I am a quitter!!

So you may remember my post announcing I was going to do the Tour de Habitat. Well I thought I was ready for the 6K in climbing but with four miles to go on the final climb I threw in the towel, turned tail and road the final 15-20 miles (downhill) to the finish line. What a LOSER!!! And the race distance was even all that long!

So here is what happened. I road with the lead group to the base of the first climb (Squaw Peak: Category 2 Climb). At this point my plan was to keep my heart rate in the 170's. So I eased up and settled in for the climb. I felt great and at the top I was in about 20th place. The decent was awesome and I was flying. By the bottom of the hill I was in 7th position.

The ride was then relatively flat to Vivian Park were we turned to ascend the second climb (South Fork: Cat 4 Climb). Again I kept my heart rate in the 170's and moved on up the hill. Again I was feeling pretty good at the top and I had maintained my position. Then another fast decent.

At the mouth of South Fork there is about a one mile jog before turning to the final climb of the race, the Alpine Loop Climb: Category-Unclassified (that means its really steep and long). At the base of the climb my legs felt pretty good but I could tell something was going on (lactic acid). I climbed to Sundance still feeling ok. From Sundance to Aspen Grove I began to really feel it. By the time I reached Aspen Grove with four miles to the summit I had convinced myself that I should stop. I was after all getting older, I hadn't stuck to hydrating like I should have, I probably wasn't in the kind of shape I needed to be in, it was Saturday and the following day I had an important set of meetings as the Bishop....and so on the excuses came and I entertained every one of them.

When I finally stopped I thought I had made a good decision. I convinced my wife that I needed to turn around. She looked at me like.."you can't be serious?" but I stuck to my story and she said "ok, your doing great though." As I road back down the Alpine Loop and through the Provo Canyon out into Utah Valley and to Utah Lake my legs came back and I actually felt fine as I crossed the finish line. However, inside I knew I had made a mistake, I gave up. (A certain song by the group Beck might be appropriate here.)

The next day I was hoping to be really sore so I could at least comfort myself and say it was a wise decision to stop. Unfortunately I felt fine, not a sore muscle anywhere. Not to mention that two weeks earlier I had spoken to our youth group about never giving up and conquering the mountains in their lives. Now here I was their Bishop I couldn't do what I had just taught them.

As I was thinking about my silliness the despair.com site came to mind. I spent about 15 minutes rereading them and felt great. Here is a sampling. Warning these are not meant to actually be motivating, they are meant to make you laugh!












Ha yes.. the power of demotivators I feel so much better now. Time for another race. I think I might try the Tour de Donut its probably more in line with my talent not to mention you eat tons of donuts throughout the race. More to come on that one.