A little update post Lotoja

Check out my sweet new liscense plate! Ya, I was a little tired the other day. My job was to keep Liam awake, but who was supposed to keep me awake?


No, I am not writing to tell you that I am writing my own blog (barely have enough time to write to this one these days). It will be fun to read what you have to say on your own posts. Don't forget us here at the GC.

Post Lotoja isn't going as well as hoped. I am a little frustrated at this point. After Lotoja I felt great, probably the best I had felt after any of them. I was thinking I would jump right back into my normal riding life, but things happen differently than planned. I started riding easy and it felt fine, but one day I road a little harder and started to notice a pain in my knee. It kept getting worse. I now believe I have torn my I.T. band (don't ask me to spell out what I.T. stands for). Which means it is always swollen and hurts when I ride hard. I tried to take a few days off of it and ride easy, but it still isn't getting any better. There are a few cross races I want to do, but if my knee doesn't get any better I won't be able to race them. Oh the joy of getting old. It was still worth the pain to ride Lotoja. It is always good to accomplish the ride and see the family. Take care and hope your riding is less painful than mine.

Tanner is leaving the fold also

Sorry team, I am following my fathers lead and starting a blog of my own......stop crying you will get over the loss and I will still occasionally post an amazing piece of literature here, or you can check out http://thenextlocalhero.blogspot.com for regular posts

New Blog

I've started a new blog for my ramblings. Here's the link:

http://www.dccrossings.blogspot.com/

Check it out.

Daren

Cool new ride

On Saturday afternoon I took Glen's tandem back and then went to ride with Mindy's uncle Dave (He's been riding my old E5). We rode up over Suncrest (hard on the tandem), down into Alpine and then around point of the mountain back to Dave's house (just off 110 south). Dave rides up Suncrest ever other day and even road a leg of Lotoja (strong rider). He wants to ride Lotoja with us next year and I think he would be a great addition if he can get in. By the time we finished the ride we were soaked, but it was a good 35 mile loop with about 6 miles of climbing. We need to ride it as a team next year only(good change).

I'm not sure if I'm going to race on Saturday, because I haven't been riding that hard since Lotoja and I'm not sure my legs would be any good towards the finish of a 45 min crit.

Relaxed

4 and 1/2 days of this view.

Lotoja 2009?

The tandem is in and I'm already working on a training schedule to improve the tandem's performance from this year (Sorry we weren't much help towards the last half Bub). Before I continue I must give a big thanks to Bub who pull for a long time, thanks again. I must also thank the team for not bonking and being patient with the weakest climbing link (tandem) and Mindy's need to use the bathroom every hour (On the side of the road or wherever). After a few days of food and sleep I'm looking forward to next year.

Mindy posted most of our Lotoja photo's on our family blog, so go check it out.
Big thanks again to all those who make this event happen (Doug, Peterson's), but next year we need to all start at the same time (fun ride at 6 am). It just wasn't the same not riding to Preston together.

Lotoja 2008

The day of reckoning is over - I am in the 1,000 mile club! All the time and enery to train makes you feel like you earned every mile of it. It was fun to get to see everyone again. When it comes to the Lotoja - you love it and you hate it at the same time. It is always better when you are finished. The first 100 was probably the easiest we have done so far. The last 100 wasn't as easy, but we made it. I don't know how Sutt managed the tandem on all those hills. It was pretty draining. It was good to see Doug and Russ make it without throwing up or bonking. Mindy, welcome to Lotoja crew. She was great. She always had a smile on her face. Rob is quoted as saying, "this was the easiest one so far" (some might think otherwise - me included). I have to say that this is the best I have felt after the race. I can walk without pain. I even road my bike today to work at a moderate intensity. I am still feeling really tired and wanted to take a nap today during my break. Thanks again for all the support vehicles, we couldn't do it without you.

