Sam Jurekovic Racing

Trails that were never intended for cycling...

2009-05-01T09:00:00.004-07:00

I must just have some kind of subconscious sense for finding the trails you could die walking down, let alone try riding down on a bicycle.

The other day I spent a brutal day at altitude. I started from my house with map and gps in hand. A backpack packed with all the essentials: water for 3hours, PB&J, water purifier, headlamp, rain jacket, warm gloves, arm and knee warmers, tube, pump, and multi tool. You might ask yourself, "what? Is he going on a weekend trip into the mountains?" Well, I suppose it wouldn't be the first time.

Anyway, I started from my house and rode about 5min to the Falcon Trail inside the Airforce Academy. I have never ridden the Falcon Trail and I think, now having ridden it, it will be one of my bread and butter rides for the future. It was so fun!! Just pure and simple classic buff single track with lots of "Hero man rollers". I rode the first half of it to the opposite side of the base where it connects with some trails leading up into the mountains. All the maps I had were not actually all that accurate and I was lucky to find my way out of the AFA with the help of tons of signs pointing me in the right direction. The trail out of the AFA started pretty sweet...a little steep, but whatever, I like it steep. It climbed out west around their water purification plant and up a canyon which I thought was called Stanley Canyon (actually it was West Monument Creek Canyon...oops). I proceeded to climb up and up and up, quickly reaching 2000vertical feet from my starting point. The trail turned into a service road which was surprising because the map made it look like it was a trail...eha. There were some little sweet single track offshoots and some loose hike-a-bike sections leading up a "Y". There was a little sign signaling "Trail 713". I was like "SWEET!!! More new trails". I had to walk across some sketchy little rotted out bridge to instantly find a super technical, pretty much unrideable trail (at least at this point because there was still some snow and ice on it). I decided to ditch the bike for a minute and walk up a ways to see where the trail went and if it was even worth taking my bike up it...maybe I am learning a little bit. I made the call to go back to the road and keep going up. Before long I ran into all sorts of stupid water district signs saying "DO NOT ENTER or be PROSECUTED" LAME!!! I popped out my map and kept following the road up to Rampart Reservoir. Kind of dissapointed in the lack of trail I road around threshold to get to the next bit of single track as fast as I could...haha threshold at 9,000+feet for me right now is about 300watts...Oh the burn. I kept going and rode down to the Lake and discovered its pretty nice up there and there are some serious fish in that lake and a sweet little trail all the way around it, 'er it will be sweet when there is less snow on it. I made it to the north east side of the lake after going all the way around it and found a little trail heading to the trail I originally thought I was on to go to the Stanley Cayon Reservoir. By now its been about 3.5hours of lung busting altitude and some really really cold snow/slush/ice water riding and I was nearing total bonk, dizzy, headache, hungry, heart rate through the roof, so I decided to pull over and have a little anti bonk medicine: PB&J and a coke. It was a great opportunity to check out the view. Pikes Peak looks pretty awesome from this aspect behind the lake.

I looked at the clock and it was getting a bit late and the thunder heads were approaching in the distance so I decided to get rolling as fast as I could and go down the trail I originally thought I went up in the first place.

The trail from Stanley Reservoir started out really sweet, but gradually got really technical. In fact, so technical there was no way to ride it. I eventually pretty much got cliffed out on my bike. I ditched the bike again to try to find the trail, which looked more like a boulder field crushed it on the way down the mountain. Lucky me there were some little pink trail marker ribbons to get around this section of trail that looks like it was taken out by a big land slide. I got my bike and scrambled down into Stanley Canyon. As I got further down, there was a lot more water which made some of the granite rather slippery with cycling shoes. After a couple of really close calls, I finally made it to something that looked more like a trail than a pile of rocks. I was very happy to mount back on the bike. I think being a cyclist for so long, I might actually be more comfortable and less clumsy on two wheels, than actually walking around. I took it mellow, since the trail was still really loose and rocky and came up to a sign that said "IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR ANYONE TO ENTER THIS MILITARY INSTALLATION WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE COMMANDING OFFICER" Haha, well, I wasn't going to hike back up what I just got down...and they let me in earlier in the day, hopefully that will suffice. Just in case, I bolted as fast as I could to get down and out of there to avoid tangling with any Air Force personnel who might not appreciate my sense of adventure. I got really lucky and the trail spit me out right back on the Falcon Trail...WOOHOO!! From there it was a pretty sweet fun ride with more "Hero Jumps" all the way back to North Gate. Until next time....BAM!BAM!

Back to Colorado...looking forward to training...LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS!!!

2009-04-28T18:27:00.003-07:00

Howdy folks!!
Well I am back in good old Colorado. It was a GOOD long 3months in Southern California. Lots of good weather, training, getting to know new people and make new friends, and race my bike a bit.

After the Sea Otter I was in a bit of a hurry to get home. Packed my things and left at 8PM to be on my way out of the city so I wouldn't hit traffic in the morning. I drove 'til midnight and pulled over on some rancher exit, parked, and took a two and a half hour nap before getting back on the road at 2:30AM. I drove all morning and hit D-Town about noon 30. Immediately my first stop was to visit RGP's, a pretty awesome little sandwich shop I haven't been to in years. It was pretty funny driving back in to D-Town. I forgot how small of a town it really is, maybe even smaller than Jackson Hole. I saw, Ned O, Fabulous Frank Maple, and a couple of old school buddies in a matter of an hour of driving into town. RGP's was amazing, had the buffalo chicken wrap! I called up a friend, COlin Osborn for a quick little ride on Anamas Mountain. The altitude was a little tough after 3months at sea level, no worries though we had a lot of fun. I forgot how technical Animas mountain was and put some pretty nice dings in my carbon cranks. I stayed the night at my old coach and mentor's house, the Geraghty household. Got to play with the kids a bit and catch up. Always good to see the Geraghty's. I hung out fora bit in the morning and left around 10:30a in a hurry to get home and see my roomies and just get back to my routine. Driving through Colorado was so nice. I tried a new "backway" and cut my drive time down about an hour. Got home and was...HOME!! WOOHOO!!! I pretty much spent the rest of the day unpacking and cleaning.

The next day home I went for a super sweet ride, exploring some of the trails i've been looking forward to riding all winter long. Most everything was melted off, but there were still a few sections of snow biking to do, but with temps in the 70's it shouldn't take too long before stuff is buffed out.

THe next morning I was super sick...total cold. I guess I tried to do too much at the sea otter and had a few too many late nights. Three days off the bike and I'm doing quite a bit better. Road for two hours today, super easy, just exploring looking for new trails. I rode to the end of Babtist road looking for trails, and found the Airforce Academy Shooting and granade training range. Decide not to jump that fence. Getting arrested is one thing, getting blown up is an other. Right now i'm kickin it with my buddy Farakh at Pikes Perk. Good to be home.

Tomorrow, hopefully i'll continue to be feeling better and get to some serious training time.

BAM BAM!

The Ocean Gopher...what a bust.

2009-04-24T05:07:00.002-07:00

Hey there Gents and Ladies,
The Sea Otter was a bit hectic as usual this year. It was good to be back since I didn't make it last year and it is one of my favorite races of the year because its in the States and its usually got a bit of a world cup feel to it with all the fans walking around the booths and checking out new products from vendors and trying to get pictures with some of the pro riders. This year seemed much bigger than I had seen it in years, much thanks to the incredibly hard work of Scott Tedro and his Company Shoair.

I had been looking forward to this race especially as a redemption race for my rough bit of luck at the first Pro XTC US CUP in Fontana, CA a few weeks prior where I stripped the head off my rear skewer in the first 4 minutes of the race. This week I was looking to make up for that. All went well in the days leading up to the race. Specialized gave us some new tires they had been working on, the "Renegade". This tire is just what we have been looking for, very low profile knobs and light weight. We received the tire the day before the race and I took it for a quick test lap and was very stoked on their overall performance so I decided to run with them for the cross country.

The team made the call to not race in the Short track race on Sunday. We figured it was wise to save some bullets for the battle the next day in the Cross Country, a decision which would bode well the next day.

The morning of the Cross Country I made breakfast in the team RV, the usual, French Toast made with whole wheat sour dough, eggs, soy milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, strawberries, and honey. Then I always have the standard fresh, hand ground, french pressed coffee to go with my breakfast. While making breakfast I stuck my head out the door around 7:30am and came to the instant realization it would be a scorcher. It was probably already high 60's and the sun had hardly been in the sky for more than an hour.

After breakfast, I gave my girlfriend a call. Sundays we celebrate the sabbath and read our Bibles and pray together, race days are no different.

The rest of the morning was a little busy, we changed a bunch of tires over to the Renegades and made sure our bikes were working on top order for the big day. The temps were continuing to climb and I was getting more and more stoked, since racing in the heat is kind of my forte'. It was going to be a good day. I constantly hydrated all morning to the point where I had to visit the John every ten or twenty minutes. Before I knew it, it was time to suit up. In the midst of all the chaos around the Team RV I remained pretty relaxed and in my happy before the race place. I started my warm up on the rollers and kept it short and sweet because the the Sea Otter is typically a little longer than most races and the mercury was probably inching up towards 90 F. With the start time fast approaching, Scott and Ty both gave me the thumps up and I gave it one more hard effort on the rollers before making one last stop at the John and heading toward the start line for call ups.

