Leadville, Colorado

Right now we are in Longmont, near Boulder, Colorado. We're based out here for a couple weeks until after the Boulder 70.3 race that I will be participating in on August 8th. I wanted to write a post about Leadville because we spent a few days and nights there before going to Beaver Creek. This old silver mining town is the highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,200 feet above sea level. It also has some other interesting facts worth mentioning...

Dad took this picture just as we left our campground in Leadville before we went on one of our bike rides. The air was a little thin, but you hardly notice it until you start exercising.

A hiker and his mule walk up one of the roads that leads to some of the old mining shafts, buildings, and sites from the late 1800s.

You can't see much here but there is a 12 mile long paved multi-use trail (called the Mineral Belt) that circles the town and goes through the old mining sites and scenic spots. The trail also has signs with history facts and stories placed at those sites to read along the way.

Situated in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, Leadville was founded in 1877 after miners found silver lodes, which set off the Colorado Silver Boom. At one time, as one of the world's largest silver camps Leadville's population rivaled Denver, totaling around 40,000 people. There were a few different mining sites in Leadville and they often competed with each other to try to produce the most silver. One of the signs along the Mineral Belt trail told a story of a group of miners from one mine smoking out another mine and its miners with boots filled with sulfur, gunpowder and dynamite. As with any mining camps, life was rough and rowdy as ever here. As told by Oscar Wilde, a writer and poet who toured there in 1882 on one of his lectures after a visit to a local saloon, "where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was a notice printed-"Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best."

Other than Oscar Wilde, other celebrities and well-known people have visited Leadville, including the American Old West outlaw, Doc Holliday. In 1883, Holliday moved to Leadville. He was forced to flee Tombstone, Arizona shortly after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral where he fought alongside Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt Earp. It was also here that Doc shot Leadville ex-policeman Billy Allen after Allen threatened Doc for not paying a $5 debt. Somehow afterwards, Doc was found not guilty of the action.

Harry Houdini the magician, performed at the Tabor Opera House, which still stands.

Margaret Brown, the famous human rights activist and survivor of the sinking of the Titanic also moved here when she was 18 years old.

This is a hydaulic front end loader on narrow gauge tracks that was used to help dig out the mine shafts.

After the Silver Boom most of the mines closed down or started mining for lead and zinc. The population went down to just under 3,000 as determined in 2005. Now most of the income to the town is from tourism. The town's main street is lined with big buildings of victorian architecture and many smaller shops. There are museums that also tell the tales of the mining town's heydays.

In the picture above is a cut-out of Dave Weins standing beside his actual mountain bike. Dave is the six time winner of the famous Leadville Trail 100 mile mountain bike race. The Leadville Trail 100 bike race is held mid-August every year. The race course is a 50 mile out and back course and is above 9,000 feet and climbs to almost 13,000 feet in some places. About 1,000 racers participate and it attracts about 20,000 spectators. Every mountain biker must complete the race under 12 hours before the final cutoff to receive a silver buckle award, and anyone who completes it under 9 hours receives a gold and silver trophy buckle. Last year, Lance Armstrong won the race in 6 hours and 28 minutes, and on a flat tire.

The Leadville Trail 100 mile run is also another race that is held on August 21 which runners run 50 miles out and 50 miles back on forest trails and mountain roads, the lowest point of the course is at 9,200 feet and the highest point is at 12,600 feet. Every runner must complete the race under 30 hours before the race cut-off to receive a silver buckle. Under 25 hours will earn you a large gold and silver trophy buckle. The course record was set by Matt Carpenter, who completed the race in a blistering 15 hours and 42 minutes.

For more info or just out of curiosity, check out the "Race Across the Sky" DVD about the Leadville Trail 100!

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Just randomness....does this sign mean No People Swimming, No Aliens Swimming, or No Swimming Because Of Aliens In The Water??? This picture was taken in the town of Wheatridge on our way to Boulder.

Another random picture, also in Wheatridge! Any idea how this could have happened?

XTERRA Mountain Cup. Beaver Creek, CO

On a beautiful and sunny Saturday morning almost 500 athletes came to Avon's Nottingham Lake to participate in the XTERRA Mountain Cup race consisting of a one mile (2 lap) swim with wetsuits in the lake, 15.5 mile mountain bike with over 3,000 total feet of climbing from 7, 400 to 9,500 feet elevation, then an approximately 6 mile trail run with 1,200 total feet of climbing.


Just hanging out after setting up my transition areas which are in two different places. T1 is just next to the lake, thats where I'll transition from swim to bike, and T2 is up at Beaver Creek Resort on the mountain where the bike-to-run transiton will take place. Right now the people in front of me are the Sport (a shorter distance, about half of the full XTERRA distance) racers who are getting ready for their race which started 45 minutes before my race.

The swim start was broken up in waves, the pros went one minute before my wave which consisted of men 15 through 39 years old.

The water temperature was about 68 degrees which is close to non-wetsuit temperatures. It did feel a little warm in my wetsuit!

I pushed on the swim, but took it a bit easy to save energy for the bike and run because I knew that I'd need it! The swim went smoothly for me without any incidents.

