With a running event and a gravel race coming up this season, I’m starting to double up on some of my training days. Here’s a bit of running in Forest Park and some road biking through the city.

First up, I have my first trail run event since the Berryman Duathlon days and the longest trail run I’ve ever attempted. 13 weeks from this now! A few years ago I actually flew to participate in a North Face trail half-marathon in the DC area but that ended up getting canceled due to torrential rains and near hurricane conditions. But now I’m taking on the Chubb trail 25k (15.5 miles) which I’m very excited. And very nervous about. For training I’ve picked out a half marathon plan and modified it only slightly, primarily modifying the rest days by keeping in some riding or other activities. Even with all the prep for this race already laid out… I can’t help but wonder if I should do something differently! Mileage has been creeping up and so far I have been able to adapt to the new stress of running fairly well. I really need to get more trail running time but I’m still a few weeks out on switching to having a weekend run on the schedule.

Only six weeks after the trail run I’m going to Kansas for the Dirty Kanza, a 200 mile gravel race in the Flint Hills. This is a race that’s been on my radar for a couple years and I almost pulled the trigger on it last year. I have positive feelings for this race, but with a majority of my training in the next 3 months centering on running this is going to be interesting! And it also means a lot of bike and gear prep but not as much bike time. Luckily there are some good events this year that will likely help prep for this event including a 100 mile monstercross race.

So I have a long road ahead taking on my first run above a half-marathon and my first bike ride above 104 miles… all within a few months! Here’s to 2012!

This year, like last year, I am trying to emphasize vegetables in my diet. No, I’m not vegetarian (I still want to eat meat). I’ve learned I actually like vegetarian food and more oft than not you don’t need meat. Regardless, last week I decided I wanted to try a couple recipes with kale. Unfortunately, I forgot actually add the kale to said recipe and subsequently had a container of the green leafy stuff that I didn’t want to waste. So I added it to my veggie lasagna and tonight I made some awesome soup with it.

Middlefork 12/31 from Rob Ballou on Vimeo.

My stable of winter gloves has grown to three sets:

• An older set of Pearl Izumi gloves. These are set of relatively lightweight 5 finger gloves that I like for temps going down to mid-30°F range. Not sure of the exact model or what would be comparable anymore. These also fit hand warmers really well.
• GORE Radiator Bike Gloves
• Giro 100 Proof Bike Gloves

For a few winters I would try to make the Pearl’s work. I would add hand warmers or even liner gloves. Liners usually ended up causing circulation problems (which doesn’t help when your hands are freezing). But I still found that almost nothing I could do really helped in the cold temps.

The GORE and Giro gloves were both purchased at the same time with the goal of getting gloves that could handle temps below freezing.

Warmth: the Giro gloves win hands down on the warmth front. I still use the the GORE gloves all the time but I’ve found there comfort zone is still pretty close to freezing. On road rides or rides below say 30°F my hands would still get cold. The Giro gloves are actually a set of lobster mittens with liners. They are my go-to set if it’s going to be super cold out.

Features:

• I enjoy that the Giro gloves have liners. I can usually pull off the mitten without freezing my hands or if it warms up enough I have decent riding glove.
• The GORE gloves are still warm and fit a hand warmer pretty well. I also love all the reflective touches (many of my winter rides are at night).

Initially I was going to return one set of the gloves, but in the end, I kept them both. Since temps have yet to drop below freezing I’ve usually used the GORE gloves this year. The Giro’s are still waiting for the real winter to start. As an addendum, I should add that many people I know swear by Bar Mitts. I’m debating getting a set for my cross or road bike since the bigger gloves can be challenging with road shifting (doable, just tricky).

The big take away: get out there and ride. There’s a way to ride in pretty much anything and there’s no reason to be stuck not riding or on a trainer all winter!

Night Ride from Rob Ballou on Vimeo.

To accomplish this, I’ve decided to spend December and January with 2-3 runs a week in the 2-5 mile range per run. Most of the runs will be easy paced “base” style runs. I am also doing the Frostbite short series for the first time so those runs will be at a higher pace. In fact the first race, a 3k, was last weekend and I surprised myself with a top 10 finish in my age group and a mile pace of 7:22! Hopefully some of this training can be trail runs. Starting in February I’ll definitely move to 3 runs a week with a long run on weekends and will also include more trail running.

