1st Hard Run and New Easton Bars

Today was one of those days you want to bottle up and save for a rainy day. At lunch I did an 1:20 run in 70 degree, perfectly sunny weather. 90% of it was on this extensive greenbelt system near my office in Scottsdale. Sweet. I hat paved anything. At home, I run exclusively on the trails. At work, the greenbelt.

The end of the run kind of took some of the fun out of the day, but it was good training nonetheless. I did 1hr mellow / easy with the final 20min at LT/race pace. Seemed easy enough before the set, but it was hard. I hadn't gone that hard running since....well....Maui/October.

I crashed my MTB a couple of weeks back, as I do on occasion, and scored my carbon handlebars. Not bad or anything and probably ok to ride, but I am totally not even close to wanting to test it. So, having wanted to try some riser bars for some time now, I got the Easton Monkeylite SL Riser Bars. I slapped on a new pair of my favorite grips, green ESI grips and did one ride thus far. Pretty nice. It opens up my grip quite a bit which might help with breathing and the position is more relaxed / not as aggressive as the bars sweep and rise up.

I am pre-riding McDowell this weekend and doing a double-bypass in the middle. I will get a good feel for the new setup on next weekend's race course along with on some good, long climbs and steep, techie descents.