I was pretty stoked on my call up considering my DNF at my last race at Fontana, second row. There were over 150 racers in the field so the call up took quite a while. The national anthem was done right by one of the locals and the signal for 2min2go was given. At this point of the day I am usually just numb, all I feel is my heart beating controled and deep and all I hear is my self saying, "Take it easy, stay calm, relax, don't do anything stupid". BANG!! And we were off. As it usually happens at this race, there is a fine line between the really fast guys at the front, controling the pace enough so the not so fast guys in the back, can't KAMAKAZEEE it from the back to the front and cause unneeded carnage for the entire field. However, there are always some spectacular crashes on the start. Comon, we are mountain bikers, forced to start in a giant group on a race car track, half of these guys probably don't know what a groupe ride on skinny tires looks like, let alone, know how to mimic it in perfect harmony with handle bars twice as wide than their skinny tire counterparts. This is a recipe for disaster in most cases. All the way around the track, I heard SLAM CRASH BIFF %*$(#)@!!!! There were still a few close calls at the front, but nothing to serious to write home about. I did my best to stay protected and near my teammates Sid and Max at the front of the race. As far as I remember from years past I have not see the start go off so fast, but on the same token, I've never found it so easy to be at the front hitting the exit off the track. It felt really good to just be there and not have to freek out about getting there like my life depended on it.

Looking around while hitting the first few roller and long white knuckle decent to get to the first single track, it was kind of cool, we had 6 Specialized guys (Saucer, Burry, Todd, Sid, Max, and I) all in the top ten with Sam Schultz, Jeremiah Bishop, and Chris Shepard rounding out the rest of the top ten. The pace really never let up as Jeremiah continuously attacked and Todd and Burry continued to drill it at the front. I just hung on the back of the pack and tried not to stress about it as I knew it was going to be a really long hard day and very very HOT! It was getting really hot, so I kept drinking and tried to relax as much as possible. I got gapped off a little on the first major climb up single track, but hung tuff and kept everyone in sight. I figured, not laying it all on the line so early would pay off later as other people would be melting in the heat. Also it would give the guys in the feed zone a little help because Sid and Max were wheel to wheel.

So I made it to the feed zone and things started to go south. There was some miscomunication and who I thought had my bottle didn't. I was lucky and got at least water instead of mix instead of nothing. I tried to get a gel at the end of the nutral feed, but the person holding it pulled up at the last second and I missed. Next my front derrailer threw me for a loop and decided to not shift down to the little ring and I had to climb one of the more substantial climbs and a bunch of the really steep rollers in my big ring. At this point I was still maintaining about a 15-20 second gap between me and the riders ahead. Finally I got my derrailer to shift down and got a little more comfortable again, just in time for the straw that broke the camels back. I dropped my chain. I've dropped it before and instantly knew this might be the end of the day for me. The chain got so wedged between my little ring and the bottom bracket I could not get it out. I messed around for 15min on the side of the trail as my redemption race quickly faded. Finally I gave up. It just so happened I was almost at the furthest point on course and had probably an hour and a half walk back to the start/finish. It was like the walk of shame. Everyone riding past me knowing I DNFed in Fontana too. They were all nice and asked if I needed anything to get back, but it just sucks, knowing I should be near the front in the lead group going for the podium. My fitness is there, but I need a turn of luck. So Sea Otter was a bit depressing for me, but no worries, I'll get through. As of today I am starting the season over, fresh start. I am finally back home in Colorado Springs, after 3 good months of training in southern california. I'll see you all in Alabama.

Until next time...

This is BAM BAM SAM signing off.

Check out a little video

2009-04-09T17:39:00.003-07:00

A little video one of my longtime supporters from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Cloudveil Mountain Apparel put together this past fall. Check out www.cloudveil.com for all your outerwear needs.

The New Year...Good Things Good Things Good Things

2009-01-24T10:18:00.003-07:00

Dear Family, Friends, Sponsors, Followers, random readers...

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. You probably all think I disappeared from the face of the earth. To catch up from the Cactus Cup:

After the Cactus Cup I had a great time at the Interbike Trade show and had one meeting with a Team...Team Shoair. The owner/director/sponsor of the team Scott Tedro, sat down with me and one of his other athletes, Sid Taberlay, and kind of got to know me real quick, asked me a few questions and ultimately invited me to join his team (this is an incredibly short short short version of the story and for that i'm sorry). Since then a lot has happened in transition from being on the U23 National Team for the past 4 years. The Scott Tedro and team Shoair have been taking incredibly good care of me...so much so I feel like I am dreaming. Where do I begin? (I don't want to brag or anything, but I want to say thank you to Scott and to God for blessing me so incredibly I can't even begin to show my gratitude in any appropriate measure). Shoair has made it possible for me to move out of the Olympic Training Center and into a very nice house in Colorado Springs. They have made it possible for me to buy a car (I know you all are thinking, "You know how to drive? you haven't owned a car in like 5 years"). They have provided me with health insurance, a salary, a way to get to all the races the team is doing and many more, they have provided me with all the equipment (and much much more) I need to be a very competitive successful mountain bike racer....I could probably write all day about how they have blessed me. Thank you so much Scott and Team Shoair!!!!

So this fall I finished up an other semester of school and spent some good time in Seattle with my girlfriend Christina Stockhouse. We spent thanksgiving together in Jackson Hole with our families. I drove up to Seattle, in my new car to go to the wedding of Josh and Sarah Dill (sarah is one of Christinas long time roomates). The wedding just happened to be the weekend of the craziest storm Seattle had seen in decades and we spent the whole weekend playing, driving, shoveling, avoiding, and otherwise dealing with the snow in a city that does not do snow well. It was a tremendous weekend, one I will never forget. Then Christina and I drove back to Jackson Hole, for the rest of the Christmas vacation. My family, the Wolfs also came up to Jackson for Christmas and we all avoided any super dangerous avalanche conditions by building a bobsled course in the back yard and rock climbing pretty much every single day we could physically lift our arms above our heads. After Christmas I drove back to Colorado Springs to spend a little time training with my new roommate Guy East and our mutual friend Caleb Fairly. A lot of these rides turned into Sammy J Death Marches in the snow and ice on road or mountain bikes. (I wonder how much longer those guys will hold out?) Then I just recently made the drive back down here to southern California for my annual winter training camp. This winter I am spending most of the time at my New Bosses house with him and his family. While I'm looking forward to the warm weather, long hours on the bike, and crazy rides with "Team WTF".

Team Shoair has been named the "US Specialized Factory Team" and will be competing on the newly formed US Cup, and West Coast cup, in addition to some other races such as the BC bike race, the transrockies, the Canadian world cups, and some other odds and ends races in Colorado and California. I am looking forward to a great year with a new team and making more steps towards the Olympics in 2012. Thank you all for all your support and generosity over the years. I couldn't do it without you. Be looking for more blog updates, much much more frequently. Until then thanks for reading.

Catching up Briand Head and VIVA Las VEGAS!!!

2008-10-01T12:58:00.003-07:00

Well, for you all who still check my blog even though I haven't posted in some time, thank you for being more consistant than me. I last left you in Mount Snow, VT after my devistating crash at the national championships.

The rest of the season has been a bit interresting, as much as I wanted to get right back on the bike after MT snow and have a redemption race right away, I was physically unable to. The verdict was I had a cracked elbow, a very badly sprained right shoulder and enough road rash to stick to the sheets for a month. I spent about 6 weeks for the most part off the bike. Right after the Vermont race I accompanied the rest of the team up to Canada for the two world cups in hopes my shoulder would come around enough to race, but it just didn't happen. It was pretty cool being up there an not racing in a sense. I was able to help out in the pit and feed the rest of the team and my good friends Mary Mcconoloug and Michael Broderic. It was really nice to be able to help out for a change instead of everyone working for me, I actually got to be more of a team player.

After the two Canadian world cups I headed home to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where I spent time rehabing and riding lightly. I was really stoked to see some of my family who I don't get to see all that often. We went white water rafting and got to catch up. I think I may have spent almost every single day on the river either whitewater rafting or fishing with my buddies Joel and Jonathan Alum. I can't say enough good things about those guys.

Then worked my way back down to C-springs Via a weekend with my pal Dave Mess. We did some fun rides in Ft Collins and caught up a bit.

I finally got back on my bike with two weeks to go before the Brian Head National Series Finals. Dave Mess and his Fiance' Kim and I all drove over to Brian head together. It was a great trip. Got to camp out a few days and do some really fun riding. I didn't really expect too much out of this trip performance wise since I haven't hardly been on my bike but acouple of weeeks in two months. But God has a way of making things work out.

In the short track, I held my own ok, stayed near or at the front the whole race and before really fading in the last lap, I gave my teammate Colin a big pull and blocked for him on the DH, the guy freakin got 2nd!!! It was really cool to see. I still managed to get 4th, my best short track race of the year...hahaha who knew??

In the cross country, I was really glad the race started pretty slow all the way up the paved climb and I was able to stay in the lead group up most of the dirt toward the top of the main climb before cracking a little bit. On the DH, my shoulder was still a bit unstable and I had to kind of take it easy as to not crash royally again. So I lost a few places on the DH where normally I would probably be passing guys, but no worries, I was happy just to be back on my bike and not crash again. All in all I finished up in 15th, not a great result, but considering, I was very happy with it.

Since Brian Head I decided to go to one more race this year in an effort to sign a contract with a new team since my time with the national team is ending. The weekend going into Interbike was the Cactus cup, a 4 stage mountain bike race in las vegas, nevada. My cousin Wendy and her husband Jim who live in Vegas were gracious enough to let me stay with them for the week...thank you guys soo much!!!

STAGE 1: The first stage was a super short time trial up a little mound of dirt on the south side of Las Vegas. It was steep and very loose. I was near the beginning of the line up behind Tim Allen. My plan was to go out really slow and not change my speed at all, hopefully making it up to the top in a respectable time...I was thinking, all I could loose to the current world champion, Christoph Saucer, would be like a minute. no big deal. I followed my plan and crossed the finish line at the top in the lead. I sat at the top watching the times of everyone else and some how managed a second place to Sid Taberlay by only a hundreth of a second and put a few seconds on Saucer.

