#14. Countdown to Ironman Arizona plus...
Explaining to visitors, and places to ride with less or no traffic, including Yakima's "Your Canyon For a Day" ride
Slow to post, I am now faced with a backlog, including this announcement: I am registered and counting down to Ironman Arizona, in Tempe, on November 19! This comes after canceling my first race registration (New Zealand, Feb 2023) due to COVID. It took me until August to be sure I was ready to commit—the cost of an Ironman, over $1000 with all fees, not including travel, is substantive. Every day I put it off, I fretted the race would fill up, but this must be a slow year, and it didn’t.
Once registered, my worries could be diverted to the next step: doing even more intense training. My longest weeks are now 12-13 hours (I think fondly back to my baby-triathlete self, who not long ago trained only 7-9 hours weekly). I’m still not as fit and mentally bulletproof as I’d like to be, but I can certainly say that I am in the best shape of my life (gulp) and I do the best I can, every week. Pressed to estimate, I’d guess I’ll hit the start line feeling 70% likely to finish.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a writing client and friend who told me that 70% is a good figure—it’s what it takes to pass the bar exam. (She’s also a retired lawyer.) Seventy percent it is!
Last night, by chance, I stumbled upon a Ted Talk by Tim Ferriss about stoicism, and it reminded me. Stoicism is a philosophy built upon knowing the difference between what you can control, and what you can’t. (It also encourages picturing worst-case scenarios and reflecting often about death. Heck, that’s my kind of philosophy!)
In the first year, what I couldn’t control was my own physical limits, including aging, illness, and injury. On Ironman Day, the big factors will be weather, stomach issues, and mechanical issues, probably in that order.
Embracing these lessons over the last year-plus has been one of the most important things Ironman has taught me. I treasure those lessons.
I made this updateable refrigerator flyer when I was 14 weeks out, so that I couldn’t spend a single day in denial.
When in-laws visited in August—in-laws who rarely ask me about my hobbies and have never asked about Ironman training—the fridge flyer was a good conversation starter. Truly! It also helped them understand why I had to climb onto my noisy inside trainer (dinner is almost ready, grill is heating up, but I’m keeping an eye on it!) and sneak off for a short ocean swim the next day (sorry, be right back!) during their visit.
PT II: WHERE TO RIDE WITHOUT TRAFFIC?
In my last post, I promised to mention some of my favorite low-traffic rides from last spring, when I was hunting hard for good routes. It’s surprising how tricky it is to find online information about safe, long, scenic rides.
My first low-traffic ride was in Joshua Tree National Park. I chose it hoping it would feel safer than a simple route around Palm Springs, and it did. The park’s road had better shoulders, less gravel and glass, and the drivers were more courteous, too, which surprised me. Keep in mind, this was in March, not summertime when I imagine that national park roads around the country get hectic.
On Joshua Tree, it was a surprisingly cold and windy spring day. I biked 60 glorious round-trip miles, including the longest uphill of my life—about thirty minutes of relentless, steady climbing. My route traveled from the western entrance station along Park Boulevard, continuing southeast down through Wilson Canyon along Pinto Basin Road and then back again. At one point along this steep section, one crosses an ecological boundary from the Mojave Desert to the Colorado Desert (part of the Sonora Desert). Goodbye Joshua trees, hello ocotillos and cholla cacti. The landscape throughout the ride makes all that hilly pedaling worthwhile.
Two days later, I took advantage of a good weather window—not too hot or cold—and cycled all too briefly in Death Valley National Park, a twenty-mile ride on the blissfully flat main road from the southeast park entrance of Shoshone. But looking at a map of DVNP, I’d love to ride any of those roads. As long as it’s not too hot!
The gentler pedaling was wonderful, but at the end I chose to ditch the easy route for a quick, scenic and extremely hilly detour along Artist’s Drive, a half-moon-shaped side road on the eastern side of the park that provides views into the multi-hued hills. In places the road, squeezed between rocky bluffs, gets narrow indeed. (More traffic here but worth it for the scenery.)
See page four of this NPS brochure for a list of easy, moderate, and difficult rides (all fairly short; 12 max miles) in Death Valley.
YAKIMA “YOUR CANYON FOR A DAY”
Spoiled by my national park rides, I struggled to find another low-traffic route in a suitably safe and beautiful area for my next really-long ride. (By July, I’d be riding 100 miles, but this was back in spring when such a feat seemed impossible!)
I’m glad I didn’t settle, because Yakima Canyon ended up being the best bicycle ride of my entire life.
The “Your Canyon For a Day” celebration in Yakima, Washington each May features a scenic route that is mostly closed to traffic, with lots of police and volunteers patrolling to keep things safe. I’d never heard about this local event and stumbled upon a description of it by chance at a visitor center. The organized ride is only 35 miles, but in late May, I made the trip from B.C., stayed overnight in a motel, and showed up for the group ride an hour early, explaining to the organizers I’d like to pay to ride, but I’d also like to ride the route twice. They didn’t blink.
Off I went, with one-quarter of my planned ride done before many of the day’s riders even showed up. And the scenery! A famous flyfishing river unspooled to one side of the baize-green canyon. Shadows cloaked the road in early morning, yielding to a dry, sunny and windy day by noon. A fierce headwind provided a bit of challenge, turning into a gratifying tailwind once the route doubled back.
The only imperfection in the day was an explosive flat I got at the top of a steep hill, as I rolled over rockfall showering down from a cliff. Watch out for that cliff debris! I was able to patch the tube and the mangled tire itself— a bit of ballooning tube still extruded from the sidewall— and, somewhat miraculously, finish my ride.
The next “Your Canyon for a Day” ride is scheduled for May 19, 2024. Note: aid stations are present but limited; bring your own electrolyte drinks and snacks as backup.
A FINAL NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS, OLD AND NEW
Several subscribers renewed their subscriptions in the last weeks, for which I am hugely grateful. For anyone who decides to subscribe now, if you do so, you will be the nudge I need to start posting more frequently during my final countdown to what will be the hardest physical challenge of my life. Arizona in November, here we come!