Settling In

Home life has been awesome. Sometimes, the simple pleasure of knowing that I am going to wake up to perfect coffee made in the comfort of my own kitchen is all I need to get a good night's sleep.

Speaking of waking up, I had the once-a-season pleasure of getting to sleep in my own bed and race this past Saturday. Sarah K came up for the weekend to do some Elete work and of course to race, too. We had some good times, although she may beg to differ on a few of those good times as I forced her to partake in my favorite recovery techniques - wicked cold stream soaks and Estim on the globus. Seeing as summer just started about 10 days ago and the snow melt is still raging, the water in all the creeks is COLD. At least that means a good soak takes 10 rather than 15-20 min.

Anyway, the 9th round of the Intermountain Cup at Teton Village went well for me. The legs felt good despite being asked to perform during a heavy training block and especially well because the last XC effort I did was at Sea Otter. I got to see a lot of my Jackson pals and the locals definitely put in a good showing. Cary Smith won the pro division by a minute...on a singlespeed. Animal. (He also takes his training tips from Eric.) I managed to win by 4 min or so and was pretty happy with my performance. Of course, there's always room for improvement but I'll take it. It felt good to go that hard again, but I did feel a little bit stunned when I finished after only 1:45 of pedaling. What the heck was I supposed to do with the rest of the day?

With the 7 extra hours of time my body is accustomed to racing Sarah and I went food shopping, leisurely ate our lunches in a quiet park in Jackson, went to a bike shop, went for a soak in Moose Creek, had a BBQ and watched a movie. We were also fresh enough to join the Cycling Junkie, Sourdude and Gabe for a killer 3-hour singletrack hammerfest around Cache Creek in Jackson on Sunday morning.

Ride home from Ashton-great Teton views!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to do one of my favorite road rides in the world, one that I had yet to do all year. I think I can count the number of times I have ridden my road bike since Tucson on my hands alone. Anyway, the ride out to Ashton from Driggs is just awesome - a consistent 40 miles of rollers to get there and of course more of the same on the way home. The scenery alone made my objective of 4 hard hours more enjoyable than usual. Very low traffic, too.

I am sure that will all change leading up to the July 4th weekend. Glenn Beck is coming to Driggs to speak on the 3rd because around here you cannot celebrate the 4th on a Sunday. Yikes. Then, Widespread Panic is also playing down the street at the Spud. Double yikes. I momentarily thought about renting my house out for the weekend's festivities and then couldn't decide which demographic I trusted more - conservatives or dirty hippies. I kid, I kid. Thankfully, I am heading out of town for the Firecracker 50 so I will not be subjected to mayhem!