Its funny that just last week I made this statement about my results in local fun races:

I could have a great race and finish 15th, and I could just as easily have a bad race and finish 4th, if no one shows up.

Well, in this week’s Tuesday Night Race, none of the fast guys showed up.  And I finished 4th.  It wasn’t a bad race by any means, but maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophesy.  For most of the race, I was in the top three, but faded to fourth with a half-mile to go.  I guess I should have written that I could win if no one showed up!  Nonetheless, it was fun to run with the leaders and entertain thoughts of victory.  Even if those dreams were shattered when the top two guys picked up the pace with two miles to go.  TNR Results

After two weeks of finishing the same place in both TNR and cyclocross, I knew I had my work cut out for me going into Saturday’s cyclocross race.  If I was going to keep the streak alive, I had a long way to go to reach fourth place.  The course was rooty, muddy and very challenging on skinny tires.  The course had very little running, so it felt like an ordinary mountain bike race, exept I was on the wrong bike.  So I was not surprised when the eventual winner blew past me on a hardtail mountain bike.  But it was still fun.  I managed to get a good workout and finish 10th.  ArcticCross results

And finally the highlight of the week was a spectacular weekend.  The kind of crystal clear weekend we’ve been waiting for all summer.   I didn’t get away for any adventures, but I did manage to kick-off the weekend with a spectacular run around the Williwaw Lakes - Ballfield loop from Glen Alps with Rob and Chrissy.  The evening light lit up the fall colors and contrasted well with the confirmation dust on the peaks. 

Normally, the first snow on the mountains is called termination dust because it signals the termination of summer.  But this year I’ve dubbed it “confirmation dust,” because it confirmed that the summer of ‘08 is never going to happen.

Anyway, a few photos from our run, courtesy of Chrissy…

On Sunday, the local adventure racing club was having a low-key 8 hour adventure race.  Since the weather wasn’t great and some of my desired summer trips are on hold because of lots of snow in the mountains, it seemed like a great way to spend the day and beat myself up a little bit.

Ian and I paired up to compete against 5 other teams.  Darren’s course consisted of various controls around town, with each control worth a certain number of points depending on the difficultly/time involved in reaching it.  The object was to get as many points as possible. The course involved mountain biking, hiking in the Chugach front range, ‘ reverse orienteering’, and paddling Campbell Creek.

It was a lot of fun. I managed to flip my packraft in Campbell Creek (with my bike attached to it), which was quite stupid and embarrassing.  Mental note: Do not try to step, feet first, into a packraft in moving water. The hiking part (in the Williwaw-Wolverine-Long Lake area) was a bit trippy because the mountains were completely enshrouded in low clouds. We ended up coming in late (and losing some points) because we chose to get the high-value control at Long Lake.  But no matter, we still did well in the points and we were glad we pushed out to the Lake.  You can view the results here. The point values aren’t quite right, but they are close enough. Our team name was ‘Ask Cory’ because when Darren asked Ian what the team name was he said - yep - “Ask Cory.”

For many of the controls, we had to take a picture to prove that we made it there.  Thus, I have a few photos from the event. And because I’m a geek, I also drew up a map of the controls and plotted our route.  Check it out:

Thanks to Darren for a fun, challenging course, and thanks to Ian for hauling my ass around town.

On May 7, I skied a loop from Glen Alps to Williaw Lakes up and over to Lost Lake, then up to Near Point and back to Glen Alps via Prospect Heights.

Scott & I ran an 18 mile loop around Wolverine Peak, past Long Lake and Williwaw Lakes.