Occasionally, Matt and I do something OTHER than travel all over the place. You see, Matt is a mountain biker, and I’m a trail runner. Every now and again, we’re fortunate enough that an event offers races in both disciplines. The Collegiate Peaks Trail Races are one such event. 50 and 25 mile run options on Saturday, 25 mile mountain bike option on Sunday.

Some of our friends decided to sign up, and (somehow) we got talked into it as well… So the first weekend of May, we packed up Matt’s bike and my running shoes, and off to Buena Vista we went.

We headed out on Friday, taking our time and getting over to Buena Vista. We ended up getting there a bit before packet pick up was supposed to start, so we wandered around along the river for a bit, filming some video and playing with cameras.

After a while, Rochelle texted and we got together with them, meeting up and picking up our packets, and then heading to Eddyline Restaurant for dinner.

After dinner, we moseyed on down the road to Salida, where we were staying at the Loyal Duke Lodge. The place is nice, clean, and cozy. We checked in, took our stuff to our room, and I set about getting everything together for the morning. It was already late (I know, I know, 8:30 pm is late), and we had to leave to head back to Buena Vista for my race by 5:00 the next morning.

Dawn always comes SO early. I grabbed all my stuff and we jumped in the car. We got to BV with plenty of time and met up with our friends. We all scrambled around as we do on race morning for a bit, hitting the bathroom fifteen times and pinning our numbers to our shorts. Thankfully, there was a building we could wait inside – it was COLD out. We went out to watch the 50 mile start, grateful we only had to go 25 today.

A few minutes later, it was our turn. We found our place at the back of the pack, waited for the gun to fire, and we were off!

The first few miles were a super fast road portion where we went out pretty fast, then we finally turned onto the trail. Eventually, we climbed up to where we could see out.

The course was beautiful, with huge views of the (aptly named) Collegiate Peaks. It wound around some singletrack and then some dirt roads. There was a bit of sand, which is always annoying, but in general, it was a great course.

I felt fine until I didn’t. Lately, weirdly, I’ve been getting nauseous when I climb a lot, and this race was no exception. Also, I hadn’t gotten quite as much training as I would have liked, but I survived.

Eventually, we made it back to the long, straight road that led us to the final downhill that led us back to town and the finish line. We crossed the line and I immediately sat down for a bit… And then it was beer time. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we all sat around for a while and rehashed the race, while telling the boys (who were biking tomorrow) what they were in for.

We finally made it back to the hotel, where we all jumped in the hot tub for a while and then played in the pool. Two of our friends had their kids with them, and all of us were doing cannonballs into the pool… A great way to unwind and recover from a pretty tough race!

Later, Matt and I went into Salida for dinner at Moonlight Pizza and Brewpub and I demolished half a pizza. Yum. Then it was back to the hotel and to bed – it’s Matt’s turn tomorrow!

Mountain bike races never start all that early. We had plenty of time to check out of the hotel and get back to Buena Vista before Matt’s race started. We even had time to get some coffee, all before 8:00 am!

The bikers took off, and Rochelle and I decided to go for a shake out run to stretch our legs from yesterday. We went a similar way, and found some other cool views and some different gravel roads than we were on for the race. When we’d had enough, we headed back to town, changed out of our running clothes, and settled in to wait for the bikes to come back.

Matt finished pretty quickly and pretty well, Kris and Renee (who were on a tandem) took a bit longer… When everyone was finished, we all went (more or less) our separate ways. Well, Matt and I had lunch with Rochelle and Jason, at Eddyline Pub this time. Still some of my favorite pizza.

Then, an uneventful drive home. Good times!

Here’s the video: