I just learned about this event. I certainly wish we lived in the area to be involved. It sounds like a blast.
I’m personally looking forward to the day that my surgeon has my back issues completely corrected and I can look forward to that sort of suffering 
No, thanks. I think the Gran Fondo SLC and Frontrunner Metric Century rides, combined with an annual bike trip to an exciting location, this year we did Trek Travel’s Slovenia trip, seems like enough agony to have some fun for someone my age. After all, this was Day 2’s profile in Slovenia. I was slow, but I did it.
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I’d like to be in condition, again, to do rides like either of them. I’ve heard that rides like the Trek Travel, and Haute Route are great (I did marshal the 1st HR in the US that was fun). But, alas, a chronic illness that’s a PITA to get under control has taken its toll.
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We’ve now done seven rides with Trek. My sister and her husband have done 20+. They like to take credit for the existence of the Slovenia ride since after they did their Croatia ride several years back they spent extra time over there and were dazzled by Slovenia. (It’s a beautiful country, I have to say. Simply gorgeous.) They got home and wrote the Trek Travel CEO, whom they have a good relationship with after having spent some much money with them, and told her they needed to consider a route there. Last year when we were doing their Prague to Vienna ride one of the guide’s wife was doing the route planning for it, and this was the first year they offered it. In January when we were deciding where to go we watched their YouTube video of the Slovenia ride and were sold on the spot. And, as luck would have it, the guide we had for P2V was also a guide for us this year. It was a treat to see him again and ride with him. He was on the bike for that day 2 ride and really helped coach me up that Cat 2 climb.
They’re a great company. The only thing I’m holding against them is the new bikes this year were so amazingly smooth they’ve tempted me to upgrade from the older model of it I have.
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Hang in there…sometimes the only thing that will help is the slow healing allowed by enough time. A year ago I injured a disk in my lower back, on a 100 mile gravel ride in Sun Valley. A month later, a course of steroids to attempt to reduce the pain and inflammation, caused dramatic heart arrhythmia.
About eight weeks later, the back had healed enough that I was no longer treating it, and only experiencing continued numbness in my right foot. Nine months later the heart arrhythmia had, on it’s own, mostly gone away, as long as I am fanatically hydrated, never drink more than 1 cup of coffee per day, or more than 4 drinks of alcohol per week.
I’m back on the bike, road only, but limited to about 90 minutes of riding alternate days, and no climbs more challenging than City Creek or Emigration, as the numbness increases with too much effort or duration, and needs a day to recover. I cannot walk more than a few hundred yards in a day, period.
I’m going in today for a nerve conduction study, followed by another MRI, after which the surgeons believe they may have a way to reduce or eliminate the cause of the increasing numbness.
I wake up thanking God every morning that I can now get a little exercise, and spend some time in the fresh air and sunshine. I keep hoping for a surgical miracle to let me get back to my previous activity level.
I’ll may never ride anything like the Wasatch All Road or even the Rebecca’s Private Idaho again. But after the many months in the last year when I barely left the house, I can live with my current situation. I know there are countless people out there suffering much worse than the little troubles I’ve had this last year.
Hang in there @Carolina_Cycling_Ute and anyone else suffering from long standing or chronic conditions or injuries.
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