Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Neoprene Season Starts Today and I'd Better Start Hitting My Bike

Open water season at the Rez started this morning and it was a perfect day - unseasonably warm air temperature for this time of year and the Rez was in the low 60's which is also warm for this time of year but not warm in general.  I did one 1000 meter loop and called it a day.  I was to the point where I couldn't tell if I was cold or not and figured that was a bad sign for doing another loop.  Probably should have manned up and at least done the shorter 500 meter loop but I had a good swim workout yesterday and I need to get on my bike today.  When I got home I noticed a pinkie finger was white so it was probably a good decision.

I'm feeling a renewed urgency to hit the bike because I haven't ridden in ages and someone posted the following to the Facebook page of the group that puts on the Curt Gowdy Xterra:

Time for some input on Xterra Curt Gowdy bike course.
OK...I agree that it's not mountain biking unless there's blood, but . . .  I rode the course last week and all I can say, prepare for carnage. There's "IMBA advanced" and there's "Xterra advanced" and that is one major difficult, technical and long course. Beginners are gonna freak. 

I'm not a beginner but I don't like super technical trails, especially when I've also got to swim and run and do it all under race conditions.  I can't get up to Wyoming to pre-ride the course until 2 weekends before the race unless I go up on my own during the week which I'm not tempted to do. I'm not to the point of panic, I would consider the trails I ride up at West Mag to be Intermediate level trails and those trails at Curt Gowdy are labeled Intermediate.  There are a few short sections on the course labeled Advanced and the race director did warn there would be a few short technical sections that some folks would have to get off for.  But I wasn't expecting a super crazy hard course with extra carnage.  The only thing for it is to bike bike bike and keep calm until I can get up there to check it out for myself.

2 comments:

  1. Fingers crossed that it's just the opinion of a wimpier personality LOL!

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  2. Unfortunately I think the guy who posted that is a very experienced rider. More discussion has ensued and according to the race director there's a killer climb at the very end. I wish I could get up there at least twice before race day but I'm not sure that's realistic. Ah well, this will not be an 'A' race.

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