Ride to Boulder - Then and Now

I started triathlons in 1992 in Michigan. After a friend told me that Colorado gets 300 days of sunshine a year, I moved to Fort Collins in 1995.

My first ride from Fort Collins to Boulder was in 1997, while I was training for my first Ironman (the one in Kona, less than a dozen existed then). I road a Litespeed Catylast. I had qualified for a spot in Kona thanks to my finish at the Desert Sun Half Ironman in Grand Junction, Colorado. While training, I used to wear a skin-tight shirt and hot pink cycling shorts with cotton padding (and no, I don’t have any photos I can share). I wore a Polar heart rate monitor, but did not know anything about training zones. I just rode my bike a lot and did some running and swimming. I knew nothing about nutrition or hydration.

At 10am I started my three-hour ride down – it seemed so long and difficult back then – I drank one bottle of water. I only had two water bottle cages, and needed the other bottle of water for the ride home. I stopped at Performance Bicycle on 28th Street in Boulder and purchased and ate a Malt Nut Powerbar. Back then, Malt Nut, TriBerry and Chocolate were the only PowerBar flavors. Power-Gels and PowerBar Endurance did not exist. Now, radically under-fueled and under-hydrated, I made my way back north to Fort Collins. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that I bonked –took me 3.5 hours to get home, strong head wind bringing in the CO afternoon storms, I had 45 minutes to get to work.

I did not follow the recommended recovery nutrition practices we all kow so well today – a healthy protein and carbohydrate meal, an ice bath and/or a nap. I showered and rushed to work. I paid my way though grad school by delivering Pizza Pipeline and Kentucky Fried Chicken. That night, I worked at KFC. I gorged myself on KFC chicken (was a vegetarian for 12 years before my chicken feasting, and become a vegetarian again in 2000), biscuits and fries after that ride. I probably drank a fair amount of coke to wash it down.

This past Saturday, 14 years later, I rode that route again – for the first time since 1997. I was headed down to the Boulder Reservoir to work the Power Bar booth with some other Team Elite athletes. The ride is not all that long, challenging or exciting, but memories of my first experience have always left me with a bit of dread about this trip, even though I know so much more than I did then, and I’ve done so much more in training rides and even races.
(when did you leave?) I carried my 70-ounce Nathan pack with Fruit Punch PowerBar Endurance Formula and ate a bag of Cinnamon Raisin PowerBites on the way down, while keeping my heart rate in zone 2. The ride was easy, averaging about 19mph and staying in my aerobic heart rate zone.

I hung out at the booth for a couple of hours with Tim Hola and his dad and an ITU pro, Amanda (who?). Lunch consisted of two Cola-Power-Blasts, three Protein Power-Bites and a Mix1 drink before heading back to Fort Collins. My Nathan pack was filled with Lemon Lime Ironman Perform, and I ate a few more PowerBites on the route home. This time, I felt like I was riding downhill. As indicated by my Timex Gobal Trainer, Boulder is about 400 feet higher then Fort Collins, so, in fact, it was slightly downhill on the ride home. My total ride time was 5:15, and I covered 98 miles, with average heart rate 138. Advances in nutrition education and technology (heart rate, gps) over the years really does make training purposeful.

Next time, I can start out on this route with no dread.