Okay, I blame Thanksgiving and such for being off the grid. In the best way. Nice to step away from technology and just worry about consuming ridiculous amounts of delicious food!
The past couple of weeks have been busy and relaxed all at the same time. Let’s do a brief rewind to 2 weekends ago. On Saturday, we raced the Bowl of Death. Last year, this was a venue that straight up terrified me. There are some sketchy descents and lots of dirt. This year, we had snow leading up to the race, but warmish temps would mean mud. And there was…mud! I LOVED it! The course was pretty technical as even the areas of grassy turns had become saturated and slippery.
I had a rough start because the woman in front of me had to hop off her bike the last second before the whistle blew to fix something. I darted left around her and then quickly back to the right to pass on the side. There was a pretty decent and muddy run up (love this part!) followed by grass, more mud, some watery ditches and then a sand pit. I was pretty excited to pass a few of the girls who have been consistently beating me this year! I ended up finishing 8th in a pretty good sized field and was more than thrilled with that!
I dont have any pics of myself, but here are two of the hubby playing in the mud!
This past week involved a LOT of riding and it was awesome! Sun, Mon, Tues we used the excuse that crappy weather was coming so we had better get in some extra miles (prep for lots of turkey too!) and then my in-laws were in town so we had built in babysitters for the second half of the week…so we had to take advantage of time riding together and with E and C! All together, I had 13 straight days of riding in and was happy to take a rest day yesterday! (The last 7 of those involved 11 hours on the bike and over 116 miles-mostly on snow!).
During the Thanksgiving weekend (Saturday), Ken and I headed to Parker solo for some ice skating…I mean bike racing. The course was a bit treacherous and was literally mostly ice. Had I not pre-registered, I may have bailed (Ken told me I could bail even though I had already paid!-That’s how you know it is scary!).
While Ken raced (and took 7th in crazy conditions) I hung out in the pit for him in case he needed his second bike. Because it was all frozen, nothing really stuck to the bike and he didnt need anything). About 2 laps from the end of his race, I headed over and pulled my ski clothes off before starting my “race”.
I was a hot mess (or frozen mess). From the start, I couldnt get clipped in (I was wearing my winter booties…great for riding, less for racing). The course was insanely slick and I was not willing to take the risks that others seemed to. On the start of lap 2 of 4, my contacts froze and one popped out of my eye and got stuck in my eyelashes. I tried very hard to blink it out, but ended up having to actually stop and pull my sunglasses to pull it off. That left the last 3/4 of the race to be done with one good eye. Disaster!
The lack of contact totally messed with my depth perception. I didnt know when to break and couldnt see much of the definition in the frozen ruts. I slowed down quite a bit and was just happy to finish….9th 🙂 Not last! It was a crazy crazy race, but I am glad I did it! (I only crashed-well went all the way down-once).
Somehow, Ken and I ended up in one of the pics on the Colorado Cycling Newsletter (Blue jacket, pink hat).
Yep, we are crazy!
The next few days, we joined E and C for some awesome Fat Biking. We are LOVING riding in the snow (and less than 20 degrees-okay, not really that part!).
It is seriously super fun and an amazing workout!
Today, I started back at school to finish up the last 2 weeks of class, our company has left and life returns to normal. We are prepping for Regionals this coming Saturday (on a course that I LOVED last year). Time to get on some warm clothes and hop on my bike!
Fit After Little Bits 
That’s crazy about your contacts during the race! That must have been so disorienting. Congrats on finishing!
Thanks, Lisa! It was a first for sure! Next time I am wearing my ski goggles to keep them warm 😉