Saturday felt good with a ride up Rose Canyon and Butterfield Canyon. I did the first half with Jen up Rose and then headed for Butterfield solo. Upon arrival at the bottom of the canyon I noticed that the gate was now open allowing cars up. This gave me hope that they'd cleared the road of the winter debris so I decided to go to the top if time allowed.
The scenery was beautiful as usual and it must be snake season once again as I saw several slithering across the road. I even saw a large one being clutched by a hawk while flying about 50 feet over my head. That was cool. The road was good until about the half-way point. Though it was much better than in the previous weeks it still had tones of loose gravel and large rocks scattered over the road. It made standing on the pedals impossible at times as your back wheel would just slip on the loose stuff. If I hadn't committed to going to the top I would've turned around right there but I kept saying to myself that I'd go just a little further to see how it was. It got a little better nearer the top but still not good by any sense of the word.
I'm excited about the upcoming stage race this weekend. It's located here in my backyard of Herriman and I hope to redeem myself from the last race. I'll give a full report. Meanwhile, I thought I'd post a couple more pics from our recent D.C. trip.
Waiting for the Preakness to start.
One of my favorite Monet's at the National Gallery of Art.
Waiting for the Trey concert at the Kennedy Center.
This past week Jen and I went to Washington D.C. with the original intent to see a concert we've always wanted to see but we realized as the trip drew closer that the running of the Preakness Derby was the same weekend that we left and was only about an hour away in Baltimore, and yes, that's also something I've always wanted to see so we bought tickets to that as well. I'm glad we did because it was awesome. We loved seeing the horses up close. They were unbelievably beautiful. I became a fan of horse racing when I was a kid and I watched the Preakness on TV one year in what became an epic race between two of the most beautiful horses I'd seen, Sunday Silence and Easy Goer. Since that race I've always tried to catch all of the Triple Crown races in hopes to someday see a Triple Crown winner. (It hasn't happened yet.) With this in mind I was obviously cheering for the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Orb, to win the Preakness as well with the hopes of him going on to win the Belmont. Sadly, it didn't happen. That was really the only disappointment of the day. We watched all the races leading up to the main event and we were entertained to watch the crowd slowly get more and more smashed. I believe free beer came with a purchase of the ticket so it was incredible to watch how drunk people were getting. I really hope some of them made it home. Anyway, here is a clip of the horses loading into the starting gate at the top of the stretch where we
were seated....
As I mentioned, the second reason we were there was for a concert. It was the lead singer of the band Phish, Trey Anastasio, playing with the National Symphony Orchestra. Trey has done these types of concerts before and a recording of one that he played a few years ago has been one of our favorite albums so we said that if he ever did it again and we could get tickets, we'd go. We got tickets.
It was a strange sight to see mostly hard core phish fans in the Kennedy Center dressed in sport jackets and trying to behave themselves while a such a fancy place. I've been to plenty of phish concerts in the past and there is always plenty of cheering and dancing and singing along with every song. At this concert; which granted, isn't a phish concert everyone sat quietly in there seats listening to every note. You really could hear a pin drop. I shot a small clip with my phone. They were really strict about no photography so I had to shoot it from my lap and I had to turn it off when the usher came to tell me to knock it off. We had great seats. 9th row. The video doesn't do it justice but here it is anyway...
We also planned on some riding around the D.C. area a couple of the free mornings. We did the Mt. Vernon trail that was beautiful but slow going due to it being a trail small, heavily used trail. I've always disliked having to ride a road bike on biking trail. Sure, you're away from traffic but you can never get real serious about your ride. But it was better than nothing. Here is the strava report from one of the days.
I've been able to ride some of my favorite climbs the last few days. Only problem, Butterfield still has lots of debris on the second half of the climb. So much so, I wasn't able to get to the top. See video below:
On Tuesday I did Little Cottonwood. I rode from my office which totals well over 4000 ft of climbing to the top. It was way too hot for this time of year. Almost 90 degrees at the start. The rivers were really high and fast as the snow melts in the heat. It was probably 20 to 30 degrees cooler at the top but still I ran out of water and they didn't have the fountain setup at Alta yet. I was able to get some at the bottom though before I was too dehydrated. I snapped a couple of photo's at the top.
Alta still covered in snow.
It was much colder up top but still the snow was melting fast.
On another note, I got my front wheel back from Zipp yesterday. I'm still seething at the fact they wouldn't warranty it. I had to pay for them to repair it. I am never going to buy another product from them again. I'll do a full account of the episode later.
I received notice early this morning that I've been selected in the lottery to race lotoja again this year. Let the training officially begin. (I'm not sure it ever ended) I'm excited to do it again. I will try to not fixate too much on it this summer but it's nothing to take lightly. Wish me luck.
Saturday was the Antelope Island Classic which was my first ever road race last year and I had so much fun at the time that I was sure to enjoy this years as well, or so I thought. And really, it was enjoyable for the first 30 miles in. I raced with the Cat 4's which started at 8:00 a.m. I considered racing with the Master 35+ group but they didn't start until 11:45 a.m. and I wanted to get race over as soon as possible so that I could take my kids to the zoo in the afternoon. The weather was perfect for a bike race and having done the race before I wasn't a bit nervous. The race started a lot less hectic than last years as the main group stayed for the most part together across the causeway and back and for most of the laps around the north end of the island. By the second lap a few people started dropping off the back. By the third I was dropped as well. I found myself in no-mans-land riding by myself while I finished my laps and headed to the south end of the island. As I battled the wind I remember looking at my mileage and thinking that the turn around to the finish line better be coming soon because I was getting close to the stated end-mileage that was suppose to be the distance of our race group. I began to suspect that I did an extra lap on the north end. As I watched the riders in my group heading back toward the finish line as I was still headed out toward the turn around point my suspicions were confirmed as I saw riders who I thought were behind me now in front of me. I felt so stupid. I had thoughts of turning around right then and abandoning the race but I decided against that and just push on to the finish. I ended up finishing dead last of those that finished in my group having gone about 4 more miles than everyone else. Below is the Strava report on the ride:
After realizing my mistake I had a hard time staying motivated on the tale end of the race. I was so mad at myself but tried to just enjoy the beautiful scenery. But as I enjoyed the scenery I probably wasn't pushing myself as hard as I should. Like I said, it was hard to stay motivated at that point. Still, I'm already planning to do this race again next year.
That afternoon Jen and I took our kids to the zoo which was fun as far as the zoo goes (never been a fan) and with the weather being a bit cooler it made things a bit more enjoyable. On the car ride home we got stuck behind a major roll-over accident on I-215. Though we didn't witness the accident we were the first car stopped while they preformed the rescue effort. We tried to keep our kids occupied because it wasn't a pleasant scene. A women had been ejected from a truck and remained lying in the middle of the road and a man was trapped under the truck while rescue crews tried to get him out. I read later in the news that 3 people where in critical condition from the accident but they were all expected to live.
On Friday I hope to find out that I made it into Lotoja. I'm excited for that. I'm also excited to hopefully redeem myself at the B4K stage race later in the month which will be my next scheduled road race. That race comes on the heals of a vacation we plan to take so I'm hoping I will still have good fitness but really, I don't care because I'm looking forward to this vacation.
