Boulder 70.3 - 8/5

Well not too much to say here, great field of pro men to race and I was all aqua-bike this day.  With the stress fracture in my right leg I was obviously not running yet, the Boulder 70.3 is in my backyard so I decided to just do the swim and bike.  I thought I might as well train through it.  Swim I was 7th out of the water, through T1 the bike started out at a blistering pace.  I thought I was going to be able to hang no problem knowing that I was not going to run anyway.  But the pace proved too much and I could not hold on to the lead group up front.  It is a little harder to set a fast bike pace when training all week and not resting for the race.  Either way I biked a 2:11 which is very good for me, I still feel like my bike is much better this year.  Now I need to get healthy and back to running again.  It was pretty depressing having everyone cheering in T2, only to walk through, get dressed, and head out again with my bike.  I rode over to a aid station on the run where I had parked before the race for an easy exit.  I handed out water to racers, watched many of the pros go through, then headed home.  A good training day.

Swim - 23:59
T1 - 1:42
Bike - 2:11:01
T2 - n/a
Run - n/a
Total - n/a

Mt Evans Hill climb - 7/21

Mt Evans is a 14er on the front range that has a bike race every year to the summit.  I did this race last year without knowing the course at all, this year I thought I had a better chance.  Shanon decided to come up and watch as well.  Cat 3's were started last so around 10:30 we were off, I stayed with the lead pack for the first 12 miles or so.  After that things began to split up, I fell off the back and rode for a long time with two other guys.  We traded turns up front and after a while we were down to just two.  Past Echo lake and summit lake the air starts to get a little thin and it is very hard to maintain a decent power output.  With about 4 miles to go a few guys that were coming down said that the race was over and turn around now.  At first I thought this was just some sort of nonsense, but with about 3 to go the park service and the race director were turning racers around.  Apparently there was lightning at the peak and at 14k' this can be quite dangerous.  So we headed down to summit lake to pick up our gear bags, the gear bags were not there so we waited a little while then started a chilly decent.  It rained and hailed a little on the way down, so though I was a little disappointed I think it was the right call by the race officials.  Maybe next year they can get off the racers all a little earlier.  I ended my day 3 miles from the summit at 2 hours so I think a 2:20 or so would have been my overall time if I had been able to finish.  Either way I finished 14th place in the CAT 3 division.