ITI 2012, notes

Another ITI has passed into the recesses of my memory, and only my memory, as I did not bring a camera this year.  Pete posted a small video excerpt of us pushing on the Yetna here though.  
Similar to the 2009 race where a bunch of us pushed over Rainy in waist/chest deep snow, this year was a damn good time.  For some reason the ridiculousness of it all combined with the company (especially the company) made it tolerable if not downright humorous. 


It was insane, yet incredibly fun to hang with Pete B and, earlier, Tim B on what I term mostly a mancation. The times we were able to ride was super and reverted immediately back into race mode.  Yes, Pete is the animal we all know him to be especially riding.  I learned a ton watching how efficient he is riding … well except when he falls asleep at the wheel and crashes.  That Rohn ice was no match for Pete, he's an ox. There are a couple of laughs at that. 


As for me.  I did my share of falling with the clipless candies, my right foot did not disengage as easily. Overall, I felt good on the trail, the pushing didn’t bother me all that much but the passing of walkers did.  It helped motivate.  I used my heart rate monitor to regulate (except it went defunct out of Nickolai) and was useful but since we weren’t riding continuously it was hard to maintain consistency.   Same with nutrition, I did have edema at the latter 2/3 of the race and in McGrath had gained 14 lbs of water weight.  I used s-caps and tried to stay on top of the nutrition but it is practically impossible when you are pushing and bivying and just trying to stay awake.  I had some outstanding bonks.  One going to the top of Rainy and one massive one after I completely exploded racing out of Nickolai.  That was brutal.  


I’ll try to write something a little more thorough and without a camera I resorted to drawing stick cartoons to replace my lack of real pictures.  We’ll see how creative I am willing to be… For now back to a normal work week I have had time for reflection.

Did we really push at least 150 miles? Did we really have a race with walkers?  Do I really snore that loud?  Was I really in Maui the week before?

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