Late summer through UTCX #3

You ever go a while without cleaning up and you end up with a pile of dirty clothes, etc... sitting in the corner of the room. That's what this post is, that pile - a quick and dirty clean up of the last month or so....

Annie raced and won the USCS Draper SuperXC - hot, hard day. She won her sport class, and collected another big check for fastest overall sport time. She also ended up winning the series for her class. Fantastic rookie year for her on the Mtn. Bike. She capped the summer off by taking a digger while out riding with her girlfriends, led with her face and head, smashed her lip open, chipped a tooth, and concussed herself pretty good. Took a while for her head to get back to feeling normal - but she came out pretty good for punching a rock with her face/head.

Next up was a Euro trip to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary. Swung through Valley of Fire on the way, where I stalked-ok, guess I can't call it stalked if he's looking right at me, we'll call it chased-this sheep to get within photo range. They grow em' big in the protected parks.

We also did our first hike in a sweat lodge, minus the lodge part - check out the temp. Little excursion to some little water hole out in the sandstone. We had visions of jumping into it until we saw it - putrid.

Here's the euro part of the trip - took a Fiat out for the long weekend - sweet, fun little cars. Think it paid for itself with the savings in gas - don't think we spent more than $100 bucks in gas down and back.
Kids started learning to fish a bit....

Brock finally paid a price for one of his stunts - gutted his arm just under his armpit jumping off a playset where a screw hooked it. Came in crying, didn't pay much attention to him until he pulled his shirt off and saw the hamburger hanging out - then out to the car pretty quick. He'd stopped crying on the way down when I began the pep talk about getting his first stitches. Spent the rest of the ride down listening to him insist he just needed a band aid, to turn around and take him home so he could get a band aid. I love his Rambo spirit.
Next up was Xterra - I had a comped entry for the triathlon, so did the short course. My swim was slow, but a success as I put an entire swim together without resorting to rolling onto my back or breaking form, that's a first for me, baby steps. Rode the bike well, than had the traditional melt down on the run, it was brutal. You probably won't want to watch the entire clip, but here's on board footage of the bike course from a slow swimmers perspective. They've widened the singletrack since I last did this race, so traffic, although it was there, was not the time penalty it used to be, plenty of room to ride around it all the way up. It's a really great course.

Annie raced the 10k trail run, and true to form, landed herself on the top of the podium.... she's ridiculous. This one was literally done with about 4 weeks of total inactivity after the concussion.

This was my favorite pic of from the Xterra weekend - amid the serious game faces prepping for the start, she's right in the middle being a total screwoff. The dude won it though, so she picked a winner.


CX season: Two races the first week at the state fairgrounds. First day was rough for both of us. We'd done some handling and skill practice in preparation, but no top end effort type work. That's never going to feel good, and it didn't.

Day two was more of the same for me. Annie came around a bit and put a better race together - seemed to be back near where she was at the tail end of last year, which bodes well. Decided over the next few days that we'd bump her up to the A flight the following week. UTCX #3 was at one of our favorite tracks, Ft. Buenaventura in Ogden. I raced dramatically better, had some rider error type things - dropped my chain twice and totally hacked the barriers the first lap through, but put in a good start and felt like I was able to ride hard the entire race. Wasn't sure that was going to happen all year after the first weekend.

Annie went out with the A's and got exactly what we were wanting to get from it. She rode hard, paid attention to how things transpired a little differently in that group, and held her own just fine. She also looks very good thanks to our friends over at DNA Cycling. Turns out their women's stuff goes perfectly with her fave helmet. I've got one of their skin suits on it's way, and can guarantee you I won't look as good in their stuff as Annie does, but looking forward to it nonetheless.

Xterra Nevada race report

http://www.xterraplanet.com/uploadedfiles/races/ncs/results/nevada08.pdf Am happy to report that after the doom and gloom weather report in the last post, we actually got a pretty decent day for the race. The one exception was the wind, which had the lake rolling into shore with 4-5 ft swells = a little too rough for the spotters in kayak's to feel like they can stay on top of the nearly 300 racers that would have been in the water flailing to get through the swim. So the Xterra folks cancelled the swim. Have to admit it alleviated some nervousness on my end. Ocean swimming is not in my arsenal, and I've body surfed on smaller waves than what we would have been swimming through in Tahoe. It would have been really tough.