Sittin' in the airport

Needless to say, getting here has been quite the adventure. Where to start? On Monday we found out that Brooke's grandpa passed away in this sleep the previous night. He is a great guy and will be missed. We made arrangements for Brooke to go out to the funeral on Friday. With the high gas prices and $$$$ for parking it didn't make sense for us to drive two cars up to Portland, so I made arrangements to leave early on Thursday (my second day of school) to go up with Brooke earlier on Thursday.

I had a project due on Sept. 6, obviously the same day as the race, so I knew I had to get it in early. I stayed to work on it at school on Wednesday night. I am creating a webpage about the acheivement of the school, including a podcast and photo's of the school. I had it all updated and on the net. Came in Thursday morning to find that the server had crashed that night and some of my work was gone and it was no longer on the net. The IT people said the server should be up by noon. I waited thinking I could publish quick before I left, but it never happened. The server never came back up. I emailed my professor the situation, but haven't heard back yet. This part is yet to be resolved...

Continuing with the story... Brooke cames to pick me up at the school. When she gets out of the car she has a look of disgust on her face and she is shacking her head. As I get closer to the van I catch a wiff of something really bad. Upon closer examination I see orange stuff all over Liam. Liam looks at me and says, "I threw up carrots!" We are supposed to be dropping off Liam and Avery at Alissa's in Portland and Liam is sick! I thought that maybe it was car sickness, but on the way up he continued to throw up. Each time missing his cup and getting all over him. We went through three outfits. The thought kept coming to mind, "what am I going to do?" We called lis and she said to bring him anyway. Spread the wealth! She deserves a gold star for this one. I took him over later when the kids were asleep. I got our kids situated and spent some time cleaning up the throw up. During the night he threw up once in the night around 12. I gave hime a blessing because I was getting pretty nervous. He got up at 3:30 and was a new kid. He was bouncing all over the place, so I could tell he was feeling better. Well, this made me feel a little better about leaving my boy. Thanks again lis and Rob P.

But the story doesn't end yet. As I was driving up the "maint check" light came on in our car! This is why we got a newer car - to avoid this kind of stuff. Reliability. I got the oil checked, but it was still on. I am at a loss with this one. Have to figure this out when I get back.

I am now in the airport about to load. I made it. Crazy as it is - I made it. I will tell you if it is worth it after 11 hours of riding. See you all real soon.

3 day

With three days to go and I'm still thinking of how we can improve our ride and ride time for the past years.

1. I know GC Connection likes to make a statement at the front of the pack, but we can draft towards the front.

2. If we find ourselves at the front of a big pack let's pull off and DRAFT.

3. Lets try to keep our stops at the feeds stations to 5-10 min max.

4. Drafting behind the tandem is great, but we need a draft once in a while too.

5. Make sure we eat and drink early. Doug was awesome at the Tour de Park City, because of just that.

6. If you aren't praying for good weather, start tonight!!!!

7. Charge up your MP3 players

8. Keeping a good pace between 21-23 for the duration is better than going 25-28 for five hours and then finishing at 17-20

9. If you need a laugh or your just thinking of why we do this, remember the funny experiences from years past. (Kim going to the bathroom last year)

10. We'll be waiting for you with fresh legs in Preston (Tandem starts almost a hour before the rest of you)

See ya in a couple of days. Mindy is so excited it funny. If you need any motivation just give her a call.

Home grown

My neighbor told me Viagra was great fertalizer for tomatoes. Hope everyone is well. 8 days til the fun begins. I know Daren and T are feeling bad about not riding. Russ better be riding a bike up in the Unitahs. He is hunting the mighty elk with a bow, good luck. Ride safe.

Dirt

The best part about riding cross bikes on MTB trails is the looks people give you. T and I ventured into Draper's Corner Canyon on the cross bikes Saturday for some off-road training. There were a bunch of MTB's out and they gave us the "what's with the road bikes" look. It's best when you pass MTB's going down hill.

