June 3, 2002

distances in km.

June 3, 2002

Back in Calgary!

I had to buy a flight home on Friday night due to an unavoidable situation at home. Not to worry though, everything looks like it’s going to work out fine. All I can say, is I am lucky to be able to get a flight back to Calgary on such a short notice.

I will be heading back to Salt Lake City on Wednesday with my family for the big Ironman on Saturday. No, I’ll be FLYING this time. Quite depressing actually – my flight home took all of 2 hours. A quick beer, a brief conversation with the person sitting next to me and I had arrived back to where I had started my trip that took me almost 2 weeks to finish.

Well, almost finish. Due to the unavoidable flight back home, I never did get to Provo, but Provo was only 1 short day (50 miles) away from my hotel in Salt Lake City, so I’m satisfied.

Remember – it isn’t the DESTINATION, it’s the JOURNEY!

And what a journey it was! Over 1000 kilometers traveled under my own power, I climbed the great divide twice, experienced a record breaking heat wave, record breaking cold, and a record breaking heat wave again, got chased by fierce dogs, nearly died of dehydration (hey, I can be as melodramatic as I want – this is MY forum!), experienced almost every conceivable kind of road kill you can imagine including a TURTLE in southern Montana, met some interesting people, met some different people, almost got plowed over by a semi trailer, got rained on, got snowed on, got hailed on, lost a shoe, lost 5 pounds, saw plenty of wild life, got waved at, swore at, yelled at, laughed at, sun burnt, I laughed, cried, swore, sang, flashed peace signs at cows when nobody was looking (you really haven’t lived until you flash a peace sign at random farm animals for absolutely no reason whatsoever), repaired two flat tires, and a broken peddle, numerous chain derailment episodes, got lost, got found and basically had a really great time!

I figure that I cycled for a total of 59 hours over 11 days, which works out to be an average of 5.5 hours per day (not including two rest/swim only days). It takes me almost 6 hours to cycle a full century (100 miles) on my road bike, so I figure I cycled the equivalent of just under 10 centuries over the last two weeks.

I ran a total of 117 kilometers averaging 9 km/hour while pushing the 80-pound trike. That’s almost 3 marathons.

I swam a total of 13.5 kilometers. That’s over three and a half Ironman swims.

According to what I originally set out to do, it was my goal to cycle 80% of the total distance, run 18% of that distance and swim 2% of it. I missed my running goal by about 78 km. That deficiency was mostly due to not being able to run for two really long days because of the distance I needed to travel to get to a hotel. Also, some minor leg injuries slowed my running down for a day or two. I missed my swim goal by 9.5 kilometers because there were only three cities I passed through that were big enough to offer public swimming facilities.

Would I do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Absolutely. It was the experience of a lifetime!

But – this journey is NOT finished yet! I still have Ironman Utah to do on June 8 – only 5 days away!!!

My ‘REAL’ taper is happening now – I’m running less than an hour every couple of days, and cycling a bit on an upright bike to get my legs accustomed to a regular bike.

back on the upright!

Stay tuned here for my final update after I finish Ironman on June 8 (I’ll probably submit the report on the 9th because I might be a bit occupied after Ironman – either sleeping or drinking beer. Probably sleeping) – assuming of course, that I actually DO finish IronMan! And don’t forget, you can get my progress (and progress of the 2000 other triathletes) as it happens on race day at: http://www.ironmanlive.com

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“…for better of worse, out future will be determined in large part by our dreams and buy the struggle to make them real.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“Should you shield the valleys from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their canyons” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross