Alive and Well in Utah

Hello hello. The last 10 days has flown by. I finished racing Wallonie, flew to Barcelona, slept in Barcelona, flew to the US, arrived in Denver at 2am completely exhausted, woke up and drove to Silverthorne, CO, spent two days in Silverthorne, then drove to Park City, and now I am happily "settled" in Park City just in time to head to Ogden tomorrow for the start of Tour of Utah. Was that a run-on sentence? If you followed that at all, I've been going full-gas ever since Wallonie. I am feeling settled in and ready for Tour of Utah now though, so I am looking forward to the race starting on Tuesday.

After arriving in Denver, Lisa and I went up to Silverthorne, CO to spend a couple days catching up with Ally and Caleb. It was really nice to see them and do a few rides with Caleb. After those couple relaxing days, we continued our journey westward to Park City where we met up with Brent and Jamie Bookwalter and Cassie and Chris Jones. Lisa will be staying with Jamie and Cassie during the race, so it was nice to get ourselves settled into a place for the time beforehand. Park City has been really nice.

I have done some nice rides and some scouting of the race course. I rode the newly added Empire Pass (last stage), and all I can say is wow. I am going to go out on a limb and predicting that the field will be completely decimated and finish one by one. I also rode the queen stage to Snowbird, and it is just as hard as I remember it from 2009! Stage one and three over by Ogden will be beauties, too. I guess the bottom line is that Tour of Utah will be tough. That's why I was happy to have a nice recovery ride today with Dave, Bart, and Jamison as my final wind down into the race. Thanks for driving up and taking the small adventure this morning guys!

Other than bike riding, Lisa and I have taken a couple adventures. We met up with some friends from Las Cruces (Dave and family) at Sundance Resort for a nice afternoon stroll, chat, and pastry/coffee. We had a really fun impromptu ice bath in a mountain river while at Sundance. I hadn't taken an ice bath that cold since the times in Decorah. It brought back fond memories. A couple days later, Lisa and I went to the Olympic Ski Park to check out the museum and ski jumps. Earlier in the day I had seen some guys doing the full ski jump, but when we were there, there were only guys/girls practicing smaller jumps and tricks into a pool. It is really neat that the facility is still in operation and allowing people to train for future competition. We have also strolled a little bit on the Park City Historic Main Street. It's a cool main street, but it really isn't much different than most others with a lot of restaurants and shops catering to the tourists. Park City is definitely a tourist haven, summer and winter. I definitely wouldn't mind coming back in the future for training or vacation.

Check back for race updates as we go. It should be a fun one!

Evidence of our adventures at Olympic Park!