I'm back on the bike this week. Probably racing the Crit and TT. Cross season will be here sooner than I know. I have three sets of tubulars to glue up this week then T and I will be set. Good stuff.

Oh yea, I'm still a hunter, not a killer.

Long time, no write

First, I need to apologize, it has been a while since I last wrote. This summer has gone by with a blur. A lot has happened, school, car being stolen (sorry to tell you Robby it was the Honda, but it is back now and beat up pretty good), and 4 ferrel kittens being born in our back yard. My racing has been sporadic. Some weeks I do well 2nd, 4th, then the next week 7th. I am looking forward and dreading Lotoja. So I came up with a list of things I have learned from writing Lotoja.

1. The race won't be the same without our Lieutenant Kim. We will miss the grunts up the hills, the banana mix drink, and the intense focus. One memory I will never forget is the bathroom break from last year! Need I say more?

2. It doesn't matter what seat I use my butt still hurts.

3. Mt. Dew is my best friend. But only after 100 miles.

4. No matter what, food does not taste good when you ride that long. It feels like I am forcing it down my throat. After the race I can't eat granola bars for weeks.

5. Life would be miserable without a support team. Thanks support crew!

6. The family that rides together -- stays connected. We are only as fast as the slowest rider.

7. Mp3 players rock! Does anyone have small speakers? That would be cool to play music we can all hear.

8. 206 miles is a long way. What are we thinking?

9. Preparation pays off.

10. Can't wait to sit behind the tandem! Thanks Sutt's.

Racing Photos

I some how I lost all my clever writing and I can't stand the thought of writing it again. The tour was fun and we had some great rides ourselves. Ride Safe.
Escuela with Freddy in chase. Escuela won.

So fast!

Fast Freddy in the Red of Rock Racing

Garmin/Chipotle driving the train all night!

Coming over the top of big mountain, Blake Caldwell and Darren Lill. This this how they finished the stage.

Turbo not having any fun!

Local star Dave Hawood enjoying the divide!

Some how without doping, Tyler just can't climb as well

eventual winner of the over all, local pro for BMC Jeff Louder

Blake Caldwell of Garmin/Chipotle making a break at the top of N. Ogden divide

Gone Hunt'n

It's been a busy few days with Erin's return and mission report, racing and getting ready for the bowhunt. I'm heading out the door for a week of solitude in the mountains chasing deer and elk. Should be good times. I call it hiking with my bow because I've yet to actually shoot something. Maybe that will change this year.

Tanner and I completed a great MTB season Saturday with less than stellar results. I was good for about an hour and then blew to finish 4th (way to go Karl on the 2nd place finish). It is an unforgiving course if you blow up or have a back day. When things go bad, you just hope to make it back alive. Tanner was off as well and went backwards the whole day. However, we had a good time at the after-party and enjoyed being around our racing buddies. There are a bunch of great people that race MTB's and I'll miss seeing them for a few months.

Tanner did end up winning the 16 - 18 Sport/Expert ICUP overall points. It's a huge accomplishment for him. He's improved more in a year than anyone I've been around. The kid can climb, that's for sure. His technical skills took a big jump and he'll leave the old man in the dust next year. I've had a great time riding and racing with T-man this year. These are times we'll remember all our lives. Tanner's putting his climbing skills to the test Saturday at the Snowbird Hill Climb. I'm bummed I'll miss it. Since I can't climb, I'd be on the side of the road yelling for him.

My hunting adventure will keep me from the Tour of Utah the next two days. However, I did make it to the finish yesterday. Very cool. Like Adam, I'm huge standing next to these guys. The top 12 were all a buck 135 or less. Tyler Hamilton is a midget. Those boys can climb though. The exception is Treefarm. He's skinny but super tall. Just like at cross nationals last year, I stood by his bike and can't believe a human can ride that thing. It's ridiculous. The seat is chest high on me and the seat to bar drop is about a foot and a half.

