Ngede Challenge

This weekend was another fun multisport event, the Ngede Challenge.

I was going into the race as the favorite. I have won 2 of the 3 past editions of this race, and was second last year after making a wrong turn and adding 5k to the mountain bike leg. My good friend and race organizer Erik Teig was my closest competition each year, but he wasn't able to make it back for the race this year. My co-worker and Tri-loppet partner Dave Rowe was coming out to do the biking legs of the race as part of a relay team, with my friend Meghan McGree so I figured he may give me a challenge on the biking legs. Jeff was coming out to run all 4 legs as a long training day to get ready for the Sawtooth 100 next month.

I took the lead right off the start line and never looked back. I ran a 37:25 for the 10 road section and was out of the exchange onto the mountain bike before the next runner had come in. The mountain bike leg is the toughest of the race, it took me over 29 minutes, not much faster than I had run the leg before. It is on the hilly Balsam Branch ski trails which are used as horse trails in the summer. I was too lazy to load up my mountain bike, so I just used my cyclocross bike for both biking legs, which made the transition quite quick. On the road bike leg I did my best to stay in the drops and just work hard. I was able to hold 20mph average, which I was happy with considering my biking mileage has been lower than usual this year. Since the road bike was an out and back I was able to see how far ahead of the rest of the field I was. I saw Dave with another rider close on his heels about 2 miles after I made the turnaround, meaning I had about a 4 mile lead on the next two competitors, a pretty safe margin. The trail run is also hilly, but I was able to run the whole 5.5k, even though some of the climbs would have been as fast to hike. I was just under 23 minutes on the trail run, for a finishing time of 2:17:20. I had the fastest time on every leg, although Dave was only 30 seconds slower than me on the road bike leg, a very strong performance.

Awesome hand carved trophy, anyone want to help me come up with a name for him?

Now I have a big training block ahead of me. My next scheduled race is the Birkie Trail Marathon and then shot at a half marathon PR this fall at the Columbus Half Marathon. There won't be a lot of recovery time between these races, but I'm excited to give them both a go and enjoy seeing a couple new courses.

Adding another state to my race collection

I've been bringing my running mileage back up and I also had another go at the "Nichole Special" interval workout last week. It went pretty well, but for just over 17 minutes of hard work this workout really cleans my clock. I've also been trying to run more hills to get ready for the Birkie Marathon. It was our second Vakava fitness test last Wednesday and my midrange fitness is definitely lower than it was in the spring, so I need to get back to tempo work soon too I think. Somewhat surprisingly all of my strength results were higher, so that is a good sign for ski training heading into the fall.

In other news I got a couple fun surprises at work this week. One of my co-workers dropped off a copy of the Riverbend Nature Center news letter that had a recap of the Maple Syrup run this summer complete with a couple pictures of TNC athletes winning maple Syrup. I also got a letter from one of our chemical supplier account managers who lives in Stillwater and saw a picture of me in the Stillwater Gazette from the 1/2 marathon I won there this spring. I always love getting newspapers with race results in them, it reminds me of highschool before there was all this fancy internet results keeping and the local newspaper was the place you always looked for race results.

A couple good pictures in print

I finally got around to trying out a bike trailer my dad gave me. He found it for free somewhere and the only thing wrong with it was a flat tire. I took a trip over to Target to get groceries and a couple odds and ends I needed. It rolled surprisingly easily, and all of my groceries (including eggs) made it home unscathed. I had no acceleration on the bike though, and hills were harder than usual, so it wouldn't be my first choice for a long trip perhaps.

The grocery getter ready to go.

My CSA is a in full swing, so I'm surviving mostly on fresh veggies these days, and when I was in Amery for the race I stayed with my parents and they sent me home with even more fresh food, sweet corn, raspberries, and lots of beets! My CSA also has flowers for picking, so I've been trying to pick one every week to brighten up my house a bit. Here are this weeks selections, the made the trip home in my backpack pretty well.

Pretty