SLC and the Outdoor Retailer Show
I flew into SLC on Friday to meet up with my girl, and hit the Outdoor Retailer Show. Krissy has just completed a 14 day 6 hour fast pack of the Colorado Trail. It' s great to see her smiling face again.
Packing all night Thurs, I arrived on zero sleep (it's good training right?) and we hit the Outdoor Retailer show. It's been a blast, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Loads of cool gear and fun events, met with some of my sponsors and even saw a drag show. We preached the gospel of nuun, active hydration, and gave out tube after tube. The joke of the show was how every 1.5 hours Krissy would get a job offer. Kind of amazing, you could set your watch by it. It was great to see lots of friends including Mike Bitton, who was there reporting for CheckpointZero.com (THE adventure racing news website). He sat me down for a quick interview.
Saturday night we went for a run with Scott Jurek, Karl Meltzer and Roch Horton. We did a 13 smile loop out of Big Cottonwood Canyon to Desolation Lake with just under 3,000 feet of gain. Absolutely beautiful terrain, and it's obvious with the legendary snow this place gets the backcountry skiing is endless and insane!
Monday Krissy, Roch and I did one of Roch's staple runs up Mount Granduer, another 2,800 foot climb to the top and about a 9 mile run. So beautiful. Then I pulled the Turner Flux out, had Krissy drop me at the top of Brighton Ski Resort. I hammered out along the Ridge trail, over Red Lovers Pass and down Mill Creek Canyon for a good 25 miles with 5,000 + feet of sweet downhill and just 1,200 feet of climbing. The trails here are super smoothing and fun. I am really hating my Stan's No Tube setup however. On TWO downhills I got flats that caused me to crash hard. I was flying downhill with a silly grin on my face when I felt the front tire get sloppy but had not chance to react.. the tire washed out on the corner and I ate shit. Put a tube in, cursed Stan's then continued down the epic terrain. I was almost at the end of the ride, right where it gets steep and super rocky when it happened again. This time I flew off the side of the trail, into the bushes/rocks/rattlesnake homes of Rattlesnake Creek. I escaped with only a few scratches and a deep hatred of Stan's No Tubes.
Today we are meeting up with Cyril and Silvy for a ride at Soldier Hollow just south of Park City. I'm planning on doing the 24 hours of Soldier Hollow on Sept 9th so it will be nice to get a ride on the terrain before hand. I'm trying to prepare for the Solo 24 Hour Mountain Bike World Championships Oct 7th in Georgia. From Soldier Hollow it's on to Oregon where I'll pace Krissy at the Where's Waldo 100k (62 miles). This will be fun as I get to run 30 of the miles with her! It will be interesting to see what she can pull off having just gotten done with the Colorado Trail, 14 days averaging 33 miles a day. She is super human though so the smart money says she'll win.
Packing all night Thurs, I arrived on zero sleep (it's good training right?) and we hit the Outdoor Retailer show. It's been a blast, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Loads of cool gear and fun events, met with some of my sponsors and even saw a drag show. We preached the gospel of nuun, active hydration, and gave out tube after tube. The joke of the show was how every 1.5 hours Krissy would get a job offer. Kind of amazing, you could set your watch by it. It was great to see lots of friends including Mike Bitton, who was there reporting for CheckpointZero.com (THE adventure racing news website). He sat me down for a quick interview.
Saturday night we went for a run with Scott Jurek, Karl Meltzer and Roch Horton. We did a 13 smile loop out of Big Cottonwood Canyon to Desolation Lake with just under 3,000 feet of gain. Absolutely beautiful terrain, and it's obvious with the legendary snow this place gets the backcountry skiing is endless and insane!
Monday Krissy, Roch and I did one of Roch's staple runs up Mount Granduer, another 2,800 foot climb to the top and about a 9 mile run. So beautiful. Then I pulled the Turner Flux out, had Krissy drop me at the top of Brighton Ski Resort. I hammered out along the Ridge trail, over Red Lovers Pass and down Mill Creek Canyon for a good 25 miles with 5,000 + feet of sweet downhill and just 1,200 feet of climbing. The trails here are super smoothing and fun. I am really hating my Stan's No Tube setup however. On TWO downhills I got flats that caused me to crash hard. I was flying downhill with a silly grin on my face when I felt the front tire get sloppy but had not chance to react.. the tire washed out on the corner and I ate shit. Put a tube in, cursed Stan's then continued down the epic terrain. I was almost at the end of the ride, right where it gets steep and super rocky when it happened again. This time I flew off the side of the trail, into the bushes/rocks/rattlesnake homes of Rattlesnake Creek. I escaped with only a few scratches and a deep hatred of Stan's No Tubes.
Today we are meeting up with Cyril and Silvy for a ride at Soldier Hollow just south of Park City. I'm planning on doing the 24 hours of Soldier Hollow on Sept 9th so it will be nice to get a ride on the terrain before hand. I'm trying to prepare for the Solo 24 Hour Mountain Bike World Championships Oct 7th in Georgia. From Soldier Hollow it's on to Oregon where I'll pace Krissy at the Where's Waldo 100k (62 miles). This will be fun as I get to run 30 of the miles with her! It will be interesting to see what she can pull off having just gotten done with the Colorado Trail, 14 days averaging 33 miles a day. She is super human though so the smart money says she'll win.
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