The scene at the dam. The Leadville 100 mountain bike race was on Saturday. Always preceding the 100 mile run by a week, and with Christy and I registered for that race, I thought the best thing I can do in the time remaining is rest. So I headed over to Twin Lakes for the morning to watch the field come through. Being close to town there is always a...
Around mile 12, Christy heads down the road to the Printer Boy Aid station. This was the clearest view of Mount Elbert as weather moved in later and hung around all day. Despite the worst weather in weeks, Sunday’s 2nd Annual Leadville Silver Rush 50 miler will go in the books as another “good day” for Christy and Kathy Fry. Rain at the start thankfully passed as the gun went...
The race was awesome. Reflecting on it briefly here, a few things stick out– I improved on my prior 2007 time, cutting off 1:16, with a good amount of credit due to meeting my goal of getting through aids stops faster. A crash in the early parts slowed me down for a bit, a simplified strategy for food and fluids worked better than my mixed menu last time and the...
You’re only considered to have finished when you kiss the rock. The Hardrock 100 starts tomorrow at 6am, and with any luck could be over sometime Saturday. How will it go? Well, there’s so much to this race, so many variables and unknowns that it’s impossible to say for sure, until it’s over. So I have to fall back on the cliche for my answer– it’s hard telling, not knowing....
Nearing the “Narrows” aid station, near mile 15 Christy and I have run the San Juan Solstice 50 two times now and decided we wanted to try something new. So in place of the Lake City, Colorado race, with it’s huge vertical gains and high elevations, we ventured to a different 50 miler we had long heard of, in northern Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. The Bighorn Wild & Scenic race weekend...
The 12th Annual Elk Mountain Grand Traverse was held this past weekend. Nearly 130 teams of two lined up for the midnight start at the Crested Butte High School, ready to make the 40 mile ski pilgrimage through the night to Aspen. This year’s race was marked by single digit temperatures and driving winds up high which most participants took in stride, because anyone who has done this race knows–...
Curiosity got the best of me this past weekend. I figured joining Christy for her 5th go at the 5th Annual Coureur Du Bois, a 90km skate race from Steamboat to the Wyoming border and back, sounded like good fun. It wasn’t– it crushed me. Who was I to think I could show up with only a single 40km training day and a few shorter races under my belt and...
Christy and I are happy to report we both set personal records at the Owl Creek Chase this year, and by more than twenty minutes! Congrats, right? Well, not so fast (pun intended). For as much as we’d like to take credit for this, being a result of hard work, training, ski prep, or whatever, there was a more obvious reason. The course was 4 km shorter than usual, reduced from...
As part of getting all caught up after our trip, we’ve been chipping away at the Himalayan-like pile of mail that awaited us at home. That means flipping through a glossy ski or climbing magazine faster than Christy can cover a fluffy fashion mag while waiting to check out at the supermarket. So we almost missed the ad. Last June, Art Burrows asked if we’d be interested in taking part...
The ten second countdown to the start of a 100 mile race is a crash course in coping. I often feel a bit sick to my stomach and while standing there I can’t help but think about what is happening, what kind of mistake I’ve made. How did I get in this situation? Why would anyone voluntarily sign up for this, let alone pay money to participate? Will I really watch the sun rise twice while...
We met in Aspen in 2000 and have been happily stuck in the rockies ever since, getting out in the mountains every day we can, in every season and by all means possible. Read More
