tres amigos after the pounding 56!

“Damn” was all I could say when we finished the 56-mile Lake Stevens 70.3 Ironman bike course this past weekend.

For me, Mark Jensen and Joseph Raymond, it started as an innocent bike ride to see how the new bike course would be.  The organizers felt that the original 2-loop bike course needed changing so they switched to a single loop course for the 2012 Lake Stevens 70.3 Triathlon.

Joseph already completed the course three other times and said it was a “toughie”.  Of course when he said that it was with a smile…

We started from the Lake Stevens public library and followed Joseph towards Granite Falls on a warm springtime, Saturday morning.  The first quarter of the ride was actually pleasant, rolling hills, none too challenging with pastoral scenery and few cars.  Mark and I took turns drafting each other to catch Joseph, but we could only get to about 50 feet before he turned on his hidden jet packs and pedaled out of sight.

Our first break was about halfway through the course and Joseph pointed out that we were about to ride on some of the old bike course.  O.K., I can handle this.  After a few miles he slowed down long enough to say that there were some “hills” that we would have to climb.  To the average person, like you and me, “hills” are those 5-8% grade things that are tough to pedal up but we get there.  Mark told me that the “hills” that Joseph was talking about was a “H-I-L-L” that would make Chuck Norris whimper in a corner.  At mile 39 Joseph stopped to take a break and tell us about the “H-I-L-L” coming up.  “Grab all of your gear and just get up it…it’s a toughie.”  We turned right off of a road that was perfectly sane and relatively flat called “Woods Creek Road”.  I could see just before this turn that this road was a happy one, BUT WE WERE NOT TO EXPERIENCE HAPPY TODAY!  The right turn was onto INGRAHAM H-I-L-L ROAD.  I’m not sure who had the brilliant idea to put a 45-degree pounding hill at 40 miles into a triathlon bike course, but I am guessing he or she is a follower of Marquis DeSade.  Practically motionless I pedaled my bike up this mountain while it appeared that Joseph simply glided up the hill in perfect harmony with nature.  I was about three-quarters up the hill when I saw Joseph ride back down to me and turn around and ride back up!  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  Of course this could have been a hallucination as the entire blood supply of my body was in my now aching legs; no blood in my brain.  At the top of the hill, out of breath, heart pumping, chest aching, legs numb I looked to see even more hills in the distance.  The next 12 miles were rolling hill after rolling hill until we got to within 5 miles of the finish.  Running on fumes, I made it back to the Lake Stevens Library.

In July, I am going to be doing this course again, but in July it will occur after a 1.2 mile swim and before a 13.1 mile run.  My logical side says that I am going to take it slower than normal and try to enjoy the scenery with the expectation that I will finish before the sun goes down.

For now, I am scared enough to train harder.

-jim