Stage 2: The second stage was a long super-D race a little further west of town. My buddy Cody "bobby" Peterson and Eric ransom and I rode the course the night before right after the time trial. A classic Lemon start (running start) got the group rolling. I am an ok runner, so I was maybe 5th to my bike, but got my pedal hung up on Christoph Saucers saddle and spent enough time fiddling with it to be almost last getting to the single track. A little frustrating, but whatever. The first climb I was stuck behind some dude who would not let me go around for anything by blocking me multiple times...kind of lame because he was letting Saucer gap him off and I couldn't let him get away, that would be the end. I finally managed to get around him before the tunnel. When we got to the tunnel, I hit the gas really hard and passed 6-7 guys before the next section of single track. On the single track climb I worked as hard as I could to pass as many people as I could, because once we really got rolling on the Down hill it was going ot be much harder to pass people. I manuvered safely through about 5 more guys and bumped elbows with one other guy just before the beginning of the decent to get there first. Up ahead there was still Ben Sontagg, Tim Allen, Sid Taberlay, and Carl Decker, a pretty all star super d field. I had on my awesomely fast and now vintage Specialized ROCKSTER tires (Ned if you are reading, this is a formal request to bring those tires back to production...THEY ARE AWESOME!!!) and was flying down the course. I caught Sontagg and asked him to let me by so we could try to catch the next couple of guys. He complied and tried to go with me, but couldn't. Next I caught Tim Allen, who also let me go by and held on for a good while before I began to pull away again. Finally I had Decker and Taberlay in sight and kept chipping away at their lead getting closer and closer all the time. Decker was leading the charge and Sid was enjoying letting him chose the best lines. All until Decker flatted his front wheel and Sid was on his own. Decker let me by no problem, and I kept after Sid. I finally caught him with a little less than a K to go and attacked him right away to try to get to the last little DH first. He covered my attack and go there first. We flew down the last descent towards the finish. I let him get a little gap, so I could make a run on him at the bottom (learning from the track guys). I timed it perfect and hit the little gully at the bottom with more speed and momentum than Sid. While passing him, we bumped shoulders bit, nothing too serious, but I had the legs to get up the last little 10ft climb first to take the win. I was super stoked with a win at my first Super D...maybe I'll have to do them at the national series next year.

Stage 3: The third stage was the fat tire crit. Fat tire meaning we had to run at least 1.25in wide tires. Most guys brought 1.25 slicks, I brought 1.0s which weren't going to make the cut, so I stuck with my AWESOME ROCKSTERS (Again to you folks at specialized, the ROCKSTERS ARE AWESOME!!!). My plan was to more or less hang in and not do any work, but that wasn't really going to happen because I was in the lead for the General Classification. Sid kept attacking and caught an intermediate sprint to take over the GC lead. Then he and Manny Prado took turns attacking. Saucer put in a couple of attacks as well as a couple other people and myself. Nothing really stuck though. I played it well and found myself hitting the last corner in second place, right behind Sid. I know I have a great sprint finish so I was confident I could take it. Sid took the corner a little harder than the rest of the race and I tried to follow, but folded over a Knob on my knobbies, slid out, and took Ben Sontagg with me. I was stoked I crashed in the last bit of the race, so I got the Same time as everyone who was in the lead group, but I didn't get a time bonus, so Sid maintained his leaders positition going into the last stage, the cross country. Luckily no one was seriously hurt in the crash.

Stage 4: The cross country started really early so to avoid the heat...but I like it when its rediculously hot out. From the Gun some little Israly dude attacked and got to the single track first (that guy had some crazy pop for someone so small). We all just followed in behind him, first Saucer, then me, then Sid, and Tim Allen...It was kind of nice, he was workin super hard, but we were just relaxed behind him. A little sketchy following be hind him and saucer and not being able to see what was coming up, but no crashes and nothing stupid happened. Finally a little ways into the lap he had burn too many matches and Saucer went around him and I followed. We went up some pretty technical climb called the "hurl", for the most part I stayed with Saucer, but made a couple of silly technical errors and had to get off my bike momentarily letting Saucer get a small gap. Probably a good thing, because it let me race my own race and not let him dictate the pace for me. I looked back and it was just me, I couldn't believe it. I just kept focusing on riding smooth and keeping Saucer in sight and he never opened it up. We came through the start finish and I think he had 2-3 min on me. The second lap was a bit different than the first, much mor technical. I had finally found my rythm and closed the gap to 15seconds until a flat road section where Saucer hit the gas and dropped me. I kept chasing as hard as I could, while still being smooth and in control and closed the gap a bit more. Finally the finish, I could see him finish, and held the gap to only 1min 30 sec. I don't know how I had such great legs, other than a gift from God. And as it would appear I really needed a big rest after all the training I did last fall and this spring.

I put enough time into Sid that I maintained my 2nd place in the GC, but Saucer took over the lead, Sid finished 3rd. After four stages, I was only 45seconds down on Saucer. I am very stoked with that result. It was a total bonus for the end of the season. I went there not really expecting anything, and just wanted to enjoy myself and have fun with it and it turned out so much better than I had hoped for.

Big thanks to USA Cycling for buying my plane ticket out to Vegas for the cactus cup and interbike, to Wendy and Jim for putting me up for the week, to Cody BOBBY for keeping me company all summer and sharing good times and bad, and to all of you who read my blog even though I haven't posted in a long time...(ill try to be better at that). Cheers!!!!!!!!

Mountain Bike National Championships...HAHAHAHA WIPE OUT!!!!

2008-07-20T12:45:00.002-07:00

Well, I seem to either be on top or on the ground, because this week at the mountain bike nationals I was hoping for a repeat of last years win in the U23 national championship race. I seemed to be on very good form, coming off of a podium at the National Series race the weekend before in Windham. They changed the course a little bit, removing most of the technical climb sections, so I didn't think the race would be as hard as last year. National Championships in the U23 division is a little nerve racking if you are favored to be in the top 3 or so riders because there are a ton of new faces we don't see at every race. There are a ton of races who come up from the Expert 19-29 and Semi Pro divisions. All the new faces are a little scary because you don't know who is who and if they could surprise you or not. I felt pretty confident coming off my podium in the elite race the week before, but there is always that little thing in the back of your mind, "WHAT IF" "That Guys looks fast!" "Maybe he can tare one off." On the Start one of the up and coming U23 racers Mitch Peterson showed he wanted the title as bad as anyone by attacking from the gun and stringing out the field immediately. He didn't last too long at the front and relinquished it to me and my teammate Colin Cares to set the tempo up the first climb. On the first descent, I was leading the charge, prejumping water bars and going fast, but nothing dangerous or out of control as it goes. There is a spot on course going down the first descent on a fire road where the Downhill and Cross Country courses converge and are separated by a piece of tape. At the same time I was flying down the descent, so was a downhiller. He made a sweeping turn towards me and I just barely caught him in my peripheral vision, enough to make me jump just a little bit. That little jump was all it took to make me jerk my handle bars and hit an awkward rock causing my front wheel to wash out underneath me. I probably looked something like a rag doll as I crumpled on the ground. I was very luck to not land on my face or head and I was coherent enough to have the frame of mind to not move a muscle because the entire U23 XC field was baring down on top of me. I was very impressed to the response time of my friend Cody Peterson and the rest of the medical crew. They were on me in a matter of seconds after the rest of the racers had passed. This whole incident was within about 4min of the start. As they helped me to my feet it was apparent to me how serious it was. My forearm, elbow, chest, and thigh were all shredded. It was pretty much just like Jonathan Vaughters comment about crashing in a professional bike race. "Take off all your clothes and jump out of a moving car." My shorts had essentially been ripped from my body and my jersey was shredded. I actually didn't feel a whole lot because of all the adrenaline I had surging from the start and from the crash. As I got up I asked the medics to wrap up my leg so I could still be somewhat modest for the rest of the race. Yes, I wasn't going to pull out yet. I had only lost a few minutes. My good friend Cody, strongly urged me to not continue, but I wouldn't have it and raced off in agony to defend my jersey. I was full on angry and felt like I had been dipped in gasoline and lit of fire and hammered my way back up to the middle of the field by the top of the course. A little ways down the descent from the top of the course my adrenaline finally wore off and revealed even more pain. I couldn't lift my right arm above my handle bars and could hardly hold on or brake, so I spent the rest of the descent screaming in pain over every bump and drop. I made it safely down to the bottom of the descent and to the feed zone/pit where I told my team director and mechanic I thought I had broke my collar bone and would pull out at the lap. I pulled out of the race not to defend my title. I was very foolish for continuing in the first place, but I am thankful God was watching out for me and I didn't get hurt worse in the initial crash or by crashing again later on in my lap. I am very thankful to say I did not break my collar bone or tare anything I know of yet, I just sprained my shoulder very bad and shredded up my right side severely. For the last couple of days I have been going a little nutty, not being able to do a whole lot. Just some painful showers, lots of ice and ibuprofen trying to reduce the swelling. Today I made some very good steps towards recovery and am feeling much better. I did not race the short track, but I should be ready to go again this coming Sunday for the next round of world cup racing where I am looking for a little redemption. I want to throw out a huge Congratulations to my teammate, Tad Elliot for coming up with the win. He rode a very smart and mature race coming on in the last lap to pass Mitchel Peterson for the win. And also my other teammate Colin Cares for his third consecutive third place at the National championships. Also I want to say thank you so much to all the folks who helped me this past weekend. I have been very flattered with all the phone calls, emails, and concerns regarding my incident. And a very very big thanks to Cody Peterson who was like a brother to me and helped me through the whole mess from peeling me off the ground to sitting with me in the ER.

Windham, NY NMBS

2008-07-13T07:06:00.003-07:00

Today, I resumed racing after about a two week break. I was feeling a little fried after about 10weeks in Europe racing almost every weekend and having a very bad time at the world championships due to some bad luck so I decided to hopefully have a few more consistently good races towards the end of the season instead of maybe one good one at park city. Today confirms I made a good choice in skipping the Park City race.

Today, was very hot here in NY, hot and humid, which immediately plays into one of my strengths. For some reason, I am very good at racing well in the heat. I had a bit of a rough call up, mid thirties, since I have only been to one other National Series race this year at the beginning of the year in Fontana. I wasn't too worried about it since pretty much all of the racing in Europe is a heck of a lot harder than the race and they start a heck of a lot faster than the US/Canadians do. My plan was to go pretty conservative in the start and the first lap to not waste too much energy in the heat and to focus on hydrating as much as possible. I felt like I started pretty easy, but still came out of the first corner in probably the top15 or 20. I just kept it relaxed and chill for the first lap and I think came through the start finish in around 10th. 2nd lap I started to go a bit harder and caught quite a few people working my way up to the top6 starting the 3rd lap. On the third lap I caught JHK and hung behind him a bit to recovery, then launched an attack to make it look like I was riding a lot hard than I actually was. I dropped JHK and had Matt Talouse chasing hard. I tried to put some more distance on him in before the descent, but ended up letting him catch me on the descent and trying to recover so I might be able to put in an attack later in the fourth lap. Talouse passed me in the feed zone and I tagged onto his wheel and tried to hang with him as best as possible, but I was having some difficulty seeing because I had so much dust and sweat in my eyes. So he got a bit of a gap on me. I kept chasing hard and came very close to catching Matt, Jeremiah Bishop, and Adam Craig by the top of the climb, but not quite there. On the last descent I first tried to close down the gap, but I was pretty spent from the long effort I put in to bridge the gap and was dizzy and hitting almost everything there was to hit, so I backed it off and just tried not to get a flat or kill myself on the rough descent. So I finished up in 4th place once again. So two national series races, two 4th places. Not Bad... Also Congrats to Matt Tallouse for his first NMBS win ever and Sam Schultz for his first NMBS cross country podium.

Today is the Short Track...

Gooooo Team!!!

2008-07-10T20:06:00.003-07:00

Today we (the U23 National Team) traveled to the east coast for the next big serious block of racing. Tad and I flew into Albany where we were met by our other teammate Ethan Gilmore who was accompanied by his Girl friend Alison. When I asked Ethan to pick us up I thought he had a truck.

Haha Ya we managed. It was pretty fun. Windham, NY here we come!!!! More to come.

Gettin my head together...

2008-06-09T05:24:00.003-07:00

This weekend we (Colin and I) had our last race here in Switzerland before heading to the World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy. It had been raining all week, so we kind of expected a muddy race course. Colin wanted to do the longer 60km race, I, not knowing what the course profile looked like, wanted to do the shorter 30km race (thinking the 60 would be too long in the mud, going into the week before the world chamionships) either way, we got signed up for the 30km mini marathon. Well, we got to the race, and we were like, "where the heck are the mountians? Heck, where are the hills?" There wasn't a whole lot in the way of any sort of elevation gain or loss anywhere to be seen. Sure enough the course profile revealed less than 1000m of climbing in the entire course. The course was a one lapper, around little agricultural roads and forest roads surrounding the historical village of Estavayer. We both cut the start time a little close because we thought the start was at 12:30, when it was actually at 12:20, but we made it in line just in the knick of time to get an ok start position. Not that the immediate start position mattered all that much because for some reason they really like doing moto controlled nutral starts here in switzerland. So as soon as the gun went off it was like hurry up and run into the back of a 4wheeler, then try not to crash into anyone else or get crashed into for about a kilometer, before the 4wheelers hit the gas and dropped the field who, tried their darnedest, but still couldn't catch them, but still didn't ever slow down for a second....EVER!!!! We sped off down a little farm road with a nasty cross wind. People trying to sprint off the front but really only succeeding in stringing out the field even more. I didn't really feel like taking part in all the fun and games so I found a nice big guy to just cruz behind in the draft for a little while, near the front as to avoid several crashes in the middle of the...oh ya 415!!!!!FREAKIN MEN AND 200+FREAKIN WOMEN!!!!! WHO ALL STARTED AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!! Thats right over 600people started at the same time...sorry, where was I? Oh ya avoiding crashes...pretty much the whole field stayed to gether for the first 5km or so, then we made a couple of very sketchy left and right hand turns before taking a hard left to look up at a freekin wall of a climb. Right as I turned the corner, I heard a big pile up behind me and me and about 6 other guys hit the gas up the climb. I was pretty much about to pop a lung or something trying to keep up with these guys and kept thinking to myself, "Gosh this hurts a lot. Why am I doing this again? It would be so much easier to just cruz on my own for a while." For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I stuck it out, gaining a little more confidence each time the group punched it a little harder. Then we would come to a little descent, an other short hard steep climb, and an other short descent (huh...kind of felt like the workout I have been doing for the past couple of weeks). We finally got so something that resembled a mountain bike course when the break all hit a 4inch deep slog of mud. It was flat at first and managable, then turned into a climb. After seeing the course profile and I opted for my faster, non-mud tires and was imidiately wishing I had chosen the mud tires as I had to hop off my bike and run like hell to keep the other guys in the break (who had mud tires) in sight. At the top of the hill I hopped back on the bike and shoved it into my big ring and got the diesel rolling. It took me a couple of minutes to catch back on the back, but as soon as I did, I didn't stop, I attacked them and got a small gap, only about 15 seconds or so. The next section was some little trickey muddy descent that I just let 'er rip down floating both wheels and laying off the breaks extending my gap a little more. This was pretty much the story for the remaining 15km. Powinging in my aero mountain bike tuck into a head wind, hammering scared out of the saddle on the short power climbs in my big ring, and riding the short muddy descents wrecklessly (we didn't preride the course so Colin and I were riding the whole race blind). Every so often people on the side of the course cheering would say, "only 4k to go, you got it." and I would put it down a little harder, then I'd think ok, its been a couple K where is the finish? Then someone else would say only 4more K to go and I'd be like, "@#$% ahhh it hurts!!! But ok, only 4 to go!" After that happened a couple of times I was getting a bit tired, but hung in there, still riding scared of being caught and finished my last race here in Switzerland in first.

There were a lot of people in the race, a few fast guys, and it felt good to win a race here, its no world cup podium, but it was still a win and I raced hard for it and it was a pretty good confidence booster going into the world championships. At least I am going into it feeling good about myself, my fitness, and all the hard work I have put in here. It feels good to leave on a high note.

So, for the last couple weeks here in Switzerland I have been on some crazy mental rollercoaster, from feeling great after the SwissPower Cup to training myself into the ground trying to get as much fitness as possible before the world championships. Then continuing to second guess myself and my plan of how I should taper into the world championships, and getting all stressed over that. Then being overly depressed because the weather sucked. Then this weekend, taking myself kind of by surprise and winning a pretty good sized swiss mini-marathon mountain bike race. So, we'll see what happens this coming week at the world championships. I'll be competing in the Team Relay on Tuesday the 17th and in the U23 World Cross Country Championships on Friday the 20th. Wish me luck!!!

Then I will return to the States on monday the 23rd. JACKSON HOLE I'm COMING HOME!!!!

HOLY SWISSPOWER CUP BATMAN!!!!!

2008-05-26T04:32:00.004-07:00

So, the swisspower cup is really hard for those of you who don't know...we (Colin cares, Ethan Gilmor, myself, and a couple of racers from South America) drove the 2hours from Aigle to whereever the race was being held in the German part of switzerland. It was pouring rain the entire drive and we thought it was going to be a mudfest. Fortunately enough, it was just enough rain to make the course super tacky and fast (especially after the rain stopped, the sun came out, the temps went up, and tons of other racers smoothed out the course for us). The course: 4.8km/lap. 10 Laps!!(gosh I hope I can count to ten when I've been giving 'er for an hour or two). 3 climbs/lap. Sweet!!!! Some weird (but fun) quary to ride through with some drop offs, a jump, a wall ride, and some gnarly baby heads (round rocks the size of a baby's head, don't hit those wrong they'll mess you up!!!). COOL!!!! A switchback climb through the forest followed by a little downhill with some slippery roots, a slippery log, some off camber slopes, stairs, berms, jumps. HECK YES!!! This was going to be a fun course.

