By James Durand
For years, I would sign up for races based on epic rides, or really long distances.
I’ve done multi day races, 100 mile days, and rides with 12000 feet of climbing. Honestly I was never competing to win these races, but just getting out there to challenge myself and finish.
As life went on and I was less inclined to live by a race organizer’s schedules and routes, I started planning my own epic adventures, usually with my somewhat crazy friend, Ken.
Many of these adventures were just to scare us into training. Our theory is that if we bite off more than we can chew, we get so worried about it that we train way harder in the hopes of enjoying it, opposed to suffering the entire time, wishing we’d never met each other in the first place.
Last fall he popped into Swicked and said, “Hey, we haven’t done anything stupid lately, let’s plan something.”
I don’t think Ken really wanted to plan anything, but knows me very well, and was sure I’d have an idea in a few days. He was right.
We’ve decided that something stupid was not enough, we also wanted something really big, so near the end of June, we’ll head to Whistler for four days of epic riding.
Day One - Ride as high as possible in Pemberton and then descend on the most technical trails we can find.
Day Two - Ride way up Blackcomb Mountain to descend down some steep and nasty trails, then head to the village for a chair lift ride to the Top of the World for 2 hours of descending on some black diamond Whistler classics.
Day Three - Ride as high as we can in Squamish and find some good gems on the way down.
Day four - Back to Whistler for one last, slightly mellower ride, maybe just 6-7 hundred meters of climbing and some flowy descents.
The plan of scaring myself into training is working at 50%. The scared part is on target, but the training part is at 0%. I’m really scared, but seem to have been pulled in too many directions to do any training.
Ken, and the other two suckers that signed up for this, are doing great, but I seem to be going backwards with fitness.
At this point I think I’ve succumb to making the best of it and I’ll just keep the trail routes to myself so they have to wait for me at the top each day.
OR MAYBE, at the last minute, I’ll change it to an e-bike ride … I just won’t tell the other guys. Work smart, not hard, right???
I’m James Durand, and I Better Get Riding Soon…