Living on a Thin Line with Diabetes

Tour Divide 2012

2011-12-29T06:51:00.001-08:00

A friend, Sean Rainsford, from New Zealand with diabetes had ridden the Tour Divide (TD) as a two year tour a few years ago and stopped by our house. That put the idea in my head originally. When I rode the Colorado trail race last summer (2011) and got to know Eszter H better, she was talking of racing the TD. Jefe Branam and Ethan Passant from the valley had both done it that summer as well and as expected did well. I thought yeah I don't think that is in the cards. It seemed kind of silly to blast through so much country. I would love to do it as a slow tour with Julian and Lila when they are older. And I don't think Anne would go for it as she said many times, "I wouldn't go for it!" And that's where it stood for a few months. It grew on me though. If I was ever going to do it as a race I couldn't wait around. I am pushing the years after all, or "getting on" as the Brits that do these races say. And I really missed riding and climbing in the Canadian Rockies and I haven't ridden at all in most of the other states than Colorado. So it would be an real adventure. You can spend you life tucked away in a room or a car which seem to me like sitting in a coffin waiting to die or you can go on adventures.

So I kept hinting and talking about it. Anne would look at me like I was crazy-her face turning all sorts of colors and I think I saw smoke coming out of her ears. She obviously wasn't into the idea. Finally I realized that she thought I may not make it back in one piece. You know, I think she still likes me or maybe she just needs the lawn mowed. Finally one day she just blurts out, "You're going to do this no matter what I think so just do it." Now that she has resigned herself to it she doesn't get so upset but I sure hope my spot tracker doesn't show me not moving in the middle of grizzly country off a cliff. These days most people wear GPS Spot trackers that using the Internet you can watch the progress of the racers as little blue or pink (in the case of Eszter) dots on a map. It can be quite addictive.

So what do I expect from the TD? It is a long way. >2700 mi and ~200,000 feet of climbing on rough dirt roads. It is self supported so you carry all you need or buy it along the way in the little towns you go by. You can mail supplies to a post office. I want to ride >150 miles a day. I did almost 100mi/day in the Colorado trail race where you spent a good deal of time hiking. When looking at my speed I try to compare myself to others that have done it and I have ridden with. Jefe and Ethan. I can keep up with Ethan and Jefe on good days. The big variable with Jefe is that he isn't supper fast but he never sleeps. I need to cut back on the sleep. Ethan is fast. Jefe did it under 17 days (on a shortened course do to snow and flooding) with Ethan soon after. I would also like to keep ahead of Eszter. I think she will crush all the other girls that have done it. And if I can, and don't sleep so much, I should go pretty fast. I am really much faster on the roads than technical single track (not that I'm that slow....). A guy name Forest did it and went pretty well but on the Colorado Trail race he was way back and bailed so I don't know what to make of that. A guy I met at the Leadville 100 (Canon Shockley) from Leadville did it in ~20 days. We were pretty equal in the LT100. So if I can put in good miles every day I would then finish the 2700 miles in under 20 days. I would really like to go under 18 days.

I want to not freeze in Canada or Montana. I want to not cook in New Mexico. I want to be able to feel my hands and feet afterwards. I don't want to go into a diabetic coma in the wilderness (or anywhere else).

So now I just need to get a few odds and ends for the trip and come up with food ideas (my weak point) as it is self supported and you can't have people following you with food. You have to buy everything you need along the way in gas stations or in stores.

I also want to try and raise $ for Type 1 diabetes research. Maybe we can cure it or even better prevent it. I think other diseases such as Crones, Lupus, and other autoimmune related diseases would all benefit from further research.

More on the gear and raising $ later. Until next time keep your stick on the ice and rubber side down.

Into the VAPOR!

2011-09-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

It's raining now. It was raining two weeks ago. One week ago a high pressure moved in and shoved the rain down to the four corners south west of here. One week ago the moon was full. One week ago the skies were clear and at 10pm 60 or so mountain bikers left from the bridge in downtown Salida for an 125mi mountain bike race that would climb 18,000 feet or so and follow many old rail road grades from the 1880's. Yes that's right the Vaportrail 125. Now you might wonder why it's called the "vapor trail." I imagine that it is because it follows the old trail of the narrow gauge steam locomotives for a while. Anne, my faster reading better half, said she read or was told by Tom Purvis at the aid station that it was because it climbs up close to the vapor trails in the skys (or Chem Trails as some crazies call them). OK I could go with that. You do go up to 12,600' on a gnarly carry-your-bike on your shoulder hike-a-bike in the early morning. And are above 11,000' for a good chunk of it.

a 3D map

On these longer rides you may ask yourself what exactly do you think about. Well sometimes I get songs stuck in my head. When I'm feeling good this might be get stuck on my head on fast downhills. Replace car with bike and highway with trail....

Sometimes on my lowpoints I may get the old song by "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar but sung by the George Steinbrener character on Seinfeld.

If I'm cruising up a long hill, then I get this song stuck sometimes but it just repeats, "Motoring.." as I don't know the words.

And if I'm getting a little out of i,t this may get stuck for a while...from the Who.

And if I'm cruising pretty fast maybe another by the Who.

So there ya go.

Dave Wiens had emailed that they could use some help at his aid station at Snowblind Campground at about 62miles in. Last year I came in at 6am after screaming down some single track in the dark. So I talked Anne into taking the kids up there and she could help. And then she could see some of the race. We drove over about 3pm and drove up to the campground. Jimmy Dirksen and Dave with Susan and the boys were up there marking the course and setting up camp. They have twin boys that are 11 and one older boy that is 13. Dave gave Susan and Jim a ride up Tomichi pass and they were to ride down Canyon creek trail and mark it. Anne and I stayed with all the kids. The boys were super good kids and played with Lila and Julian and they had a great time getting firewood and playing games. Becky was doing the race after moving to Steamboat for a new job and stopped by to give me a ride over to Salida.

Here is a video of the race that Chis Miller, husband of Eszter H, put up. You can see Becky as the smiling girl at the start. You can get an idea of the trail...

Vapor Trail 125 from chris miller on Vimeo.
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and more pictures a Mountainflyer;Vapor Trail 125

For the longest time I never knew Salida had a downtown as I would just either not go the 5 miles over there as I would stay on Hwy 285 or if I did I just stayed on the main highway/drag and completely missed it. Finally a few years ago I digressed and low and behold there is quite a bit over there. Probably the best bike shop on that side of Monarch pass, Absolute Bikes, is down by the river and actually connected to a cafe/bike shop, which is cool. They also have a great pizza/brewery called Amicas. Becky and I decided to try that out before the prerace meeting at 9. We got there and it was just too busy so we headed back to the cafe by the bike shop. I had some pasta special, some coffee and a cinnamon roll. We filled up and got our bikes stuff going and then went to the meeting. It was cool to see familiar faces. The Nuttelman twins. Always a force to be reckoned with. Eszter and her husband Chris. The Crested Butte guys, Jason Stubbe, Dan Loftus and Aaron Huckstep (and new CB mayor), Troy Hiatt from Gunni, John Fulton who had done the CTR with me and many others. I also met some new people.... One racer named Todd Kennedy came up after hearing me talking in the parking lot and said he had been reading my blog as his son who was 4? now had diabetes since something like a year old and wanted him to be able go on rides with him when he was older. I can't imagine having one of our kids with diabetes. It's one thing to get it in your 20s but as a baby.... Lila has two boys in her class of 80ish with type 1. If technology goes like it is now, I think we'll maybe figure it out in the next twenty years. So give to your favorite research group! www.jdrf.org

For more info on the course see my post from last year or the vapor trail web site. I decided to leave a meter with Anne at Snowblind at 60+ miles and one on Monarch pass at the aid station and carry my Dexcom continuous glucose meter. My sugar began to climb an hour before the race.

The picture below shows the whole enchilada. I took 5u of Humalog and 15 of Lantus at 8:30. I slipped 5u into my pack in a syringe. A little into the race at the mellow pace my sugar was still rising but once we began to ride harder and the insulin began to kick in it dropped quickly. I also refrained from eating too much. At the first aide at 1am, my stomach was starting to feel off. We had just ridden a good section of Colorado trail in the moon light and it was good. As we climbed up the long rail grade up to the Alpine Tunnel, I was having moments where I would feel good and then not so good. My energy began to wain. Looking back, I had my watch timer beeping every 40min to remind me to eat. This was working well along the earlier sections. But half way up to the alpine tunnel my blood sugars began to climb. With the Dexcom, I notice that at the high extremes it is very often much higher than it reads.

So I feel the high glucose in the middle was actually much higher. As we got close to the tunnel a few guys I was riding with, a single speeder from Durango, and Dan Loftus dropped me and I was feeling very cold and having a harder time. My legs began to feel tight and my energy was lacking. I had this feeling in a race at the Firecracker 50 in Breck where I was getting passed by fat guys..... I began to descend the tunnel and hopped in the train building that tourists can drive up to. I put on all my cloths. Both pairs of gloves, two pair of leg warmers and jackets. I was shivering uncontrollably coming down. Later people would talk that it was cold but they didn't have that much on. Looking back when your sugar is high, you can't use sugar for energy either. Like you've flooded the engine with too much gas versus running out of gas like low blood sugars--where you get cold also. As I climbed up Tomichi pass, I began to feel worse. I began to see lights catching me and passing me. At the top the Nuttelman Bros went by. I stopped and gave myself about 3 units from my stash in my pack. I'm always scared to give too much as you may tank with low sugar. From my Dexcom you can see it did start to drop but I continued to feel like my friend the Dentist when we did this ride and I would have to wait for him for extended periods..... I dropped down the pass and quickly hit the trail up Canyon Creek. The 900' hike/climb-a-bike. The only good thing was the moon was very nice. Clouds were blowing over the 12,600 peak we were climbing over past the moon. Last year I flew down here. This year I was flailing. I hit a rock and whacked my left knee. I then decided I had had enough. I was going to bail for the first time. I stopped at one point to take a look at the Dexcom and two bow hunters were standing right next to me in the dark. I left ASAP. I finally made it to Snowblind Aid a good 30 min slower than last year at 6:40am. I checked my sugar with my meter and it was 255. My Dexcom said 155. OK it dropped but not good enough. No wonder I felt like crap still. Anne was up feeding people sausages and Susan pancakes. Dave was mixing batter, signing number plates for spouses of riders, making coffee... Jim Dirksen was putting lube on chains and checking water bottles. He was very careful to ask if it was OK as I guess some guy chewed him out for putting Squirt lube on his chain. Thanks so much guys! Lila and two of the Wiens boys were up, Julian was up before I left. I was still shivering even sitting by the fire. I took 5 more units of Humalog and with Anne's positive energy I slowly decided to continue. I also ate some pancakes/sausage/pure maple syrup and coffee. I was getting passed by so many people as I sat and shivered for a good 50-60min I thought I would be way back in the pack. And I was. Dave just smiled and said "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't" Aint that the truth. I headed down the road still shivering but starting to go faster. By the time I got to Old Monarch pass a few miles later and started to head up, I had passed 2 guys. I passed 10-15 more at least by the top. I was going really fast now. And feeling really good. The sun was now beginning to come up pretty high. I had left my light at the aid station and now began to finally take off my leg and arm warmers. I got to the Aid station at Monarch pass with Chris M who was looking tired.

The high school mt bike team from Salida was running this aid. They were very enthusiastic. One guy would ask if I wanted coffee, yes I said, and out of the blue another brings a whole plate of bacon and eggs that I didn't ask for and no coffee. No biggie--big deal for them though.... I used the facilities in the store and got out after 10-15 minutes total. I was still feeling really good. I passed more guys on my way to Marshal pass. Here you drop down Starvation creek and climb back up to Marshall. I told the guys at that aid I'll get stuff on the way back. He said are you sure it's two hours. I said two hours ha!. I passed three more guys here at least as I screamed down the techy steep single track with Deep purple playing in the grey matter and climbed back up the steep road back up. The guys at the aid were surprised to see me and said I was probably the fasted to do the loop. Now most of the trail is down hill with a few steep little grunters and lots of really sharp rocks at the top. But mainly miles and miles of fun single track that almost makes you forget that you have been riding all night. I went as fast as possible but didn't push it too hard where I knew the worse danger of hitting rocks and getting a flat. I was passing fewer racers so I knew I must be closer to the front. I finally caught the Nuttelmans. One then the other. Even though I have to admit, Max, had broke his chain. I completely forgot my tool at the start so he had to wait for his brother. I passed many people just riding for fun from Gunni and Salida and they all cheered me on. I finally reached the highway and got the big wheels rolling really fast in my biggest gear. It's not that I was trying to race so hard here as to get to the finish and have a beer. I saw two bikers ahead and caught them just after the turn into Salida. One was a guy on a Superfly but with the new XX set up. Not as big of gears.. and he couldn't keep up. The other was the single speeder from Durango. He had complained as I rode with him way back on the way up Alpine tunnel that people wouldn't ride with him here and was a little bitter that they didn't pull him along. So I blasted past him also and he didn't look happy at all. I had a heavier bike than both of these guys as I had the bigger gears so I didn't really care, I had pushed them up all the hills, I get to use them all the way back down. Anyway I just wanted a beer really. So the finish looked so nice. I tied for 7th in 16:32 hrs. The guy behind me was close enough for the same time. The single speeder was a good 8 min back.... Maybe next yr I'll try a single speed.

Anne and the kids were hanging out in the grass with a beautiful day. We hung out for quite a while and headed for home. So much thanks to all the Salida guys for putting this on and the lady (Forgot her name) that got me a new bite valve for my camel back as we rode out of town! Puts Salida on the way cool places to live just behind Gunnison. One more fun fact. The guy that won crushed it but Anne said he didn't eat any food at the aid station. His wife met him and he ate canned peaches from a ziplock only.... I can see that as we just canned peaches from Paonia. Could be good. All for now sports fans! Oh almost forgot I made the Web version of the mountain flyer--one of my "life goals"

Colorado Trail Race "It's the final countdown!"--come on sing along!

2011-08-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

This is the 4th and final part of my Colorado Trail Race Saga for part 1 click here for part 2 click here for part 3 click here.

I finally fell into a deeper sleep sometime in the night. It was chilly even in my 32F down bag at 11,700'. I had on my balaclava as I had lost my lighter hat. (Thanks Zach for finding it and carrying it all the way in and mailing it to me!) This was bad. It is pretty dense material so I couldn't hear my watch alarm at all and didn't get up until around 6:00am and got moving soon there after. I soon caught Jerry who had gotten up very early. Well at least I got some good rest... 8hrs-crazy. We rode somewhat together until the last few large climbs and then he caught me at the bottom of the last big hill at Apple the trail angel's camp. It was so nice to hang out in a comfortable chair and drink a coke and eat some chips. Apple hangs out there just before the trail crosses Hwy 114 and helps out CT travelers after the nasty section we just did. We both agreed he must have a story... I was thinking he is in the witness protection program. He looked kind of like he could have been in "Goodfellas". Super nice either way. I grabbed a package of 6 mini Oreos (240 Calories) and tucked them into my pack. This would be my emergency food if I ran out.....

Trail hits section 18 at the highway. I had walked and ridden some of this doing trail maintenance with Martha Violett, a retired music professor from Western State College where I work. She and her husband Ted (physics professor for 50yrs at WSC) had maintained this section of the trail for many years. Since his death, a bunch of the science faculty have been helping her out. This section was fun to ride but I might have to go back and cut some branches back as they whacked me while riding but I hadn't noticed when hiking it. This is the last time I would see Jerry. I gave him the map I had printed out as he was confused about the next detour. He hadn't got a ton of sleep. The detour is a dirt road that has a couple of good climbs. I was making good time making the big wheels roll but it seemed to make me eat like crazy to keep my sugar levels up. I had to stop a few times to check it and eat more as it would drop into the 60 range...

I did have some trail magic at the start of Los Pinos pass--the peak in the middle of the profile above.. Some Texans had taken up residence at a ranch. They were having a huge BBQ and offered me ribs or the like. It smelled quite good. I described the race and they didn't quite get that there were no set distances each day or places to stay. I told them I would take some water so one guy gave me some and brought out a banana and some prosciutto ham. I ran into some rain higher up and waited it out under a tree. Then the nasty looking storms all cleared and the mountains where I was heading looked perfect.

Clouds clearing as I go over Los Pinos Pass

The road up to the highway where it goes over Slumgullion Pass above Lake City seemed to go on forever and I began contemplating going down to get more food as it was a difficult section to Silverton coming up. I also started to wonder how much energy gu I could get out of the empty packets in my backpack. You know you can never get it all out. Towards the top of the pass I finally caught up to Eszter. We talked for a minute and then I rode on up to the top and over to Spring creek pass where we hit single track again. I filled my water and was hanging out in the evening sun and she catches up. We chat and she pulls out some freeze dried food in a ziploc bag that she had added water to and put in her bra to heat up. She is way ahead of me and the guys in the food department. Hmmm I'm going to have to bring that next bike ride (The food not the bra that is.) I thought as I ate some crackers I had gotten out of Apple's food box that backpackers had left for others to to eat.

We start riding and I pulled ahead. I had ridden this section with some friends a couple of weeks earlier. Pre-riding this was huge as you are at high elevations 12-13,000', the trail has MANY passes that you have to go over and they can really get in your head if you don't know how many more you have to do. The sun set as we climbed higher. It was a very beautiful night. A partial moon. Clouds way off in the distance with flashes of lightening. Stars. Above tree line.... I rode to about 10 pm when I found the yurt. I checked it out and a couple of girls from Australia offered to let me sleep inside. It was kind of a mistake as it wasn't all that warm, I didn't want to wake them at 3 am, and I wasn't super tired and could have ridden on. After sitting for a minute, I decided to crash there.
Stats for the day: 95mi, 10500'. Hmm I just noticed I seemed to ride just about 95 miles each day....

I woke up not so early again going around 6. Eszter, of course, got up over two hours earlier and was ahead. I got to recognize her tread pattern pretty well. This section of trail like I said is very beautiful but very hard. You climb up to 13,200' and have to hike up some really steep passes. From the profile below you can see there are MANY passes.

Looking south at cloud in valleys

One of the many high passes

Flowers and Mountains

About half way through this high alpine section, I passed John, who I had seen on Monarch Crest. He must not have slept much and wasn't moving fast. He also had some issue with his single speed bike. That's weird.

I knew I had several more passes but remembered when I was getting close to Stoney pass where you take a jeep road down steeply to Silverton. On the last corner, we hit sheep poo as they were grazing on the grass. As I rode Stoney pass, a storm was passing over Silverton and I headed down. And low and behold, it's Eszter again as I was going down faster. We cruised into town together and had lunch at a cafe at 2pm. I had $35 worth of food. Smoothie, ham and cheese grilled sandwich, large cookie, breakfast burrito (and one burrito to go). We had a great lunch. I called my family and they said Cat was just 20 miles back. OK they are really slow miles but Eszter got a look like she had to get going as she started saying how hard Cat rides. She then went and checked on a guy's computer who was surfing the web. After lunch, she headed off to the store for more batteries for her spot and what not. I had a package at the post office so I went for that. I had spare shorts, shirt, tools, food, etc. I change, grab food, and mail some stuff back to Gunni. I decided to go light. I got rid of my front handlebar pack, some of my clothes, my sleeping pad, my down jacket, my small light and one spare tube. I headed up Molas pass at 3pm.

Here is a tally of all the food I ate after lunch on the final push to Durango from the wrappers left in my pack.....
Powerbars 5 banana @240 Cal
Gu or power gels 11@100-110 Cal
Probars 2@270 Cal
Fruit bar 1@180 Cal
Granola bar 1 @180 Cal
Breakfast burrito from Silverton ~300? Cal

For a grand total of about 3800 Cal. Hmm not a huge amount.... But it was a lot of wrappers.

I made it up Molas pass in about 55 minutes even with my blood sugar tanking--I couldn't seem to get it up above 60. 80 is "normal" but I like to have it higher. I ate 2 gu's and a powerbar on the climb.
So you're probably wondering, "does this guy really have diabetes" as I haven't really talked about it much. I cut back on my insulin considerably. I hadn't taken hardly any Humalog quick acting insulin. I did take 3 units with my big lunch but probably could have done 1. I also had taken much less Lantus at night and added a bit more in the morning. There is nothing worse than not being able to wake up when you're in the woods alone, under a tree and off the trail..... After the first day I cut my Lantus from a normal of 15 to 5 at night and 3-4 in the morning. And decreased it from there.

The trail here after Molas is more geared for biking and is great trail. I hated to ride it in the night. I didn't plan on stopping much for the night as I was getting burned out on the hiking and even the single track. My body was actually feeling pretty good. The balls of my feet were a bit sore and my throat had been getting more and more sore and I seemed to be getting some sores on the roof of my mouth.

More flowers..

These flowers are handle bar high...

The sunset was great. After dark, I began to have a hard time riding as my bike seemed to swerve all over the place and the trail was often on the side of a steep hill. In these areas you could see the uphill side but just a black abyss on the downhill/cliff side. I stopped and once again my sugar was low. I stopped and ate my burrito and a bar and watched the stars for a while. I also was getting a little gripped as in 1988 I had crashed on junction creek and had to ride out for 15 mi to get 30 stitches in my knee and shin. And I guess I missed Anne and the kids and thought she was very worried about me falling off a cliff where they wouldn't find me for a long time. So it was slower going for a while. I finally came around after the big climb after Bolam pass. I rode until about 12:30am and found a nice spot under tree to take a nap. I took just 3 unit of Lantus. I was sleeping lightly and saw Eszter go by......

I slept for a couple of hours and was riding again at 2:30am. My sugar was 300 but quickly dropped to 60 when I got lost an hour later. The trail here goes across a road a bunch or hits the road and then soon after goes back to trail. I made all the junctions until about 3:30am when I missed one and thought I saw a marker on the road. I didn't remember the trail following the road but I couldn't really say as once again my sugar was low and I hadn't had a ton of sleep. I kept stopping to see if I could see E's tracks but the road was packed to well. I finally decided to go for 5 more minutes and if I didn't see a marker to turn around. I couldn't see the stars to tell my direction either as the trees were too thick. So I finally turned around and got back on the trail. Here you can see my bumbling...

My 1:30 delay.....

I got back on the trail and sure enough there were E's tracks. I caught her again in a bit before sunrise. Sunrise was very nice also as the sky was red and the mountains were silhouetted. She was looking pretty tired as her normally chipper crackling voice was not as chipper. We got to the final pain in the butt climb (big climbs up steep loose sliderock) before Kennebec and the mountains to the west, where I grew up climbing and biking, began to lighten with the rising sun. Really nice. I gotta bring a digital camera if I do this again. As I can hike a bit faster I dropped E again. I dropped down to the lake just before Kennebeck and then up to the trail head and parking lot 26 mile from the finish and mostly down.

I ran into a couple of bike packers and talked to them for a while. I took off my back wheel to check out my back brakes before the downhill. My freewheel/wheel had been making weird sounds for a few days but I knew I couldn't fix anything there. It was making a whirly chirping sound when the wheel turned like a crazy bird and when I peddled after coasting would make a thunk-thunk sound. I would soon find out what was wrong. I decided to put my other set of brake pads on and when I grabbed my back wheel to put it back on something wasn't right. Only half of the pieces were there. The cog set was still on the ground......my axle had broken sometime. Below is a reenactment of what it looked like.

Calm as always I carefully slipped the pieces back together and put it back on my bike.

I figured if my skewer could hold it that far, it would probably hold for another 20 miles. And down the trail I went.... The trail was nice with the classic water falls. About half way down, I got paranoid that I had missed a turn. I didn't remember so much climbing in the middle. Crazy what happens after making some wrong turns and not much sleep. So I rode back down the climb and there was E coming up. I said, "so this is the right trail?" she was a bit confused why I would be coming back and said yes it showed up on her GPS. I then turned around and rode about as fast I could the rest of the way back to the end of the trail..... I finished in 5 days 5hrs and 15min or so. E arrived soon after. Stats for this day: 115mi almost 18,000' climbing and almost 2 hrs of sleep.

I found Anne, and the kids, and Grandma and Grandpa. I sat down and ate a bunch of cantaloupe and good ol' Zach had been by to pick up some stuff and left E and I a PBR beer. I found my stash of Oreos that I got from Apple, the trail angel, and split them with E. We all then went to Carvers for some lunch. E talked them into giving us a beer. She is a force of nature.....

I came in 4th and E a close 5th out of 70ish. For more info with maps go to: http://www.climbingdreams.net/ctr/ and http://trackleaders.com/ctr

Immediately after stopping for a while, my ankles began to swell up--Kankles I think they call them. My mouth was sore. However, I didn't really smell at all.

The next day we drove back to Gunnison. We saw that Becky was about to hit Silverton so we stopped and looked for her. Little did we know that she had thrown in the towel. As she was looking for a phone, she saw our car and then ran into us. We got her some of Anne's clothes and put her bike in the car and gave her a ride back as well. Sitting between a 4 and 8 year old may have been almost as bad as riding the rest of the way to Durango. We had a bbq with some of the CTR racers later in the week, E, Becky, Jordan, Chris. Until next year?

Colorado Trail Race Day 3.

2011-08-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

This is Part 3 of several long posts of my Colorado Trail Race Adventure.
For Part 1 preview go here.
For Part 2 Days 1 and 2 go here.
For Part 4 go here.

Day 3 Bonus..... Route navigation! I thought I'd take a moment to talk about the signs you use to follow the trail, when its marked....

Most of the time the trail is marked at an intersection with a sign like the following on a tree or sign 20m or so down the fork of the trail that you are supposed to take. So it is key to watch for intersections and then search for the marker, especially at night. They are easy to miss in the dark.

