Not much to write about for the past few weeks. We were hit with the most fantastical round of monsoon moisture that went on for several weeks. Such a relief given the drought and poor irrigation season. My pastures are actually looking really good, considering. But it's meant that I've stayed out of the high country because the storms are dangerous, especially up there. We even had a bolt of lightning hit the ground in the pasture about 50 feet or so from the cow loafing shed and maybe another 40 feet to the house. Scary. And I've actually been sort of kind of training for my upcoming triathlon in Durango and that doesn't involve high country hiking. But I'll get back at it, especially when fall hits.
In general the smoke from the western wildfires hasn't impacted us here too badly but of course the one weekend I had a bike race and people down to visit/ride was the worst air quality so far this summer. I bailed on the race and riding with my friends, the AQI was around 170-180. And the Sleeping Ute looked like this.
Which is to say you couldn't see it at all. No way was I going to exert myself in that soup. My general rule of thumb for exerting myself in wildfire smoke is an AQI less than 70 and decent visibility of the surrounding mountains (Mesa Verde, Sleeping Ute, etc.). We're in uncharted territory with this, I can't find any good research/science about what is actually a safe level of smoke or the long term effects of exertion in wildfire smoke, so I'm taking no chances. So far this rule of thumb has worked well, I've not had any instances of coughing, wheezing, etc. after workouts since moving out here. I have had workouts in Boulder where I thought the smoke level was o.k. but I had a sore throat afterwards so I've sort of figured out what works for me.
Last week saw clear skies and I headed to Lake Nighthorse in Durango to get in some open water swimming and check out the triathlon bike course. I tried swimming in McPhee a month or so ago and it was so low. Some places were deep enough but I'd be swimming along and scrape my hand along the bottom or suddenly notice a pile of dirt or rocks in front of me that normally would be submerged. It was a bit difficult to navigate, I had to keep looking up to see what might appear in front of me. Which I guess is good practice for sighting buoys but was a nuisance in reality.
Poor McPhee
This is what it normally looks like.
Lake Nighthorse is beautiful. Nobody draws on it for irrigation so it was plenty full.
I ran into a guy who was also there to swim and he showed me where I could swim. There was a line of buoys all the way across to the other side of the lake and he said it was about 3/4 mile which seemed a bit ambitious for my first real long distance swim of the season. And I wanted to have something left to ride the bike course. I almost made it to the other side but decided to turn around after 1000 yards. It was a good decision because the bike course ended up being way more difficult and terrifying than I was expecting. About 9 miles or so is on a road with a bike lane but the remaining 3 1/2 are on a road with no bike lane or shoulder. And there was a lot of traffic. I actually turned around on the no shoulder road after maybe a quarter of a mile because it was just too scary. I hate riding in traffic as it is but a busy road with no shoulder is a deal breaker. I was a bit confused about whether or not the road would be open to traffic during the race and I finally just got confirmation from the race director that it will be. I asked him if the road will be busy on a Saturday morning but haven't received a reply. It's an out and back course so cars will be swerving from both sides of the road to avoid cyclists making it even more dangerous. So I may sleep in on race day, we'll see. There's also the possibility of a bad smoke day.
I didn't check out the run course but another guy I met in the parking lot described it to me and it doesn't sound too crazy.
I'm going to continue training because that's the fun part but I dunno, I'll see how I feel about that bike course on race day.
Yesterday I did another 750 meter time trial and my time was 33 seconds improved over my time from 3 weeks ago and still way slow. But that's where I'm at right now, at least I felt confident in the open water and the 750 meter distance seems easy enough. The 2000 meters at Lake Nighthorse felt good too though my pace was so very slow. It is what it is with only 3 months of swimming after a year and a half off. I suppose I'm thankful it isn't worse.
After yesterday's time trial I met some friends to go riding and we started off with a long, steep climb on the road that goes to the trailhead parking lot. The race has a lot of climbing, more steeper climbing than I was anticipating, so I wanted to get some steep climbing in. It was almost 1:00 so the heat of the day and no shade and by the time I got to the parking lot half an hour later I was too dizzy and nauseous to go any further. We stood talking in the shade for a bit so I had a chance to cool down a bit before the steep, twisty descent back to town. They carried on with a big epic ride that was probably too much for me even if I'd driven to the parking lot. I haven't felt that bad in a while, I'm done with the heat of summer. Probably need some more rest days too. Yesterday was supposed to be a recovery day and it ended up being anything but. I feel like the bulk of 'training' is behind me at this point, just need to get a couple rides in on the road bike to make sure the bike is o.k. mechanically. It's 27 years old and the shifters are kinda sketchy. At least I remember the hack to get them working.
Race director just emailed me back and said he has a friend up in the subdivision that the course goes through and the friend saw several cars going 90 on that narrow, shoulderless road. Ugh! I'll see how I feel about this on race day. I guess I can always turn around on the bike course and go back to Lake Nighthorse for more swimming.
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