Schedule Shuffle…

True to form it’s not set in stone until you part with some cash! After the long four days at Four Days to Fitness my thoughts on the HooDoo500 were brought sharply into focus. Combined with Becca’s concerns on her ability to support me over the three days and nearly 750 race miles in three weeks it was looking a bit daunting. I went back to the drawing board. . The early part of the year was locked down and with the races being local it made complete sense to stick with the plan.

So with a couple of new events coming across my radar for gravel riding and in support of Becca at Ironman Wisconsin. As well as traveling to Boston I shuffled a few things round and 2017 is now locked down, as in paid for, up as follows;

• 1/27 -  1/29 – Belgium Waffle Ride Camp – Registered
• 2/12 Rock Cobbler 4.0 – Registered
• 3/18 – Redlands Strada Rossa – Registered
• 4/8 – Planet Ultra Mulholland Challenge  – Registered
• 4/14 – 4/18 Boston Marathon – Becca
• 4/30 - L’etape California
• 5/11 – 14 IM Santa Rosa – Becca
• 5/20 Belgium Waffle Ride – Registered
• 6/9 – 6/11 Planet Ultra Shut Your Pie-Hole and Ride – NEW ADDITION
• 7/7 – 7/9 Crushar in Tushar – NEW ADDITION  – Registered
• 7/27 - 8/6 Becca at IMWI Camp and the following weekend The DAMn  – Registered
• 9/7 – 9/11 IMWI  – Becca

So plenty of air left in calendar for CX racing in the Fall!

Obviously the new big ticket item is the Crushar in the Tushar. Comparatively speaking this is a short race at around 70 miles. The kicker, or perhaps I should say the Crushar is the elevation, both the gain and location. The course is bascially two climbs as you can see from the profile below. It picks up over 10,000’ in gain with the two climbs topping out at over 10,000’. I’ve been noted as a poopooer of elevation having any impact until you get to around 8,000’ so this will be a good test of that as I get to start at 6,000’ and go up from there!

At the Golden Gran Fondo in the Summer of 2015 I was close to these elevations; starting at 5500’ and topping out at just over 9,000’ and the ride through Tioga Pass in September last year from Mammoth to Yosemite started at 7,800’ and topped out at 9,850’ so again not quite as high. Of course these were both on black top (mostly) so we will have to wait and see.

Whatever happens it’s going to be a fun packed year!