The Golden Triangle in words...

With my knees swollen to twice their normal size it’s surprising to say that my mood is elation. I can’t remember what I did last May Long but I can say with certainty that it did not involve three mountain passes and over three hundred km. The weather was typical of the May Long. Saturday started out beautiful and we thought maybe, just maybe we’d hit that rare and elusive warm May Long. It would not last, shortly after lunch it started pouring and didn’t let up until we reached Golden. It was the first time in my life I was happy to see a hill just to warm up! Coming into Golden should have been a blast but after two hours of pouring rain a 50 km hour descent was a little chilly. As soon as we got to the hot springs I got distracted and with my muscles not working from the fatigue and cold I unclipped one foot but then fell over and managed to take Vanessa down with me! In fact her knee is scraped up worse then mine. Right after that we got caught in a torrential downpour I discovered a whole new level of wet! My contacts were swimming, rocks were coming off the mountain face, you couldn’t see where the road ended and the shoulder started. It was around that moment that we decided to get a hotel room for the night. After a badly needed warm up at the hot springs we made it down for dinner and my knees started to cease up. After the most disgusting pasta dinner I’ve ever had, I curled into my bunk at that Las Lesta hotel (which was way less festive then it sounds) for the night with bags of peas strapped to my knees.

In the morning after a round of anti-inflammatory and a Mickey Mouse pancake I was ready to rock to Golden. (It doesn’t take much to make me happy) The weather started badly but after getting sucked into a group and drafting pretty much all the way to snack I was feeling a lot better. The sun came out and made for a beautiful and zero elevation day. The sun was shining and my knees were unhappy campers so we passed on the opportunity for a hotel suite. The campground was so nice and close and the hotel was so far all the way up the hill, so we tented, and had a great time. (I know me? Being excited about tenting? It’s weird) After freezing shower at the Radium Community Pool, a fantastic dinner and badly deserved beer on a river patio we settled in for the night at the campground with our fellow cyclists. Tip, blowing up a double air mattress after cycling 105km is not the happiest feeling on the lungs! But more beer around the fire pit with our fellow cyclists made up for it. And really it was sorta like sleeping on a water bed. It was like 1984 again!

We woke up in the morning of our last day, relatively warm and completely dry. I was really getting concerned about my knees at this point but knew that there was no way I wasn’t going to make it through the day. Kicking Horse Pass was mine! First we had to get out of Golden and up to the first snack stop. I was in a lot of pain but I knew I didn’t want to be those people on the side of the road waiting for a ride. The night before everyone was trying to psyche us out of how hard this day was going to be. It ended up being our longest day but also the most beautiful one. Nothing makes you slow down and check out the scenery then a mother of a hill! I have to say that I’ve never been so happy to see the Field lunch stop, I didn’t have my water/Gatorade balance figured out and I was extremely fatigued. We took a longer then usual lunch break but after 45 minutes I was more then ready to take on the Kicking Horse Pass. I could almost pinpoint the moment that excited adrenaline took over. Making it to the top of the hill was definitely one of the high moments of this year so far. I’ve never done anything remotely like this in my entire life. Previously my endurance sport was seeing if I could spend more then 12 hours on The Ship and Anchor’s patio. I couldn’t get too excited because we still had over 20 km to go and it wasn’t the sweet downhill that riding into Radium had been. After 5 hours and 34 minute’s bike time, an average of 20 km an hour we made it back to Castle Junction. It was a fantastic journey and one that I’m surprised that I’m looking forward to repeating. Though maybe next year in June or July. I like warm.

So what’s next? Well I think my knees are going to take a bit of time to recover and I would imagine sitting on a 4 hour flight isn’t going to help matters. But over the weekend they got me thinking about a sprint triathlon and I can’t get the idea out of my head. Somewhere this girl has taken an abrupt turn in her life but she couldn’t be happier.