So in lieu of the swim, we did a 1 mile run previous to the normal bike and run legs of the race. I hemmorage some time to the field in both the swim and run disciplines so it was a wash in regards to any advantage/disadvantage the change to the race created for me personally. The strong swimmers would have gained an unusually large gap on the field had they sent us out in the water, but there were limited grumblings about the swim being cancelled, no one argued that there was legitimate danger in sending a large group out in those conditions.

After lining up the field for the run start, briefing us on a few of the names to watch out for (including Shayna Powless, a 14 year old girl whom we were informed would smoke most of us on the race course, turned out to be an understatement) the Big Kahuna shot off the little canon and we were off. I settled into my pace fairly quickly and made sure I didn't give chase to the droves of people who had settled into faster paces, story of my run every race, smile. Only hiccup on the run came when I pulled my beanie off midway through and my Oakley's which were sitting on top of my head came off with it. Luckily I heard them hit the ground and stopped and ran back to get them, minimal effect on run time as I accelerated to get back into the same position I'd been in before the backtrack. I came into transition 1 in what I estimate to be about mid pack. Took a little time to put on an extra layer in anticipation of the winds and temperature on top of the mountain, grabbed the bike and was off on what would be a more difficult bike leg than I was prepared for.

There's about a mile or so of paved road before we start the climb up Tunnel Creek, a double track dirt road that took us up to the well know Flume trail. Lee introduced me to the Tunnel Creek section of the course on Thursday. It was loose and sandy. It was much better on Saturday due to a steady rain all Friday night. Still loose in sections, but dramatically better than it had been. It's a grunt of a climb that forced me into the small ring in some sections despite trying to stay in the middle ring as much as possible to force a little extra speed - a tactic I've had to embrace to keep up with my single speed friends. A strategy I question for this race in hindsight.

I managed to get around some people and went into the Flume section with a pretty wide open trail in front of me, the few riders I did pull in were gracious and made room to pass quickly - and I did the same for a few who came up on me. Couple of pile ups when the course headed back up hill before we came out at the lake, some technical rocky sections that caused people to stall out or fall off. I jumped off the bike and carried it up and around these lines of folks. It was here, as we exited the Flume trail and started to circle around Marlette lake, that I started to think I may have a tough go the rest of the way. The road around the lake is fairly flat, usually something I'd look forward to as a good place to push it hard and still feel like I'm enjoying a break from climbing. I tried to do that, but the push I had in me wasn't a hard one, the the break from climbing feeling was somewhere far away. A lot of the position I'd gained on the climb was given back as several riders came by me and dropped me fairly quickly. The effort to stay in the middle ring earlier became really noticable in my lower back on this flat section, it was getting really, really tight. I yo yo'd with a few riders for the remainder of the ascent to the top of the course, giving up position on the flats, getting it back on the climbs. I began asking where the top was about 2 miles before reaching it, trying to gauge whether I could afford to continue pushing the pace or if I needed to back off. The fatigue I was feeling was the type that makes you scared to back off - felt like I'd tighten up immediately if I did that, so I kept working. After a couple of false summits that almost cracked by body and came even closer to cracking my brain, I rode by a race staff dude who said "enjoy your descent" when I went by. I yelled back that I was pretty sure I would - he laughed.

Not the case. I'm a decent descender, partly cause I carry a few pounds more than necessary, and partly because I'm comfortable in quick reaction situations and don't mind carrying speed into rough sections of a trail. I really enjoy the rush and the mental sharpness that descending speeds and risks force on you. That sharpness wasn't there, and it became pretty clear in the technical rocky sections and switchbacks that the ascent had beat me up and the fatigue would have me a little delirious instead of sharp. I kept the wheels rolling, but it wasn't fast. I opened it up a little once I got back onto Tunnel Creek Rd., but still had to take it more cautiously than I'm capable of when my body is working well. High probability of a good crash/early end to the race if I had pushed it in the state I was in going down the mountain.

I tried to stretch a little on the bike once I got back to the pavement, and came back into transition pretty stiff and having had a few twinges of a cramp brewing in my right leg. You can't tell in the video, but when I bent over to change out my shoes, I wasn't sure I had enough left to stand back up straight. Did a repeat of running backwards for the Oakley's in the first leg by having to go back for my number belt coming out of the transition area, was thrilled to have to bend over again but it gave me the chance to get the spare tube out of my pocket, carrying it on the run may have blown me up, smile. I had only two thoughts for the next 30 minutes - keep turning the legs over, and - please don't cramp. Although borderline the entire run, with a few false flashes, the cramp never developed and I successfully got over the last hurdle of making it across the big log without falling into the creek in front of the crowd.

