Some Thoughts About The Great Divide Race

Today:
Mt. Bike 55 miles

Yesterday:
Bike 3 miles (commute)
Run 9 miles

Another beautiful Sunny Saturday today. We've actually had nice Sunny weather a lot lately.

Biking today I couldn't go more than a few minutes without thinking again and again about the riders who started The Great Divide Race yesterday. For those that aren't aware, this is the longest mountain bike race in the world (2,490 miles), traversing the spine of the Rocky Mountains from the Canadian border down to the Mexican border. Next Saturday I will be riding in the 24 Hours of Light. This will be the first bike race of any sort that I have ever been in. I'm not sure if I can ride for 24 hours. 13 hours is the most I've ever done. And yet I find myself so often lately thinking beyond 24 hours, daydreaming about riding in The Great Divide Race. It's so hard to actually imagine myself riding in an event like this, but more and more lately I'm beginning to have an even harder time imagining myself not riding in this race at some point. I've got a lot to learn about endurance cycling but I feel myself being drawn more and more to this everyday. 6 weeks ago I had never done a mountain bike ride over 50 miles and I have now done 4, including one over 100 and a 100 mile road ride. This is of course pathetically insignificant compared to what The Great Divide Racers are out there doing right now (Pete Basinger has covered about 240 miles in the first 25 hours of the race!!) but I feel it as the start of something more. This 24 hour race next week will be a great test of my interest in endurance cycling. I don't expect to "race" next week as much as to just go out and ride my bike for 24 hours. In doing so though I expect to learn a little more about whether I want to continue to push my body to places it has never been on a bike. Is this going to lead to the GDR next year or the year after? Only time will tell.

Totals for the week: Run 71 miles; Bike 94 miles; 19.5 hours