Digging holes

Riding big requires first digging big fatigue holes and personally this has always been a slippery slope for me as my typical gauge of adequate training is when I'm too beat down to move. Of course, then when I try to recover I convince myself that just because after a few days of recovery and I can feel my legs again, I'm all of a sudden slacking off and simply not training enough because my legs and body are not throttled. Great recipe for over-training I know, and it's something I've always struggled with. The few coaches I've worked with provided their greatest help by telling me when not to ride and sit on the couch.I'm not too good at that.

Last week I spent 9 days in Durango with the sole plan of digging one final hole before resting up before CTR. Right now fitness, gear, and my head-space are all dialed and I'm counting down the days until the 1st. So if you see me between now and then tell me to go lay on the couch and get off the bike.

Here's a few of the better pictures that were taken and let me tell you, my lack luster photo skills do nothing to convey the terrain.

To start things off right, the first day Sarah and I were in town we did the Durango Dirty Century. It was a pretty awesome course that in on par with the likes of the Vapor Trail 125 the year it was shortened due to rain. Lots of hiking, snow scrambling and ridge running, but 14+ hours of views like this are hard to beat.

In an effort to save my legs for a full 9 days of riding I took the event pretty easy just spending the entire day and a super relaxed pace - what I called "La De Da speed".

After CTR in '09, Sarah and I were lucky enough to randomly meet a friend of a friend who let us stay in his remodeled one room schoolhouse up in the heart of the LaPlatas. This time around he lets us stay there the entire week. Perfect basecamp.

Oh, and the views aren't too shabby either.

But, we came to ride, and that we did.

There are some amazing trails down there and we tried to get as high as we could each day in search of good terrain.

The Aspen groves down south make everything in Summit look like puny little toothpicks.

We hooked up with Matt for a ride one day and rode/hiked some great terrain up near Engineer Mountain.

Fields and fields of skunk cabbage.

Monsoon season is in full effect and we had to wait out rain and hail more than a few times towards the end of the week.

Plenty of snow left equals plenty of cold clean water to drink up high.

We had so much fun riding with Matt we went back the next day and did a bigger loop on the CT.

Flowers as far as the eye can see

CT above Molas Pass

The smile says it all

Segment 23 outside of Slverton still has some big drifts but they are melting fast.

Summer vacation number one is in the books and now it's time to sleep for 3 weeks to get ready for summer vacation number two. Stoke is sky high.