So a lot has happened since last we talked. First up Jenn went home to Canada for 3 months ... maybe not that long, but it felt that long to those she left behind and the way she's been training she's gotten proficient at leaving people in her wake. That said the week she left she finished her Run Less-Run Faster workout regimen, the one that had her run times/distances mapped out to the meter and timed to the second. She followed the instructions with a Pharisaical zeal, reviewing/critiquing each day's efforts and planning the next day's workouts before bed each night. My part as support has been to listen* as she has debriefed, analyzed, vented and re-committed herself each evening. 'Pillow talk' has become predictably mono-thematic this year.
*Mostly I've tried to stay awake -- mixed results there. I'm getting stronger as the summer goes on, conditioning and whatnot. Go team!
10K run for time, Old Carp Road Kanata, Ontario May 2013
Great day, great ride, beautiful canyon, only thing missing is my once stalwart ride partner.
As for the race calendar, the first 'big' event has come and gone. Rockwell Relay Moab to St George was perhaps not an unmitigated success but incredibly fun (as always) and Team Chain Whipped made a respectable showing. Of the 100* hundred teams that signed up, we finished 50th. Nothing flashy, just solidly in the 'meaty part' of the bell shaped curve as George Costanza may have said. We did manage to to shave a full two hours off our best finish ever. So Kudos for that, but we left plenty of room to improve. It remains the event I most look forward to every year. Barring unforeseen injury or misfortune I'll be back for it in 2014.
*That includes all teams competitive, co-ed and (new category for 2013) non-competitive, in other just here for fun, teams. Trim it back to only men's competitive category teams and we begin to slide down the negative side of that curve (signifantly as the statisticians would point out).
Rodney grinding his way out of the Lake Powell Abyss, battling massive heat, brutal headwinds and vanquishing longtime nemesis Rick (formerly of Team Sasquatch) once and for all in the process. Now that's the way you Captain a team.
Which brings us to:
Anniversary Ride 2013
On July 10th 2010 Jennifer and I dropped the kids off with some supportive in-laws and spent the day climbing the Alpine loop.
We had such a great time (and it was such an easy and affordable anniversary gift) that we did it again the next summer. Big Mountain climb on that occasion and then in 2012, to celebrate twenty years together, we did the Gran Fondo of Ottawa:
One hundred plus miles of gorgeous (and mostly flat) Canadian countryside. Just a leisurely jaunt with about a thousand other like minded riders. One of the funnest rides I've done, and easily the fastest.
This year (as noted above) Jennifer's heart has wandered from (but not completely abandoned) the bike. So in the spirit of embracing tradition while respecting her newfound interests we decided to trek to Bear lake to re-con the cycling race route. Also to give Jennifer a chance to try out her new equipment: namely the tri suit and wet suit purchased at a discount by our good friend and former Backcountry employee Matt. Thanks Matt, you're a mensch. The tri-suit is very similar to her cycling kit (albeit with a comparatively insubstantial chamois), it's the wetsuit that requires 'race conditions' practise. Just watching Jenn don said wetsuit was tiring and sort of made me wish I hadn't committed to fifty miles of cyclig. The experience was like watching someone being slowly swallowed by a snake. I've used time lapse photography to shorten the 45* minute process for you.
*Give or take :)
First in are the feet/ankles
then the lower legs to mid thigh (getting tighter now)
In goes the hips, and now the torso (and the claustrophobic, defenseless feeling of having your arms trapped at your side)
Just the neck and shoulders left
and voilà!
You're ready to stroll down to the beach for some last minute hair adjustment, and goggle placement. Then it's just you and the lake.
"Always do what you are afraid to do." -George Bernard Shaw
For most people a triathlon of any distance is a non-starter. It's a lot of training and requires a level of dedication and commitment most people are unwilling or unable to make. For Jenn, the biggest hurdle between her and becoming a (half) iron(wo)man was swimming a mile in open water. The hundred mile drive just to ride another fifty is 90% about her overcoming this phobia and 10% about getting a workout on the bike.
And so with a final backwards glance, our intrepid, would be be tri-athlete heads out into the deep ...
Only it's not deep, at least not for the first several hundred meters. I actually chatted up a guy on a tri bike that I came upon on a recent commuter ride to work. He had done the Bear Lake Tri several times and said one of the great things about it is that 3/4 of the swim is in water that's less than four feet deep. Good news for Jenn's still developing swim-psyche.
After a swim it's on to the transition area (on this occasion the back bumper of our trusty Honda Odyssey). Thankfully, from a race perspective, extricating oneself form a wetsuit is a much simpler and far less time consuming process getting inside it. In a matter of minutes Jenn is bike ready.
I make the mistake of leaving the camera at home, we're relying on Jenn's iphone for ride portraits. Quality of photos decreases inversely with the level of difficulty of using the camera(phone).
