CTAPP Training weekend: a survivor’s story!

This post is for you Spanky!

If you could make it though the weekend you can do anything. I remember seeing the literary come out and thought “how will I make it though this weekend” Then I thought, I made it through the GT. I survived the MS bike ride with two very annoying co-workers at 12km an hour I can handle a TCR weekend.

Friday
We stayed at the Creekside Inn (www.creeksidecountryinn.com/) it was nice for us to have the run of the place. I’m not sure how great it was for them having 25 some-odd cyclists run free in their inn. But they were charming and helpful the entire weekend. Dinner started with camp introduction, including the Penguin and the Chicken hat. If you were a Negative-Ned you had to wear the penguin, if you were cocky and showing off then you wore the chicken. (though I think a lot of people were only wear it because it was just so damn hot) We had to come up with camp names, I went with Kelso, I changed Brian’s from Sparky to Spanky. He really needs to work on his penmanship! Also, Spanky was funnier to me, and really it’s all about entertaining me. We had a staring contest, though she didn’t win I would not ever want to be on the other end of Princess Mo’s. Scotty and Tim were our finalists but Scotty cracked under Tim’s funny faces and a champion was born. The Glute Strength that was scheduled for 15 minutes before bed turned out to be more entertaining then challenging (especially for those in skirts!) We all thought it would involve squats, lunges something that would make us cry out for our Mommies. What we got was a lot more humorous then painful. I’ll let the pictures below explain it all! Everyone slowly made their way to bed under Cory and Sy’s warning of what the next day would bring.

Saturday
Circuit training made for a lot of unhappy campers. Perhaps it was the early start, the exercise before breakfast, or the lack of coffee but the Penguin hat made the rounds Saturday morning. Though I do think Jim was wearing it just so he had a free pass to be as sarcastic as he wanted. After a light breakfast (where’s the bacon and eggs!) we gather up our shiny new gear and headed up to Highway 1A for some team riding practice. It was a beautiful day and there was lots of fantastic riding and great wildlife (no, I’m not talking about CTAPP’ers) There was a bear and a moose sighting. The new jerseys looked fantastic against the breathtaking scenery. We even spotted a rider in last years jersey! Thanks to Jim for taking the picture enroute. I have yet to master the skill of clicking and riding, I think for the safety of everyone I’ll probably keep both my hands on the handle bars! There were a couple of really great stretches and a few really challenging (keeping up with the fast kids is hard work) I learned that Mike Crape is one of the best people to draft behind, that was some pretty sweet drafting! We headed back to base camp for some eats and to get prepared to hike Ha Ling. Yes, that’s right after circuit training, biking around 110km, we hiked. At that point we had lost the penguin hat (Murphy!!) otherwise a lot of use would have been sharing the hat. It was a spectacular hike/scramble with some truly amazing views. I however wasn’t really paying attention to the views I was too busy being a scaredy cat. I’m not really good with height and so when you combine heights and wind and a bad back it made for a very, very slow decent. Here I have to shout out to Chad Zeigler who is a very accomplished hiker and stayed with me the entire time, despite my turtle like pace. Nobody ever likes being the slowest kid in class. Coming down the mountain I was pretty tired and grouchy and ready to curl up into bed. Unfortunately Cory had other ideas. The Camp Initiation we had heard so much about. They flagged the Smart Car down by the Quarry and then Vanessa wanted to see how many CTAPP’ers could fit into a Smart Car, We managed 7 but I still think we could have fit two or three more. It’s amazing just how this group of people managed to bring up my spirits with a good laugh and a kind word! Good mood restored we walked down to the Quarry to see what Cory had in mind for us. We found him hip deep into the Quarry. As cold and painful as it seemed it was a terrific bonding activity and after for serious harassing we even got Jim in the water, boxers and all! (You would think that this would be the most skin Jim showed all weekend, unfortunately not, more on that later) Saggy bottoms we made it back to Creekside for some badly needed dinner. (and a sweet massage from Ty for me!!) There was some very feeble attempts at karaoke but in the end I think the group sing-a-long to My Ding-a-Ling was the crowd pleaser. Happy and exhausted we all fell into bed (my roommates were kind enough to grant me the King Sized bed!!!)

Sunday
It was a very quiet morning around the inn Sunday morning. Rough voices followed us into yoga class. The stretch was badly needed and seriously enjoyed (there was some cracks in the peanut gallery about someone grabbing their ding-a-ling, I was happy to be up front) After a good breakfast we were set to go on the last ride of the camp. I got all geared up in the padded shorts, the cycling vest, armwarmers, legwarmers and once I got my helmet on I thought 'damn I look pretty hot' Seriously why is it Sy looks cool in her gear and I look like an idiot. Canmore to Lake Minnewanka, a loop around the lake and back. It was a bit of a tough grind convincing those muscles to work, I found the fist 20km a little tough and burned out quickly on the hills. Jim was on my team this round and his advice as always was invaluable. Though his shorts lacked some coverage in the behind. After some Sharkies we headed out for the loop I think Cory got us confused with another team because we were labeled as one of the strong teams, so we did the entire loop. It was such a beautiful ride more then worth the extra hills. It felt a lot longer then 5km so I’ll have to investigate it because it would make a fantastic training run for the Apple. I watch my life flash before my eyes as a squirrel very nearly came between me and my bike tire at 35km/hour. Riding back to Canmore was the perfect way to finish a weekend, a little tail wind, a lot of downhill and nothing but sun! Rides like that are just good for the soul.

So we’ve bonded, we’ve drank together, changed a few tires together, we’ve all seen Jim’s ass and now it’s time to break into our smaller groups. The group is so great this year that it’s hard because I would enjoy riding with everyone and am a little bit sad that I won’t be seeing the entire group for much of the trip down to Austin but I’ll be looking forward to getting there to celebrate another great year!

I’ll save the photo post until I get them all together but I wanted to get this down before I forgot everyone camp names! (He he he he, Spanky!)