Leadville training weekend

This weekend Andy and I and a group of friends headed up to Leadville for a few days of riding. I thought it would be fun to go hang out in Leadville and do some riding on the race course knowing full well that I did not have to race it this year. A chance for me to just enjoy the ride. I was not totally prepared for the days ahead.

I was not well rested due to a 7 hour ride Andy and I did on Wed. with 2 other friends that were first time Leadville racers. They wanted to get in some good base miles as the race will take them about 9 hours or more. On Friday I decided that since I did not get in much swimming this week (okay, no days this week) I headed to the pool and swam 5100 yards...which was a good 1:40...and if that wasn't enough I decided I needed to get in a long run as well. I met up with Laurie and we ran a hard :30 min and then I went and did another 1:15 on my own. I was significantly trashed before the weekend even started. I was able to make a call to the massage therapist and I got in for a massage Friday evening.

On Sat. Andy and I along with Tom K, Julia, Jeff and Kyle R. rode the first 20 miles of the race course as an out and back....Tons of climbing, awesome descents and a few mud puddles along the way. We rode for a good 4 hours in beautiful weather. We were pretty lucky as it has been raining every day for about the past month here in Colorado and today it was dry:)
After the ride Andy and I grabbed a quick sandwich, checked into our hotel and then headed out for a nice easy swim at the local indoor pool.

Sunday it was just Andy, Tom K and I for the ride up Columbine. We drove to Twin Lakes and parked near the dam. We got an early start of about 9:00am so we could be up and back by noon. It took us just about 2 hours to get to the top (well, that is what it took the guys)....as for me, I decided to stop and rest the last 15 min. as it was a hike-a-bike section and I figured since I wasn't doing the race there really wasn't any reason for me to do the last little section. That and the fact that being at this altitude for the first time this year makes me a bit queasy. The top of Columbine Mine is about 13,000 feet. We finished up with the ride about 12:30 and the guys were going to check out the middle section of the race course. They made it about :20 min. before the rainstorm got them and I picked them up. They will have to wait for another day to check out the rest of the course.