Pre-Race (2nd in series)

The 2007 Transrockies was unique in that it was the first year when they did the course in reverse.  In years past, they started in Fernie, British Columbia and ended usually in the Panorama Mountain Resort, British Columbia.  Starting in Panorama was unique because it required a 5 hour bus ride from the airport.   I started early in the morning on Thursday, August 9th, three days prior to the race.  I chose to leave three days early so that I could get acclimated to the elevation and also get a bearing on my surroundings.  As we dropped into Calgary Airport I was surprised by how flat it was, and suddenly I had a great feeling that maybe this won’t be so bad after all.  I mentioned this to the guy sitting next to me and he assured me that in fact there are very large mountains to the west.  Calgary lies to the east of the mountain range so it is similar to Kansas or the high plains of Wyoming.  All there was for miles were long rolling hills of green grass with hay rolled up like Hostess Ding Dong’s .   As I rode in the luxury tour bus towards our destination, I was treated to a very lengthy conversation going on behind me about all of the horrors we were to endure.  Apparently they had both done the race in previous years.  Luckily, Erica made a compilation of songs on her I-Pod so I sat back and turned up the tunes.  As the miles and songs went by the sky turned black with the pending sunset.  Suddenly there were large dark figures jutting up from the ground and it appeared as though there were clouds getting closer to us and stretching all the way to the horizon.  As they got closer, I realized that they weren’t clouds at all.  They were mountains.  They rose from the ground and burst into the sky like decayed teeth in some crazy, old man’s mouth.  I had never seen mountains that were so vain.  Standing tall and sticking their chests out they were indeed impressive and they were just the guards to the gate as our bus strained up the progressively steeper hills.  We proceeded towards Banff and picked up some people at a fancy hotel in the center of town.  It reminded me a lot like Jackson Hole, Wyoming in that it was clearly a cowboy town with some local money.  The main street through town was being torn up by diggers as some sort of facelift to the already increasing lease values.  Ralph Lauren had to pardon their dust.  It really was a nice looking town and Erica, Nathan, and I would experience it later in our trip.  The bus continued on and didn’t stop for what seemed like forever.  I didn’t arrive in my hotel room until 1:30 in the morning.  It had been a very long day.