Ups and downs

I took off after work on Friday to do a little overnighter with Marshal. The plan was to head north of Monument so we headed down 24 and hooked up with the Santa Fe Trail. The trail's nice but it's not singletrack. Once we entered the gate to the Air Force Academy we managed to hook up with some really nice singletrack and got about 5 miles in on that. I was grinning ear to ear during those miles. Back on the bike path, Monument wasn't too much further and we cruised into town and decided to sit down and have good Mexican grub. After dinner we kept pushing and finally made it to our camp spot next to a tombstone.

I gotta say...I'm not really motivated to be riding right now. Not sure what's going on. I think a lot about those last two attempts at the CTR. It would definitely be easier to walk away than to have another DNF.

At 3 a.m. (I think) I woke up soaking wet with temps in the low 30's. My clothes were wet, my bag, and my bivy felt like someone had dumped a bucket of water in it. The next several hours were miserable but not life threatening. The majority of bivy sacks do not breathe well. I don't think a different bivy is really the answer here but finding a better way to sleep (position) will be the key. This new bivy is 6 ounces so I really don't wanna give up on it. I'm a stomach sleeper and I tend to pull the bag and bivy over my head like blankets and then all that breathing creates condensation. I may experiment a bit with a simple tarp shelter and see if that's better b/c even when I can fall asleep on my back, I end up waking up in the fetal position and completely buried in my bag/bivy.

We made our way back towards Monument and the plan was to go over Mt. Herman and then see how we felt after that. I really like the climb up Herman. It's not too bad and I spun up it very comfortably (considering my lack of base miles) in the middle ring and top cog. At the top things got really sloppy and I hate riding in slush and mud so my mood took a turn for the worst. At a fork in the road, I ended up heading towards home while Marshal wanted to squeeze in some more miles as his Tour Divide start is quickly approaching. I'm so glad that CTR is a month and a half later. I don't wanna ride right now but...I really don't have to either.

When I rounded the corner and turned onto our street, Heather's Jeep was gone. Of course I had no key and no phone. I did, however, have a bitchin van. So...I slept in the van from 1 until 5 when she got back home. Maybe I'll just keep it in the driveway for times like this?

I've got A LOT of gear testing to do and even more head games to troubleshoot. Before these last 2 CTR attempts I could count the number of DNF's on one hand in over ten year's of mountain bike racing. I can remember one race in Kansas where the skies opened up as soon as TK and I got out of the car and they didn't let up until we crossed back into Missouri. TK ended up calling it quits during that race and hours later (after many walked miles and time spent clearing mud from the drivetrain and tires) I made it to the car. I'm pretty sure his words were, "I don't know how you keep going". I think about that a lot.

This is my normal clean bike Friday.

This is a section of the singletrack at the Air Force Academy.

This is what the climb looked like up Mt. Herman.

This is what I looked like climbing up Mt. Herman.

This is a very happy me after some of the singletrack on the academy.

Last night I was having a lot of trouble seeing out of my left eye. I finally went upstairs and dug a small pebble (Rice Krispy sized) out from it. I picked that up right after leaving our camping spot but was too cold to stop and deal with it.