First Race of the Season

Had the first race of the season this past weekend. The Koppenberg road race, headed back to my roots of road racing. The course was a 5.5mile loop with half on gravel/dirt, 300ft of climbing per lap, with most on a 17% 45sec climb where the race gets it's name. Here is a video from 2010. I broke my trusty Madone 5.2 frame while reconing earlier in the week, and was able to borrow fellow Luther alum Karl "Moose" Larson's ride for the race. On to the race...... Right away, I was glad I had downgraded to a Cat 3 since moving out to Boulder. The Cat 3 race I did was harder than any race I had done back in Iowa. The fields are deeper and the competition greater. Didn't feel to bad as the race was going on, but can tell since training for triathlon, I have no top end as I would have had if solely focusing on road cycling. This came into affect the last time up the climb when I was cross-eyed on my stem, and fell off the pace about 1.5miles from the finish on a 3-tier climb towards the finish. Overall, a great training day and it was fun to get back on the road bike for a race. Will do a few more here and there, and then some cross in the fall.  Finished the day off with a good brick run and tried to recover the best I could for Sunday.

 Waiting for a few team kits to come in, so still rocking the Midwest kit.

Sunday was the longest training run prescribed yet since I have started. I remember when 60min was hard, but when I saw 2 hours on the schedule, I was ready for the challenge, even though a bit nervous. It ended up being great and can't believe how good it felt! 2 hours and 14.5miles later, I had accomplished something I never thought would occur. Strava file above.

So overall, the training is going awesome. And got a new frame this weekend Cannondale CAAD10, and also just received my Blue Seventy Reaction wetsuit!

Kansas City is a little over 3 weeks away and I am anxious to test out the 4months of training I have put in to triathlon since moving to Boulder.

Training for previous week:

18 hours
Bike: 120miles
Run: 32 miles
Swim:  12.33 (20,345yds)