It was the end of January - time for my yearly trek down to Arizona to attend International Christian Triathlon Network’s training camp. This year was ICTN’s 6th training camp, and it was my 5th time going. Since I’ve already dragged Darryl onto my triathlon team, it only seemed natural to invite him to join me. Plus, it would be time away with my man. Doesn’t get much better than that.
At first, we intended to fly, likely out of Grand Forks. Then after much humming and hawing, we decided it might just be simplest to put our relationship to the ultimate test...
Road Trip
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| Stone magnets are fun. |
Darryl arrived at my place around 4am on Wednesday morning. (Definitely Darryl’s choice, and since he was driving, I wasn’t about to complain about it.) We had already loaded the bikes the night before, so we threw my luggage in and off we went.
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| Darryl and the Texas state trooper that let him off with a warning. Note that she's still ready to draw... |
Other than fog through most of South Dakota and learning about paying tolls on Oklahoma toll roads, the trip down was fairly uneventful. Well, there was the time that Darryl got pulled over by a state trooper in Texas. That was fun. :) But even the border crossing guard was friendly. Just the typical questions like, “What’s the purpose of your trip?” “What is your relationship?” and “What is your favourite part of the triathlon?” (Of course, this didn’t surprise me much - the American ones are generally quite amicable. I won’t speak for our Canadian counterparts.)
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| American town names fascinate me. |
ICTN Camp, Day #1, Friday, January 28
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Justin displaying his Canadian pride.
That's Bob and I singing in the background.
(Photo credit to Susie Degan.) |
For the first time in its history, camp opened as it always should have - with a resounding, albeit off-tune at times, rendition of Oh Canada, led by diehard American Bob Brubaker and yours truly. I was amazed at how many joined in, surprised by how many actually knew at least some of the words, and warmed by the sight of Justin Birks, one of the camp’s newest Canadians (along with Darryl - the two of them doubled the representation from last year) standing, hand on his heart, singing along. Oh that all Canadians had this kind of pride in our country.
I feel I should share the background story to this event. Last year, whenever Bob spotted Rhonda or myself, he would sing, at the top of his lungs, “OH CANADA!” When I asked if he could sing the rest, he could manage the second line, but that was it. So, on the last day of camp, I wrote out the words for him and told him that I expected him to learn it so we could open camp together the following year. I had heard that he had not, in fact, followed through, so when I saw him just prior to camp starting at 8am, I walked up to harass him about it.
“Bob! I hear you didn’t learn the words to Oh Canada. I’m disappointed.”
“Terri! Just wait...” as he ruffled through his papers. “Here! I have it!” And sure enough, there was the paper I had given him last year. And so we stood there and declared camp open with my national anthem. What a great experience.
Bob was the first pastor speaker, and as always, challenged us. Bob’s own story is fantastic, and he approaches life with such vigor it is contagious.
After Bob was done, we went off into our session of choice. I listened to Brad Seng and John Shelp talk about practical swim training, mostly because it is the area I have the least confidence in talking to others about, and I know that it is the area people are most nervous about. Darryl, on the other hand, went to learn about strength training from Kevin Paladino. Kevin masochistically had his session attendees perform 150 push-ups. In a row. Well, kind of. Push-up to failure, and then a 50m run, then push-ups to failure, 50m run, push-ups to failure...well, you get the picture. To 150 push-ups. Apparently Darryl and Troy Soares suffered through side-by-side. Neither could raise their arms the next day.
For session #2, Darryl and I both attended Brandon Nichol’s nutrition talk. I even managed to learn something there. Yay!
After lunch, it was workout time. I decided to swim, and then do a quick bike out at East Saguaro National Park. After dealing with logistic issues at the pool (they don’t circle swim, only allow a maximum of two people per lane, and every lane had 1-2 people in already - thankfully a couple of them moved out and let us have the lanes), I got some stroke analysis from J.R. Rosania, then did a quick 10 x 100 set, which unfortunately was all we had time for.
We got back, and since Chris and Naomi (Rhonda’s hubby and daughter) were planning on driving to the park anyway, Rhonda and I decided to load our bikes in their vehicle and just do a quick lap there. I misunderstood the directions I had been given, so getting out there took a little longer than expected - thank goodness for GPS. We got there, unloaded, and took off, Rhonda first. No big deal. Catching her wouldn’t be a problem. So I thought.
Then I encountered the first decent climb. As soon as I put pressure in my pedals, the chain popped off the chain ring. I hopped off my bike and pulled to the side. The chain was completely jammed between the ring and the frame. After about 10 minutes of fighting with the chain, and giving up 2 or 3 times, I finally got it unjammed and back on the ring. Back on the road. Down the hill. Up the hill. Chain off the ring. Words I will not repeat. Chris finally caught up to me with the vehicle. I told him what was going on, and tried one more time. No go. One of my favourite rides done before it started.
Needless to say I was not impressed, especially because I had taken my bike into the shop twice since the end of July because there was something wrong. Kevin Miller had suggested a chain issue last summer because of what I was experiencing, but we couldn’t find it, and neither could my bike shop boys. Now I had no choice other than to bring it into the shop by the hotel and hope they could fix it before Mt. Lemmon the next morning...
