July's Happenings

Summertime!

 

First up was a backcountry camping trip with my parents, sister and her boyfriend at Aster Lake. This was a great opportunity to spend some time as a family and also to spend a couple nights in the backcountry something I love to do but don’t do very often. My parents hiked into Aster on the Friday morning while Kim, Craig and I left after they were both done work around 5:30pm. After the drive to Upper Kananaskis Lake parking lot and a supper of Safeway sushi in my belly we took off for the campground at around 7. It was a beautiful evening and the 11kms of hiking following flagging tape, that my dad had left on the sometimes hard to find trail, flew by. We arrived just after ten, with the evening light nearing an end, and quickly put up the tent and headed to bed. The next morning we were treated to a beautiful sunrise and took off for a great day hike up to Northover Ridge. The following day we packed up our tents and loaded our bags under another beautiful morning skies.

The trip was a great opportunity to spend time as a family and to have a mental break from my normal daily routines. My whole family is hoping that this can turn into an annual affair with my Dad thinking of many other wonderful places we need to see. With the hike out from aster concluding my rest week I left my parents and sister and drove back to Canmore recharged and ready to resume normal training.

 

The highlight of the following week was the Canmore Triathlon that I signed up for awhile back but seemed to have forgotten to do any Tri training. I did a quick recap in my head and came to the conclusion that I had swam once in the past 4 years, and that I hadn’t ridden my bike in more than a month and a half. Not exactly ideal with only a few days until the race but I was happy to just go and do the triathlon for fun and not worry about performance. I was able to swim two times in Quarry Lake in the week prior to the race to bring my four year tally to three swims! I was feeling confident that I could finish the 1.5km swim but I wasn’t sure how long it would take.

 

Final preparations of trying a transition and outfitting my bike with some sweet aero bars (thanks Barb) were done Friday morning the day before the race and I was excited for the real thing. With the race starting at 8:15 and the bike transition setup closing at 6:30 it was going to be an early morning with me planning to wake up at 5:45, unfortunately this didn’t happen. Rolling over in my bed and seeing 7:10 on my watch a mad panic sunk into my head. My first thought that this can’t be right was quickly shot down when my phone confirmed the same time, let the mad rush begin!!! I quickly threw on all my clothes and grabbed all that I thought I might need during the course of the 2 plus hour race. With no time for a real breakfast I grabbed 3 granola bars as I ran out the door and hopped in my car.

 

I reached the bike drop off point about an hour after it was supposed to close, luckily the volunteers were great and not only let me drop off my bike but also helped me set up all of my bike transition gear. I searched through my car and realized that I had forgotten my water bottles at home; I started to picture myself out on my bike baking in the sun with no water and only a couple granola bars in my belly, sounds like fun! Jumping back in my car I drove up to the Nordic Center, pushing my ’99 Corolla for all it was worth, to catch the last minutes of the pre race briefing. I luckily ran into Brittany who didn’t race until 10:30 and she gave me her water bottles since she had time to go home and get some more. I continued to rush around getting everything set up for my run transition, and before I knew it I was sitting in a bus getting driven down to the start at Quarry Lake with 15 minutes until the start. With my stomach churning from the granola bars eaten shortly before, I stood waste deep in the lake as the gun went off.

 

With no time to be scared of drowning in the swim, I took off for the longest swim of my life (literally). The time went by quickly and before I knew it I was running out of the water off to the bike (only about twice as long as the fastest swimmer!!) The rest of the race went off without any problems, I had a blast and felt like a hero catching and passing many people on the bike and run. Looking at the results I think I should definitely stick to ski racing but I had a fun time none the less. It was also kind of cool to run into to a couple family friends and chat to them after the race. One of them was Jon Bird who finished second overall in the race, and was the first guy to lap me in the swim as he led out of the water. The other friend I saw was Chris Jones who was at the event displaying CEP compression socks,  www.cepsocks.com . Chris hooked me up with a pair of the compression running socks and they are great you should check them out.

 

This update is a little over due as it has sat half finished on my computer until now while I have been banging out a couple of big weeks. Check out my other update to hear a little about them.