Much of the time two or more trails were on the same route you would get a marker like this,

Even better you might get a sign like this that can't have the marker torn off. Many of them seem to have gone missing off the tree or post. It seems that the higher in the tree a marker may be the more likely it will still be there. Much of the trail past Molas pass later on was "marked" by posts like this one with out any mark on it at all.

Markers like this one were prevalent at copper mt.

Many of the markers were on the flexible posts like this. Many times the sticker was missing or the post was broken in half.

The best was an actual sign.

And much of the time the trail was marked by large piles of rocks or cairns in the high country...... So there ya go.

My Day 3. I was out the hotel door and riding up towards Cottonwood pass by 4am. I reached the Colorado Trail and hit it in the dark. The trail after this had me a bit worried. You have to cover a lot of very remote and rough trail with out any towns until Silverton, which isn't very big. And then I noticed that I was having a hard time riding through a rocky section. Sure enough low blood sugar. I have a Dexcom 7 continous glucose meter but didn't bring it as I didn't think the batteries would last and sometimes it just doesn't work well. So I had a glucose meter in my pack. The time to check wasn't too bad unless I did it a lot. (foreshadowing hint hint). Hmm I sure hope I have enough food to get me to Silverton.....

Some single track.

After a little while, I caught Jerry from the store the day before. We said hi and I rode on ahead. A few miles further, a baby owl was right in the middle of the trail. I stopped and picked him up and set her on a rock. There he is--camera didn't work for some reason.

I went to get back on my bike and my front wheel wouldn't turn......I looked it over and sure enough my break pads had worn too thin and the metal spring was stuck in my rotors. OK I'll pop my spare pair in. I got out my multitool and what??? It doesn't have a 2.5mm allen! and then I look in my bag and no spare brake pads. Houston we have a problem. As I'm thinking of ways to file one of my other tools down with a rock and get the metal part removed along comes Jerry. And low and behold he has a tool kit with the right size allen wrench. I got my wheel rolling without the spring. No way was I going to ride all the way to Silverton with out good brakes so I rode just a little bit further to just above Princeton Hot Springs and rode the road back to Buena Vista. I got to the bike shop pretty quickly. It was closed until 9 and it was 8. I ran into Cat again at the bike shop and I helped her get a hose set up and we sprayed off our bikes. She was waiting for the post office for a package. I went to a restaurant a couple of buildings down and grabbed an omelet and pancakes. I also called the MTB cast and wished Anne a happy birthday.... I had also been on a long ride on Mother's day. Isn't she the best. Finally the shop opened and I bought two pairs of pads and put in the new pair in the front. And I was off. I made it back to the hot springs 3 hrs after I left to come to town. It also put 17+ miles and about 700' of climbing on my ride.Here is the profile of my day without the detour.....

And the route with the detour

The next section I had ridden at night in the opposite direction during the Vapor Trail race the year before. It had a gnarly climb and then some good single track. Getting closer to highway 50 that goes over monarch pass I passed some other CTR's at a raspberry patch so I stopped and ate some. There was several piles of bear scat in this area.... I passed them and after what seemed a long time finally arrived at the highway. It had rained just before I got there and I just got a little of it as I started riding up Fooses Creek. I met many hikers along here that had counted racers and put me in 6-8th place. They were all friendly.

Common bridge. I wonder if I could ride this?

The flowers on the whole ride were crazy.

Picture doesn't capture the flowers.....

As I pushed the bike up the last very steep pitch of Fooses and onto the long awaited Crest Trail, I saw Jerry going over the top. I caught up to him at the small shelter a couple of miles down the trail where John from City Market the night before is laying in his sleeping bag and getting ready for a nap. We chat for a minute and he says another rider is just ahead. It is windy and starting to sprinkle. Jerry and I decide to head on. The storm passes and it gets warmer as we ride. I enjoy the Crest while I can before we hit the next section. I rode with Jerry until the trail starts to climb again after the Silver creek junction.

Having fun on the Crest

And the sun began to set.....

It was dark. The coyotes howled--not yipping like the normal unpossessed variety. My huge front wheel darted back and forth through large white rocks trying to find passage like lovers' tongues. The darkness was pervasive. The large eyes of bovine in the middle of the trail shone unmoving until the light from my headlamp created shadows that spooked them off. The partial moon dropped behind the ridge. And the rocks and roots continued....... unrelenting. I ran into Jerry later and he saw a mountain lion in the middle of the trail here.....

Representative sample of the next 25 miles.

I had ridden much of this awful trail earlier in the summer and it just sucks in my opinion. And most everyone else's opinion. I was just glad I had 29" wheels. I saw a light a few hundred yards ahead. Who could that be? I finally started to get a bit tired right at the top of Sergent Mesa so I laid down between some trees with my rain tarp at 10pm. The coyotes began howling again and made my dreams crazy. It started to sprinkle.

The day had gone OK....not quite as far as I'd liked with the mechanical but.. Vital stats: about 92 miles and 13,700' with ride back to BV. Tomorrow would be another day.

Colorado Trail Race Day 1 and 2

2011-08-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

This is Part 2 of several long posts of my Colorado Trail Race Adventure.
For Part 1 The race preview go here.
For Part 3 Day 3 go here.
For Part 4 the final countdown go here.

Before we get started with the advanced topics of the Colorado Trail Race, I think you should have some background information and general things I found after completing the race. Some interesting fun facts if you will. So here they are....

Types of animal feces encountered and ridden through followed by type, starting with the domesticated varieties:

Cow; runny diarrhea-ish, cow pie-hard and soft.
Horse; large piles and small apples
Sheep; small and large. More slippery than the runny cow. Also stinkiest.
Dog

Wild animal

Deer
Elk
Moose (not verified but I saw one next to the trail)
Bear (red piles by red berries, black piles other places)
Coyote
Pika
Marmot

The number of times I got off my bike to push up a hill;

5000? maybe more?

My toes and fingers are still numb one week after finishing.

The trail is marked well unless it isn't.

The Spot trackers make a great tool for fans/family to follow racers and can keep mothers up at night worrying when you take a wrong turn at 4am.

And finally a quote from Virginia Reed of the Donner party,

"Remember, if you come this way, don't take no shortcuts and hurry along as fast as you can." (Virginia Reed, Age 12, Donner Party Survivor, 1847)

The following is my recounting of Day 1 of my CTR adventure.

The sun had been beating down too long as I stopped to get water from the stream. Somehow I was out in front after the huge climb and descent over Georgia pass. However, the cramps in my legs had taken their toll. Groin in right at first, hamstring in left, quads in both legs, other groin and hamstring, repeat. I had taken all my salt tablets and stopped to get various drinks at Bailey but I still felt like I was out of balance. Ouch, my groin cramps again and then Ethan goes by with just a glance and up the hill never looking back.We now had the 1000' or so climb up to get to the highway between Breckenridge and Frisco.

At the start

The day had started innocent enough. We had started as a pretty large group of racers from Indian Creek Trail Head just south of Denver and had met up with the Colorado Trail at the South Platte. The trail was fun with some hike a bike sections and some fun single track. I passed Eszter H as she didn't have her burrito cinched down and she lost it on the trail out of her pack. I would see her on the trail much later. It didn't seem hot at first but by the time I got to Bailey at about mile 50 at high noon my leg muscles had all gone through a series of cramps many times and they were sore. I needed some more salty goodness in Bailey. The gas station/store in Bailey was closed (WTF??) so I went back a block to a small ice cream/tourist shop and picked up a couple of bottles of orange juice. I had taken some salt tablets and the cramps had let up some.

I still wasn't feeling super great so at the next store in Grant a few miles up the road (Grant Country Store-open 7 days a week by the way) I stopped and picked up some chips and chocolate milk. My cramps subsided a bit and I headed out to climb the highway up to Kenosha pass.

Elevation profile up to camp 1.

Here is the elevation profile of my Day one.A little over 95 miles and ~14,600' of climbing. Below is a map with some notes.

Day 1 route. Note Detour in yellow.

On the highway, I started riding with a guy named Zach Guy and his buddy. It seems everyone in the race knows Zach. Anyway he was pretty cool dude as I found out he had read my blog about what to bring. The highway had a narrow shoulder for several miles and wasn't great with the traffic. I did notice a pair of red women's panties on the side of the road. This would be interesting as later I would see another pair on Molas pass. Someone with a mountain pass fetish perhaps? Another guy with a name I forgot rode with us to the top of the pass. I turned onto the trail at the top of the pass and saw Kevin Thomas having a snack. He was very strong and on a single speed. I rode over to the campground and grabbed some water. Zach and pal came along and took this picture.

Getting water at Kenosha pass

The trail here was pretty good single track for a while. I passed a family where everyone had the most interesting teeth. Even the "mother" and "father" and son and uncle?. They kind of looked like this:

The trail began to climb up Georgia pass and got really rocky and rooty. My first taste of extended hike-a-bike. I passed quite a few people on the climb. First Kerkove who had a really funny look/grimace on his face. Then Ethan Passant and a couple others. Ethan said he and others were also suffering from cramps. He had just finished the Tour Divide a few weeks earlier so I was surprised that he could still walk, to tell the truth. A storm was threatening so I pushed hard over the top.

Georgia Pass

I let it rip down the other side. The Superfly was really flying. There were quite a few downed trees that stopped the flow but it was nice mostly. Now I stopped to get some water at the bottom. My groins kept cramping as I tried to swirl my Steripen ultraviolet light water sterilizer in my bottle. And Ethan goes by. I get up and eat some of the trail mix that Becky gave me before the race. Now I had completely forgotten that we had a climb over 1000' to go over to get to the highway and the next section. I began to follow Ethan up the long climb. I came around a corner and across the road to the trail and a forest service guy pulls up and says he's closing the trail. It's 5ish and I had already gone up the trail a little ways. I said "OK that's odd I wonder what the other racers are going to do..." He said, "You know it's not a sanctioned event so you're going to have problems." I found out later that some took a very easy detour (CTR rules say not to break the law, see yellow line in map showing approx detour) and others just rode the trail anyway. The bark beetle had really hit this area hard so they were cutting down all the dead trees. The trail all the way to the highway was a huge clear cut. They had closed the trail for the lumber dudes to work. This section really was putting the hurt on me after riding all day and my body not having the right electrolyte balance. I reached the highway and ran into several other guys. They started up the trail. I began to shiver and feel nauseous. OK I guess I had better stop for the day. It was only 7ish. I trudged up the trail a little ways and found a nice soft spot between some trees and laid down and went to sleep. I went in and out of sleep and saw several people pass by. I woke up very early and was riding at around 2 am up the next pass--Gold Hill.
Stats for the day. 95+ miles 14,659' of climbing. 6+ hrs of horizontal time.

Day 2 of CTR
The trail here climbs steeply and becomes a hike after a few miles. I passed many sleeping racers and around 3am saw a girl getting up. I asked her name as there were only a few girls racing. It was Cat.

After a few miles, you push up the very steep trail to where you think you will drop down the other side. NOT. You keep climbing up and up and up. Foggy clouds began to form as the wind came up over the high ridge at 12,500' and the air began to cool considerably around 4am. The trail on top of the ridge was difficult to see in the fog. I hit a rock and fell off my bike. I heard as pssss....... Oh crap. This is the worst time and place for a flat. I quickly looked at my front tire but the sound was just the grass rubbing against the tire. Phew! The descent wasn't great either. I gracefully stepped across a creek and put my right foot in it. A little later I put my left foot in. I hate riding with wet feet! I finally got to Copper Mt. As I hit the trail at the base of the ski area, I again ran into Zach and his buddy. I also saw others sleeping here and there. The trail climbs along the ski area and eventually up a valley to Searle pass and then over to Kokomo pass.

Looking down from Searle pass the way I had come

Looking up to top of Searle pass. Note Ptamigan in foreground if you can.

Climbing up Searle pass I noticed several backpackers. It was interesting to see the different types of people who were hiking. The first parts of the trail near Denver they were mainly middle aged to older men. Here several single women were on the trail. They had dogs to protect them from the men on the first part I presume.

As seen in the above picture, I saw so many ptarmigan on the top of the pass that you could throw your bike in any direction and hit one for dinner.

Route for Day 2.

Kokomo pass?

The trail descends down to Camp Hale and old WWII winter training camp. I didn't stop to check it out. Here's a pic I found on the web.

There was some great single track and it is a deceptively long way to Tennessee pass. Finally you hit the highway to
Leadville... And what do I do? I printed a map for this detour and I'm like, "I don't need to look, Oh yeah take a left" after climbing the highway I see the Tennesse pass Nordic center that I had seen a while ago. Errrrggg!!! Take a right!! So on down the highway to Leadville. I stop and get a bunch of food at Subway and wash up in the bathroom. Sorry about the mess.... I also stop a the bike store to see where everyone else is at. I'm in 7th or 8th place and Eszter had just blown by while I was relaxing at lunch watching a storm blow by! That girl is hard core. So I grab some Honeystinger products and out the door I go. I find the trail head past Halfmoon creek campground after some looking--this is one of those spots where it's not marked well. The trail climbs steeply and then you get some great single track before dropping down to Twin Lakes. You climb up again after going around the lake and get some more fun riding before dropping down to the detour to Buena Vista at Clear Creek Reservoir. As I dropped down, it began to rain and by the time I got to BV around 8pm, I was pretty wet. I felt OK but didn't want to get too tired and have to sleep in the woods in the rain so I grabbed a bunch of food at City Market. The next food supply would be at Silverton A LONG WAY AWAY. I thought I had a ton of food anyway. I ran into John and Jerry, two other racers, at City Market and grabbed a cheap motel next door. I got my clothes cleaned up and sort of dry by the time I woke up at 3:30am and got going around 4:00am the next day.
Day 2 Stats. 100mi, 11,700' climbing. Horizontal time 5.5+ hrs. My legs hadn't cramped at the high cool elevations but were sore here and there but feeling better all the time. The hikers after Leadville and to Buena Vista seemed to be more families hiking......Even a guy that was a huge WSC bike team fan.

Day 3. Prelude

It was dark. The coyotes howled--not yipping like the normal unpossessed variety. His huge front tire darted back and forth through large white rocks trying to find passage like lovers' tongues. The darkness was pervasive. The large eyes of bovine in the middle of the trail shone unmoving until the light from my headlamp created shadows that spooked them off. The partial moon dropped behind the ridge. And the rocks and roots continued....... unrelenting.

Colorado Trail Race Part :1 Preview

2011-08-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is Part 1 of several long posts of my Colorado Trail Race Adventure.
For Part 2 Days 1 and 2 go here.
For Part 3 Day 3 go here.
For Part 4 go here.

OK so here's the deal..... I took along a cheap camera from the store and this silly thing had this stuff called film in it. This film apparently can't be attached to a computer with a USB or anything. So I won't have any of my glorious pictures until I get it "developed" and "digitized". So until then I will give you some "hooks" and a lead up to the "race." Here are some pictures at Mt Flyer and here is Eszter H's page in the meantime.

Just in case you're still not familiar with the Colorado Trail Race it is pretty easy--walk in the woods, as stroll in the park, a day at the zoo, a cakewalk...... You basically see how fast you can ride the 480 miles or so of trail from Denver to Durango with some short sections of road thrown in to get you around wilderness areas with around 60,000' of climbing. You carry what you need and can buy supplies in towns or send a package to a post office. You can't have a friend meet you with supplies or have a supply drop. The trail/route passes through a few towns. Bailey, Near Frisco, Copper Mountain resort, Leadville, Buena Vista, and Silverton. Leadville and Buena Vista are the only larger towns with bike shops. The trail has a ridiculous amount of climbing and hike-a-bike (pushing your loaded bike up steep hills at high altitude) involved. More here.

Getting ready:
OK so thought about the gear list on my previous post and whittled it down. I still opted to take the LOTR hardback trilogy.... Other than that I took a light down sleeping bag, thermarest Neoair pad, emergency bivy/groundcloth, light tarp tent, wool shirt, socks 2pr, head lamp, handle bar light, food, rain jacket and pants, vest, arm and leg warmers, rain gloves, light down jacket, 2 tubes, 1st aid kit, bike fix it kit, steripen for water, 1 pr bike shorts and jersey (I mailed a spare set to Silverton), insulin (Humalog and Lantus), test kit and my secret weapon below--a shower cap from the Sheraton in St George UT. Here are some pics of the staging area.

Measuring my girth for a possible bivy sack.

Part 1. To the race!

On the forum site a guy named Andy said he did the race last year but couldn't do it this year and had space available at his house AND he would feed us that night AND feed us in the morning AND he would take us to the race start at 5 am. Taking my chances that he wasn't just a crazy guy that was going to kill me and steal my bike I sent him a message and got his address up for Sunday night before the race. Our pal Becky was also doing the race and was going to a wedding Saturday night in Estes. So I got a ride to Boulder with her and her boy friend and spent he afternoon cruising the Boulder Creek path and Pearl Street. That night I hung with a friend from graduate school and the next day Becky picked me up and took me back to Andy's house close to where she was staying. Here is a picture of Andy (right) and two other racers. There were 5 racers total.

Andy's wife Sandy and her dog.

I have to say that these were the nicest people and it was better than many bed and breakfasts that I have stayed at. They had all the stuff needed to work on the bikes, great food, great beds, stories and pictures from last year. Super pre-race set up. So Thanks Again Andy and Sandy!!
We got up early at 4:15 for the 6:30 start that was 30-40 drive away. Sandy made us a great breakfast, we loaded the bikes and got headed out. At the start there were people milling about. I saw many people that I knew: Becky, Max Nuttleman, Kerkove, Jordan Carr, Ethan, Jeffe... We all got our bikes ready, got SPOT trackers etc. The atmosphere was fun and tense almost at the same time. Stefan who thought this up, gave a speech to be respectful and all. Then we broke into groups, those who thought 5 days was possible when first and so forth. Many people started right away.....

Here is team Rock and Roll.

Becky and I.

And off we went! Oops watch out for the guy in front of me with the large camera! OK all's good.......

Book 2 teaser:
"The sun had been beating down too long as I stopped to get water from the stream. Somehow I was out in front after the huge climb and descent. However the cramps in my legs had taken their toll. Groin in right at first, hamstring in left, quads in both legs, other groin and hamstring, repeat. I had taken all my salt tablets and stopped to get various drinks at Bailey but I still felt like I was out of balance. Ouch my groin cramps and then Ethan goes by with just a glance and up the hill never looking back."

The most amazing, death defying, extreme backcountry mountain bike race you will ever behold!

2011-07-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

Note to reader; some of the following may be knowingly told as a half truth or even complete fabrication. Some will not. This was also written after a trip to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI.

The Colorado Trail Race is the most horrific, daunting and thrilling mountain bike race you will ever witness. 480 death defying, jaw dropping miles over the most remote and technical singletrack trails ever ridden stretching from Denver, Colorado to Durango, Colorado! Racers WILL experience bone chilling rain, wind and lung burning thin air at elevations above 13,000 feet. Snow and hail are also likely. Braving the constant threat of wild animals and creepy crawlies, the racer must avoid bears, mosquitoes, moose, deer, spiders, coyotes, foxes, cattle, and rednecks! Racers must ride much of the race not only under such appalling conditions, they must also ride much at night in the moonless skies of the mountains when all dangers are at a magnified magnitude.

Some of our publicity materials.

As if this were not enough, Jarral will attempt the race with a malfunctioning pancreas. That's right at any moment he may lose consciousness from low blood sugars or unbearable trauma from high glucose levels. He must carry syringes and inject himself with insulin several times a day. He must also try and prick his fingers (which may very well be frozen from the cold or lost after an encounter with a wild creepy crawly) to test the levels of his blood sugars several times a day. Follow the drama and spectacle online August 1, 2011.

Jarral will attempt this mind boggling feat with only the supplies he carries on his bike and back and can buy along the way as the rules clearly states that it is a self supported race and he cannot accept items or leave them on the trail along the way. If he runs out of food or has an equipment failure he is sure to be doomed and will probably be eaten by rogue kangaroo rats and ravens before he is found. Below are some of the items he will be taking with him!

Bike and Relevate bags and backpack.
Some sort of lighting thing.
Sleeping bag and do-dads to keep it dry
Insulin, glucose meter, syringes, extra test strips.
Some bike thingies to keep it rolling--spare spokes, brake pads, spare chain and cassette and chain whip tool with 12" crescent wrench, spoke wrench, spare tires and tubes, Allen wrenches, spare peddles, and other tools as needed.
High calorie food such as canned SPAM.
Reading material to help with sleep: "Lord of the Rings" trilogy (Hardcover)--I would just take the first book but what if, just what if, I finished it and was left without a book to read. Also hardcover to keep the pages from getting all bent up.
Hammer for stakes.
Extra large camp shovel and TP roll.
Cow bell.
Bike clothes
Full tub of chamois cream (European style)
Huge pillow to cry my huge head to sleep on every night.
Do-rag to protect the old noggin--helmet will add just too much weight.

Finally I would like to thank my sponsors (monetary and help with the above list of things that I may or may not bring but were offered) and anyone else along the way!

Anne, Julian and Lila
the letters B, I, K, and E
Dave (The biking machine freak)
Dave (The bike mechanic freak)
Bryan (The ski freak)
Brian (The bike magazine freak)
Mike N (Future CEO of TREK (at least I (Me (I have received no monetary recompense from Mr. Mike) personally) think so)).
The Smiths, Bryan and Jenny

Trail work and Colorado Trail Race Preparation

2011-06-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, June 12, we (All four of us) headed up to Segment 18 of the Colorado Trail in the Cochetope Dome area to walk some of the trail with friends and make sure it was clear of downfall and marked well. This section had been maintained by Ted and Martha Violet but when Ted got sick and subsequently passed people in our science department at Western State have been going up with Martha to continue the tradition. We drove up and were to hike a few miles and meet others and come back to the car and have lunch. I had also been putting together gear for the Colorado Trail Race August 1st. I wanted to take a shortish overnight to test out what I had put together so far. I thought I could have Anne drive the car back home and I could ride some of the route and then back home. About 80 miles the afternoon after our trail work and the next morning.

So first what had I gotten together. I had some new packs for my bike from Revelate Designs, some lightweight camping stuff and my new tent I had made. I had an old nylon tarp I had gotten from our killer outdoor program Wilderness Pursuits at WSC. Many that do this race get light weight tarp to use as a tent. I decided to make my bike the support and then use stakes to hold out the sides. Here is the original tarp over the bike.

Then I measured and cut some old sheets as a prototype and then cut up and sewed the tarp.

Gotta turn your head! Cutting the sheets!

Prototype on the floor.

And the "tent" before the tie-downs were attached.

So there is that. Maybe it will work in the rain.... So we headed out and went on a hike! Lila and Julian did great. We just hiked a little ways and the trail was in great shape.

Taking a break.

Then we went back and had lunch with the group. Here is some of them.

Then I quickly and randomly threw all my stuff in my packs. This was the first time I had all this together.

And I put on the bike clothes and took off.

The ride was nice but I had a serious headwind...... I learned a lot about how to pack things and what to change for the next trial. The tent worked well but it didn't rain and the wind wasn't blowing that night. Here is a picture along the way coming down Los Pinos Pass.

I turned down the road back to Powderhorn and camped at a free NFS campground along Cebolla creek. I tested out my steripen water purifier. It seemed to work well... No issues after a week. The next morning I got up and had a bagel in the sun. While I was eating it an older fellow on an old mt bike with a huge backpack on and a large bag full of gear on his handlebars. He had been riding from Flagstaff and had just came down from Slumgullion pass. I felt kind of funny as I had bike shorts, fancy packs etc. He was wearing sweats, coat and gloves from somewhere like wallmart and cheap shoes. His gear must have been soooo heavy. But then again he wasn't racing. We talked for a while and I gave him some pointers on where to camp as he got closer to Gunni and let him know of road conditions. The ride back was pretty easy and I was getting used to the extra weight on the bike.
Overall assessment. Everything worked well. I would have to get a better pad, smaller/lighter? I would need to work on packing. I couldn't find stuff easily and small clothes got all mixed up. I also need to work out a headlamp.... And ..... More later..

Hundred Miles of Nowhere

2011-06-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

Anne has been reading a lot of blogs lately--hey she reads fast..... One she reads pretty regularly is www.fatcyclist.com. She doesn't even really ride a bike except the townie, she likes to run. I guess she finds it funny. Anyway the Fat Cyclist started this tour and she suggested that I do it. You get the usual swag like a T shirt, energy bars and even a number plate for the bike. The difference here was you ride wherever you want in some small course over and over for 100 miles. It was to raise money for Livestrong, which no matter how you feel about Lance, seems like a great organization for people who get cancer. The entry fees of the 500 people who signed up all got sent in by Fatty.

I was thinking if I'm going to go ride around in circles all day and this ride is about getting something done about cancer then I should do something with more meaning than just riding around all day. Gunnison and Crested Butte 28 miles up the road are both small towns and tight-knit communities (the Gunnison Valley as a whole). We are somewhat isolated as the next town of even medium size is 60 miles down a two lane highway and over some nice hills. I decided that I would put the word out that I was looking for people with some connection to cancer and make that my loop. I sent out the following email to my work and also put it in the local paper, Gunnison Country Times (Thanks Chris!) the week before the June 4th tour date.
"Join me, Jarral Ryter, in the “100 miles of Nowhere” bike tour June 4^th at 7am. This is a fund raiser for cancer research via www.fatcyclist.com and the tour idea is to ride a ridiculous small course for 100 miles. I’m not asking for money. I am looking for anyone touched by cancer in and around Gunnison. I will then ride my bicycle to everyone’s house that responds in loops from my house until I reach 100 miles. You can ride with me, get a high five as I ride past, get a hug (I’ll be sweaty and most likely smelly) or whatever you like. Call me 970--------- or email...."

I received quite a few responses even though I didn't really spread the word too much. And this is how it all went down. My nose was stuffy Saturday morning as I must have caught a cold from my family last week when they came through town. It was above freezing as I left Gunnison at 8am sharp for Crested Butte.

