This past weekend (Labor Day weekend, to be precise), Bill and I went up to Park City for a few days so he could compete in an endurance mountain bike race called the
Park City Point 2 Point (PCP2P). It was an approximately 80 mile race with a 14,000 foot elevation gain! In other words, it is wicked hard!
Bill decided he wanted to be able to stay in Park City so we wouldn't have to get up so terribly early on the morning of the race, and so that we could relax and enjoy our after race celebrations. He booked a hotel in town, and we left the kids at home. This was the first time we have left them to their own devices, with no one checking up on them. They did great, and I didn't even worry about them... even though I knew Helena and her best friend, Megan, were planning an adventure filled day in Salt Lake City that included City Creek Center and culminated in their first ever concert, Sugarland!
You'll have to ask Helena all about her big adventures, though I know the concert was at an outdoor venue and they got rained on. Still, I think she had a blast. I hope so, anyways.
Will also hung out with a friend, Braxton, while we were gone, but they stayed closer to home, just rattling around Walmart and watching movies at the house.
So, back to the race!
On Friday night we drove up to Canyons Resort to get Bill's race packet and swag bag. Also to pick up the jersey I had secretly ordered for him!
I had never been to the Canyons Resort before. Man, that place is nice! Bill and I both want to take the kids there for a Christmas Ski vacation... we just can't afford it. That place is really high end.
I should actually back up and amend that statement. Bill and I went there for a Sting concert years ago, before it was called Canyons. It has gone through such an overhaul with all new buildings that I didn't recognize it as the same place! Bill is the one that made the connection for me.
There was a lot more (and cooler) swag for this race than for any race I have ever done. Apparently, mountain bikers know how to get the goods! Bill came home with tons of treasures to share with the kids, both from the swag bag, and from winning raffle prizes at the end. Bill also saw several other racers that he knows from the many group rides he's gone on.
Once we were done at Canyons, we checked into our hotel and decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. Bad Idea. The service was slow, the water tasted TERRIBLE (really, ugh!), and the food was mediocre, at best. By the time we were done with dinner, it was getting late, so we called it a night and went to bed.
We got up super early (or at least, super early for me) on Saturday morning. It was still dark out and very overcast. I walked over to the grocery store next door, hoping to pick up something for Bill, when the rain began. It was too early (4:30 am), the store was not open 24 hours like I had hoped, so I went back to the hotel room to finish getting ready to go. By the time we got in the car and headed out to the start of the race, there was lightning and thunder and heavy rain. We were nearly the first ones there. Only the guy putting out the signage for the race beat us to the start.
We sat in the car for an hour as other people arrived and the rain continued to pour down.
We were both certain they were going to put off the race until the next day, at the very least. The trails were all turning to mud! However, after that hour, the rain let up and a pre-race meeting was held to decide what to do. Most of the racers were willing to go for it, despite the mud, so, after clearing it with the various resorts that the race cut through (to make sure they didn't object to their trails being thoroughly trashed by mud racing), the race was on! The start was just shifted to 8 am instead of 7.
Here is a picture of Bill with a couple of his mountain bike buddies, Josh and Ryan. After the race started, I ended up spending the rest of the day with their wives, Kelly and Marion. Both ladies were very nice to me. They had been good friends for years, ever since their husbands started mountain biking together.
Here is a shot of Bill at the beginning of the race, before all the mud.
After seeing them off, I followed Kelly and Marion over to Deer Valley Resort, so we could cheer them on and so Kelly and Marion could be the support personnel for their husbands at the first checkpoint. The race provided special needs bag service, so Bill packed his needed stuff into bags that the race support delivered to the checkpoint for him. In other words, Bill didn't need me as support staff, just as his own personal cheerleader. I was happy to do that! So we cheered at the base of the Silver Lake Express lift, then rode to the top (holy cold, batman!) to meet them at the checkpoint. Bill was significantly ahead of his friends, so by the time we got to the top, he was already in checkpoint! I ran over to him quickly and gave him my love (oh. my. gosh. he was coated in mud!) and saw him off. There was another checkpoint at Park City Mountain Resort, but he told me not to worry about going there (since we didn't have a time frame for when he'd be there) and that he'd see me at the finish.
We waited around for Josh and Ryan before going back down the lift. I swear their husbands told Kelly and Marion not to bother coming to Mountain Resort, but apparently that wasn't the case. They were both peeved that their wives weren't waiting for them at the next checkpoint. What did the ladies do instead? They went shopping at the outlet mall with me. Oops. Sorry, boys. I can't help thinking that is partially my fault. It was my idea to go the mall. After all, it was my weekend getaway, too. However, both ladies swore they heard their husbands say 'see you at the finish', so I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
After a fun time at the outlet mall shopping and people watching, some misadventures in traffic (man! Park City motorists are RUDE!), and a delicious pizza/salad lunch at a place called Maxwell's, we headed back to Canyons Resort and the finish line.
The weather ranged all over the map. It went from blustery with lightning and rain, to sunny enough to strip off all the layers. Bill came across the finish line in the sun at just over 8 hours 11 seconds! The sign says 8'14" because of the staggered start. You have to subtract 3 minutes from that time to get his actual time. His friend, Josh, came across the finish just under 2 hours later. Ryan did not finish. Marion drove over to Park City Mountain Resort to pick him up. Both guys got stuck in a hail storm that Bill missed, being ahead of them. Josh said he's never doing this race again, but Bill hopes to sign up for it again next year.
We hung out for a little while longer there at the resort, giving Bill a chance to score a raffle prize goody bag and a jar of pickles. Then we said good-bye to his friends and went back to the hotel to get cleaned up for a celebratory dinner at the Blue Iguana in the upscale part of Park City.
Sunday morning, we had a hard time searching out a decent place for breakfast, since many places were closed and we weren't willing to chance it with our hotel's restaurant again. We finally found a pancake house down at Kimball Junction (next to the outlet mall) attached to the Best Western.
When they say 'pan'cake, they aren't kidding! That thing was disgustingly huge! I only ended up eating two bites of it and took the rest of it, along with some of my eggs and hashbrowns, home for Will to eat.
I have to say this, and pardon me for being rude, HOLY FAT PEOPLE!!! We had just spent the entire weekend surrounded by over 1,000 extremely fit and healthy people. Racers and spouses alike seemed trim and athletic. So it was a bit of a shock to walk into the pancake house and see the majority of the clientele were obese. To watch overweight people load their plates at the breakfast buffet again, and again... and again. (We ordered off the menu. No thank you, buffet.) I was also disturbed to see the family at the table next to ours let their small children run around the restaurant in nothing more than a one-sie! Ugh, people! Find some class.
Sorry. Rude and judgemental of me. I know.
Still, breakfast was delicious and our waitress was very nice. On our way back to the hotel to get checked out, we were about to drive past the Olympic Ski jump from the 2002 winter Olympics. Bill made the comment that a friend had posted on facebook about seeing the ski team practicing just the other day. So, we decided to detour and take a look. They were!
There is a practice ski jump that ends in a giant pool of water! The athletes ski down wet ramps, do flips in the air, then land in the pool of water below. There is someone at the controls watching them do it, because right before they land in it, the water suddenly froths with aeration to soften the landing for them. It was truly awesome to watch!
So, there's our weekend. After that, we checked out of the hotel and headed home to spend Labor Day Monday with the kids, doing not much of anything. Huge congratulations to Bill for such a monumental race!
