Hello heat, glad to meet you

Getting ramped up for the Harvest moon 70.3 Triathlon my rides and runs have been getting longer. Anne is also getting ready for the Copper Triangle a huge mountain ride on August 6th and she takes the lead on training right now. She is riding with Nancy, Margaret and others that are getting ready like Julie and Beth. The core group of girls that are working together are Nancy and Margaret and the three of them have done so well getting ready for this years event. I think that they will have a great event and I am excited to see Anne's mileage increase on the bike.
Jackson was going to a be at a sleepover and I was going to pick him up after my early ride in the morning until Anne came downstairs and said "we have a problem". She was looking at the invite and realized that the party was going to be done at 9 and so I was not going to get the 4 hour ride that I had on my schedule. I waffled a bit about a shorter ride, blowing it off because of an oversight. But no, I jumped up...really I did I was very proud of how I was able to spring into action and headed up the stairs taking them by two's like a real cool guy. I told Anne that I was going to go now and get it done so everyone can be happy with the weekend training and kids. She looked at me like I was crazy but it only lasted for a minute until I was headed up to the bedroom to change again taking the stairs two by two. I smiled as I hit the top and thought to myself that I was a good start to my warm up and it was going to be the coolest part of the day. I stepped outside after getting everything ready and realized what 95 degrees in Colorado feels like at 12 noon.
My goal for the ride was to finish and do so in a very controlled effort during the entire ride. I live about 8 miles from the start of the Harvest Moon and so I decided that today was a good time to ride the course for the first time. Anne came outside with me to pump up my tires and asked 3 times if I was OK and made sure that my phone was on. She said she would keep her phone close and would come and get me if I needed. You see I have had heat issues in the past and they did not turn out well.
The first hour was great, I was eating, drinking and doing what I felt would allow for a good ride. I had to add extra miles on the bike portion of the race route to get my 4 hours done and so I went past the 3rd turn that was the one that took us back to transition. This bike course has about 3 main roads that you ride so you can work the rollers and hills and flat and false down hills ect. I stayed about 5-8 BPM higher than I wanted to and kept dropping my effort to keep me in a good way. I hit a gas station and filled up with another 60oz of water and Gatorade and headed back to the race course. The last 2 hours were crazy hot. I have never felt the heat this bad on a ride and so I worked hard to keep my HR down because I was dropping sweat a lot more that I normally do. The last turn was back on a road that I was familiar with and was also the sign that I was about 45 minutes from home. The bad part of that was I was out of liquid and was heating up and putting myself in the tank. I slowed down and took the next 5 miles very easy and turned into the 7/11 just as I was about done. I slowly got off my bike, walked to the bathroom and put cool water all over my face and back. I grabbed more ice water and took a second to get somewhat composed before I took on the last 25 minutes home. I had burned up in several ways and took the rest of the time to think about how to be better next time.
Home never looked so good and I was able to catch Anne as she was taking Jackson to the party and the kids to the mall for items they have been saving up for. I cooled down and it took me about 45 minutes before I was able to come back from crazy land. I jumped on the scale and over the 4 hour ride I took on 140oz of liquid and still lost over 5 pounds. I will work on trying to figure out how to allow my body to take on more liquid, calories and stuff to keep me rolling in the heat. This was a good experience to realize that I have to keep hydrated to keep going. I have to keep my effort low enough to allow my body to accept the H2o and calories because today I went past that point and it hurt way to much. I am glad for the training and lessons that I learn and will keep it up. Hopefully we don't see 95 degrees on the bike/run course on race day, but if we do I know what I need to do to make it a success.
Good luck with your ride tomorrow Anne.
Stay hydrated.

Love you,

T

48 Hours of fun 2011 Lake Powell

Summerplace 2 Bullfrog bay Lake Powell


Tomcat on his first trip to the Lake Powell


The past several years we have been going together as a family to Lake Powell on a trip called 48 hours. We called it 48 hours to get the parents on board. Anyone can last for 2 days in tight quarters, hot surroundings and no place to get down time. Add to that the fact that we had 32 .5 attend this year and you can start to see the event called 48 hours take shape. 48 Hours of Fun was created to see if the kids could out last the parents on playing or if the parents would be able to outlast the kids in a non-stop play fest at Lake Powell. This was our 3rd year and we had the largest group attend and so we decided to go over the 4th of July and really make it a 72 hour trip. For Anne and me it was the first trip as a family that we were able to take Tomcat our new boat. Tomcat is from the MB Sport family and is a fun, kind 21 foot tow boat that I lived in for the most of the entire trip. Tomcat loves to play music and even tow tubes, surf, kneeboard and wakeboard. Tomcat did great we had a really fun trip with him and I think he will have many more fun years at the lake.
Tomcat had a friend called X-15 and they came out of the gate with such excitement. They had tubes, kids and sun a plenty and they did not stop for 48 hours. The Seadoo’s were also getting a fair amount of attention and by noon we had Summer Place 2 on a beach, in a cove protected and ready for the little ones to play on the shore. Old blue, my dad’s ski boat was taking a break for the first time in 10 years as he was not needed to take a leading role this year.