Jenn realizes I'm a patch of rough pavement away from destroying the screen on her phone and tells me to cool it. Visual documentation of the ride takes a serious hit. Just as well, we've got a lot of road to cover and we're making great time. Photography will just slow us down. I'm tracking our progress every five miles but I have Jenn hit a one half split at the twenty eight mile mark. We've covered half the route in just an hour and twenty minutes (and change) at ~21.4 mph avg. Great numbers but as we round the Northeast corner of the lake at mile thirty, the once flat stretch of tarmac becomes decidedly hilly and the anticipated tailwind never materializes. It's at this point that I begin thinking back to last night's Tour de France stage, the one in which team Cannondale buried themselves for almost the entire 200km from Albi to Montpellier to give Peter Sagan the stage seven win. It was an inspiring performance and I channel my inner domestique to bring my team leader home. Only my team leader has dropped off the back end. Jenn ran ten miles yesterday and her legs are letting her know all about it now. It's one of the reasons this ride was going to be scenic, as opposed* to competitive.
*I go back to le Tour as exhibit A in proving it can be both
I take advantage of the gap I've accidentally created and snap a few photos roadside (no risk of cameraphone damage when you're not trying to ride a bike at the same time).
It's possible Jenn's legs are totally cooked from her ten mile run less than twenty four hours ago, but you wouldn't know it to look at them nor would you suspect that she was a forty two year old mother of four. Her training has accomplished that much anyway.
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward,
some are strong at the broken places." -Ernest Hemingway
I stop fooling around with the camera(phone) and hustle to track Jenn, who has now disappeared over the horizon and around the bend. When I finally do catch her I give her the score: we've covered 36 miles in just over an hour and forty five minutes, we have twenty miles left, if we can do it in an hour we can finish in 2:45:00 at over a 20 mph avg for the course. It's unrealistic to think she can do this on her own, on race day after swimming a mile and while saving energy for a half marathon still to come, but if she can avg 19 mph she can finish the race ride in three hours, making her dream (and it seemed like a dream, not terribly realistic but something to shoot for) of a six hour finish a real possibility. I don't need to point this out to her or the fact that part of effective training is pushing yourself beyond what you thought was the breaking point to allow your muscles, your legs, your lungs to adapt and grow. She knows these things and with no words but with a slight nod of the head she tells her loudly complaining quads to 'shut up!' (a-la Jens Voigt) and hops on my wheel for one last push to the finish.
Fifteen of the final twenty miles are the most beautiful of the ride, and though Jenn doesn't believe me, I take notice of the stunning scenery as we jet through it. The terrain stays hilly and the the tailwind still hasn't shown up, making staying above twenty miles per hour a real challenge and now my legs have begun to join the chorus of complaints that Jennifer has dealt with for two hours now. Jenn herself is completely silent, to the point that I shoulder check frequently to make sure she is still with me. She is, eyes pegged on my rear wheel, pedaling with everything she's got and distracting herself from the pain by counting prime numbers or doing other math problems in her head. I'm only assuming this last part but I know her well enough that it seems a safe bet. One thing she isn't doing is taking in the sites (and it is beautiful, even inspiring at times). I feel bad about this. The rear hub of a Reynold's Carbon fiber wheel is quite pretty in its own right to anybody who loves cycling but it doesn't change much. Once you've seen it go 'round a few times there are no more surprises. I tell myself when she comes back to ride this on race day, drafting will be verboten (time penalty assessed if you get caught doing it), she can look around all she wants then ... Well, telling myself that eased my mind at the time. You'd have to ask Jenn if placated her.
The southeast corner of the route becomes decidedly less attractive. Bucolic farmlands (with accompanying farm smells) rough asphalt, pounded and potholed by farm equipment and, as we turn the corner for the home stretch, the wind finally makes its presence felt, right on our chins. I re-double my efforts (Jenn does too cause she's right on my wheel, close as she can get) and we power through the last 6 miles. Unfortunately most of those six miles take us past our starting point (Rendezvous Beach) and up the only consistently pitched section of pavement in this lake loop. But we knock out the complete 1/2 Ironman distance and when I hit my Garmin at the 56 mile mark it reads 2:44:46. Mission accomplished! If Jenn is angry that I didn't call it quits at Rendezvous beach instead of dragging her down six extra miles of road (and climb), she keeps it to herself (mostly).
Segment Details*
Distance 49.6mi
Avg Grade 0.1%
Elev Difference 237ft
Elev Gain 1,006ft
Elapsed Time 02:26:03
Average Speed 20.4mi/h
* No Strava segment for the Bear Lake Tri course so I made my own (the ~50 mile loop of the lake segment, Rendezvous Beach to Rendezvous Beach) Our efforts garner Jenn (yet another) QOM and place me at the bottom third of the pack on the men's side. C'est la vie on Strava
Post ride we drive the 1/2 marathon course (more re-con) and then head to Garden City for one of the famous Bear Lake Raspberry shakes I've heard so much about.
The shakes turn out to be forgettable (I've made better in my kitchen with Costco vanilla ice cream and Emily Kesten's frozen raspberries) but the excursion proves a memorable addition to our Anniversary ride series and provides useful, maybe even invaluable, information. Jenn has two months to apply that info. to her training and preparation.
Next up on the event calendar (almost exactly a month from now) is the Tour of Utah Ultimate Challenge on August 10th:
http://www.tourofutah.com/2013/stages/snowbasin-to-snowbird
I did some recon of my own on this ride earlier in the week. Specifically the climb out of Park City to Guardsman pass, it made me want to cry ... more than a little. Guess I'd better do some applied info preparation of my own. More on this later. Count on it.
As Always, check back with us once in a while.* We'll be here all summer ...
*I'll try to be more diligent in my blogging
PS Happy 21st Anniversary to us