Just before the start looking around at all the riders, I was thinking to myself, Gosh I didn't know there were that many world champions out there. I swear I counted at least 6 guys with rainbow stripes on their sleeves (the mark of a former world champion). Guys like Ralf Naf, Jean Christoph Pereau, Thomas Fritschneck, and the list goes on and on and on. Its gonna be fast!!! I had a reasonably good starting position because of all the points I have from the Continental championships. So I think I was about 25th or 30th call up. Ethan and Colin weren't so fortunate...lining up on the back line. The start climb was about a kilometere long paved climb, not too steep, most guys did the whole thing in their big ring like no big deal. I thought the race was going to be a bit long (48k, could take 2 and a half hours), so I didn't do a very long or hard warmup. My lack of a warmup hurt me bad on the first climb and I fell back to...well...the back and spent the first to laps waging war with my head. "I'm going to die" "Ten laps...ha I won't make it to the 3rd one at this rate" "gosh my legs hurt" "maybe i'm getting fat" "This moustache is making me slow, I think I should shave" "what am I doing here" "i'm burnt out, I need a break" "to think I won a continental championship and podiumed at a NMBS race already this year" "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?! JUST RIDE YOUR BIKE!!!!!" So finally towards the end of the second lap I finally pulled my head on strait started pedaling my bike like I know I can. It was like a little switch just flipped and I started taring through the field. I had a pretty good plan worked out: Climb out of the saddle spinning and easy gear on the paved climb (catching 2-5people per lap) recover on the DH, crush the zigzag field, drink, gap people on the zigzag run through the quary to the step up climbs through the quary, attack attack attack, rail the wall ride, drink, attack attack attack, recover on the zigzag climb through the trees (better to ride it just smooth than blow through a bunch of corners) recover on the downhill, use my skills to catch people. Worked pretty well. I did a good job of hydrating and my head stayed in the race all the way to the end and fought for every spot. I caught all the way back up to 20th. So, a good result, not a GREAT result, but I was happy with the way I won the battle with my head and fought all the way to the end...and I was pretty stoked to finish on the lead lap with such a quality field on such a short course.

This next three weeks is going to be rough. I'll be beating my brains out and taring my own legs off in final preparation for the world championships. Its game time kids!!!

More European Racing...

2008-05-19T06:17:00.002-07:00

This weekend we did an other "Local" European race. Well this one at least felt a little more like a local race. There were only about 15 people who lined up for the start of the Elite mens race.

That day was an interresting one as while we were trying to leave the World Cycling Center in the morning to drive the 250+km to the race we were held up because someone had taken our lunches that had been packed for us by the kitchen staff here. So we spent almost an extra hour racing around looking for the culperit. Once we had our sack lunches to go we made our way off to the north eastern side of Switzerland right on the German/Swiss border. Once we were close to the race, we drove around in circles for an other while looking for the race. By the time we actually found it we only had about 30min to register to race and warm up...this was going to be less that optimal racing conditions. While the Coach, Boris, and Colin went to get our number plates the rest of us chammied up and got our bikes ready. We got our number plates and started rolling around frantically to try to get some kind of warmup in before the race. I took a little road that went around the back side of the course, up to the top of the only substancial descent so I could get a quick look at what the descent would be like in the race. I went down it as fast as possible, but wasn't happy with the cornering capabilities of the tires I had on. Good thing we brought two sets of spair wheels with different tires on them. I quickly went back to the car and got the different set of wheels for the race, thinking they would help my chances on the descents.

We lined up with only about 15 other guys. They all looked fast. Funny how that is, they just look fast around here...probably because they are. We also noticed we were the only ones on full suspension bikes. Everyone else was riding super light sub 20lb carbon hardtails. We kind of thought it was going to be fast and hard right from the beginning. The wistle blew and we were off on a full on dead sprint to the first corner. I was pretty happy with my start, I hit it really hard and made it to the 2nd corner in third. From the back to the front with less than 200 people to go through is nice. We did a little half lap around this little field, hopped over some little jump thing then off through an other field, into the woods. There was a little technical rooty section followed by a little technical rocky section, then swung a hard left hander onto a dirt road. Almost as soon as I hit the dirt road I started going backwards...the no warm up warmup, working its majic....I went from top three strait back to maybe 10th. I suffered for all I was worth just to get up to the top of the hill the first time, thinking the whole time, gosh this is going to be a long six laps. I made it to the top of the climb and breathed a sigh of relief. I recovered well on the descent...no that I had my warmup lap I would be able to do some work. I ground through the fields through the start/finish area again and made my way back to the beginning of the climb. Now I could feel the juices flowing...I started picking off riders. And made my way up to about 7th as is started to rain...no big deal I love racing in the rain. When I got to the descent again I noticed my tires were gripping to the wet grass about as well as tires on an oil slick and went blowing through every corner I wanted to turn around. I finally made it down to start/finish, again through the fields and over the hill we go. I picked off a couple more guys on the climb and came through at the end of lap three in 5th. As I entered the woods and hit the technical rooty section, I went through it a little fast and hit the technical rocky section slicing my sidewall nicly. I quickly grabbed my CO2 and tried to make the stans fill the hole, but it was no good. There was no fixing that flat. So I sat in a car for around 6hours to do a 45min half race. It was fun though, more racing experience and at least I can chalk it up to a good hard interval workout....more stories to come....this coming weekend is our first swisspower cup. I hear those guys are fast!

A "low key local" race!?!?

2008-05-12T02:19:00.003-07:00

So yesterday the team and I did what was supposed to be a sweet little, no pressure, low key, local mountain bike race in Bonvillar, Switzerland. When I am not sure what those words mean in Switzerland, but in the states it means there are usually less than 30 starters and you don't have to give'r all out just to make the top ten. Its more like start fairly easy, chat with your buds for a while and milk the single track for all its worth. Here in switzerland it was more like US National Championships...there were around 300+starters and people were layin it down from the best guys all the way to...well, the back where there were more really really fast guys who just happened to start in the back instead of the front. We saw a few familar faces there....hmm the french national team, including their junior and and espoir national champions.

There was a bit of a language barrier...as usual when in a foreign, non-english speaking country. So we weren't really sure about the whole program. We hadn't be able to preview the course ahead of time, so we really had no idea where we were going or how to expend our energy, so we just kind of gave 'er and hoped for the best. At the beginning we thought there was supposed to be a 6km neutral start then the lead car would pull off and it would be a rat race for 35km. I think everyone else thought the same thing, because we sketchily rode behind the lead car while everyone was bumping bars and elbows, almost crashing the whole group multiple times just to get behind the car to be ready for when it pulled off. Ethan and our Turkish compatriot, Bilal, managed to get right up behind the car, while Colin and I were fairly content to just not crash in the group. So we sped along all the while expecting the car to pull off at any moment. It never pull off, it just randomly stopped as we had arrrived at the actual start. We stood around and 100 guys all took a leak in the field at the same time, then we stood around for and other 5 min before they said GO!!! And everyone went racing off through the field up a road and the race began. Colin and I pretty much stayed together for the first couple of Km' up the climb before we caught Ethan. I pushed the pace harder to crack a few people and try to bridge the gap up to the 20 or 30 guys ahead of us. On the first climb I caught a good number of people and ended up settling in behind a LaPierre rider who we see on the world cups occationally. This guy was built a bit like me...pretty solid for a bike racer. He climbed pretty fast, but it wasn't too hard for be to hold onto his wheel, but when we hit any sort of descent it was like he hit the little red button and said, "hold on to your butts!" I don't know, maybe I was just riding very sketchy low tread tires in really loose leaves...but really I think this guy should be racing down hill. I was scared out of my mind to try to follow him down the hills. Somehow, I managed to keep him within a couple of meters on most of the descents and catch back up to his wheel for the climbs. Then I would pass him and gap him off and catch a couple of people and just before hitting the next descent I would hear him sprinting for all he was worth, then come speeding by me to get to the single track first. Kind of weird, but whatever. On one of the descents I tryed to follow him and couldn't hold a corner and ended up doing a wall ride on a big tree, and when there was no more tree to ride I went flying off my bike, hop-skip-jumping down the hill scared for my life and my collar bones as trees wizzed by me and eventually tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle for a few meters. After I dug myself out of a pile of leaves I had to run about 20meters back up the hill to the tree where my bike still was as riders came smoking by be saying, "Cava???" (meaning are you ok for all you none french speaking people reading). I replied, "Oui Cava!!" and they kept on thier way. I finaly got myself back on my bike and chased after them as hard as I could. I pretty much caught everyone who had passed me including the LaPierre guy who was too fast for me to follow down the hill and sped away as fast as I could. I had a pretty sizeable gap on anyone behind me and had caught two other riders when we went thought the final feed zone, but I thought I had a flat, but didn't want get off and change it because if you stop for a second here you get passed by like 10 guys. So I tried to get used to floating a lot with my rear wheel. The two guys I was with dropped me on the final descent because I was riding it pretty conservatively cuz I though I had flatted and I was still a little jittery from my near hospitalizing crash earlier in the race. The final 5or6km was pretty flat through fields and twisting single track through the trees. The flat is where I really have power so I put it down hard and bridged the gap up to the French Espoir National champion. I blew past him so he wouldn't try to tag on my wheel and kept going trying to catch the next group who had dropped me before. I ended up catching them with about 1km to go. They had formed a bigger group of about 4 and as soon as they saw me catch them, they all attacked and I was powerless to do anything or hold their wheels since I had spent too much energy trying to catch them. I ended the "low key" local race in 9th. This was a rediculously hard little local race, but really fun and no pressure. We'll see what happens next weekend in a "bigger regional race".

It just keeps going up and up and up and up and up....

2008-05-02T09:22:00.002-07:00

Well folks, for the past week and for next six or so I have been in Aigle Switzerland with my teammates Colin Cares and Ethan Gilmor. Let me just say this place is heaven for me. Its like the Tetons suddenly sprouted up on all sides instead of just one and there are roads that go up in between each mountain. Road like, what the heck were they thinking when they built a road up this thing. They could probably barely scale the side of the mountain with ice axes, crampons, and ropes and they built a freakin road up it. And they aren't just short little roads either. I haven't done a climb shorter than an hour long yet. An HOUR thats a long climb, some as long as two hours. I can't remember the last time I felt so tired from training, but wanted to train so much more the next day. I'm like a kid who just got locked in a candy shop over night. I am so thankful God brought me here to see his amazing work of art. This place is like God got bored with the rest of the world and said I'm going to make them wonder and gape in awe of how awesome He is. I have been through this part of the world before, but I didn't even come close to appreciating it. I probably just slept through it riding on a bus or something like that. Now every time I go outside or look through a window all I can do is druel all over myself and thank God for the opportunity he has given me to explore this amazing place he has created. This training camp was exactly what I needed...to get out in my element, just by myself and God and remember why I love my job so much and be thankful for everything God has given me.