Ready to hit the road!

Here is the beginning of my ride...

About 6.92 miles out of town I saw a funny bell on the shoulder and stopped to pick it up. It was a bar bell, er bear ball, errr I MEAN BEAR BELL. So I hooked it up to my seat post.

I don't know how lucky this was because I wasn't attacked by a bear the ENTIRE DAY!! Actually the talk of bear balls would come back later in the day.... And the ride continued on

Here is the road closer to CB.

My first stop was at Karin's, a coworker, who was moving out of her house that day. The woman they had been renting the house from, Mary Gordon, had died of cancer that past winter. Karin had a real connection with her and wanted to honor her.

Mary left three sons and was 58years old. Karin showed me the entire house, a CB classic, which was still furnished with Mary's art and furniture. I was beginning to think it may take a while to ride my hundred miles if all the stops went like this--not that I minded. Karin gave me food and water and continued packing. I headed back towards Gunnison and of course the head wind picked up..... My next stop was at Robin and Ted's house. Unfortunately they weren't home. I wasn't going to make a loop past their house again as they live at the top of a large hill on a gravel road.

Robin and Ted weren't home...

So I went to my next stop Gary. By the way there is a great shot of Gary chugging a beer in a video of the Growler Mountain bike race here.

I hung out for a few and Gary's son showed my the robin's nest on their stairs. It seems that every person in Gunnison has rash of robin nests on their houses.... Now I had put in 57 some miles and just had about 40 miles of loops around the Gunnison. I figured each lap would be about 3-4 miles.... Could be a long day. I went back to the house and had some lunch and water. Julian and Lila had made a cool sign for me.

Lunch!

Julian gives a support hug.

I started riding laps around town. My first stop was at Ricky G's house. His son, Garrison whose house I was going to stop at later, had two bouts with leukemia as a child. Hadn't seen Rick in a while...

Then around some corners to Kim's house. Kim basically runs the show at Western State College where we work. I didn't know that she had had cancer several years ago but now is doing well.

My next stop was at Christina's. She had planted a tree for a best friend that had died of breast cancer. I sure hope that little tree makes it. She said some deer got some of it....

And then just before turning the corner back to our house I stopped at Janet's house who just had a party this past year for the final treatment for breast cancer.

The next lap the whole family came along. We stopped at Lynn's as she said she wanted to ride a few laps to honor someone. Here she is. We did a lap and then I picked her up.

On this lap we found Garrison making beer in the alley. The funny thing that Anne told me later was that Garrison's neighbor had come out and was delivering a bear bell to another neighbor.... What are the odds?

Now I just had 30 miles or so left. Had to make up some time! I found Lynn and we rode a lap and then went to Martha's house. Her husband Ted had taught physics at WSC for... well actually no one really knows how long he had taught as no one was still around when he started. Let's just say it was 50yrs because it was 50yrs. He had died of brain cancer last year. She was very happy to have us stop by and had us come in and have some water and talked for a while.

Martha and Lynn

Martha

We then found Pat at home. Pat's father had died of cancer, he also had several family members who had survived. Pat is a duck biologist so if you're in Gunnison look him up if you find a duck.

Lynn rode with me for a while and I ran saw another cancer survivor at her house. Susan and her husband Rod both are. She didn't want her picture taken so I just got her to put up her hand.

And after a few more laps Lynn stopped at the house to play with the kids. She had told me the person she was honoring was a close friend from Telluride who had just died of Melanoma. Her husband, Brian, and super fast biker was in Telluride at the graduation of the friends daughter. And finally I was on the last lap. I ran into Hank and two of his kids. I asked the one with the hose for a spray. I got a nice cool down. But then he wouldn't stop! So after the fourth spray Hank gave me a beer for the ride across town.

Look out! Their mom is cancer survivor also....

And I made it home at 100.2 miles! Check out the route HERE.

Done!

Lila by the sign. The other side said, "GO DAD!!"

GRRRRRR Growler IV May 29th 2011

2011-06-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

My arse is oozing..... OK you may ask why is my arse oozing? It's because of that Dave Freak'n Wiens. And how does Dave have anything to do with this? It's the Original Growler mountain bike race of 64 fluid miles that he started four years ago. And it kicked my arse and hence made it ooze.

I always feel a bit, just a bit, perturbed that many of the people that race have been riding for most of the winter while Gunnison it has been snowing and very cold up until the race and actually yesterday, the day after the race, it was snowing..... Hartman Rocks where the race takes place just opened for riding earlier this month as a matter of fact. Once it dries out enough the north side opens but the south end stays closed until the sage grouse are done mating. But this doesn't really mean much. Earlier Dave sat me down and discussed eternal mountain biking enlightenment comes not from riding on the road all winter in the city or on the rollers, it comes indeed from knowing the lines. Riding this race it is so true as you pass a roadie that doesn't know the line....And living in Gunnison and riding at Hartmans means knowing the lines.

I really should discuss how I prepared for my little condition, you know that thing where I have to take shots of insulin continually in order not to die after wasting away. But lately I have been tired of having it define me and just making it another variable that you have to plan for in your life. OK this is a big deal and should be talked about. I mean people spend pages discussing what is the best bike and then the best wheels, tires, food, drink, etc etc etc that is best for a race.We'll talk about that stuff I suppose.

This year the race preparation started out a little different that in the past. I had the feeling that this race would sell out quickly. The first 300 to sign up online got in. So I did a lot of fast twitch finger muscle training with a secret stretching of the joints. It paid off as the race filled in about 8 minutes. I was signed up in 2 minutes and that was with a costly error entering my credit card information. So I was in. Here is a reenactment of my fingers in action.

Now just to find some time to get the legs in shape a bit. I had been taking a biking power class a couple of times a week this spring with a recent WSC graduate Tim Curry and I had skied a lot. So I was in pretty good shape. Several road bike rides in the snow and some rides on the course after it all opened up and I was ready to go.

The race started as it always has. We lined up downtown and at 7 am the shotgun was blasted to start us off. I had my Rock and/or Roll jersey on as Dave Mo has helped me a bunch. It was mild for Gunnison at close to 50F and calm. We then rode behind the escort at at pace that was supposed to be single speed friendly but the poor guys with one gear were spinning their little legs off! And, of course, people that are going to get dropped on the first climb always have to try and get in the front. So after a couple of near misses including a lady that kept riding too close to me and then tried to pass, we got to the gravel and it was race on. I had eaten some pancakes at 6am and had taken 5u of Humalog and 7u of Lantus (8 the night before).

We hit Kill hill (it's a killer because it is about 22-25% grade and several hundred feet up) and this began to spread everyone out. I wanted to get past most of the pack so I went up at a medium hard pace for me. Then we hit the mild grade of the dirt road to the single track trail, Josho's. Here is a pic from Matt B photography.

The first lap of the Growler you have to pace yourself obviously as you have another 32 miles to go and the second lap is harder. The first lap you are also riding with other people quite a bit as everyone slowly spreads out. There were several little packs of riders. Many were good climbers but with my inner peace and big wheels I was really pretty fast going down AND I knew the lines. I felt a little like my blood sugar was a too high as my legs just felt a little weak/tight. I avoided food for a little extra time and began to feel better. I have a timer on my watch to remind me to eat. This also helps me see what kind of pace I'm on. I got to Skull Pass about halfway around and Brian Riepe of the Mountain Flyer was handing out water bottles. I grabbed one and left mine to be refilled. Skull pass is a bit gnarly but I was soon out and grabbed my old bottle. The aid guys were really good. I missed the bacon guys however.... I saw my Pa and sister at Josie's and they gave me a bottle. I ended up finishing the first lap feeling some cramping coming on and I smacked my knuckles and shoulder at the end of the Ridge trail at the very end of the lap. The Ridge trail is gnarly also. Each lap you put in about 4000' ft of climbing and 32 miles.

Here are some COOL pics of the race--mainly Skull pass.

Anne and the kiddos were at the transition for the second lap and I scored some water, food, a kiss, and Julian gave me a big rock--thanks for cuing him in, uncle Collin. The first lap took 2:54. I was behind 2 people in my age group here and most all the one lappers I saw later. Here is a video coming out of the ridge and into tailpipe on the first lap.

The second lap goes up a steeper single track trail than Kill Hill called the Notch. I made it most of the way but a butt cramp made me dab at the top. Then, instead of the road, you climb Becks and ride Rattlesnake trail backwards. I passed a couple people along here. Rattlesnake has a couple of places that are very hard to climb in that direction and one that is nearly impossible. I made it up all but that one. Then the race continues on on nearly the same route as the first lap. The wind started to come up so a couple of spots that headed south and into the wind were obnoxious but then when you turn back the other way it was great. I got some more water from my dad and sister and Jason and Steph of the fine Gunnison Coffee company at Skull Pass. Then just keeping in my head the next trail or two that I would have to climb and I kept the pace up for home. All was well until the final descent. Collarbone trail is a roller coaster of trail and I was just going too fast and my wheels slipped out and I came straight down on my lower hip and slid on the granite gravel. Two photographers thought I may have hurt myself (there were many photographers out there is seemed like)... OK I did but I wasn't going to stop. And hence why my arse is oozing. I got to the bottom in 6:00:38 and 20th place overall out of 200+ and 2nd in my age.

Hang'n with the race officials after the race.

Brian Smith went wicked fast. Chill'n.

My oozing arse.

Now you just had to ride back to town for a final official checkin. This makes the race a total of just about 70 miles and 8000' climbing.
That afternoon they had growlers of beer for finishers FULL of New Belgian beer! We also got food from Garlic Mikes restaurant. And they had the swag of the year that Dave "Freak'n" Wiens scored. Dave OCHS, the color man, was literally throwing socks, shirts, Ergon bar grips, carbon handle bars, etc into the crowd. The raffle went on and on. Winners in the age groups and overall winners got great prizes. I got a SRAM Cassette MSR $250 and a 10spd chain MSR $50.

Next adventure? Biggest--Colorado Trail Race. A hoot! Oh and for the record I ate a GU like product every 40 min. At the end, my glucose was 77. So going down but no serious bonks!

Elk Mountain Grand Traverse? 2011 Off the couch....

2011-04-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

When the van dropped me off at the house on Sunday, Anne had left a note and was at the city pool with the kids. I was hungry and a little car sick all at the same time from the windy roads. I was also a little tired. I had just returned from Aspen. How's your Aspen? It all started a few days earlier...... Play Wayne's World "back in time footage".

Monday the week before I had run into a couple of friends that were doing the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse (GT). They both thought I was doing it. Nope. Just not motivated at sign up time in December. I also hadn't lined up a sucker, er I mean partner. You have to go through check points with your partner so it is good to have a compatible person for the 40 mi slog, er I mean ski. I came home and Anne was smiling like she had a secret and knew she was right about something at the same time. She finally tells me that our friend Ted was looking for a partner for the GT. She had been giving me a hard time all winter saying that someone was going to call and I was going to do the race. I kept telling her, "No I don't think so...." I have a really hard time saying no to an adventure...... I went back and forth several times. I could do it I think. I have all the stuff I need from last year. I am in pretty good shape. But the weather could really suck. A storm is supposed to be coming in. I could be really sore/tired trying to get there. Ted has about 10 years on me and he hadn't done the race really fast in the past so I figured at the minimum I could go as fast as him. I finally called and said I was was 90% in. He said he wasn't planning on racing so I thought I could do it "tour" mode easy enough (maybe). It turned out his first partner had to have hernia surgery a while ago and his next partner had cut the tip of his thumb off with a skill saw. An interesting side note, Ted and these two ex-partners along with another guy doing the race had all joined me on 3day ski in the backcountry 8 years ago around the West Elk mts. Ricky G who started the race was also on that trek. RIP Dave M....

So I dug out all my GT gear. Ted was using light weight backcountry gear. Just a bit heavier than nordic gear. So I decided to use the same. I had some light alpine touring stuff but thought it'd be best to go on the same type of skis. Other stuff; beacon, probe poles, shovel, pack, ski repair kit, ski skins, goggles, stove, head lamps, gloves, hats, bivy sack, pole basket, ski binding, clothes...... He came by on Wednesday and we sorted out our shared gear. He said he would come by on Friday and take me up to the registration Friday morning. So it was a go.

The registration went smoothly. It's always fun because you know most of the people doing the race and some I hadn't seen in quite a while. We had an express pass to the front of the line as we had already purchased our COSAR back-country rescue cards. And then the lady felt sympathetic for me switching partners late as he had cut off his thumb and only charged my $25 instead of $75. And we got a low number for the gear check. They fed us some fine pasta lunch after the prerace meeting. It sounded like the chances were good that the weather would break just enough to give us a window to get to Aspen. Our gear check went well--nothing missing. I always feel like I forgot something. Now we just had to get everything else ready and come back at 10:30 for the prerace check in at the high school.

Ted swung by and we headed to Crested Butte at 10pm. It was snowing hard and we could barely make out the road. Hmmm. It was getting colder as we went also which is good. At CB, the temp was around 25 at 11:00. We got our beacons checked and gave them a bag to carry to Aspen for us. Then time to check out the wax. If the temperature is too warm, then you can't get the kick wax to work and the snow melts on you as it falls and you get wet and cold. We went with a extra blue. There was about 4-5 inches of fresh snow on the course in town. Ted's pack was a bit heavier than mine but he was well stocked and had lot of kick wax. Then we saw Bryan, Becky's partner in a panic. I did the race in 2009 with Becky as a late switch also. Bryan was testing his skis. Apparently for the first time of the year. Anyway he grabbed skis with pilot bindings and his boots were the older version. The problem--the old boots didn't fit into the groove of the new bindings as the groove on the boots was too small. So Ted pulls out a knife (remember Ted was our Mr. Gadget) and gives it to Bryan. Bryan starts cutting his boot and last I saw of him and Becky, they were discussing what to do.

As midnight approached, the snow began to let up. We lined up for the start; it was very pleasant out with just a little wind and snow. Reverend Tim said the traditional prayer and they said some other things that I couldn't hear and off we went out across the nordic ski track with the fresh snow and up to the ski area.

Managing sugars and insulin. This year I was trying my new Dexcom 7 continuous glucose meter (CGM) which I kept in my ski pants pocket. I checked my glucose at the start and it was looking good. I had taken 15U of Lantus at 9:30. I was also carrying my meter and Humalog insulin in a pouch that I hung from a cord around my neck and tucked under my shirt to keep it from freezing. This race really is hard for me to control my sugars. Maybe it is because it starts at midnight or that it is so long. Bike rides I can easily go for a long ride and about the same time as a race to try and anticipate what will happen. Not as easy with this race. OK I could get up and ski at midnight but for 40 miles? Maybe....

We started at a mellow pace for me and hit the top of the ski area with no issues.The easy pace was good for checking sugars. I could pretty easily look at the Dexcom and I could easily get ahead enough to check it with the meter every now and then. The graph below shows the Dexcom results. Blue dots are its readings and the red are the inputted values from my meter. As you can see at about 4am, I checked my sugar and it was much higher than the CGM. So it reset the meter. Then a while later I tested it again and it was way lower. Down in the too low range actually. At this point, the meter gave an error saying that it didn't know what was going on. So I had to wait and later I entered a value and it started going again. The next reading was a bit off but then the next was more in the ball park. So far in my testing it seems that the meter has more issues in ski races.....?? We'll see as biking starts up soon.

Dexcom results for the race

We skied down the back side of the ski area with only a few crashes on the skinny skis and headed out down east Brush Creek. We held a pretty mild pace and skied with the likes of Jim Dirksen and Dave Scheefer. Dave wasn't looking hot and I figured he would be farther up. We slowly climbed up to Friends hut. I had enough time to visit the pit toilet, drink some water and hang out while waiting for Ted. I was feeling pretty good, Ted was slowing down and said he didn't feel super.. The volunteers at the Hut were super helpful and nice. One was a girl, Amelia, in Anne's class at WSC. She was very spunky. Many students help out with the race. Everything from the mountain rescue team to giving water out. Now the big climb starts. Ted was moving even slower up here. Must have been his huge pack! The weather on Star Pass was very nice. No wind! It was still pretty cold but the sun was beginning to hit the top of the peaks, clouds hung on the tops of some and down in the valleys. The 1/4 moon was out. Highlights: at the top you traverse over to the descent. Here I didn't slide down a large section of sun crust! A girl just ahead of us slid down for quite a ways and was still trying to get back up when we went over the pass. As you begin the descent, there were several large ice steps with quite a fall beneath them and then a huge bowl of powder. I made it across without falling and actually caught some older guys on AT skis at the bottom of the 1000' drop. We slowly climbed back up out of the trees and over Taylor pass. Again NO WIND. These passes are usually so windy and cold you could easily be on Mt Everest. The sun was now out and I was getting very warm. The pace was very easy for me and I had to wait quite a bit. I didn't care really except that I was so hot. We made it to Barnard hut and had a nice long break. They make you stay 10 min but we were there at least 25. I had some pizza, raman noodles and filled my water. Dirksen was there and was looking pretty haggard. I put on some of Ted's warmer wax. Ted stayed with his blue extra.

Ted, Jim Dirksen, and Me.

Now we just had 7 miles of Richmond ridge. The snow was nice in the shady areas and I was getting good kick. Ted was having a hard time and ended up putting on his skins. This ridge just sucks. We got through it and skied down Aspen mountain. Many people cheered us on as we descended. But people don't slow down for you. While going past a "slow" sign, I swear a guy passed me doing 50mph.

At the finish, 14:28:30

I felt pretty good at the finish. I ate some soup they had for us and got a beer in my new beer cup. I also got a hug and a medal! We hung out in the sun for a while and then got a ride to a friends small house across town (Thanks Tom!). We showered and took a nap. Then we hopped on a bus that evening for the awards. And then we went back and fell into a deep deep sleep........... The next morning we took the free bus to have breakfast. We also grabbed the free paper with the GT race story. I guess the property taxes must be quite a bit around these parts. Aspen people just are just so different also. Many had shoes that probably cost as much as my bike... Then the van ride back..........................

Anything exciting going on?

2011-03-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

Well I just read my description of this blog at the top and thought it was kind-of funny as I didn't sign up for the Grand Traverse ski race this year and I didn't get into the Leadville 100. I didn't have a partner really lined up and decided it would be more fun to go bike/travel during spring break just before the Traverse so I just wasn't into it this year. Leadville would've been fun to do again as I would like to break the 8hr mark but it is really getting crazy and the trails aren't anything special.

I did do some Nordic ski races. Two classic races in the Crested Butte town series that I didn't train at all for (10 and 20km). I also did a 20k town series skate race, the Gunnison Nordic 30km race and the alley loop 42km skate race. I was able to ski an hour or so every other day or so before these races so I was in OK shape. The Gunnison Nordic race I felt really pretty good. The snow was packed well and my skis were fast. Not many people in this one but I felt pretty fast finishing a couple of minutes back. Then the Alley loop the next week just kicked my butt. It had snowed that morning, I had a cold and my skis weren't really slow but with the soft conditions I just felt as if I was expending way to much energy and each lap I felt slower and weaker. There was also a good stiff headwind on the way out. I didn't eat as much as I should have either. This is totally my fault but usually the race the feed stations are handing out gus all the time. I missed one as they didn't hand it out and kept going. I ate one I had in my pocket. Then on the last lap I didn't have any more food and so had to wait to late in the lap. So as my strength was lapsing I hit the big hill before you come back and was just able to make it over with out falling down. Our good buddy Becky flew past me here and gave me encouragement. I think I babble something to her. I had eaten a gel just before then and hobbled my way back to the finish. I made it in under 3 hrs but slower than past races and then other people that I usually finish with. I got done and felt like I had gotten hit by a truck. My glucose was at 80 afterward and after I had eaten a bit. I was also nauseous.

So now what? I perfected my typing skills doing long hours of training working on my fast twitch typing muscles and got into the Growler mountain bike race. It took me 2 minutes to sign up online. The race was full in 8 or 9 minutes with 350 people. It comes along Memorial day weekend. The Growler was started by our homie Dave Wiens and apparently has gotten quite popular. I signed up for the 68mi two lap version mostly on single track and not easy trails near Gunnison at Hartman Rocks. This race is harder for us locals as we can't bike much until late March or even April. Anne may do the Sageburner running race the day before. 25km.

Now if I can plan it right (and if I can talk Anne into it) I am going to try the Colorado Trail Race Aug 1. I was thinking of it if I got in Leadville 100 or not. It is a race where you show up near Denver at the start of the Colorado Trail, and see who can ride the entire Colorado Trail (excluding the wilderness areas) to Durango. The race is almost 500mi and climbs 65000 ft. The only rule; no outside support. You have to carry everything, purchase it along the way or mail it to a post office to be picked up. If you leave the trail for food or parts you have to return to the same spot and you can't get a ride to get the food or parts or? So I couldn't have Anne waiting for me with a nice meal up on Slumgullion pass down the road from here. You carry a GPS spot tracker so people can watch your progress on the WWW. Last year it was really rainy. That would make it hard for me. I would have to modify my bike to carry a sleeping bag and stuff and get someone to pick me up in Durango (hint grandma sue). The fastest guy last year, Ethan Passant, from Crested Butte he did it in 4 long days. Hmmmmm in a world where the word "epic" seems to be written/said at epic proportions this race is definitely EPIC.

And oh yeah the whole diabetes thing would make it extra epic! More on this as the snow melts.

Other races in the works? The Vapor trail 125 is pretty epic. After last year's race I may just have to do it again! And I think it is a must to do the Crested Butte Classic as well....

Well have to make train tracks with Julian. Until next time!

Some CGM results and how to fix your reed switch in your wireless computer.

2010-12-29T19:13:00.000-08:00

I've just completed my third week of using the Dexcom 7 continuous glucose meter. So far the values are mostly in the ballpark with my glucose meter. At least within 20%. Which is OK for the most part. And it is mostly continuous. As you can see below in the nighttime plot for this day sometimes when I apparently am turned one way it misses some readings.

The next two plots also confirm interesting trend that I was thinking may have been happening before I got the CGM. The first plot I went to bed with a reasonable level of 160ish. Then it jumped around a little bit and drops until morning. Most nights it stays pretty constant though. I ate breakfast and it rises and then drops until lunch. This is all good.

Now the second plot.... My sugar was a little high at bed so I took a small amount of Humalog along with the Lantus. This seems to happen even if I take the tiniest bit of Humalog at the same time I take Lantus. I have more plots that look just like this when I took Humalog.... The sugars drop and stay at a constant low level all night pretty much. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out my name when I finally wake up. And then when I eat (even a light breakfast) the glucose shoots through the roof even with extra insulin after breakfast. This plot is actually higher than my other meter read on this day but the point is still clear. Notice that it also takes a long time to drop back down.

So after looking several different nights data..... The key is to not take any Humalog with Lantus at night and try to go to bed with a level of around 150. And hope I can wake up in the morning.

Garmin GCSC10 POORLY DESIGNED REED SPEED SENSOR FIX.

OK so I got a Garmin Edge GPS cyclocomputer. It basically does everything. Tells you heartrate, cadences, speed, position, altitude, maps your ride etc etc. The weak link? OK other than leaving it in your pocket and washing it.... It worked for a month or two then died. I sent it in and they gave me a new one for a fee. They didn't tell me what killed it but probably the washing. So anyway the real flaw is shown below in the speed/cadence sensor. The speed sensor picks up a signal from a magnet attached to the spokes to give better speed data if you are in thick trees or whatever and don't have a good GPS signal.

On the little arm that pokes out and can be adjusted to get it close to the magnet on the spokes is a reed switch attached to a small circuit board. This is a cool little thing in itself and is shown below. As the magnet passes it it creates a connection and completes a circuit which then sends a signal to the computer to compute speed. A similar circuit collects cadence data.
So what happened to mine and what is the flaw. The reed switch is a glass tube filled with inert gas. So it makes sense that the last time this thing worked was just before I bumped the sensor and it got whacked by the magnet. When I took it out the glass was shattered.

So the key to opening up your GCS 10 it to take a chisel or something and carefully split it open on the seam. I left it attached to the cadence part to help stabilize it. Then I just pulled the plastic back to reveal the switch attached to small circuit board and pulled it out.

The next step is to find an old computer that broke and can be cannibalized. I had just the thing--pays to be a pack rat--on the broken one below. So I soldered the board below to my unit and slipped it in.

And here I am slipping it in. One thing I noticed was that this reed switch had a bunch of glue all over it to not only keep it stuck but I think to keep the glass from breaking as easily as it was completely encased in the plastic.

I hooked it all up. Tested it out by passing a magnet past it and the little test light on the sensor flashed green. Good to go! So I slipped it in pushed the cover over and.....it stopped working. Damn!
I thought the little circuit boards were close enough in size but this one was just a hair longer and it broke when I pushed it in. Damn! Luckily I had another old sensor that took apart. I soldered that reed switch on to the original board and tested it out. This one had some rubber between it and it's circuit board to keep it from breaking as easily.... If only Garmin would have put something in there to keep it from breaking so easily. If you look around on line or forums there a lot of these things breaking! So I put this one in and it fit nicely and all the electronics tested out. So now get out the epoxy and.... Damn epoxy has gone bad..

Time to get out the other epoxy and mix it up on the seed catalog....

Now spread the epoxy on the arm and press back together and clamp to cure. And let's see how long this fix works. By the way a new GCS10 goes for $37 with free shipping on Amazon.com. You can also buy a reed switch here for $1.50 + SH if you didn't keep parts around.

So the moral to this story. Don't get your sensor too close to the spoke magnet and save all those old cycle computer parts when they break. And thank your spouse profusely for letting you solder and epoxy on the kitchen table.

10 km classic ski race and Dexcom 7 CGM update. And everyone is an expert!

