All Clear

Good news. Knee is fine. No tears anywhere, no damage to my ACL graft. Just some serious swelling and irritation as a result of overuse, gout, and a patellar strain. There was some superficial damage to the patellar bursa that should heel on its own. I'm good to go...I'm not supposed to do anything crazy for 6 weeks but can ride and such as it feels comfortable. WooHoo! Huge relief.

Done Deal

I'm out of the Laramie Enduro. I saw the orthopedic surgeon today. His assesment resonated with what I've been told by two other trusted medical professionals: whatever is going on with my knee it would be unwise to try to take on something like a race right now. The orthopod said that I've either had a severe gout flare-up, have a torn minuscus from crashing a few weeks ago, or tendon damage from the gout flare up. There's a very good chance that it was gout and that I'll be skipping along any day soon, but we did an MRI just to check. I'll get the MRI results in the morning. Considering my prior surgery it sounded like a good idea. It's tough to let go of Laramie. Getting ready for it has been a big part of my life for the past 4 months. I live, eat and breathe it. This is life. I've learned cool stuff over the past months and Laramie will be there in 2009.

From the Archives

From what I can remember this pic is from July 2006. Pete and I spent most of the day riding Summit County, from Breck over Swan Mountain to Keystone to the Resevior to Copper then back to Breck. It was pure awesomeness. Spinning along side by side at a talking pace is a good time friends to catch up on 12 months of life. Pete lives with his fam in Missouri where people throw beer cans at guys in tight shorts. He comes to CO most every summer to make sure his kids get their fair share of hiking, altitude, nature, and exposure to the mountain life-style. And to ride bikes of course. We were going to do the Peaks trail in Breck last week but my gout got the better of those plans. My knee locked up so we opted for the hot springs pool in Glenwood. That pool is also pure awesomeness. The gout flare-up puts Laramie in jepoardy...the tough reality is that I may have to pull out of the race. At this point I'm not focused on riding 70 miles, I'm focused on being able to ride at all. We'll see.

rest of the 4th

Got back from Breck to join part of the Bike Club crew in P-towne. Brad, Jess, Bryan, and Jason made the trek over the divide to hang out, ride bikes, and esplode stuff. There was a massive bottle rocket launch. Let's just say that this happened in "Wyoming" and not the home town (I feel compelled to say that since there is photo documentation and all).

Tore around the local trails. The crew was pretty impressed with Slantdickular and Ridge of Doom. Big fat grins all around. We frequented Loui's, Mexlax, and the Flying F for Bran Muffins. Yep. Figured out the worlds problems. Solution: Ride Bikes. The only low point was destroying the front wheel on my 29er and watching everyone pull away for the long drive home. We unearthed many of P-townes treasures, both the more well known and the obscure. Missed the municipal fireworks caused wild-fire. Sad. There's always next year.

Firecracker 50

I'm not going to give you the play by play style race report that often shows up on blogs (i.e. I got up at 7:37am with a resting heart rate of 67; went to the bathroom and my pee was yellowish; had a bagle with 4 ounces of peanut butter; filled my tires with 37.5 PSI, etc.). There are a few things to take away from the Firecracker: it's awesome; I'm glad I did it; it was hard. As far as I can tell about 800 people started and about 400 finished. I came in dead last, but I don't feel too bad about that. I finished about 25 minutes behind the last group but there was still the guy with the cowbell at the top of Sallie Barber (you made me cry happy tears man), the volunteers at aid stations were immensley supportive, and the moto-support guys deserve medals for staying out that late and seeing me safely in. I wish I knew who those guys are so that I could buy them beers. Everyone was so cool and supportive. It restored my faith in human kind. I also know now that I can spend 8 hours in the saddle. Next year will involve much more speed work over endurance work (still need both though). I raced my race, ate my Clif blocks, choked down my gatoraide, and stayed upright on the gnarley downhills. No pics, but if you go to www.mavsports.com you can get a feel for the race. The parade start was super fun. If you ever get the urge to get into something really hard that has a huge payoff, by all means, do the Firecracker.