Ascend, Descend, Repeat

Amber and I are spending a terrific weekend in Jasper again, I think we both love being there so much that we look for any excuse to go out there. We're 34 days away from Ironman and the training has been ramping up all month and I feel like I could train all day, every day out there.

Yesterday we had a long ride planned and I was itching to take in the surroundings on my bike. We headed out the icefields parkway and veered off on the road towards Lake Athabasca. There were some really good climbs on the way out and I wanted to get in as much climbing as possible while I was out there. Once I reached the turn off for Marmot Basin I decided to follow the road for as long as it would take me (I didn't see the sign at the bottom saying it was an 11km climb). It was early in the ride and I was feeling fresh so I decided to go to the top and it took me about 30 minutes. It was an absolutely amazing ride and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a tough, tough climb with an incredible view. The descent was a lot of fun too, I averaged 60km/hr and reached the base in about 9 minutes.

I continued on the road and saw AD coming back as I was heading out and told her about the climb and she was excited to do it as well. Once I reached the turn around I started back and took another road I've been wanting to ride the last time I was out here. The Edith Cavel summit road was another terrific ride, 15kms of climbing and at the end you are sitting at the base of a snow capped mountain! At the end of July! The road was not in good shape so anyone wanting to do that ride I would recommend a cyclecross or mountain bike. The descent was a lot of fun but the road knocked the stuffing out of me and I was pretty tired at the bottom. The rain started to come down on the way up but it was one time I didn't really care, I was in paradise and nothing was going to bring me down today.

I hooked up with AD again who was really cold from the rain so we headed back into town and had some lunch and warmed up a little. We still wanted to get in some more distance so we headed out again on the Yellowhead towards the BC border and I felt great, I was moving fast and strong and was feeling great about my bike fitness for Ironman. I finished the 43km out and 43km back in 2:30 and the entire ride was 183kms in 6 hours and 5 minutes. Didn't break any speed records but pretty good considering everything here is either a climb or a descent.

Today was another incredible day, a 2 hour trail run with plenty of ascending and descending. The selection of trails here are phenomenal and we only tried out a couple of them but there will be plenty of them for future trips. I was feeling good in the morning when we started out but when we turned around at about 13kms my legs were significantly juiced. I held on for another 10kms and finished the 23kms in 2 hours and 13 minutes, again not very fast but a great training run for the amount of climbing we were doing. I can't wait to do another mini-training camp again here next weekend, AD's birthday weekend!