5 Fingers of DEATH ! !

The perfect ride and in perfect timing... The Five Fingers of Death ride moved in Halloween and made me sign up for the 12 hours of Temecula race. Its spooky time!

"Training" with Sean Clancy recently has been amazing to say the least... Probably the smartest guy out there who has not only been there and done that from Ironman to multiday adventure races but is one if the coolest down to earth guys too! Sean has opened my eyes to some "smart" and "hard" training recently and we had a ride that he was using to get ready for the USA Adventure Racing National Championships. No doubt that Sean and his team Dart-Nuun will be crushing the dreams of everyone at the race this year...They have been doing it all year long with an incredible EIGHT 1st place finishes this year!!

The five fingers encompasses the biggest and most technical climbs in Aliso Woods done in succession. . . Up and down each climb. Don't let the elevation alone fool you. . . After spending so much time on the road recently I have a new found respect for every foot gained on the rugged trails. The 5 fingers is a killer workout and a technical challenge for any mountain biker. It felt like my kidneys were shaking loose after the second decent!

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)	2:34:12
Moving Time (h:m:s)	2:17:10
Distance (mi )	20.67
Moving Speed (mph)	9.0 avg.
Avg. Heart Rate	135 bpm

Total Elevation	7,857
Elevation Gain	3,940
Elevation Loss	3,917

The 5 Fingers of Death ride would have killed me before but I managed to make it and even forgot to bring any gu or bars. Sean is a great motivator and I am sure we will be cranking up the training with Xterra, California Multisport and Triathlon racing next year. Seans wisdom about our training is that we are either going to get in super good shape or have a complete meltdown training together... I am just hoping I can keep up!


There was something about the suffering during the ride that made me really want to sign up for another race ;-) Now that I put the 9 trails off for this year it made perfect sense for me to get a long suffer fest in at the 12 hours of Temecula. I may have had a low running volume but my bike volume has been way up in the last few weeks and I am feeling stronger than ever turning the cranks around. I have a century under my belt now and am willing to reach a bit further for a goal like tackling a 12 hour race. I could always stop if I get tired right? Unfortunately, I know myself better than that but it will be 12 hours of fun either way... Marius, Mandy, Monique and Keevin are all doing Temecula also so it should be a fun day and this ride has me and Sean now squared away for the next and possibly last race for the season. Time to get spooky!