Day #3 Penticton

Hallo,

Sunday is traditionally the Ironman course day.  We ride the whole course except the 20km out and back.  Wow the legs are sore, but they always are this time of the camp.  I think this will be my fourth time doing this training camp.  The weather looked a bit cloudier today.  Some of us wore jackets, and some of us also took longer getting ready.  Trevor was chomping at the bit as he had a flight to catch immediately after the ride.  I kept bugging him that he'd have to pull me around the course(do most of the work) to ensure he makes the flight.  ha ha

So we headed out of town, had a few hicups with some of us heading the wrong way or some small mechanicals so we had to wait and go back a little bit to make sure everyone was ok.  It's amazing how everyone's abilities are so different and how a group can split up so quickly.  Anywho, once Greg had confirmed everyone was on track we got back on track.  From Penticton, to Ok falls, to Oliver and to Osoyoos.  The same road we did on friday just the correct way this time.  Greg and I were a bit behind, we sent everyone ahead as we helped out one of the stragglers with her tire.  So it was my job to help pull Greg up to the rest of the group ahead.  He helped as much as he could, but I spent a lot of the time in front pulling.  I don't mind this as he's pulled me along so many times in the past.  I was having trouble today though.  I didn't feel so good after waiting, it's really hard to get the legs going after every stop, plus I hadn't slept much during the camp and was feeling quite fatigued.  Grrrr then just as we get close to bridging up to a few of our riders I get a flat tire.  So I change it while Greg eats a bar, he fed me a part of it as I was stripping the tube out of the tire.  Got the tire changed(it wasn't a very speedy change) and got back onto the road.  Soon we were in Osoyoos and I could take a short break while re-filling water bottles and taking in some more nutrition.

After the Husky station we headed up Richter pass.  My legs and me just had nothing left, the extra miles and the lack of sleep was not a good combo!  So I climbed with Trevor, there would be no heroics from me today, at least not right now.  I kept the heart rate lower than usual for climbing and rode.  Richter isn't too tough a climb and we got there soon enough.  We were surprised to find the wind had changed on us again, tail wind for the way home, man was I ever happy for that.  It changed yesterday too, that doesn't usually happen where it changes to favor you.  Tail wind makes the rollers after Richter a lot easier and there's a lot less climbing needed to be done on each crest.

By the time we got on the flat road though both Trevor and I were looking pretty bad.  So we took turns pulling to get to the Big Bear fruit stand near Keromeos.  That flat straight road seems to take forever when the quads are screaming at you to stop!!  So we waited at the stand for the others and they came along soon enough, everyone else seemed to be in better shape than Trev and I.  Or maybe it only seemed that way.  Anyways a 10-15 minute stop will do wonders, along with a couple bites of Trevor's snickers bar.  The next bit of road is mostly a false flat heading up to the Yellow lake pass.  Three serious looking cyclists had passed by and I made it my goal to catch them, so eventually I dropped Trevor and kept going hard from the base of Yellow lake.  They didn't seem too far ahead and I guess my legs had recovered a bit as I seemed to be gaining on them.  I caught one of them just before the last pitch.  I waited for Trevor at thee top and then we continued down Yellow lake.  It's like a 30km mostly downhill ride into Penticton.  Some of it was headwind, but it still went pretty quickly and I pushed the flat parts.  Back into town again and down the canal back to our hotel.  No brick run for me today, I figured tomorrow's long run would suffice.  Another great training day in a great place!!

Day #2 Penticton

Hey,

So today we drove out to Oliver and did a small open water swim before the day's ride.  The water wasn't too cold, although there was some wind creating a bit of a chop.  Oh well, after shimmying into our wetsuits like a bunch of spolumbos we got into the water.  I don't think I'd swam in open water for a couple years, though it's just like riding a bike.  Swam out a ways, then cut over towards a bouy and headed back, stopping a few times and practicing some siting.  We did a few practice starts and exits with the grp and then ran out stripping as fast as we could.  Done!  The temp wasn't too bad, but still required arm warmers.  Got the bikes out of the Rental van that Greg had gotten for the camp.  Someone needed to change a tire at that point(slow leak) so we sat around and waited for that.  Then we headed out onto the road, taking it easy spinning towards Osoyoos.  Anarchist was to be the big challenge of the day!!

