Back on the Saddle at High Altitude at the Crankworx Colorado XC

Winter Park hosts an excellent and competitive series of mountain bike races each summer, and this weekend's event corresponded with the Crankworx Colorado festival, an exciting mix of vending and various competitions. Amy, Wyatt, and I headed up on Saturday morning for the XC race, which covered 25 miles of dirt roads and singletrack.

With JHK (yes, the JHK) at the starting line, I knew the race would be competitive and fast.  My goal for the race was to re-accustom my body to a high effort at altitude before the LT100 in two weeks, and the first climb of the race definitely did that!  Pure suffering for the first 20 minutes set me back in the field, but I regained control and steadily gained places throughout the race.  It seems that two long races in Europe removed a bit of snappiness and high-end speed, as expected, but the strength was thankfully there late in the race.

JHK won by about five minutes, and I was happy to finish 8th, just over two minutes off 2nd place.  It was fun to get out there with a competitive pro field, and congrats to all who made it out!

Wyatt enjoyed some watermelon after the race.