T1- In all of the white garbage bags are the athletes' wetsuits, goggles, and caps which we had to stuff in those bags to be taken up to T2 at Beaver Creek by the race officials so that we could pick them up after the race.

Off on the bike, I was feeling good, the altitude wasn't bothering me very much and I knew it was going to be a good day!

15.5 miles later, I'm coming down from 9,500 feet back to Beaver Creek Resort at around 8,200 feet elevation.

Now the run. I just told myself that I'm going to enjoy this run no matter what! The run course consisted of a 600 foot climb from T2 then a long descent back to Beaver Creek, then another 600 foot climb before descending back to the finish! It was tough going, breathing was a little hard since there's 25% less oxygen than at sea level.

I'm running by Beaver Creek Resort at 8,200 feet elevation, where T2 and the finish are.

The finish at last! My total time was 2:43.49. The clock above me records the time when the pros started their swim one minute before my wave.

(photo taken by XTERRA)
Nico Lebrun of France pictured above in green won the men's race in 2:13:51. This is his second win at Beaver Creek in a row. He had just won the XTERRA France championship last Saturday too.

Shonny Vanlandingham of Durango, CO won the women's race in 2:31:58. This is her 3rd victory at Beaver Creek in a row!

Hannah Rae Finchamp (14) of California is one of the fastest young girls I've seen. She trooped it throughout today's race in 3 hours and 26 minutes! Hannah Rae races mostly in road triathlons as a youth elite throughout the nation, but also loves off-triathlon and is an ambassador for XTERRA to help bring more awareness and encourage more young people to participate in the sport.

Another friend of mine, Brittany Clawson, who goes to college in Hawaii, just started racing in triathlons one year ago and is already working towards qualifying for the XTERRA World Championship in Makena Maui! She has been in 3 of the same XTERRAs as me so far this season and is doing great.

It was a great day, great race, great volunteers and organization. I enjoyed seeing how my training has been helping me to get faster than even a few months ago. Racing just makes me more excited for training and for the benefits that it will reap. I'm already looking forward to my next race in 3 weeks in Boulder. It will be a half-ironman, 1.2 mile open water swim, 56 mile bike on road, and a 13.1 mile run. This will be the longest race I've ever done, so it will be interesting!

Vail and Avon, Colorado

I just wanted to give an idea of what's been going on this week. We drove back from Leadville to Vail to the only campground we could find (Gore Creek Campground). Which is only 15 miles from the XTERRA Mountain Cup race site in Beaver Creek. So far over 400 athletes have signed up for both the full XTERRA distance ( .9 mile swim in Avon Nottingham Lake, 15 mile mountain bike on the mountainside of Beaver Creek, then a 5.7 mile grueling trail run with a bunch of climbing) and a shorter Sport distance XTERRA. The weather has been nice and its supposed to be hot and sunny on Saturday!
We found a sweet camping spot! Here's our clothes drying after hand washing in buckets of water from a nearby creek (I know, very pioneer-ish). We've cooked corn on the cob, veggie burgers, and sweet potatoes on the grill over the fire and its very enjoyable being outside most of the time even when we're not out on a bike ride or on a training run.

On Wednesday, my mom who was a massage therapist for 7 years, gave me a massage to help me loosen up for the upcoming race. The professional athletes, and age groupers alike try to get massages at least once every week as part of their training and recovery program. I don't usually get massages because I used to have a hard time staying still for a while, but now since I'm spending so much of my energy in my training, I may give regular massage a try.

The tiny buildings down below is Beaver Creek Village where the bike-to-run transition and finish of the XTERRA is. Beaver Creek is a ski and snowboarding resort, there are lots of hidden vacation cabins scattered up the mountainside. They have a chair lift running from the village daily for people who don't want to ride or hike up the mountain. The lift takes you approximately halfway up the mountain, then you can pick your own way down on bike or foot.

I'm on part of the bike course, about a mile of climbing on pavement, 4 miles into the bike leg of the race. The dark clouds behind me are the thunderstorms that occurred almost every afternoon the first few days we came here.

As always, I'm feeling ready, almost itching to race! Legs are feeling fresh, lungs are acclimated to the altitude, just feeling good! Will post after the race.

Riding to Vernal, Utah.

Last week we celebrated the 4th of July with a long 73 mile bike ride on the backcountry roads from Duchesne, Utah to Vernal, Utah.

The ride was pretty rolling with some long hills, there wasn't a lot to see for scenery on this route. Just mostly farm land with ghetto buildings and road kill animals. Also, the weather was unpredictable, raining heavily for a few minutes and then sunny the next.

After the bike ride we went for a 3 mile brick run. (Running straight off the bike without any breaks or rest). Our legs were pretty stiff!

Then that same night we rode our mountain bikes from our campground to the city park in Vernal to watch their 4th of July firework show! There were about 5,000 people sitting or standing around in the park to watch the show too.

I've written another post below. We went to the Unitah House of Natural History the next day.

