So we are back in Montana after a great weekend of races, and a lot of drive time. Erin completed her 1/2 Iron Man in Boise in grand style. She checked her bike in on Friday afternoon and then spent the next few hours agonizing about her nutrition plan. The Boise 1/2 Iron transitions sound somewhat brutal...for starters, the swim-->bike transition is in a different place (miles away) from the bike-->run transition. You have to pack up your transition stuff in a bag, drop the bags off prior to the race (which means you can't really pre-mix your nutrition, etc).
To make matters even more challenging, Saturday was really windy in Boise which proved to be a real butt kicker on the bike. While I was waiting for Erin in the bike to run transition I kept hearing all the people coming in off the bike saying they were battling headwinds all day...ouch! We all know how headwinds can make a long day in the saddle a very very long day. I was surprised by how good she looked going from her bike to her run. She had a bounce to her step so figured her chances of finishing were really good. As it turns out she surprised me by how fast she did her run. She crushed the run after suffering those brutal headwinds on the bike. She finished her first 1/2 Iron Man in sub 7 hrs...very impressive indeed!
Knobbytire 9to5 Race Report:
Earlier in the day, I started the Boise knobbytire 9to5 race. It is an 8 hour race where you see how many laps you can do around a particular course in the span of 8 hours. Each lap was about 9.25 miles long with about 1400 ft of elevation gain. I decided it would be a great barometer for the Cascade Cream Puff in early July. I decided to use the singlespeed (in hopes of laying to rest whether or not to singlespeed the Cream Puff). I ran a gear ratio of 33 x 18 which ended up being a good choice as there were no climbs that were long and steep (definitely some that were short and steep, and others that were long and not so steep). It was the perfect course for a singlespeed as you could carry some momentum (if you laid off the brakes) on the downhills into the ups.
I managed 7 laps which was a good training day (ended up being close to about 10,000ft of climbing for me that day). I felt decent throughout the day considering the heat wave of a day (relative to our colder weather I had been training in). The legs felt OK and although it was a hard day, I did not really start to suffer until the last lap. What is encouraging is that the legs seemed to recover well the day after too (a little stiff but no soreness). I plan on getting out on the bike today and seeing what they feel like. It should be a decent precursor to the Cream Puff. The Puff will be a long day (hoping for only 13 hrs) but I will have a full taper and will probably also run a slightly easier ratio of 33 x 19 on the singlespeed for a little extra buffer when the body starts to ache and the legs start to rebel later in the race. The Puff will certainly be a long day with an estimated 14-16K of climbing.
I might have been able to get an 8th lap in if not having been bottlenecked the first lap. The race went into some tight singletrack early on and people who could not ride through technical areas were dismounting and not letting the rest of us go by. It did open up a few miles later which was good. It might have been just enough to prevent the 8th lap for me (if I would have come in about 5 mins earlier I would have probably tried to head out for lap 8. It would have been close though as I would have had to dig deep to make it in time for the 5 p.m. cutoff.
The course and event were awesome! They did a great job of trail maintenance and the way the course was set up, you could swing by your car making self support ridiculously easy. I had the tail-gate down and put my water and nutrition in the bed of the truck so that I was able to re-fill on each lap. I did not even have to veer off the course to get access to my stuff - very very well laid out.
Boise:
Erin and I were both impressed by Boise. There is a very active bike community with hundreds of miles of singletrack access out of your back door. It is amazing how much trail access you have. The old part of town has tons of character with lots of Victorian and Craftsman style homes. The finish area of the triathlon was downtown and when I walked to the finish area, I stumbled upon a block that had Basque restaurants on both sides of the street! As Erin was suffering during her run, I was quaffing a brew and eating a tortilla patata (almost got the croquetta)...mmmm mmmm good. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by the cultural options that Boise offered.
We also decided to take the scenic way on the way back to Montana. We drove via the scenic 55 through Mcall to Missoula - what an amazing drive! It turned a 7 hour drive (via highways) into a twisty 2 lane 10 hour drive but it was well worth the scenery.
stay tuned...name of the blog might changed to Velo-Drama...Erin thinks it would be a great name for a women's bike team! The story behind that is that I was checking in for the Boise 9to5 on Friday evening. The check in was at the future site of the Boise velodrome. Erin mis-read the sign as velo-drama and that little catch phrase subsequently stuck for the rest of the weekend!
congrats on your finish erin!
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