Located between Cheyenne and Laramie in Wyoming, the Curt Gowdy State Park is a hidden gem of incredible and beautiful trail that every mountain biker should take the opportunity to check out!

After hearing how fun this $10 bare bones race was last year, Bryce and I didn’t think twice about making the 2hr trek up there and giving it a whirl. We were also told how techie the terrain was so I cleaned up the Orbea OIZ and brought that bad boy along instead of the 29er! Melanie, James and Josh all joined us for a little pre-ride on Saturday and a fun overnight stay at the Ramada in Laramie before the big day on Sunday.

After pre-riding on Saturday, I was really excited to race. The course is a true mountain bike course with incredibly difficult and technical sections throughout the entire race. The only double track we hit was about 300m on the start and then it was 13.2 miles of slow, fun, hard and intense trail that had the most perfect dirt from several days of moisture :) Unfortunately I woke up with a sore throat which I immediately dismissed (I refused to think I was sick), until about 10min into the race. I had a decent start but quickly realized I had no top end and was hacking up phloem the entire day. Yuck.

Although I felt like total dog crap, I tried as hard as I could to enjoy the amazing trail and the fun people I was racing with. I couldn’t have been happier about the bike choice and almost forgot how fun it is to ride a 26in dual suspension XC bike! I ended up finishing 6th with my good friend Mel getting me at the line then 4th less than 30sec ahead and 3rd less than 2 min in front. I have to keep telling myself that I am not fit and still feeling all the effects of the Chronic Fatigue and that it’s okay not to be where I used to be. As much as I hate to say it, I was a little more relieved to know that I was getting sick and that a fever/cold completely exploded only an hour after the race. I’m sitting here writing this post with a massive headache, a pile of tissues by my side and only a few hours of sleep :(

On to the more exciting stories of the race…Our new Aussie friend Josh Carlson took the big win which was his first in the USA. Bryce and Zach rode together the entire day and had a total blast trying to catch our good friend Melissa Thomas who rode in the Men’s Open race. As always, there is more trash talk the week leading into any MTB race than you could ever imagine and the boys’ goals are simply not to get ”chicked”. Unfortunately for almost all the guys, they did not succeed this time!

Little Judy Freeman was another chica racing in the Men’s race and beat almost every single one of our friends except for Tom. This picture is awesome for several reasons…A) James caught Tony getting passed by Judy and B) it gives a great visual of how cool the course really was! The video below also gives a quick view of the more mellow terrain! Sooooo fun!

Well after a LONG rough winter in WI, it seemed like spring/summer was never going to come!  It’s been hit or miss here with the weather and will go from 80 one day to 40 the next.

Despite the forecast for thunderstorms all day, today turned out to be one of the best days (weather-wise) this year!  No better way to enjoy it than to drive out to Blue Mounds State Park.   Blue Mounds is a great park for running, but for this bike ride its purpose was that it sits on top of a HUGE hill.   I had never done a time trail (or a bike race), so this was new all to me!  Here are some things I dealt with/learned:

- Need to bring a bike trainer to warm-up. …or know the area to have somewhere to safely ride.

- It’s tough to gauge how hard to go.  This was a very short distance, but the almost the entire second half of the ride was climbing.  I rode my training wheels just out of curiosity to see the power/HR data and I was shocked to see my average HR was 179 for the race.   This is probably a combination of me not doing many (or any) short races so i’m not used to such high intensity efforts, not being rested at all, and going out WAY too hard :)

- Bring friends and teammates!  This race was so fun because of the people I was with.  After the race we all headed out for ~20 mi to commiserate about the steep climbs and brutal up-hill finish.

I LOVE fun little races like this…it’s really what keeps the motivation high and keeps it fun!!

Happy training and racing :)

Tracy and I arrived in Brasil a couple of days ago. It was a 30hr door to door trip, drive
to Auckland Airport, fly to Santiago – Chile, then onto San Paulo – Brasil, then the final flight to Goaina and a little drive to my dads house. We where pretty lucky to arrive at 11.30pm at night so as soon as we where home it was straight to bed for a good sleep.

My first day was a little interesting, my bearing where obviously not working as a 45min run turned into a 90min effort! and getting used to cycling on the right always takes a little while to get used to.

Day two and we went out to visit the farm my dad has helped to convert into a New Zealand style dairy farm. They have approximately 750 cows at the moment and two central pivot irragators so everything is very green. They have a man made lake to feed the irragators so I had a swim in the lake in my new Orca wetsuit.

Today I ran, swam and biked and tonight is Bevan’s stag do so it should be a big one! dinner at
8.30 then off for some shenanigans……

Did you you that 1 in 4 American adults who live with a diagnosable, treatable mental health condition can go on to live full and productive lives? Click on the Mental Health America logo above to learn more.

These 10 proven tools can help you feel stronger and more hopeful. Click on the image above to find out more for each specific, easy-to-follow tip!

1) Connect with others
2) Stay positive
3) Get physically active
4) Help others
5) Get enough sleep
6) Create joy and satisfaction
7) Eat well
8) Take care of your spirit
9) Deal better with hard times
10) Get professional help if you need it