Vacation and Pain.

I took a week off from Thursday, Aug 7th through Wednesday, Aug.14th. I was really starting to need it. I've been riding a decent amount this year, however most of it comes from commuting (9 miles each way to and from work), sometimes catching the Hill ride on Tuesday and maybe riding on Wednesday at Greenbelt races.

I arrived in Seattle, WA and spent the evening at dinner with the family and my wife's friend at an Ethiopian restaurant. Afterward we enjoyed a couple glasses of wine with my wife and her friend on the roof of her apartment building. What a nice sight of the city, harbor and background mountains.
We left the next morning for Spokane, WA, where we stayed at a beautiful hotel, called The Davenport Hotel. Our children enjoyed a nice swim at the pool, had a nice dinner. My wife and I, had a nice seafood dinner at a local restaurant, Anthony's, which overlooked the Spokane Falls. It was really relaxing. The Davenport Hotel really did a good job of pampering us.

The next morning, we had a long and late breakfast, mainly delayed because of the hotel's restaurant became overloaded by a wedding party. We were comp'ed for the breakfast, which was really nice of them. We headed on our way to Glacier National Park.
The drive was lengthy, however beautiful. Mountains, lakes, rivers were all welcomed scenery. We actually passed a forest fire which was consuming a mountain range. Pretty wild, as we could see the smoke from several miles away. The fire was peaking over the mountain top. As we wound our way around the mountain range, we saw the fire spread over about 20 different areas on the range. It was pretty sad to see this happening, however I heard on the radio later that week that it was started by lightening. Nature's way of rejuvenating the forest. We approached Glacier National Park from the West Entrance and saw that they had a fire a few years back as part the forest was pretty gray/brown from far away.
We arrived at for dinner at Lake McDonald Lodge, a beautiful, historic, hunting lodge. The main entrance area included a huge fireplace (used originally for cooking the meals for the guests, many trophy display pieces of local game including bear, elk, moose, eagles, and a polar bear pelt. Dinner was typical of a US National Park service hotel. It doesn't typically match the atmosphere. My wife and I typically stay at nice hotels (Historic Hotels of America), and typically choose a very restaurant to eat at. So, when you're at the US National Park hotels, you're stuck with whatever the hotel offers as there is limited choices in the park. This was the case at Zion National Park and at the Grand Canyon, though Zion Lodge was probably the best out of all of the restaurants we visited this past year.
We went on a hike on Avalanche Trail to the Cedars. It was a nice stroll uphill next to beautiful river from Avalanche Lake. See link for the e-hike. My daughter recently had a wart on the bottom of her middle toe, which my wife had the dermatologist try to burn off with liquid nitrogen, which didn't work too well even after two tries, then another doctor used some type of acid. The last treatment was done a few days before I arrived in Seattle. So to say the least, she was having a bit of pain on the hike. I carried her back down the hike, only to find that my quads were cramping badly. It was really weird. In the beginning of the summer, I was at the beach, playing around and doing these long strides with my knees bent. I thought I had pulled a muscle in my quad. I had to go out and buy some icy hot to give me relief. I'm thinking it may have been a major cramp as well. I think I'm in decent shape and I don't think the hike should have really tired me. I just checked the internet to see that I probably need to do some cross training. See here: http://www.cptips.com/muspain.htm The next day I had the same problem coming down from the hike on Logan Pass. The hike up was no issue but the downhill walk killed me. I was walking slower than a 90 year old. I had to walk backwards or sidewards while coming down. My quads were constantly cramping and my shins also felt sore (shin splints). So there is definitely something physically wrong with my muscles and training. If anyone had the same experience, let me know, what you did to alleviate this issue.
The hike to the hidden lake at Logan Pass was amazing! We hiked over snow fields, even though it the middle of the summer. We saw lots of Columbian ground squirrels (which look a bit like prairie dogs). From the top we saw a few mountain goats down in a rocky field near a lake in the valley. Other than that we didn't see many other animals.
We traveled from the West side to the East side of Glacier National Park. Then, I left heading back to Seattle to catch my plane home. My family continued the opposite way towards the Teton's and Yellowstone.
I had a nice time, however the next time, I'll probably want to do some camping, so that I see more wildlife, also I'd probably want to do more rugged hiking, though I don't know if my legs will be able to take it. Fishing is something else I really want to do. A few hours fly fishing and or lake fishing would be really relaxing and fun. I know that my family had done some camping already so the hotel stays were probably was a good break for them.

Well, I took the red-eye home and went straight to work. I was pretty tired as I didn't get much sleep on the plane because of this little girl screaming and crying the whole way. I ended up leaving work for the Greenbelt training race. I didn't know how my fitness would be as I've been eating well and enjoying my wine while watching the Olympics. Luckily for me, my fitness hasn't left after a week off. Good! I finished I think 7th, however for the second time, they didn't get my placing. It doesn't really matter, as it's just a training event.

I rode to work on Thursday and took Friday off. Today, I did the Highway to Heaven hill climb. I saw the Gamjam post by Nick Bax on his strategy, however don't know if that really would help anyone except for him. He's a guy who can climb and attack on the a climb. My rides with him every once in a while on Brickyard or Mountaingate is proof enough that not to many can do what he does on the hills. So I rode the hill time trial blind. On the start, I hammered it, thinking that by the second part of the hill, I could recover and keep a good pace up that part. Not the case, as I should have known better, from my climbs. I die if I go too hard on the bottom. In the case of Mountaingate, if I pace myself up, I can be ready for an attack or can attack and make it to the top and recover after that. Well in today's case, the second part of the climb killed me. I dropped from about 14 mph, from the bottom part, down to about 8 mph. Even if the pitch was not as tough as the start, I was blown. It really hurt and I was happy when I reached the third part. I shifted into my big ring and hammered away as Nick has said. Only to find out that I wasn't hammering away to a flat finish. The last 200 meters was another steeper pitch which wasn't ready for as again, I abused myself and blew up. I could barely pedal finishing up at a crawl. I waited for the results and Ad Bax, told me that I was at the top of the list. I was pretty amazed and couldn't believe it as I thought it wasn't a great performance. Unfortunately about 10 minutes later, the ref. said that there a protest. Yep...Karl Connelly from Kelly Benefit had been placed up top. I thought he had probably done well as he was in his long sleeve skin suit and looked like he could climb. I know that I'm not a great climber except for short sprints up, so I couldn't believe that I would win my category. Oh,yeah... I was wheezing and coughing at the end and still am coughing now (8 hours later). Weird, it feels like I have water in my lungs. The thing is that others were coughing like I was including Nick. Hopefully I feel better this evening. I'll probably have a couple glasses of wine to give me some relief. Just like last night, I had a few with friends and stayed up till about 2am watching the Olympics. Yep, Michael Phelps is amazing. Looks like my training regiment includes grapes (wine). Apparently there's a study about grapes(Resveratrol) about how it may enhance performance. I guess I'm a good test subject without really trying... hehe.