Swim, Bike, Run, and Whales

Friday was a bit of a recovery from the big assault on Haleakala. We drove over to Whaler’s Cove for some swimming, running, and shopping. The whales were putting on quite the show for us all along the highway on the trip out. It made a long ride in traffic a bit more interesting.

Swimming at Whaler’s Cove was quite nice. There were a few waves, which allowed me to practice proper breathing technique and see if it really does help out with the waves. There was also a bit more coral and rocks here, so there were more fish to look at while swimming along. I ended up putting in just under a mile – I started to get pretty warm in the wetsuit, so I stripped it down to my waist and sat in the water for a bit to cool off.

At this point, I could have gone for a run, but I didn’t. I hung out on the beach for a little bit instead, and then we walked to lunch. On the way, the whales started to show up again.  There were several that breached…I managed to get a picture of a head and a tail sticking out. They aren’t the greatest, the whales were out there quite a bit so I cropped down the photos.

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The original schedule for Saturday was to bike the West Maui Loop. Unfortunately, there was a ton of rain overnight (and still happening in the morning) and decided that the safe thing to do was to skip the ride. Instead, we drove down to the beach and went for a short run that went near the airport. Garmin file can be found here.

After the run, the weather improved a bit, so a small group of us decided to go for a short afternoon ride. The goal – climb Copp Road. This road is about an 870’ climb in a mile and a half. The average grade is nearly 11% and the steeper sections are more than 15%. It was the hardest part of the entire week, but I managed to get through it (with one short rest about 1/2 way up). Garmin file can be found here.

Then it was back down to the B&B to pack up the bikes and get ready to head home tomorrow. Had to have a beer to celebrate completing the camp without any mechanical failures on the bike (or on the me).

The camp was a blast! I was pushed out of my comfort zone, and did many things that I did not think I was capable of accomplishing. The training was definitely hard, but not impossible. I’ll definitely consider coming back again in the future.

Haleakala – 36 Miles, 10,023 Foot Climb

Today was the day of the big climb up Haleakala. Normally, it doesn’t happen until the Saturday of the camp, but the weather for the weekend isn’t looking good, so it was bumped to today.

My original plan was to start from the B&B (elevation about 1500’), however, I was peer pressured into going down to Paia to get the full effect of the climb.  Technically, I didn’t start a sea level, but probably around 20’.  I was paired up with a  couple of riders at a similar skill level, and since we are a little bit slower, they sent us off early at 7:45a.

The entire descent into Paia, I wondered what I got myself into – I’m riding down a hill to just turn around and ride back up! Coming back up the hill was easier than I expected – once we arrived at the B&B we did a quick stop to top off our bottles and to pick up a couple of riders that decided they didn’t want to start at town.

The next section of the ride was identical to the ride from Tuesday up to the 4500’ level. From there, it was just another 5500’ up! As we started the ascent up the mountain, the weather started to deteriorate – clouds were rolling in and the temperature was dropping. I stopped at 5000’ to get a picture of the half way point, as well as to put on my arm warmers

The view from 5000’ was cloudy.

From there, we continued up, up, up. At about 6500’ we had a support vehicle that I elected to skip – I thought we were close to the visitor center at the park and intended to top off my bottles there. It turned out to be a quite a bit further. I managed to pull in with about 1/4 of a bottle left. Even so, this made my stress level rise quite a bit given my experience with running out of fluids on our Sunday ride.  I took a quick picture of my bike at the lower visitor center before continuing on up the mountain.

The road inside the national park wasn’t particularly steep, it was just long.  The road is exposed and there was quite a bit of wind. Just kept plugging away slowly and making progress. Eventually, there was a “2 miles to go” sign. From this point on, I found things to get really tough. 5 hours of riding, plus being at 9000’+ elevation made it a strenuous climb. Then the last stretch from the upper visitor center to the summit was short but brutal. The road steepens to a 12% grade, the winds were gusting to 40 mph, and there was sleet coming down straight into our faces. Stopped for a quick rest about half way up, and then pushed hard through to the top.

The top observation area was nice and warm, but the view wasn’t so good.‘

Had to get a picture with the bike at the top!

Now I’m only half way done, I’ve got to get down off the mountain! We had a vehicle in the upper visitor center parking lot with our warm riding clothes and some food. I put on my booties, leg warmers, sweatshirt, and running jacket, and I was still cold.

