I went out on a ride Saturday late in the afternoon and was greeted at the start by the pending doom of dark clouds, lighting and wind. It was late in the day so there was little time cushion to change plans, and I decided to go on anyway. I parked near Chatfield and headed up Deer Creek Canyon as the storm rolled in. Two miles into the climb, the rain came and there was thunder and lightning all around. I was banking on the fact that I was “protected” from the lighting by the canyon walls. It was pretty crazy, and visibility was horrible. That said, I beat my personal record up Deer Creek again with a 37:59, 26 seconds faster than 3 weeks ago.
After I rolled over the top of the climb, I was still getting dumped on but could see cloud break over the horizon. I climbed up N. Turkey Creek Rd, and the rain didn’t stop until I got to Rt 73. The temperature now was around 60 and I was cold. I continued to climb up to Conifer and took Pleasant Park Rd. back to Deer Creek, cooking down the long downhill. At the intersection of High Grade and Deer Creek Canyon, my 16 mile downhill was interrupted by police cars and emergency vehicles. They had the entire intersection blocked off. Turns out someone when down on a Motorcycle and from the sounds of it, it was bad… They brought in the Flight for Life chopper and airlifted out of there. I can’t believe they landed the chopper in the canyon between the power lines. It was insane.
After 25 minutes I was on my way again…
Yesterday, Jeanie competed in the Danskin triathlon, her first tri of the year. Though the event was chaos, she made big improvements over last year finishing 40 out of ~250. Last year she placed 100. She made up time on both the run and the bike but her swim was longer than last year. It actually looked like everyone’s swim was longer so the course may have actually been longer…. The traffic and parking situation was crazy stupid. She got there 1.5hrs early but was stuck in traffic for 45 minutes and then had to wait for buses to shuttle them to the start/finish. She had just enough time to get to the transition, change and get in the water. All things considered she did great!
