My friend and training partner Jules and I ventured to beautiful Mont Tremblant for a weekend full of Ironman training. We realized on the way there that the one way trip would take as long to drive as we were going to spend o our bikes!
We ventured outside Friday morning rolling into the village around 6 or 7 pm. We unloaded the car and brought our mound of gear up to the hotel room which was more like a condo. Had some dinner and basically called it a night.
Saturday we were planning on getting a 160 km bike ride in. This would have been two loops of the race course. We loaded up the car and headed over to the parking lot near transition and got ready to roll. The loop went pretty well, I was pushing and working to keep up with Jules, I kept in her in sight for most of it. We headed back towards Montee Ryan and then made the ascend upon"the mountain ". In total we did 84km.
We were heading out for the second loop when a car passed me yelling something in French, I turned back and didn't we Jules. I stopped and walked back and she was walking her bike towards me. She had crashed, thankfully it wasn't serious and she went down away from traffic instead of into it! Her bike was pretty messed up and wasn't ridable. I bike over to get help but we ended up taking it into the local shop where they needed to cut the chain and do a tune up. We realized our big bike plans were quashed and the universe had other plans for us. Thankfully the bike shop got the repair done and we made alternate plans for Sunday. We decided that we would do the second loop following with a short run and then a swim.
Sunday arrived and we got our bike done, I was struggling a bit physically and mentally but kept reminding myself that this was great practice. Math works wonders when you need to get your head out of the hurt locker.
We got the loop done,another kick ass climb up the mountain and back down. My computer crapped out on me all weekend so I only had cadence working for me which was probably better considering I think I went the fastest I have ever gone on my bike.
We got back and watched our friends become a 2 time Ironman as they were racing in Austria. It was amazing and brought tears to my eyes.
Afterwards we headed down to the beach area to get our 3k swim done. Again, a monkey wrench got thrown into the mix. We got there after 3 to find d out the swim course had already closed. So again we were left to reorganize our plans. Instead we ended up going for our 21k training run. We were laughing when we realized we were basically doing an impromptu half ironman that day.
The run was OK, it took me longer than expected but I just know that I need to get back off my bike asap to buy myself as much time as possible on race day.
All in all it was a great confidence boosting weekend and I know that this year, I will become an Ironman!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment