Brandon Del Campo

Okay I am a total Copycat right now as this is the same pic that Gordo has on his blog but it's my pic so there!

Anyway, I thought I would back track to our trip to Winter Park. The trip was meant to be a pretty big volume training camp. We rode from Boulder to Winter Park via Trail Ridge. The picture is at the top at about 11,000 feet. AS Gordo say's "We look better than we felt."

Anyway, the ride there was a blast and towards the end Denny and I put the hammer down and rode quite solid for the last 30K. It was great to be riding like that because just hours before that I was attempting to hitch hike LOL. You see once we got to the top the weather turned on us a bit. I found myself in a thunderstorm a top one of the highest peaks in Colorado. Denny and G were descending pretty quickly and I am a total wuss about it. Plus my break pads were worn very thin and I felt like the bike was not going to stop. Add in the shacking from the cold and you had one pathetic scene! I was staying calm though and just trying to go slow. But the rain got harder and I got colder. I stoped for a moment to gain composure and pull my knee warmers down so that they covered my entire leg. During my stop the lighting started and that scared the crap out of me. One bolt hit close enough for me to see it strike. Then the BOOM! the sound hit. That was when I stuck my thumb out. You would think that a poor cyclist shaking in the freezing cold about to get hit by lighting would be able to get a ride down the mountain pretty easily. You would think.....Did I look like a criminal? Why did this mini van that had plenty of room for me and my bike make eye contact with me an my thumb, saw the desperation on my face and then proceeded to not even stop and ask if I was okay??? When they rolled by they had those "support the troops" stickers all over the cars. The irony to me was the Americans don't actually do anything when confronted with it....the most they can do is put a sticker on their car...That was a bit of a tangent, but really what is the point of those stickers? Is it like a bake sale for the troops because our own government won't use our tax money to help them?

So anyway, I decided to get back on the bike and keep at it. After about 15 min of more freezing cold I found myself once again stopped on the side of the road. This time it was to take off all this clothing because I was burning up! Once down the mountain the sun was out and roasting away. It was so amazing to see the weather change like that. 20 min later I was at the gas station where Denny and Gordo were waiting. I could tell what kind of ride Gordo was having as he was eating a Haggen Daz Ice Cream bar. He just looked at me and said " I recommend no less than 800 calories."

We still had a long way to go and Denny and I found new legs and really hammered a section going into the park. By then end of the ride I was ready to be off the bike but was pretty stoked at how I felt because two years ago this ride wouldn't have even been possible for me. Matt was in town and gave us directions to our lodge. We cleaned up, had some dinner and then veged out to a movie as we fell asleep. Oh yeah, we ran off the bike too. The run felt good and actually helped the legs recover. How that is possible I am not sure....but it did.

The next day we were up early to ride to Rand and back. The ride would be about 100 miles and we were doing it as a Time Trial. No drafting and the goal was to run one hour off the bike as a "reality" check. Mind you we are up at about 8,000 feet and would climb to 10,000 or so.

When I woke up I felt okay. Once out on the bike I had a stomach ache right away. I had had stomach issues a few days prior but didn't give it much thought. My initial instinct was to call the ride off and just turn around. But of course I didn't and kept on trucking. I stayed about 10 -15 meters behind Gordo and just used him as a pace. Normally that should feel pretty easy for me in the begging as he is really good at working the back end of a ride. But it was hard from the start. I rolled up to him a few times and told hi how I was feeling and he felt I should just go easy and see if it gets better. By the turn around point I had full on flu symptoms and was in the shitter. We were in the middle of no where and I knew that I would have to ride back. The next 15 miles would be up hill and I was not real excited about that. I was the last one in the group to leave the turn point and thought I would try and work to catch up to Dr. J and Jon. Once I did I just kept it rolling. It was like I was in the zone and just wanted to get home. I knew that I could coast a bit when I go to the the peak but of course I forgot that the weather had said we were in for heavy head winds on the way back. Lets put it this way, when I started the descent I was standing up at times. I think I even hit a moment where I just wanted to get off my bike and go to sleep. I felt feverish and my legs had that ache you get when you have a cold. My skin felt like it had acid under it.

On the tail end of the ride when I started to feel some hope. That hope was taken away like drivers license for Paris Hilton when I totally forgot an entire section of the ride that was about 20K. I almost cried LOL...Almost. The wind was bad and I was fading big time. I looked back and I could see Jon in the distance. Thank the lord and the baby Jesus! I slowed down to almost a stand still waiting for him. I was going to make him pull me in for the rest of the ride. I was so afraid that he was going to fly by my and he wouldn't hear me that I blocked him on the bike. When he caught up to me " I just said 'HELP!" Or something like that. He laughed and I got on his wheel and we worked together. Every so often I would randomly scream out an obscenity. I think I started to scare Jon a bit LOL....Towards the end we rolled past a KFC that was pumping out grease smells. I think we were both pretty damn close to the idea of having a little sit down with the Colonel! I couldn't give Gordo the satisfaction of knowing that a ride reduced me to a bucket of KFC.

Once we get back I pretty much died. I had a fever and I couldn't eat. I drank about 10 mini V8's and just laid there in a haze. The guys were great. They all came in from time to time to check on me and my loyal roomy Denny is always a good guy to have around.

The next day I did ZIPPPPPO! We decided to drive back early. I wanted to be back down to lower altitude in Boulder and sleep in my own bed....oh wait, our real motivation was that the pool in Winter Park sucked and we were all jonesing for a good pool. Such Tri Geeks!

What happened on that second ride is sort of an unknown. I think that it was just a stomach bug but I guess it could have been altitude, fatigue and the ride the day before. None the less it happened 6 days out from Buffalo Springs 70.3 which might explain why that race was not super fast for me.

Right now Gordo put me on a 3 days of pretty mild stuff. I am tired and my leg's are a bit inflamed so I am going to take everything really slow until Monday.