Epic Italy - Day 6 Cortina - Bolzen

I'm sitting here in the Munich airport quite bleary eyed and trying to recollect what's taken place over the past few days. 54+ hours of training over eight days including 24km of swimming, 620 miles of cycling more uphill than downhill and 54 miles of hilly runny have left this Epic camper a we bit fatigued, not to mention our assault, albeit a weak one, on the downtown Verona nightlife yesterday evening. I think I got to bed around midnight but Gordo and I had to leave the hotel at 5 am to go to the airport for the flight from Verona to Munich. By now he's probably over the Atlantic enroute to Denver then Boulder. I've got another hour before my flight departs for Charlotte. Some of what I write below may be a bit chronologically challenged but it's how I remember it at the moment.

On another note, I appologize for the typographical errors throughout this entire blog. Just haven't had the time, energy or mental faculty to keep it nice and tidy. I thought about cleaning it up but decided not to as it illustrative of the kind of condition we're all in.

Day 6 - Cortina to Bolzano/Bolzen via Paso d'Erbe
The plan for this day was to bike 55km downhill to the pool then hold an aquathon followed by a challenging ride over the Paso d'Erbe to Bolzano. We awoke to heavy cold rain and no one objected when Molina sensibly said we ought to just drive down to the pool otherwise we were all going to be hypothermic by 9 am and out of one change of clothes. Hard to remember now but I'm pretty sure Jo was out running for an hour plus that morning. Actually I think she stumbled in a fairly dark tunnel on a rock and banged her knee up pretty badly. Hard core running at 6 am through dark tunnels in the rain.

So we had some breakfast, loaded the bikes in one of the vans and motored down to the pool. Turns out they don't take the cover off the 50 meter pool when it raining so we then treked over to an indoor 25 meter pool. Like all the aquatic facilities we've utilized it was first rate. Logistically it wasn't feasible to have us running in and out of this "club" for an aquathon so the plan was changed to a regular swim session followed by a 10km run. I swam in a lane with Anthony and Randy from New York and Douglass. We were the grupetto of the pool for the last few days of camp but got in our 3km.

The 10km run would award points for placing as well as for estimating your finishing time (we weren't allowed to wear a watch). I conservatively estimated 42 minutes given the training we've been doing plus not wanting to risk overstressing my tender adductors/hamstrings. Very quickly after the start things assumed there natural order with Gordo in the lead followed by Newsome, Molina and Stephen. Not sure who was where after that but I know Randy, Douglass and I were in the final three spots and we completed the first of two laps. As Gordo passed by I could hear him breathing heavily and saw a determined look on his face. He's living up to his goal of shooting for the fastest average speed at this camp as opposed to just accumulating volume. Molina also looked great. It's nice to see him running well after knee surgery last year. I managed to get by Douglass on the last lap, more due to his indifference than any speed on my part, but it was nice to not finish last in a running event. To say I'm not known for my short course speed would be an understatement. Fortunately I don't slow down much over the longer distances so I'm not half bad at the ironman distance. As I pushed to the finish I had a feeling that I was going a good bit quicker than my estimate and I suppose I should have backed off from a points perspective but my leg had really loosened up after the first 5km and it felt so good to just be running free that I drove it home. Turns out the course was short. I think my time was around 37 minutes which I was very happy with.

After the run we had a quick feed then were onto the bikes to hit the paso d'Erbe. I don't have the stats on the climb, all I can say is it took about and hour and was very challenging. Gordo, Steven and John Newsome led the charge. The rest of us were together at the base. Molina and I separated and when he stopped to take off some clothing I managed to get a gap. I was pushing pretty hard as I could and holding my heart rate up around 150. The climb goes up for something like 7 km, then descends for a bit before heading upward for several more km. Julie came by in the van just as I was hitting the second ascent and took my spare clothing off which lightened the load considerably. I pressed on with no one else in sight ahead or behind, but of course the Terminator will be back. Somewhere in the last 2km I looked back and saw Molina a few hundred meters back and coming fast. I called down to the engine room, gave it all I had and managed to hold him off. If the climb had been another 500 meters the placing would have changed. Hammering at almost 7,000 feet is pretty aerobically challenging and I saw my highest heart rate of the camp at over 160. It was pretty satisfying to hold him off even if my original gap was to him taking a leisurely break to remove his jacket. One the great things about these camps is having all these little races during the day that give you a chance to push yourself and have fun. I'm neither 10% the athlete nor 10% as tough as the Terminator and I'm pretty sure he could have hauled me in well before if he had chosen to do so. Instead, he gave me then chance to really push myself by waiting until the last minute to come at me.

If your interested in the profiles of any of these climbs there a website www.climbbybike.com that has profiles of many of them.

From the top of the Erbe we had an awesome descent toward Brixen before turning south to Bolzen. The road was barely wide enough for one car and the surface was excellent. I was by myself and just really enjoyed getting into the rythm of descending. For the most part the only other traffic was a few cyclists and motorcycles.

I got turned around a bit at the bottom and ended up riding a bit further but fortunately the last stretch was downwind so I rather enjoyed cruising along. I think the ride was around 110 km but don't honestly remember.

Bolzen is very German and the staff at our hotel spoke German. The sun was out when I arrived and they had a great little pool behind the hotel adjacent to vineyards of which the hills seem to be covered with in this area. I took advantage of the sun for a little tanning. Johnathan and Anthony were also working or restoring their Vitamin D levels and Johnathan also had a nice glass of beer. At some point the discussion turned to pushups so I decided to see if I could knock out a few in my fatigued state. I got to 30 and that seemed adequate.

We had dinner at the hotel that evening which I recall as being very satisfying but don't remember exactly what it was. After a few of us grabbed a drink at the bar then it was off to bed with dreams of the Stelvio dancing in our heads.

I think I covered the Stelvio in my last update and I'm sure Scott will have a good report. Pictures should be up shortly.

The day before we hit the Stelvio the plan