Now We're Rolling

This weekend is always one of the highlights of the year for me, May long-weekend training camp in Jasper. It was an incredible time with some great friends and wonderful family time. I know that Amber has really taken on a lot by herself with Ryder and I appreciate everything she's done to make my Ironman dream possible this year I can't thank her enough. I want to throw everything I have into this race and have a great result and then take a few years off, spend time with family and just enjoy being healthy and active with both of them. I never thought of Ironman as a sacrifice before, sure the training was hard but it's just what Amber and I did with our weekends in the summer. Now I know what a huge sacrifice it is for athletes with families, no resting on the couch when you get back from a long ride- the baby has been screaming all day and you need to bounce him. Amber has done an incredible job with Ryder during this challenging stage of his life and I'm going to be her support crew next year or whenever she wants to take on a 'big goal' again.

This weekend was full of tremendous training, we arrived on Thursday afternoon and Ryder survived his first big car trip, a few more pit stops than usual but he did great. I woke up Friday morning to get in a good swim and had the rest of the day with A & R to check out Jasper, we drove up to Maline Lake only to find the resturant wasn't open until the next day. Both starving we drove back down the mountain to have an excellent lunch at Jasper Park Lodge. We went back to our cabin and everyone else started to trickle in, we let them get settled and had an 'easy' run with Steve, Robert, and Richard. I say 'easy' because Jasper 'easy' is nothing like Grande Prairie 'easy' running in the mountains is so much fun and I love to hammer the climbs and Steve was right there with me so we had a blast pushing each other for 10k through the trails.

Saturday was a short swim (2500m) followed by a long bike (170k), the ride started off well enough we rode out to the BC border; fairly flat terrain but Richard wanted to start off fast and I should have known better, he never does as long of a ride as we do. We rode back to town and out towards Marmot Basin and once we hit the climbs that's when the suffering really started, two 1500m climbs later I was spent but I really wanted to get out to Athabasca Falls so Robert went back to the cabins and Steve and I did the other 55k to the falls and back, it was tough. I took care of my nutrition and had a drop box at Edith Cavell so I ended the day fairly strong.

Sunday was another fairly long ride (105k) to Maline Lake and it is 50k uphill and 50k downhill, so much fun. There were a TON of cyclists on the road and it was a blast flying past them, I have to admit I loved that part. The descent was very cold at the beginning but once you came down about 10-15k it was fine. We got back to the cabins in good time and I attempted a T-run but again the hills sapped my legs and it turned into a run-walk. I learned to stay positive on the times I did have to walk and that's really going to help for IM. All in all a fantasitic weekend with friends and family and I can't wait until next year! Ryder loved it too.