Author: davecriswell

The following is a letter sent to friends and family asking for their support in raising money for Bretton Woods Adaptive.

Dear Friends,

Almost one year ago I received the gift of an entry to Ironman Lake Placid taking place on July 26th. For the past six months I’ve been training for the race and also trying to pay that gift forward. I’m writing to ask for your help in doing so by joining me in raising money for Bretton Woods Adaptive (BWA). If I am one of the top fundraisers at the race in Lake Placid, the Bretton Woods program could receive up to an extra $10,000. Your donation, no matter the amount, could very possibly put BWA in the position to secure extra funds for their worthy organization.

The BWA Sports Program is a year-round program offering recreational opportunities to people of all ages regardless of disability. My Dad, who is a polio survivor with very limited use of his legs, began skiing (among other outdoor activities) only a decade ago. For most of his life he did not realize that there were opportunities like this available to him. He has thrown himself into ensuring that others do not have to wait as long as he did to enjoy the thrill of the outdoors by helping to develop and enhance the BWA Sports Program.

I’ve heard countless stories of how this organization has made a huge impact on the people it serves and experienced some firsthand also. If you’d like to read about a couple of them, I’ve written about them in my blog. Please consider reading about BWA and if you are inspired by the work they are doing then make a donation and/or spread the word by forwarding this e-mail before race day, July 26th. Whether it’s $10 or $100, every bit helps!

Donate here or follow BWA on Facebook here.

Read more about Bretton Woods Adaptive here.

Follow our updates on race weekend here.

Track progress on race day here.

Thank you so much for the support and helping to spread the word!!

We used a specially designed “wheelchair” that looked more like a wheelbarrow. It was actually a metal device with four handles that allowed Martin to lay in a relaxed sitting position in which we could secure his mostly limp body for the climb up the mountain.

There were six of us that rotated through four positions on the chair – one on each side for stability plus one of the front and back. It was a definite challenge carrying Martin’s limp body plus the wheelchair up the mountain but the expression you could see in Martin’s eyes and smile were worth the effort and then some.

I’m not going to try and describe the experience because I don’t think words can do it justice. I’ve included a slideshow at the beginning of this post with photos from the day. Please help to support more efforts like these by donating to Bretton Woods Adaptive.

I’ve had a few “epic” rides during my cycling and triathlon days but last Saturday’s July 4th ride topped them all.

It was the peak bike weekend for my Ironman training which meant a 120 mile ride “in the mountains” per my training plan. Being in NH the White Mountains were the natural choice, plus there is a century ride already mapped out. All I had to do was find another 20 miles to do.

So, the route was taken care of. Now to actually ride it.

I used Map My Tri to plot the route. A great feature of the site, besides being free, is the elevation information. It told me the ride had about 5,300 feet of climbing. A little short of the 6,000 I’ll face in Lake Placid but it’s the closest thing to mountain climbing I can find and not make a weekend trip of it.

The route included

• Bear Notch – approximately a 3 mile climb
• Crawford Notch – long gradual 15 mile climb that gets steeper the longer into the climb you get and concludes with a 1 mile section at 13% grade
• Franconia Notch – a comparatively easy 5 mile climb and then a long downhill into the town of Lincoln.
• The Kanc – a very challenging 11 mile climb that includes a few switchbacks and no respite to the steep grade. But, the reward is a very fast 20 mile descent into Conway.

I did the ride with my buddy and Ironman training partner, Paul, and was happy to be able to experience the ride with a good friend. It made for a different and better experience.

As hard a ride as it was, it wasn’t what really made the ride “epic”. Here’s why:

