Rollin' to Boulder (BOCO)

The next few post are catching up on the new site.
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Well, my friends, arriving to Boulder has been great so far. The scenery is spectacular, difficult to put into words. So here goes my first update, hopefully I will send more as the time passes.

The trip to Boulder was long. Adam and I drove 17 hours to KC and then stayed at my brothers house for a few hours, some dinner, and then back on the road again for 10 hours. While in KC, got to meet up with one of my long time friends, Courtney. She is like a sister to me.
In any case, we arrived safely. Let me tell you, Adam is an uber-driver. I think out of the whole trip, I drove for like 2 hours. He drove the rest!! We arrived on a Thursday morning, slept a little at Sara's(Adam's GF) and her sister was home from work. Well, did we get lucky. She just happens to be a chef on a yacht, so that means she can cook.....and she did. After some awesome lunch and dinner, I made it to Boulder that evening to Gordo's house.

My first day of training was on Friday. WOW!!! Thats all I have to say. I went out for an hour run easy pace. Gordo has put a limit on my HR for the first 2 weeks. I started out on flat terrain running ridiculously slow thanks to the altitude. I made it to a park and ran on a pathway, that was freakin awesome. Nothing like running up into the mountains next to a running stream. I guess that is one nice perk of running slow, you get to enjoy the scenery. I will say, I am in for a good couple of weeks on the run. Just to give you perspective, a 2 hour nap followed that run.

I wanted to ride later that afternoon, so Gordo sent me out on a "flat" 2 hour ride. It truly was flat, but I must say once again, altitude definitely is real. We are at 5,430 ft here in Boulder. I think we are like 950 ft in W-S. About an hour and thirty minutes into the ride, I was gasping for air and this was supposed to be an easy ride. Finally made it back and was pretty tired.

On to today(Sat). G made the schedule for today and it was pretty tame for the most part, but for us who just arrived, it would be a good/challenging day. Another guy Mat just moved here from Indiana and is working for Gordo. So the plan was that Mat and I workout today together since we are both just arriving and would be training rather slowly.

Morning started with an 1:30 swim. Swam pretty well and with another fella named Justin Daerr. He is an up and coming guy, I expect to hear his name on the top of podiums in a couple of years. We then were to leave about an hour later on a 3 hour ride with a 16 mile climb up to Ward. Holy SHIT!!! Ward is at 9,200 ft, did I mention I just arrived and 5,430 ft was kicking my ass. After about 1:30 of climbing up, we made it to the general store and hammered the way back down to finish with a "3 hour intro ride," as G put it. Ate a snack and ended the day with a 30 minute SLOW run.

This "trip" is gonna be a blast. It is going to be a great opportunity to learn from the best in the sport. Already have learned a ton just listening to G and Justin so far. Attached are a few pic from the trip. The horizon pics are driving through Kansas.



Hope everyone is doing well. Until next time,

John