Friday
Friday, Sonya and myself drove up to Twin Lakes just south of Leadville and scored a pretty good camp site. It was a good location as it was centrally located for the 2 bigger rides that were planned over the next few days. I had a short little interval session to get in on Friday, so after a quick set up of camp, I headed out on the road towards Independence Pass. An hour later...and dodging building thunderstorms.....I arrived back at camp.
Feeling good on the bike requires good food. There was no shortage of fresh and high quality eats all weekend. Good solid meals all weekend made for super happy legs.Saturday
Saturday AM started off on the right foot with some pancakes and excellent coffee. The plan for the day was to meet up with Sean from the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and rage up to Searle Pass from Copper Mountain Ski Resort on the CO Trail.
While the food settled, Sonya and myself loaded up the Ergon BD2's will all the needed gear for a high alpine ride that would last 4 hours. For me, I had some HR zones to ride in for the day, so I found myself riding a head of the group. That was fine with the group, as we regrouped at the summit to take in the insane views.
With all the snow up high this past winter, the creeks and streams are still flowing pretty good. We had to cross like 5 of these sketchy planks.
It doesn't really get much better than this. Pushing hard at 11, 000 ft at a 160 HR. The kind of interval I actually enjoy.
Yep, you need to look around when you get up here. It's not something everybody gets to experience.Here is a 360 pano from Searle Pass.
After a short breather...some photos....and some nutritional intake.....it was time to bomb back down to Copper Mountain Ski Resort.
Still going down.Sean shows us his mountain bike Jedi skills. I can't do this...so I respect it.
Good chunk of climbing on Saturday. My HR was really suppressed. I took awhile to get it up to 160.....no matter how hard I went. The legs felt super strong....which made me excited for Sunday.Sunday
Sunday, the only thing on tap was a 3 hour ride.....which included a TT effort up the Columbine Mine climb. Since I was here last weekend and took pictures....there are none from this ride. But, Sonya has some. I ended up going from the base of the climb to the summit in 1 hr 2 minutes. I am not sure the exact distance, maybe like 8 or 9 miles. I felt strong and consistent from top to bottom....YEAH! Since the Leadville 100 is only 2 weeks away, there were numerous folks out climbing the climb as well. It gave me some rabbits to chase.There are a ton of photos from the weekend here. Too many to post up on the blog.
Now it's back to the training grind. One more tune up event this weekend. Heading up to Sol Vista for the Mountain States Cup to mix a bit of work and pleasure.