57 days of Yanks (Evergreen Colorado Edition)
Howdy,
This blog is now finished. Peace (start at the bottom). **For those that missed this last time**
Day fifty eight: DEPORTATION. Not before an attempted robbery by United Bag staff. $250 for oversize bag and $175 for overweight. Thank you America
Day fifty five: RACE DAY. 9th placed Pro USA Xterra Championship. An average swim meant chasing early on in the bike leg. With close to 2000feet of climbing this was always going to be a hard ride. Early tactical errors meant arriving in T2 on the top of Snow Basin Mountain unable to feel my legs. Running was about trying to stay upright to salvage a credible result, in which I did.
Day fifty two: Four seasons in one day. Rain snow wind and sun. Pre race climate control check.
Day fifty one: That is eight hours of my life I will never get back. I Spy went out the window as fast as my attention although RAD kept me preoccupied every few hours. Travel to Utah check
I returned post grocery shop and loosen up run to find my dinner anything but cooked. On further inspection, and somewhat left off accommodation websites, the kitchen facilities available did not include pots, pans, crockery and cutlery. The chef survived another day.
Day forty eight: One week to go before race day. If you have ever seen the movie, Four Minute Mile, you would know the first stage in a hard session is your muscles hurting beyond repair, then you being unable to feel your legs before soon after blacking out in a face full of dirty. Last hard hit out check.
Day forty seven: The boys at MARLEENS WHOLESALERS should take over at Pfizer. These new MAXXIS IKON tyres are like mountain bike Viagra. Keeping my upright, on the trails, all day.
Day forty five: This is what being a professional athlete is all about. If you can’t find someone couch to sleep on you book a hotel room to share with a Mexican family under a highway underpass. Utah accommodation check.
Day forty three: Today I bought that repair kit. And also priced tubeless tyre so there would be no more flats.
Day forty two: Flat tyre Sunday. Training peaks had got it wrong, my session was suppose to include practising five quick change tyre repairs, 2 hours of riding to the top of a mountain and a 2 hour cross country walk home. It always pays to bring a tube repair kit, or just have better luck all round.
Day thirty nine: BRONCOS. Keep your pregame strong. This is what NFL is all about 50,000 fans getting white girl wastey on the tailgate of their trucks, BBQing ribs and generally becoming menaces to society, before pour into the Mile High Stadium. The game itself featured more stops than a Fedex courier makes. There were more refs on the field than players, and more protective gear than refs. Five hours later somehow the game had finished. Discombobulated I was.
Day thirty seven: Going along with the theme of everything being backwards over here today’s drivers showed there true colours. Merging lanes are treated as stop signs until no vehicle is visable in any direction but on the other hand, orange to red lights are considered speed up you still have enough time to get through before the cars on green react to the colour change.
Day thirty six: Enough said. Dan spending the night in the cells meant I scored the car for the afternoon.
Day thirty four: Common sense is not something a lot of us possess these days unfortunately. Another prime example was revealed today when life guards decided it a good idea to drop the stairs in the fast (AQUALINE) lane. Although stopping at the flags made times look more impressive.
Day thirty three: Apparently Subaru’s can’t drive up hill and have the A/C running simultaneously. The melt down, of the radiator, unable to be fixed by an almost clocked out technician, (polite way of putting it) was repaired with a little kiwi ingenuity. Eggs are better cooked in the radiator.
Day thirty two: Holy FUCHS (brand of oil supplied by MCFALLS) did I get dehydrated during today brick session. The neighbourhood was less than impressed with a half naked kiwi, fence hoping stealing dog bowls of water. Strike one for deportation.
Day thirty: My first US border crossing. Seemed kind of strange was expecting a whole lot more than the exchange of my bong pipe for a six pack and a firearm. Welcome to Wyoming.
Day twenty nine: I can’t feel my legs. Recovery at altitude is somewhat delayed and more or less non existent
Day twenty eight: Obama.... we are half way to returning to New Zealand, down under, land of the long white cloud, aotearoa or to my sheep.
Day twenty seven: RACE DAY. Either I was less coherent than I think or down under we speak a completely different form of English. The ingestion of copious amounts of sugar whilst running instead of the requested water become my downfall. For this I thank the Hoskin household.