We took the ride out pretty easy, but still split up enough so that we had to wait at the Husky station.  The climb starts just on the other side of Osoyoos, those that have done Ironman Canada instead of turning right to climb Richter you go left and head through town.  Once through you just follow the road and eventually you hit Anarchist Pass.  The climb is about 15 km, not too steep, near the top it flattens out more and you can really pick it up if you remembered to pace yourself that is.  I rode it alone... in my own personal pain cave.  I didn't know exactly where to start the watch.  I had done a personal best two years ago and I was keen to see where my fitness was today in comparison to that day.  I rode as hard as I could, every time it flattened out a bit I shifted up to keep the effort hard.  It hurt a lot!!  There are several nice lookouts, but there was no stopping for pictures.  I really figured I was making good time, I felt strong despite having ridden 175km the day before.  I thought for sure I'd have another PB.  Aughhh but I find out later after having uploaded the data on strava, over by about a minute.  49 minutes on the nose, pretty good though, I should be happy going under 50 minutes.

So we took a group picture up top and rode back down and regrouped at the husky station again.  Then headed out coaxing the legs to start pedaling again.  Some were hurting more than others.  Trevor and I got into a pretty quick pace and worked together all the way to Oliver.  We traded drafting each other, but couldn't quite catch some others that left the station earlier.  Too much tail wind and no hills are bad for catching people.  Here came the decision, take the van home, or ride home?  I kinda wanted extra distance, although my legs would def. disagree.  But it was a tail wind heading back to Penticton.  No one else wanted the extra distance, but I decided to keep going.  On my own it wouldn't matter how hard I went, made sure I had extra nutrition, borrowed some off of Dan and headed off.

Pretty uneventful ride home, the wind had my back for most of the way.  I got back to the hotel and noticed the vehicles weren't back yet, I beat them back yayyy!!  ha ha  I found out later they had to do some waiting and actually went back for the last person, but it's still always nice to be able to make good time and beat the motorized vehicles!  My running shoes had been on the van so I couldn't do a transition run till they got back.

Here's my big mistake of the day, waiting around for what only seemed like 10 or 15 minutes?  But it's where I met my doom as I stopped taking nutrition and drinking.  I didn't notice till I had my running shoes on and was running out of the parking lot that I was a bit dizzy and felt I was going to bonk.  I still didn't care, just a 30 minute run, I can do that while bonking, right?.... wrong.  As I ran by the office entrance about to run out onto the main street.  I barely noticed the two speed bumps that had clear bright paint on them.  The one jumped out at me and tripped me!!  Down I went, my face only inches from the pavement!!  A car was just pulling onto the parking lot and waited patiently while I picked myself up.  Nothing hurt too bad other than my pride(BIG TIME) and some road rash on my hands and knee.  Did I mention I was running pretty quick?  Anyways I didn't look around, didn't want to know how much I was being laughed at.

So I got out onto the canal pathway and ran.  I think the bonk came a lot quicker from the adrenaline of my spill.  It hit me hard, made it to the turnaround, but on the way home I actually had to walk.  I was completely depleted, this won't make recovery pretty for tomorrow.  Oh well, the rest of the day was great, not everything can go perfectly right?  It's a good thing the guys were already cooking when I got home and got food in me almost right away.  It had been my day to cook, but everyone was quite understanding once they saw the scrapes on my hands.  lol  Here are the two workouts for the day.

http://app.strava.com/rides/8903791
http://app.strava.com/runs/8903793

Day #1 Penticton

Well day one in Penticton is in the books.  It went fairly well, we did the Green mountain road from Penticton and then got onto the IMC course and rode the reverse loop from there.  It was a beautiful day, with a head wind coming home and a little cool which required arm warmers most of the day, but still very nice.  My neck is the most sore part on my body.  Anyways don't have much to say, here is the data from the ride if anyone is interested.  I now use Strava.com instead of Garmin connect.  http://app.strava.com/rides/8821804  I doubled back at one point to add on some climbing and distance.  Tomorrow we do my favorite climb, the one that's pictured in the header of this blog.  Anarchist!!  We'll also do a short open water swim before.  Lisa I'm doing IMC and GWN and maybe one other half, we'll see.  I have a hard time justifying paying for another entry when it'll be a "training race".  I like doing halfs and I also want to do well in them, but really it's all about Ironman so I dunno, still deciding on the Calgary 70.3.  Cheers, all, bed time.

DP

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