Off-the-back-enburg, Germany World Cup#2

2008-04-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Well, unfortunately I don't have a real sweet exciting story to tell for this one. Pretty much I could not get my head in the game. I felt pretty good in my warmup, and my hot laps the day before the race, but for some reason I just had nothing from the get go. I probably held my start position for the 2 start laps, but went backwards from then on. The first lap was a lot of running...the usual in a world cup. I don't know what was going on in my head, but it was like I forgot how to ride my bike. I was blowing through corners left and right. On technical sections where I usually make up the most ground, I was bouncing all over the place. On some of the steep drops, I was going off sideways and landing flat on the bottom and blowing through the corners, then I was in too big of a gear to get it rolling again so I would have to get off my bike and shift down and hop back on my bike before continuing. I kind of got things rolling a little bit on lap four, but as soon as I started to find a glimmer of a rythm I blew through an other corner and burped my tire pretty bad. When I got off to fill it back up with my CO2 my Valve core came strait out of the valve and the rest of the air came out, so I had to run almost all the way down the Zig-Zag down hill dodging riders and trying not to get hit or kill anyone on the way down before getting to the Tech pit. I got an awesomely speedy wheel change from Yvon our new Swiss compatriot/mechanic. And finished my lap as fast as I could knowing it would be my last after all the time I wasted running. Basically I think my head was in a very bad place. I don't know what got into me this Spring, but I have been a totally ungrateful, angry, bitter, ass and really shouldn't have been. So for those of you reading who have been watching me and shaking your head at me going, "what is this kid thinking?" I sincerely appologize. I don't know what I was thinking, but I can tell you my attitude has changed and I am stoked to move on with the season and leave all my personal BS behind. Tonight, we are off to Aigle, Switzerland where I will begin my next phase of training. The National Team is planning on doing several local Swiss races and a Swiss Power Cup in preparation for the 2008 World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy. I am very much looking forward to experiencing Switzerland in depth over about 7 weeks. Hopefully I'll learn a lot more French than I do now and see some incredible country side, history, and culture...who know maybe I'll even get to break out my fly rod and do a little fishing. Check back for frequent updates...hopefully....this is Sam Jurekovic off to training camp.

Sam Jurekovic
1 Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, CO 80909
307-699-0333
Sockbikerdude@aol.com
SamJurekovic@Gmail.com
www.samjracing.blogspot.com

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Off-the-back-enburg, Germany World Cup#2

2008-04-27T08:49:00.004-07:00

Houffalize World Cup 2008

2008-04-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

Ah travels to Europe will never be forgotten. The national team traveled to Europe once again for the beginning of the world cup season in Houffalize, Belgium. I had a rough day of travel due to my sinus headache, my spiking fever and gastrointestinal distress...some how I had caught the flu in because of my several nights with less than adequate sleep. For the few days leading up to the World Cup I struggled with training and more so with recovering from training. I had diarrhea so bad I could have pooped through a screen door. So I was pretty dehydrated and malnourished for the days leading up to the race. I actually felt pretty good the day of the race so I was going to give 'er just like any other race. I had a moderate start position, right in the middle actually; 130th out of 260+ racers, yep smack dab in the middle. It was going to be an interesting start up the first climb of and average of 16% and almost 2km long going full gas to reach the single track first. Maybe I started much better last year or something, but I sure as heck don't remember such a mess right off the bat that went on for so long. It was like ready...set...goSTOP!!!!GO!!!!GO!!!STOP!!!RUN!!!!(Bell rings)FISTFIGHT!!!RUN!!!SLIDEDOWNHILLONASS!!!!GO!!!!SPRINT!!!!STOP!!!!PUNCHYOURNEIGHBOR!!!!SPRINT!!!!!STOP!!!!!GO!!!!!...for the whole first lap. I bet the leaders gained 3/4 of their massive gap just in the first lap because everyone else was screwing around tripping over each other and fighting over who would get to go down the steep hill first while the rest of us just rolled our eyes, laughed, and tried to recover until it was our turn. After all the ruckus, I have no idea where that left me, probably around the same position as I started. As soon as I was able I began to step on the gas. Just punch the climbs as hard as possible and recover and ride the downhill's well within my limits, not doing anything extravagantly crazy (like normal). I took a couple of sweet flyers down some of the steeper descents, most of the Euros have a problem with for some reason, and passed up to 6 or 7 people in doing so. I was pretty much rockin the house until we hit pavement in each lap. Unfortunately, there was a lot of pavement. I opted for a little bit slower tire that would be better in the mud, but paid the price dearly on the extended pave' sections. I kept moving up to about 1 1/2 to go when I crumbled like a third world country in a 8.0 earthquake...the gas tank light never even went on, one second it was at full and over flowing and the next I was tapping on it looking for the needle buried on the 'E' side. I was suffering for all I was worth, putting all my mental fortitude into just turning over the pedals in my granny gear on a flat. I don't think I have ever bonked so hard or so fast. It was one of those, full grown man crying on the side of the road not knowing why kind of cracks. Next thing I know the lead moto pulls around me and the rider asks me to get off the course because the leaders are coming through in a hurry. Usually I would have crawled to the finish line just to finish and not say I quit, but I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter here. All things considered I am counting it as a victory; I had no mechanicals, no flats, I didn't miss any of my bottles, and I never crashed. That's one hell of an awesome race for me.

I am now in Offenburg, Germany. Training for the next world cup here this weekend. Hopefully, I'll be able to get my legs back under me for the race, since I will most certainly have a better call up spot because my points from Pan American Championships will now count as they updated the points this monday after the Houffalize world cup. Wish me luck!! Thanks for Reading.

Sam Jurekovic
1 Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, CO 80909
307-699-0333
Sockbikerdude@aol.com
SamJurekovic@Gmail.com
www.samjracing.blogspot.com

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Houffalize World Cup 2008

2008-04-23T04:09:00.003-07:00

Ah travels to Europe will never be forgotten. The national team traveled to Europe once again for the beginning of the world cup season in Houffalize, Belgium. I had a rough day of travel due to mysinus headache, my spiking fever and gastrointestinal distress...some how I had caught the flu in because of my several nights with less than adequate sleep. For the few days leading up to the World Cup I struggled with training and more so with recovering from training. I had dierrhea so bad I could have pooped through a screen door. So I was pretty dehydrated and malnurished for the days leading up to the race. I actually felt pretty good the day of the race so I was going to give 'er just like any other race. I had a moderate start position, right in the middle actually; 130th out of 260+ racers, yep smack dab in the middle. It was going to be an interresting start up the first climb of and average of 16% and almost 2km long going full gas to reach the single track first. Maybe I started much better last year or something, but I sure as heck don't remember such a mess right off the bat that went on for so long. It was like ready...set...goSTOP!!!!GO!!!!GO!!!STOP!!!RUN!!!!(Bell rings)FISTFIGHT!!!RUN!!!SLIDEDOWNHILLONASS!!!!GO!!!!SPRINT!!!!STOP!!!!PUNCHYOURNEIGHBOR!!!!SPRINT!!!!!STOP!!!!!GO!!!!!...for the whole first lap. I bet the leaders gained 3/4 of their massive gap just in the first lap because everyone else was screwing around tripping over each other and fighting over who would get to go down the steep hill first while the rest of us just rolled our eyes, laughed, and tried to recover until it was our turn. After all the rucus, I have no idea where that left me, probably around the same position as I started. As soon as I was able I began to step on the gas. Just punch the climbs as hard as possible and recover and ride the downhills well within my limits, not doing anything extravagantly crazy (like normal). I took a couple of sweet flyers down some of the steeper descents, most of the Euros have a problem with for some reason, and passed up to 6 or 7 people in doing so. I was pretty much rockin the house until we hit pavement in each lap. Unfortunately, there was a lot of pavement. I opted for a little bit slower tire that would be better in the mud, but paid the price dearly on the extended pave' sections. I kept moving up to about 1 1/2 to go when I crumbled like a third world country in a 8.0 earthquake...the gas tank light never even went on, one second it was at full and over flowing and the next I was tapping on it looking for the needle burried on the 'E' side. I was suffering for all I was worth, puting all my mental fortitude into just turning over the pedals in my granny gear on a flat. I don't think I have ever bonked so hard or so fast. It was one of those, full grown man crying on the side of the road not knowing why kind of cracks. Next thing I know the lead moto pulls around me and the rider asks me to get off the course because the leaders are coming through in a hurry. Usually I would have crawled to the finish line just to finish and not say I quit, but I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter here. All things considered I am counting it as a victory; I had no mechanicals, no flats, I didn't miss any of my bottles, and I never crashed. That's one hell of an awesome race for me.