Training for trail running is going to be challenging but rewarding. There are definitely times during the year where I miss trail running and not being able to do it has always made it that much worse. I’m also hopeful that running will help with other thing part of my training for next year: more core, strength, and flexibility training.

Along with the trail run, I have my eye on several long mountain bike races (and, maybe, one very long gravel race…) so being comfortable for hours is going to be key. For this, I’m starting a more regular practice of yoga and some basic strength/core training. Beyond this strength training, it will be fun to learn how to fit in some long training bike hours alongside the running!

My December/January training weeks are looking a bit like this:

Monday:     Yoga
Tuesday:    Run, easy pace
Wednesday:  Strength/Core
Thursday:   Run, easy pace or MTB ride
Friday:     Rest
Saturday:   Run race or MTB ride
Sunday:     Bike ride

What new things are you challenging yourself with next season?

Over Halloween weekend, I hit up both Faust Park races which also included my 1st night cross for the year. What I remember most about the night race was how during the course of the women’s race it ended up getting signifcantly colder. I went to get warmed up and just couldn’t get my core temp up. I added up some layers and hit the course.

The Faust courses are pretty fast and there was very little technical about them. During the night race I managed to finish in the top half of the race, but didn’t really feel it. The only place I managed to put the hurt on people (or perhaps only a single person… wasn’t counting) was the long hill from the backside of the course and that was primarily because some people don’t believe in carry momentum, I think (something that would probably not be the case in the B race…).

The next day was cool and cloudy and added a woodland section on the top side of the course. I had fun trying to fight through my first two-race weekend. The second day, probably because of the daylight, was a good bit faster and I finished in 14th. It was about this point in the season I realized that my shot at top 10 and moving up this year wasn’t going to happen.

With one of my favorite courses coming up, it was difficult to just sit back though. The Concordia race is pretty mountain biker friendly and I laughed as was yelling at guys to “just pedal” down the back hill. The course had a fun mix of downs, ups, turn, slight mud, and fields. In the end, it wasn’t my day at all. I just exploded on the course and fell back a ways finishing 16th in the largest field yet.

Finally, Bubba at Jefferson Barracks was unique. I wasn’t quite feeling up to racing, but the weather was setup to make this into a mud race. And I wasn’t going to miss a chance at a proper CX race. The course, it turns out, was just fairly wet for most of the pre-ride laps, the women’s race, and most of the C. By the end of the C race there were a few places that turned into muddy tracks that were typically better to run. The bigger bummer on this course (besides poor form) was that there no barriers. The course was just open for people to use their high-watt engines to pull away.

Of course… the heckling was good times!

[We're planning a] trip to Bell on Friday Night. Hike in, drink a few select beverages,wake for sunrise, the hike out and go to CB and bike/hike and meet on the bluff for Sunset then camp there.
Could be a good time to enjoy the last shot at fall.

And with that, things were set in motion. I hadn’t done an overnight in so long I questioned whether all my gear still existed, let alone what I should even bring with me.

As I got ready, I came to the conclusion I didn’t really want to carry a half-full backpacking pack for essentially two overnight trips. Fitting everything into my largest day pack was turning out to be bit of a push. In fact, at first I couldn’t get it. Then I started to reduce the list: I don’t need a stove to make hot water. I don’t need this, I don’t need that. Soon I had jury rigged my day pack into a light overnighter. Essentially this was:

• My Big Agnes solo backpacking tent
• Sleeping bag, attached the outside
• Sleeping pad, attached to the top
• Stuff sack with some extra clothes
• Extra coat
• Stuff sack with food, beverages
• Hydration
• Lights
• Camera

We met up at the north Bell Wilderness trailhead in the dark, passed some hunters on our a way to the top. Most of the hike up we hiked only with the moonlight to show the way. It was an amazing experience. The bald at the top was clear, stars and the moon shining above us. On top of the mountain, it was a busy night with a few other groups scattered about, but we found a great spot.

The next morning was a bit different. I woke in my tent at some point to faded grey light that I assumed at first was just the pre-dawn. After sleeping a bit more, I finally peeked out to find that the sky was overcast and the sun was above the horizon. The wind had not relented during the night and we hundled in the rocks making coffee and eating breakfast. It was a slow morning of getting ready, having arrived at camp close to midnight and staying up well past that.

When we hiked out we passed a few more people going topside. Leg one of this journey was done. Sitting at the cars having a spot of lunch we watched as car after truck drove by with hunters heading to nearby areas. Originally the plan was drive to the boat launch at Enough and hike from there to “the bluff”. The plan shifted around (a few times) and we ended up driving to the top. Once there, we found a crew of HAM radio operators supporting the Ozark Trail 100 trail run which was going on that day.

