May long weekend is always a great time- the weather starts to improve, the fitness that I've worked on over the winter finally is put to the test and there are great times spent out riding with friends. Traditionally Amber and I use this weekend to get in some great riding and we enjoy all the incredible scenery that Jasper has to offer. Jasper is such an awe inspiring place that it's impossible not to have a great time on all the amazing roads and trails. This year Amber is taking some time off training so unfortunately I didn't have my favorite training partner but luckily I had some of the Speed Revolution crew join me. I'm still recovering from my Achilles injury so I wasn't able to run but we got in a couple good swims and road rides.
Friday was a travel day, I worked in Edson and Jasper while Amber and Harley hung out and by the time I was done work I didn't have any motivation to do anything. 5 hours of driving and 7 hours of work will do that to you. Amber got us settled in the hotel and we hung out with some friends, we finally had a chance to meet Kevin- a great individual who's new to triathlon but I know is going to do well if he keeps up with all the tremendous training he's been doing. Saturday we all met for a swim and everyone was full of energy and ready to go! Robert and I blasted out a great 2500m felt great and were ready for a ride after an early brunch. The plan was to do Edith Cavell climb, an amazing 14km climb on a closed road with NEW pavement, switchback roads, leg burning gradients, plenty of other riders to catch and the best scenery in the world. Robert and I kept each other honest and the pace high and after 12k of climbing we hit snow, close enough to the top. We made the long and fast decent and waited for Bart and Kevin to join us. After about 15 minutes we new something was wrong and another rider told us that we had to go back up, one of our crew had a flat...ugh, really. The climb was hard the first time but doing it again... ouch. Fortunately after a couple kms of climbing we saw Bart and Kevin coming down so everything was fine and we headed back. Kevin had a sidewall puncture so his day was done but the rest of us wanted to get in our 100k for the day so we headed out towards Athabasca Falls.
The hard lung burning efforts were over after Edith Cavell but the legs were toast at that point so we just kept the pace honest and made it out to the falls. On the way back we decided to push things with the tail wind so we did a little drafting practice making sure that neither of us started to slack off. After 90k that day we were spent and we just cruised into town the last 7k. Showers and dinner at Jasper Park Lodge and everyone was ready for bed by 9pm.
Sunday was a bike-run day and the plan was another 100k up to Maline Lake. I love this climb, it's steady enough so that you're not grinding yourself into the ground but tough enough so that you get all the benefit of 50kms of climbing. Again there were a lot of cyclists on the road so Robert and I had plenty of people to catch but we kept the pace high and managed to finish the 50k up in 1:55, pretty good considering I don't think I've ever done that climb in less than 2 hours before. Lunch at the restaurant up there and a change of clothes from Amber who drove up with the girls to me us and we were set for the chilly decent back into town. Back in Jasper the plan was to do a 5k run but unfortunately my Achilles just wasn't ready for a run yet so I had to sit it out.
Monday we were all feeling really tired, Bart's shoulder was acting up so he sat out the swim but Robert, Kevin and I went to the pool for the final workout of the weekend. Amber designed a good 3x500m, 10x50m program for us and although we were really feeling the fatigue in the 500m sets we blasted out the 50's. The weekend done we all said our goodbyes and headed off in separate directions. It was a fantastic time had by all in the most incredible place in the world to train and I'm looking forward to the next one... perhaps next year?
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