2010-12-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

This morning Becky left a post on my Facebook wall. "You doing the race in CB? Give me a call." So Yeah I was thinking about it. What time did we start? I hadn't classic skied this year but had put some wax on my skis last night. I was planning on skiing somewhere today so why not? It's only 10K or 6.2mi.

This is day 3 of using a continuous glucose meter. The Dexcom 7. It takes a reading every five minutes from a electrochemical probe stuck into my belly and taped then taped on. It is pretty small and I got used to it pretty fast. You are supposed to be able to stay in water for 30 min and up to 3 ft deep. So you can take shower. It lasts for 7 days before you replace the probe that goes into the skin. The transmitter part works for 12-18mo before the battery runs down and clips into a new probe. Here I am modeling the transmitter.

And here is the receiver. You have to keep it around 5 feet from your belly to get the signal. I have to say it could some improvements. It is a bit big--especially compared to other things like my GPS that can receive signals from a HR meter, cadence, wheel (for speed when GPS is not good) and even a power meter, or a cell phone that can do a bunch of stuff as well. It has a clip that hooks it to your belt but it could be better... You can also input when you eat and how many carbs, when you exercise, if you are sick and alarms for high/low readings and for fast rate of change high or low. IT DOES NOT COME WITH AN ATTACHMENT FOR A BIKE! It is also not easy to view when you are skiing.

As you may be able to see in this picture that you can see an arrow showing a rate of change and the current reading. The readings for the most part seem to be in the ballpark of my One Touch meter. You can enter the meter readings into it to calibrate it and you have to do it at least every 12 hrs. It also has a plot of the readings of time vs blood glucose level for 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 hrs. One thing that bugs me is that the y-axis is stuck at 400. I wish you could show it to only 250 maybe or have it auto scale. It just makes your data hard to evaluate as it is all scrunched up at the bottom. You can download it all to the computer to get a better look at it.

What have I learned from it so far? Well, at night and after dinner it is very interesting to see what my values do. They tend to be real flat and can drop to lower values than I would like. I was kind of just guessing blindly in this area before the meter. And during the day, I could check it anytime but it gives you a much better idea of what is going on. Some things that so far I knew. When I do something like a ski race or x-country or bike, my sugar drops steadily and I have to eat regularly. When I play hockey, it just starts going up and after the game it just keeps going up and up.....

So back to the ski race. It started at 10 so I went and picked Becky up at 8:45. My sugar was a bit low in the morning and when it is, after I get up my body dumps out a bunch of sugar so it gets high. So we checked into the race and got our kick wax dialed. At the beginning of the race, I was putting my receiver into my chest pocket so I could look at the changes in glucose afterwards. A guy I took a ski clinic with saw it and asked if I was texting someone. It kind of looks like a phone which is good so you don't have to explain it all the time. I said no, I'm type 1 diabetic and it's a meter. He said, "You're in good company with Kris Freeman" Kris is Type 1 Olympic skier. Another lady says, "You should really go gluten free." and she then continues to go on and on that my sugars would be much better controlled if I was gluten free. So blogs are officially where you can tell people that they are crazy if you can't get a word in edgewise during the situation.... So I never told her that i WASN'T gluten free. Which I'm not. I like bread. And she didn't know if I was type 1 or type 2. I was thinking "Oh let's take out YOUR pancreas and you can test it ALL out.... I tried to tell her that there were many variables to living without a functioning pancreas and that it would be interesting to see if gluten free was a way to go. But she cut me off and huffily said "You should really go gluten free" and skied off.

So I went back to the end of the line up of skier to grab my skis and tighten my boots and then they started the race as I was still getting ready....so I was near the back. I just passed a bunch of people and settled in behind a girl that was pretty fast and we cruised along. My skis were gliding well and the kick wax was working pretty well. The course was not really hilly and it was around 23F with just a little wind. We turned to come back and she made me lead and we made it to the finish. I was a bit tired and some muscles that hadn't been used since I skied last year were a bit sore. Not too bad. I switched to skate skis and skied for a while more and headed back to Gunni.

A good day.

New gizmos and too much Fe?

2010-12-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years I've been going to the health fairs and getting my blood drawn and tested for normal type things as it was covered by work and then getting the optional A1C. In this tiny town it is faster then going to the hospital after getting the Dr note. So a few years ago a couple of the tests starts coming back high. The iron tests. I just assumed that it was probably because I exercise a lot at high altitude or something.

In an effort to 1) get lower A1C values (better blood glucose control. It wasn't terrible but not super duper.) and 2) check out if I could improve my glucose in racing I decided to try a continuous glucose meter, or CGM. I decided that the Dexcom 7 seemed pretty good as it has the smallest transmitter and worked pretty well. These meters are not quite as accurate as the One touch meter that I use but pretty close. For example it doesn't really matter if it is really 200 and it is reading 215.... The CGM measures glucose every 5 minutes so it can show you if it is falling or rising fast or slow or on a level track--which is handy. So to get the meter I had to have the Dr clear it and while I was doing that I dropped off the old test results that I had not given them to add to the files. The PA that I know pretty well was putting the results in and talked to me about the possibility that I may have a condition called hemochromatosis. It's basically a problem where you absorb too much iron and the body has a hard time getting rid of it and after many years it causes some serious problems... One of which it diabetes. Well don't have to worry about that... But it also causes the liver among other organs to not work. The main thing you have to do is give blood pretty regularly... So he had me taking some more tests. Now as it stands I am going to see a hematologist next week and may have a milder form of hemochromatosis. Or maybe not. Anyway it's genetic so if you are related to me by blood you may want to get checked out.

Wednesday night the CGM came and I've been testing it out for the past day. So how does it work? I would have to say the sensor that goes in the belly is pretty small and not too noticeable. the receiver that picks up the signal is a bit large and doesn't come with a bike mount. It has been showing pretty accurate readings. I have to say I have been testing my sugar quite a bit to check it and looking a the meter a lot. I has shown some things that I have seen but gives some real data. I had a hockey game tonight and I have had problems where as I play and afterward my sugar will be high. And sure enough as I sit here an hour after playing it starts to go up and up. During hockey the transmitter did rub against my breezers as they come up pretty high. But not too bad. I just left my receiver on the bench. It has a five foot range and sends a signal every five minutes so as long as I stood nearby it seemed to pick up most of the time.

Well more on the meter and my possible hemochromatosis later.... Now just one more week of school and then time for some skiing.

Vapor Trail 125 2010 Part 3 Ride and Ride Some More

2010-11-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

OK so the race was two months ago - I'd better finish it up!

When we last left our heroes, we had just left the second aid station, the sky was beginning to lighten and I was in 4th place. Really? I was just trying to survive this race. I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to climb back out of Starvation Gulch. Also on my mind was dealing with the whole insulin thing. I ate a bit at the Aid station and had taken some insulin. But there was the problem. Sometimes insulin works too fast if you take it while exercising so I didn't take that much. And I was starting to feel not so fresh. Legs moving slower. A few miles down the road from Snowblind campground Aid, I turned left and began the climb up Old Monarch Pass. The pass isn't super steep--6-8% grade with smooth packed sand but can seem to climb forever for nine miles--especially if it's your first time after riding all night. Luckily I knew this road well as we rode it many times to access the epic Agate Creek trail or to just ride it after doing Canyon Creek. Below is a map of this section.

As I began the climb, the sun began to hit the high ridges and many of the trees were yellow. I was purposely not pushing it really hard and low and behold a single speed caught me halfway up. These climbs really were well suited for a single speed as they weren't really steep and the single speed is a lighter bike in general. 3/4 of the way up I stopped to check my sugar as I wasn't feeling great and it was a little high. Then at the top (~11,400') I stopped to check my sugar at the view point looking back west toward Gunnison. Then two more riders passed me. Me worry. Well maybe a little but ya gotta listen to the legs and body and I still had a long way to go. I hopped back on the bike and hit the single track that connects us with Monarch Pass where the highway goes over and the Monarch Crest trail starts. Here I pulled into the aid station and flopped down in some chairs in full sun at the Aid Station. The crew working this station made me feel like I was a celebrity pulling into some grand hotel in Aspen. They took my bike. Offered to pull off my lights, get me food, get my bag, oil my chain, etc, etc. I hung out here for a few minutes as I was loosing steam and needed a few minutes to regroup. I put on a short sleeve jersey and dropped some more ballast. I had two spare tires. I dropped to one and a can of air. No jacket. One water bottle. I forgot to put some more chamois creme on--Oh well.

So now 3 guys had passed me so that put me in 7th place. Still I'd be happy to just finish. I grabbed some banana bread and some sandwich and a Coke. And low and behold, Tim who I'd been riding with in the wee morning hours shows up. We chatted and I decided after a good long lingering break to get a move on. And then I had to visit the restroom for some business in the souvenir shop. Here Tim not knowing it, passed me as he thought I was riding on. So now I moved back to 8th place. I came out and started up the Crest Trail.

The Crest trail is an epic ride. Single track that follows the high ridge line (nearly 12,000ft) above treeline for about 10 miles to Marshall pass.

The trail starts off with a good little climb of about 700 ft overall. Normally when I ride this this isn't a big deal but today I was feeling this section. I caught some a few tourist groups and normally would have blasted past but today I inched by them--OK maybe not that slow but not with any authority. As usual, the fun single track took my mind off everything else and the miles went by fast. Finally the trail descends quickly down to Marshall pass. As I was cruising down, a small fly-like bug got around my sunglasses and went into my eye. As bugs smash in your eye, they release lots of things that make your eyes sting. I had to stop and try to get it out. Then I rode the rest of the way down to the aid station and tried to see if I could see it in a truck mirror. No luck. Eye burning I headed down the road to Starvation Creek--my nemesis. This trail climbs up a few hundred feet and then drops 1500-2000 ft or so on a narrow single track that isn't easy at all.

My inner animal. Emerged. The fly that lodged in my eye had apparently become part of me. I had become the "Superfly!" Like Spiderman got bit by the spider and took on spider powers I had adsorbed the fly and now had superfly powers. Just like my bike! As I was climbing the jeep road to the start of the single track I found Tim dazzed thinking he had taken a wrong turn. He was even more confused when he saw me because he thought he was behind me. I assured him that this was the correct way and we climbed to the top and flew down the rough trail as it followed the small Starvation Creek. As I emerged on the road that would take us back up, a lady, with her, I presumed, mother and daughter was yelling and screaming and jumping up and down to cheer us on. I went across the log over the creek and she offered some food. I said sure and Tim kept going up the steep road. She had some blessed Nutterbutters and Pringles. Her alleged mother also gave me some eye drops for the fly in my eye. As I was eating Pringles another guy came blasting off the trail and not even saying hi started up the road. Tarnations, I was in 9th place now! I thanked the kind lady and said I must be off! I began climbing and soon caught Tim and then one of the guys that had passed me way back on Old Monarch pass. Finally on the top sections, I caught the guy who had passed with out saying hi at the bottom. The Superfly powers now truly evident as I passed the aid station again and they were amazed at how fast I had come back by. Now we just had 30mi of sweet single track with some short steep climbs but mainly a lot of downhill. And then 10mi or so on the highway back to Salida.

So I had passed three guys so I was back in 6th place. Who hoo. This section has a couple of steep sections right off the bat. So I just had to get over these to hit the fun downhills. This is also notorious for flats. You're going really fast. Lots of sharp rocks. And I didn't have much for fixing flats.

I hit the Silver Creek trail that drops down to the Rainbow trail. I was have a great time. My superfly powers were giving me energy and I was feeling really pretty good. The guy that was just behind me did unfortunately catch me on the descent. I let him pass and moments later he hit a rock (haste makes waste) and had to fix his tire. Didn't see him again. I just kept on ripp'n. Then there is one more "aid" station as you get to the Rainbow trail. The nice nutter butter/Pringle lady showed up again. I had some more nutterbutters and some Dintymore beef stew. Then off down some more single track with a few short painfully steep climbs. No problems just fun all the way to the highway.

I hit the highway and dropped down on my bars and put it into the biggest gear. A tailwind hit. I started down 6% grade going as fast as I ever had. I kept looking for the other single speeder that had passed me on Old Monarch. There was no way he could go anywhere my speed. I hit the right turn for the last 5 miles back to Salida. And a couple of miles there he was. Spinning his cranks as fast as he could. I flew by and said sorry he didn't have any gears. He was in good spirits.... And finally I reached the end in 5th place and just under 16hrs. Not too bad for survival mode and all the stops I took along the way.

No sign of Jordan--my ride back. I hung out and tried to find him. The race also included beer and BBQ afterwards so I ate and waited for Jordan. Finally after quite a while, someone remembered that Jordan told them that he was going back with Keith Fisher (a friend that was checking out the race but had gone up the wrong route so I missed him) at Snowblind and I should drive his truck back. Now if I could just remember where his spare keys were. I had asked him as we rode out of town but in the night hadn't really paid attention. I had a guy at Absolute Bikes look after I looked a few times. I should say those guys were really good guys... Anyway after the tenth time, I finally found the key and headed back to Gunni.

Technology? I finally got my cell phone out of the truck and called Anne. She had just talked to Dave as she walked home from the library and he told her that Jordan came back with Keith. Then he called me as Anne was telling me this to let me know that Jordan was back as I had the bike shop call him to see if Jordan had made it down Canyon creek. Also on my phone was a message from my mom. She had been watching the GPS trackers that showed our position on the Internet. Unfortunately a few lead guys didn't have theirs working (some or not at all). And she was sure that I had won and told all her friends. So I had to break the news that I was 5th. I then drove back to Gunnison. Only slightly tired.....

Until next year--"Superfly" out!

Vapor Trail 125 2010 Part 2 Into the light.

2010-09-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

When we last left our heroes......they were headed into the dark side.

We hit the gravel road and began to climb. Here it was crucial to keep the pace fast enough but not so fast as to blow up later on. We did have another 120 miles or so to go.... Many people had turned their headlights down low or had turned them off and were poaching others light. I alternated between my head lamp and handlebar lamp just 'cause I like pushing buttons. The map and profile below show this section up to the first single track. We had about 14 mi at about 4% average grade. I just rode along behind people as much as I could as there was a bit of a headwind and why not save some energy. Several riders were already jockeying for position and going to fast but let 'em. I finished this section at 11:31ish (it says 11:41 on the results page but I think they entered it incorrectly) Click on the picture to see it bigger. As we approached the single track I pulled my leg warmers up and tucked them in as I had them pulled down. I also put on my warm gloves. It was a nice and cool temperature and very comfortable.

At the single track beginning, some guys were waiting and getting our numbers as we went through. Here it began to spread out quite a bit. It was very fun and fast single track with some really rocky sections and some steep switchbacks and stream crossings. The lights were great and I was really going pretty fast. I ended up riding with Tim on his big single speed from Crested Butte here and there on this trail. Towards the end we were rippin and he missed the trail as it turned on a road and went to the aid station. We went across the road and kept on the Colorado Trail. We eventually hit a road and no trail markers. We were pretty sure we were in the top 5 riders as we looked around and retraced our steps. And sure enough we found everyone. We just lost a little time. Tim was very apologetic and I think felt bad especially after I berated him and thoroughly let him have it in front of everyone. Well actually he did feel bad but it was as much my fault as his as I wasn't watching but just following. He got me a beer at the end so all was forgiven. As can be seen, we actually dropped a bit of elevation on this section and there were several steep hike-a-bike sections. According to the official results, we pulled in at 3:20 am or 5:20 into the race.

At the aid station, there were breakfast burritos, Oreos, hammer gels, water, Gatorade and fruit salad. I had a few Oreos, Gatorade and a little fruit. I also tossed some gels in my shorts under the elastic on my thighs. All the usual suspects were here. Jordan, Kerkove, Stubbe...... At this point, we followed the old railroad grade up Chalk Creek. The map below shows that this section that I would finish in the dark at 6:12 in the morning was long, at high elevation and had long downhills (single track).

The first part of the old railroad grade was again about 4% grade but seemed to go on forever. I passed Jordan and he didn't look good. He concurred that he didn't feel good. He would drop at the next aid station at Snowblind campground. I rode with the CB boys Tim and Matt here and there eventually dropping them. Finally we neared the Alpine Tunnel. At this point, the trail deteriorated and had old rail ties (I guess) laid across the trail to preserve it and make it bumpy. The Alpine Tunnel is now impassable so you have to climb up over the ridge that separates it from the other side. Now it is very steep and you hike. I stopped and checked my blood sugar and put on my wind jacket. I decided not to put on my balaclava or head band yet. The hike was good place to turn down my headlamp and check out the stars. Very cool in the wee hours. Finally I reached the top and rode down to the other portal on the very steep rocky singletrack. This began the sections of trail that I had ridden. I knew most of these very well. I actually didn't recognize the trail down as the descent until I got to the old wooden turntable and railroad building. For railroad buffs this is actually really cool as they have preserved many old structures including a water tower on the road up. The road now drops along a very cool work of engineering. In the daylight you can check out a rock wall built in the 1880s that holds the old railroad grade in place. The wall is several hundred feet high and was put up by hand. We turned to the left towards Tomichi pass. This road is steep and rocky. Lots of ATV traffic here--in the daytime anyway. So it was a grunt up to the 800 ft or so to 11900. I could see a few lights ahead of me but really had no idea of what place I was in. I knew several people were going harder than they should and could be hurting. It was also starting to get colder. Tomichi Pass summit was welcome. Now I had a huge advantage as I knew the next trail, Canyon Creek, very well. We descended the pass for about 1/3 of a mile and 150 ft. Here you take the single track and basically hike/carry your bike up VERY rugged trail up 800ft to 12,600 ft. I passed a couple of guys climbing here that didn't know the trail and it was getting in their heads as they thought that it may just go on forever. At the top at around 4:00am, I turned off my lights for a minute to take it all in. It was still very dark. There to the south was Orion not quite standing upright. I thought of Lila and Julian sleeping in their beds with the Orion constellation that we had made with glow-in-the-dark stars on the southern wall. They were nice and warm. I was just about to head down about 3500' of screaming single track in the dark.

Down I headed. The trail at the top is steep and tricky with some rocks that could send you into the abyss (especially in the dark). I caught a guy from Fort Collins that I had talked to on the way up. He still had his shorts on--no warmers. I tried to ask how he was doing as he was having some hard time negotiating the trail. I said he'd better put something on-I knew as we dropped it was just going to get colder. It did but I never felt that bad. Some riders afterwards had said their water had frozen and one guy said he had to get wrapped in a blanket and jump at the aid station. I saw some frost on the ground here and there. The trail was fast. The big 29in wheels were eating up the trail, I knew all the tricky spots, and I had both lights on high. Utterly fast and sweet.

About 6 miles or halfway down, I passed a "horse camp" where an outfitter takes people. The trail turns and the single track is not quite as steep and sandier as you drop. Near the end my headlamp began to lose charge. I saw a headlamp in front of me and began to chase it down. Then I slipped into a long puddle that had formed next to a log that was parallel to the trail. My right ankle hit the log and was nicely twisted. I tried to walk on it and then pedal on it and it hurt too bad to put much weight on. I just got back on my bike and "rode it off." After a few minutes I was able to move it again. The light got up the last hill a ways however. I climbed this short 300' climb and then rode the descent where my headlamp died altogether (I still had my handle bar mounted light working) to the aid station at Snowblind campground.

Dave Wiens has been manning this aid for several years. The light that I had seen had just come in ahead of me--I later found out it was Max Nuttleman. He used to live in CB and I knew him pretty well but I didn't recognize him at the aid station. I sat down and demanded a pancake. I had a pancake and some peanut butter and jelly bagel. Now if I could've eaten the bagel that Dave had dropped at Leadville 100 and OCHS from CB had sold on Ebay for $860, I would've been really good to go.

I checked my glucose again and it looked fine. I took some insulin as the bagel was big. Dave said I was doing well and in 4th place. Really? He also asked if I had seen Stubbe. I said not since the first aid and I had assumed he was ahead of me. He had dropped early for some reason.
It was a bit surreal at the aid as it was dark and cold. Some teenage guys were just milling around the table not really doing much, a lady was helping and Dave's son Cooper was running around in a big fuzzy bathrobe shooting a foam dart gun. I hung out for quite a little while as I was feeling a bit off-almost like I had just ridden all night. I got going and pulled out of the aid. There was the guy from Fort Collins that I had seen at the top. He looked disoriented as I pointed him in the right direction to the aid (he didn't make it any farther than this). I then rode down the smooth road towards Old Monarch Pass with one light as the sun began to lighten the sky.

Stay tuned as we ride into the light and the classic Monarch Crest trail.

Vapor Trail 125 2010 The Race Part 1

2010-09-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

Riding all night and most of the next day, riding in below freezing temperatures at 12,600 feet in the night, riding 125mi on a mountain bike, lots of climbing-somewhere in the 20,000 ft vicinity, and miles of single track that are known to destroy tires. These are all things sum up the Vapor Trail 125. And I have to say the whole dropping down 4000 feet from 12,600 feet with below freezing temperatures was perplexing me as well. I hate to get my feet cold. And then how to juggle the insulin with a race this long. And oh yeah a headlamp that would last 8+hrs and light the technical single track lit only by stars.....

Anne was much more worried than me. I think she had visions of me in the crashing in the dark on the side of a mountain freezing. OK that could happen... Or who knows what else. I think the whole thing overwhelmed her. I thought my other adventures would have smoothed it over a bit. I guess not. Maybe she could sense my nervousness about it....

So I'd been thinking about this race for a while. Of course friends from Gunnison have been doing it and it grew on me. Wiens had done it a few years ago and spoke of it with awe in his voice. Which is something, considering the races he's done. Others like Jason Stubbe and Jordan Carr had done if a few times and survived. My real problem was that we are always back in school for a few weeks before this started and I had been burned out from doing Leadville 100 so riding had tapered and I didn't have lights. So this year I sent in my resume since I originally didn't plan on Leadville. Yes to do this race you have to be invited or send in a bike resume. I emailed Absolute bikes and sent in a resume. I put Dave Wiens, Brian Riepe and Jason Stubbe as references. I wonder if they called any of them. Brian and Jason are incredible athletes (and Dave of course) that I knew pretty well... So anyway they let me in.Then once you get accepted you downloaded the entry form. This basically consisted of you putting your name, town and a haiku with crayon. So here's my haiku.

ATVs asleep
Iron horse in my minds eye
So good rainbows end

I thought it was very symbolic as around Pitkin where we would be at 2-3 am is chock full of ATVs and they would all be sleeping. Then we go over the alpine tunnel (a closed railroad tunnel from 1880s at 11,500ft) and then the rainbow trail is the last trail before we hit blacktop back to Salida. I didn't win....

So like I just mentioned riding long rides during this time of year can be difficult. A week before the race I did get a chance to go over and ride some of the course for a long day. Other than that all my rides were close to an hour with a few 2-3 hr rides thrown in.

Gear preparation.
For the week before the race I threw all of my bike clothes including some of my winter ski gear into a pile that migrated from the mudroom floor to the kitchen floor and back to the counter in the mudroom and finally back to the kitchen floor. I decided to wear my wooley socks, winter bike gloves, shorts with legwarmers, my very old long sleeve jersey, a vest, a wind jacket, and my windstopper Nordic ski jacket. I had a warm skull cap that I had ridden with only a few weeks before but I still can't find after emptying every cupboard in the house. So for my head I threw in a balaclava and a headband. My 1990s era leg warms would not stay up anymore, my helmet broke the day before the race and I needed a new tire. So I had to hit the bike shops. I also had to get lights. Luckily I have friends with killer lights. Matt Burt loaned me his and I rode a few times early to check em out. Then I hooked up with Brian R and got a couple of super killer Lupine lights. Man, these things were bright. And turned on low for the climbs they should easily last the whole night. Which tires? It killed me to think of riding 125mi with very heavy tires but I had had a lot of flats on races this year so on the heavy ones went. A couple of Bontrager 29in tires. The front was a new one with some killer tread for the killer single track. The final item was a blinking red light for the roads out.

Food?
Word on the street was that the aid stations would be stocked with everything from Oreos to Dinty Moore beef stew to Wiens' pancakes. So I decided I would take enough Power bars and Gu's to make it most of the way to the second aid station about 8 hrs into the race. Don't wanna run out when you're taking insulin...

Saturday Sept 11 race day.
I got a ride with Jordan over to Salida at 6pm with Jason in the car behind. We pulled into Salida and went to Absolute bikes. It has a coffee shop attached to it with a door directly into it. We got our numbers and Spot GPS trackers. You didn't have to wear the tracker but I did so Anne could hopefully see me move so she could tell I was alive. The only problem was that sometimes the signal wouldn't get picked up and it would look like I hadn't moved in a while and other peoples' weren't working so it was hard for her and my family to track who was actually in the lead. After getting my Camelback set and my drop bag thrown in the truck up to Monarch pass for the daylight hours, I went into the coffee shop and watched the open mic night and and had some espresso. I hung out with a few Crested Butte boys, Matt S (I mainly know him as the guy that I can beat up the hill but is crazy fast going down), Tim, Chris (Ezster H's boyfriend/husband?). And finally at the table was the girl who was giving out Kep's pollen balls and also Kep's sister. A great group. I ended up seeing the Matt and Tim during the race more than others. So at 9:00 we had a short prerace meeting and then we headed down to the bridge on the main drag and lined up for the 10pm start.

There were a surprising number of people out to cheer us on as we followed a police car out of town. We cruised along at a very moderate pace to keep everyone together. As we rode, several deer tried to cross the road in front of us. We had to stay as a group to cross highway 285 outside of town a few miles and then we hit a dirt road and it was game on. Stay tuned for Part 2. Into the dark side.

Vapor Trail 125 2010

2010-09-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

Well at least I have something fun to do today. Aunt in NYC is remembering 9-11 again, Sister in NZ just had major earthquakes and their house will need some work...

