Today's Routine

06:30 five thousand easy meters.

08:30 Drive three to 'bowl for MST practice. Ski AM bowl runs on the ice.

12:30 Ski Cloud Nine (E of E) watching what SP has learned from his Little Griz coaches, doing monkey turns on the ice. Then, SP gets to practice with older kids getting ready for next week's slalom held at the 'bowl. Finish day w/ three Griz chutes. Watch gelande event from Griz lift during laps.

15:45 Ride Jake to Bitterroot River via Trail's End Rd and back. By the way, cyclists beware, there is a vicious dog at the top of Trail's End Road that almost tore my heels off coming back up. I thought about posting the name on the mailbox of the garage he headed back into, but will hold off for the moment.

Should sleep pretty well.

Marathons Firmed

Test of Endurance 50 (OR) Todd and I will both (they're including something for jrs.) compete in this event put on by the good folks at MudSlinger in Oregon.

Butte 100 (MT) A local favorite, but not for kids.

Point2Point (UT) Max put me on this. It should be good.

Meet Red

The nice weather is too much. Time to get out the new rig and do some riding. As previously mentioned, I decided in December to purchase a full suspension bike for the longer races. I pulled the hydraulic brakes and will be changing tires and a few other things, but this is the new ride. Still untested. I loved my G. F. Sugar, which was light and fast. I had my friends at the Hanger look deep into their closet to find Fisher's last 26" full suspension race rig for me. Seems '09 was the last year for this size f/s wheel from the Fisher folks as they have gone 29er crazy. Pete found one and was once again very nice to me. He also managed to get Bontrager to replace the broken carbon handlebar! Now, what to do with that bar? Thanks Pete!

Sunday Sunrise

Another Chapter Ends

The little man completed his last Cookie Cup today. Big brother and sister were cheering away. That's a wrap for our three rascals in the Little Griz program at the 'bowl. Another blink moment in life. Today's race once again went off without a hitch on a beautiful day. It did get a little cold later in the day, but the racers were all champs and all received medals. Thanks go out once again to all of the Little Griz coaches and volunteers who truly help children get down the basics early, setting the fundamentals for the next stage (be that what it may).

Happiness

I'm starting to get the hang of the Log Card and PM4 finally. Got the h/r strap to work with both the watch and the monitor today too. Pretty nice. Cranked out a half marathon today at 1.21.33.4 and increased the effort during the second half. Happy with that big time. Time to do a little work on the 2k.

Finally getting a little snow outside too! We need that. Tomorrow, back to the hill.

Great Day!

Congratulations to Mrs. Vonn today! First female American to win Olympic gold in the downhill. Incredible run. Awesome!

More on Bicycles in the Woods

The March 2010 issue of Outside just arrived and page 22 has an important article written by Mr. John Bradley. The article outlines the Wilderness issues facing mountain bikers. "The government's ban on bicycles in Wilderness areas is dead wrong." "...Forest Service proposals in Montana could ban bikes from any area that might theoretically be designated as Wilderness." The article cites an interesting National Park Service study from 2006 outlining mountain bikes' minimal erosion impact on trails compared to other trail users. Bradley's piece is well written. Buy a copy and have a look.

Drill Drill Drill!

Well, it was no school on President's day, so we took a little trip over to Georgetown after volunteering for a local race at the 'Bowl on Saturday. I put the senior LR to work with the big drill we had borrowed. A pretty slick job that ran like a weed eater once he pulled hard enough.It took him a little while to get the hang of it, but before long we had about four holes in over two feet of ice. The last time I went ice fishing was when I was a student at the UM and it was basically an all night party until my friend dropped his Motorola radio (expensive in 1990) in the hole and we ended up fishing it out by the cord the next morning with a large anchor/claw device of some sort the local officer let us borrow. Somehow through the use of chemicals, he got it working again. A couple of folks were catching fish, but we decided we did not have the patience for this and, anyway, I had forgotten the maggots to put on the Swedish pimples we were dropping through the ice. There were trucks on the ice. I think the snowmobilers were having the most fun. A group of them came by in the back of the above photo. Well, this was a new experience and something different anyway!

Today's Goal: Mellow Out

After the below half marathon stats [Peanut Butter post] that looked like major shock treatment, I decided to mellow out on today's and get the ave. h/r down, but keep the time pretty close. 1.22.14.1 versus the below 1.22.07 below. I kept the h/r below 170 for all of it except the last five minutes. Also, did not go as hard on 2nd half as last effort (see watts). It's kinda fun to play with the system and the software. A guy can get lost in it actually. It's time to change the diet and get on the bike. Looking forward to some long rides.

PS. Max, today I put in for your recommended P.C. PtP race. Hope we get in some skiing prior to that!

Nice Opening Night

We are fortunate to have such good neighbors to the north. Love Canada! However, we'll be pulling for Miller tomorrow and the US Team in the men's downhill.

Peanut Butter Time

Attempted something different on today's 1/2 marathon over lunch. Tried to bump up the effort on the back half (reverse split or something like that :~) okay, negative... too many serious folks out there). I went a bit too soft initially and wound up working too hard on the back end, but still ended up with my best time yet on one of these. Was hoping to go sub 1.22, but just missed it. So, the result will be to continue with this method, learning how to increase the effort on the second half with out blowing up. Really felt it on the last 3k. I did not use the h/r strap that came with the erg's PM4 monitor as I can't figure out how to use both it and the watch (where my software is) at the same time.

[side note: I have to say one thing about the epoc and te and that is that it picked up pretty well on the week's effort, with two additional hard days earlier in the week and not much training recently prior to that. Time to recover.]

Butte!

It's what's for dinner. A little humor there Bob! I'm coming home again and excited about it.

I read a great article in my latest hard copy of Dirt Rag Mag which discussed underground mountain bike events that are going to begin to occur (or have been occurring) in the country given the economic state of things and the ridicules cost of endurance events. Kinda brought things to mind around dodge actually.

Back to the subject at hand. The Butte 100 is without a doubt bang for the buck the greatest ultra endurance event for mountain bikers in the country. This will be my third year racing in this event and I'm excited to revisit the course which is principally single track and climbs along the CD and Nez Perce Trails. I've written some reports on past races for this event under race reports on this blog, but a favorite read on this race was last year's Report by Mr. Keyes.

Anyway, I'll be in Butte with friends for this one again this year. Oh, and this year on a fully too! Hope you can make it as well.

ERGing

We thought of affiliation with an alum group or places I attended (noting CMA, UM and NU as some options), but then decided we ultimately are Sheepheads (a loose knit group of outdoor athletes - mostly mountain bike dirt lovers - scattered throughout) and therefore created our own affiliation. If anyone wants to erg with us, welcome aboard. We intend to maintain the erg as part of our mountain bike training as we have always done, now with a C2Log. Peacher just put in her first 2k.