• The ride started in the sun, probably around 60 degrees and little to no wind.
• As we began to climb Crawford Notch we go through our first of two July 4th parades and it also begins to sprinkle. The further up we go, the harder it rains.
• After the Crawford Notch peak, its a nice flat ride past Bretton Woods and the Mount Washington Hotel. Normally there would be beautiful views except we were focused on staying up right as the hail started to come down! That’s right, it hailed!
• After the hail it “just” downpoured for a while. We stopped at Fabian’s country store across from Bretton Woods to refill our water bottles, which we definitely needed. However, being soaked to the bone, not moving and creating internal heat and then starting back up we were shivering and absolutely freezing in our tri-shorts and tri-tops.
• After making the turn on Route 3 towards Franconia Notch the rain slowly came to a stop and held off during our descent through the Notch into Lincoln. As an aside, having the sun made this a gorgeous ride. I’ve never cycled through this notch, only driven, and being able to bike by Cannon Mountain and the site of the Old Man in the Mountain was a special thing.
• As we roll into Lincoln towards our last big climb (the Kanc) we go through our 2nd July 4th parade and then see the clouds, hear the thunder and see the lightning. I’ll ride in some pretty tough conditions, but one thing I don’t mess around with is lightning so we played it safe and pulled under a store awning and watched the skies open up for about 30 minutes. It was some of the hardest rain I’ve ever seen. Thankfully it was warmer than up near Bretton Woods and we weren’t quite as cold from not moving.
• At this point we’ve been riding for about 5 hours and still have 35 miles to go including 15 of it uphill. We are anxious to get going again. After 30 minutes the thunder and lightning appears to have stopped (even though its still raining pretty hard) so we head out. Even though my legs are spinning I’m absolutely freezing. I think the storm brought in some colder air. Paul and I said to eachother we’d actually like to start climbing just to get our heart rates up and warm up.
• After about 5 minutes, we hear thunder again and have to pull under an awning for about 15 more minutes 😦 Finally we said screw it and started the last 15 mile climb even though it was still pouring.
• While it felt good to climb and begin to warm up, after being on the road for 85 miles, going uphill at that grade was a physical and mental challenge but we made it to the top.
• The problem with making it to the top is now we had to go down, fast, and though the rain had slowed the roads were still very wet. I tried not to think about the thin tires on wet roads hydroplaning at 35 MPH but it was not easy.
• As we traveled down the mountain, the sun came out, roads dried up and by the time we got back to the car it was beautiful.

How did we celebrate finishing our epic ride? We went for a short run 🙂 Afterall, Ironman is only a few weeks away!

Most reading the title of this post will probably first assume it is about competition against others. That’s natural, and it’s what I normally do when thinking about competition. But I got a different perspective this past weekend while attending my son’s track meet.

It was the first real track meet I had been to. His bi-weekly practices were at times more like organized chaos and there was never the kind of formality like a real meet with starting guns, timers, announcers, etc.

Admittedly, I was a little skeptical of spending the entire day at the track when my Son’s 3 events would take him a total about about 90 seconds. However, any opportunity to spend time with my family is a good one so I went looking forward mostly to that part of the day. However, I came away from the day with a lot more.

I got drawn into watching kids from 9 – 13 years old compete in all kinds of running events from the 50 meter dash to the 1600 meter run. Why? I absolutely loved watching these kids, including my son, digging deep within themselves and putting out incredible efforts. You could see in their faces the determination and focus going into their efforts and some were clearly turning themselves inside out to finish their race as fast as they possibly could. It didn’t seem to matter if the kid was first or sixth, the same level of effort went into the competition. What a great life lesson!

And that is why I will do everything in my power as a parent to make sure my son has opportunities to compete. Yes, the competition with the kid in the next lane or against the other team provides good lessons and perspectives for kids to learn early. But, the bigger lesson in my opinion is kids learning how to compete with themselves. In other words, making that internal connection what it feels like to push beyond what you originally thought possible. What better physiological lesson to learn early and often as a kid?

These lessons don’t need to be learned in traditional competitive sports. That competition happens in all kinds of activities. The dancer who won’t give up until he or she nails the move they’ve been practicing. The musician that repeats a piece over and over again until it sounds just right. They are all competing with themselves, trying to turn out their best performance, just like the kids on the track.

My son didn’t qualify for the State finals this weekend, but he beat his previous times in the 100 and 200 meter sprint. The lesson I know he learned from that effort about how to compete with himself is the best result I could hope for as a Dad.

Congrats Buddy!

I’m not sure how this happened without me noticing but there are only 30 days until Ironman Lake Placid!!

The last few weeks of training have been really good. They included some long ridees including a 110 miles through the NH Lakes Region, White Mountains and a climb over the Kancamagus Highway. The training block peaked with the Patriot Half Ironman last weekend in which I beat last years time but about 20 minutes. All this was followed by a light recovery week this week before the last push through a couple of monster weeks.

I’m going to try and write consistently over that period, but we’ll see how well I do at balancing the schedule.