I had heard of the tales of the Bluff. Mystical tales of one of the best views in Missouri. As of yet, I had not made a pilgrimage there. Council Bluff Lake carries esteem in its own right with mountain bikers. It is where we hold one of our most anticipated mountain bike races and the trail has a bit of everything from a riding standpoint. The bluff overlooks the lake and nearly the entire region. You can see the lights from the mines in the distance, the valleys where other trails like the Middlefork or Trace Creek sections of the OT travel, and view almost the entire lake. It is one of Missouri’s magical places.

We watched the sunset from the top of the bluff, but the wind drove us into the tree line for camping. So we found a place near the “gash” that runs down the hill side. That night we watched the fire and spent another marvelous night in the woods. It was also the 1st time I slept in a hammock, which was actually pretty comfortable. In my sleeping bag I stayed warm and toasty, swaying in the wind all night.

For more pictures, please visit my set on Flickr!

After I finished Burnin, I did feel … ahem … burned out. I can’t figure out if it was a product of how much distance I covered that day, how much training went to get a good result there, or just feeling ready for a break. Bikes were the last thing I wanted to think about for a few days. Conversations in my head said, “Let’s take this weekend off. No racing.”

I finally grabbed my ‘cross bike to ride to work a couple days and even got in a little bit of practice on it. I noticed that the upcoming races were at one my favorite venues from last year: Queeny Park. Temptations. After working on trail and riding my singlespeed on Saturday, I opted just to race on Sunday.

The course didn’t run through the woods like last year and so I was a bit bummed about that since when you add narrow tree line sections I can usually put the hurt on some guys who aren’t use to it. The course was actually a lot of fun. I think the crew learned some from putting on Gateway Cross cup. You had fast sections, you had climbs, you had a few handling sections. I think what made this course was two run ups and some a few areas that would rattle your bones off.

I wasn’t feel like gunning for it, so I started mid pack. For the first few laps I was feeling good. I was picking off some people and was able to drop people here or there. I wasn’t doing everything “right”, but was getting some good speed at things I’m good at.

This was all fine until “halfway” through the race I looked at the lap cards and it said something to the effect of 5 laps left. 5 laps! I couldn’t keep at this for much longer. I wanted to let off the gas a bit. There was a group chasing me at this point and I thought maybe if I just took effort down from 10 to 9, maybe I could ride with this and recoup. A few people came by and I tried to stick with it. By the end of the race, the bumps and the previous day’s work day were wrecking my back. That was some of the most difficult 48 minutes of racing in a long time.

See you in a few weeks Bubba races, I still got 56 miles of dirt to ride!

Going into the race, the biggest drain on my confidence was actually my bike. In my mind, I knew the pain, the tired legs, the tired feeling, and the mental effort that may be required during the race. Two of the last three rides on my bike, I had trouble with the derailleur hanger. Back in June, I had to get one replaced after a crash and then in training for the Burning I bent another. Two rides later the hanger snapped in two and I had to singlespeed my bike to make it back to the car. The bike was fixed by the stellar wrenches at Mesa, so it was ready to go. But in the back of my mind, I had this picture of something going wrong.

The plan was to hit out on 3 laps with only breaks to grab food/new bottles. After that, I hoped to stay on the bike but take a few longer breaks.

Things went well on the first two laps. I kept the pace reigned in, drank water, ate my food. The race unfolded as I had imagined.

During Lap 3, I made it around half of the lap and realized I didn’t have my lap food. I don’t know if I dropped it at some point (it’s been known to happen) or just never even packed it, but this was bad. Already four hours into the race, 6-7 miles from my food and one monster climb. My energy was draining and my head was spinning. By the time I hit the campground climb, I had no juice left and was light headed, so I walked from the switchback to the top. Immediately I ate a bunch of solid food and hoped it wouldn’t be too much at once.

I still was reeling from lap 3 and it was difficult to get back in the “zone”. But by the time I came through for lap 5, things were feeling better. My confidence was coming back and I was riding everything (that I was riding that day).

Lap 6 came around, I put my light on my helmet and took off. Running through some lap calculations in my head, I thought I would be coming back after 8pm and therefor was a bit resigned to just finishing 6 laps (my goal, afterall). While on the “woods climb”, I stopped to turn on my light as I forgot to plug the cable into the battery (smart!). Along the way, a friend prodded me into thinking about lap 7.

