Fires, Ecuador Bootcamp, and Leadville Encore

Morning,

This week has been hectic.  The three-week boot camp that my coach Matthew concocted is under way in hopes of pulling one last mini peak out of my body for the last race of the year.  I head to Ecuador in a couple of weeks for an awesome 2 day stage race around Cotopaxi volcano.  Since Moab, I’ve had a bit of downtime, but the party’s over right now.  The next two weeks are hard workouts every other day.  Monday started with two 20 minute lactate threshold intervals.  Today will be four 8 minute hard efforts.  The intervals get shorter and more intense as the race approaches.  I’m enjoying the structure, but the fall mountain weather is making it tricky to get out and motivate. Some days, the weather is majestic with a little frost in the morning to keep the trails firm and temperatures warming into the 60′s.  These days, I am on cloud 9 and loving the fall leaves, the sun, the dusting of snow on the peaks.  Other days, it’s bitter cold, gray, icy with temperatures in the low 40′s.  These days, my teeth chatter and my hands are numb and the workouts creep by much more slowly.  The neoprene booties, wool socks, knickers, hats, jackets are all right at the front door and ready.  Rain is in the forecast in the next couple of days, so it could make these already hard workouts even more character building.

I did miss my planned long workout over the weekend, but for very good reason.  All of the Wood River Valley fire and medical resources were stretched thin when a call for a multiple car accident with numerous patients was paged out.   Ambulances, air ambulances, fire engines with extrication equipment and emergency medical personnel were all called to action.  Less than an hour later, a page went out for a house fire in the rural district.  This meant more engines, more people and more resources.  Our department is a combination of full time and on call staff.  At any given time, we could be paged out and most emergencies cannot be handled by the full time staff alone. It’s up to the on call staff, like me, to drop everything and go help.   I ended up on standby for the motor vehicle accident because at least one ambulance had to remain within city limits in case of a third emergency.  After the first motor vehicle accident was cleared, my crew was released to go out and assist with the house fire.  The fire was extinguished by the time I arrived, but there were still hours of work doing overhaul and clean up.  Much of the roof had to be removed to be sure the fire was not still smoldering within parts of the building.  There were also hours of cleaning hoses, equipment and getting the engines back in order for the next call.  Although I missed a cycling workout, it was still a huge physical and emotional effort.

On a happier note and related to my other job, Race Across the Sky, the Leadville 100 movie will be showing for an encore in about 50 different theaters around the US on Thursday November 12.  The first showing was so well received that they’re showing it again!  For those of you who missed it the first time, check out

http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Sports/RaceAcrossTheSky.aspx

for tickets, show locations and to watch the trailer. I am not shown in the trailer, but I promise you’ll see me in the film.  It’s a great movie and a very dramatic portrayal of endurance mountain bike racing.  If this film does not motivate you to ride, I don’t know what will!

Cheers

Reba