Annie and the kids were at the finish line cheering, I slowed down to see if the girls wanted to finish with me, they didn't, and finished the race in 3 hours and some seconds. I felt absolutely hammered, but pretty happy with how I'd managed myself while in the pain cave, I've crumbled at less intense fatigue in earlier races so this was a bit of an inner battle win for me. Finished 85th overall and 12 of 47 or so in my age group.

Video highlights include a prancing Xterra racer about 5 seconds in, a classic snot blow, and AnneMarie's no less classic "you got beat by a 14 year old girl" welcome at the finish line. Also, check out Lee's facial expression when he sees me at the finish line - also a classic. While only mentioned on the video, no actual footage - the highlight of the day had to be Nick's winning his age group in the Xterra 10k and Garrison finishing his first ever triathlon, not an easy one to take on the first time out - tough hombres!

Sidenotes - Conrad Stoltz had his new Specialized Epic on display Saturday, looked like a sweet piece of equipment, especially with those oval shaped chain rings.

My bike split was 2:18, roughly 45 minutes slower than Christoph Sauser who's a world class mountain biker. It's a testament to the quality of the pro field that Sauser's time would have been 4th fastest in the pro race, with the pro's going out after swimming a mile and Sauser going out fresh as part of a relay team.

Well, that's it for the year in regards to race schedule, will probably do a few cyclocross races through the rest of the fall/winter months, but have some specific ideas for winter training that I'm looking forward to working on. It's been a fun year.

Xterra North Pole - Tahoe

Here's the hourly forcast for the next 12 hours here at Incline Village, NV:

10:00 pm (now at the hotel) - 47 degrees, feels like 41 degrees, raining. Not bad race conditions actually, low 40's can be pretty comfortable and this rain will make the sandy climb up Tunnel Creek dramatically better - so long as it stays moderate.

9:00 am (race start) - 40 degrees, feels like 32 degrees, with cloud cover.

11:00 am (should be around the top of the bike course, 8,700 ft altitude) - 38 degrees, feels like 29 degrees, raining.

12:00 pm (back down at Incline Village for the run/finish) - 38 degrees, fells like 28 degrees, rain/snow showers.

There's going to be a problem area of this race that I'm not sure how to approach, and it's probably different than your initial idea of why this triathlon may be a little nuts. I say that because it's a different than my initial idea on why this race may pose some unique challenges.

My initial concern as I saw the weather forcast detriorating all week to downright cold for the race tomorrow was the swim. We pulled into Incline Village yesterday and walked down to the beach and there were good 3-4 foot swells rolling onto the beach. The water was chilly, but it's going to be just fine. The swim isn't going to be the cold part of this race. In fact, it may be the warmest.

Those temps I listed are for Incline Village, which sits about 6,200 ft elevation (almost identical to my home in Draper, Utah). This bike course is going to take us up to just below 9,000 ft elevation, via the highly exposed and windy Flume trail and along some trail along the crest of the mountain. So, here's the problem. That "feels like 29 degrees" we get at 11:00 am is actually going to be pretty darn balmy relative to what it's going to feel like at 9,000 ft where I'm pretty sure we're going to be in the mid - low teens while working through the top of the bike course. And the winds - 17 mph down here in the valley - no idea what they'll be up top, but I rode up Tunnel Creek Road to the Flume trail with Lee yesterday and we went from minimal wind, to a whole bunch of it once we got out on the Flume which is pretty exposed. Suspect it will be even worse up on the crest section. And that rain. I'm not a meteorologist, but I'm pretty sure that if it's 10 degrees cooler and "feels like 15-20 degrees" up on the mountain, that rain ain't gonna be rain. So, low-mid teen temps, high winds, and probably snow - should make for a real adventurous race.

Putting the taper to the test

This week we'll load up and head to Tahoe/Incline Village for the last triathlon of the year. In any kind of endurance racing, there is a portion of training leading up to an event called a taper. The purpose of the taper is to back your body off of the latter stages, the most intense portions of a training cycle/plan and have it ready to "peak" at the specific event.

