Hunter Tries Hang'in with the Pros

Before




After



Well today was a great day for training, and a great eye opener. I had the opportunity to ride with two professional triathletes, Scott Curry and Kyle Marcotte, and they put me in a world of hurt!!! I had always considered myself somewhat of a good cyclist but after riding with these guys for the morning, my God! I am not even in the same stratosphere as Scott and Kyle. It was a real dream to ride with guys of this caliber and I was definitely giving it everything I had to try to keep up.

I had about 1/2 hour before I met them to warm-up and I thought I'd be fresh and ready to go. I met them at the corner of 101 street and lower springbank rd. which is about 12km from home and I left myself enough time to fool with the seat on Clinton's bike as I've been suffering from a weird knee problem, most likely from using a borrowed bike. After fixing the seat and feeling well warmed-up Scott and Kyle came down 101 street right on time. We started out down lower springbank and I immediately knew I was in a world of trouble; they were talking easily between each other and I was drafting, struggling to keep pace. I didn't want to slow these guys down but I knew that I couldn't keep going for 100km at a 160 heart rate, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to try. I hung on as long as I could and I could feel the lactic acid burn in my legs and my mouth was hanging open gasping for air. I did okay until we hit the hills, at that point I knew they were going to drop me very quick, and they did, it didn't help that my gearing system jammed and I couldn't get out of the big ring for a while. Fortunately Scott and Kyle are both great guys and they didn't care that I couldn't ride with them and they doubled back for me at the highway 22 junction.

Once we were over the little hill on highway 22 I felt a little better on the flats and was able to draft for most of the ride, but I think Scott and Kyle slowed quite a bit in order for me to keep up (thanks guys). Scott asked if either of us needed to stop in Bragg Creek and I was thinking to myself, my God, I need to stop and collapse in the next couple kms. I used the excuse that I needed to go to the washroom but really I just wanted to rest! We stopped and chatted for a couple minutes in Bragg and I felt a little better. The nice part was that the way back was flat and I felt more comfortable riding with these guys on the flats. Scott still pushed me quite a bit but I gave everything I could to stay on his wheel and stuck with him until we hit highway 8. At that point my body had taken enough abuse and I said thanks to both of them for a terrific ride and I made my way home.

I don't think I'd ever rode that fast to and from Bragg Creek, I wish I had a speedometer, but doing the ride other times it was about 100kms and I was riding for about 2hrs and 55mins so I know that was a lot faster then I'd ever gone before. I collapsed and needed to rest for the remainder of the day but had an awesome experience, thanks Scott for the invite, hope to do it again, give me some time to recover.