Friday, January 25, 2008

Resting but not idle

The low energy, slight sniffle, and a scratch in the back of my throat are trying to tell me something. With three weeks to go until the Su, the last thing I need is a full-blown cold. Instead of 14 hours on the bike this weekend I am going to rest and dial in my gear for the race...and this is taking more time than I thought.

My hydration system alone is causing me fits but I made some slight modifications today that I am excited to try. I hope we get one more really cold snap prior to the race to test it out. You can get away with a lot at 20F but at -10F even the tiniest drops left in the tube will freeze.

Packing my sleeping system is proving to be a bit of a challenge as well so I am going to experiment a bit. I thought that I wanted everything (pad + bag + bivy) in one giant burrito on the front but the resulting mass on the front ends up "wagging the dog".
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2 comments:

  1. DougJanuary 27, 2008 at 7:25 AM

    I don't like to wear a backpack or hydration pack on my back. So last year in the AH135 I used the OR bottle parkas and nalgene bottles like you have on the table. I attached two to the rear rack with the velcro strap on the parka and an extra strap wrapped around the lower part of the bottle and around the rack. Worked great. I had a third bottle and parka attached to a hip belt I wore so I had easy access to my water. Sounds clumsy, but it worked well for me. The best part is I didn't have to worry about my hydration tube freezing up on me.

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  2. JenyJoJanuary 27, 2008 at 10:36 AM

    perhaps it's good you have a little down time to get all this dialed in ;-)

    take good care of yourself. enjoy the prep.

    hope you guys are doing well.

    jj

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