I haven't employed a rigid or structured training plan this year, but I have been working on this taper technique for about 4 weeks now (a typical taper period usually consists of no more than a week leading up to a race). The results of this 4 week taper are as follows:

• I'll be going into this race the heaviest I've been for a race this year - the extra weight may be useful if economic conditions continue to get worse, but it won't be great for this race.
• Good workouts have consisted of riding my bike at the 12 hours of Sundance race and on the trip to Moab last weekend. I actually felt pretty good on both occasions.
• I'm hoping I haven't forgotten how to swim since the Xterra race in Ogden 6 weeks ago, hard to say... still seem to be comfortable in the bathtub so will take that as a positive into the race. Also, should float slightly better with the extra weight.
• I've eaten lot's of crap, and found that I actually don't enjoy eating crap any more than I enjoy eating the decent food I eat when I'm paying attention to food intake. This new awareness is actually one of the better byproducts of this years training.
• The intense discipline I've demonstrated with my diet has carried over to my run training. Those of you who have followed this blog for a bit have read a few comments on how I intended to focus my training on the run. I have logged approximately 1 mile a week for the last 6 weeks - yeah, I know, the intensity is beyond me as well... the run should be consistent with previous races this year, although I intend to push it pretty hard.

Looking forward to the getaway with the family and seeing some friends.

Xterra race report

After putting in a half day at work Friday morning, we loaded up and arrived in Ogden around 3:00 Friday afternoon. We got me checked in and body marked, divied out the swag (Annie takes the t-shirt if she likes it, kiddies take stickers/tatoos/energy food, etc...), and got the girls registered for their race. Here they are in their racings digs..And they're off.... Bringing it home....You may notice that Kylie is having the time of her life. I don't have a picture of Chesney, but she came across the finish in the same condition - sobbing. I guess they don't respond well to Mom running behind them yelling "if you don't win, no dinner for you tonight!"all the way around the course. I mean, they're only 3 and 5.

That was a joke.

We coddled them when they came across the finish line and asked why they were crying - Chesney, still sobbing, says "the big kids passed me and I couldn't keep up" - how cute is that.

The medal ceremony made everything better..
Xterra does a great a great job involving the kids, Nori has been a favorite playmate for our girls the last two years, thanks to her for the special attention she gives them.

Spent the rest of the afternoon/evening letting the kids do the activities they had for them, watching the k9 challenge, taking in some race tips from a few of the pros, big spaghetti dinner with Erik, Jess, and their kids, and then an early night to bed for the kids. We stayed at the Hampton and had the traditional bed jumping contest before making them settle down. Not sure what it is about kids and hotel rooms, but it's 100% instinct to launch themselves from one bed to the other and back - even the 1 year old wanted in on the action. No question that this would have gone on for 17 hours straight if Mom and Dad hadn't intervened.

Saturday morning started at 6:00 am for me. Jumped up, grabbed a banana, some french toast sticks, and some eggs from the breakfast bar, and headed up the canyon to set up my transition areas.

The swim - I got in a little early and got maybe a 150M warm up before running my wedding ring over to Annie who was watching with the kids from nearby, no question the ring would be on the bottom of Pine View resevoir if I'd swam with it on. Wildly congested start this year, two primary goals for the first 200 yards; 1 - try to get positioned in the front 3rd of the pack & 2 - try to avoid getting your goggles kicked off while trying to establish goal 1. I was succesful with both, and got to the first buoy in what felt to be a pretty quick pace - a little too quick. Think I got a little anaerobic as I struggled between the 1st and 2nd buoy trying to recover and get back into a sustainable rythm. This became a quick problem for me, no matter how much I backed off the gas. Not sure if it has to do with the wetsuit, which was pretty darn uncomfortable during this period - felt like I was fighting it to get good, deep breaths. Rolled onto my back - that didn't work. Even slowed the pace to barely moving, which also didn't work. Ended up just sucking it up and facing reality that I was on the verge of blowing up the rest of the way in and settling into a crawl stroke that wasn't fast, but got me back to shore. You'll notice by my exit in the video that my first order of business coming out of the water was to try and recover - I was not in a hurry at that point. Lesson - I haven't learned to recover efficiently in the water - so don't go out with an effort that necessitates needing to recover in the swim leg, slower will be faster for me here. I exited T1 at 20 minutes, 8 seconds - a middle of the pack level swim, but 10 minutes faster than last year.

