March

Wow, a whole month has gone by since my last post.  Obviously I think my life is mundane enough that I'm haven't been inspired to blog, but then again I have traveled out of town on bike trips three of the last four weekends~more traveling and riding than 2011's entirety~so maybe March is blog worthy.

The weekend after the St. George race I traveled down to Moab with my road bike.  I can probably count on both hands the amount of times each year my road bike gets to go outside~it lives on the trainer~and I am 100% certain that it has never traveled out of Salt Lake City to be ridden.  But, it was the Skinny Tire (read: road bike) Festival in Moab and a big fundraiser for local cancer organizations.  I went to Moab and met up with the Above & Beyond Cancer RAAM (Race Across America) team. Above & Beyond is a cancer foundation based in Des Moines, Iowa and I had been communicating with them about joining their team to Race Across America in June.  And while I have since decided that my body is just not quite ready to race (and then recover) from 7-10 consecutive days of hard effort, it was a fun weekend meeting inspiring new friends nonetheless.  I admit, it was a bit melancholy to be in Moab without a mountain bike~especially because we rode past many of my favorite trailheads.

 Day 1: We rode to Dead Horse Point.  Funny.  I had never been there before.

Photo: Jim Kirsner

Day 2: Cruised along the Colorado River with some cool girls.  Stacy, Me, Carrie.

Photo: Jim Kirsner

The following weekend, Shannon and I traveled to Southern Utah for the True Grit.  True Grit is a 2nd year event held on some pretty classic St. George, Utah trails.  There are three race length options: 25 miles, 50 miles, and 100 miles.  While the 100 mile option seems just crazy in March, Shannon opted for the 50 mile race and I stuck to the even shorter 25 mile race.   Although it would have been fun to mix it up with the 50-miler girls, I feel that March is a little too early to push my body at race pace for 50 miles.....especially this year!  My race was pretty uneventful.  I ended up riding by myself the entire time with the exception of when I decided to turn around and climb back up a downhill because I was convinced I missed a turn.  I rode back to the next racer and he reassured me that I hadn't missed a turn so we proceeded down the trail once again.  The trails were stellar, the company good, and I ended up with the win.  And despite the gloomy weather forecast for Sunday, Shannon and I snuck in 3 hours on Church Rocks before heading home.

Which brings us to last weekend.  My first weekend home in a month.  I was pretty tired from all of the traveling/racing/training of the proceeding weeks so my weekend mountain biking was relatively mellow.  I also had the opportunity to ride bikes with a great girlfriend who I probably haven't ridden with since 2005!

Stacy, Me, Cathy.  Stacy and I were teammates on Team Sugar in 2004.

Next up, back to St. George for Intermountain Cup #2.  I get to try to race the fast girls again....