2008 Pam American Championships

2008-04-08T08:11:00.003-07:00

Well, as you can see from the photo, the race went pretty well. This past weekend I was one of 5 american riders to compete in the Pan-American Championships in San Juan De Los Morros, Venezuela. The rest of the team consisted of Todd Wells, Michael Broderic, Mary Mcconeloug, Colin Cares, and myself. We flew most of the way on Wednesday, spent the night in Miami, and continued on the rest of the day on Thursday. Apon our arrival in Caracas we were met by the two body guards who would be accompanying us for the remainder of the weekend: Juan and Luis. Luis was a quiet guy, or at least didn't speak a whole lot of English, but Juan did enough talking for the two of them put together and then some. Juan would be our body guard/tour guide/all-around-go-getter. We loaded up the van we were sharing with a couple of Columbians for the 3 hour drive to Los Morros and headed off. Immediately as we headed out of the airport we could see this is one of the dirtiest countries I have ever seen. There were shanties built up from bottom to top of all the mountains around the city of Caracas. They seem like there is no respect for the land there, the people dump their trash and waste right off their balconies and never clean it up. Also we saw that most of the hillsides were on fire. Juan said it was because they have no respect and just flick their cigaret butts out the window and start the hillside on fire. Then the Gov't doesn't care either, so they won't put it out and it will burn until its done.

We got to the city hosting the race, San Juan de Los Morros. The hotel we were staying at was probably as nice as it gets for that part of the world...they only had a couple of rooms, so Colin, Todd, and I shacked up together like the three gringo amigos, Mike and Mary obviously had their own room, "the suite". The three staff members, TJ "the chainsaw" Grove (in case you are wondering, TJ apparently snores like none other), Mark "Gully" Gullilkson, and Bernard Condevoux, were all in the last room.

For Dinners we were eating in the Venezuela Olympic Complex cafateria. The food was doable, but not quite up to the "Baller Status" of the US Olympic Training Center Cafateria. We did breakfast and lunch at the hotel restaurant and out of my hot pot provided by the USOC for international trips with the probability of sketchy food. I think the thing you miss most in a country like that is fresh vegetables. Salad is hard to come by and if you do see it, its usually better to stay away because they was it with the tap water and just add to the bacteria growing on it. You think the fiber in the vegis will keep you regular when its probably something more like giardia.

To get to the race course from the hotel, we had to, again, risk life and limb (lucky I had pleanty of practice from Fontana). The first time we rode to the course we rode behind the sprinter van and our body guard Luis was pretty much hanging out of the van keeping an I out for kidnappers/someone who may not appreciate our fancy USA costumes. The cars were spuing out desiel and leaded gasoline fumes like chimneys, motor cycles were blazing down the sidewalks, soldiers kept an eye on things from crow's nests lining the road and pictures of Hugo Chavez lined the streets everywhere. The word was they "Treat cyclists as cattle" here, so they will just hit you rather than move out of the way or give you room (really honestly though, I think it was not a whole lot worse than riding some country roads in colorado, at least no one threw any thing at us). It was quite a sight.

The whole time we were riding to the race course we were wonding what it would be like. They said it was really flat with just a couple of short steep climbs. The quote of the weekend was from Colin, "If this is a flat course, I wouldn't want to see a hilly course." There were four significant climbs. They were all the kind of steep where if you sit in the saddle you fall over backwards and if you get out of the saddle you can't get any traction, so pretty freakin steep. My 2X9 was going to be rough since my smaller ring is a 34t instead of at least a 32t and my biggest cog in the back is a 32t. Really the course was AWESOME!!! It was so much fun, up and down, up and down...great course for me, because there is really no section where you can get into a rythm. Oh ya, and it was almost 100degrees no wind and no shade anywhere and moon dust an inch deep on most of the course. The race was not actually going to be a competition to see who is the fastest, but more who can hydrate the best and survive the 7 1/2 15min laps right at the height of the heat of the day.

Race day, I only did a short warm up, 10-15min max. Just 2 hard opener efforts about 1min long. Hardly a warmup by any standards. I figured the first couple of laps would not be fun, but I would be flying come the end of the race. We started about 5min behind the elite men. The start was the usual caos of a Pan American Championship...south americans all trying to take flyers off the front in the first kilometer and just crashing into each other and stirring up dust. I just hung a little off the back of the kluster and watched them sort it out in the start lap, but maintained contact so no one could sneak away. Coming out of the start lap a group of about 5 of us had formed and made our way around the first lap. By about half way through the first full lap it was down to just myself and an Argentinian. I gave him the signal to see if he wanted to work with me to open up a big gap. He nodded and as a measure of good faith I took the first pull. haha, ya so back to that non-existant warm up...I took one pull and shot off the back. I was almost over heating already. Amonia taste in my mouth, goose bumps, and dizziness...gotta love the heat. I contemplated pulling in mid lap 2, but hung in there, heck I was still in second place with no one in sight behind. I just hung there for a while. Laps 1-3.5 I just suffered in the heat. I was having to walk up about half of the climbs, and grind up some of them in my huge gear. The only thing on my mind was surviving the heat. I was drinking a whole bottle of gatorade and about half to three quarters a bottle of water each lap (mind you laps were only about 15min long, yes that isa lot of fluids, but my body was like, "GIVE ME MORE!!!"). Mid way through lap three I started to feel better; the goosebumbs went away and I started loosing the amonia taste. So I just kept doing what I was doing, surviving. The gap between me and the Argentinian was about 1min 30sec. Beginning lap 6, I felt pretty good and if I was going to make a move it was going to have to be now. I kicked it up about 4 notches and brought the gap down to about 20sec in one lap. Cresting the last climb of the lap Gully yelled at me, "hes right up ahead, you can catch him!!!! 20seconds!!!!" I had to do a little mental check and not hit it too hard and bring it all back right away and crack again with half a lap to go. I went through the first feed zone for the last time getting a bottle from bernard, I shoved it into my cage way too hard and it fell through and I lost my last bottle in almost 100degrees. In immediately in my head i'm like, "$#!+". thats going to make things a little more interresting. But I thought back to Fontana where I had dropped it on the second lap and made it through just fine. I wanted the jersey and a gold medal!!! I continued to push hard and caught my man just after the second significant climb/hike-a-bike. I let him have a little gap for a minute and recovered a bit myself. We got to a very moderate 2-3%climb, I shifted into my big ring and built up enough speed while covering the gap I gave him and blew past him going about 4 times faster than him just to mentally burry the hatchet. Pretty soon after that, I reached the tech pit at the far end of the course and picked up a bottle of water from TJ and put the whole thing away in about a second. I plowed through the rest of the course as hard as I could, I wanted to get as far away as possible before hitting the last two climbs. The last couple of climbs were really rough, but I was in the lead and going to win even if I had to run it in. I made it to the top of the first one just as the Argentinian reached the bottom. I just couldn't do something stupid on the final descent to screw it all up so I took it a little tentitively, but safely made it down. I hit the final run in to the Finish line and raised my hands for the win. Thank God for getting me through the heat and helping me keep my head on strate for the whole race.

After the race, a candian, the argentinian, and myself, were all on the podium. The staff didn't know I pulled away in to the lead and when I got on the podium they were a little surprised. Bernard was signaling me to move over because I was in the "wrong spot". I laughed and was like, nope, i'm right where I should be. He just smiled and laughed.

Huge thanks go out to the Staff at the race...Gully, TJ, and Bernard. You guys are awesome and we most definitely couldn't do it without you. I can't wait to work with you all again. Thanks for reading.

Appologies.

2008-04-01T11:06:00.003-07:00

To all of you who read my previous blog and thought I was "bashing my sponsors" I sincerely appologize. I did not in any way feel negatively towards USA Cycling or any of my other sponsors when I wrote my race report. I was on a high from getting 4th in a National Series Race. I was hoping people would view it as humorous. Every bike racer I have ever met has had to stay in sketchy places, hotels, ride sketchy roads to get to the race course, work on their own bike, etc. Maybe you just had to have been there. As one commentor so delicately put, "I am the best supported U23 in the country". I am the first to say thank you to USA Cycling and the rest of our sponsors who have supported me for the past 3+ years. I would not be here without them. Again, I did not intend to make USA Cycling sound bad in anyway. I will be more delicate with my racing blogs in the future.

Some people took my last email a very bad way...

2008-03-31T12:34:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, family, coaches, sponsors, etc.,
I would like to appologize for possibly putting USA Cycling in a bad light. I have been getting emails all day about how I shouldn't "Bash my sponsors". I said, " This weekend has been quite a junk show...for starters USA Cycling pulled most of our support for the National Series so we don't have a mechanic or team car or any of the support we are used to. We still don't have new mountain bikes or new shoes...." In this statement I am not bashing USA Cycling or any of my other sponsors. I am however explaining some of the changes I have had to deal with as opposed to the past few years. Yes, I was very frustrated going into the weekend and stressed to the limit. I have dedicated the past 6+ years of my life to racing my mountain bike. I work as hard and harder than the next guy to be successful and after all my really bad luck last year I reached the breaking point. If this past weekend didn't go without issue I would have had a very hard time recovering. I appoligize if I made USA Cycling look bad. I will be the first to say thank you to USA Cycling for supporting me for the past three years, I would not be where I am without USA Cycling's help. Some of you took what I said in a very negative light and I appologize for that.

Sam Jurekovic
1 Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, CO 80909
307-699-0333
Sockbikerdude@aol.com
SamJurekovic@Gmail.com
www.samjracing.blogspot.com

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NMBS #1 Fontana California

2008-03-29T21:15:00.005-07:00

This weekend has been quite a junk show...for starters USA Cycling pulled most of our support for the National Series so we don't have a mechanic or team car or any of the support we are used to. We still don't have new mountain bikes or new shoes. We are staying in this totally getto hotel, between a getto tatoo shop and and other getto tatoo shop. To get to the race course we had to ride about 20min, risk life and limb crossing the 10 Freeway, and ride several roads with incredibly sketchy california drivers honking and road raging. I had to work on my own bike...thank goodness I am very capable of working on my own bike. I had to hang out at the venue yesterday for 3 hours waiting for Fox to fix my fork that was oozing all over the place. Thanks to the Fox Support guys here at the race for working on my fork since we don't have a mechanic here....Lets just say this weekend was a flashback to the good old junior days of hitch hiking from the airport, sleeping on the floor, penny pinching, and being totally stressed out because you work so freaking hard to do well and something goes wrong because you don't have the support you need to make everything go off without without a hitch. So needless to say I was incredibly nervous and scared of something going wrong (flat, broken chain, bad shifting, chain suck, crash, missed feed, whatever) since I've worked so hard this winter to make the next step up this year. I couldn't wait for the start wistle to blow, just to get it started.

