Post Laramie I had doubts of being able to make it the complete 75 miles without severe knee problems. The Mt Ogden 50k sealed the deal. So when Ty asked if I wanted to do it Duo, I said, yes. I did waffle back and forth on whether I wanted to do the first or second leg, I settled on teh second, so I could sleep in.
Lyna was the volunteer extraordinaire, giving up most of 2 days to help the registration/race/awards went off without a hitch. To her and all the other volunteers, THANK YOU!!!
Bart and Alex got to Silver Lake in like 2:15, which ramped up my prep timeline, after I helped set up part of the Feed Zone I got dressed, waffled on thermal or regular jersey, as it was raining off and on and cheered on racers and helped feed a few, Chad, who was out checking course markings ahead of the race convinced me to go with just a jersey which was the right move.
Ty and Tanner came in to the transition together and Keegan took off while I was putting the number plate on my bike (It was the 'baton'). I said at that point that there was no way I was catching him, as i am almost 3 times his age.
I caught a Solo guy on the first section of one track and as we crossed the service road I went around him and washed out, oops. No problem, kept going and started up Tour De Suds, this went faster than expected and then on the Guardsman road I came upon Kenny Paper Boying up the road on his belt drive one speed. TG was a blast, Mid Mtn then the brief portion of John's 99 was a blast, Johns trail was hard, but I survived. Up Steps hurt a lot and I tried to conserve for APex and Keystone up above Jupiter, I thought this was going to be the hardest part of my race, alas, it was tame, I was surprised and happy to be to the top so soon, where Erika heckled me. The 6+ Mile downhill was ahead of me, that 6 miles, while fun and fast and only taking 23 or so minutes was the hardest part of the race, my upper body was taking a beating. Fox shoved a dollar at me at the feed station, Ryan and Ty helped me switch bottles and I took off up Spiro, it went pretty well, had one bathroom break and then hit mid mountain 35 minutes later, The gradual rise to the look out went by in about 10 minutes and the next 5 miles went by in 23 minutes, that 23 minutes, I think, was the most fun I had all day, I was flying and grinning and hoping that none of those rocks split a tire, it didn't.
At the Colony aid station, I thought I was going to have to do the whole bibs take down to dissipate discomfort, but it passed, whew, thanks to Hillary for cheering me on.
The climb from Red Pine to Rob's descent was painful, I knew there was one more climb to do, so while Rob's was fun, my mind was reeling for how far down I was going to ride before I had to climb back up. Alas it was 'only' 1.5 miles up and then Holly's down.
I finished my leg just a bit over 4.5 hours. Our total time was 8:01 good for second place, 32 minutes behind the kids.
6 bottles of CarboRocket, 5 Roctanes and a few chomps fueled the day, that a Lyna's waffles.
6 bottles of CarboRocket, 5 Roctanes and a few chomps fueled the day, that a Lyna's waffles.
I won a ton of stuff in the raffles, 2 Canyon's passes, One PCMR pass, 2 fleeces, Winter bib tights, sunglasses, Skullcandy headphones and more.
Shannon, Jay, Brian etc.. did a great job. Free food post race, great prizes for all categories and the Lantern Rouge prize to AL was awesome.