Why did I sign up for this again?? The Vapor Trail is definitely the hardest race (probably) I've ever tried. As I write this, the race will begin tonight, 9-11-2010, at 10:00 in Salida, CO. It is 125 mi and climbs up into the mountains to the west over such passes as the alpine tunnel, Tomichi pass (followed by Canyon Creek singletrack trail topping out at 12600ft), then on to Old Monarch pass (a smooth road with a good 6-7% grade. Then onto the new Monarch Pass followed by the famous Crest trail to Marshall pass. At Marshall pass is a cruel joke to send us down 2000ft of the narrow and technical Starvation creek then back up the dirt jeep road to Marshall pass again. Now onto the Famous extension of the Crest-- the Rainbow Trail and back to Salida.... 18-20,000ft of climbing depending on who's data you use and most is above 10,000 ft.

So here's my bike for the adventure. The Superfly 100. Should be fast enough. I do have tires that are quite a bit heavier than for Leadville as there are many rocky sections. The Crest is notorious for flats. I mainly don't want to have to change one in the coooold at 12000 ft in the dark! Will be below 20F for a good while until the sun comes up.

Yes our tomatoes froze behind the bike. We took the cover off too soon a few days ago.

A week before now I had noticed a small crack in the seat tube.... The trek rep said it wasn't life threatening so I could ride it but they would send a new frame anyway. OK it won't break...
I rode Signal peak behind campus the other night to check out my lights I had borrowed from Mr Mountain Flyer, Brian Riepe. They are ridiculously bright but I still seem to get in a weird trans riding at night. So all was good going up the 1000 climb but then coming down near the bottom I hit a rock and blow out a side wall. then I notice my helmet strap has come loose from the helmet--still on my head just the back part that you tighten up is disconnected for good. Then I look up for a second almost at the end and hit a rock and crash really pretty hard. So now bruised knee, hip, and shoulder. Ouch... Hopefully the race will go better!

So at 6:00 I'll catch a ride over to Salida with Jordan Carr, who's done it a few times and I'll try to finish the race and maybe hang with the fast guys.

If you want to follow the race, they are hooking GPS trackers on us so there is live tracking click here at Trackleaders.com.

Here are my possible times (mountain time) that I could do on a good day. I'm kind of guessing on these....

Aid station 1 at chalk lake at 30 mi 1:30 am
Aid 2 at Snowblind Camp Gnd (Dave Wiens don't let me stop) 6:30
Aid 3 Top of Monarch pass 8:30
Aid 4 Marshall pass 1 9:40
Aid 5 Marshall pass 2nd time 12:00
Finish 2:30 (16:30 hrs)

Leadville 100 2010 Part II

2010-08-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

When I moved to Gunnison 14 yrs ago I fell in with a rough bunch of friends that like to ride bikes a long ways. Mostly we would just go on long rides at high altitudes. Then it got worse and now I'm signing up for races like Leadville. The caliber of athlete is amazing. I ran into Duncan Callahan today. He won the 100mi run in Leadville this past weekend. In Leadville I saw Ethan Passant who won the self supported Colorado Trail race. And then there's Wiens....

S0 now the big controversy the week before the race was, "Is Lance gonna be there?" There were sightings on the course and even reports that he would be there with Levi L. Then he said his hip was still sore from a crash in the tour and he would stay home.... Other big names showing? Dave Wiens, Levi L, JHK (Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski), Todd Wells, Jeremiah Bishop, Ned Overend, Matt Shriver of FLC, Travis Brown (broke his arm a few weeks before) and Tinker Juarez among others. Should be fun.

My crew, Anne and the kids, and I decided to head over Thursday afternoon so that we could beat the mad rush of 1300-1500 people trying to register for the race Friday morning. We had a house to stay at with some distant relatives of Anne--Thanks Nowakowskis!! We pulled into Buena Vista and the tire is shreded! So we unloaded the car, put the spare on and I went to go find a new tire while Anne and the kids played in the park.
Here I am doing the 5min tire change. Hope I don't have to change any more tires Saturday!
Here the crew in Leadville.

It was good that we had gotten in early as the next day after I got registered in the small gym the line outside grew several blocks long. There was to be a mandatory riders meeting later. It was so crowded I went to the park nearby and played with the kids. I couldn't have gotten in anyway. Tom Verry, the rest of the crew, showed up and we went on a short ride on the first part of the course while the kids went to the pool. The weather was very nice and supposed to be nice the next day.

Friday night we got everything sorted. Since I was 28th last year, I got to start up in the front. Woo Hoo! So Tom and I drove to the start Saturday at 5:30am. It was probably 35 F out and clear. I got a spot next to Dave's brother Brian and we chatted while Tom took pictures. Then all the big dogs showed up and lined up in front of us. Starting in front is soooo nice as trying to get around all the people that think they can go faster than they can and line up toooo far forward. And then they counted down and the shot guns went off and away we went. I usually just wear a vest but this year I wore a ORANGE jacket until the first climb. See if you can see me right behind the front in these two videos!

The start.... A guy's video I linked...

A little bit farther down the road.

As you may have been able to tell the pace was fast but not scary fast like last year with Lance. It was pretty mellow really until we turned up the first climb. Here I hooked up with Troy Hiatt a Gunnison fast guy, Rebbecca Rusch and some other guys. Last year I caught her towards the end. This year she crushed us. We rode as a group to the top of the Powerline climb. Then the girls took off a minute or two ahead and the guys rode as a group to the second aid station.

Here I am coming down the Powerline descent.
At twin Lakes, I saw Anne but no Tom. Got some more water and food. There were SOOO many people here it was just crazy. They were all cheering like crazy and taking up a lot of the road as I came over the dam. It felt like a Tour de France stage.... Crazy. I think they were still pumped as the lead pack wasn't too far ahead at this time.

Now we hit the BIG climb up to the Columbine mine at 12570 ft. Here we caught Ned Overend as he was relieving himself. He hopped on his bike and we rode up the lower stretches together. I asked how he was doing. I didn't want to say, "Man you must be hurting to be back here with me!" I later learned that he gave his wheel to Todd Wells after he crashed into Levi. Then I told him I used watch him kick butt back in my FLC days and then he started to speed up, or maybe I started to slow down. It's hard to tell.

Then I see JHK followed by Levi. Both in a tuck screaming down the mountain. JHK with his Superfly 29in wheels going just really really fast. Nice. Then Wells and Wiens a few minutes back. Then just as I hit the steeper sections who do I see but the Hot Dog guy. My scrappy friend Becky Sears knows this guy and he saw my number plate and insisted that I eat a hot dog. It didn't sound very good but I reached for one, grabbed it and as I brought it to my mouth it slipped and hit the ground. Darn err good?

So far the climb went OK not great just OK. I was getting some crazy cramps for a good bit of it but kept spinning until they passed and then came back. I finally get to the top, about the same time as last year and 10 min slower than two years ago. 1:38 of climbing. Now I turned around and rode back the way we came. I was going very fast and trying to make noise so the poor oxygen starved folk coming up would get back over on their side. Then I came around a corner and there is a truck stopped on the right and bikers on the left. I hit the brakes and slowed enough to get through.

Here I am coming back through Twin lakes. I had to stop and say hey. By the way that's Dave's dad in the back ground.

The rest of the race I just didn't feel real fast. Last year I began going faster and faster over the last 40 miles and passed a lot of people. This year with the heat and my lack of energy I was just trying to not get passed. I finally made it to the finish with out losing too much time. Just before the finish my tire started spraying Stans sealant and Garth Prosser, who I had been riding with, went on to finish a bit in front. Errg... Luckly the tire sealed itself pretty quickly and I didn't have to put in a tube. Here I am finishing. 8:17 in 44th place.

Dave came over to say hey afterward. His bro came in a few minutes ahead. Nice job Brian!
Afterward I was a bit dehydrated but after a little bit, I felt pretty good. We hung out with Susan D and she invited us down for Mexican food with the Wiens crew... The next day we went to the awards deal and got another big buckle. We stopped to get coffee for the ride home and ran into Travis Brown and Dave. They had raffled off two tickets into the race to raise $ for their trail organizations. Part of the prize was having coffee after the race. They'll do it next year too! I tried to get Travis to let me help him test bikes for Trek.... He helped get the Superfly that I rode dialed in for Trek by riding several prototypes.

Then we went back over Cottonwood Pass. Here is a picture of us on a little hike up there.

Oh yeah if you were curious about the whole diabetes thing.... I took 15 units of Lantus the night before and 5 units of humalog with pancakes at 5am and nothing else for the race. I was going to test my sugar half way but I didn't see Tom who had my meeter. No biggie. On the way back at mile 80 I ate extra food so I didn't have low sugar like I have in the past. At the finish my glucose was 170ish.

Leadville 100 2010 Part I

2010-08-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

The Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race this year did not unfold the way races like this usually do. First, I decided to try it again and so in January, I applied online and paid my $15 nonrefundable application fee. Then in February they send out emails telling if you got in or not. I didn't.

So that took some edge off how much I thought about training really seriously--not that I train really seriously. Living in one of the best places to ride mountain bikes, or road bikes for that matter, I would still go ride a good bit. I also told Anne that I would drive us to Minneapolis Minnesota to see her family where they were all getting together for a week. That is my secret weapon!

So the first races I decided to do were the Growler training series races at our local area called Hartman's Rock. They are short one hour races followed by pizza and beer that are training for the quite hard Gunnison Growler. The Growler is a 64 mi (70 mi actually) mountain bike race on mainly single track Memorial Day weekend. All of the races are put on by Gunnison fast guy Dave Wiens. Each race I got faster and more into mountain bike mode. Riding starts slow here as the snow doesn't melt until April in the lower areas here but I was in pretty good shape from nordic and back country skiing..

Coming off the Growler I felt pretty good and in descent shape. Now what bigger race should I try this summer? I finally decided that maybe the Vapor trail 125 might be interesting. It is 125 miles, starts at 10pm, climbs a ton and covers a lot of classic and hard single track at high elevations. So maybe I should go ride a bit....

July 5th I was riding old monarch pass and the classic Canyon creek trail and Dave W calls the house. Anne answers and he asks if I'm around. She say's I'm riding my bike. So then he asks if she minds if I do Leadville. She is a bit of a secret bike race fanatic I think. She likes watching me and helping but I think she really likes to watch the fast guys like Dave come through also. So I get back and I can tell something is up. Just have to call the office and I'm in. Hmmmm I'm sure I can do OK but it could be a little harder as the race is just a little over a month away and we have a solid 2+ weeks of travels planned. To Minneapolis and then to Mancos for Derek and Di's big wedding. So I tried to put a lot of rides in before the 13th when we took off early for the Black Hlls and Badlands.
Had some good rides that week. Three good road rides (Monarch pass, Taylor res, and the CB group ride) but only one big mt bike ride at CB lowerloop/Slate duez/Paradise divide/403/401 and I got rained out at 403 and had to bail. Then on the trip out, I rode a couple of longer rides and some shorter ones. One good one was the paved road in Badlands--42 mi, 2200ft climbing in 2:15 and pretty.

Lila picking George's nose.

Here's the campground in Badlands. No water, but it was free and bison wandered through every morning.

Bison in the fields all around the camp....

Bison near camp

Canoeing down the St Croix by the "Cities"
And the new fashion trend starter! Rode with a group of Minnesotans (actual residents--locals as it were and ran into the family going to the milk carton boat races... So old swim suit better than spandex....
So it turned out I got about 15 hrs of riding and a few slow rides to the beach at the lake over these two weeks.... Then we came back to Gunnison for a couple of days on the 25th.

The 26th I headed out from Pitkin to ride over the Alpine tunnel, Tincup pass, and back over Cumberline pass (all over 1200') to Pitkin. About 45 mi and 6100' of climbing. Unfortunately as I began to climb the steep and rocky Tincup Pass, I realized that I had indeed contracted what ever Julian and Lila had got from the cousins. This consisted of fever, great thirst, tiredness, and funky spots all over my belly. So I began to feel really tired and thirsty. By the time I started back up Cumberline, I was really wobbly and not feeling very good. About a mile from the top and just a few more hundred feet, I hopped in a guy's truck from Arkansas and got a ride to the top. He thought I looked bad apparently. I got home and was covered with little spots and was very tired. The next day I managed a slow ride at Hartmans...

Then on to Derek's wedding in Mancos. On the way to Mancos, I recovered enough to ride from Telluride to Mancos. While in Mancos, I did a couple of short mt bike rides and then I rode back to Telluride on the the way back. Anne drove the kids and then we played in Telluride to see how the other half live. So the race was now only two weeks away.... I rode as much as I could the next week and then just a bit the week before the race. It was nice not really stressing about the training and hanging with family--Especially the Whalens and keeping burglars out of their house (should score points with the Mother in Law).

Next the Race!

Growler 2010

2010-06-16T13:48:00.001-07:00

The Growler Mountain bike race is a race through Hartman Rock recreation area near Gunnison CO. It was started by Dave Wiens to raise money for his nonprofit, Gunnison Trails. It is about 70 miles once it's said and done and covers a lot of single track and much of it technical. This year the course was similar to the first year 2 yrs ago and just about the reverse of the course last year. The difference this year was that I got a new Gary Fisher Superfly 29er. Nice bike.

So we lined up in town at 7:00 and Ken Coleman the city manager fires a shotgun twice and we role out of town at a neutral clip. My goal this year was to stay towards the front and try to maintain on all the steep little climbs and technical areas and descents. My new bike is much faster on the hard stuff and downhill but probably not so on the climbs. I wanted to get close to 6 hrs. No way I could hang with Travis Brown who won last year.

We got to Kill Hill at the start of Hartman Rock and dirt roads to spread every one out and I felt good and kept a good pace.
Then we hit the single track. On the first harder section, "Top of the World" in dust and low light I smacked a pointy rock with both tires. Stans sealant then begins to fly out of BOTH wheels! Tarnations I'd never had that happen!

I quickly tried to get the Stans to seal the tires but it wouldn't so I put a tube in the back and used my CO2 cartridge to fill it up. Unfortunately I didn't have enough to fill the front! As the multitudes passed me on the single track a guy let me use his pump. I thought I got air into the front tire and got it to seal. But after riding a little ways it appeared that the rim wasn't sealed. Another friend tossed his pump to me but it didn't work! Finally another friend towards the rear of the pack had a large CO2 cylinder that we used to get the tire seated and it stayed inflated! Thanks Matt! And I was off again. Now behind way too many people on tight single track. I passed and passed some more. This took a lot of effort and was kindof dangerous.... I passed Grandpa Bill who was out on the course about 1/4 of the way around the lap with water and tools and grabbed my spare tube and pump and water. I passed tons of people. By the half way point at Skull pass the groups were thinning but I still was stuck a lot of the time going slow. So I came in to the end of lap one around 3:30. Anne and the kids were waiting and gave me some water and energy. And off I went. Other than some odd cramps I started to make up some time. the second lap was about 3:05 for a total of 6:35 and 53rd place. Not as good as last year in the rain.

Here I am at the finish with the Growler given away for finishers.

Smithy's Birthday ride, White rim in a day Nov 2009

2010-06-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

So for the past few years local bad boy and very fast person Brian Smith has had a ride the white rim trail in a day birthday ride around the middle of November. Too bad his birthday wasn't closer to September. I had done it two years ago in 2007 and it was a hoot.

Drive out there, ride the trail unsupported that time then tired drive home. This year I decided to leave Friday early, ride some at Fruita and get out to Canyonlands Island in the sky early enough to enjoy the views. The only problem with this was the HUGE rain storm over Fruita so I just kept going. The weather around Moab wasn't great either......

A bunch of Gunnison guys met at the little campground just before you go into Canyonlands while Brian, his wife Jenny and some friends stayed in Moab. We all went to bed ready to go in the morning. We woke up to a nice snow and Brian had rain all night in Moab. We barely got a cel call to Brian and he bailed as he thought it was toooo wet. We got the troops rounded up and decided to give it a go. Ricky G had just gotten a littel truck and wanted to test it out so we had a sag just in case. So off we went. The day started out well and we made good time. The snow fall at the high elevations gave way and the trail was dry and the day was cool. Around mile 80 it started to snow however. I had been riding with everyone but seeing that we were going to be lucky to make it out before the dark and snow I started to go faster. In the end I was the only one to finish as we shuttled everyone else. I also got to ride the last miles in a blinding snowstorm.....

Problem of the day!

2010-04-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't posted much on here. So much fun this fall and winter... Maybe I'll put up some pictures! Some events of note.....

Brian Smith's White Rim in a Day birthday ride. 100+ mi of Utah dirt. We camped near the entrance to the Island in the Sky at Canyonlands. So not to ruin the surprise in case I get around to it.. but Brian stayed in Moab and it rained like crazy there. Up higher where we were it snowed a bit. He thought the trail would be too wet, we rode down a ways and it was dry so we did it with out Brian and his wife, Jenny. This was the 3rd 100mi mt bike in 4 months... More later.

Then let the Nordic and Rondonee racing. We didn't have much snow in town so to Nordic ski we had to drive 20 -3o mi.. So I didn't get in super shape. The Rondonee is basically racing up the mt and back down. New for me but fun. Some of the bigger races were the Alley loop 42km (26 mi) Nordic marathon and the Leadville Loppet 44km Nordic race (>10,000 ft makes it challenging). And finally the Elk Mt Grand Traverse backcountry ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen or should I say grand Reverse!

But first the big problem this morning. Lila who is now almost 7 got a helium filled balloon at school. Julian (3.7yrs) was playing with it and I tied it on his little Frosty stuffed snowman's arm. So it comes off Frosty's arm on the stairs and the balloon goes to the top of the vaulted ceiling above the stairs. It is quite a ways up and seemingly unreachable. So we brainstormed while we ate pancakes. HOW to get it down?? (I might add the same thing happened when Lila when she was 2 or 3 and we used my fishing pole to pull it over and grab it--she didn't remember. What fun getting the kids to think though).

Julian first thought that maybe we could stack up the table and some chairs and then some more chairs.. Not a bad idea really.

Then Lila thought maybe if she got on my shoulders and then Julian got on hers.... No still not tall enough so maybe mom could go on Dads and then the kids..

And Julian's favorite craft item these days.. TAPE. How about we put tape on Julian's paper airplane and try get it stuck to it. Or just a ball of tape or tape on a ball of paper and throw it and get it to stick.

Julian really wanted me to just go get a ladder..

Or if we all got a straw and sucked we might be able to suck it down. I offered the shop vac.

Then it went into animal mode... We could get some ants and put some sugar on the wall and train them to climb up and get on it. Or as the birds outiside were going to be laying eggs soon maybe we could catch one of the smarter ones like a crow or magpie and train it to go up and get the balloon. We decided these would take too long and mom didn't really like them.

So onto a food theme. We were in the middle of making some bread so why not get some of the sticky dough and try to throw it a the balloon and stick it to it. Julian thought muffins might do the same thing.

I thought it might be a good time to introduce the kids to spit balls but mom didn't think so.

Anne offered a fan to maybe blow the balloon around... I just thought we could pray.

In the end we got my fishing pole and pulled it over where I could grab the string.....

2009 Crested Butte Classic

2009-10-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

" 'It's longer than an elephant's penis', that's what they were putting on all the posters around town," says the unofficial race organizer of the unofficial race, the Crested Butte Classic Dave Ochs. "I wonder what all the people in town are going to say?" And he chuckles.... Dave is a good biker with some crazy chops and a wicked sense of humor. He was MCing the finish of the Grand Traverse Ski race and it made all the pain go away. We were all sitting around Piezans having free pizza and Fat Tire beer compliments of Mr. Wiens and Gunnison Trails after the Thursday night mt bike race. Dave W. is the main character in an upcoming movie by the way .... So Dave Ochs asks Dave Wiens if he's doing the Classic. Dave says "Naw, We're making new trails at Hartmans on Sunday and I have to work on that on Saturday." Then Dave Ochs asks me if I'm doing it...... I say, "I might, been slacking for the past month." OK I'd ridden my bike a total of 16 hrs since Leadville Aug 15th. I was a bit burned out and had been playing with the kids and working more as school started.

So what is the Crested Butte Classic? You show up at the 4-way stop in Crested Butte. Sign your name on the list, listen to Dave give the route description and then roll on the hwy south on at neutral start. There's no entry fee, course markings, rider numbers... you just check in as you come into town after each lap and at the finish. Each lap takes you through a different set of classic CB trails.

So I decided I'd do it and keep it at a moderate speed, nothing too fast so I could finish and live to tell the tale.

I showed up and parked in my usual place and up pulls Gary Pierson and Chris Dickey. Gary is doing it all and Chris is doing it as a team. The temp out is 24F. brrrrr.

I put my GPS on this ride to get the actual stats... Here they is.

Here are some pics... My photographer had the day off... Go to Xavier Fane photography.

So off we go at a very moderate pace--probably because it was so cold. About 55 solo riders and others doing part or a team version. I began shivering pretty good after about 4 mi. I had on a vest, arm-warmers, jacket, and jersey and regular bib shorts. Dave O's wife was waiting at the first climb to pick up jackets. We turned up Brush Creek and then hit Teocolli ridge trail. This is a steep 2000' climb. I dumped my jacket. By the middle part of the climb, my fingers began to work again. As the sun came up and we got to the top, I took off my vest and arm warmers.

Down we came a quick stream crossing (got my toes wet yuk--it was still pretty cold) and then up strand bonus and down strand hill. Then back to town along the trail by the high way. 30 mi and lap one done! I had eaten a bit much for breakfast so figured my Glucose was a tad high so I stopped at the car and checked my sugar. 290? So I took a unit of insulin. I then skipped my next feeding (every 37:33 min my watch beeps for a feeding of a gu or something). I put on my light camelback as the next stage got me really dehydrated last year. I grabbed a small water bottle and more food. ~2:50 to the check in.

The second lap goes up past Peanut lake north of CB and out the Lower loop trail. This is an easy trail for the tourists then hits Slate river (dirt) road. This is pretty mellow until the old town of Pittsburg where it climbs up and up and up the Slate d'Huez for about 2500'. This is about 18-20% grade to the turn off to the 403 trail. The 403 is a bit tricky single track with steep descent to just above Gothic on the Schofield pass road. Now just another 1500' to the start of the 401 trail. This got a bit muddy in the trees climbing up to the top and the tires were covered with thick mud.... A guy was counting racers and let me know I was 13th. Not bad for a mellow pace.... Many guys were hurting pretty good at this point. I reached the top with Charlie Nuttleman-One of the Nuttleman twins. I had to pee so I told him to go down first. The 401 trail is really just a cool trail. You traverse across the side of a high ridge with views everywhere as you scream down. I hit a rock and heard air screaming out of my tires.. So I hopped off on the narrow edge of the trail and fix it. Blast it I get passed by 3 guys. Two I had passed up the climb. So about 4-5 mins the tire is good to go. And down to the road out. Here beavers had dammed up the crossing. This was supposed to have been cleared out but they were evidently some busy beavers and the crossing was a thigh deep trot... Now you hit the Schofield pass road skipping some single track trail. And it's a fast ride back to Crested Butte with a couple small hills. I get back and put two new bottles on and some food. My Glucose is looking good at 100-150 (I forget). I came past the check in at about 3:40 for this lap and 67 mi total. I was getting slower and slower on the hills... But the sun was still out and it's a beautiful day.

The last lap heads up Kebler pass to the town of Irwin. There's Nuttleman on the climb. I just hang behind him as a million cars go by on the dusty road. Nice! And there's a stiff headwind. We climbed the grade slowly it seemed to me, especially as Kerri Nelson comes screaming by us at the top. She is doing it as a team so is fresh. She has won several prestigious ultra hard running races. And she is a Western State College graduate. We headed to the start of the Dyke trail single track and on the downhills I can easily stay ahead of Kerri but as soon as we head up again she hammers past. The trail is mainly down hill to the other side of Kebler pass. Really a sweet trail even if it is 80 miles into the ride. Screaming fast single track through aspens with leaves turning yellow and falling on the trail. We hit Kebler pass road and the last climb of the day. The road is steeper on this side. I spun an easy gear up to the new Wagon Trail that cuts off the top of the pass and adds a bit of single track as you follow this trail half way back down the other side of Kebler. Finally I hit the paved Kebler pass road and the easy coast back to town. A total time of about 9:45 with 18 min for stopping at the car and fixing the flat. I think I was in 9th place. Last year I had done it in just over 9 hrs....

Now Free beer!

2009 Leadville 100 Mt bike Race

2009-08-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

So there she is. My old 2002 Specialized Hardtail mountain bike and two time Leadville veteran. She's not as curvy and sleek as my Trek road bike, and not as plush and comfortable as my Specialized Epic Full suspension mountain bike. She is however lighter (a svelte 23 lbs) than the Epic without a lick of carbon fiber. And since Leadville is mainly on roads and has a lot of climbing I had to picked her. It's not as if the Epic is fat, just big boned. I assured my hardtail that I didn't have my eye on one of those new tricked out carbon fiber jobs but secretly at night I would log on to the Internet and Fantasize.......

I got her all cleaned up, put on some new rubber, lubed her, and tightened her up. We really were intimate... I packed my bags and was ready to go. Jim Dirksen showed up at 7:30 Friday morning to give me a ride to Leadville to register and go to the prerace meeting. He is a local legend who was racing in the M5 category. It hadn't rained for weeks--Of course now it was raining.

Anne and the kids were coming over in the afternoon and we would go to Copper Mountain where we had a condo that afternoon. Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill were going to show up and watch the kids and help Anne with crewing (and be the official photographer), respectively. But unfortunately Grandma while picking daisies, slipped. The resulting fall broke her tibia, fibula and 3 bones in her foot. So with a plate installed less than a week before the race she decided that maybe she was in too much pain without a morphine drip to come. Luckily we have some great people in Gunnison that were willing to help. Becky, my scrappy partner in the Elk Mt Grand Traverse (See post) came over that night to help crew. Emily, a Western State student, came over early as we left for the race to watch the kids.