Then it was time to go down, down, down. That only lasted for about 1/2 mile before I threw my chain. Pulled off the side of the road for a quick fix and started again. Descending was almost as difficult as climbing. Even with all the clothes on, I was still cold. My hands tired from working the brakes.  I ended up stopping 3 or 4 times on the way to the lower visitor center to warm my hands and let them rest.

I stopped at the visitor center to warm up – went into the men’s room and put my hands under the blow drier. Once I warmed a bit, I went into the visitor center to get a stamp for my national park book, and then it was down the mountain some more.

After exiting the park, I stopped at the support vehicles that were waiting at about 6500’.  At this point I was frozen, and they had room for one more bike, so I opted to get a ride down the rest of the day.

Even though the weather was miserable, I have to say that I really felt like I accomplished something when I made it to the top of the mountain. I was unsure if I would make it starting from the 1500’ level, and the fact that I went all the way up from Paia really added to that feeling. I think I may have to come back next year and start by dipping my toes in the ocean!

My Garmin file can be found here.

Triathlon Camp–Rambo Hike and Open Water Swim

Not a lot of text tonight – pretty tired and I need to get all of my gear together for the assault on Haleakala tomorrow (I have decided to do all 10,000+ feet, details tomorrow).  Today, we went on a cool hike through a bamboo forest along some streams, with lots of waterfalls.

This is a small stream that we crossed right after starting the trail.

Looking up into the bamboo.

A good lookin’ guy.

Waterfall!

Another waterfall!

I said lots of waterfalls, right?

This one was cool – you had to swim about 50 yds and scale a small waterfall, then you came to a much larger waterfall basin.  Several people went cliff diving here.

After hiking, it was off to the ocean for an open water swim!

The reef that protected the beach set up a natural swimming flume, allowing the coaches to watch your swim stroke and give you some good feedback. The current flowed parallel to shore away from this picture. It was very strong – I don’t think I could have made any progress against it without training fins on.

Triathlon Camp–Winery Ride

Time for another bike ride.  Today we rode out to a winery at Ulupalakua on the south side of the island. The fist half of the route covered the same roads that we are going to take for our epic Haleakala ride (it looks like the Haleakala ride is going to be moved up to Thursday for some better weather), which gave us some insight on things to come.

To start things out, we exited the B&B going uphill for a short ride to the town of Makawao. After making our way through town, the hill became much more steep as we continued on up the mountain side. After a little bit, the climb mellowed out a bit, but it was still a climb. It took just over an hour to get to the road that goes to the summit of the mountain.

The support vehicle was waiting at the intersection and after giving a quick refill on one of my bottles, instructed me to proceed up toward the summit to 4500’ (the intersection is at about 3500’), and then descend down before heading off to the winery.  So we climbed some more!  As we neared the 4500’ turn around, I heard a big squawk coming from the side of the hill and standing there was a big ring neck rooster staring at me. Didn’t have my camera handy, so I didn’t get a picture.  When we made it up to 4500’ we stopped to rest for a minute, which gave me the opportunity to pull the camera out and take a picture of the marker on the road.

At this point there has been a whole lot of up.  10 miles into the ride and we have ascended 2500’ and only descended 180’. That was about to change – now we went down, down, down.  My hands were getting fatigued working the brakes (I spoke with the coaches later in the evening to talk about a good strategy to help with this) which made the descent a little stressful for me. I made it to the bottom ok.  Then it was another short climb before a long descent to the winery.

Unlike coming down from the side of Haleakala (I guess all the downs are technically coming down from the side of Haleakala on this side of the island), the descent into the winery was awesome. It was not too steep, with lots of winding corners that weren’t too sharp. Did grab a quick picture of the view on the way down.

Then we were at the winery.  Stopped for a bit to rest and eat some food.  Topped of our bottles, and then it was time to climb back up that long hill we just came down! Here is a picture of the winery tasting room.

and the area where we gathered with the bikes to restock them.

The way back was the same as the way out, just reversed (minus the side excursion up the side of Haleakala).

Once we got back to Makawao, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a quick bite to eat.

The total length of the ride today was 45 miles with an elevation gain of about 5500’ (Garmin file is here). I did much better on this ride. I think I’ve nailed down a good nutrition system, I just need to make sure that I don’t run out of anything.  While my legs are tired tonight, I feel much better than I did after the ride on Sunday.  Time to head off to bed so I can be ready for the “Rambo” hike and open water swim tomorrow.

We’ve finished a triathlon

It only took two days to do it.

