Harlan here in the oxygen starved world of high altitude Breckenridge, Colorado. After the Lumberjack 100 in MI I carpooled to Breck to get ready for the Firecracker 50, which happens to be the 2007 marathon national championship. Coming from sea-level to 9800ft to train and try to recover from a 100miler has proven to be pretty annoying. After a week and a half, of shallow breathing I finally started to feel a bit right, only yesterday.
In order to get a taste of the possible competition and to see a legendary part of CO I went to Crested Butte this past weekend to race the Wildflower Rush XC event. Elevation was about on par with the Breck and after the first 15 min climb I realized my lungs and legs weren't quite ready. So instead of DNF'ing I decided to pleasure pace the climbs and have fun in the Alpine Single-track. The warp-spead switchback decending was incredibly fun, and because the trails were cupped ruts they were a bit hairy. I finished that 3rd from last. Ouch!
SUPER-D redemption!! I always wanted to do super-d's but it hasn't worked out the past two years, since I only had a hard-tail and not many opportunities. But at the Butte I decided to give it a go on the 29er but out of trepidation signed up for the 30+ class. Maybe it was sandbagging but how would I know till I did one. After a lemans start that had me running into the backs of baggy pants dudes I got to my bike third in line and began the fire road descent.
The 29er Deluxe seemed to live for the faux tabletops and narrow single-track. I passed the #2 guy about three min in and then pulled up behind #1 a couple of mins later. He was going just fast enough that when I'd try to go around he could dig a little deeper to keep me at bay. I knew there was one last spot to take him, but it involved a 100ft stretch of a deep grassy and wet line. It had to be one of my favorite passes of all time. Final time?: 11min 22sec.
That gave me 1st in the 30+ but even more surprising was the fact that that would have been good enough for 2nd over-all, just 11 seconds behind Mike West. Top Speed? My computer said 37.3 mph. Next time I'll move it on up.