I've been getting quite the education today on nutrition. I don't know squat about what to eat on the bike. As a cross country racer I ate whatever I wanted and never worried about it. I'm sure I could have been a more successful racer if I had paid more attention to it. I know I can finish something like the CTR but I can't do it on my current diet AND have fun doing it. Seasoned racers like Dave Harris, Chris Plesko, and Marshal Bird are very particular and specific about what they eat. I could pick out stuff blindfolded. These guys all do quite a bit of calculations while they're strolling through the gas stations, grocery stores or just sitting in a restaurant. Not me. When I start riding again in a few weeks I'm going to start paying very close attention to (and documenting) things like water loss through sweat, calories burned per hour based on terrain and speed and then start looking at what's going in my body. I now have some preliminary numbers of what should be going in my body for breakfast each morning during something like the CTR and what should be going in each hour and I'm stunned. It's no wonder I hit the wall and hallucinated on Sargents Mesa. I have spent the last 2 years working to improve my cycling fitness and my ability to ride long hours but that's not the problem. I'm on the right track with what I should be eating but I'm not even in the ballpark with how much. I'm not sure I'll line up for the CTR again just yet. There's something else I'd like to try this year but making it happen might be an issue.

Thanks so much for the kind words everyone. It's really nice to hear from some of the players about how difficult this race truly is even for them and it makes me feel better. Maybe now I'll get around to writing up something to go with all this years pictures.

Behold...the engineering feat that is a Swiss Cake Roll! How do they do it?

Wait a second.......the resemblance is uncanny. That must be why, despite all of his shenanigans, I just couldn't go on without the big guy. He is the canine equivalent to a favorite snacky cake of mine.

Safeway was running a sale on Swiss Cake Rolls the other day. 4 boxes of them for $5. If eating them all day long is wrong then I don't wanna be right.

Bears

I'm sitting next to the screen door talking on the phone with my buddy Leo tonight. The Jeep and the van are right below the deck. I hear some racket and ask Heather what the noise was. She says it was me and I give her the stink eye. Then I hear it again and tell her to mute the tv. Then I hear it again. I tell Leo I'll call him back and grab my bike light and pop out the front door to find a small bear trying to get in the sliding window of my damn van. So I scan the yard looking for mom and finally see her behind the van but then see another cub in front of the van. I grab the snow shovel from the front porch and start banging it on the deck. Mom moves to the end of the driveway but the cubs have NO FEAR. Not good. I wanna scare the piss out of the cubs. I start yelling. Nothing. I can't see mom and that is nerve wracking. Heather's yelling at me but I can't let these cubs do this or they'll get into real trouble in town. I finally spot where mom is and feel comfortable enough to get in the driveway and grab the garden hose. I let em have it and they make for the tree in the side yard but mom didn't dig that. I got one 45lb pitbull on the deck going ape crazy to get at whatever is in the driveway and another 70+ one trying his damndest to get under the bed. Needless to say I know who's getting an extra milk bone tonight. I finally got them to move along but they just strolled real easily across the street and through the creek.

All you can see if eyes here.

All this after last night when I let Dharma out to go poddy and spotted some eyes looking at me from across the street. We have a lot of animals up here but the eyes were really far apart so I knew it was something big. I grabbed my light to get a better look. I actually thought it was a mountain lion. It turned out to be a lone deer.

This is some weather that I ran into while coming down from Kenosha Pass during the race. You are looking in to the valley that contains South Park. By the time I started making my way up Georgia Pass this was pretty much gone and the chilly evening was setting in.

Heather and I continued to move my crap from the middle school to the high school today. I just have to get my couch and then sort through everything. You can fit a lot of stuff in the van.

My wrist is still pretty sore today. I'd really like to go for a mountain bike ride but I have no interest in touching that road bike. Gonna continue to let it rest for another week or so before I do anything.

Back home

6 days of LONG rides. 350ish miles of mostly singletrack. 0 flats or mechanicals of any kind. 1 minor crash. 1 nightmare where I awoke in tears. 43,000' of gain. 1 ballzy little ferret and a very sore and swollen wrist area (I'm supposed to go fishing with my buddy Scott this week but I can't throw a fly rod so we're gonna fish with bobbers and drink beer).

I've been back home for a few days now and doing nothing but sleeping and eating. Right now I don't know that I'll try that trail again. Right now I don't know that I'm cut out to do super long endurance stuff like that. I just can not bring in enough calories to maintain the engine. I cant believe how much food I had when I rolled out of BV. I didn't eat hardly any of it to get to the Hot Springs. I pigged out there but still managed to eat through almost all my food in the next 2 days.

I've started writing up a race report 3 times now and deleted them all. I'm completely fine with the fact that I pulled the plug this year. I just had so many thoughts racing through my head that last day that I'm not sure what to say about the race. I do believe it's out of my system though but we'll see what happens over the next few months. I have tons of pics.

Just got back from a little ride around town with that Marshal Bird character. Tell ya what...I learned so much from my mistakes last year. But I think I just learned as much additional information while tooling around with him. I'm going to need to think about some last minute nutritional things (I'm not real educated on that kind of stuff) that he talked about/suggested. I also have a real good visual on some of the segments that I have not seen before. Marshal's been doing this kind of stuff for a while now and he knows a thing or two. I really wasn't nervous but after reviewing some of the names on the start list and hearing about them...I am now. Keep your eyes on Jefe Branham, Stefan Griebel, Dave Harris, Owen Murphy, Scott Morris, Ethan Passant, Jason Shellman.....oh boy.

Thanks for the advice Marshal.

Heading to Denver soon.