Hell and High Water. First installment
It feels like DH season ended just last weekend. I think I blinked, a couple of months went by, and suddenly the XC race season is starring gleefully at my lack of preparedness. I know the first race will hurt more than it should lest I get some more miles below me instead of just spending time playing on the Jackal. I am not alone.
Duthie to the rescue. The 529 XC team is going to do a pretend race run there every weekend until the first race run in February. Duthie’s layout is easy to explain and remember. We do the SW XC Loop (movin’ on) > Bootcamp > Step it up > Braveheart. The way to remember it is that we go counter clockwise from Movin up. We picked this order of trails because it puts the most distance between the end of a trail and the beginning of the next. That gives us more miles, and more time to pass, or catch your break.
Today snowed, providing amble justification for the water part of the name of our little cup: “Hell and High Water”. Two loops came out to just under eight miles which for some of us also seemed like a tad too much hell, but we need to up it to three laps next time to get into the real sport course length.
The energizer bunny also known as Sergei won today’s installment with a time of 1.04. Nate did not get to use his DH superpowers to crush Sergei on the Braveheart beginning and came in second at 1.05. I thought I was further behind but came in around 1.08. Tina and Ty had had enough cold hell for a day after 1.5 laps and we all met up in the meadow. Tired but more motivated than ever to get in shape for the looming race season.
Next week is Stinky Spoke so we will put the Hell and High Water 529 training cup on pause and come back for three lovely laps on the 23rd.