Dog Days

This last weekend was full-on with the Dead Dog Classic, a 3-stage road race over 2 days in Laramie, Wyoming. I got a precursor of the windy weather Wyoming is notorious for on the two-hour drive from Denver, with gusty side winds that nearly pushed my car off the road into the adjacent farmlands. I could have used a nice gust of wind to help push me up the 11-mile climb in Saturday's road race. I rolled in a disappointing second to last, and started focusing on the best way to recover for Sunday's races...yes, that was a plural "races". First on the road to recover was a shower, putting to the test Chris's suggestion of flipping between hot, cold, and then hot water again to help flush out the legs. Then moving only lots of lots of food and water, and a good night's sleep, and it was up and at it again Sunday for the 40-minute crit in the morning, and a 10-mile TT 2 hours later.

No Chipotle in Laramie, but Fat Burrito was a decent substitute complete with lounge chairs to kick back in on the patio.

After Saturday's frustrating and disappoint race, I was ready to redeem myself in the crit , and redeem I did, putting up a ferocious attack on the last lap only one other girl could follow, and got me rolling across the line sitting pretty in 2nd place. The pavement-melting heat continued to rise during the 2-hour break between the crit and TT, topping off around 95 degrees (that's 35 degrees for my international followers). Knowing I couldn't move anywhere in the GC regardless of what I did in the TT, I was happy to finish without getting passed. Although, after rolling through the finish line I was left wondering how many seconds I lost due to all the tar stuck on my tires.


Despite being exhausted, I decided to take the scenic route home and enjoy a part of Colorado that I rarely get to see. I'm off to put up the legs and get some much-needed rest. Take care.