Los Alamos

I awoke to rain this morning. Its soft pattering on the windows was enough to make me want to curl up and sleep in...but today was a ride day, so up and at em'! Denise and I loaded up her car and headed out to Los Alamos for a dirt adventure on some super fun trail treasures with 2 friends of mine that I hadn't seen in ages--Donna (hadn't seen her in 2 years--GITA) and Carrie (hadn't seen her in about 1 year--Taos). They also had another friend along for the ride, Amy. Talk about some awesome riders!!

It turned out to be a perfect day for a ride in Los Alamos; the clouds were out, blocking the sun from our backs, and there was an occasional breeze to dry off our "glistening" bodies--as Denise would say.

Our ride started from Donna's place. We headed out on the Walnut Canyon Rim Trail and over to Bridges, then snaked our way through some residential areas to Quemazon Trail where we began an unbelievably fun climb loaded with technical, rocky terrain. After about 3 miles and around 1500 ft of climbing (in about 1.5 hrs!!), we'd gotten to the intersection of Quemazon and Pipeline Road. We headed down Pipeline, and hooked onto the Perimeter Trail. We continued on to Rendija Trail, heading down Shoeshine--one of my favorites--and down towards Bayo Trail (I think) and back to Donna's place for treats to reward us for our workout on the trails.

Back at Donna's, Scott and Joe were there with the BBQ grill fired up! We all got a hot shower and settled in for some bratwursts and chicken--can't beat that! We filled our stomachs with delicious food and beer and chatted the day away.

Got a call from Matt on the way home. He'd managed to head out on loop 1 of the Durango 100 course, then snaked over to loop 3 to avoid a pending rain storm that he managed to escape just in the nick of time. He'll be riding with Dave Harris tomorrow.

Denise and I are heading over to the East Mountains for a ride tomorrow. We'll see how I do with that one. I've gotten into the habit of abusing the hip during the weekend, then going lighter on it during the week with 1 tough ride somewhere in there. I'm going to start upper body weight lifting again too. I've been slacking in that area--weightlifting sucks.

Off to bed for some well-deserved zzzzz's.......more pics to come once Scott gets Carrie's pics up on his blog. ;o)

Ride Stats

• Ride time: ~2:33 hrs
• Total time: ~4 hrs
• Distance: ~19 miles
• Max speed: 33.4 mph
• Avg speed: 7 mph
• Avg heart rate: 146
• Calories: 1495 (373.75 cal/hr)