Pictures of the Wakeboarders, Surfers, and Kneeboarders






I still enjoy getting upside down







Joy to me is filling the boat up with kids, a lot of kids and to take them for non-stop fun. We had 8 jump in the boat and off we went. The first activity was to go surfing and for those that are not sure how we surf it is as close to the real thing as you can get. Using a shaped wake that curls like an actual wave and a small surf board one can toss the rope back into the boat and ride the wake for as long as they can stay in the sweet spot.
Kneeboading was the second activity as well as wakeboarding. We spend the entire afternoon playing and ended up coming back only for water and food and to change out those that wanted try something else. The end of the first day at Lake Powell always comes too quickly. But for us this was a pretty great night since Lexi was able to sleep on top of the boat with the entire family. Jackson and Josh also looked for satellites and did their best to stay awake but soon the entire boat was out cold. Rob has a great competitor in Bill for who snores the loudest and with a pair of ear plugs I was out.
Waking up to the sunrise at Lake Powell has to be one of the best experiences that one can have. No alarms, street noise or anything that we usually live with at home just the sound of the water. The sun heats us up quickly and not more than 10 minutes later the first Jet Ski was off and Tomcat was eager to get going for another fun filled day.
Tubes were the requested start to the day and something very special happed. We filled up the tubes and yellow banana up with air and took them to the end of the houseboat for the little kids ride. I made a promise to Ella that I would not go fast and I had to keep that promise. So as we were loading up the little ones my mom grabbed her life jacket and jumped on the tube and would not get off. It has been too many years to count since the last time I saw my mom playing behind the boat but as I said it was a special day and she was going tubing with her grandkids.

Time on the beach






Tubes, Tubes and more Tubes













The rest of the morning was filled with beach playing, more time on the boats. The afternoon was filled with Ice cream, wonderful food and playing on the rocks at the back of the boat. Lexi, Jackson and Josh all had a blast with cousins. Lexi was able to play with Ella and Bella and they seemed to never run out of ideas of things to do. This year catching the grass hoppers was the IN thing and they all had pets for the entire trip. Josh found it very easy to hang out with his BFF Libby. Jackson went between a few groups and seemed to enjoy several different cousins.
Later that day the wind came up and we ended up spending the early evening watching a storm roll over us. We had the boats tied up and the anchors were placed well for SummerPlace 2 so we just watched and waited for the storm pass over us. That did not stop the fun as the games went to the indoors with card games and movies with much needed AC cooling everyone down.

Taking the houseboat back to the slips is always bitter sweet as it tells us that the trip is almost over. Rather than heading back to Denver in the morning we decided to delay and go in the afternoon to avoid the traffic going to Denver and it ended up being a great choice. We played hard with surfing, cliff jumping and just playing around until nearly 2pm. We packed up Tomcat tell he was full and then made our way to the boat ramp.

Cliffjumping


A little time on the Seadoo with the kids!







Hanging out

Ella

Even the boats need a break in the day

Pictures of BFF's
Josh and Libby


Bill on Tomcat



Nanna and Pappa



The drive home was filled with talking to the kids about their favorite parts of the trip and letting them know that we love them. If they can survive a trip like 48 Hours of fun they can handle most anything. As if you were wondering, the parents won again for the 3rd year running. The kids called quits and left very tired and ready for some recovery!!!
Lake Powell will always be a part of my life. I love that place, I love seeing my family play together, work together and get along with no distractions found at home. We had no computers, phones and just movies that we all wanted to watch. We worked out the little fights and put lotion on all the sunburns and all left with huge smiles. I love you Lake Powell and the fact that we can have our crazy 48 Hours of Lake Powell each year with you is great. The drive home went fast this year since I was full of joy and memories that will last forever.

Anne getting use to driving the boat!





See you in 2012 for the 4th 48 Hours of Lake Powell, maybe the kids can come with their A game and have a possible chance.

Lexi taking a break on Tomcat

Jackson down for the count




Love you Anne,

T