Saturday, May 19, 2012

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

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