Lots of stuff going on..

Got back last night from the 24 Hours of Targhee, I think everyone else there were locals from Idaho and Wyoming, there may of been a couple from Lehi, can't verify that. The course was nice, around 1000 feet of climbing per lap, which was just under 7 miles according to my GPS. Starts with just under a mile of service road climbing followed by a fresh single track descent, a quick single track steep up followed by a mile or so of fast, smooth, flowing singletrack descending, next is a long winding single track climb, a fun banked turn descent, a painful steep up, a few rocks, service road back to start finish.

Lyna, Jim, Steve and I did a 4 person Coed team, we got 2 rooms at the Lodge. I NEVER want to camp for a 24 hour race again, Beds, TV, electricity, showers, hot tub, mmm nice. Our pre-ride lap was at 45 minutes, easy pace for me, so we decided to double up laps, so we would have down time, worked out perfect. Jim went first, me second, then Steve, then Lyna, again perfect, roommate would wake up roommate to get ready to go, we ended up missing no starts.

Jim was 1st off the line for the run, then someone wrecked in front of him, not that it mattered, there were less than 25 totals teams, including solos, it broke up really fast. About 1:20 later Jim came in, I went out to hard on the first lap, put in a 33 minute one, about 45-60 seconds off the fastest lap time of the event. second lap was around 34 minutes. By our first cycle through, we had about 30 minutes on the other coed team. My second round was going to be close to sundown, so i mounted the spare, less safe lights, just in case, my first time around was fine without them, second time around was that twilight, where the lights don't help, Steve went out for his last 2 laps on his single speed in the dark, Lyna followed with 2 night laps, by the 2nd cycle through we were over 2 laps up on the competition. My night laps started about 1:20, I think, it was cold,. but I was dressed well, the Basin section was about 15 degrees colder than everything else, kind of a weird feeling in there, kept waiting for the spirits to grab me. My lap times were around 43-44 minutes here, i was just having fun and not pushing it at all, after our third cycle we were almost 3 laps up. On my 4th time around I lapped the other team halfway through my 2nd lap, put 6 minutes on them after that. My last 2 laps started right after 7 am, it was beautiful out. Steve and Lyna ended up putting 2 more laps on the comp by the finish, Lyna closed it out and finished right after 12:15.












The race was fun, well marked and well attended for a first time event. The prizes were pretty good. 1st place solo male 1,000 bucks. 1st place solo female 1,000 bucks. 1st place Duo male 1,00 bucks. 1st place Duo female 1,000 bucks. 1st place Coed 4 person - Uh, yeah, tickets to 2008 bluegrass festival, which we declined. They also raffled of a Giant trance frame, Cloudveil clothing and other stuff. It was fun for sure, would do it again in a heartbeat.

Friday night at 11:01 pm registration for CX nationals opened, start position is determined by registration time (or by being a celebrity) so I needed to get it on. There was supposed to be free wireless in the hotel, but it was down, luckily the lobby had a computer, so i went and got ready to register, I ended up being the 34th person out of 120 or so to register, so looks like I will be on the 4th row for the start, not too bad. The computer was slow and I did not get registered till about 5 minutes in, oh well.

Speaking of cross, Thursday night was DR X's first practice at the park, over 40 showed up, awesome. My legs were sore after that damned run up.

USGP registration is open, if they base it off of that, I would be on row 1 or 2, alas I believe that they are assigning random start spots.

Here is a map for Out Of Retirement sage of life's mysteries