Surrounded by Apes

Picture yourself surrounded by 700 Mountain Gorrilas. That's where I was saturday morning. Now these weren't your average gorillas, they drank, smoked and generally acting like a bunch of people. It was of course the Denver Gorilla Run. My roomate, a few coworkers and myself signed up at the last minute to get some sweet gorilla suits and run a 6k through Denver.

In the past I had heard that the temperature was pretty cool, considering it's the end of October and all. Well it was 75 and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, great for pics, bad for staying dry. Those suits were roasting, I had to take the mask off a few times to breath.

We decided running wasn't going to be fun enough in gorilla suits so we brought skateboards, the one problem being we had 3 and there was 4 of us. Clown boy solved that by finding a bench 150 yds after we started, took a nap for 45 minutes and then got up and ran back to the finish. It takes a special kind of person to do something like that.

All in all it was fun doing the people slolom on the long board and then boxing CB across the finish in a gorilla suit with boxing gloves.

Man my groin is sore from all the skatin.

JPEG Magazine

Cold this morning

But that means it's even colder in the high country! Hopin to make it to A-basin this weekend to see how the knee is gonna react to the first turns since surgery. I am nervously excited about testing it out, I feel that I have rehabbed it well and the uncomfortableness is all a mental issue.

Hmmm, most of my problems are mental issues...

Back from Amsterdam

What a trip, exhausted from the traveling but an what a trip.

It's not going to be easy getting back into the swing of things but considering there is snow on the ground in the high counrty and I can still Mtn bike here in Boulder it shouldn't take very long.

Coolest thing about Amsterdam, everyone bikes everywhere. People are aware of bikers, cars are aware, other bikers are aware(save for a few oblivious tourists who I saw almost get run over multiple times). I could see enjoying the simpler life in a place like that.

Back on Monday with an update on how the training went this weekend...

www.denvergorillarun.com

Walker Ranch and Choppin Brocoli

"Whoo, I'm throwing rocks tonight!
-Donny, The Big Lebowski

Walker Ranch is an 8-mile loop at the top of Flagstaff mountain in Boulder. The loop begins with a long technical downhill to the valley floor. From there you hike up a large set of steep stairs leading to some more downhill before beginning the first of 2 large ascents. The decent between the two climbs is very technical and I was blasting through it, so much so that my thumb trigger for the rear de-raileur came loose and fell off, now my bike is basically a 3 speed, that made the last climb out brutal, legs are still sore from that one.

Thursday is normally a yoga day but instead last night it was a log day, Burns and I hauled two loads of wood outta the forest and into his truck, we finish choppin and then sell on saturday morning.

There are few things more satisfying than the sound and feeling of a good clean CHOP through a large round where the split pices go flying in opposite directions, SNAP!

Not Stolen...

Phew! After a great ride thursday, up the Link trail 2laps around betasso and down the Link, I woke up friday morning to my bike missing and the lock just sitting on the ground near where the bike had been. I was devasted, not only do I commute to work everyday on that bike but I had my tires and rims from my Franken-bike project on the commuter so I could start going off road. As I was headed for the police station to file a report I get a phone call from my roomate, Clownboy, and he tells me he is the one who stole the bike. He took it to work, even though he has his own bike, and then got drunk and left it inside the bar he works at and got a ride home. Now I don't know what could have compelled him to take my bike or what would have led him to believe it was ok to leave it downtown but either way he had a barrage of tennis balls awaiting him upon return friday afternoon and one his cars may or may not go missing for a few days in the future.

At least the bike didn't get stolen, I'm thinkin of getting one of those locks pee-wee Herman used on his bike in the Big Adventure just in case...

Headin to Betasso again

The above is a pretty nice video of someone on Betasso, some cool angles and fast shots making it look more challenging than it truely is, still it's a lot of fun to train on and is great for me just getting back in the saddle.

Another round of Yoga scheduled for post ride, we'll see how that goes...

No Weights this week

Knee is sore and I don't want to re-injure anything. Just biking a short run and more biking for this week. Training plan almost finished, still working on phase II which is the 12 weeks leading up to the race. The first 12 are set and those weeks are to prepare your body for the coming 12 weeks in which you will learn the limits of what you can handle. For now enjoy this video from last years inaugural XTERRA Winter Worlds...