The bike - Had just one hiccup in the transition/beginning of the bike leg, left transition holding onto my gloves intending to put them on in the first few hundred yards. Between my wetsuit dripping on them a little and my hands being wet, the gloves got real tacky and were a serious hassle to get on while riding - ended up taking about a mile and cost me some seconds on a section where it's important to ride hard rather than fumble with trying to get gloves on. For those unfamiliar, the bike course goes from Pine View Resevoir and climbs up to SnowBasin ski resort - a solid 12 mile climb. You've got about two miles of double track after turning onto the dirt in which to get position going into the single track for the remaining 10 miles, This is critical, especially coming out of the swim in the position I was in with a lot of people in front of me. A hard effort here will net you a lot more than a hard effort once on the single track where it requires going off track into the brush to get by people. I went ahead and attacked hard right away knowing there were a lot of people to get by due to my mediocre swim. A small group of three of us formed early and we made really good progress in picking racers off in these first two miles. We crossed the road to where the single track starts, and it immediately jammed up to a pretty slow pace. This worked out well for me for the first few minutes as I needed to back off to a recovery pace. Then the process of getting around packs of riders, gapping up to the next pack, repeat, repeat, repeat began. It went at a moderate pace for the next couple of miles, and then we started the last climb prior to the downhill section where the course get's a little steeper. I began to get aggressive here, pushing the pace hard up the hill and taking aggressive lines on switchbacks, through the brush, anywhere a small hole would open to pick up a few spots in the long line of people climbing towards the midcourse descent. I felt remarkably good by the top of the hill and wasn't in desperate need of recovering on the downhill like I'd expected - this gave me some confidence going into the 2nd half of the course. The top half of the course got a little congested again, but I was able to remain aggressive the rest of the way up the mountain and spent good amount of time riding in the brush working to get by as many people as I could, and then ride as far away from them as possible. It took a while to get by the congestion, but by the last two miles, the traffic thinned out some, allowing for a good pace without having to go off trail nearly as often as the previous 8 miles to work around people. If it's your first time doing this race, it will set you up for a false sense of finish near the top. You begin to hear the microphones and music from the T2/finish line area and feel like your riding right up to it before the course, in a cruel way, turns you back uphill, only to put another mile in front of you before letting you drop down to T2 to exit the bike and begin the run. I had a close call getting off the bike, came in kind of fast and got my left foot caught in the pedal when trying to dismount - was within just a second or two from going down when it finally unclipped. Exited T2 in 1:43 having ridden a 1:23 bike split. 30 minutes faster than last year. The easiest way to knock another 5-10 minutes off my bike split will be to improve my swim split by 4-5 minutes.

The run - All the hard work on the bike was 100% defensive, purely an effort to limit the inevitable damage on the run. I came out of T2 feeling good. Melanie McQuaid, who went on to win the women's title, came by me about a quarter mile into the run, she had 2nd place about 90 seconds behind her and was putting the hammer down. Within the first 1/3rd of a mile I was cooked on the run had to slow to a fast walk, and at times even a slow walk, to avoid a blow up that would stall my race real quick. I maintained a walk to the top of the hill (brutal climb) and felt good going into the section that flattens out, winding through the trees - was able to return to a decent run pace here - but had given up a lot time and finishing places while walking. Was happy to see one, Erik Riessen, who came by at the bottom of the hill and kept a good pace all the way up it - stud. This next section through the trees flows well and you can almost pump the small rollers during your run, similar the way you'd pump a bicycle through these sections. You come out of the trees and the course turns back uphill, which put me back on the verge of another blow up and slowed me to a walk. At the top, the course turns sharply downhill, to the point where rather than trying to pick up the pace, you let gravity do it's thing and try to keep the brakes on just enough to stay in control. Rolling an ankle on this stuff would cause a serious injury due to the force your planting your feet with. I stumbled down the hill to the finish and crossed the line in 2:12 - another brutal run performance, but again, faster than last year.

All in all it was a great race for me - still see places I think I can go faster, so will continue to work, but it confirmed a lot of progress since this time last year, more than I had anticipated.

What a difference a year makes

It's over, and it went a lot faster than last year!
Jason's times:
Xterra Sport 2007 - 3:05
Xterra Sport 2008 - 2:12

Several factors led to cutting nearly an hour off my race.

• Coming into the race at 178 lbs instead of 195 lbs and in much better condition overall.
• Went into last years race with minimal time having been spent on the Mtn Bike. Decided I liked it - to be brutally honest, thought I'd ridden well by nailing a 1:55 bike split, pure naivety! So, bought a good bike and spent a heck of a lot more time on it this past year, including some races. Was able to attack the bike portion of the race this year.
• Think I swam a little better (not good, just better than last year), haven't seen the splits yet for this years race.
• Think the run course was shorter this year? My run is still really poor, walked the same sections I walked last year, but the route seemed to be over a lot faster?

