Utah Racing

Well the weekend of racing went well in Utah. Big thanks go out to mom-in-law Lynda for driving, letting me stay at the house, and feeding me in the race. It sure makes the racing easier when you have someone there to take care of you. Back to the racing in a minute though.

I was reading an article Saturday in the Salt Lake Tribune that discussed how the western US Governors are pushing for environmental legislation on both the stat and federal level. Even governors from some of the more “conservative” western states, like Utah are supporting this work. This is a huge change over the course of just a few years in perception about the need to move environmental concerns to the forefront. However support from the governors is only a small step, as:

“The opposition in Utah, moreover, doesn't just come from the GOP. "Huntsman, before he gets too far into it, should look at the economics," said Sen. Mike Dmitrich, D-Price. Dmitrich, who represents Utah's coal country, was the author of a 1998 resolution - passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature - calling on the governor to prohibit state agencies from taking any action to reduce greenhouse gases.”

Take some time to contact your local legislator about global warming and the environment. Let them know that the issues are real and that you support the stance of the western governors. Here are links for the local officials in Utah or Colorado.
Now onto racing. While the field at the race was small I’m still pleased with how the weekend went. I first upgraded to Expert last year at Deer Valley, finished last and knew I had a long way to go. This year I knocked 7+ minutes off my time from last year and finished in 4th spot. Given the small size of the field the placing is good, not great, but the time improvement is pretty sweet. It’s about a 5% improvement over last year and given that it was very windy this year maybe even slightly better. I’ve still got work to do to be at the top of the Expert group (like the 30-40 people in Colorado races) but I’m moving the right direction. With just 17 days before the FireCracker 50 I have some time for a little more improvement before starting to taper/rest for the race. I’ll be working on long intervals again this week and hopefully sneak in one more long ride this weekend to get ready. Then I’ll recover for a few days early next week before reducing my training volume but keeping some intensity for the week before the race. Since it takes 7-10 days for training to really improve performance after this week of training my efforts will be focused on keeping fitness, not improving it any more.