Courtenay Brown

[caption id="attachment_3403" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Above Eldorado Springs, early in the Rattlesnake Gulch route"][/caption] "Why are you riding your bike up here?" (little kids ask good questions). "Because someone told me it would be fun." As I expected, and as I predicted to the kid's mom, now that it's over it was totally fun. [caption id="attachment_3404" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="The Face of Fun"][/caption] But during it, tears may have been shed and leaps off mountains may have been considered and no it was defiantly not fun and who the crap did the bike store guy think he ...

And it continues to be fun... [nggallery id=54]

I won the Big Sky Duathlon on Saturday! It's the second of three races in the Mile High Duathlon Series. I finished third in the first race of the series, and Saturday's win moved me to the front of the standings. The final race is on Labor Day Weekend. I'm doing the series for fun, because racing is fun, and also for preparation. I'm traveling to Gijon, Spain in September to race the ITU Duathlon World Championships. Saturday's race was a short one, 4k run/25k bike/4k run, which was a blur. It was over before I knew it! After racing Rev3 Portland six days previously, I was worried about residual fatigue, but I was diligent about ...

I learned a few lessons from my race at Rev3 Quassy, one of which was that my race nutrition protocol could use a little fine tuning. I think the adjustments I made were really helpful at Rev3 Portland this weekend, hence this nutrition-dedicated blog post. 1. Race week meals: I've kept a gluten-free diet for nearly a year now. Because I don't have celiac disease, just a more typical low-level gluten allergy, I'm sometimes "relaxed" about it. But during a race week I definitely stick to my diet. Other rules I abide by are that the last big-ish meal should be 24 hours before the race, and dinner the night before is white rice, salmon and salad. And, you ...

In relative terms, “last place” can mean a lot of things. I should know, I’ve been last out of the water at all but one pro race I've done over the past 3 years. The good thing is, there is a huge difference between last by 6 or 8 minutes and last by a minute. [caption id="attachment_3357" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Becoming a pro at this whole no-wetsuit thing"][/caption] I was 13th (and last) out of the water at Rev3 Portland yesterday. Predictable and familiar, but what the split doesn’t tell you is I actually swam with two other athletes for half the ...

I'm flying to Rev3 Portland on Friday. My training has been good and I'm really excited to race. Plus with the new course, this is shaping up to be my first-ever "flat and fast" triathlon! Oh and to recap June 2011, which is among my most poorly-documented months since I started blogging 5 (?!) years ago: [caption id="attachment_3346" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="It was nice."][/caption] --- This is not me. There was a mouse day before yesterday. It came into my bathroom when I was brushing my teeth and I'm still hoarse from screaming. (Alternative hypothesis: I re-injured my throat with today's now-the-mouse-is-decapitated scream.) In other animal news: yesterday I ...