The Canyon / Utah All Stars set up was sweet. I got to talk with Dave for 15 minutes right after his finish. He had a great day and finished 23 minutes down. He had some good stories about riding most of the day with Fast Freddy. He said Feddy is scary fast downhill. Dave's going to try to make some noise in tonight's crit. I've never seen him look more fit, so it should be interesting.

Personal notes on the Utah Tour

Yesterday I had a blast checking out the Tour de Utah with Doug. We went down to the start to check out the teams and their bikes before heading up to watch the first climb. It was Awesome!! I only had one slight problem upon arrival, I forgot my camera. Doug forgot as well but on the way to the North Ogden Divide Doug grabbed one. So please put up a few pics from the first climb.

My thoughts about the race
1. Money matters in bike racing. It was amazing to see the different setups and support from each of the different team. Rock racing looked like a touring Rock band.

2. Pro bike racers make me look big. (although there were a few riders taller than me and maybe one or two with a higher body fat %)

3. Everybody uses butt cream and they'll put it on in the parking lot with everybody watching.

4. Everybody hurts climbing the Divide. This might sound bad, but it was nice to see even the big boys in a little pain.

4. How steep the Divide really is. Doug and I walk about 150 yards up the divide (something I had never done before) and I was shocked as I realized for the first time in my life how steep it is. Now I know why I can only climb up it at about 7 mph.

5. I could not believe how low key it is around the warm up/ start area. You're right in the middle of everything( support cars, trailers, bikes, riders) and it's cool to see things from that perspective.


In other news our Team had a group ride to help Russ ride 100 miles before he does Lotoja;s 206. We had a great ride. Tanner you'll have to post the pics. I almost got myself ran over taking one of the shots.

T's the Man

Congrats to Doug, AT and Mindi on completing the TdePC. I'm impressed. I'm not sure I could endure that much time on a road bike. I'm more into 2 to 3 hours floggings.

In the past week, Tanner demonstrated he's the fastest in our house. We rode Big Cottonwood while Doug and the Suttlemyre's were doing the big ride. Our 13 mile climb wasn't close to 50, but still hard. I gave it a good effort and was still a good 5 minutes behind Tanner. Then on Tuesday, we had our final battle at Solitude. I'd managed to hold off T the prior 4 times we raced the Tuesday night series. I had a pretty good race and did my best time of the series. However, Tanner smoked me by over a minute. He got off to a good start and was gone. He's finished 2nd in the race and was closing on the leader on the last lap. It was cool to she him go so fast. Tanner's progression for the last year has been amazing. I'm happy to have a front row seat to it. We're having the time of our lives. We ended up 4th and 5th in the Expert class for the series and each walked away with some cash. Not a bad deal.

We're off to Evanston tomorrow for the last ICUP of the year. I'm ready for MTB racing to be over so I can do some fun MTB rides and get ready for cross. Tanner and I have been working on the cross bikes and we're almost ready to roll. Just need to glue some tires.

It's great having Erin home and we look forward to the family gathering Sunday. She had a great experience in Uruguay. We're enjoying our few weeks with her before she and Ashley go back to Logan for school.

The Joys of the Mirror Lake Highway

I could at least stand

The Suttlemyre's enjoying a casual climb!

Well as the pictures might indicate, that was one long and challenging climb from Evanston to the top of Mt. Baldie. If 50 miles of climbing isn't enough we had a hard head wind all the way back to Park City. It was so weird to look ahead and see the mountains so far off and know we had to go over them. Adam and I adopted the asphalt 10 feet in front rule, not the most scenic trip but much better mentally. When we left Kimball Jct. going to Evanston, we just flew along. I am thinking this is AOK. We were cruising along at 25 mph thinking not bad. We didn't preceive the same wind that we were going to be eating when we turned south.

We did have a great ride and it was a big confidence builder for lotoja. I had felt so bad the Sat. before and it was unknown miles on a tandem for both Adam and Mindy. Big props to the Sutt's. Adam was putting out the power and was deep in the effort cave. Mindy is such a great person to be around. She is so positive and she kept me hydrated, reminding me to drink, a big part of the good ride I had.

I would have to say that the effort and difficulty of the Tour de Park City and Lotoja and about equal. I'm not so sure both in one year is the best option, but we will see in a few weeks. Our only regret was we didn't have our other teammates along. It seemed like a solo ride for most of the race. Well we look forward to being with you all in a few weeks and best of luck to our Ulcers group tomorrow. Ride Safe Doug

Tour de PC

Before going into the details of the ride I'll let ya see a few of the pics

Doug climbing to the top of Bald Mountain. He Climbed like a champ and didn't cramp. I think all his hard training is paying off.Mindy taking a pic just before we reached the top

At this point in the ride I was starting to wonder if we would ever make it to the top. See that same view for around 3 hours was hard.

Although my view was better than what Mindy had to deal with all day.

After a while I would only focus on the road about 300 yards ahead

Reaching the top of Bald Mountain was harder than reaching the top of the King of the Mountain in Lotoja.

On the home stretch back PC

The finish line

The photo Finish

Going into the ride I worried about how Mindy and Doug would do, but both of them did great. I might have been the weak link on this ride. I was drained by the time we finished and I would diffidently but the Tour de PC on equal grounds to Lotoja. Our total time and time on the bike for PC and Lotoja were about equal, but the the tandem sucked the juice right out of me. I've never felt so drained after a bike ride (I'm still down 4 lbs), but it did build my confidence for Lotoja in the fact that Mindy and Doug did so well.

Saturday I was bit worried about how I might do in Lotoja, but then I started thinking of all the little things I didn't do on this ride that I will do for Lotoja. First, I just need to eat and drink better for Lotoja. I was unprepared for the increased amount of energy I used up as compared to riding solo. Secondly, I knew the support crew was great, but not until you don't have them do you understand how much they help you. Not only physically with food, drink, and all the changing orders, but the mental encouragement in big.

Physically my gut was messed up for about 24 hours, my abs felt worse than my legs, and my butt had the feeling of finishing Lotoja. Other than that I feel great, but for some reason I can get full. I have to eat about every other hour. Not a snack a full meal. It's crazy.

Only 33 days to Lotoja or for Doug, Mindy, and me Part II

Tanner makes up for lost time with an amazing bloging extravaganza

I have not fulfilled my promise to update you about every aspect of my out-of-control wild summer party of a life. The fact that I have not updated you on my life is slightly ironic because I most likely have the very least to do this summer except maybe for Doug. (You should feel happy knowing that you are living a life comparable to that of a 16 year old.) I will post some more pictures, story's, and perhaps, if I dare, a video.

All the pictures pictured above are from a awesome ride up Millcreek canyon that I did by myself a few weeks ago. And there is one from the partial epic ride that Captain Chris led through Park City.

I manged to get to Jackson Hole for the I-cup race even though my dad did not go. I would like to thank everyone who helped with that act of charity and kindness. It was quite the adventure and quite the race. I had herd mixed reports about the Jackson course, but I found it to be fast, very technical and fun. I ended up finishing 3rd in my group because a slow guy got bogged down on a steep hill in front of me blocking the only line and my chance at second place. It was a very fun trip, I hope that you will take the opportunity to live the adventure with me through the my very comprehensive documentation through pictures. Enjoy.

That is my ride Reed walking up the steep gravely climb that I lost 2nd on, its steeper than it looks as well as looser. Most everyone had to hike it at least once.

These are all the Jackson photos I deem suitable for GC Connection use. I hope you enjoyed, and will enjoy this next random sampling of pictures from my camera.

I can't figure out how to rotate images in blogger, so use your imagination.

I hope to see you all again soon, good luck on the the Park city Death March. Look forward to the blogging extravaganza part 2 sometime in the future.