Sunday started off with our “warm-up” ride. The beginning of the ride was easy enough, we descended about 1500 feet into the town of Paia.  We then followed the north side of the island along highway 36/360 (the Hana highway).  The road was pretty sweet, there were lots of nice corners and some short hills along the way. The traffic wasn’t too bad.  Our turnaround for the ride was at Kaumahina State Wayside Park.  This is the only place I grabbed some pictures (using my mobile phone).

First is my bike with bottles refilled and ready to go.

and an ocean view from the park.

On the way back I started to get a bit tired around mile 45 – mostly my lower back getting sore.  Then the last 5 miles before Paia, we ran into a bit of a headwind which slowed me down quite a bit. And then there is the problem with starting on a long downhill – you that you get to finish with a long uphill. I ran out of fluids about a quarter of the way up, so I was in pretty bad shape by the time I completed the ride. I had a bit of a dizzy spell when I got off of the bike, but it went away after sitting down for about 5 minutes.  The ride was just about 56 miles with 4800’ of elevation gain.  You can see the data from my Garmin here.

After returning to the B&B we had a little bit of downtime to recover from the bike, and then we were whisked away to do a run/hike.  Since my bike ride had a bit of a rough end, I opted to hike the trail instead of run it. The location was higher up on the mountain in an experimental pine tree forest.

The forest was clearly man made.

Toward the end of the trail, we hiked down some fairly steep swtichbacks

and at the very end, there were a bunch of caves in a cliff that you could walk/crawl through.

Following the hike, we went back down to the B&B to have some dinner – the chef here is pretty awesome.  She made a lasagna that I would actually eat! Following dinner, one of the coaches gave a quick talk on nutrition during endurance racing. I was pretty wiped at the end of the day, and we were only done with day 1!

Monday, we drove to Keawakapu to get an open water swim in.  I brought a wetsuit and fins with me on the trip, but only used the wetsuit for this swim. There were three suggested options for the swim (based on easy to spot landmarks on shore)– 1000yds, 1.2mi, and 2.4 mi. I chose the 1000yd option. The swim paralleled the shore, 500yds down and 500yds back. The water was a little bumpy, so I had to pick the correct side for breathing…I only ended up with one wave in the face.  My Garmin file can be found here.

After the swim, it was off for a nice run in the heat (completing my triathlon across 2 days). Ran along the beach for nearly 6 miles.  My body is definitely not adjusted to the heat and humidity yet. My heart rate was very high, given my pace and the flatness of the trail. The Garmin file for the run can be found here.

At this point, I chose to return to the B&B (instead of shopping).  After grabbing a quick lunch a couple of us went down to the bike shop to have bikes tuned up.  I was having some minor shifting issues on the first ride that I wanted to get fixed.

Dinner tonight was awesome again – macadamia nut encrusted fish.  Following dinner was a lecture on swimming technique. Now it is time to head off to bed – there is another bike ride tomorrow!

Triathlon Camp in Maui

I made my way to Maui today so that I can participate in the Ironspeed Hawaii triathlon camp for the next week.This year I plan on stretching my races out to the half ironman distance, so I’ll need all the help I can get. The weather in the northwest is not very conducive to riding this time of year, this camp should help me bump up the mileage considerably without having to sit on a trainer for hours at a time.

This trip will also be the first time I’m blogging with my Surface Pro, hopefully it will work out nicely.  Either way, I’ll probably be making comments about it over the next few days.

The flight out from Seattle was a little on the rough side.  The fasten seatbelts sign was on for pretty much the entire flight.  There were a few bumps here and there, but we really didn’t encounter any severe turbulence. It also was a good battery test case for the Surface.  I had the device in flight mode and the battery in power saver mode. This combination managed to squeak out about 4 hours of battery life.  2 hours were watching a movie and the other 2 hours were playing games.  I will admit to playing Civ 5 for about 1/2 hr, and it chews through the battery rapidly (and is probably the most graphically intense game I have on the device). I would still like to see this be a bit longer…

I collected my luggage and after wandering around a bit for the oversize luggage area, I found my bike just sitting out near the original carousel.  At this point, I hooked up with a couple of other camp attendees.  We waited a short while to be picked up by Cal (main guy from Ironspeed) and shuttled up to the B&B. The short ride up to the B&B was filled by all kinds of wonderful stories about headwinds during the rides from previous years.

Once I arrived at the B&B, I had to reassemble my bike.  TSA had cracked the case and left me a note, but everything seemed to be ok.  Getting the rear wheel back on was a bit of a challenge (I really hope I never get a flat during a race).  Got help from some friends and managed to get it on.  The rest of the assembly was pretty straightforward – of course, I haven’t actually ridden it yet, so I’ll really know for sure tomorrow.