So Jim and I headed out. As we drove up Monarch Pass (11300') we were engulfed in a thick mist. Then out of the mist in front of us appeared a large suburban. The infamous Dave Wiens. He beat Lance last year but it would be difficult this year. I think he was ready to do the race as he had been training hard. We waved and hung out behind over the pass. Leadville had low hanging clouds but the weather wasn't too bad. The registration went fast. Got a water bottle, bag, Mountain Flyer magazine and a T shirt. I also got a wrist band so I could start in the front since I was 32nd last year. This would relieve some stress. The prerace meeting was the usual. Ken Choubler rallying the troops into battle, "I Commit! I won't Quit" we shouted in unison. "You're better than you think you are, You can do more than you think you can" Then Dave comes in to huge cheers and tons of cameras flashing gave a short speech. No Lance. After the meeting, Jim and I hung out to let some clouds move over, got some coffee and went on a short ride. At 3:30, Anne showed up and we loaded the bike and headed for Copper Mountain. Becky showed up and we got everything in order.

The first thing to do was to make a peanut butter sandwich that I would be offered at mile 60 or 80 during the race but probably decline it. But WAIT we forgot the jelly! No problem, I had a vanilla gu that had developed a leak. We'll use that. Here is Anne making the peanut butter and gu sandwich.

We filled water bottles with Gu2O, got extra water for Anne and Becky, got piles of gus, power bars, tools, extra tubes and clothes. Becky helped pin my number on my jersey very aerodynamically and I got the two numbers on my bike and sticker on my helmet. I also made some pancakes for the morning and set the coffee maker to go. It was a clear night as we went to bed.

At 4:30 we got up to a light rain. Emily showed up from her sister's place in Silverthorn and off we went. I grabbed a handful of pancakes and some coffee and checked the blood sugar. All good. I had taken 15 units of Lantus the night before. This is the same as I normally take. I had been real active normally so I felt that I didn't need to reduce it.

As we headed up Fremont pass on wet roads up towards the closed Climax molybdenum mine out of the mist appears the Wien's Suburban.... We found out later that they forgot the race food! Stressful! So they were a little late like us as they had to go back. I was getting worried that I may indeed freeze this day as I tried to ride at 12000' in the rain but BEHOLD first the moon appeared and then to the south as if to lead us to Leadville it was a star. THE STAR OF LEADVILLE! We followed this miracle of light, turned on the IPOD randomly as Anne can't see to well up close these days to INXS loudly (OK yes INXS is on the ipod) and as we got to Leadville the skies cleared to a light dusting of snow on the peaks.

We parked behind Dave, Susan and his brother and got the stuff out. I pumped up my tires, gave Dave a good luck high five and we all headed up to the start line.
At the start line I gave Anne some secret sign language. I think she was more stressed out than me.
At 6:00 clouds began to flow over the mountains we were heading into as the film crew in a helicopter flew over. We sent Becky back to the car to get more rain gear! At 6:30 they shot of the shotgun and off we went. As we followed the lead car we quickly accelerated to 30-35mph. Lance must have told them he wanted to go fast...to break the record... We made it to the dirt road turn off and off we went. The lead pack was gone so fast I didn't even see them go. My pack cruised along and then began the first climb. It was misty and cool with rainbows popping up here and there. We continued quickly over the first climb and the second. Here it began to rain and fingers and toes began to get really cold. Descending the power line was wet and hard to see. I hit a bump and lost a water bottle. Since I wasn't seeing Anne and Becky for 25 mi I stopped and picked it up. Big mistake as a guy I just passed got ahead of me and went really slow down the rutted out steep road. I couldn't pass safely so I stayed behind. If I raced more, I would have passed him I'm sure. So we reached the bottom and I felt a little off. We passed through the first aid at 26 mi and then down dirt roads with smaller hills. I hit the new single track and felt really not fast at all. Cold hands, sunglasses covered with water and dirt. The single track added 0.5 mi out and back to reroute around a steep hill. I eventually got to the aid station. Anne and Becky quickly put new water bottles in and lubed my chain. Susan D. helped shove dry wind resistant gloves on my hands since I couldn't move them. Here are some shots at the Twin lakes aid.

As I began to climb, it was clearing nicely and I began to get warmer. I climbed at a moderate pace still feeling off. Last year I climbed it 10 min faster. At the start I took off my cheap plastic rain coat but couldn't get it back in my pocket so after wasting to much time I tossed it behind a tree and continued. Here are some pics courtesy of Summer R. at mi 45 or so.

Lance Armstrong:

Dave Wiens:

And Me....

The road switchbacks up and finally gets steeper as you climb above treeline. Here is a video of Lance and Dave that shows the terrain. Near the top you can see the turn around way off around a sweeping turn. This puts the hurt on many people as they are really tired and at 12000' and then you can still see the top a long ways off. For me as I climbed around the bend, it began to get very windy and begin to hail. This was good since I dropped my rain jacket at the bottom and hail just bounces off. Rain would have been freezing! I got to the top as fast as I could and turned around and rode back down the wet road past the throngs coming up. Again I got a bit cold but at the the bottom the sun was out and Anne and Becky got my water and lubed my chain again. Here's Becky at the aid.

And I was off. Since I had not been going super fast up to this point, I began to feel better and better and started going pretty fast as I warmed up. The last 40 mi I passed a lot of people that were looking really tired. My split time for the last leg was 12 min faster than last year.

Only 40 miles to go! Can't help but smile....

I got to the finish and there were still quite a few people who where cheering loudly as we came in. Merrilee (one of the organizers) put a medal around my neck and gave me a big motherly hug. Then Anne came over to the racer exit with the kids and I lay down for a minute and got some food.

My blood sugar was 63 a few minutes after finishing. I think it was fine for the entire race but was probably dropping towards the end. I ate regularly--gu every 35 min. I also ate a couple of power bars during the longer climbs. We went and had some pizza and headed back to Copper Mountain.

I finished in 08:11:43 and 28th place overall. Lance was in in 06:28:50.9 and Dave came in at 06:57:02.0. I was sorry for Dave but that's the way it goes. All the other pro riders were in the 7 hr range. I was alittle annoyed by some slowness going up the big hill and the middle stretch but not too bad anyway.

For full results go here: http://www.milliseconds.com/participants/final_list/overall/141674

The next day we took off to the awards and who do we pull up behind on the highway--Dave. He's going to think we're stalking him. The awards were pretty cool. Everyone who finished goes up and gets they're buckle. Under nine hours get a big buckle. And girls get a necklace/pendant or something also. Lance showed promptly at 9 and gave a talk along with the women's champion (who I barely got ahead of by the way--I thought she was a guy most of the race). Dave then gave a talk and I have to say the applause was much louder for him.

here's Dave's blog http://davidwiens.com/ It wasn't working with internet explorer--use firefox or safari...

Here's another cool link with pics http://www.mountainflyer.com/news.cfm?itemid=265

After I got another BIG belt buckle, we went outside and I got my sweatshirt with my name and time printed on the sleeve. Then we headed back to Gunnison via Cottonwood pass. On the top who is there?? Wiens. He was waiting for Susan to ride up the pass and then he was off to Gunnsion and she was riding the rest of the way. We also saw 4 guys riding longboards down the pass. Crazy. I saw they had a helmet cam and asked them if they had a video--here it is.

Musings a Week Before Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race 2009

2009-08-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

Leadville trail 100 mountain bike race is officially less than a week away. If you don't know about this race it is just over 100 miles-50 mi out and back. Starts at 10200' in Leadville CO. Climbs 12000-14000 ft depending on who's map you look at. Has nice scenery and there are >1300 starting this year including Lance Armstrong. It is billed as being hard.... Google it for more... Also if you want to watch some of it they will have some live streaming at http://www.leadvilletrail100.com/ and click on the “Buy tickets” link at the top. They will have a web stream video going for $6. They will show the start –you could see me there. And they will show a couple of other places along the course and the winners finishing in 6.5-7 hrs and the last people coming in at 12 hr.

This will be the third time I've done the race. Each year it gets bigger and bigger-especially since Lance did it last year and since he lost to Gunnison boy Dave Wiens will be back this year. I had thought about doing it several yrs ago. Dave was doing it and it sounded like a good challenge and good way to stay in shape. But you have to sign up in Janurary so I forgot for several yrs...

So anyway here's a rundown of the top riders, Dave, Lance and Me...

I'm really just a slower and less pretty version of Dave (or my blog last yr here or here). He's 44, I'm 41, He's 6'1" or so and 175lb he says, I'm 6'3" and under 180 for the race. He has won a lot of Mt bike races, is in the Mt bike Hall of Fame and his wife has a bronze medal for '96 olympics. I have raced some and my wife rides her bike to work. I have diabetes and as far as I know Dave is a marvel of healthiness.

Lance has won the Tour de France a few times and is a cancer survivor. I have watched the tour and am a diabetes survivor. He did the last tour to train for leadville this yr.
Dave and Lance will probably beat me by 1-1.5 hrs. But I will probably be in the top 30-50 riders out of >1300.

So how do I compete with elite atheletes having diabetes and a job and two kids. Well Anne the wife of 13yrs today is a big help. She lets me ride my bike a lot and is a bit of a secret bike groupie and loves watching the racers go by at leadville so she is a good support crew.

The training has been going pretty well this summer. I nordic skied a bunch and did the Grand Travers Ski race this winter so came out of our late spring pretty strong.

Here are some numbers of ride time, elevation climbed and miles. Note that this is a mixture of technical mt bike miles and road bike so the mileage would be much longer if I just stayed on the roads... I got a new toy Garmin Edge 705 to get #s. Go to connect.garmin.com and filter rides by jryter to see them all on a map!!

wk of 6-8-09; 16hrs, 15224', 245mi
wk of 6-15-09; 15hrs, 13890', 217mi
wk of 6-22-09; 14hrs, 16148', 193mi
wk of 6-29-09; ~15hrs, ~20000', ~190mi -did breckinridge firecracker 50 w/o GPS so some estimation...
wk of 7-6-09; 18:33hrs, 19000', 269mi
wk of 7-13-09; 17hrs, 22649', 216mi
wk of 7-20-09; 16:16hrs, 17724', 214mi
wk of 7-27-09; 17:39 hr 18493', 19000', 269mi

Well thanks for stopping in... I'm in taper mode now.. Shorter rides... less intensity. We'll see how next weekend goes!!

Breckenridge Firecracker 50

2009-07-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

On Friday the 3rd of July, I drove accross town (3-5min drive depending on traffic) and put Anne and the kids on a plane for Denver and then Madison WI. She had left me for a week with them so I think felt guilty (even though Grandma Sue and grandpa Bill came up to help out) so I was given a huge hall pass for a week and a half. The Breck firecracker is a good training race for the Leadville 100 as there is a good amount of climbing (4-5000 ft depending on how you draw the map for each lap) in two 25mi laps. So I signed up and then started bugging my good bud Gary who's family has a house in breckenridge. I didn't think I could stay there but at the last minute Gary got me a place to stay. So after I dropped Anne off at the airport I packed up my stuff and headed for Breckenridge. It seemed as everyone from the front range had come to Gunnison for the fourth as traffic was crazy. As I pulled into Breck I reallized that the Gunni traffic was nothing compared to this. Breck is just off I70 and was soooo crowded for the weekend. I went and got my number and all that and then went back to find the house. It was built probably in the 70s or early 80s and close to downtown. I got my stuff unloaded and went on a short ride up the start of the course to get the legs loosed up after the 2.5-3 hrs in the car. I also rode around downtown. Just a note: this is probably the blow up slide capital of the world. There were blow up slides and rooms where kids can bounce all over the place...

The weather was calling for 50% chance of rain. The streets were still wet when I got there from a thunder storm. I was a little concerned that we may get cold and wet at as the race goes above 11000 ft for a good portion of it. So then I went back to the house and threw my sleeping bag on a bed and went to sleep.

The race the next day was to start at 10:55 for the Pro men and then my Maveric class started after several waves at 11:05. The maveric class was for people who didn't want to get a year racing license but were still pretty fast... So I had time to watch some of the start of the TDF and get my bike all set up. I dropped a bag with extra rain jacket and insulin etc at the start of the second lap and checked my sugar about an hour before the race. It was pretty high~300-350 so I took some insulin. The race started on mainstreet as the start of the 4th of July parade. Kind of cool with tons of little kids wanting high fives as we rode down the street in a neutral start.

The race starts with a good climb up Boreas pass--paved and then eventually get to a dirt road and then some single track after a couple thousand feet of climbing. As I began to climb I got a distressing pain in my upper stomach. I slowed down a bit and after a few it went away. As I climbed I just didn't feel great. After about 45-50 min I began eating a gu or something every 35-40 min. This seems to work as I have done it in other races. The race then drops a bit and has one more big climb and a few more climbs before it descends back to town. The descent has some very rough sections.. I wished I had my full suspension....

I made the first lap in just over two hours and even though I wasn't feeling great I blew threw the aid where my bag was. The second lap I kept feeling worse. My legs just felt soooo slow. I began to get passed by people that I didn't think looked all that fast. My stomach began to churn if I tried to push too hard. I began to realize that my sugar was probably high. The problem with high sugar is that if it get too high (80 is normal, above 250 you have problems bringing it down with out extra insulin.) your body starts to try and use fat for energy and you have a hard time using the sugar in your blood so it just goes higher. So I just struggled to the top and back down. Going along feeling very weak and an odd aching sensation caused by the high sugar. So I got to the finish and checked it. Sure enough my sugar was 410 (auggg)! So I took a shot and got cleaned up and grabbed some beer and food that was provided. Riding with such high sugar caused my muscles to continue to feel weak and achy...

total time 4:52. I was 30 in my class. 70 or so finished... 97 had signed up. So I was a bit frustrated...I felt I could have done top 10. I finished just ahead of a pro girl that I had beat by more than an hour in the Growler........ and back a ways from other people that a had finished near in other races. Always a learning experience with a disabled pancreas!

So what caused my highs?? Most races I do start more like 6:30-7 in the morning. My long acting insulin is much more intense at this time of day so it can eat up sugar better. (I had high issues in a ski race that started at midnight) I also wasn't feeling great the week before and may have had a little something. I also may have not brought my sugar down enough before the race. If my sugar is too high it may not come back down.... So I should have waited longer before my first energy gu and then not eated quite as often......

Now I'm in Leadville as I decided to break the trip up and ride here a bit between rain storms... and back to Gunni tomorrow...

2nd annual Gunnison Growler 2009 race report!

2009-05-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

The cool pics are from Brian Riepe of the Mountain flyer-- http://www.mountainflyer.com/news.cfm?itemid=214

On Bambi's Trail on the first lap.

As we rode down the highway at about 24 mph I asked Dave, "so how did you get the mileage for the Growler. Did you GPS it or have an odometer or.." He replied, "I have no idea how long it was! Someone with an odometer said it was 69 miles."

The Growler was in its second year. Each year I think the plan is to choose another lap at Hartman rocks that is in the neighborhood of 32 mi. This year we started in town and then rode as a group at a neutral pace behind a patrol car. Then you can do one lap or the full Growler of two laps. Here is a map of the Sunday May 24, 2009 race course. The course is mainly technical single track with over 8ooo ft of climbing--in short steep bursts. This means that there are lots of places that are steep and large rocks must be ridden over and even some places where there are large cliffs. There are also sections of fast smooth trails. Dave Wiens, a local biker, started the race to raise $ for local trails. Dave is way fast and way nice.... See http://www.gunnisontrails.com/ for more info on race!

It had rained for several days with Sunday predicted to be the best day with just 30-40% chance of rain. Rain is actually good here because it causes the sandy trails to firm up and compact.

Sunday morning we get up early and make pancakes. I'm riding the old hard tail. It's light but I'll take a beating on the rocky sections. I grab some chow and head downtown. My nutrition strategy is to eat a gu or bar every 35 min as my watch will beep at me. I have two large bottles with Gu2O-about 100 cal from maltodextrin. Anne follows with the kids to watch the start. 225 bikers line up on main street--about 150 are officially slated to do the long course that I'm doing. The clouds are hanging low and the temperature is in the mid 40s. It could be worse..... Ken Coleman, the city manager, fires the shotgun twice to start the race at 7 sharp. And off we go behind the patrol car. They keep a nice easy pace so that the people with single speed bikes don't spin their little legs off. It it a easy ride and I chat with the other Gunni folk.

Then we hit the dirt. We climbed the main road and kept on roads for a couple of miles to spread every one out. The first part is very steep and aptly named "kill hill". Today it is about 2 inches of slimey mud. The single speeders can't ride it so they have to walk--which makes me walk as I should have gotten in front of them. We clean the summit and the road gives way to nice packed sand/granite. I purposefully go at 3/4 pace as I want to save something for the second lap. Also I haven't ridden a ton yet....

We then hit the first single track and I was slowed up a little by some people but not to worry. Many people lost this race last year by bonking in the last of it... like me last year. The first lap the trails were nice. Not super fast but just a bit of mud as some different geology was covered. I got lucky and missed the rain storm that passed to the north of me. As I went around the loop many Gunnison people were out making sure that correct turns were made. Brian Riepe, from the mountain flyer , was out taking pictures with his girl Larken. He would hop in his truck and drive around to several locations... so I saw him several times. He's also a way fast rider.. Finally I hit "the top of the world" trail where Brian Wickenhauser was overseeing the course. This was the windiest place on the whole course. He looked cold as the wind and light rain blasted him--looks like more like 80% chance of rain today! Now just one more seriously technical section (the ridgeline--400 ft cliff on one side, big knarly rocks on the other) and then down to the start.

Anne drove out with the kids at 10:00. I figured it would take me around 3 hrs for the first lap. I must have came in at around 3:11. Julian was doing a little victory dance for me. Anne handed me some more drink and food and I started the next lap. This lap started off by going up the steepest trail up to the ridge--the notch trail. From this point on ,I started to go faster and began to pass some people. Everyone was pretty spread out so I had no idea what place I was in or how close people were. The trail was really compact and fast for the first 15 miles. After this, however, some really muddy sections came up as the rain i had missed earlier had soaked some clay sections. No problem--had to walk a section or two and didn't crash as I slid down sections. I just kept thinking of the next two trails ahead so as not to overwelm myself...

Halfway around each lap you drop down Skull pass then back up the steep road. Ricky, from the Tune Up, and Clint, who I played with on the Gunnison Rec League championship team, grabbed my bottle and refilled it with Gatorade and offered me a pbj sandwich and a PBR beer at the aid station. I was tempted but thought I may not get going again. They were having a great time as they had camped out the night before and had some beers already...

Going up the "Ridge Trail"

Now a quick drop down and out of "the enchanted forest", up and down "Dave Moes" a steep climb up "dirty sock" and descent to "josies" then back up to "gateway" and down to "fenceline trail." Now just up the steep road to Brian at "top of the world" and then down to the start of "ridgeline" Coming out of ridgeline, I began to catch a guy who was obviously hurting. I caught him on a steep climb back up to the last trail straight down to the finish.... But a serious cramp hit and I forced to follow him down the single track to the finish as it was too muddy and narrow to pass....

So I finished 2nd in my old guy 40-49 yr age class and 17th overall in 6:23. I hung out for a while and rode back home. I took a hose to my bike to get the mud off, showered and rode back to the park with Lila for Cajun food served by Sugah's restaurant and Fat Tire beer. Anne and Julian came down after his nap and a good time was had by all.

Elk Mountain Grand Traverse midnight March 27, 2009

2009-04-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

For more info on the route see my earlier post... It's a long backcoutry ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen ~40mi if you're too lazy..

It all started late February or early March 2009. Becky Sears, a spunky biologist at Western State College whose office is across the hall from mine had signed up for the race in December. She was bound and determined to do it. She got on her computer to sign up as soon as it opened up. The year before the race filled up in a couple of weeks. This year it filled in less than a day with a record number of teams. Her partner, a very fit fellow, was having issues with his knee and wasn't able to train much. Every now and then, she would hint that she needed a partner. At the end of the first week of March just before spring break, her partner decided he couldn't do it so she asked me. I had been biking a bit as we had a warm week (OK, it was above 0 F) and had done some nordic races earlier so I was in pretty good physical shape. So I said sure. For spring break I was going to St George UT. I was planning on hiking, biking and running a bit.

Trouble hit on the drive down Friday afternoon (March 6th). My stomach was doing flip flops and I could barely keep it together on drive. It started snowing hard so we stopped at a motel and I slept some with my head propped on the toilet (this was strangely the only position that was "comforatble" in between barfing. The next day my stomach still felt awful but I could eat a little so we went the rest of the way and met Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill. My blood sugars were ski high and no matter how much insulin I took they wouldn't come down. Finally on Monday, I felt a little better and Tuesday I went on a 22 mi ride on the Hurricane rim trail. Pretty fun and the next day we went on a hike in Zion. On the drive back, Lila's face was red and I was feeling feverish... Sure enough we both started coughing and had 101-102F fevers... So I didn't get much endurance training in.

We came back Friday and Becky was going on a big ski Sat and Sunday with some friends but I still didn't feel very well so I did a shorter ski Sunday at Mill Creek. Hmmm I wonder if I can do the Traverse in two weeks.....

The weather continued to be very warm and all the snow in town melted. The high country began to turn to corn chowder snow, crust in the morning and slush soon after. Hmm maybe skate skis would work on top of the crust. Finally a big storm hit a few days before the race dumping about 30 inches of snow in the mountains and cooling things off a little. So no skate skiing.

Becky and I went through the list of stuff we would have to take and get our packs as light as possible. Go to http://www.elkmountaintraverse.org/ for the whole list. My pack came it at 20.8 lbs with 6.5 lbs of water. Some serious racer's packs are about 14-15 lbs full. We went with light Nordic and x country skis. Becky had skate skis that she waxed and could classic ski pretty good in with combi boots. I had combi boots and classic skis.

Here's Becky--Not very big but very scrappy. So we headed to CB school at 10 pm, got a bag checked to go to Aspen, got our avalanche beacons checked and our medical tags that we had to wear over our necks. We headed down to a quiet end of the school to organize and get final prepartions. Here we are--I'm tucking in my shirt.

Becky's secret weapons: Becky then pulls out some Little Debbies Oatmeal Cream Pie Cookies and hands me a few. Then her ultra secret weapon that I am about to reveal now for the first time in a public forum.... A bag of crunched up bacon and a bag of potato chips... I stick the cookies in the top of my pack. She put the bacon and chips in her pack.

And then out to the start of the race. It was 25 in Gunnison at 10:00pm. The temperature at the start was probably 15-20 with light winds. I had my insulin and meter tucked in my pack by my hot water so hopefully it wouldn't freeze....

And here is the start--thanks Gunnison Country TimesAnd they're off!

For a overview from The Gunnison Country Times GO here http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kbut/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1487263

So off we went. The skies were clear and as we skated on the groomed track to the first climb up to Crested Butte Ski area... We quickly put on our narrow 3/4 length climbings skins. The trail was single track so we just climbed along with some others at a reasonable pace. We got to the base of the ski area where a bunch of people cheered us on. Then up the ski area--the trail widens here and to the top where we pulled off our skins and skied down some blue runs to the bottom of the East River lift. With wax on our skis, we were able to cruise smoothly to Brush Creek and on up. We could pass the skiers with AT gear. My wax was wearing thin so at Death Pass I put on my skins. Becky tried but her skins were too cold and wouldn't stick to her skis. She tucked them in her shirt and took off and I caught her after this crux area. Luckily she was able to put her skins on and we climbed steadily in the dark up to Friends Hut Check point--And no, they don't let you in the hut.

Becky was setting a good pace so I just followed and tried not to get hypnotized by the strange shadows in the dark. We finally got to Friends Hut check point about 4:30 in the morning. The temperature had dropped to around zero and the wind hit right at the hut. Some volunteers offered a cup of water as they were melting snow. I went out of the wind to check my sugar (123 so good to go) and put on another layer. Becky took off and I caught her out of the check pt. My hands were freezing as we climbed straight up the wind blown slopes with strong winds (>40mph?). You could see headlamps way up high through the blowing snow. My skins were just on the edge of holding me from sliding backwards. Becky was hard to keep up with! Finally about 3/4 of the way up, my hands began to warm in my heavier gloves and as they thawed, they began to hurt - ouch!

We reached the ridge to traverse across before dropping down to the pass. Becky began shivering so we got out of the wind as best we could and she put on another layer. It was still very dark out. I got her a Gu and we went to the check point. Time 5:50-still dark-12400ft-the leaders had come through around 4:45. The guy said, "Try and traverse right and then at the bottom there is a signal light. So down we went. Halfway across the STEEP traverse in our skinny skis we hit a large steep patch of ice. Becky said "look out for the ice." I said "OK" and promptly hit it and slid straight down upside down and backwards. Then we hit some nice deep powder. I was able to pretty much ski back and forth down the valley but Becky couldn't go quite as well with her skinnier skis. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that her waterbottle and the hose on her camelback had frozen solid so she was drinking from mine from this point. This issue would come back to haunt her.

We made it down and got passed by a couple groups (the 1st place girls team skied along with us for the next few miles...) The trail now slowly climbs up through a nice forest (Becky was in a state of bliss as she loved the peaceful quiet forest) up to Taylor Pass. The sky began to lighten. I tried to check my sugar along here but my meter was too cold and wouldn't work. I ate some more as I felt low on fuel trying to keep up with ubber Becky.. We got to Taylor Pass and the sun began to come up. The winds picked up so we put back on our wind cold weather gear. We got passed by a few more groups through here as we began to slow a little.

The Elk Mountains (several 14000 ft peaks) were beautiful in the early morning light. The climb up and over the several climbs in the wind were slow and tedious. We hit a narrow snow mobile track and steep down hill with woop de doos. Also very fun on skinny skis.

