2011 is kind of blowing my mind. It is a year full of surprise opportunities for biking and I am getting married. I guess I manifested some of this to happen but was caught off guard when the stars aligned. I had a great race season in 2010 and I spent this past winter focused on training for the 2011 race season. I made a list of the races that I wanted go to even though it seemed like a lot, I thought I could manage 2 races a month. Tobi was supportive of my season, as she knew that I needed to get this out of my system before we were going to start a family.
The first surprise opportunity, which had nothing to do with biking, was cat skiing up at Baldface. I had been patiently waiting to get up there for years and while I was up there a guy by the name of Will Mucke signed me up to race La Ruta de Los Conquistadores in Costa Rica. That lit the wick. Only 2 months into the year and already 2011 was off to an amazing start. With La Ruta scheduled for November, I knew I had lots of time to do all of my local races and to train.
My first race of each season is a 6 hr enduro, the Salty Dog, in Salmon Arm. The race is held in the middle of May and I usually don't have many days in the saddle leading up to it. With a long ski season and a wet spring, I got out on my bike a bit hard off the start and strained my achilles tendon. I got some acupuncture and physio and somehow managed to pull off a 2nd place finish at the Salty Dog. The next race was an 8hr in Calgary, the Giver 8'er, and I was going back for my second year as defending champ. I felt a bit of pressure. However, everything went smoothly and I won it again.
I thought that since I'm signed up for La Ruta, it would be wise to do a multi-day race to see how it felt. A 3-day race in Fernie came up and it wasn't too expensive, so Gerick Cycle sponsored me and off I went. I found out that my body did all right and my body actually felt better each day.
I didn't think that just one multi-day race was going to be enough to really test myself and prepare for La Ruta, so I applied for a sponsorship through the local bank The Nelson District Credit Union and got an entry fee for the Trans Rockies 3 day race. I was on my way to the race season of my life. I lined up the Trans Rockies before Salty Dog and I was more than content with what I had on my plate. After a good finish at the Salty Dog, Jonathan Firth from Canmore asked me if I wanted to team up with him for the 7days of the Trans Rockies. Not only did he want me to be his partner, he also had full entry covered through his sponsors. I was pumped! 7 days of racing, sign me up.
Three weeks before the race I got a call from Jonathan, as he had to back out of the TR7. His wife’s delivery date was earlier than originally expected and it would fall into the dates of the race. He had to be there for her, understandably.
My 3-day race felt good, so I am hungry for the 7-day race. I had enough money for the first 3-day TR3 entry. All I needed to do was raise the entry fee for the last 4 days and race all 7 days. With short notice, I started asking around. I called a friend Brian Cooke owner of Bicycle Café. He had done several Trans Rockies races and was a bit of legend in the area. I thought he would be an awesome partner and he might have a way of getting us in. He had done a lot of trail work in the Kananaskis area and he thought he might be able to work something out with the TR organizer. He came back with a great deal for us to team up and he was looking forward to the race. That same day Ryders Eyewear came to the rescue! A good pal of mine, Joe Schwartz, recently started working for Ryders marketing and emailed me to see if I wanted to do the race. It’s funny how things work out sometimes. (I think FB played a role in this one.)
Dreams can come true people.
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