Chalk Creek Stampede - Nathrop, CO

(That's me in top middle, grey t-shirt, black hat, looking uber rad) Word Wookiees and family. How we doing? Thought I'd share my reflection of last week's race.

Saturday - This was the full on XC race, four laps of roughly seven miles, it was hot, dang hot. I was in second and feeling bueno until the beginning of the fourth lap - I cramped, lost second, struggled along in third and managed to not completely fall apart - 3rd place and a podium, which felt good after my miserable showing at Angel Fire that resulted in a 8th place finish.


Sunday - STXC, hot again, dang hot. I was way sore and not all that keen on exploding for 25-minutes. Side bar --- Have you read Ultra Marathon Man? If you haven't, I suggest you do as it's a quick read and reiterates how much potential is in the body. One of the things I took away from this book, is that the author (Dean Karnazes), munches chocolate covered espresso beans when he needs a big spurt of energy, I'll get back to this in a moment. So we file into the start shoot for the STXC, roughly 25-dudes set to hammer out 3-5 minutes laps on a dusty kitty-litter course. The gun goes off, and I settle into 7/8 which was part of my plan. A few laps into it, a few of the lead dudes blew up and faded into the pack. So now I'm in 4/5th and the pace is really picking up, next thing I know, with a quick glance back, the entire field is gone --- it's just us up front. I'm buddies with all the guys I'm riding with but me and one of them (who got second) and I made a secret plan to drop the other riders with three laps to go and then work together on the second to last lap to make sure it was just us, then hammer each other on the final lap. So the four of us ride through the start/finish shoot with what we thought was 'three-to-go', I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but we had two laps left instead of three! I thought to myself "Let er' rip", I then held up my index finger and pinky indicating two-laps to go to my accomplis who was sitting in third (I was in second)…so we drop the hammer, or at this point, it felt more like one of those little kid style hollow plastic hammers as my legs were getting super heavy. We head up the climb, I look back, no one was there, just me. So I'm off to solo the final lap and eventually take the victory. Kudos to fellow COMotion racer, Bubba, who snagged third, pretty darn sweet for a climbing/descending specialist that hammered all of us at Angel Fire.

Back to the chocolate covered espresso bean - I highly suggest the consumption of them prior to a STXC race.

Peace,
B