When you’ve made other plans. Spring has been brutal here in Star Valley. The day after school ended I made the trip over to Pocatello for the 50 miler. Due to time constraints I decided to train through it in preparation for my focus race of the summer, the Bighorn 100. The race was rough but I battled through, encouraged that the last 15 miles were the best of the entire run. In all my last big week was a success, logging 118 miles in 6 days, followed by a week of 50, then a proper taper week. I had all things set up and was getting excited to get back to the Bighorns. Luke was driving up from New Mexico to pace and my legs were finally feeling fresh and ready to rumble. Well, this last Wednesday, Andi and I made a quick trip to Idaho Falls. When we returned, we found that the sub-water was rising and starting to come into our basement. Quickly we called the disaster buster guy, tore up carpet, and my brother-in-law Dave came to the rescue and helped us dig a hole for a sub-pump. Luckily we got on top of it with minimal damage but this took several days and I knew that my weekend was sunk. Now that I am done grieving and being angry about missing Bighorn it is time to focus on some new goals for this summer and fall.

Despite the joys of home ownership experienced this week I was able to get up to the vaquero course this weekend. There is oodles of snow! It still looks like March up there. Robert Hood and I hit the trail early Saturday morning hoping to get up to the lakes. Quickly we realized that it was going to be tricky. We made it up to the big ridge between the Dry Creek and Swift Creek drainages. The snow was crusty and harder than the back of your head. We didn’t have any traction devices so we decided not to drop over to the lakes. Getting down was a little dicey, and I left a little skin and blood in the snow to prove it. The Vaquero races may be interesting this year.

For those still hoping to get a spot in the race this year we are waiting for final approval from the Forest Service for 75 more spots. We also realize that the race may be have to be altered slightly if they are not able to finish the bridge work in Cottonwood Canyon before the race date. I will notify those on the waiting list if/when we have more spots and then open the rest of the spots to everyone else.