The rest of today has been decompressing from the travel and getting mentally prepared for the week.  The shortest rides this week will be longer than the longest rides that I’ve ever done in the past.  I’ve been putting a lot of training time in, but not a lot of it has been on the bike. All the stories about headwinds are making me a bit anxious as well…Hopefully my body will hold up.

I’m going to close with a couple of lame pictures of my room. They are the only two pictures I took today, and I feel like I need to have some pictures in the post.  Also, I purchased a photography magazine to read during takeoff and landing, and there were some cool lightroom tips that I wanted to try. (ok I’m so lame at lightroom that any tips would be cool for me).

Goodbye Maui!

Thanksgiving day, we joined a couple of our friends on a snorkel tour that they had arranged on a catamaran.  The boat came right up onto the beach for us to climb aboard.  There was a bit of a swell, so the crew helped people time their runs up the stairs to minimize the amount that everyone got wet.

On our way out to the snorkeling area, we found out that we had a snuba option available.  Snuba consists of using a regulator for breathing while your air tank floats in a raft above your head.  The max depth you can go down is about 20’.  Kim and I are both certified divers and thought this would be a great way to get the kids an intro to diving (and they were both super excited to give it a try).

So we get all harnessed up and jump in the water.  I paired up with Taylor and Kim is paired up with Melissa.  Taylor practiced breathing through the regulator a bit by just putting her face in the water and she was ready to go!  We start to hang out a couple of feet under our float and I turn on my camera – it decides to not turn on!  Bummer – I could have taken some great videos!  Our dive lasted about 30 minutes and then we went’ back to the boat.  We mostly saw the same fish as when snorkeling.  Back at the boat, I did get a picture of the second group to show snuba from the surface.

It turns out the outlet that I used to charge the camera battery was on a light switch, and the switch was turned off.  So the camera malfunction was simply a dead battery.  I had a spare back on the boat too…

After getting cleaned up from our activities, we were off to Leilani’s for Thanksgiving dinner with a big group of friends.  I had a most excellent prime rib for dinner.

I have to admit that Friday was a bit of a lazy day.  I spent most of the day watching the mighty Washington State Cougars crush the pitiful Washington Huskies in the Apple Cup.  After sending several text messages to certain family members to make sure that the knew the result of the game, we headed out for a short dinner cruise.

Our cruise dinner turned out to be prime rib (again – had I known, I would have had something different the night before).  The boat ride was pretty laid back – we watched for whales, but it is still a bit early for them to be around, so we saw none.

Saturday was pretty much a get up, pack, and fly home day.  Overall it was a great trip, and would definitely go back to Maui again.

Ziplines, Turtles, and Eels, Oh My!

We almost made a critical off by one error on Monday.  As we were leaving for lunch, Melissa checked our adventure schedule and realized that the zipline tour we had scheduled for Tuesday was actually scheduled for Monday, and we need to be at the base location in a half hour.  So, we did the mad dash and actually made it with plenty of time to spare.  After a signing our lives away, we jumped in a van that took us up to the top of the hill.  The tour was operated by Skyline Eco Adventures and consisted of 8 ziplines that traversed back and forth across the mountainside.  I have to admit I was a bit nervous, having never been ziplining before.  It turned out to be a blast!  Of course, I had my helmet cam along to take videos…In this particular video, I intended to jump from the top of the ramp, but ended up taking a step or two down before I launched off.

Tuesday was snorkel day!  We were up early and at the marina by 7a to meet up with our boat through Maui Adventure Cruises.    We booked the “Lanai Dolphin Adventure” which took us over to Lanai on a high speed RIB and two scheduled snorkel stops.  The claimed our first snorkel location was rarely used because the weather has to be just right – the big attraction for this stop was an abundance of green sea turtles.  Within minutes of stopping, we could see four of the turtles cruising around the boat.  After a quick briefing, we jumped in to get a closer look.  I had my helmet cam in a dive housing and got a (somewhat lame) video of a turtle off in the distance.

The turtles did not last long…everyone was called back to the boat after about 15 minutes.  There was some kind of microscopic organism (they told us the name, but I forgot it) in the water that causes a reaction similar to mosquito bites for some people.  It didn’t seem to bother me at all.  Since we were at the location for such a short period of time, they did not count it as one of our two snorkel stops.

