The Tucson Trifecta "aka" Big Training Day
No its not all in Tucson, no I didn't make up, its been done before... But I had been thinking about it...
What it is.... Climbing Mt. Graham, Mt. Lemmon, and Mt. Kitt in a Day....I asked a few people to join me but there were no takers... Imagine that?
Why now? after a frustrating winter of recovering from injuries in the Tour of Tucson , I needed something EPIC..Sitting out a planned and paid for 50k , planned and paid for 5k , watching a local sprint take place without me , and knowing I only have 1 month left for this season in AZ before heading back to NH, all came together to get me off my A$$ and go do this.
Quite a bit of thought went into this.. I needed enough daylight to complete the task. So needed to wait until sunrise and sunset offered more than 12hrs (assuming my driving/cycling time were estimated correctly) I also need a warmer day as I am a freeze baby and starting as the sun comes up is pretty cold and then going above 8k... Lastly I would need a low wind day to make the descents safe!
Yesterday was that Day....Up at 3am, out of the house at 3:30am , on the bike starting the climb to Mt. Graham just after 6am and watching the sunrise, saw 10 deer and an Abert Squirrel one of those tufted ear gray squirrels, only 2 cars, descent was slow with very tight steep switchbacks and lots of road debris , 2:55 ride time up and down , quick change and on to Mt. Lemmon , met Heather for a midday kiss and she did a ride on Lemmon at the same time, half way up Lemmon is when the doubts and excuses started to enter the picture, my low back started saying I am not happy (took a couple advil and I hate to do that) , was doing the daylight math and thinking its gonna be close I may run out of daylight, 5 miles from the car my Garmin dropped all sensors PM, HR, Phone (this has happened before and think its a garmin express/iphone issue when signals are lost etc), at the car restarted the Garmin and magic all the sensors connect, then I notice my brand new bike lights had run out of batter in 6.5hrs of running time (supposed to last 10hrs maybe I had them on wrong setting) will need them at Kitt so was able to charge in the car on the way , 3:30 ride time up and down ,on to Kitt, traffic put me even further behind by another 30 min , the gate was half closed and sign said road closed 4pm to 9am except for reservations to observatory, so I got ready and started up just before 5pm, hoping and praying someone would stop me and throw me out, No such luck , made it to the top with only a car and one bus go by for the observatory , arrived back at the car just before 7pm as the sunset.... 1:59 riding time... Home by 8PM...
Totals - 8:24 riding time, 107 miles, 15,228 elevation gain , car to car time was 12 hrs, 18hr day from the alarm to return home.
http://www.strava.com/activities/535644229
http://www.strava.com/activities/535945641
http://www.strava.com/activities/536077105
Daily Nutrition- pancake dinner the night before , then had people over and snacked all night.... the day of - oatmeal with flax, chia, berries, banana, and almond milk, coffee , 5 bottles gatorade, 3 mountain dews, 1 liter coconut water, 1 cliff bar, 2 sandwhiches on multigrain with almond butter and dates , on the way home clif pizza margerita packet just love those .... when I got home Heather had a big bowl of spinach topped with brown rice, sweet potatoes, tempeh , tomatoes, and olives.... washed all that down with a vegan brownie topped with salted caramel coconut icecream....
Will I do it again? maybe if somebody really wanted to... but for an epic day I'd be happier just doing repeats or going for a really long ride and eliminating the admin of inbetween travel ...I think the rest inbetween makes it worse... Speaking of which I looked up my longest ride ever which was with Dave Tallo last year of 153 miles in 8:32....So I was 8 min short of my record time in saddle... if I knew I was that close I would have ridden 9 more minutes! Ummm not really... and for my next stupid trick - looking at looping a 105 miler on my MTB up and over Mt. Lemmon using the Dirt Road up and the Paved Road back... Estimate is for about the same ride time...
Comments
I miss Tucson EVERY SINGLE DAY! :-)
After the MTB over Lemon, are you gonna do the Double-Lemon you once challenged me to...?
But I'm up for a triple whenever your ready? I think 4 gets you an Everest but need more day light for that.
Satish was telling me about a guy who parked a car at the top of Lemmon with road bike in it. Then drove a car to Oracle with MTB. Rode up the dirt road backside on MTB , switched bikes , rode down paved side on Road Bike , then flipped it... We could do that too?
Reminds me a little of the RAMROD (Ride Around Mt Rainier in One Day) which I did the two years before I got sensible and began limiting my bike rides to 112 miles or less. Same saddle time, but no driving on this loop course of 150 miles, over 10,000 feet.
http://www.redmondcyclingclub.org/RAMROD/RAMROD_course_information.html
I'll do the triple with you, but I'm sure I'll slow you WAY down on the ascents... Next time I get to Tuscon... To do the 4 and get the Everest, I think you'd need to start the first climb about 1.5 hours before daybreak. Would be easy and reasonably safe to do that climb with lights, but not so sure even I'd want any part of that descent in the dark...
Tim,
This was a great adventure to forget about the other early season stuff. Looking forward to what ever comes next.
Nice work. Never count me in for anything like this.