Last weekend was one of those epic rides I'll remember for a long, long time. It sounded like a lot of fun when I signed up three weeks ago, a 40km ride through the beautiful mountains south of GP with an incredible waterfall at the 20km turn around point. There were a lot of local athletes there and I was really looking forward to a fun day. It started early with a 6am meeting at a local coffee shop and about 25 people were up and ready to caravan out to the start. It was a long drive to get there but I carpooled out with Denis and Robert two great brothers who are also Ironman athletes and love to talk about IM. We chatted about this year's race, what we would do differently, what we did well, and what we're planning on doing this year, it was a lot of fun. After a couple of hours we were starting to wonder if we missed the rendezvous so we were looking around frantic for 20 or 30 minutes.
Fortunately we did end up finding it and we let out a huge sigh of relief. The weather was cool but it looked like it was going to get warm later in the day. Robert and I were debating if we should pack jackets or not and decided to play it safe and take one. The beginning of the ride was a lot of fun, tough, tough terrain with a few river crossings which meant your feet were wet and cold right from the start. After a few steep hill climbs I warmed up and just my feet and hands were cold. Robert, Denis and I were far ahead of everyone else, we stopped for lunch at the falls and right away it started to snow! Yes snow! We took some quick pictures and high-tailed it out of there right away.
The way back was absolutely brutal; cold, wet, muddy, and I was exhausted from the jackhammering downhills and steep unrelenting climbs in the mud. I couldn't wear my glasses anymore because they kept fogging up and without them the mud would hit my eyes every minute or two. It was an extremely difficult 20kms to get back to the car, I was so cold my hands and feet were in a lot of pain, hanging on to the handlebars was very tough and changing gears was nearly impossible with the mud clogging up everything. I made it back shattered and beaten it was a day that really tested me but those are the rides that true life experiences are made of. I'm definitely doing it again next year.
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