Anyone seen my form???

No seriously. I'm thinking about taking out one of those milk carton ads because it was no where to be found this last weekend at the Elkhorn Classic stage race. And, man, did it suck ass! I'm just not used to riding that poorly. I mean, I've had an "off" day or two over the years but nothing like this. Honestly, I was not expecting to be great. I'm one month out from hitting my rib cage against a cement wall at the end of a criterium and separating a couple or rib cartilages. I followed that up with a nasty cold and bronchitis. Lot's of pus coming out of my lungs for a couple of weeks and a seriously impaired ability to cough. For better or worse, I trained through it and was feeling fairly fit on the other end. I tried not to do too much the week before and felt good riding to the line Friday afternoon.

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Crash and Burn... Hard!

Early in my cycling career in the late 80's I bought a cyclocross bike to use for training on the dirt roads around Boise in the winter. As the mountain bike trail system developed in the foothills above town, I ventured onto the single track on the cross bike. Although mountain bikes became popular during this time, I resisted them, continuing to ride the skinny-tired bike on more and more technical terrain. Hell, I was a telemark skier, too. I thought it was cool doing things the hard way.

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U.S. Ski Mountaineering National Championships

Here it is kids. The original and grand daddy of them all! The finals in J-Hole this weekend, March 20th. Come and get some pain! Yep, bigger and badder this year with over 7,000 vertical up and down. You will not be disappointed. Yeah, the snow is not what it has been in previous additions but there should be just enough to make it happen. The organizers are busting their asses to work out any last-minute modifications to keep you off any dirt on the final descent.

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Seize the Day

As most of you who read these posts regularly know, I've been anticipating the upcoming cycling season since I crossed the line in the last race of LAST season. I've always maintained that "burn out" was mostly a psychological phenomenon, not a physical one. Of course, I took the requisite break in training volume in the fall and have been building it back up in a predictable fashion. I trained like a rando racer...for awhile. My half-stepping approach to preparation for the first race of the season was met with predictably mediocre results. That only served to divert my attention more fully to what really is mattering to me this year and that is road racing. The problem with that is I live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's a high altitude ski town, ferchrissakes! Plus, it's February. Who, in there right mind, thinks about road cycling in February in a ski town? Well, uhh, that would be me, Bob. I hang my head, guilty as charged, my ambition getting the better of me already.

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Chute the Moon Trip Report

I once heard a great quote from one of the best distance runners of the modern age. It was back in the day when ABC covered the Olympic Games and they were interviewing, I think, Kip Keino (could have also been one of the other great African runners of the day). I never missed the Olympics on TV when I was a kid. It captured my imagination like no other spectacle.

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