Tor des Geants race photos are online!

I finally organised my race pictures and added descriptions and comments to them. 

If you are interested, you can check them out at my Flickr site

Back in the saddle

It has been two and a half weeks since I finished my Tor des Geants race, during which time I have done absolutely nothing physical (except tearing down a fence in our backyard, but that was all upper body  :-)  I was pretty bagged after the run, as expected, but more concerning to me were me knees. They were really quite sore after pounding down that last 750 metre/2500' downhill on the last 5km from Rifugio Bertone to the finish, and the aching lasted for about two weeks afterwards until it mostly cleared up. I have not had knee pain the past, but I wasn't too worried about this since it was a similar ache in both knees, so not indicative of any nasty trauma. I think I just beat them up a lot! Rest proved to be the best medicine, and frankly, sitting on the couch sipping coffee or reading was way more appealing than going for a run.

Getting ice packs for my knees at the Tor des Geants finish - there were no cold streams to stand in nearby, but there was cold beer at the finish area, so this seemed like the simplest solution

But time heals, the sun has been shining more often than not, and I was starting to get the itch to get moving again. It is September, and that means it is the absolute worst of the worst commuting traffic to and from work. Thus, I am generally keen on riding my bike the 30km to work instead: it beats the crappy traffic, is fun, gives me a great workout, and is satisfyingly (and admittedly smugly) eco-friendly. But, after a summer focusing on running only, it is a bit of a challenge getting back into the routine again, and I find that I have to start in good weather to get in my groove before the constant west coast winter rain starts and the daylight hours diminish. Motivated by the many factors I mention above, I got my poop together, found my flat kit, pumped my tires, and headed out the garage yesterday on my trusty commuter steed into the early morning daylight. 

I was a bit strained in the legs, using muscle groups for cycling that haven't been active in a while, but the general fatigue from the race seemed to have dissipated and I was able to cruise along pretty well. I had a noted lack of strength for aggressive hill climbing, but did have a pretty solid aerobic endurance base to pull from and was happy with the constant cadence I managed. The sun was shining, the cool fall air was in my face, I felt good to be moving again, and no cars tried to kill me - all in all, a pretty good return to physical activity. The non-impact movement of cycling also had no ill effects on my knees, so they were happy with it all as well. 

It will be sunny again tomorrow, so I'll be back on the road again. It is eight weeks until the next race (the TNF San Francisco 50-miler in December) so it will be good to build on the "training effects" of TdG to prepare for the next one.

p.s. TdG race report: yah yah, I'm working on it.

pre Tor des Geants scouting run and more pics

Well, the excitement is starting to build in town as more and more racers dribble into town. The highlight of the day was the spontaneous of meeting of all the North Americans in the main church square beside the race banner. We were all aware that others were in town, but didn't set up a meet time. Anyways, there we were, and it was wonderful to meet all the old friends again and see the new ones. Maybe between the twelve or so of us we'll be able to translate the race meeting tomorrow that is held in Italian.

But anyways, here's a short video I shot at the Col de Malatra, which I subsequently found out was the high point of the Alta Via 1 trail at 2925 metres high (10000' ish). Yes, the high point of the second half of the race comes with 17 km left to go. And 1800m / 6000' of descent from there. But at least I know now what to expect.

As I say a couple of times, the section was SPECTACULAR, I was just in awe of my surroundings every step of the way. The weather is trending better in the next several days, so the skies should be clear and sunny to let the views through.

Tor des Geants scouting run from lonerunman on Vimeo.

Monta Bianco in the background - wow, I can't believe where I am!!

Refugio Bonatti - pretty nice digs for hikers

Pretty obvious route marking for AV1, and my Crosslites were pretty happy to be on their home turf in Italy  :-)

The trail up the scree slope to the Col

There's not much chance of wet feet unless it rains

Jen Segger's gear explosion!

Daniel Probst, Beat Jegerlehner, and me.

Cafe for lunch beneath the mountains.

Yummy. Nothing like espresso and cafe latte on the sidewalk in Italy

Typical side street in Courmayeur. I love the architecture here.

Playing tourist in Chamonix & Courmayeur

OK, so my flight to Europe didn't start very well with delays on the first leg that caused a cascade of misses and a subsequent reroute from Vancouver. But I made it, and importantly, so did my bag of race gear. It was time to kick back a bit and get the lay of the land, acclimatise a bit, and brush off my highschool French. I spent two days in Chamonix France, and today came through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Courmayeur Italy, on the other side of the great white mountain. (gee, that almost makes it sound Canadian!)

Here is a quick photo journey of some of the highlights so far:

First night's dinner on my hotel balcony in Chamonix - local Savoie cheese, sausage and wine

It rained each morning with low clouds, so the mountains didn't appear often if at all.

Krissy Moehl's signed UTMB-winning shoe in the Rapatel sports store

Typically clouded view for me of Mont Blanc. This is about all I have seen of it so far.

A brewpub in Chamonix, run by four Canadians. What a find! The beer was great.

Mer des Glaces glacier, the biggest in Europe. Took a cog railway up here to Montnevers, then hiked back down.

Baguette jambon et fromage avec double expresso - French lunch a-go-go!

Cavern drilled into the glacier itself - wayyyyy cool! (in both senses  :-)    You can see last year's cavern to the left, collapsed and moved down the slope. Apparently this glacier moves 1cm per day - is that a glacial pace?

One of the most amazing things I have seen. It was surreal to touch the ice and wonder how old it was.

Deny this - here was the glacier's height in 1990. There were signs all along the path down with the ever-diminishing height, but it was most notable from this point.

Hiking down, the path went by a summer luge track.....

...and I had just enough time to squeeze in a run before catching my bus to Courmayeur. Wheeeee!

Courmayeur and the start/finish of the Tor des Geants is set up already! The weather was better here, and that is Monte Bianco in the background. The scenery here is going to be absolutely phenomenal!

Cournayeur is a small town. so it I was there about an hour before coming across Daniel Probst. We had a dinner of ridiculously huge calzone and pizza. The picture was taken by the people at the table next to us, a couple from Annapolis Nova Scotia - yay Canada!