mytrilife

Thoughts on Maui and the Haleakala ride

Incredible. I love the island of Maui. I'm so thankful to Tony for convincing a group of us from Calgary to train there in 2005. On that first trip, I spent two weeks on the Valley Isle... and had some of the best training of my triathlon "career" to date.

However, this time was much different. I was traveling with Naomi, the trip was for only 8 days, and we flew with United Airlines through two connecting flights instead of the wonderful Calgary to Kahului direct flight I had last time with SkyService.

8 days was barely enough. With the hassle of packing/unpacking bikes and flying, it felt like we had just started to get in a groove.... and then had to go.

With two weeks, I had plenty of time to do all the training I wanted, yet still get in plenty of beach time and relaxing. With 8 days, it seemed like we were trying to squeeze everything in, the "rushing" we were trying to avoid from our regular lives. The last day of the trip... instead of doing Haleakala in the Saturday sunshine, I opted to hop in the Jeep and spend our last day in paradise with Naomi in the sand and surf. It was worth every moment... sometimes training is NOT the priority!

I did feel a bit bummed about coming to the island and not doing the epic Haleakala summit.. 38 miles of unrelenting ascent (plus an extra 6 of downhill from the hostel to the turn-off of the climb). I told Naomi that I felt some good energy and wanted to attempt a pre-dawn summit. Tony has told me he did this once in an attempt to do his Crazy 8 ride (riding the summit and both east/west mountain loop - 380km in one day)., so I borrowed some bike lights from a guy who worked at the hostel, pack my bags, and tried to get a few hours of sleep before leaving.

I awoke at 2am feeling pretty chipper. There were a few people in the common room next to the kitchen still having beers. They all thought I was a bit nuts but gave me some encouragement. I made some quick PB&J sandwiches and found some cold coffee in the coffee maker... so decided to drink it too. I wandered out to the balcony and watched a couple of rather odd "women" highly intoxicated and acting unruly in the parking lot across the street. I quickly determined they weren't women at all... but they were wearing dresses and wigs. Mildy amused at the interesting nightlife in Wailuku, I finished my preps and tried not to get noticed as I headed out the door.

The streets of Wailuku/Kahului were silent and a bit damp from some rain, but NICE. The traffic on the island is pretty dense during the day. I actually felt safer riding in the night than during the day! I quickly made the turnoff to Pukalani and started ascending. A light drizzle started, but the air was warm, so I pushed on.

At Pukalani I made the turnoff to the seconday highway. The shoulder narrowed to about a metre, but cars easily spotted my lights and were quite good at giving me room. I'm not sure how far I climbed, but Naomi showed up in the jeep much earlier than expected. She said she was worried about me but encouraged me to keep going. Thanks hon! :-) We both commented how INCREDIBLE the clear night sky showed the stars. Maui still has minimal light pollution (although the cities are getting much bigger) and the Milky Way was clearly visible. I told her to go ahead and meet me every 4 miles or so.... and I would jump into the jeep if I couldn't summit before the sunrise.

So, I pushed on into the darkness.... and a sixth sense told me to stop and shine my light to the left. There was the plain wooden sign marking the final turnoff to the summit. I had missed the green road sign already. Very lucky, I made the turn and continued. The thought in my mind... "I wonder if Naomi saw the sign, it's hard to see". The though occurred to keep going down the main hwy to see if Naomi had missed it, but I had to stay the course in case she hadn't.

Well..... 9 miles later I was around 6700ft above sea level. I was feeling strong, but my water supply had run out since Naomi still hadn't found me. I pulled to the other side of the road to make the descent back to Kahului when she finally pulled up. She was sobbing and distraught at losing me. I said it was ok, it was an easy sign to miss. After three hours in the saddle, I put the bike in the back of the jeep and we rushed to the summit, just in time to catch the sunrise. Well worth it!

A quick descent, packing, a last trip to Pa'ia to watch some surfing... and so ended our Maui adventure.

So after another long 24 hours of flying, and jetlag... my body hasn't been feeling that hot this week. I skipped and shortened a few workouts and just got back in the full game today. Training holidays are great.. but they don't do much for your consistency... which is the real key to improvement.

Well, it's getting late and I have a run in the morning, so I'll save some thoughts on training methodologies that I've been putting together for my next post.

Mahalo for reading,
Greg

posted by Greg @ 4/10/2008