Shadows on the Bike: Gunnison Trails Weekend

Ok, well its been a while, but this past weekend I probably did the final MTB race for the season. We loaded up and headed over to Gunnison to support the Gunnison Trails organization in their yearly fundraiser. This year, unlike last year, they included a running race as well from 3-5-10 miles. Unfortunately they included a duo category, 5 mi run, 18 mi MTB. Well....I couldn't take seeing Steph head out for her 10 mile race all alone, so with 10 min to spare, I signed up for the running race too. We headed out and went absolutely straight up, then straight down...back up, back down...and so on. With all of the early climbing, I found myself in 2nd place overall pretty quick which had me a little concerned. As soon as the course flattened out a bit (3 mi in or so) I got run down by about 3 of the 10 mile guys. Ended up being the first 5 mile runner to the turn off and decided to crank it up and see if I could hold the position. As it turned out, I ended up with just enough to win by 30 sec -1 min.

Steph came in not too much longer with the "W" for the women's 10 mile category. All in all, the 5 mi race had 1700' of climbing, and the 10 had 2300', not too shabby! Immediately I started stretching as things were getting tight quick...After chilling for a few hours it was time to get on the bike. Now for those who haven't ridden at Hartmans Rocks in Gunnison..well, you haven't lived. There is so much diversity and sooo much sick single track it's not even funny. Ashley and I lined up with about 30 or so other MTBers and once again, headed straight up. In typical fashion, I just hopped on the first guy's wheel and red-lined it for the 20% climb. After cresting the hill we hit some road and someone took a flyer which I decided to chase...why, I don't know. As we caught on to him, another came around and we settled in to a decent pace. Luckily it was the other guy that was doing the duo so we weren't crushing the hills too hard and I never felt like the legs were near implosion. about 1/3 of the way through I pulled through on a road section to take over the lead for a little while. One of the other local Alpine Ortho riders came by on a downhill and we began to trade pulls for the 2nd half. All of the downhills there are super flowy and fast...if you know the trails. So I would try to hold on as best I could, then catch back on during the climbs. This went on until the final technical climb where he surged into 1st position in a rock garden. I made one failed attempt at jumping over a boulder to cut him off before the last downhill but it just wasn't to be. Ended up rolling in in 2nd for the MTB race, 1st in the duo for the day. All in all, a great race. Chilled at the after party that evening and stayed in the local KOA thanks to a super cool sponsor (KOA Dave). Sunday morning we took our sweet time crawling out of bed, then went to have a little coffee, and headed up to bum around Crested Butte a little as well.