The once mythical Super Crest

I wasn't able to attend the Jackson race with my blushing bride this weekend so I hooked up with Mark, Kris and Matt to do my favorite high alpine loop, what I call Super Crest. Kris and Mark took cool pictures and wrote up some nice reports so check their blogs for the details. The main thing I took away from the ride was a kind of awe at what the human body can accomplish with just a little bit of practice. Two years ago when I first heard of doing this loop I almost didn't believe that somebody could actually do it. To my pure weekend warrior self "super crest" seemed almost mythical. I started getting serious about cycling that summer and by the middle of last summer I decided to try super crest. It was hard, took all day and I was toast at the end of the ride but I finished it and felt pretty darn good about myself. Riding super crest on Saturday was a piece of cake. We rode a pure recreational pace and it still took less than 5 hours. At the end of ride I felt great and I realized I could probably turn around and to the whole thing again if I wanted, all I needed was a bottle refill.

Sunday morning I was reminded again what a little saddle time does for you. I decided to ride Big Mountain via Emigration. As of last Tuesday I had raced five times in a fourteen day period and I was feeling like I was in a bit of a mid-season funk, some leg snap was gone. I wanted to do a three hour road ride at an endurance pace (HR sub 153) and avoid any hard efforts. As I was cruising up Emigration canyon at my easy pace I was passing people left and right who were obliviously working quite a bit harder than me. I must admit it felt pretty good. I was able to keep the pace easy up Big Mountain (it still hurt though) turned around a the top and headed home. I'm recording my stats here for posterity not because I feel like they're anything spectacular. 43 miles in 3:10 with an average HR of 144 and a crapload of climbing.

Rhonda killed it up in Jackson. The course was very technical and without a lot of long drawn out climbs which suits her quite nicely. Almost everybody was either bleeding or covered in dirt from crashing by the end (I hear Steve H's mud mask was especially sweet) but Rhonda finished the race unscathed. She finished 6th out of ten finishers (11 starters) and was less then six minutes out of first in an almost two hour long race. Well done!