We got to Barnard Hut check point and Becky was starting drag as she was feeling the lack of water. I was starting to feel the affects of eating too much so I took some insulin. We took off our skins and put on kick wax. Becky got some water from a student that was at the station. Here we had to wait 10 minutes to make sure we were fit to continue. The trail now is a narrow snowmobile track for 7mi to Aspen Mt. It is really a pain to ski on as it has woop de doos and several long slow climbs. We just took off our skis and hiked. Becky was slowing more and more. I wasn't feeling terrible at this point. At one point, we were skate sking on a flatter section and she fell flat on her face. Her avalanche beakon drove under her rib cage with her full pack on her back. I heard a loud "oomph". This fall would come back to haunt her....

We finally got to the top of Aspen Mountain ski area and hooked some shoe laces to our ski bindings and legs--you have to have leashes to go down. And down we went. Becky, being dehydrated and tired, couldn't ski down hill as well as at Crested Butte so she sat on her ski tails and slid down. I skied back and forth with her and we reached the finish at 12:04..... We finished in 26th place out of 140 teams. 37 didn't make it. We got our beer cups and a hug from the race organizer. They gave us the "most classey finish" as they could see Becky sliding for quite a ways down. Then Becky dissapeared.

I sat in the warm sun and looked for her. Finally the race announcer asked me to come to the food tent where I found her hung over a trash can trying to drink some Powerade with a medical person next to her. He asked if she wanted an IV. I told her to but she decided to go out and try to drink more. She really looked awful. Finally she changed in the bathroom and saw herself in the mirror and decided maybe she should get some IV fluids. A couple of bags later and she was good to go. My sugar was still high so I took some more insulin and had some beer. We crashed at a friend's house in Aspen and back to Gunnison Sunday. We found a ride back with Chase and Rooks--a couple of fine young Gunni boys. On the drive back we had Crunched up bacon and chips.... Apparently bacon is hard to eat with gloves on....

Monday Becky's crash on her stomach was hurting more. They did some tests and wanted to take out her gall bladder as they thought it was ruptered. She decided for some more tests and found it to only be badly bruised so she got to keep it!

Crested Butte Alley Loop 2009

2009-04-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

Winter just seems to fly by in the high mountain valley of Gunnison, CO... Harumph! OK so maybe it drags on a bit but that keeps the yahoos away and the snow here.... We stay in shape here by skiing. Nordic, backcountry, and at the ski areas. The last big nordic ski race I did was the Alley loop 42 ski marathon on Feb 6th 2009. It always seems that this race is way too early and I haven't got enough miles under my belt to finish the last 8-9 miles with some kick.

This year we drove up to Crested Butte around 8 in the morning. The ski was clear and it was cold. In CB it was -10 or so... But pretty nice in the morning sunshine. Lila was going to do a 1K kids race on the track through town but got freaked out when she saw all the people and skis and everything.. So we picked up my number and goody bag and hers as we had already paid. The race goes through the streets and alleys of CB and then out on a big loop north of town. The kids race started and then the longer adult races.

Here we go! There I am in the middle just behind Dave Wiens--This is how he stays in shape for Mt biking.

So off we went. Again on a race like this It's pretty fast paced and there is no time to check blood sugars--especially as you would have to take off your poles and then gloves and then have someone with all your stuff so it wouldn't freeze. I basically ate a gu every lap or so. Every lap was a little under an hr for three laps. I ended up doing pretty well even though I did lose some time on the last lap as usual but not as bad as sometimes. Anne, Lila and Julian had gone down to a friends house to play with a bunch of kids. I told her I was hoping to finish in 2.5 hrs so she was to come back around then. And Lo I finished in 2:33 a PB... And Anne and Julian got there just as I finished.... On races like this I have a hard time drinking enough so we went back down to our friends house and I was very nauseous and felt like barfing but I toughed it out and after a couple of bottles of Pedialite baby electrolyte I was golden... Now time to bike???

Ski season!

2009-01-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

Well ski season is off! So this year I didn't get a down hill pass as it just takes to much time driving and waiting in lines. I did get a pass at our local run next to town--Cranor hill and have been skiing with Lila. She is figuring out how to stand up and crash right now. Crashing is very important in this sport. She is also taking cross country lessons in town with a winter Olympian.

I have been trying to skate ski a bit for the Alley Loop Nordic marathon 42K race in Crested Butte. Not necessarily to try and win but to make the pain less. But then again the pain is always there because then you just go faster until you reach the same level of discomfort. Maybe I can do it in 2:30 this yr.....If I'm lucky.

I did a 20 K classic race 1/17/08 and did OK. 12th behind some pretty fast guys. I was pretty tired as I hadn't done this style of skiing much. Yesterday was a 20K skate race in CB. I was 5th just behind one guy. Some of the fast guys didn't show.....Just a bit tired. Next week a 30K race in Gunnison and then the Alley Loop and then I may try a 50K race, the Super tour in CB and maybe a 12hr ski race in CB.

Cheers!

Crested Butte Classic

2008-09-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Well I decided to try the infamous Crested Butte Classic mountain bike race Sept. 27 2008. The race does three loops around Crested Butte on classic single track trails... Oh did I mention it is 100 miles..... And it is not an official race. People just sign up at the start and then ride on the public trails. There are no rules, trail marking (for route finding--people from out of town must have a serious problem here.) or prizes. After each lap you stop at your car or cooler or whatever grab some more water and food, then stop by the local Brick Oven Pizza and check in. Then out for the next lap. There was free beer at the finish however.

I did the Leadville 100 mountain in August and had done pretty well-see post below. Well I hadn't ridden nearly as much as I had neglected the kids and Anne riding my bike so much all summer. But I figured I had a good base. I did feel a bit tired after some weekend rides but....

So Gary Pierson, Chris Dickey, Jesse Rickert (a Mt Everst summiter) and I all caravaned up to Crested Butte at 6:30 that morning. The temperature was reading 29F as we came into town. We parked near the 4-way stop in town to set up our aid stations.... Then over to the 4-way stop to sign up and listen to the trail overview and instructions. We started out with 106 or so riders at 8:00 and about 30F. We started later in the year to avoid tourists on the trails... The aspens were turing yellow nicely and the sky was clear. Down the highway we went for lap one. Deer Creek trail with Strand Hill as a prelude. Here is a map of the first lap in orange..... about 30 miles and 4142 ft of climbing.

I started out in front and seemed to ride pretty fast as the lead guys weren't too far ahead. The trails were in beautiful shape with yellow aspen leaves covering many parts. I decided to ride light with my old Specialized hard tail. I carried a CO2 cartridge, spare tire, several gu's/power bars and two water bottles. I was noticeably faster on the uphills but slower on the downhills on my bike as some guys caught me on Strand Hill. I don't really ride this trail much. The Crested Butte guys knew this trail very well and went down it very fast. I cranked up the start of Deer Creek feeling good. The weather was nice as it was still cool but really nice for climbing the hills. I took off my vest and arm warmers and promptly lost my vest along the trail....

I remember the first time I rode this trail it seemed so long and steep. There are some really steep climbs off the start. This time I just walked one unridable section (by the mortal person anyway). One cool place on the trail you are right on the edge of a very very steep ravine made of shale. It is smooth and grey and straight down. You then descend down through aspens next to it. I nearly took myself out on an aspen but I just winged my shoulder on one sharp narrow corner. I did get back to the town of Gothic without incident. I did have a few weird cramps in my groins that seemed to go away as I kept peddling. And back down the road to Town. I grabbed some more gu's, drank some water, and checked my blood sugar--95..... Then back to the pizza place to check in. Lap one took 2:41 or so after stopping at the car.

Here is a picutre of me and another fellow (Dax from boulder) coming down the road from Gothic. Thanks Matt Burt for the pictures!!

Here is a map of lap two. About 35 miles and 5150ft of climbing.

Then you head out of the north west side of town and do the lower loop trail to slate river. This trail is a beginner trail and had some people on it.... Then a good section of fairly flat road to the old townsite of Pittsburg. Then you do a serious climb up to the 403 trail. I wished I had brought more water as I began to cramp some more--this time in the hamstrings.. I caught a really fast guy Ethan Passant from Crested Butte at the top as he was suffering from cramps and had to stop. Weird really as it was cool and I had been drink lots of electrolyte replacement... So you hit 403 trail and have to climb some more and then some technical downhill down to the schofield pass road above gothic. A quick left turn and up to the top of Schofield pass. Here you hit 401 trail and to the beginner it must seem awful as you have a good climb up the trail to get to the top... I have taken to riding up the single track to the top versus the traditional road up the pass. I think it is easier and there are no cars. Just people coming down.... 401 was very nice and fast coming down... In the middle of summer the flowers are so high on 403 and 401 that you can barely see the trails... But by this time of year the trail was all open as the plants had been frozen. and had fallen down. 401 trail keeps going at the bottom of the main hill but for the race we came out and hit the road and back past Gothic and to town. Here I took a little more time at my car to oil my chain, drink some more and grab my rain jacket as I lost my vest and it was starting to rain over Kebler pass where I was headed. I checked my sugar and it was around 150. I had eaten a power bar between gothic and CB. I got to the pizza place and thankfully someone had returned my vest! I was into the ride 6:15 hrs (I think--OK I can't remember but I was a little over 3 hrs on the second lap...). I was in 6th or 7th place... in the solos.

Here is a picture of me coming down the 401 trail. Again thanks to Matt B. If you notice I had gu's stuck in the legs of my shorts. This way it was easy access on the trails...

Here is lap 3. about 26 miles and 3800ft of climbing. The map shows a big notch in the elevation profile which is a bug in my software. So we estimate the elevation to be 3500-3800ft or so...

Here is a picuture near Kebler pass on Saturday.

It was looking cooler and like it was raining on Kebler pass so I put on my vest and up we went the 6 miles up to the turn off to the old Irwin town site. The road was wet and it was windy. The road is well traveled and the magnesium chloride/mud began to spray on my and coat my bike. Once this gets on the bike (chain) it sticks like crazy..... I got to the top with some intestinal distress and had to stop of a few minutes......and I got passed by a guy! And then off to the Dyke trail. OK before you get all PC on me it's a VOLCANIC DYKE. Ya know a geologic feature... So the trail here had been rained on nicely and was a slippery gloppy mud. This really wasn't fun as my bike quickly picked up 10-15lbs of mud and I had no trackion and had to walk up many hills that I could have ridden. Also not having disc brakes was a disadvantage. I finally got to the point where the trail drops steeply to the other side of Kebler pass. It was windy and trying to rain the whole way and the trail was slippery from the rain and rocky from the many horses that used it. I made it OK but my hands were frozen and I was feeling tired from the mud and the 85 or so miles up to this point. Some nice ladies helped me get my rain jacket on as I couldn't move my fingers very well. They were waiting for one of their freinds. It was really windy and I was a little cold from the descent. I climbed what seemed like forever on the very wet Kebler pass and finally made it to the top. Now it was down hill 6 or so miles back to the pizza place. I got back in 7th place and 9:02 total time. Very wet and muddy and I have to say more tired than I had been in a long time..... I had a beer (free)and some pizza and some M&MS from a great girl, Maddy T, who was waiting for her husband on his second lap. Many people didn't start the last lap as it had started raining in town and on the 401 trail. I talked to friends then changed in the public bathroom and drove home.... I could barely stay awake as I read books to Lila that night.......

Leadville Trail Mountain bike race 2008

2008-08-11T09:15:00.001-07:00

Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race 2008

The Leadville 100 is a bike race held for the last 15 yrs in Leadville, CO starting at 10,200 ft and climbing to 12,600 ft with lots of climbing in between..... I did it in 2006 and came in 32 place with a time of 8:32. This year I wanted to try and break the 8 hr mark. I just missed it coming in 8:06 in 32nd place again. Thanks to my family for taking so much time to go to Leadville and Crew and Anne for letting me ride my bike!

OK, not to turn you away from my site but here is a really good video of Dave Wiens and Lance Armstrong (yes Lance was there) that you can get a good idea of the terrain. They show mainly the roads as this is where they could drive to but also some other nice sections.

http://www.superhumanmag.com/content/view/763/92/

It was a dark and stormy night....... OK it was dark and stormy the whole week before the race, Aug 9, 2008. I had visions of riding 100 miles in the rain at 12000 ft. So as I packed for the race at my home in Gunnison, CO, just over the hill from Leadville I threw in every bit of warm cycle gear I had.... Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill came over from Mancos to help watch the kids and help crew. The crew consisted of Anne and Bill driving to the aid stations along the way with food and water and other things I would hopefully not need like warm clothes, spare tubes, and tools. Here is a picture of Grandma with the kids before we left. The Leadville race is great for the
leadville economy as you have to check-in early Friday then have a prerace meeting. The race is then Saturday at 6:30 am with the awards ceremony Sunday morning. So you're spending several days there. I went over early with Grandpa to check in and Anne, Grandma and the kids came over a little later.

Leaville on Friday was pretty nice. Cool with a little rain here and there. I got all checked in and went and had some coffee. We ran into Dave W and Susan with the kids. Dave looked ready to go and was all smiles. Here I am sitting out having a coffee and snack.

The prerace meeting for the racers and crews was at 11:00. We got there early and got a seat in the small gym near the start of the race. It was really hot and crowded in there! Here are some pics of us. Lance showed up and said a few words with Dave.

Here we are at the meeting..

After the meeting, I went over to where I was staying-at Anne's Aunt Barb's second or so cousin(thanks Carol and Stan!). And everyone else went to The Inn of the Black Wolf in Twin Lakes. This way Grandma could get the kids when Anne left early to come to the start of the race. I dropped all of my stuff off and went on a short ride up the first climb of the race. Then put all the numbers on my bike and made sure everything was OK mechanically. Oh for the record, I rode my old Specialized M4 hardtail. I had Hutchison python on the front and Kenda small block eight on the back. Both with about 35-40 psi. My chain was lubed with ATB lube. My bike came in pretty light at about 23.2lb but no comfy rear shock like many of the racers.

Then next morning I got up at 5:00. My blood sugar was a bit high so I took a little extra insulin, threw on a coat and rode up to the start. I put my bike in the area where people who thought they could finish in under 9 hours got to start. The first 100 finishers from last yr doing the race and Lance got to start up front. But at 6:30 in the morning people evidently think they can go faster than they can.... I just rode with shorts and a jersey. It wasn't super cold--46 F and overcast. Lots of people started with leg warmers and jackets... I forgot my blood sugar test kit in my bag that Anne was going to pick up at the house so I didn't check my blood sugar at the start. I ended up not checking my sugar the entire race actually as I felt really good (most of the way) Here are some pics before the race and the start. The first one is our twelve year anniversary picture.

And the Start!

And here's Dave in front with Lance just behind. The start was fast and scary. We had an escort out of town and people kept trying to jockey for position. There were several near crashes. So we made it out of town and started the first climb. Of course, all of the people that thought they could do it under 9 hrs, but couldn't, somehow got in front of me. So going up the first climb (as at the race in 2006) was frustrating as people were going soooo slow and couldn't even ride parts of the road. I finally got around most of them by the top and off we went. I felt pretty good over the first two climbs and flew past the first aid station at Pipeline1. I got some good pace lines and came into the Twin Lakes aid in about 2:34. Just off the 8 hr pace.

Here is a picture of the mountains we went in front of.

The juggling act! Susan (Dave W's wife) is at the left in gold. We learned how the pros crew from her!

I drank one bottle of water and one bottle of Gatorade endurance between each stop.... So off we went up the hill to Columbine mine. A 3ooo ft climb up to 12,600 ft. I wasn't too far off the lead pack. The climb went well and I saw lots of Gunnison folk on the way cheering Dave on. Here is a picture Jesse Crandall took part way up.

Here are a couple of pictures that Brian Riepe of the mountain flyer sent my way of me coming down from the top. Just a note. I finally looked at the times of everyone and I was the 11th fastest climing to the mine....

Dave and Lance came screaming by while I was a mile or so from the top. The rest of the lead pack came later. I went up pretty well and at the top in just over 4 hrs total. Close to the 8 hr mark. I turned around and went blasting back down. The road was smooth with the top rocky and steeper. I got back to the Twin Lakes aid quickly and my crew got me all my stuff and off I went. I was able to ride with 4-5 five other riders in a pretty fast pace line for quite a while back to the last aid at powerline 2. I dropped them on the hills but they caught me after the powerline climb as I bonked a bit. Ouch! Anne and Bill got me going and off we went. I was in the low 20th place here. Here I am coming into the last aid station.

I rode pretty well to the last big painful climb up an old powerline road. I was getting low blood sugar as I climbed but didn't realize it until I started coming back down. I should have as a few guys that I beat up the hills earlier gained on me on the climb. When I started to come down, I started to feel the affects of having little sugar in my blood and riding 80 miles... Suddenly I began to see speckles and it felt as if my tires were flat and mushy like big balloons and my handle bar was not really attached to my bike and then it started to rain really hard. I stopped put on my vest and ate a couple of Gu packets. Then I continued on the descent slowly--not very happily as a few guys passed me. So it took me a few minutes to regroup but rode with a guy from Leadville the rest of the way as we decided making it in under 8 hrs wasn't going to happen now. The guys that just passed me came in just around 8 hrs. We rode to the end and he said I could go first but I let him so I got 32nd place instead of 31st.... REALLY!

Here I am getting a hug from one of my biggest fans, Lila. She thinks I win all the races I do...

After the race I was congratulated by many of the Gunnison folks that came over to watch. I talked to Dave for a while. Here is a guy that just won and beat up on Lance Armstrong and he's going on and on about how well I did. His wife Susan is the same. Really a great guy and a huge Bronco Fan to boot.

Here is Dave admiring my old bike... I may have him talked into giving me his very light full suspension bike...

CHEERS! How come no one gave me a HAT??

And the lot of us!

Lance accepting his award.

And me with my medals.

A week before Leadville 100 mountain bike race

2008-08-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Well the week in Wisconsin visiting the inlaws went well. I got some good road biking in with some pretty fast locals in Door County and road some hilly country West of Madison (google horrible hilly hundreds bike ride.) I guess it was only fair as I had been training for Leadville so often.

On Tuesday I rode in Crested Butte (from town Snodgrass to 403 and 401, up the single track is the only way to go)

Here is a map and profile. The map isn't quite right as I went up the 401 single track. I was feeling weak after being in the car for 2 days straight.

On Wednesday I went to Lake city and rode up engineer pass and then Cinnamon pass and back to lake City. This went better as my energy began to return.

On thursday I went to Pitkin and rode over to Cumberland pass to Tincup. This also went OK. The map just shows one direction so double the mileage and add the elevations. I felt OK.

Then on Friday I did a long 80 miler. I parked near Whitepine CO, near Monarch pass. I rode a kindof locals trail called Canyon creek (this has a really rocky steep climb and hike a bike to 12600ft. Then I rode Old Monarch pass and then back to Pitkin over waunita and black sage passes and then back to the car over the terribly rocky Tomichi pass that I went up that morning. I took a little longer than I had planned on the way back from Pitkin and Anne thought I must have been attacked by a roving band of ATVers and called some friends to search for me. They found me on the highway driving back. I should have called at the store a the base of Monarch! It was still light out however.......

And for Saturday I didn't do anything.....

Some "training rides" for Leadville 100 moutain bike race

2008-07-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

So I've been riding my bike a bit..... The past week in the I did these three rides. What fun!

On Thursday 7/10/2008 I did a big ride. About 80 miles with about 8000 ft of climbing. I went up Old monarch Pass rode the Monarch Crest and Rainbow trails (nice single track) and then back over the mountain to the car on Marshall pass. Marshall pass was a rail road track until the late '50s so it wasn't too steep just long.....

Here is a close proximity of the ride with a profile. The ride took about 8hrs total. I did stop and talk to a few people, get water and help a couple from N Carolina finding the trail. They surely would have died a horrible death after getting run over by a ATV on Marshall pass if not for me.

On Sunday I rode the Monarch Crest trail again with The MIGHTY Gary P. We decided that we didn't want to set up a shuttle and spend all the time leaving a car at the end of the rainbow trail so we just decided to ride out and back.... Most people never would have dared such an extreme feat....

We rode the Crest Trail and then about halfway down the rainbow trail and then decided to turn around so we could get home at a reasonable time. It took about 6 hr total and somehike a bike back up the steep single track. The Crest trail also had three huge snow drifts across it that we had to walk. They were a bit smaller than when I rode it on thursday but still much bigger than anytime I rode the trail even in May of some years! It had just become rideable in the past week or two. So for a total elevation gain and mileage add the gain and loss on the topo map and double the miles. The miles that TOPO gives are always a little short so... Also our turn around point is just estimated.

On monday I rode the 401 trail. This fine trail above Crested butte just opened as there was still snow covering so much of it. I went up the single track versus the "tourist route" that goes up the jeep road and trees at the top. This avoids a lot of dust and snow in the trees at the top. There were still two snowfields I had to cross. What a snowy winter! It's mid July! I can hear people all across the red states denouncing Global Warming as I write. But then the haze from all the fires in California may cause them to stop... Anyway here's the profile. And again it is just for the up direction.

Dead deer

2008-05-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well the winter here was brutal and isn't really over yet. We had snow a few days ago with plenty in the mountains. It still freezes consistently... We had a few warm days (mid 70s) and the river started to flood the low lying areas. But then it cooled off again and the river is only pretty darn high... (see here for current and past stream flows of Gunnison River).

So the skiing ended with me just sick of it April 1 as many of my friends are still hiking up the mountains and back country skiing. So now I'm biking and trying to get in good enough shape to do the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. I did it in 2006 in 8:32 which isn't half bad. I got a BIG belt buckle anyway. See my link to the right.

The biking started out in April as just road riding as the snow was so deep everywhere. The snow being so deep was really hard on the deer and antelope as they had a hard time getting through it and finding food. April was also cold with most rides being between 40F and 28F. If the sun was out it wasn't terrible. Now nearly the end of May the temperatures are usually around 70 by 1 or 2 up from 30 at 8am. So here are some ramblings about the dead deer.

With the snow being over three feet deep pretty much every where in the valley the deer tended to congregate at lower elevations and near the highway where the roads were plowed. All winter the DOW fed the deer and you could see hundreds of them on the hills near by if you drove the highway. Most of the time they were either laying down in groups usually where there was a small cut in the hillside from a stream and/or cottonwood were present or were on the move looking for food (this is a bad sign in the middle of the day as it meant they were starving. East of town had the higher concentrations. Fast forward from Jan and Feb to April as the snow finally starts to melt and I rode the highway east of town. I passed hundreds of deer that didn't make it with a few antelope and elk mixed in. Elk with longer legs fared better while in this area there weren't too many antelope in the first place. Many of the small groups in the trees and ravines didn't make it. Looking into these areas you could see the brown shapes of the groups of deer--almost looking like they were sleeping. Many deer closer to the road had shade the snow they died on so they were 2-3 feet higher than the more bare ground on the snow with legs pointing towards the sky. Many of the deer were dangling on fences. In the deep snow they had a real hard time jumping the fences and in a weakened state many of them met their fate here. I then rode to highway 114 which is a much small road and climbs a bit. About 10 miles up this road I came to rancher's haystack that the deer got into in the winter. This was a strange site. The DOW had said not to feed deer hay as they couldn't live on it. Sure enough there were 20-30 dead deer actually laying on the hay dead. Many more could be seen in the ravines nearby.

Fast forward a month to the end of May. Some mountain biking had opened up near town at Hartman Rock in the middle of May and most of the snow around town had melted. Above 8500ft in elevation it is still really wet and snowy. Now the deer can be smelled well before they are seen. They seem to be disintegrating--hair scattered everywhere, some areas bones and hair are all that's left.....

The next race for me is a 64 mile mt bike race called the Gunnison Growler at Hartmon Rock June 8.... Ouch.

After the Grand Traverse

2008-04-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

We headed up to the Elevation Hotel at Mount Crested Butte at 9:00 am to register. After this at was a talk from the organizers to tell you to be prepared for everything, give trail changes, weather info, and other important info. Following this was the gear check and provided pasta lunch or lunch and gear check depending on when you registered. The day was warm. Warmer than any day yet this year. NOAA was predicting 15-20 mi hr winds, 1-3 in of snow and 30 F temps. The warm temp was actually a problem as kick wax just won't stick or kick when it's warm.

The gear check went OK. Here you had to lay all your stuff out in a taped off square in a separate room. Several "judges" would go around and check everything off the list. First aid kit? OK. Let's see your ABS to control heavy bleeding, Where's the moleskin, and triangle bandages. Stove, shovel, beacon, probe poles, pad.... etc... Our judge was someone we knew pretty well so she didn't check us too carefully--We did have everything--really.

Here, Scott and I wait for the gear check.

Here is Becky and her ski partner. A couple of crazy girls. There were an amazing number of girls doing the race. Becky works at Western State also teaching biology. She worked very hard getting into the race. First she had to buy a entry from someone who couldn't use theirs. then her Achilles was very sore and she was off her ski for a week. Then her partner got a sore back and had to drop out so she had to search for another..... Finally she got a girl willing to do it....

So we finally got everything done and headed back to Gunni. We didn't have a place to stay in Aspen, so we were planning on having Scott's brother and girlfriend come and pick us up and drive back on Saturday. But while picking up some last minute stuff in Gunnison, we ran into an old friend that happened to have a small place in Aspen and said we could crash there while they were in Gunnison. So that was way cool.

The race started out with light snow turning to heavy snow and warm 32F. The snow stuck to you and melted. We all lined up. We got behind the really fast guys on the groomed track by the High School while everyone else spread out over the snow softer snow to each side. Reverend Tim said his "Prayer of the Free Heelers" and the race began. 125 teams of two at midnight. We got out of the start with some close calls with so many skiers with packs trying to get onto the packed trail. The day before was colder so you could have skied on the crust. Now with it so warm you fell through the crust. We skate skied across the valley to where the trail begins to climb a steep narrow trail up to the ski area. Here we put on our skins. We got to the base of the ski area in good shape and began to climb over the middle of the ski area.

