The Ultimate Challenge

I finished the Ultimate Challenge today. It’s an amazing 102 mile bike ride that follows the Stage 5 course of the Tour of Utah. This ride is no joke, I now understand completely why the Pros call it the queen of all stages, with almost 10,000 feet of climbing. The crazy thing about this ride is that we started about 4 hours before the Pros, and so once they started I felt like we were the rabbit being chased by the pack of wolves. This really got intense for me when we were riding up Little Cottonwood Canyon toward the finish at Snowbird. In fact, I only beat them by about 15 minutes – CRAZY! So what took us about 7 hours to finish, the Pros did it in around 4 1/2 hours – they were flying on today’s stage. The weather conditions were phenomenal, cool in the morning, no major winds, and although it got hot, it was overall an great.

I want to give a HUGE shout out first to my wife and kids, they were there cheering me on at about 1k to go – they are amazing! My wife is the best! Next to my good friend Chris and a cool guy I met on the ride named Jake. They were awesome companions – and I feel a bit guilty for dropping them on the steep climbs – sorry guys. My fantastic Mother-in-law was so cute…She met me at the last aid station at the base of LCC and she was just cheering her heart out. My good buddy Brad Stec was awesome to drive us up to Park City so we didn’t have truck back up there for our car, I owe ya a shake Brad.

I have to thank the race organizers of the challenge, they put on an incredible event, one of the most memorable I will have forever. A big thanks to Dave Harward for giving me some good advice to train more in the heat and I truly feel the last month of suffering in afternoon wind and heat paid of big time today.

Super big thanks to my buddy Bruce Deppe for lending me his book “The Paleo Diet for Athletes” – I truly believe this helped me survive today’s event. I followed the suggestion to stick primarily with a liquid diet which consisted of Perpetuem, Powerbar gels (the best ones ever!), First Endurance EFS electrolyte mix, a few bananas, and 2 Honey Stinger waffles. I never felt depleted nor any form of bonk. The legs were sore, but I felt strong all the way to the end.

Here’s the Strava results, it wasn’t super duper fast, but hey – I finished! 

http://app.strava.com/activities/17956321

Latest Spinning Class Profiles & Playlists

I told my class I would post the playlist last week, I spaced it, so now I am posting 3 of the past playlists I have used in class. 

Monday, May 7 – Endurance training class

Friday, May 4 – Climbing Repeats – this was a tough class

Monday, April 27 – Long hard climbing with MuscleTension Intervals courtesy of Carmichael’s book. Thank goodness for good music.

Well there you have it, 3 great Spinning Classes, such good times over at Crossroads Fitness. 

Who, What, Where:

Night before race:

We made it to Moab, and Gearheads right before the packet pick-up closed so we didn’t have to wake up so early on race day. The salad my wife made was awesome for dinner that night. The hostel definitely had character…a dingy little house with a bunch of smelly granola guys and gals watching some show on a 15 inch TV by a wall full of VHS cassettes.

Only 3 of us went down for the race, and according to the guy at the front desk, that was lucky because our cabin only had 3 beds even though we paid for a 4-bed cabin. Well it was a bunk with decent mattresses and the worst, I mean worst spring mattress I have ever slept on. I tried sleeping for 30 minutes and had some of the worst back pains and lightning strikes down the leg in a long time. Finally I went to get another room but no one was at the front desk, but Glen said he would swap me – thanks Glen, I honestly don’t know how you got any sleep.

Morning of race:

Ate a 1/2 bagel with my home-made almond butter (best batch ever!), but I think I should have refrained from eating (gut was messed up after race for several hours). I chugged down a 5-hour energy right as we pulled into the dirt parking lot up Kane Creek road, not sure this was a good idea, but oh well. The weather was perfect race morning, slightly cloudy, but 1.5 miles into it the sun broke through and a small breeze kept things cool. 

The race:

The first mile was super fast, I pushed way too hard and the lead group screaming fast. I soon fell behind them and lost site of Glen, and Dale was close behind me. I remember the first 3 miles of climbing over dirt and slickrock being challenging – my memory was correct. I walked up the steeper ledgy areas, and ran as much as I could. The view at the top before the aid station was amazing, better than I remember. 

What I didn’t remember very well was how much climbing there was from mile 4 to 7 – it was brutal, but the scenery and diversity of the trail kept the mind off it. I also don’t remember how exposed the back side of the race is. I missed a turn at 6.5 miles causing me to lose almost 2 minutes having to backtrack, that’s part of the fun though.

Around mile 7 there is a section where you run on a 4 foot path with a massive cliff to the left overlooking the Colorado river. I felt strong all the way to the end which was a huge difference from last year. Gratefully the river crossing was non-existent (see photo).

Overall it was an extremely awesome race and it was full of character, adventure, and good laughs which we’ll remember forever.