Sunday, February 22, 2009

Trip To AMERICA!

I’m taking a week off from work and taking a trip down to the states to visit some old friends. My trip starts in Boulder Colorado at Kelly’s where we are having a little mini reunion. Kelly and Will both were on the McGill Triathlon Club with me a few years ago, and along with the two of them, a friend of theirs who I’ve met a few times, Angela will be joining us. I will be in Boulder until Tuesday at which point I’m taking a small prop plane to Casper Wyoming to visit probably my oldest friend, Mike Mahoney. Its well past due that I visit him, he has been to Montreal to visit me twice over the past few years, and I’ve never been to see him. It will be nice to see where he lives now. Staying in Casper until Friday, I’ll return to Denver to fly home.

A fairly simple trip, as far as activities, there is not much planned. There is a beer festival in Boulder which apparently has a gazillion types of beer, so I’m sure we will be hitting that up. Other than that, I’m sure there will be a lot of baking and movie watching and just hanging out.

As I previously mentioned, I will hopefully check out some bikes as well. Will wanted to look around for wheels, and in the process I plan on testing out a few TT bikes.

When I mention I’m going to Boulder, it seems coincidental that I’m not going for triathlon purposes. So to make sure to round things off without completely slacking all week, Kelly signed us up for a running race taking place this Sunday. The Boulder Triathlon Club is putting on a series of races, I think there is a 10k, 10mile, half marathon, among other distances. Once this was suggested the smack talk between Will and I started up, however, before any bets could be made, Kelly decided to sign me up for the 10 mile instead of 10k. Her defense being that I’m training for distance and this is a better race for me. She’s probably right, but it would have been fun going head to head against Will.

One thing to take note, this will only be my second day in Boulder, at 5400 feet elevation, non acclimatized. I’ve never been to elevation let alone raced there, so it will be interesting to see how hard that hits me. I’ve been promised to shock. Kelly says she ofter walks up the stairs and gets winded when coming home and another friend who easily runs 4min/km said she had trouble just continually running at first.

Should be a good time, expect a funny race report from this one. I opted against bringing my running flats for this though, its still too early in the season to really kill myself, and I didn’t want the added pressure of having to race hard. This way I can still try and push myself but enjoy it a little more. That being said, I’m still going to try and beat Will on my 10k split.

After the race, we will just be hanging out.

In Wyoming I’m not sure what the plan is, Casper isn’t very big, and there isn’t all too much nearby, if I had more time I would want to go to Yellowstone, but I think that its too far to a day trip. Another year I guess.

Anyways, I think tats it for now. More updates and hopefully lots of photo’s to follow.

I’ve taken a bunch from the plane already but the sun is directly outside my window so I’m not sure how good they will be





4 comments:

Jeremy Hopwood said...

The elevation will hit you for sure. Just make sure you pace out easy and build if you can as if you get into debt is really hard to get it back. Ran 10km at 8000feet in Yellowstone last year after iron man and kicked the you know what out of me.

RunningLaur said...

have a good trip!
I'm interested to hear how the race goes at altitude.

Lisa said...

Tell my good friend Michael hello if/when you see him! Have a great time visiting.

iRuniFly said...

Beautiful photos. I went to Colorado Springs over the summer and had a hard time running at the altitude much less racing. Good luck.