3P Challenge
- Paddle, Pound, & Pedal
Prologue:
Sometime back in late 2004, a fellow geek-in-arms and I got it into our heads that we'd like to do some sort of race. Neither one of us had any experience in that area, but Tony knew of something in Denton called the 3P Challenge (Pedal, Pound, Paddle.) It's a 3.8 mile canoe, followed by a 2.5 mile run, then a 12 mile off-road bike (compressed gravel, not technical.) Well, we decided that's what we'd do and come about mid January, I decided to start training. The race was April 2nd, so I figured 3.5 months was reasonable; I started using our elliptical cycle and got in a couple of workouts a week. After two weeks of this, I talked to my partner Tony, and lo-and-behold he had joined Lifetime fitness and had been spending time on the treadmill on the bicycle, multiple times a week. Well, I'm not the type that would ever want to be a boat anchor in a competition, so I decided to hit the streets.
I had a one-mile course measured out, thanks to the odometer of my Toyota Corolla that was carefully calibrated by the scientists at that National Standards Institute. I set out on that course quite slowly, just to see how far I could go, before needing to walk. Well, I surprised myself and was able to complete the entire mile without walking. Of course, a 12 minute mile probably isn't too far away from walking, but since our weekly basketball has morphed into group X-boxing, it's not bad. I dare say I even felt like I could go more, but I didn't want to push it, my first time out.
Well, I had it all figured out. A couple of weeks at 1 mile, then a few more at 1.5, then a few more at 2, then a few more at 2.5. Well, the last month has been somewhat taxing, in terms of scheduling, so that didn't quite workout. The week before the race, I was only up to 2 miles, so I decided to run 2.5, just to prove to myself that I could do it. I could. Backing up a week, at two weeks before the race, Tony and I decided to go rent a canoe and practice, then go biking. Since Tony is a former hockey/football type, he naturally had some weight on me and was best suited for the back of the canoe. We canoed a mile across Lake Ray Roberts and back (two miles total) in 40 minutes. That didn't sound too bad, so we forsook the extra hour of the canoe rental and decided to go biking. We went to the location of the actual bike portion of the race and took off. Tony had looked into last year's times and calculated that we'd need to keep up a pace of about 15 mph to be competitive. For the life of me, I couldn't keep up a pace of more than 12 mph. Well, we completed the 12-mile trek and headed home.
Canoeing:
The day of the race came and I had my alarm set for 4:30AM, since check-in was at 6:00AM. Sure enough, I get paged for something work-related, but completely trivial at 3:30AM. I spend the next hour phasing in and out of sleep until the alarm goes off. After a shower, I piled on four layers of clothes, so I could peel off layers as this crazy Texan weather transitioned from the current 37 degrees to the high of 75 for the day. Tony has a bike-rack for his SUV, so we piled in and took off.
Check-in was a snap and we got set up in our particular area. Needless to say, we were issued race numbers at a mandatory pre-race meeting the day before and found an area on the ground chalked-out with our number. We set our bikes up there and piled into the van that took us to the beginning of the race. The van was nice and warm, which was a stark contrast to the air outside. When we got to the canoe area, I decided to hit the restroom one last time and while I was in there, a guy mentioned I was crazy for dressing that warmly and mentioned I'd be regretting it. Well, on my way out, I noticed this guy was wearing shorts. SHORTS. We were going to be standing around for 45 minutes, this guy was sporting spandex and giving me clothing advice. I don't think so; the layered approach was no accident.
Our start-time finally came up and we were in the 5th group to take off. The sent the canoers going in groups of three, two minutes apart. Watching the other people going before us gave us the chance to see some people run down the hill with their canoe too quickly to stop and go flying into the Trinity River Spillway, which must have been freezing. Some other guys picked the canoe up over their heads and when they got to the bottom of the hill took off running with it about 40 yards downstream. Funny, but it didn't help them much. A minute before we were to take off, I decided that one of the layers (the sweatshirt) had to go. I took that mother off, threw it into the canoe, and got my lifevest back on right in time for us to take off. We launched flawlessly, with Tony in the back and me in the front. We did pretty on the canoe part and even passed some people. There were a couple of sections where the river was so low, that we had to carry the canoes a bit. There were a few more that I just stayed in the canoe while Tony hopped out and pushed the canoe. One in particular, he tripped over a rock, and cut his leg. He didn't say anything at the time, but I think he hurt his knee a bit on that one. More on that later.
The clothing choice seemed to serve me well, but it seemed that the workout pants, socks, and sandals carried half of the creek with them each time I got back into the canoe past the low-spots. We finished out the canoeing portion by pulling up to the spot where you carry your canoe up the stairs. Since the spillway was low, the concrete didn't meet the water. I was surprised I didn't lose a sandal to the mud, but we made it out and up the stairs with our canoe OK. Well, we happily ditched our canoe, life jackets, and paddles and headed over to our transition area. I peeled off a few more layers and Tony and I geared up for the run. Our feet were a muddy mess, but we had brought water bottles and poured them over our feet and had extra towels to dry them. A new pair of socks, a set of sneakers, and a quick removal of a few layers (down to shorts and a T-shirt) and I'm ready to rock. Tony and I snack a power-gel supplement (strawberry-banana is far better than orange flavor,) a swig of water, and off we go.
Running:
We took of running and did great for about 3/4 mile, but Tony was already sporting a knee-brace and I have a strong suspicion he banged it in the canoeing portion, so we had to walk a spell. Our running time wasn't stellar, but we were still good, because we had the biking portion to make up time during.
Biking:
We were really looking forward to this part, for a couple of reasons: Tony has done a lot of biking in the past and I borrowed a co-worker's bike. The bike I borrowed was a nice Gary Fischer that was sporting the twist-lock pedals (I even borrowed the shoes) and was more than 10 pounds lighter than my bike. Well, I had trouble last time at anything faster than 12mph, but on this thing, I had no trouble keeping up 15 and in retrospect probably could've maintained a faster speed. The course wasn't technical at all, just a 6 mile compressed-gravel road. Down and back, we did a total of 12 miles in what turned out to be a pretty good time.
Epilogue:
When we biked across the finish line, Jodi and the kids were there. Austin asked if he could go and watch and they showed up 10 minutes before the race was over. That was perfect timing as due to the geography, they wouldn't have been able to see much at any other time. They had some drinks and snacks set up at a tent, so we spent some time chilling in the sun. I'm proud to say I'm still keeping active after the race, but I'm going to have to snag another fitness goal to keep me going. Tony and I will likely team up to conquer another race again.
Note: Attached are the times. We were in the mens' recreational division, team-name: joespoolhall.org. Click here to raise up an' get yo' PDF on.
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