utah

Three months ago I stood at the top of this pile of dirt (pictured above) on my cross bike with tears in my eyes as my coach silently counted to ten, he got to ten before I got up the nerve to ride down the pile of pebbles, so we saved that for another day. A few weeks later I lay underneath my bike crying at the bottom of a sandy wash north of Lake Pleasant as I watched Ryan effortlessly pedal further and further into the distance. And a few weeks after that, while I’m embarrassed to admit, I yelled at Ryan while I slowly pushed my bike through a swarm of angry horseflies over sandy rocky terrain, “When I DNF at Crusher I’ll have you to thank for all the time I wasted hiking through sand instead of training!” Ouch. (more…)

Our friend Kaolin has talked up the Crusher in the Tushar race for the last few years so when the open spots were quickly dwindling and he was bragging about his entry Danielle turned to me and said let’s do it, to which I casually replied “sure.” After we guaranteed our spots I didn’t give it much thought because I was head deep in training for 24 hours in the Old Pueblo…fast forward to July, with months of training behind us, we had the bikes loaded up and headed north to Beaver, UT. We rolled into the small town of Beaver Friday afternoon and picked up our race packets and then settled into our condo for the weekend up the mountain at the Eagle Point ski resort. Kaolin, his family, and some other friends were staying right next door so we passed the evening hanging out with them and watching them do some last minute maintenance on bikes. Around 9 pm it was lights out while we rested up for the day ahead. (more…)

Goolds Gone Wild

Crusher in the Tushar: Crushing My Limits

Crusher in the Tushar: Damage Control