a late rally and nabbed the win at the line.  Jack and I were in third, perhaps a second behind it all.

JZ had a slower day, ending up 19th, but had a blast in his prep for Fairplay (he is thinking short course at this point).

Got home and did an easy five and change with Greg along the ditch. 

At home this week so I'll try to get in some solid Pikes prep training.  It was only a mid 40 something mile week, but I got close to 5k in vertical – the most I have had in a week this year.  And some good workouts, including the burro races.