This is the same day different perspective on the event. No animals were harmed in the riding of this course. The same cannot be promised for Shane.
http://runningnriding.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/stack-rock-ride-sunday-july-11-2010/
So what do you do the day after a Triathlon?
Sunday morning I met up with the Baker Boys, Shane and Dan, for a little morning excursion on the mountain bikes. These are trails that we are not with so Shane got a disclaimer signed by Dan and I before the ride that we may run into some trouble, that the mileage scheduled may differ from the planned mileage and that he was not to be held accountable. We agreed and we were off.
The first 5 miles of this trail were awesome. Nice little technical ride with a steady climb and very nice scenery, and I’m not just saying that because the Baker Boys were riding in front of me. There was a lot of trees and shade for most of this climb and the wilderness looked nice 
.
We hit mile 6 and started a little steeper climb. By this time many of our participants were bleeding from a tree limb that was straying into the course with some nice thorns on it. Shane and Dan had a couple of pretty good cuts. Being the guy in the back I learned from their experience and was able to maneuver through with a minor scratch.
We missed the trail that we were looking for and ended up at a dead end. We doubled back and headed up another trail to another dead end. This is where the fun part for any mountain biker began, hike a bike.
We headed straight up the hill with no trail trying to reach the ridge that somehow kept getting further and further away. We used our stealth ability to avoid poison oak and ticks, I hope. We got er done with bikes on backs and finally reached the ridge where we were able to hook up to another trail. Surprisingly there were very few words from the “athletes?” on this hike that rhymed with truck. It was a brutal climb. We knew that we were out on an unfamiliar trail and that the odds of a hike a bike were pretty good, so it didn’t phase us too much mentally when it happened. The hill, however, was steep so the thighs were burning pretty good.
Finally, we reached Stack Rock and stood by a tree hoping to get a higher concentration of oxygen. We toured around the rock for a bit and then climbed up it to get a better view and eat some Powerbars, a couple Swedish Fish and maybe some GU. We also took a break and reminisced about the hike a bike that just occurred and how trails are so overrated. Even with the hike-a-bike we were all still having a good time. However, we all knew we were going to be home later than we had told the wives, oops 
love you dear.
We spent a little time trying to find the correct trail to travel down to get us back to Avimor without having to make the same hike downhill. We finally reached a turn off that took us straight down the hill, I mean straight down the hill. This hill had you puckered so tight the seat was going to be there for a week. The only thing that stopped this was the milk duds going the opposite direction which equaled things out.
About a quarter of the way down I felt as if I was going to endo. Somehow I laid the bike down fairly softly, got my feet out of the clips and took a 30 yard run down hill trying to stop. I could hear Dan behind me laughing pretty good. As I was climbing back up the hill to retrieve my bike I saw Shane about 10 feet off the trail on his bike. This was his strategy as apposed to the bail and run I implemented. The rest of the ride down was sketchy but I made it. I managed to stretch the new rear break cable pretty good laying on it for the majority of the downhill. There were two paths running side by side. One had a runoff ravine in the middle of it that made staying on the trail a good challenge. The other one had the Grand Friggin Canyon down the middle of it. For this reason we chose the ravine side.
As I got to the bottom I looked uphill to make sure that Shane was making it ok. I couldn’t see him. I looked forward for a moment and then looked back and there he was, standing there beside his bike. Shane had decided to take a nap behind a sage brush bush. He 
made this involuntary decision rather abruptly. Shane walked the bike the rest of the way down the hill and as he got closer he said, “I ate shit hard”. I could tell when he got there that he was not joking. His helmet had a few weeds in it. I refrained from laughing until I knew he was ok, he did bite it pretty hard but he looked the Billy the kid on Peyote. His helmet was full of weeds, dirty and kind of a dazed look on his face.
The rest of the ride was uneventful for the most part. I hugged the right side of one turn and let my leg go through a bush that happened to be a bush with a giant rock inside of it. It left a pretty good mark on the right leg and knocked my foot out of the clips for a little bit of an adventure ride with one foot in the pedals trying to navigate some rocks. This scene also led to a little chuckle from Dan. He said my bike was still riding pretty smooth, it was just me doing convulsions on it trying to get my foot back in the pedal that was funny.
So it was a highly eventful and blood drawing event but a great time and a great ride. 18 miles in about 4 hours. Not bad considering the stops we made for injuries, pics, map reading, break time at the top with a tour and bush whacking.
Today’s swim bike run event was the Boise Spudman Triathlon. I PR’d but I was hoping to do a little better on the run portion. Over all I was happy with my time for the amount of Training I’ve been able to put in since the Boise 70.3. I’ve still felt a little fatigued since that event. I’m not sure why but I’m guessing I’m a head case.
It was a beautiful day for the race, a little breezy at the swim start but I didn’t really notice it during the race. Andrew and I kept each other company by passing each other on the bike. We laughed that out of all of the racers we just happened to be riding with each other the entire bike. We got to T2 about 30 seconds apart, trailing Ryan by quite a ways. Ryan finished with a 2:13, myself, 2:43.
The bike course starts with a 1.7 mile out and back for the first 3.2 miles. After this you head to Highway 21 up and over Hilltop and down past lucky peak. Brutal 3ish mile climb and then a great decent down past lucky peak. After this you make your way through Columbia Village to Amity, left on Warm Springs then onto Park Center to T2.
The run was a bit warm. It probably wasn’t as hot as it felt but since we’ve had cooler weather this year about the only times I’ve run in hot weather has been during races, Robie Creek, Boise 70.3 and Boise Spudman Tri. I saw the leader around mile .7 which means he was at around mile 5.5. I yelled out, “I’m comin after you”. I think it took a second for him to digest the B.S that I’d just thrown out but then he managed a courtesy chuckle as we passed by each other. The run is mostly along the Boise Greenbelt and Park Center Blvd with a sub division in between.
The support was great, traffic was considerate, and the weather was good for us. Couldn’t ask for much better of a race. Thanks Treasure Valley YMCA.