The campground climb at night is a strange beast. While you can see others ahead of you climbing, my light would only light up a certain amount of the trail making it seem to be neverending. At the top of the climb I ran through the timing station and realized I had come in at 7:45pm. There was no way out now, I had to do a seventh lap. I fueled up and thought that this wasn’t going to be too bad. Just another lap. I’ll get in around 10-10:30pm.

I spun down the trail with decent spirits, but soon energy, and mostly mental confidence was failing. There were times I was surprised that I was still able to ride this or that. My hands were in pain with hot spots and at least one blister. My knees were aching from sitting and pedaling all day. There were times where I had trouble getting my feet back in the pedals. Everytime someone would pass me at night, I told myself I was the last person on the trail. And when another person would pass, I would think now I really am the last person.

I had just left the beach and I heard the awesome campers there cheering as someone else with through (these people had been cheering loudly ALL day… it was impressive). I thought to myself let’s see if I can get to the boat launch before they catch me. I just one that little “race” and they passed me as we approached the campground climb.

I had done it. It was difficult to think that while riding this climb. It wasn’t really till I reached the crest of the hill that I began to think about how I was only a couple hundred yards from being down. I emerged from the woods and TTM cheered me on to ride through the arch and I was finished. A few people came up and congratulated me and Mitch mentioned that I had fifth place. That took a minute to understand.

Endurance racing is mostly just how long you can push yourself. There were very strong and very fast riders who finished their race early. Pushing on for a seventh lap just gave me an edge (I would have been 8th with 6 laps). It felt great to finish seven laps, my longest mountain bike ride ever at 91 miles. There were some many good stories to learn about from the other soloists and the team riders. So many friends took home buckles and prizes. It’s easy to see that it’ll take a lot of work to beat many of these riders on a good day. Or even a slightly better day. But I love that challenge!

Give it a try and let me know if you run into any issues!

As we rolled out of St. Louis, the MODOT electronic billboards informed us that the I-64 bridge was closed in Louisville, 260 miles away. We made it to town and started to meetup with the detour, after fighting through a bit of traffic. As we merged on the interstate to cross the river, the car gave a bit of a rough drive and I realized we had a puncture. We pulled over on the side of the interstate, pulled everything out of the trunk so I could put on the spare. Meanwhile, we looked up a tire shop, finding one just across the river. We drove into Louisville at about 45 miles per hour on a spare and headed to the tire shop, unpacked the trunk (again), and waited for a new tire to be put on. Then we repacked the trunk (and each time we did so the trunk was better packed than the previous time!).

After that little adventure, we went to a fabulous little joint called Toast on Market for a bit of brunch: toast and eggs and bread pudding pancakes!

Back in one piece and fed, we rolled on toward Lexington. Our original plan was to make it to the Woodford Reserve Distillery by their last tour, but we assumed at this point our detour in Louisville meant we wouldn’t make it in time. It turned out we missed the tour by a matter of twenty minutes. We still got samples (yes!), hit the store for a bottle of this fine bourbon and went on to our hotel.

That night we went to another great place called Saul Good for pizza, salad, and a most amazing banana foster desert served atop a Belgian waffle!

So with slightly “rested” legs, I took on another 6 hour race. If you ever get the chance to go over and ride at Binder Lake in Jefferson City, do so. It is highly enjoyable and a great venue for a 6 hour race. The course is interesting, fun, and completely rideable but just technical enough. You get a bit of everything for Missouri races: sharp climbs, roots, rocks, twists and turns, wonderful cedar tree sections and a couple creek crossings.

When the start gun went off, I eased into a train of other racers twisting through the opening climb. Eventually the group changed up a bit, but suddenly I had some shifting issues which forced me to stop and lose some places. I battled back a bit and found my way onto the wheel of, what I hoped was, a decent pacer. And soon we were joined by another buddy who had taken a bit of spill on a steep switchback. Unfortunately, when our train reached the uphill “pavé rock garden” the leader slowed down so much it was like riding trials instead of just powering through. Near the top of this section, a loose rock from shot back from his wheel landed directly in my line and I had to put a foot down.

After the 1st lap, I ended up catching another friend. He was taking the uphills pretty easy, but his downhill magic was much stronger than mine, so I rode with him and eased my heart rate. I would catch back on when the gradient headed up and watch him disappear when it headed downward. On lap 3 when we got to one of the pine sections, I left him and took off at my own pace, hoping I wasn’t pushing the pace too much.

The laps kept coming. When you’re out on your bike for 6 hours and much of that time is solo, there’s plenty of time to think.

• First, I really enjoyed two “design features” of the course. The first was after a fast descent you get this nice wide right hand turn that slows starts to bend in on itself, by the end of which you’ve had to tap the brakes to slow down for. It just’s a fun feeling to rip a corner like that! And the second was one of the uphills in the pine section is a nicely banked set of S-turns that is just a blast to motor up.
• When I’m visiting the pain cave, it can often be impossible to hear other races approaching for a pass. So please, say “hi” before you come by so I don’t freak out!
• If you ever find a full packet of cran-razz shot bloks on the trail during a race, it probably jumped out my mountain feed bag because I forgot to close it. And I’m likely sad about it.
• It’s great to hear a friend singing Public Enemy while racing.

It’s a pretty simple route as most of it takes you down a single road. I started with a lap at Broemmelsieck and then geared up for a long ride.

Please note, that none of the roads have shoulders. Many are very low traffic, but you must be comfortable with riding on roads like this.

• From Broemmelsieck, take a left on Schwede Rd and then a left on Wilson Rd.
• Eventually you’ll reach a 4 way stop that has no signs, head straight.
• You can either take Wilson to Highway D or as you’re getting close to D, there is a gated road to the right. This is Lakeway Rd. As far I could tell, it was just gated and not private. So I took that to Lake Hollow. This cuts a little piece off of Highway D.
• Hang a right on Highway D.
• You’ll next hang a right on Callaway Fork Rd. It starts out paved, but becomes gravel. This is a long false flat road that takes you over a number of low-water bridges (most of which were bone dry when I road it).
• Callaway ends at Highway F. Hang a right.
• Then hang a right on Defiance Rd (following the signs for the winery)
• After the winery, hang a right on Howell and then a right on Matson Hill. Follow that to the park.

This year, the Team Seagal crew marshalled another great event for the MFXC 2011 race. This is a fun race with incredible people. The course was reversed from last year and also started with a cyclocross-like start through mud and tree barriers!

This was also my first singletrack ride since dislocating and fracturing a finger on my right hand. And it showed at the beginning of the ride. I was coming through turns and rocks with too much brake and I think I only made a fraction of switchbacks the whole day. But my favorite moments:

• After feeling a bit tossed in the first section of singletrack, Craig S caught up with me and we shared pulls on the gravel for almost the whole section. That was a blast and a lifesaver!
• Being the first to find out about the middle fork from TTM.
• Rain. Cold rain. Not really thankful for that, but it made for an interesting ride!

After MFXC it was only a week until my first “real” race of the year at Greensfelder. I really enjoyed the race last year and it was only going to get better with the addition of two new singletrack sections. Unfortunately, the morning of the race Nature decided to rain and made the course a bit tricky. The course is a technical course with many rocks and roots to throw you around, but when it’s slick, even stuff that dead simple dry becomes tricky. On the 1st lap, I went down trying to get onto a rock ledge, losing several places. From there it just went down hill: I made it past a few riders, but that was early. Then I was solo for most of the race, fighting through the mud.

First person I caught up to was a cat 1 rider who was racing marathon for the day. I only caught him because he had slashed a UST tire of all things. He promptly dropped me once he got rolling again. Then I caught up with Craig S whose chain had dropped but he got revenge when my bike had taken on a metric ton of mud and debris, forcing me to stop and pull mud off two or three times. After the second lap, I had just taken to staying upright and moving forward. The 3rd lap I walked much of the technical bits, even though the course was vastly improved. I found a few sport racers to chase down, but it was all just a good training warmup for next weekend’s Syllamo’s 50 miler!

Amazon Web Service Support

The library now supports S3 buckets and EC2 snapshots. For S3, we support this as though it were a filesystem. You can specify your bucket and even a portion of that bucket to search.

EC2 is a bit different because we are only look at the snapshots available to the credentials you provide. By default, the library will try to parse a date from the description of the snapshot. Failing that it will look at the start time of the snapshot. You can also trigger the library to only pay attention to the start time, if you that’s what you need.

This support comes via the boto python library.

New Criteria

We’ve added some new criteria: startswith and except_startswith. The new criteria even accepts a list as well as string, so you can check if your backups start with one of many strings (or doesn’t … it’s up to you!).

