Sometime in May or June, I started getting invited to my bestie’s 40th birthday in Florida the weekend before Leadville MTB. I completely ignored all the invites and fun being planned because there was no way I was going. I watched all the posts
Courtney’s Big 4-0!
in the birthday group for months moping around that I was going to miss it. As it got closer, it was almost like I needed to go. I needed to get away. I needed a real break. I used my miles and figured out who could help with the girls and went. Best decision ever. We went to the spa, the beach and I did my first Float. Oh, and I got to sleep in. Every single day. I’m not sure what I thought about the Float. It was probably good for me but I was so wound up by this point it was VERY hard to relax for an hour. I still got to run while I was there too, but took a break from the bike during that time. I had several saddle sores from the bike by this point and getting to take some time off was necessary before sitting on the bike for the entire day the following weekend. I was able to keep the saddle sores away for a long time with all the precautions (bike fit and chammy butter mainly), but the volume was just too high now.
Spiders, spiders, everywhere!
Once I returned from Florida, there weren’t many more workouts left. I had one on the bike with Gary Anderson before I left. We named that one the spider ride. And shake out run and ride before driving straight through to Silverthorne.
The kids are back there somewhere!
It was a LONG day in the car. I never really like driving straight through on the way and this time we were staying an hour north of Leadville. The minute we got there, I changed clothes and went for a short run. It was brutal. I was tired and stressed. The altitude seemed to bother me a little more than I thought it should. But, I did it.
Athlete’s meeting
Friday (the day before the race) was a rough day. We went to the athlete’s meeting in Leadville at 10 a.m.
Found my name!
Setting up base camp and I’m getting hangry!
Stude, Me and Gary
The plan after that was to go set up camp at the alternate Twin Lakes aid station. We headed to do that. Time just started adding up and everything was taking 15-20 minutes longer. When it was time for me to eat lunch, we were driving around looking for Pipeline aid station. Insert meltdown. This was a different kind of meltdown from the day I lost my key. It was a hangry meltdown. They finally got me back to Leadville around 2 p.m. and the restaurant I had chosen (that had the food I would eat) had an over hour wait, so they just decided to close and not accept any more patrons. Awesome. Leadville certainly isn’t known for it’s healthy choices. Eugene to the rescue. He was back from gallivanting and there to watch us race. He had pasta with red sauce and salad in his R.V. He cooked it for me and life slowly came back. We headed back to Silverthorne to check in for the day. We had Jello and Gary coming over for dinner that night. I was supposed to get a shake out ride in at some point that day. They were coming over at 6 p.m. I took off at 4:30, drove into town to ride around the lake. It was supposed to be relatively flat. I wasn’t going to go hard and it was much later than I should have been riding. I just wanted to check my bike out at altitude before race day. I start riding around the lake that someone (I’ll leave names out of this one) told me was about 10 miles around. After 11 miles, with no end in sight, and 2% battery on my phone, I called Jello to come get me. We were late for dinner. I was also having issues with the bag under my seat on that ride. I had put a larger bag on my bike because everyone was freaking me out about extra things I might need. I certainly NEVER thought about that stuff. But, for some reason, I gave in. It was rubbing my leg and I could tell riding 100 miles that way was not a good idea. Jello to the rescue. She had a smaller bag in her truck and I was able to use. We got everything sorted out and off to bed we went. Jello was keeping the girls for the night so I didn’t have that layer of stress the next day. Many hugs to her all day long for that.
Thankful to borrow this!
