Jasper Albert, Top of Mt. Edith Cavell (named after British Nurse)
Medicine Lake, Jasper Albert (During the summer, glacier melt waters flood the lake, sometimes overflowing it. In fall and winter the lake disappears, becoming a mudflat with scattered pools of water connected by a stream).
Always time for a swim
Lake Louise Rest night with drank lot wine (short downhill ride to Canmore next day!)
Banff Albert
North Saskatchewan River along the side of the road, before the highway begins its climb up to Sunwapta Pass
One of the icey toes of Columbia Icefield (largest in North America)-be prepared for wild weather
Columbia Icefields
The cracks in the hwy get a bit interesting over many days :)
Got upgraded to 7th floor Fairmont Hotel in Calgary
While race results are great, being a competitive female athlete who is trying to balance live outside of sport as a professional, mother (sometimes by choice and sometimes it's not), coach and business owner is not always easy!
I like the anology, a health care professional is a lot like inviting an 800 pound gorilla to be a permanent house guest. Gorillas are big, take up a lot of space, eat all your food and are not house trained … so there are messes to clean up every week.
Left to it's own devices it will:
-Take up every spare minute -Use all your energy systems, patience, empathy and attention -Mess up your other relationships by crowding them out or interrupting
I think the key to rebalancing is finding the ways to say no....which I'm not very good at. The gorilla requires firm boundaries and if you don't have a firm plan in place....the pretense to the balance will go out the window. It is a unfair fight, as working hard in this situation never works (endless patient needs and endless den of flu viruses). This is work in progress and if your not making and learning from your mistakes, you are not trying hard enough.
Here are a few ideas if your lost...wise words from the experts!
Embracing Your Potential by Canadian Terry Orlick. Steps to Self-discovery, Balance, and Success in Sports, Work and Life (only paper book). http://www.zoneofexcellence.ca/potential.html
I guess this is proof, good things can come out of bad days, weeks or year(s)! The Horseshoe Hustle was an over the moon hard day on a bike. This was my 3rd Canadian National MTB Marathon race. Freezing cold, already wet, shivering at the start line (warmed up to as much heat as possible that day).
Bicycle tour across the Canadian Rocky Mountains from Jasper to Victoria was fun :)
(here are a few photo updates, all out of order).
Freezing my ass off in July-Lake Louise
Great Post Ride Swim in Jasper
Vancouver Island-Just in Time for a Beach Party!
Much needed rest day in Vancouver
Icefield Parkway is amazing road Tour
Descent from Athabasca Glacier to Saskatchewan River Crossing into the storm :0
Bow Lake Summit-looks like a Bear?
Gotta go! I hear the Gorilla in the kitchen and it's making a mess :)
Great times once again.. roaming around the west coast. My favorite little trails (and people), are always great reminder of the fun to be had on bikes (waiting to fuel the soul). We won't write here, how much fitness was lost moving to city, and wiggling myself out of bed at 5am to ride TT course around High Park is something to be desired.
Camping out north of the city, endless mission to find dirt
The trails in this area are excellent training grounds; with navigation skills (learned from adventure racing), decent landmarks (power lines top, access road and river and trail map +inReach) makes riding alone fun. The big cats still are....BIG CATS! who have amazing physique that allows for great leaping, short sprinting (as fast as 72km/hr), successfully fighting off grizzly bears in their defense, excellent swimmers and are ambush predators who range many miles in any direction to feed....
....humans by comparison, suck. We suck because of the immense quantity of clear cut logging (and many other reasons) leave cats in search for new territory, like your backyard or shopping mall.
Humans Suck!
I was cracked Buddha after riding my hard tail bike on the North shore in the pouring rain. Certainly rare beauty to be seen on the shore, a lesson in survival (the seat-up in your chest) and without good fitness/flexibility may not have be so fun. I didn't die and learned to ride technical cross country single track thanks toEndless Biking. Instructor Darren gives very clear, meaningful instructions and explanations on how to navigate difficult terrain.
Coming home to Ontario no big deal, riding smoother than ever before! Bike grips like a BC cat on trail. The "Ontario" odd rock garden still has me confused. Short race beat down feels like a snow plowing dirt (pretty loud hissing, whining for a moment), but I make it count every time.
A wise person wrote (paraphrase), our spirit inside us all is a stranger to both fear and failure. It provides us with the ability to get back up and keep fighting no matter how many times we have been knocked down or counted out. If we are too afraid to dream, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity for a better life. The human spirits knows but one thing...how to try.
I am living proof, 4 years ago I didn't have any real skills in mountain biking and no skills in racing a bike or stage racing a bike over many days! It is no easy task with a full time job. I strongly believe we are only capable of dreaming things we can actually accomplish (well said).
Right. 2015!
Spent many months with epic sickness and recovering post TransAndes 2014 grind (always listen to your coach "you can go but you will get sick"). A Traverse through the valley of the dolls, it was a difficult race and even more difficult recovery. The two time Everest summiteer, south and north pole skier and 7 summits grand slammer didn't even finish the 2nd stage of the TransAndes that year
(always listen to your coach, "it will make you stronger"). No more etapas for awhile...
Spent the spring on Vancouver Island, lived here for awhile....my BF Julie and friend Christine (midwife) go for bike rides and are now hooked! I can't wait to see your new bike Julie :)
I moved to Toronto for work
I won a Palm Bay and then I won a Canada Cup!
Attended cross country marathon nationals, after they changed the date, location, distance and categories (not an option to use my UCI license).
