Team Alchemist Blog

“If you ain’t the lead dog, the view never changes”

This week at the Epic, I’m learning firsthand how true that is.  This is what I see for 5 hours a day, framed by beautiful Colorado scenery and singletrack.

Jeff is just hammering this race.  I’d feel bad about holding him up, except that we’re firmly seated in second place, behind a team of guys: one of whom, despite two flat tires, finished just 45 min off of Lance Armstrong’s winning Leadville 100 time.  They consistently put 45 min to an hour on us each day, despite my suffering like an Iditarod sled dog.

I actually thought I was in pretty good shape this year.  Looking back, I guess you could describe my regimen as “scared straight, sloth hard.  I was scared straight by the beat down I sustained at the Firecracker 50 in July.  So much so, that I started riding to and from work – 3.5 hours round trip- for 2 weeks.  I then raced the 70 mile Laramie Enduro, feeling great , but ignoring the inner voices telling me that the reason I felt great was that the course was pretty flat and fast.  My “sloth taper” was the week before the Epic, living as a bachelor on frozen pizza, beer, and ice cream.  I did ride to the mailbox once, to give the dog some exercise.

Jeff is right about my breathing – it is pretty loud.  I don’t know when, or even why I became a panter.  Trying to stifle it only makes me pass out.  Jeff is really tolerant, though.  Much more so than my wife, who won’t even sit next to me in spinning class anymore.  We have a rule about the panting, Jeff and I.  If it stops abruptly, he’s to turn around and either start CPR or pull me out of the ditch.

So the view from behind ain’t all that great, but at least Jeff’s propensity to, shall we say, emit methane, seems to be taking a vacation.

Dan.  Whipped after Stage 4