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My friend Derek and I and our families headed to Steamboat Springs for the Tour de Steamboat, a ride to benefit the Sunshine Kids Foundation whose mission it is to add quality of life to children with cancer.

We arrived 10 minutes late to the start and after pushing to catch up with the group for 10 miles realized we had joined the back of the group embarking on the 56 mile Tour, which added 7 miles to our day which was already slated for 110 or so.

After about 55 miles and over Rabbit Ears Pass, I pushed hard up the second of the two big passes on the day, Gore Pass, which just may be the nicest climb I have ridden in Colorado: very scenic, nice variety of grade, never ridiculously steep, can’t see the top from the bottom and 6+ miles long. On the other side a group of four of us were pushing and it got quite windy up a long false flat.

The goal for the day was to practice pushing a fast pace when tired so I began a couple 15′ intervals 4 hours in. Later I dropped off the back to stay out of the other’s draft and within 10 minutes or so my gap from them had grown to a few hundred yards and I knew that they wouldn’t slow for me thinking I was just recovering around until my next interval. This was the first time this year I have hit a real low like that and had to dig hard to get myself out. I was happy to be able to do so and bridge back up to them. It was valuable experience knowing how to mentally suck it up and push past some physical issues, another great reason to ride often in a group - can’t replicate this by yourself. I felt fine after drinking a bit of plain water.

All day I tried to eat in excess of 500 calories per hour just to see how it would feel. It seemed like I was constantly either sucking the Infinit bottle or squeezing a one of my pocket full of GUs. Not a comfortable feeling and I was definitely tired of it toward the end.

All and all a good day: 121 miles, 7,100 elevation gain. IMCanada minus 42 days…