Several factors still costing me a lot of time...

• Still have 10 lbs of extra weight I'm lugging around - possibly more, but gauging it every 5 lbs and know right now that there's at least 10 extra around my midsection. Am thinking I should be close to where I want/need to be at the 165-168 lb range. Cutting 17 lbs bought me 53 minutes, think the next 10 lbs will be worth no less than an additional 10-15 minutes. Want to be clear that I'm not a weight junkie. I don't count calorie intake or expenditure, exercise any restraint when something tastes good, or even refrain from my hardcore night time binges. I'm just talking about getting in good shape, a process in which my weight is maybe the 3rd or 4th indicator I look to in regards to progress. What I'm saying is that when the first 2 or 3 indicators are in line, I think I'll be about 10 lbs less than where I'm at today.
• The run - not much I can say here - mine is sloooooooooooow. No good excuses just going to take a lot of hard work. Actually I just thought of a good excuse - I was a solid sprinter in HS (50.93 400M), it just became obvious to me that my body was conditioned in my early years to blow up at 401M regardless of the intensity of the effort for the first 400M which is precisely where I blow up on these damn runs! Translation for those not familiar with the metric distances - I'm cooked after the first quarter mile. Seriously, I've got a lot of suffering to inflict on myself to get these runs up to speed.
• The swim - won't know until I see the split times. This in and of itself is a problem - I feel a little exposed having written above that I think I was faster this year, because in reality, I have no clue - I'm still just happy when they're over. I just know I'm yet to maintain a solid stroke for an entire race. But am getting closer - I think.
• The bike - will continue to get faster here just because of the fun factor that comes with training on it.

More detailed race reports later - yes, the girls ran again....

Race ready - kind of....

Ok, so after having had my Stan's tubless set up fail me twice in the last month on the mountain bike - once in the Solitude race and once earlier this week, I'm trying a new concoction for the Xterra race this weekend. Here it is..

Yep, the new recipe is two cup fulls of Stan's sealant as directed, with some red glitter dumped in there as an additive. Those micro sealing particles that you can see advertised on the bottle of Stan's haven't been cutting it, so the rationale is that the glitter will serve as not so micro particles and maybe be a little more effective. It will either work and be great, or I'll have a tire that looks like it's bleeding to death.


Went for a short ride up Little Cottonwood last night with Brandon. Leg's felt good and the bike should be good to go with a few minor tweaks and the red glitter. The engine is still suspect, but I'm excited and ready to give it a good effort.


Kylie and Chesney are excited for the kid races. Xterra does a great job with the little festival they bring with them, lot's of fun stuff for the kids that make it a fun place for the family to hang out the night before and afternoon/night after the race. Check out Chesney from last years race - she's photo#6 in the slideshow. http://xterraphotos.com/07mountain/

Xterra week

http://www.xterraplanet.com/races/race.cfm?race_id=629

I made the drive to Ogden tonight to pre ride the Xterra Mtn Bike course. It's a fantastic route taking the racers from Pineview resevoir up to Snowbasin ski resort where you get to stop climbing long enough to change your shoes before logging more vertical on your feet. It was a good ride tonight, took it at 85-90% of race pace and felt pretty good. The course is a good mix of rocky sections that require you to ride pretty light to avoid tire issues, fast flowing sections, short sections that get a little steeper and require a hard effort to keep pace, and a fun little downhill smack dab in the middle. The trails in good shape for the most part.

Pssssssssssssssst vs. Pssh. It happened again, got a little carried away coming back down from Snowbasin (which may be the most rewarding downhill I've ridden after a climb) and went into one of the many rock gardens on the jeep road near the bottom with more speed than necessary. These rock gardens aren't the baby head type rocks, these are really, really sharp. Probably got a little careless after getting through most of them fast and fine, working on riding light, when I hit a rock wrong and was on rim before the Stan's sealant knew there was a hole to seal up. A flat out puncture takes about 2 rotations to empty out the air in the tire. Was fortunate to be close to the car so just hoofed it the last few minutes to the car - but am kind of ticked about having to replace a $60 Specialized Fast trak SLK tire after only putting 5 or 6 rides on it.