Third place was gladly accepted after the last 2.5miles was completed at a less than casual pace, at Xterra Buffalo Creek.
Day twenty three: Written directions to get across Denver city....
Day twenty one: Recovery ride today was RADical dude, it included climbing for the first hour to roughly 12000feet all for the ten minutes it took us to descend.
Day twenty: Got to test ride the Xterrra Buffalo Creek bike course today. Being a confident male I didn’t see the need for a map. Naturally I was headed in the wrong direction. Luckily I was able to approach someone for directions. This male, with his three wives and eight kids was very informative. I was afraid to check his number of toes.
Day nineteen: Everyone who has ever been on a run would know this feeling... halfway through your last effort, on world record pace, when suddenly your glutes are less concerned with propelling you forward but more on the fact your hopes and aspirations are about to fall out of your behind. As a professional athlete it does give you certain privileges, like shitting your pants in public, so naturally I finished my set.
Day seventeen: A SALICE of summer, today was predominantly sunny side. So hot in fact a full continental breakfast could have been cooked on the hood of my car. Like it was bacon hot. Hotter than the crotch of and obese man in spandex on a stair master.
Day fifteen: Days are getting harder to spell. Today I helped fund Merica’s fight with the war on terror.
Day thirteen: RACE DAY. To complete this exercise, find yourself an everyday drinking straw and procede to use as a breathing apparatus. Following this step complete a swim bike and run as fast as you can for approximately 2hours. This was a similar experience to racing at altitude. Throw in a little boys raging testosterone and an inability to control ones efforts and now we are getting close.
However I was pleased to come away with 2nd in my first race on US soil, Xterra Snow Mtn. Ranch.
Day eleven: Alpha male congregation from far and wide across the kingdom at today’s watering hole. I met self proclaimed pastry chef turned athlete Callum Millward, Aussies Tim van Berkel whom evidently wears the same swim panties as I and comedian and older lion Rhoadsey rocking the same AQUALINE floatation device. Maybe one day I can be running and leading my own herd.
Day ten: My REVOLVER was slightly more deadly than the rattle snake I encountered on today’s trails. He didn’t stick around long enough for a selfie, but don’t ask him he will just deny it.
Day nine: Have you ever wondered why Americans all drove massive trucks? My first thoughts were a stereotype, based assumption regarding ego or a mine is bigger than yours scenario. Turns out, after driving down the I-70, it is all to do with road kill. An elk crossing the road would unmistakably eat your crappy little Perius.
Day seven: Set a new lap record for the ten laps I did around the arrivals pick up loop at Denver International Airport. Was either that or pay $4 for short term parking.
Day six: Bergen peak loop. Falling off over here sucks.
Day five: Today I lost my manhood. You know you are in trouble when you use Google Maps to get around the supermarket. But let’s face it, it was easier than asking someone for directions.
Day four: First drive in ‘Merica . Swimming down the wrong side of the lane was almost as big of a problem as driving down the wrong side of the road. Lots of yelling and screaming with waving of arms that you couldn’t really understand what had gone wrong.
Day three: Enjoyed coming down to 5000feet for training today could almost breathe (A SALICE of the good life). Plenty of wildlife at local reservoir. Osprey breeding area, they are a cross between a pug and a rodent. Pretty much a protected but glorified rat.
Day two: This country is great, everything is free. Either that or I just stole my first burrito. Following this robbery, a quick visit to RAD headquarters, I attempted to conjure up a visa violating job before pocketing some RAD seconds.
Day one: The only thing lacking more than oxygen in this mile high city, was the fuel in my chauffeur’s car. This meant a premature evacuation and construction of my bike on the Interstate 70 at quarter to midnight, a short ride to the nearest fuel store before returning with 4 wine bottle full of fuel.
Day zero: Time travel does exist. It just requires a total of 18hours travel (from Auckland to Denver). Totally worth the 20mins I travelled back in time. On exiting this machine I was almost molested by customs after declaring a Norco Revolver SL which is apparently a lethal weapon and not just on the trails.