After Vernal we drove to Avon, Colorado where the XTERRA Mountain Cup race on July 17 is held to check out the course. Then we spent a few days at 10,200 feet elevation in Leadville, Colorado. I will write about that shortly.

Unitah House of Natural History. Vernal, Utah

In Vernal, Utah before leaving for Colorado, we visited the Unitah House of Natural History. It was a museum with dinosaur, rock, plant, and other prehistoric fossils.

Here is a replica of one of the most complete fossils of a camrasaurus, a sauropod (long-necked, long tailed dinosaur) found in the world. I don't remember where the original piece is, but it was discovered in 1919 near Vernal.

This is a real allosaurus fossil (more explained about this species later) found in 1990. The rock that this fossil is embedded in weighs about 6,000 pounds and was air lifted by helicopter out of the excavation site in 1994.

The museum had a couple fun projects to do, like learning how to identify fossils and brushing them out of basins filled with "authentic" rubber dirt.

This section of the museum that we were in had a few exhibits of how an excavation site looks, and what tools they used, etc. Also another exhibit wall, with the guidance of a sign showed us how to identify what are actually fossils and what are just petrified wood, or a simple rock. In the picture above I'm sitting next to an actual sauropod's femur bone. Its so big I would have thought it was just a rock.

Here is another skeleton of an allosaurus. These are thought of as the bad boys of the late Jurassic Period. They were theropods, carnivores with powerful hind legs that could chase down prey very easily. By measuring their fossilized tracks, the strides turned out to be 6 and a half feet long.

This is what an allosaurus looked like in the flesh.

Here is more reason to be glad that you weren't alive during the Jurassic period. In this glass case, the top claw is the allosaurus's back claw, and at the bottom is the tiny but dangerous ripping teeth, and the middle is a front claw measuring at least 4 or 5 inches long. I wonder which I would rather be chased by, this monster or an Alaskan grizzly bear? Fortunately, neither has ever happened to me!

This case contained the skulls of animals that came after the Jurassic Period. Contained within was a fossil of a 1/4 inch long jaw of a primitive horse that was perhaps only a foot tall at that time.

At last, a saber toothed cat! This fossilized skull was found in the La Brea tar pits in California. The saber toothed cats went extinct 11,000 years ago.

These glowing rocks are called Flourescent Minerals. Inside the minerals are chemicals that react to invisible (to humans at least) ultraviolet rays that causes the minerals to emit light. Inside the room was a switch so when the room is lighted, you're looking at what seems like ordinary rocks, then you flip the switch and the room is pitch-black and now you're looking at glowing rocks! Very cool.

The famous Woolly Mammoth! They can be 14 feet tall at the shoulder, simply huge animals. And to think that back then, humans used to hunt them with puny spears! Most woolly mammoth bones and carcasses have been found in North America, northern Eurasia, and Siberia. They went extinct about 10,000 BC, while some smaller versions of the woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 1700 BC. I have read somewhere else that the longest woolly mammoth tusk found was 16 feet long and weighed 208 pounds.

Idaho again

Riding alongside the Boise River.
We drove through southern Idaho again on our way from Oregon to Colorado. Here we stopped at Boise for a night and went for a bike ride and a run. We rode on the Boise River Greenbelt paved trail. This was a nice network of paved trails, they seem to go all over town, which would make commuting by bicycle easier and more enjoyable!


Part of the Greenbelt went past this diversion dam built in the late 1800s that irrigates water from the Boise river via canals to Boise Valley. The Valley would have been only a sagebrush desert if this project was not built. Now Boise Valley has sprawling green farmlands.


The building behind me is part of the hydroelectric plant that was added to the dam in 1912 to provide electricity to the Arrowrock Dam 17 miles upriver.

After the bike ride, Dad and I went for a nice 45 minute run on the Greenbelt. It was over 95 degrees and humid.

When the run was finished, I had a little fun! There was this dirt jumping park next to the Greenbelt.

For the next couple nights we parked at Indian Springs again. We were here in late May, but it was rainy and muddy. Now its nearing the middle of summer and everything was dry and like a real sagebrush desert! I had a hill run workout that the "Torturer" had me do. The strap around my chest is my heart rate monitor which senses my heart rate and shows the number of beats per minute on my wristwatch. This can be a valuable training tool because it allows you to know how hard you're working, so you don't put in too little or too much effort than what you're supposed to do.

Then at the bottom I had to run a few minutes at my anaerobic threshold, which is when you're working harder than you can get enough oxygen for. As a rough example, if you sprint about 100 or more yards and at the end you're bent over and a panting mess, you have passed your anaerobic threshold.

Then a little while later into the day Dad and I went for a fun mountain bike ride. And by fun, I mean tackling the hardest parts of the trails. Indian Springs has plenty of hard lines and easier lines of the trails so you can choose whichever one you want to go on.

Right now we're driving out of Twin Falls, on our way into Utah. We're kind of in a hurry to get into Colorado and go high up into the mountains for altitude training before Beaver Creek. The XTERRA race will start at approximately 6000 feet elevation and peaks above 9400 feet, so I had better go build some red blood cells!