Cross Training is FUN!

My new toy:

Live from the Red Lion in Vail

Sorry, no cycling this year - only technology discussions

Update

Whew! It's been a busy month. Sheila and I spent 9 glorious days at the North Shore of Lake Superior. We ran, biked, slept, hiked, toured... you get the idea.

This year I brought the new cyclocross bike and had a blast riding the truck roads of the Sawtooth mountains (a long series of 500 to 2,000 foot mountains along the Superior shore). Last year I had the road bike and was confined to the limited pavement. This year I was able to go anywhere. 160 miles of off-road fun with LOTS of climbing.

On one of the days we drove up the International Wolf Center in Ely, MN. It was amazing watching the wolves and seeing their two new wolf pups. Although, I still want to see one in the wild! Maybe on one of my back-country runs or rides. Along the way we saw Moose near the road. We were very excited, but didn't get a good picture.

One the second to last day up there we ran the Knife River, MN Solstice 5k. We thought it would be fun to run a small town race. Well, it was fun, but CRAP it was hard. Since we were in the mini-mountains, there was hardly a flat spot on the course! As we were warming up Sheila kept looking at the surrounding streets/roads and kept asking "Where is the course? Are we running up THAT?" Just before the race started the RD announced that the recent rain had made the dirt trail muddy, so be careful... ummm, dirt trail? As the race started, about 15 of us went off the front. At about 1/4 mile we hit the trail and started climbing. It wasn't too bad, and soon we were back on pavement. I glanced behind me and saw that we had opened a nice gap to the group behind. I slowly worked my way up to two guys that looked like they were in my age group. I hung with then up a long hill and down the other (steep) side to the turn around. At that point I was just hoping to hang on going back up the steep hill. I did my normal hill technique of short, quick steps and suddenly I was passing my age groupers - oh, oh. I now had about 1-1/2 miles left and and I had to hold these guys off! When I reached the top of the hill I had about 10 yards on them and decided to put on a surge and try to break them (or me). It worked. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill I had a nice gap that was too big to close. Even though, I still hammered out the last 3/4 mile over another hill to the finish. In the end I finished 10th overall, and it turned out the two guys were in the 40-49 age group--mere kids! A few minutes later Sheila came in with a strong finish missing one of her age groupers by 1 second! It was a great race, and one that I hope we can do again next year. Small town races really are a blast.

I had a Tri scheduled for the 4th, but it was cancelled - ???? So we entered a big local 10K near Minneapolis. There were 91 people in my age group - almost the entire field at Knife River! Again, another hilly race, and it was hot! But we both ran well and had a great time.

I guess this year really is turning into the year for running. Maybe a try at a BQ?

See you out there!

Doug