I managed to get away from work at lunchtime on Friday and was pleased that afternoon thunderstorms had not yet developed here in Jackson. I'd be traveling on Delta Airlines, first from Jackson to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to Denver, arriving at about 9 pm. The trip was complete with complimentary upgrades to first class on both flights....and a "real" dinner on the Atlanta to Denver leg.
Some of you will know that I don't have the best luck with Delta and, sure enough, the illusion of a perfect trip came to an end at the Delta Baggage Office when my bike didn't show up. The agent could tell that the bike had made it to Atlanta, but not to Denver. It'd probably be in Denver later that night, he told me. Oh, well. So off I went to pick up the rental car and head to Brooke and JD's place.
The drive from DIA to North Boulder isn't very long. It was dark, though, and I couldn't really appreciate the scenery. It was great to see JD again. And it had been last November, at Ironman Florida, since I had seen Brooke. We probably could have spent the entire night talking, but we needed to get an early start on Saturday. Even still, it was a short night!
Saturday morning arrived with some bright sunshine. The picture above is the view from their balcony, looking south toward Boulder, I think. JD has often tweeted pictures from the balcony, usually to show the weather, snow, etc. The sunshine was welcome for the day's activities....a 2-mile swim race at the Boulder Reservoir and then a bike ride.
We headed out on Saturday morning to the Boulder Reservoir for the Bare Bones swim race that was organized by the Boulder Aquatic Masters (BAM) swim club. BAM apparently organizes a series of these no frills swim races each summer. Swimmers could choose between 1- or 2-mile distances and could enter wetsuit or no-wetsuit divisions. I chose the 2-mile swim without a wetsuit, thinking that this would be good preparation for the upcoming Waikiki swim race that would also be a no-wetsuit event. It was fun to see so many people gathered for the swim race....and the Reservoir seemed to be a terrific venue. From the results, it looks like there were about 130 swimmers. We ran into Dennis Meeker before the race and it was nice to see him again. He was heading to IM Canada the following weekend. Laura Tingle apparently made an appearance, too, but I missed seeing her.
All of the swimmers started at the same time, but the race thinned out pretty quickly. I can remember thinking that the race started off pretty fast (like always), but then I settled into a steady swim for the rest of the race. I thought the race was pretty uneventful, which was great. I swam alone for most of the way. I remember looking at my watch at the 20-minute mark and thinking that either: 1) I was going very slowly or 2) this was going to be more than 2 miles. As it turns out, speculation after the race had the 1-lap distance at 1.35 miles or so. I was pleased that I didn't seem to notice any adverse effects of the mile-high altitude. I had worried that I'd feel like a fish out of water.
I finished in 1:10. I had a strong 2nd lap, I thought, and I caught up to a group of swimmers who had been out in front of me. As I got to the finishing "chute," I saw JD and Brooke standing on the pier cheering. I was a little surprised to see that JD had already changed. I rolled over in the water, laughing, thinking that it really HAD been slow! Hmmm. It turned out that JD had stopped after 1 lap. No wonder he was already dry. Among the 2-mile non-wetsuit folks, I finished 13th out of 18. On the bright side, I managed to finish ahead of 13 of the 26 folks in a wetsuit. Matt Reed was the winner, in 52:36. Wow!
We headed into Boulder for a hearty breakfast at Foolish Craig's Cafe. That was a fun choice and we got to see a bit of Boulder on the way.
Delta came through in the end and my bike made its way to JD's place around noon on Satuday. Just in time for the bike ride. JD helped assemble the bike....and we were off for a ride to Ward and back. JD deserves an award for patience for this. In contrast to the swim race earlier, it took me only 2-3 minutes of riding (essentially riding in the driveway behind JD's place) to realize that there was almost no oxygen here. At any rate, I told myself to stick with it and see what comes. I can only laugh now that JD told me it'd be no different than skiing at altitude. I assured him that skiing was a downhill sport....and riding to Ward would be almost entirely an uphill sport.
Living on the edge of North Boulder puts JD right at the foothills. Our ride would take us north on Hwy 36, then up Lefthand Canyon Drive to the little town of Ward. This was about 44 miles, with a climb of 16 miles up Lefthand Canyon Drive to an elevation of about 9200 feet. The climb was a pretty slow effort. JD probably had trouble going so slowly. I had a great time, though. The scenery was great. The ride was a challenge. And eventually--after a very steep last mile--reached the town of Ward and a welcome rest stop at the general store. JD bought me a cookie (the traditional fare) and we sat and rested for a bit. My photo of the store doesn't do the scene justice. Ward really looks like something out of another time (decades ago).
The 16 miles downhill went more quickly. It's the first time I've gone downhill that far (or long). These past 2 years in Tucson I was afraid (of heights, going fast, etc.) to do the descents. On this descent, there weren't big drop-offs, so I wasn't worried about heights. It was fun to go fast.
For dinner on Saturday, we headed to The Med. This was a great choice. Brooke, JD, and I had a chance to talk about so many things. And enjoy the tappas menu items as we did. I had pizza (I was SO hungry!) and they had salads. After dinner we went for a walk along Pearl Street. It was fun to see so many people out strolling, enjoying the shops and street performers. The most surprising finding was stumbling across Into the Wind Kites. As it turns out, my family has ordered many kites from Into the Wind over the past 20 years....and never really thought about the location of their "real" store. And here it was. They had a great collection of kites on display, including many Hawaiian, Spin-off, Revolution, etc. stunt kites.
On Sunday, JD and I got a very early start to the day. We headed out for a 5-hour hike in the mountains to the west of Boulder. I'd be hard pressed to describe the route now, but we figured our route was about 12 miles or so. There was plenty of climbing, too....and portions were as much vertical as horizontal. The views were great, the weather was great....and it was just great to be outdoors. Once again, I could have used more oxygen. JD made it all look pretty easy (as you might imagine), but this was pretty strenuous. I figure the hike equated to about 10,000 squats at the gym!
Sunday afternoon found the 3 of us lounging at home, recovering from the weekend's activities. We re-packed the bike and decided to visit FedEx to send it back to Jackson instead of trusting Delta again. Cheaper, too.
We finished up the weekend with dinner at Cantina Laredo. Brooke and JD described this as part of the "new" Boulder. Everybody chose fajitas. And a few chips, too. Bedtime came early because I needed to be up at 3 am for the trip back to Jackson.
It'd be impossible to do justice to the story here, but the Monday morning trip back to the Denver airport was pretty amazing. My rental car broke down within sight of JD's place, it took 4 hours for the tow truck to arrive (pressed into service by the Longmont police and then ran out of gas on the way to Boulder), and I made the trip to DIA in style with my rental car on the back of a flatbed truck! I had planned to be back at work by noon, but instead I got back to Jackson at about 8 pm. I can laugh now....
This was a super weekend. Good friends, good times, great memories.
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