Home, it is nice and comfortable to be back in civilization, hot and cold water is pretty sweet and there’s more food! It is good to be with my family. Yet brains are funny, while out on the CT I was filled with an overwhelming longing for home and hanging out with my girls. Now that I am home I am really missing the life of riding and pushing my bike, looking for water, eating snacks and being outside away from responsibility. I love being a dada and a husband, I love helping and enabling others to do their thing, but I get asked to do something for someone else a hundred times a day and it is exhausting. With a broken phone I was very much on my own out there on the trail, it was refreshing.

Lost my phone a couple weeks before the race, got a new one but it wasn’t fully activated and it was a pain to communicate. I felt bad not being reachable by my family and I was trying to text whenever I could, it was barely enough. Not having a functional phone was great, but left big holes in my ability to be responsible. The dynamic with Rach felt weird and I created pressure to get home soon, I found my legs and started rallying late in the game. Was good motivation! I hit Durango mid morning Friday and was excited to eat, rest, swim in the river, visit some friends and figure out a way home. I got a hold of Rach and Greg P was driving one of our cars to Durango and I can drive back. Well the ride home is settled, except now I got to drive! So I drove home the same day I finished, stupid tired, still wearing socks/shoes and shorts from the race, still dirty and a little gross. Got home, showered, ate and jumped right back into life. No much recovery time, Life was not waiting for me to adjust, back to chores, work, family. Since then I find myself washing those dishes while the girls stare at screens and wonder, did I rush home so I could get back to this?

A thought that kept hitting me out on the trail, was whether this would be my last CTR? After last year I wanted to commit to doing it as often as possible, the CTR really hit all the spots. This year the first few days were kinda brutal and I limped my poor legs through it knowing it would get better. It did get better, my legs did wake up. But the first 2.5 days I had to tell myself all kinds of promises to keep myself going. One thought was #11 was going to be it, then retire, no more bikepack racing, no more CTR. There are elements of this stuff that is not that much fun anymore, actually I think it is just the skipping sleep thing and the scramble of squeezing it in, that I’m not interested in. In the end I had a great time on the CT racing the CTR, it was beautiful, saw lots of fun folks, rode my bike a lot, had great time with myself, rallied at the end and was fairly competitive. Success

It has only been a couple weeks and I can say that I’m not done with the CTR or racing. Silly tired Jefe! I literally cannot stop thinking about it. It is exhausting to continue to always be under trained and tired going in. Life has me running most of the time trying to keep up with everything and lately bikes and riding come last. I have more hours every week doing the dishes than riding, not an exaggeration. I ride 2-5 hours a week these days and unless I skip sleep/chores/etc to ride it is difficult to add milage. I just can’t seem to crank that up because I am racing the CTR. I really miss being dedicated and prepared.

I still get to go and race, so I should accept it as it is. My optimistic brain always sees the possibility of more focus, more ride time, more rest time. I just need to tweak things a bit? I get all fired up thinking about how I’m going to go in next year prepared and ready, I once had that level of focus. I could bounce from a race with so many ideas to implement and execute next time and I actually would! I know damn well that time/focus is gone with the wind, life is bigger and there is much more I am responsible for. Yet every year I get stoked and excited to be better than the last year and the next year I am disappointed at being even more tired and less conditioned. I end up a bit depressed cause I can’t quite focus on me anymore. That leaves doubts that this stuff is worth it and I think that letting it go would make my life much easier.

Thing is easy never lasts long, I don’t really like easy. I want to out there creating my experience not watching someone else’s. So I got to figure out this balance between responsibility for others and still leaving room for adventure. Not giving up, still being optimistic and I hope to see you all out on the trails.