From biking mountains to mountain biking

So it turns out that I'm actually spending the next four days in Pemberton and not downtown Vancouver, which I'm not particularly thrilled about. I'm staying with my cousin who lives in Vancouver but she was called up here for work and I had to tag along. Its a pretty nice place but not the ideal location for trying to squeeze in my last few workouts before world champs...no pool within 30km, no track within 50. Like I said, not thrilled.

Today I needed to scope out some running trails so I tried mountain biking for the first time. I've ridden a mountain bike before, but today I actually mountain biked...on a mountain. And I must say, it sucks!!! I had the bright idea of putting my clipless pedals on to go ride up a freakin mountain. Luckily I only bit the dust on the way up and not going down, but in the 3 hours I was "riding" I think I was walking the bike half the time. The riding is so technical and I'm just not any good at it. I like riding my bike on smooth pavement without trees, rocks, glacial rivers and bears attempting to end me. It was still fun though. But I discovered that the trails would be impossible to run on, so I'm pretty much stuck running out and back on one of the two paved roads in town (one of which being Sea to Sky Highway). Not thrilled!!

I've learned on this trip that I need to be in one place, doing my own thing if I want to get into any sort of training routine while travelling. I've been doing as much as I can the past week but I'm getting really fidgety having to adjust my schedule, and not swimming as much as I should. I'm driving to Whistler tomorrow morning for the only pool around and I'll have to do the same Tuesday morning. I can't wait to get to Gold Coast simply so I can get myself in a routine again and focus for a few days before the race. Lesson learned I guess, hopefully I won't be fat and out of shape for the race.

couple pics from my ride