I wonder what one might do with all that free flagging tape? Guess someone got there before I did. The race organizer did a fantastic job despite all the troubles. The food, friends, trails were all excellent! Considering the nature of the terrain, and no fancy sprint intervals all season (oh I suffered), a 2nd place and fun rides around the wicked trails of Squamish was nice way to end the season.
What an adventure (or adventure race), I headed to the deep south for the much anticipated TransAndes Challenge 2014 (420km across the beautiful Patagonia Area of Southern Chile). After coming off really rough year in general (despite some good results), it was a very special moment to have physical and mental energy to be here to just ride and have fun....let alone race. Adjusting to new life transitions, support from friends and family, hard work, focus and putting the bolts and pieces back together with my coach H.A make for endless possibilities moving forward. We did good work in 3 months....
Great start to the new season!
I returned home motivated and inspired to return to this wonderful event in Chile.....Si es Chileno, es Bueno! (If it's Chilean, it's good!). I had some stiff competition in open solo female category. I'm not a pro and not old enough to be in 35+ y/o category, so just had to roll some hard long miles with my rice crispy lungs all the huge climbs and my best. That being said Rebecca Rusch is 45 y/o, so I guess I still have some time to rock it! So inspiring.
Thank you so very much for the wonderful scenery, food, wine and friends.
...si si si...uheh? concentrating on ignoring the camera guy....need to get over that!
(copyright TransAndes Challenge/M. Tucuna)
Day 1: The race started among beautiful scenery, with 72km of racing and 2000meters of ascents. It included a great section of fun single track at end of day. Easily puts a smile back on your face after many hard miles of road, jeep trail and hard hike a bike pain. Several people grumbling along saying....."this is harder than La Ruta!" Weather is a game changer! I think it was more like adventure racing vs. bike racing. I like to whittle away at it with great passion, being my own bike mechanic (always the greatest test), bike washer, feeding, having fun and keeping wheels rolling can be challenging with little outside help.
Two Tiny Bolts, so small yet so important. Taped securely to my basement floor at home in Canada.
Some spare bolts did the trick...but it wasn't perfect shifting....
Day 2: The longest and slowest 57km, taking some 6.5 hours! Several DNF on this day and caused many logistical complications for race organizers. The TransAndes Team did great job keeping spirits up and tires rolling with creative alternatives. Honestly, it was harder on the mind than the legs. Probably my hardest day on a bike, the rain was relentless and mud was shin/knee deep. I believe whatever is already here is good enough even if it's not pleasant. Was epic and comical slog to the end, sliding down slipper descents and rolling around in cow shit all day long is unique experience!
The Queen of Pain/TransAndes Challenge Copyright M. Tucuna
Day 3: It's 3am.....I can't sleep (which is rare occasion). Water is dripping on my head and a river of cow shit running through my tent (nothing like a wet down filled sleeping bag). I have been soaking wet for three days. The wind blew down the outdoor showers and the solar toilet are not working. I am having tree planting memories and dreaming of surfing on chilean beach!
Me 3am, looking horrible and eating peaches/raisins...Jajajajaja
Stage 3: was cancelled due to obscene about of heavy relentless non stop rain for many days. Had my Canadian game on, ready to ride the snowy volcano but stage was cancelled due to safety and limited ability to... or the need to in general rescue hypothermic warm blooded creatures off the mountain....
Turn music up and drink all the beer, problem solved?! I love it!
Copyright Transandes Challenge M. Tucuna
Stage 4: Was modified due to ongoing rain. Sun's out/guns out with 20km TT and was able to hitch a ride to hotel so I could sleep and fend off some creeping illness. Great day to get the animals moving.....
Stage 5: Sun came out and weather was fantastic ! The summer I was looking for in the dead of Canadian winter! Rolled some slow easy miles with my rice crispy sounding lung for some 78-82km around patagonia mountains and barking coughed my way up backside a volcano was good distraction. Preparing myself for the entire field to wash over me that day (it didn't happen). Which made me question if I was actually sick (I was),strangest thing to have good legs and bad lungs! Racing bikes, no sleep, having wet/cold hair for three days is an easy equation of + + + + = sick. Maybe I'm getting old but I think like a bed next time.
Day 6: It was my choice to pull the plug on day 6, with no doubt in my mind I had the fitness needed to complete slow easy watts/spinning the 80+km race...even while sick. Strong in the mind to let that go... Endurance racing bring out large spectrum of humans each with different goals and values. Shockingly someone even suggested I take some pills (not the sensible option). We don't need to try and escape it/fix it or even make it happen. I was thinking more like tylenol, nap and ice-cream!! The goal was to have fun and roll some smile miles in the off season.
It didn't seem worth digging a hole of sickness for myself and prolonging the recovery. Huge efforts require for the TransAndes can be good and bad for our 2014 race season. Tricky. Quality of life was going down due to illness and not able to recover...so makes for easy decision. Even better news, the solar toilets broke down on the bumpy roads and only 2 wash-boxes survived the journey to be used by 350. Went for a ez bike ride along the road with my friend Aude (who was also sick--team virus), took some pictures, had ice cream and celebrated life worth living!
Fuzzy little piggy
Today will never be lived again, embrace it with full focus with heart and soul.
Find ways to keep positive passion, pride, joy, excitement and possibilities!!
Check out the amazing Nothofagus Hotel in Reserva Biological Huilo Huilo. Hobbit Hotel!