Next we were off to a marine preserve near the marina on the south end on Lanai.  Taylor had some issues with her mask at the first location and was pretty tentative about going back in the water.  I spent a good chunk of this stop helping her get more comfortable in the water.  I took a few videos, but nothing too exciting.

We pulled into our final location around a cool lighthouse tower along some cliffs. 

After a long warning about a cave at the bottom of the cliff, we were off into the water again.  I captured a little eel swimming around on video – I spent quite a bit of time surfing the web looking at eel pictures, but could not identify it.

The biggest school of Yellow Tang that I’ve ever seen were swimming around as well.

Now, this was supposed to be the “Lanai Dolphin Adventure” and we hadn’t seen any dolphins yet.   On our way back, we zigzagged back and forth off the south end of Lanai and did not find any dolphins.  After everyone had lost hope of seeing a dolphin, a pod was spotted as we were crossing the channel back to Maui.  As the boat slowed down, the dolphins started drafting off of the boat.

Both of these tours were a ton of fun and I would recommend them to anyone visiting Maui.

Glow in the Dark Mini Golf and the Beach

It has been a pretty laid back couple of days on Maui so far.  I did manage to get in a short run – I’d like to get in 3 or 4 total to help keep from gaining tons of weight while I’m here.  I’m also contemplating doing a 1/2 marathon in the January timeframe (Rock and Roll Arizona), so the runs will be a good way to kick off the training.

Spent some time in Lahaina, walking around.  The number of shops that are closed is pretty amazing.  Once you get off Front street, I’d bet 80% of the shops are vacant.  We did manage to find a glow in the dark mini golf store in the mall – probably the coolest mini golf that I’ve played.  Taylor scored on the 18th hole and won a free ice cream at Coldstone!  While winning an ice cream is great, I’ll be a nice guy and not point out I actually had the best score out of everyone.

We’ve also spent a bit of time on the beach in front of the condo.  It was not very crowded, but it was super windy.  The wind kept blowing our stuff all over the place – just about the time we were relaxed, a big gust would come up and blow something away, and we’d have to go chase it down.  The kids still managed to have fun playing in the sand and surf.

The pace of our vacation is going to pick up a little as we have booked some fun stuff for later in the week – zip lining, snorkeling, and a dinner cruise.  Things shouldn’t be too crazy since we are only doing one adventure on a given day.

Off to Maui!

We are off to Maui for the week of Thanksgiving.  Nothing like getting out of the cold and rain for a week! We started off our adventure at SeaTac Airport where they had some pretty cool murals painted on the windows outside our terminal.

As the kids get older, travel gets much easier.  Melissa and I watched “Cabin in the Woods” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” on my Kindle while Kim and Taylor watched kid movies on the iPad.  Outside of the movies, they entertained themselves with various electronic gadgets – just like they were sitting on their butts at home.

Once in Maui, we picked up the rental car and started off toward our condo.  The service on the plane was lacking, so we decided to stop at Cheeseburger in Paradise for a quick bite to eat along the way.  Since we are in Hawaii, I had to get myself a Mai Tai, which came delivered in a fine tiki glass.

As we were checking in at the hotel, Taylor kept blabbering about going to see the volcano.  We couldn’t figure out what she was talking about…until we arrived in our room.  Our view is a burned down building with a tower that looks a bit like a volcano (The picture is not so great – it was getting dark outside).

If you look out the other way, you can actually see the ocean.

I resumed battling with the iPad for composing blog entries.  My new camera (Sony NEX 6) has built in wifi, which you can use to transfer pictures to a computer, but apparently not an iPad.  I can use the iPad for a remote shutter release, and get any picture taken this way, but I can’t get the other pictures off of the camera.  The camera can upload pictures to facebook, so I found that I could upload the picture from the camera to a private folder in FB, and then download the photo on the iPad.  Of course I need to have a wifi hotspot to do it…I eventually gave up, and am using Melissa’s laptop to do this post.  I see a Surface Pro in my future…

As we all got ready for bed, we discovered that Taylor’s Kindle was missing.  After several trips back and forth to the car, and searching all of the luggage, we think it is still on the plane.  Fortunately she has a password set on the device, so we’ll contact the airline and see if they found it.

We don’t have any solid plans for adventures while we are here.  I’m sure we’ll get plenty of beach and pool time, but not sure what we are going to do beyond that.  I’m still recovering from a torn bicep, so that is going to limit me a bit.  The kids want to go zip lining and snorkeling, so we’ll probably try to get those in.

And of course, the weather for the next few days is cloudy and windy…at least we won’t be cold!