Silent Trails 2008

This was an experience! WHAT a completely necessary FANTASTIC time!

I drove up straight from work. The weather was nice, the traffic bad, but no auto accidents.

I made it to Cheyenne for dinner, then onwards. Not far out of Cheyenne, in the dark, I drove into a cloud. The next 30 miles were treacherous limited-visibility. Then it started freezing on my windshield. So not only could I not drive the speed limit due to visibility, I had to slow even more for ice. The cloud was only hanging around the ridges.
I took Happy Jack exit to find a place to camp. In the freezing cloud, the mist was billowing across the ground in constant waves. Visibility off the highway was even worse. I don't know what was legal camping and what wasn't, but with visibility sometimes down to 20 feet, I didn't think I'd see another soul - nor would a ranger think of looking for any violators. I don't know where I was - I just drove off into the mist on a dirt road and stopped somewhere.

In the morning, the weather wasn't even a tiny bit better. My car, and my bike outside, were coated in rime-ice.

Alec Muthig and wife Kathy were there, as usual. So was Gail Leedy and Patrick Eastman, people I've met before. Patrick got married this summer.

Things were actually tolerable at the start, but I spent half an hour on the side of the road with a cardboard sign warning people to slow down. In spite of that, several vehicles slid past the turn, but overall, I think I helped keep people out of the ditches. What irony if someone had a car accident at a race in memory of 8 runners who died in an accident.

I felt pretty good at the start of the race. The trail was icy and there were plenty of rocks and tree roots and two streams to leap across. If you add it up, there was maybe 1-2 miles of road, 1-2 miles of double- or wide-track, and the rest was winding single-track through rime-coated aspen and pine. It was MAGICAL! But watch the footing. The few times I had to step on a smooth rock,my foot slid sideways on the ice. My Pearl Izumi's just don't have tread.

Last year, I had a minor asthma attack going up the steepest last part of the major climb. This year, with Albuterol, I had no troubles. I pushed hard, but not 100% because i didn't want to get injured one week before the Boulder 100. It didn't matter - I PR'd anyways. 1:32 (I checked last year's stats - I'm completely missing. So i checked my race report from last year. I neglected to state the finish time, but said I had taken two minutes off my time. So that would mean I took another five minutes off. So, still getting older and faster.
I was 5th in my division. I'm very satisfied, especially since it wasn't a 100% effort.

The post-race is always fantastic. All you can stand to eat. Lots of awards and prizes.