Lots of frenetic mental activity of late…
First, OP. I wish I knew what happened but can’t say I do for sure. Fitness is pretty much at lifetime PB levels according to the ole PT – confidence levels were high. Due to some indecision I ended up riding SS in the geared cat. It didn’t seem worth the $20 to change, and I also had a hunch the SS just might not be a limiter for that course over 24 hours. More often than not my racing is experimental. I never got to test my theory, though.
The first 12 hours were relatively smooth. 34.16 on the 26er and 32.17 on the 29er was the perfect gear to ride a pace more conservative than in ’06 but faster than in ’07 – a happy medium. About midnight my stomach would not accept anything. No warning, just complete shutdown. On the 11th and final lap I was hit by bib entrapment. Anyone got some scissors? A river knife? Bueler?
I have never had the runs in a race and when it’s cold, windy and yer wearing bibs it’s a big deal. Gawd it ain’t pretty. It was a showstopper. Those troubles lasted about 3 more days. That’s my dirty story.
OP: 3, DH: 2. Can we do best out of 7? For such an easy course it sure kicks my ass. Right Guy?
Word is out: Moab is the site of 24 hour nationals this year. New for ’09 is a SS category, one for men, one for women. Racing SS for stars and stripes. Yep, that’s got 2-epic pretty fired up.
We think doing things like multi day self-supported races and even multi-day stage races are not the best prep for an all out 24 hour assault, so guess what, big changes for our season are brewing. Between our collective win and beatdown we’ve got varied reasons for our motivations but they will usher us down the same rocky, sandy path – cause that’s how we roll :)
Lucky you if you’ve read this far. I’m cooking up a special self-supported event on the Paunsaugunt. There is soooo much awesome trail up there that nobody knows about, it’s on friendly NFS lands, and you need to see it to believe it. Part of the TU route will be included, the part nobody laid tire to last year ;) Late July/early Aug? It’ll be a one (long) day affair. DaveC better let me know your schedule cause you can’t miss this one. Date requests anyone?
That’ll do for now.
This doesn’t mean you’re out of AZT does it???
It does.
Booo, we’ll miss you. I’ve got a score to settle with OP too, maybe 2010. Can’t wait to see how your Moab prep goes :)
mid to late july gets my vote. that way if you want to do the butte 100 or LRE on aug 1st you can and don’t forget AMC stage race at Brianhead is Aug 20th. Just sayin.
I am still amazed at Lynda’s OP performance. Amazing! way to go.
I’ll be out there in spirit Chris. That’s for reals in FB :)
OP is such a great season starter. The best seasons I’ve had in the last 5 have all started with OP disasters…and Lynda’s best (’06) started with an OP win. In our own way, 2-epic is right on track. For crack.
Brad – I like that timing. We are considering the CCP and that’s the only current wrinkle…the Paunsaugunt ride I’m thinking will be every bit as fun and hard and long and beautiful as the CCP. LW was on FIRE at OP, I got to see quite a bit of it. One thing that impressed me most was that she used the same gear start to finish with hardly any fade. She said before the race the only person that could defeat her at OP was herself……..
As long as we can meet up on 7/24-7/26, I don’t care when it happens. Who’s yer buddy?
Tough luck, Dave. Sorry to hear about that. But man, Lynda must have been absolutely flying. Very impressive.
You’ll be missed at AZT. And I’ll sadly miss this Paunsaugunt adventure due to Arctic committments…
Hummmm maybe 3rd weekend in july? 3 weeks recovery from my solo GDR thingy and the co trail race the 2 of aug?….
count me and my kitty litter bucket in….
maybe I’ll come down a day or two early and do some more wrenching :)
Not everyone is alike. Some excel where others fail, and those same people can switch roles in a completely different act or event – and this time the one that failed previously become the victor. Take my buddy Tony, who as he was failing Differential Equations in college, he reminded the instructor that while he may be failing complex mathematics – Tony could still lift heavy objects, which clearly was something out instructor could not do. Thing is Tony ended up getting a solid B in the class…and our instructor, Archie, could very well have trained his body to move heavy objects.
So on this day you may have had the odds stacked against you – and there was no way OP was going to be kind to you. But you prevailed in having the runs. You had a successful streak (pun intended) as a mad shitter. Perhaps no one that day could have kept pace with on your trips to the John.
So congrats? ;-)
Bummer about the the OP result Dave, especially the unforeseen suffering you had to endure. But it must have been some nice consolation to see Lynda do so well.
Pgunt looks like a hoot!
Ed
So is the Trans Utah still on? Even though it looks like you will be doing the Moab race instead? I’ve been getting kinda fired up for the T.U….