High-Altitude Century

For my 45th B-Day a couple weeks ago, Karen gave me a week-long, no kids date in Colorado, with two major foci: Whitewater Kayak Lessons in Salida, CO; and a weekend Leadership Training Course in Denver with Adventure Cycling of America.  In short, it was a total blast.  I know we're best friends, but the subjective sense of it can get lost in the daily shuffle of work, kids and kid activities, and of course, training.  So it was nice to have a break from it all and just hang out.

A break from all except Tri Training, that is, as IM CDA was looming less than 2 months away, and I was in the middle of peak training periods of 16-18 hours per week.  Luckily, an outdoor paradise like Colorado offered ample opportunities to ride our tri bikes, rent mountain bikes, and run to our hearts' content, even on those days when it was beautiful yet rainy/sleety.  (It's all in the attitude)

Getting started outside of Salida, CO

Probably the highlight was Karen's first century ride, done along the Collegiate Peaks Scenic Byway/Colorado HWY 24 from Salida towards Leadville, with a short detour up 285. 

As the scenery/elevation were both breathtaking, so no personal speed records were set.  Additionally, I had done a two hour run the previous afternoon which was punctuated by three episodes of what could be described loosely, pun definitely intended, as "Shartlek" training, two episodes of which were actually indoors. 'Nuff said.  With sufficient resuscitation, I was good to go the next morning.

We were initially going to go North on 24 from Salida, then over 285 to the valley beyond, then back.  There was a fair amount of climbing, and even though we were doing OK with the elevation, we started to wonder/worry about the limits of daylight if we spent too much time climbing out of the valley, and then back out of the next valley.  So we turned around and headed back to 24.

Karen blazing down the hill towards the 14ers

Happy Honey knocked out 101 Miles!

We continued North through Buena Vista and towards Leadville until we hit our turnaround at Mile 57 (for Karen), just shy of the mountain pass out of the valley.  The best part of this route was that once we turned around to go back to Salida, almost the entire ride was downhill, virtually ensuring our success.  It was a beautiful cruise back to our cozy and charming Bed and Breakfast.  Karen got her mileage into triple digits for the first time, and I racked up 123 miles looping around her with chat breaks every few miles.  We celebrated with a gluten-free pizza pig-out (no cheese in my case) followed by an early bedtime before our next Kayak lesson:

Ain't vacation grand!!