At the start, It was a full show, lots and lots of fast guys, which made me even more nervous. I had a pretty good start position, second line right behind Elite National Champion Adam Craig. Right before everything really got roling, my entire family showed up, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, and all their kids all showed up to cheer me on. My family easily made up a quarter of all the people cheering in the race. The whistle blew and we were off...for some reason all the nervousness and butterflies just went away and I felt no pain and it felt like there was no one in my way. I cruised around the first couple of corners with the lead group and up the first hill dodging a couple of guys who got balled up, but hit the single track in the top 6or7 and tried to get comfortable. I thought I might have gone a bit hard, cuz my legs were so full of Lactate I could hardly move them, but I knew if I wanted to meet my goal of making the podium today I had to be there and I had to hang tough. I hung on JHK's wheel for a while with Adam Craig on my wheel until near the top of the first major climb before Adam passed me to get to the first descent first. I fell in behind JHK for the first descent and had no problem riding with him. I had dropped my chain a few times, but didn't loose my head and kept it going forward. By the time we hit the second climb JHK had a sizeable gap on my and Sam Schultz was chasing hard from behind. He caught me by the top of the climb and passed me before the descent, I dug a little deeper and grabbed on his wheel and did my darnedest to not let him go. Once we were descending I recoverd quite a bit and let Sam work for a little while. He gave me the elbow wave on the back stretch saying, "Ok its your turn to work a little." So I pulled around and got on it again. I didn't think I got on it too hard, and thought if the two of us worked together we could bring back some more riders, but I got a gap on Sam without meaning to and started trying to chase down JHK. I was in no man's land for the better part of the race, which was really nice because it was really dusty. For the rest of the race I slowly picked off JHK, Barry Wicks, and Ricky Federeau. The last lap I was in 4th. I still wanted to catch one more person, but I backed off a little to make sure I just got myself to the finish line in 4th without any disastrous mechanicals or crashes, but I was also pretty tentative looking behind, because Barry Wicks had caught his second wind and Kris Sneddon was chasing for all he was worth behind Barry. I put the hammer down for the last time on the two flats on the back stretch and went out of sight from Barry and cruised into the finish 2min behind Kabush, 1.5min behind Adam, 1min behind Max Plaxton. This was a great race for me. I thank God for giving me great legs and the motivation and desire to be here. I want to thank all my family who do so much to support me all year round and coming to this race to cheer me on. Thanks to all my friends and fans who were out there yelling at the top of their lungs for me. Today is the short track, we'll see what happens. Pictures are soon to come as well. Thanks for reading.

Pre-season Training

2008-03-21T07:14:00.003-07:00

Well sports fans, its almost here, the first race of the season...the Fontana, CA National Mountain Bike Series Race #1. For the past few months of my blogging hiatus I have been training more intensly and methodically than ever for this season. This year I expected to make one of the 8 possible Long Team Slots to have a chance at qualifying for the Olympics, so I took the fall semester off of school and trained incessently, adding an additional block of base training to my usual 3 block regiment. However, the USA Cycling Long Team Selection Committee didn't think they should name all 8 riders to the long team, and only named 6. I formally appealed the desision and asked my name be added to the Long Team Roster to be eligable to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games. So needless to say I am pretty pissed and bitter over the situation. For all you on the selection committee who might read this, it is my mission this year to show everyone I should be on the long team roster.

I have been training longer and harder than ever. I am significantly more fit than I was concluding the 2007 season. And I am motivated like never before.

Look out!!!

Holidays: Vacation what?

2008-01-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

I was blessed this holiday season to go back to my home town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was there for about 15 days. This was a "vacation", well from my bike at least. I think it was the first time in several years I have traveled somewhere without my bike. Don't worry though, I still got pleanty of training in. While at home I hiked Ascent ridge countless times to board down teton pass and take full advantage of all the powder the yuppees who only ski in the resort don't get to experience because they are too lazy to get off their asses and earn a run or two. Honestly I would rather hike for two hours and have 15min of insain face shots the whole way down than get a whole day of cruddy bumps and groomers at a big ski resort. My time at home was spent backcountry boarding every day and at night going to the Enclosure rock/fitness gym in the evenings to lift weights every other day and to climb every other day. I pretty much went totally non-stop from dawn to dark until I pushed it over the edge and caught a knarly cold with only one day at home left. So I did miss probably the best day of boarding, since they got 20inches in mountains the day I had to take off because I was sick, but the word was there were some big time avalanches that went off and it was a good thing I wasn't out. Thank you God for keeping me safe while risking life and limb each day out in the back country. Thanks also to my faithful back country skiing buddy, John Allum. Dude it was great actually going with someone for a change.

Frigid Pikes Peak

2007-11-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I had the brilliant idea of climbing Pikes Peak and camping up there somewhere. I started at about 10AM from the bottom of the incline with my backpack weighing in at about 50lbs. There weren't very many people there, probably since it was freezing cold and there was snow on the incline. I wanted to go up the incline because it is way faster than going up the barr trail. About half way up I passed a couple of people going down who asked me if I was training for something. I mean why else would someone be hiking up the incline with a 50lb pack? I said nope, not today, this one I'm just doing for fun. They gave me a weird look and kept going down. I actually made pretty good time up the incline, 35 min from the Parking lot to the top. When I reached the top, more weird looks from some young lady who asked me if I had seen two other women running. I said no one has passed me, but there looks to be a couple a little ways behind me. Turns out it was Kelly Emmit and Alison Dunlap (former mountain bike world champion) a couple of the local mountain bike women. They were like, " Oh hey Sam, what the heck are you doing up here with a pack?" I told them I was going to the top and probably camping out somewhere along the way. They told me not to freeze and we went our separate ways. I was a little scared going up the incline because it looked like a crazy storm was brewing, but by the time I reached the top it was sunny and gorgeous out, other than it was pretty chilly. I kept going at a good pace and reached the Barr Camp after about 2 hours of total hiking time. I didn't even stop at the Barr Camp I just kept walking, by then I had been hiking in snow for quite a while, and I could tell it was pretty cold by the groan of the snow under my feet. The further I went up the more the groan turned to a crackle as it got colder and colder. I passed the "A-frame" after about an other 40min and dropped my pack, I wasn't too worried about anyone taking it because I had the only set of foot prints in the snow and it was getting kind of late for anyone to be following me up here, especially on a wednesday afternoon. I grabbed a snack, a couple more layers and my head lamp and made off up the trail again. This time much faster since I didn't have my pack with me. I finished off the mountain in about 4hours total, but as soon as I hit the top the wind started whipping around like the mountain was angry at me. I hardly took any time at all before I headed back down because I was so cold from the biting wind. I picked up the pace as fast I could to get back to the "A-frame". When I got there it was just starting to get pretty dark. I grabbed my pack and started heading further down the mountain in search of a camping spot a little closer to the Barr Camp. I found one that looked ok and emptied my pack quickly grabbing my tent, and unroling it, but by the time I had unrolled it, my hands and feet were so cold I could hardly hold onto my hatchet and stakes to put up my tent. So I tryed starting a fire, again my hands were so cold I couldn't hold my lighter, so I went for the back up matches. I brought paper because I thought with all the snow I would need all the help I could get to get a fire going. I found as dry of fire starter as I could and lit 'er up. It tried to start up for about 5 min before it just sputtered its last wisp of smoke. At this point my hands and feet were so cold I was like, screw this, I'm packing up and heading back down. So I halfassed rolled up my tent and repacked my pack and added every additional layer I had (by now I have a base layer, expedition weight fleece shirt, insulating layer jacket, windproof shell, expedition weight fleece pants, thick insulating fleece pants, and windproof shell pants, hat, gloves, the whole nine yards). By the time I was all packed back up I needed my head lamp to see. Then I marched as fast as I could back down the mountain. All most as soon as I started walking, I was toasty and snug as a bug in a rug in all my layers. I must just have really bad circulation in my hands and feet from all the time they have spent numb from long icey rides during base season for them to get so cold so fast. The whole way down I was talking to myself, telling myself what a woose I was to have camp almost all set up and packing it up and heading back down. Then telling myself, you can still make a night out of it, just camp at the top of the incline. Haha, the longer I hiked the longer I just wanted hot soup and hot chocolate and a hot shower. Towards the bottom I started getting spooked, thinking I heard something in the trees. There has supposedly been a lot of mountain lion activity up there lately, so everyone is scared and it was rubbing off on me being tired and cold. With about three miles to go down the barr trial, my feet started throbbing like I've never felt before. I just bought some new hiking boots, I have never had a descent pair before and found a deal I just couldn't pass up. I have been wearing them around the OTC since Thanksgiving, trying to break them in a little, but lets just say they need a little more time. By the time I got back to the car, my feet hurt so bad I could hardly walk and my knees so bad I could hardly stand. I made it back to the car at about 8PM and sped as fast as I could to get back to the training center before dinner closed at 8:30, I made it just in time for a burger, fries, and some hot chicken and rice goulash. And that rounds out an other Sam J adventure, if anyone ever wants an adventure they are welcome to join me. Haha, ya not too many people out there up for one of those.