At the top you ski down several blue ski runs. Visibility was low as the snow blew in your face. Also the hard trails now had powder on them. We decided to just leave our skins on. I don't know which is worse going down with or with out skins on skinny skis..... But we had almost made it down when Scott came up behind me and said, "I think I broke my hand.... my ski caught something" So we stopped at the bottom and I tried to Duct tape his pole to his wrist since he couldn't hold onto it..... But NOOOO!!! So we had to bail.... What are the odds of breaking your hand?? I crash often and so does he and now it breaks.

We were in the top 30 teams at least at this point and we were at our strong point as Scott goes up much faster then down.... That's life. We talked to the ski patrollers at the check point and they arranged a snow mobile ride back over the mountain. So we called Scott's bro from the Lift Hut and hopped on a snow mobile back to the ski patrol building to wait for our ride. I tested my sugar here and it was pretty high as I didn't really eat much and had been skiing for a hour and half. Something to check for must have been the late start... One crazy thing was the snowmobile driver I went back with was paralyzed from the chest down from breaking his neck. He also skis and races hand bikes.

So we got back and Scott's hand kept swelling. He got it x-rayed Monday and sure enough broken. Just wait till next year!

Scott and his broken hand..

Night before the Grand Traverse

2008-03-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

So I spent the day working and getting the final pieces for the equipment we would need for the race. We double checked the times we would need to be up in Crested Butte. Checkin at 9:00, PreRace Meeting, and then the GEAR CHECK! The equipment list is a bit long and if you don't have something they make you get rechecked before the race. The fastest racers somehow get away with pretty light weight clothes and gear. Our packs this year are pretty light considering all the stuff we'll have. I'll get an official weight once the water is full.

I took my skis down to Jesse Crandall the ski coach who said he would wax them for me. While I was down there we started looking at his gear for the race. The gear is a great topic of discussion as many of the racers are from the area. What type of skis are people using. Rondonee or a light backcountry/downhill ski with heavier plastic boots seem to be popular. We are just using light waxable skis. Not the lightest but not too bad. Jesse had a bigger pack than last year. He had several secret weapons that he quickly told me about. He swore me to secrecy of course.

So I think I have everything...... Maybe. Hope I have enough food......

Weekend before the Grand Traverse

2008-03-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

Well not a whole lot going on. Just trying not to get a cold. During the week I just got in the gym and ran on the treadmill some. I was a little tired from the 50K so I did some short runs early in the week.

Saturday we went to Mill Creek near Gunni and did a couple of laps with the BIG hill. It was about 15 mi according to Scott's GPS. A good work out and we carried most of our stuff that we needed for the tour.

Sunday we crust skied at Hartman Rock. With the crust building you can skate just about anywhere on top of the crust. It was very good until is started to warm. We skied for a couple of hours and maybe 10 or so miles.

Scott goes for a big run

2008-03-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Well Scott decided to go run the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim three weeks before the GT. He planned to go out out Saturday, run it Sunday, and come back on Monday.

A student had talked him into it. I had specifically said NO more RUNNING. But I let him go anyway. He hadn't been to the canyon before and the student didn't really know the trails too well.

So anyway, Scott came hobbling back Monday. They took the bright Angel trail down and couldn't make it all the way up the North rim due to the excess of snow. He didn't know there was a shorter trail that the Bright Angel the Kiabab..... So he ended up running 43 miles and took 13 hrs. He wasn't quite ready to run down the steep trails.

So he has pretty much recovered but no I've put my foot down and definitely no more running until after the GT! Here is a picture of him crusts skiing at Hartmans....

50 km Classic ski race 3/15/2008

2008-03-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I did a 50km (31mi) classic ski race. I decided Friday night and quickly waxed my new classic skis. OK, they weren't new but some old skis that our fine ski coach here at WSC had laying about and sold to me cheap. I had no problems with my insulin as I did during the Super Tour. It was fine when I left town and fine when I started the race. I just ate a GU every 45 minutes with plenty of water. For a map go to http://www.cbnordic.org/

I used these skis on a 10km race last two weeks ago and they worked pretty well. In the 10K race they were a little slow coming down the hill so I probably lost a minute on the guy ahead of me. I ended up coming in pretty close to the winners. I was the first "citizen" but there weren't many citizens (obviously no one real fast showed) as the race was not publicized much.

So the 50 K started in Crested Butte at the High school at 8:00 and basically did all the Nordic trails that the Crested Butte Nordic center grooms and some twice. The area near the high school is called the Town Ranch or "Poop Loop" as dogs are allowed on it. There are more dogs than people in CB by the way. When I waxed my skis, all the Internet weather reports were giving the temperature readings for CB at around 20F at 8:00 and warming to 30 around noon when I would probably be getting done. So I started off by putting wax rated for 20-32F but then luckily decided to put some on that was rated 14-25 on last. This was a good thing because the car said it was -1F as I drove into CB so my wax would be a little slow but not terrible.... I quickly put on some green kick wax on for the colder temperature also. It was actually kind of good that it was cold with fresh snow because when you used wax on Nordic skis if it is warmer or icy it is hard to get the wax to stick.

Classic Nordic skis are cambered so that as you stand on both skis the part in the middle under your foot doesn't actually touch the snow. This is where the kick wax goes. When you ski, you have to do a "oingo boing" move (as they teach the kids) of bouncing to compress the ski on one foot so that the wax will stick to the snow, you can push off and glide on the other ski. This is repeated and off you go with your pole pushing on the opposite side of the ski that is kicking. People that are really good at this can go very fast and if the wax is right can kick and glide for quite a ways and climb very fast on hills. Another issue with these types of skis is to make sure you are the correct weight to compress the ski.

So I put on an extra jacket a the start. I shouldn't have because I got toooo hot on the first lap around the flat poop loop and stopped for a couple of minutes to take it off as we came past the start and headed off toward a more hilly section. You may want to note that there are lots of dogs here when it warms and my jacket is now on the ground. My kick wax was working well and my glide wasn't too bad in the cold weather.

We skied for an hour or so over some pretty big hills (one trail is called Mordor so it must be bad) and a bit of flats before we had to walk or ski on the icy road across town to another section of trail by Peanut lake. Here we did two laps with some hilly sections. I was in 5th here (OK only 8 people showed for this one but the first 4 were moving pretty fast). The two guys just ahead of me were just a couple minutes up and I planned to stick with them and maybe pass them if they got tired. I finally caught one of the guys but the other had a burst of energy and sped up (he actually won the Super Tour last week)! My shoulder began to twinge and I was having pain when I pushed with my left arm. My legs were tired but not too bad. I finally climbed the last hill on this section and now had to go down a automobile road down to the Nordic center where there were some more trails. I saw that two of the guys had skied in the fresh snow on the side of the road. I skied for a minute but there was gravel so I walked ran the rest of the way. I lost a couple of minutes on the guy ahead of me but I didn't want to trash my old skis....

I got to the Nordic Center and just had to go up a big hill, make a loop and come back. I was getting ready to be off the skis. I finished in 4:19:03. It was pretty fun race in a pretty town but had some sore areas in my legs that hadn't been sore this year skiing, my shoulder was sore and I had a couple blisters on the tips of my toes. I took the town bus to the car at the high school and picked up my jacket. Someone was nice and hung it on a sign. I also noticed as I put it on that some dog wasn't nice and had lifted his leg on it. OH well I was cold.....

I went and had a pita and came home. We skied a short ski with Anne and the kids. Julian in the backpack and Lila skied or rode in the sled the next day. Then Scott my GT partner showed and we skied a quick lap. I wasn't that much worse for wear.... Just a bit sore in the gluts and hams....

Super Tour Ski Race-Carboloading the hard way or no guts no glory 3/8/2008

2008-03-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

Carboloading
So I decided to do the Super Tour this year (3/8/08). I was busy getting everything together for the race the night before so I could leave town before 6:30 to get to registration in Crested Butte (28 mi north) by 7:00. It was a little more planning as avalanche beakons, shovels, probe poles needed to be taken. I was also trying to decide which skins to use. My shorted ones or the full ones as there was a big hill climb of about 2000ft. It got to about 10:30 and I was a bit distracted and decided to test my sugar and give my self an injection of the long acting Lantus insulin. I gave myself a shot and then began putting my stuff away and noticed that I had my short acting Humalog insulin in my hand..... Hmm did I really just give myself 15 units of fast acting insulin????? Sheesh! In case you didn't read my previous posts, the insulin goes into the blood and rips the sugar out of your blood and into the cells causing the sugar level to drop. Normally for a meal like dinner I would take 5 units. If I really took all that and went to bed I may not wake up (ever see Momento?) or wake up in the hospital. So I decided I'd better eat something. So I ate a bowl of cereal and a bagel with peanut butter. Now I had to stay up and make to make sure..... So after about an hour and a half I tested my sugar and it had dropped to about 100. I must have taken the humalog.
So I ate some more. some yogurt and a power bar and some other stuff. I told Anne that I was setting my alarm on my watch and if I didn't get up to well you know....maybe call someone with a glucose IV or give my a shot of glucagon. I did wake up and ate another power bar and another bagel. When morning came around I must have eaten more than I needed as my sugar was quite high. I took some insulin, skipped breakfast, and headed out to Crested Butte. What a night-not much sleep!

The super tour ski race is a 22km race that starts above Crested Butte, CO just above the ski area. The race started off on level to slightly downhill terrain for the first few miles to the old mining town of Gothic. This particular day the trail was a bit icy with crusty snow on the sides. Most of the faster guys and gals had lightweight Nordic gear (I had pretty light stuff also) with no metal edges. I fell a few times and nearly ran a skier through when he tumbled on a hill in front of me. I just skied around him and lifted my ski over his flailing poles. I wasn't in a huge hurry here but was catching many people. It was hard to pass as the trail was very narrow with deep powder on the sides.

The trail passes the old mining town of Gothic turned into a alpine biology lab (Rocky mountain biological laboratory). Then it climbed a little up to the turn off to the 403 trail and climbs very steeply. I stopped here and put on my skins. I brought my full length ones. They climbed admirably if not a bit heavy. I was just ahead of Dave Wiens, mountain biker extraordinaire from Gunnison and all around nice guy. We chatted and I knew sooner or later he would probably pass me as he has quite a motor. I stayed in front of him until near the top and could see him as we climbed the last hill to the very top. So I must be doing pretty good. The guy at the check point said I was 7th or 8th place out of 70 or 80. Hmmm not bad. Especially as I wasn't exactly packing as light pack or skis as others.

Along the steep climb the organizers had set out chocolate bars, mini snickers bars, other candy and the ever important "shooters" or air plane bottles of various whiskeys and other fermented beverages. I probably should have grabbed a couple for the next part of the race.

No Guts-No Glory!

I got to the top and assumed (never assume) that the ski trail followed the bike route and took my skins off. I had mountain biked this trail many times--always in the opposite direction that we had skied. The guy at the start said it could be tricky in Nordic gear. It can't be so bad. Well it was so bad. The trail went straight down the mountain. It was comparable to a good blue run at a ski area. It was only about 5 ft wide in good spots and went down a long ways. I tried to snowplow a bit but my skis were so old that the plastic edges were pretty much not doing anything and I kept going faster and faster. OK I'll just ski in the powder off to the side as I began to pick up speed. Big mistake. It wasn't powder at all but sun crusted snow. I spectacularly crashed many times. Most of them would be on the most popular list on YouTube. I chickened out and put my skins back on as they would help slow me down. I later learned that the winner had left his on. So I lost a few minutes taking them off and putting them back on. I was passed here by a few guys barreling down in a snowplow and screaming as they passed. With my skins on I made good time the rest of the way on the steeps. Since I had full skins on I didn't have much glide on the less steep places down lower so I had to take them off losing more time and getting passed by a few more people. The rest of the trail was down hill with only some shorted steep sections and a few small hills. This went easily and I finished in one piece in 15th place. I was encouraged that I had climbed with out a ton of effort and stayed close to some really good skiers and had skied the flats faster than most. Now the downhill part was frustrating.... At least the down hill on the Grand Traverse would be on a ski area so it is much wider.

Alley Loop Skate Ski Marathon Feb 2, 2008

2008-02-06T15:21:00.000-08:00

The Alley Loop is a ski race that winds through the alleys and streets of Crested Butte, CO (8800ft) and then heads out of town for a while. Depending upon how long of a race you do depends on how many and which laps you do. I signed up for the 41K (26 mi) three lap race. The race started at 10:00 and a balmy 3-4 F. It may have been 10F at the end of the race. The snow was a bit soft as it had snowed that night and the previous days. I knew the 42K was going to be painful on the last lap as I hadn't done a lot of long skis yet this year.

Skate skiing is like ice skating except you use poles and go up hill. It will raise my heart to high levels and keeps it there. It is one of the hardest work outs I have done. Anyway the first two laps went pretty smoothly. The last lap began to hurt however. My arms and butt muscles began to get very stiff. I did however make a point of drinking as much as possible as in previous races I had gotten nauseous from dehydration. The hills became suddenly very hard and I began to have visions of sneaking onto the 21K lap for a shortcut. I got passed by a few people but ended up not passing out....

I ended up making it in in 2:53 and 34th out of 64. If I had done the 21K I could have easily placed in the top 10 out of 37 as I was ahead of a friend that was doing the 21k and got 10th. I was pretty beat but had a good time AND the girl in the bunny suit finished behind me this year!

How did the diabetes affect the race. Well not really at all I would say. I ate a Gu every lap or just under. My sugar was about 130 20 min before the race so I ate some food to bring it up a bit. When I finished I tested it it was 140 after eating a gu on the last lap. You may ask, didn't you check your sugar during the race? This would've been difficult with the cold temperatures and to get my glove off I would have had to take off my ski pole straps. Not really worth it for just 3 hours.

Go to http://www.cbnordic.org/ for more on the race and pictures. These two pictures are from a few years ago when it was sunny out.

Bonking and bonking hard-the diabetes way...

2008-02-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

So most people have experienced low blood sugar episodes. Maybe you didn't eat breakfast and had a busy morning and felt shaky and weak. Or maybe you were on a long bike ride or a race of some sort and didn't eat enough and just couldn't keep up due to a lack of sugar in your system. So what is it like to do this in a much more intense way. The diabetes way.

I had a friend who would ride his bike and not eat on purpose to force is his blood sugar low so his body would "get used to it" and he wouldn't be affected so much by it in races. If he only knew the sure way to due this is take insulin.

The funny thing about taking insulin is that it can sometimes act unpredictably. As I wrote before that when you take insulin if forces sugar into yours cells and causes the blood sugar levels to drop. For me when I'm awake I am ultrasensitive to how I am feeling. Am I having a hard time with simple concepts? Can I add simple numbers? Do I have that feeling I get when I have low blood sugar? If I am excercising, do I feel lethargic or tired? Is it the sugar or am I just tired? Some people can go from perfectly normal to acting drunk (a sign of low blood sugar), sweating profusely, unresponsive to you, or even mean or beligerent.

If I feel "funny" I check my blood sugar. The funny feeling might just be all that coffee I drank. Of course this complicates things... You always need to have a test kit and insulin handy and of course a sugar source. It can feel like climbing with out a rope to be out with no source of glucose nearby.....

Bonking at night can be another story for me.... It hasn't happened much but it has happened and can happen anytime. Luckily for me Anne, my wife, was there to save my butt the time it was worse.... Usually at night I wake up, I might be cold, having weird dreams or feel shaky and can get some juice or something (in this state I am in a feeding frenzy mode and will eat most anything I can get my hands on and very quickly--like a starving dog). Well not this time......

I got ready for bed with a blood sugar reading of 140 after a long skate ski that day. I like it to be around 150-170 at bed time as insurance that I will get up in the morning, especially if I have excercised extensively. I was watching TV while Anne went to bed. Apparently the insulin I took acted more quickly than anticipated as I fell asleep while watchin TV.

The next thing I remember was Anne's voice like out of a dream telling me to "drink this..." I slowly recognized it as orange juice. I was completely covered in sweat and freezing as slowly I realized I was on the tile floor in front of the couch. My elbows felt like someone had beat them with a baseball bat, my legs felt like I had just run 20 miles and crampy.

Slowly I became more aware and heard her reading, "feed something to supply sugar over the long term." (or something like that). I really felt awful and a bit nauseous. After another 15 minutes my blood sugar was 33 and I could talk to her. Finally after some more food I was completely aware and my blood sugar was above 80 or normal. Anne was obviously shaken and it took nearly as much time for me to get her to tell me what happened as it took me to come out of my stupor.

She had heard a noise downstairs. Some banging. She was initially uspset that I may wake the baby, I think. She found me basically in convulsions banging the back of my elbows into the tile floor quite violently. So that's why my elbows hurt and there were large bruises forming. She said I was also kicking my legs. So that's why I felt like I ran 20 miles.

It wasn't until the next day that I got her to tell me everything. She had to hold down my leg and give me a shot of Glucogon to get my liver to release sugar from stored glycogen (like starch). I found the left over package an sure enough it said, "feed person fast acting sugar and then feed something to supply sugar over the long term." It also listed side effects as nausea et al...... This was very hard for her to do but I am very glad she did it..... Luckily this type of reaction is rare this was the worst in 12 yrs... Some people have reactions like this quite regularly...

Kenny Mac ski race and Training Jan 2008

2008-01-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

January in Gunnison started off with deep snows and COLD weather. So much snow fell that the DOW decided to begin feeding deer in the valley as they felt that over 70% of does and fauns would die..... The downhill skiing was great however.

Then the snow let up and the cold set in the second and third weeks. Scott (traverse partner) and I spent the next weeks skiing with most days never getting above -5F and lows between -25 and -38F somehow avoiding nipping the nose. It finally warmed and skiing became more comfortable. It is amazing how nice 3F feels!

There is a local Nordic ski race in Gunnison, weather/snow permitting, at a local mt bike, hiking, and ski area about 6 mi from town. This year it was in honor of Kenny Mac who had been a force in the ski scene for the past 50 yrs. It consisted of a 1/4 and 1 k kids race, and 15 and 30 k adult races including a ski tour and race to the top of the rocks and straight back down. I decided to try the 30 K skate ski race.

Everyone lined up that was doing the 15 k one lap and 30 k two lap race at 11:00 (temp 1-2F). Many of the fast local guys didn't show up for one reason or another so I had a fighting chance at placing. I did however start behind the fast girls. Two of them are past Olympic skiers and another is the mother of one. We started up "kill hill" at a moderate pace. Rebeca who was in the 2006 Olympics lead the way. At the top of the hill we headed left up a long climb. We all stayed pretty close together. At the top of the long hill I tried to get my camel back nipple unfrozen and it popped off and fell in the snow. I had to stop and got passed by Rebecca's mom Carol. Now I'm in third place overall as the two fastest girls were just doing one lap. One guy was ahead of me. We continued on and the first lap went by pretty fast in about an hour. My water froze again so I took off my pack and got passed again! It takes a second as the polls have to come off as well. Now I was in third place. Thankfully we didn't have to go back down kill hill on the second lap! So up the long hill again and back around. The final bit of skiing was down kill hill on the skinny skis which is always interesting. But I got to the finish with no mishaps. My legs were pretty tired and I was a bit dehydrated at the end. I was third in the men's race in just under 2 hours and fourth overall as Grandma Carol came in about in minute faster.

Next week the Alley loop in Crested Butte. Should I do the 42 K or the 21K??? I felt pretty tired after the 30 K but I think there is definitely more climbing at Hartman Rocks. For pictures of Hartman Rocks go to:

http://www.gunnisonnordicclub.net/

The Elk Mountain Grand Traverse

2008-01-19T20:48:00.001-08:00

Here we are getting wax on in 2003...

The Elk Mountain Grand Traverse is a ski race from Crested Butte, CO to Aspen, CO. It is about 40 mi and starts at midnight to get past areas of avalanche danger before it warms and becomes dangerous. You must travel with your partner at all times through several checkpoints. Teams must also travel with all required gear. This includes avalanche beacon and probe poles, equipment to spend the night in the mountains and boil water, equipment to fix broken skis and bindings, and many other things. For a complete list and race description see http://www.elkmountaintraverse.org/

It can have some extreme aspects. The trail goes over two passes that are above 12,000 ft. It is also 40 mi long . The final bit of the race is a descent on narrow Nordic skis straight down Aspen ski area. Weather is iffy. I did it once in 2003 and the temperature dropped to -15F and many teams had to drop due to frostbite. In 2007 there was strong winds and white out conditions on Taylor pass causing difficult navigation.

What times are expected. The fastest racers may do the 40 mi in 7.5 to 8 hrs. My first year we finished in 15 hrs. Part of this was due to the cold weather. Our goal this year is to finish in under 11 hrs.

Here we are at the finish in 2003!

How is diabetes treated?

2008-01-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

So, to live, you need insulin. You need a background or small amount all the time. You also need larger amounts when food is digested and sugar produced. There are two main ways to do this.

The first is to have a pump that slowly pumps insulin all the time through a tube into a small needle that is left inserted under the skin for several days and can be increased when a meal is eaten.

The second is to take a long acting insulin that gives a slow basal or background level. Then a fast acting insulin can be taken during meals. These are given by short needles in the stomach, thighs, back hip or back of the arm. The injection is below the skin, not into the muscle, and in areas with few nerves so the pain is (usually) not too bad. This is what I do even though the pump works very well for many people.

Before insulin is given the blood glucose level should be tested. Glucose monitors have come a long way. Now, in a few seconds with a drop of blood the level of glucose can be monitored so that the insulin dose can be adjusted. There are some continuous glucose monitors on the market but still are not completely reliable and are expensive as they are not covered by most insurance.

The Trick (where people get confused about diabetes)
Before (or soon after) you eat something you need to take a shot or have the insulin pump give you some insulin. There are several scenarios:

You take a dose of insulin but don't eat anything. Result: the insulin takes affect and strips your blood of sugar and you lose the ability to think clearly. You get shaky and sweaty from the body releasing adrenaline. You may also act drunk. This is called hypoglycemia. "Normal" people feel this when the sugar drops slightly below normal. After a few years with diabetes you may not feel this until it's too late. If you still don't eat the sugar level keeps dropping and you can go into convulsions, pass out and go into a diabetic coma. If you are unconscious, someone can give you a shot of a hormone called glucagon, which causes your liver to deliver stored sugar from glycogen (a glucose polymer like starch). If you just ran a marathon, there may not be stored glycogen! Or the emergency crew will give you glucose intravenously. This is why it might be nice to carry sugar with you or tattoo "diabetic" on your forehead....
You take a dose of insulin and eat but it isn't digested as fast as normal and the above conditions apply. This happens with me if the food is richer and digested more slowly.
You take a dose of insulin but the insulin was injected into an area that for some reason absorbs faster than you think and the above conditions apply.
You don't eat or take a shot. The long acting insulin keeps working no matter what and the above conditions apply.
You take a dose of insulin and eat but eat more than the insulin will "cover" and your blood sugar will climb higher than is healthy.

Now factor in exercise.... Actually I think exercise makes control (keeping glucose levels as close to normal as possible) much easier.

What levels of glucose do you strive for?

Normal blood glucose, bg, is 80 mg/dL. If it drops below 6o you may get loopy as above. The worst thing to do is think that you can operate at low levels safely, but I have no problems with levels of 40.... Not funny says Anne.

If it drops below 30 you are probably going to pass out very soon.

High glucose is above 180. If it is high, like 180-400, for long periods you can develop a host a problems. The most common ones are neuropathy (nerve damage-hence you lose feeling in places like your toes), blindness, and impotence. Poor circulation and the neuropathy lead to the loss of toes and maybe a leg or two.

Before I go to exercises I like the bg to be 150-180. It can drop very quickly when exercising.

At bed I like my bg to be about 16o. This avoids lows when you sleep--most of the time.

Before meals the bg should be 80-120 if you're lucky.

Next post? So what is the Grand Traverse and how do I train?

What is Type 1 Diabetes?

2008-01-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

Type 1 diabetes, recently called juvenile diabetes, is caused by the pancreas islet cells being knocked off for one reason or another. The current thought is that the body kills these cells through an autoimmune problem. For example your body mistakes the cells as an invading virus and kapow.....

The Islet cells produced insulin. So now unfortunately no insulin is produced. A slight problem... Without insulin you die a slow death of wasting away--basically starving to death.

Insulin is usually defined as the key that lets glucose or "sugar" to enter the cells and be used for energy. The sugar enters the blood from the digestive system from the foods you eat. Either straight sugar or when starches are broken down. Your body also and use other foods as sources of energy-like fat.

I like to think of insulin as more of a glucose posse. It actually rounds up the sugar and takes it off into the cells and causes the level of sugar in the blood to drop. Normally you eat something, your body digests it, the level of sugar in the blood begins to rise, the body releases extra insulin into the gut and this causes the sugar to be taken rather forcefully into the cells. So now I'm missing a crucial part. Without the insulin the cells can't use sugar and the sugar level in the blood begins to rise. Your body begins to think it is starving (which it is) and begins to break fat down into sugar. If you have an excess of fat you may build up ketones from the breakdown of the fats and develop ketoacidosis.

Meanwhile, your sugar levels are getting higher and higher. Your kidneys try to lower the high levels of glucose (which is, in itself a toxic substance to your body at high levels) by producing more urine. This causes one to urinate constantly and therefore become quite dehydrated--classic diabetes symptoms.

So the person with diabetes must take insulin injections often and try as well as possible to simulate the action of a functioning pancreas.

Next post.... What it feels like to wake up and not know where you're at (And not from drinking heavily) and how treatment works in with an athletic lifestyle.