But the crazy days of rain and rain and rain had their consequences. An outdoor agility trial a few weeks ago got moved to an indoor venue at the last minute. And even so I only just made it there, the rain and roads were sketchy. But we had a lot of fun, especially poor stir crazy Strummer, and he won him a masters jumpers class with some very strong world class competition. Also a nice Grand Prix run with weave pole entry and beautiful turn off of dogwalk but alas a teeter fault that was my fault. Fun courses, good times with my crazy buddy.
But the biggest disruption that has lead to an interesting goal is Xterra Lory. Once again poor Xterra Lory is postponed. A couple of years ago due to an early season fire that destroyed all the bridges and now due to flood. Or rather super muddy trails. Too muddy for racing. Riding on muddy trails is very bad for the trails and Lory State Park doesn't want their trails trashed and I don't blame them. I was very happy when they postponed the race mostly because the weather called for mid-40's and raining on race day morning and let's not even talk about how cold Horsetooth Reservoir must be right now. O.k., let's talk about it. 52 degrees today which is race day. Pretty sure I would have bailed. As it happened it was sunny and in the 50's (air temp.) this a.m. but still, 52 degree water temp. I've never been in water that cold. Can you say hypothermia? So I'm not shedding any tears about not racing today.
But here's the pickle. They've moved to race to the day before another Xterra that I had on my schedule. I had to option to enter any other Xterra that the race director offered and at first I put my name down for a transfer to a race in August. Then an evil little voice put an evil idea in my head. Why not do both? When does that opportunity ever present itself? So an Xterra Double Weekend it is. I think the hardest part will be the driving. 1 hour 20 minutes to get home from Lory then 5 1/2 hours to the next race. All told over 8 hours of driving in one day. A horrible proposition. If it's true that 'the more you drive, the less intelligent you are' then I'm in trouble with this endeavor.
That classic Repo Man quote is at the end of this clip.
But I'm taking it on nonetheless. Not a huge crazy thing in light of all the huge crazy things people are taking on these days. Like 50 ironmans in 50 days in 50 states. That guy better hope Otto is well of the mark about driving. I can't even imagine the logistics of 50 states in 50 days let alone throwing an ironman into the mix. That endeavor makes mine seem easy peasy by comparison. But I'm not a dude in my 30's who trains for triathlons for a living. I think my goal is plenty ambitious for a nearly 51 year old with gimpy knees and an extreme distaste for driving, someone who whines about only 2 weeks of recovery between races. I think a part of me was hoping my coach would talk me out of it but she's supportive of it and says it'll help me build muscle. So no excuses not to do it. Will be an interesting experiment if nothing else.
In the meantime I've been training despite the weather and a busy schedule with clients this month. I did get very lucky with some short blocks of rain free time falling between clients and other appointments. And I got to see the baby buffaloes. Sometimes I miss them because I'm always on trails but the trails are shut due to mud so I had a few long rides out on the dirt roads to see the baby buffs.
I made it up to Hall Ranch at the end of April before Rainpocalypse started in earnest and ran into this crew.
Still a lot of snow on the high peaks even before the deluge.
The forecast looks more seasonal, even hot, for next week so I should be back to normal training, normal spring/summer type activities. Which is good because 2 Xterra's in 2 days? I'm going to need it.