An Example

Monday: 2 hour hike
Tuesday: Commute + Yoga
Wednesday: 1.5 hour mountain bike at Greensfelder and a short run
Thursday: 2 hour mountain bike at Lost Valley
Friday: Short run
Saturday: 3 hours mountain bike at Lost Valley
Sunday: 2 hours mountain bike (singlespeed!) at  Castlewood SP

Sunday before the race was my first day on a bike since Syllamo and it was a glorious sunny day for a road ride around town. I took in an easy ride and kept my heart rate in zone 1 as much as possible. Race day, on the other hand, was hot and humid when we made it to the park at 9:30 am. It was going to be hard day and lots of pain was going to happen. I talked with some people and we talked about taking the beginning a bit easy because of the heat. Well, that was the talk anyway.

The beginning of the race was pretty fast and also a giant group ride for the first 4 miles or so. Once the hills started to show up, it was possible to move up a few places. Coming in on the 1st lap, I felt good. My heart rate had stayed uncomfortably high, but I was planning on taking it easier on lap 2 to fix that. I was in a decent group for a lot of lap 2 and that made the pain easier to bear. I tried to keep my heart rate down but the heat and perhaps the lingering affects of my cold kept me up in zone 5. I realized that today was not going to be much of a ‘race’ for me and opted to begin taking some breaks to keep going for the full 6 hours.

By lap 4, I was in and out of feeling good. Some sections I felt like I was riding normally and some sections I would just get back on my heels. The internal battle began. For the 1st four miles of this lap, I had decided I would wait for the 5 hour mark and quit. The mental battle continued and I decided that I needed to finish if there was time on the clock, no quitting. I was rolling into the start/finish under a light rain and some distant thunder. I still had a few minutes before 5 hours and was going out at least once more. I got to the finish line and the race was called due to lightening! Not 10 minutes later, the rain was heavy and lightening was flashing nearby.

So not the best showing, but I hope this all adds up to some good races in a few months. Great racing all around out there!

1. Driving down I-44, it will rain. Not light rain either. Hail, wind gusts that push your car across the road, debris from trees flying across the road, all while in a construction zone or a twisty hilly portion of the interstate are the norm.
2. It will rain the day before any race or riding.
3. It will rain all the way up I-44 to St. Louis.

This weekend was the Syllamo 50 and a new Syllamo 125k (which was a NUE race). Last year I made it 40 miles. This year I made the full 50! This was a great accomplishment and I’m very proud of it. First, the good stuff: each checkpoint I felt so much better than last year. I made it about 40 miles before I hit a wall instead of about 30. Conditions were better and I rode a lot more the trail than last year. Subsequently, I pulled into CP 2 about an hour and 40 minutes ahead of the cut off. My transitions at each CP was still good. I only really stopped at CP 2 to fill up water and lube my chain. Next year I’ll probably wait to lube the chain till after crossing the creeks after CP 2.

There was a lot to learn out there, too. Firstly, when you preride the day before with your GPS make sure to turn it off so you can use it on race day. So I started the day with no clock whatsoever. I can deal with no mileage if I can know my race time. Secondly, my technical riding was not great. Through a few sections of the yellow and blue I was still getting off for rideable stuff or messing up lines. And I lost a lot of places trying to get back on the bike a few times. I rode most of orange and blue trails to CP 2 which was a boost. CP 2 to 3 was some good riding, but was also in a position where I could have left the group I was with and gotten a bit of ground on them.

The biggest lesson for the day was at CP 3 I was so excited I pretty much pulled in, ate 2 shot blocks and took off down the trail. By the middle of the loop I hit the wall, body was in shut down mode. Two guys who had reached the CP behind me passed while I was standing along the trail. Some of the Pro 125k riders passed me. It was a bit sad.

I was so intensely happy when I arrived at CP 3 for the final segment home. The volunteer told me the same ol’ “it’s all downhill from here” which isn’t true, but I knew vaguely what to expect. Then he mentioned “Hey, be careful as it’s easy to crash when you’re tired.” Not even 20 feet from CP 3 I crashed!

It looks like that MO represented well down there, picking up some age group podiums, PRs, and general destroying some people out there.

A bit of a retrospective:

Luckily the latest editions of the boto Python library supports route 53, but there aren’t many examples of how to handle some of the code with boto. So here’s what I did:

Note that you’ll need to likely get a version of boto from the source to get the Route 53 functionality.