Squaw Peak in a Basement

Last Thursday I rode Squaw Peak.

This may seem odd to anyone who is aware of a few key points

• It is February
  
• Squaw Peak road is covered in several feet of snow
• I had split pea soup for lunch on Thursday

While the 3rd point actually has nothing to do with the ride, the snow did. You see, I actually rode Squaw in Aaron's basement.

I realize some of you may be thinking that I've taken this whole mental visualization concept a bit too far, but no, I really did climb 1600 ft over 4 miles.

My buddy Aaron recently started an intense training company where he goes to people's houses, tests their physical abilities, and helps them train for things like cycling, running, fly fishing, and even triathlon (Author's note: Triathlon currently ranks 41.2 notches below fly fishing on the "Scale of All-Time Coolest Sports")

Anyway, with this new business he's started, he has also acquired computer equipment you can attach to your bike while you ride inside which controls your resistance and such. After entering such vital information as your age, height, weight, marital status, and shoe size the computer can generate virtual rides.

(Shoe size actually has nothing to do with anything. Marital status, on the other hand changes the programming significantly. Due to immense decreases in physical fitness after marriage, the computer lightens all resistance by 94% to even it all up)

So of course we had to program in Squaw Peak. Granted it is all the work without any of the view, which is pretty much what makes the whole ride worth the pain, but that is besides the point.

The point is how cool it was to be virtually climbing a mountain in February.

To answer your next question, no, I did not break any records this time around. I know what you are thinking. Something along these lines:

"But Dan, you've been lifting weights all winter to the point that you have to find fat freshmen to sit on the leg press machine to get enough weight to actually get a workout. Shouldn't you be able to ride up Squaw with one leg faster than that Killer Hiller kid yet?"

To answer your thoughts, no. No, I can't. And to be honest, I probably never will. Kyle "Killer Hiller" will forever hold the Squaw Peak record between the two of us. For a while it bounced between the two of us, until that fateful Saturday afternoon back in October of 2006 when Kyle laid down a whopping 23 minute burn up the hill to beat my previous best by more than a minute and a half.

Needless to say he's held it ever since. However, now that's he's married he should try the computer simulation. With that "marriage bonus" he could quite possibly break the 20 minute mark...if he could just get his body fat back down to 3% (Since getting married Kyle's body fat has rocketed up to an obese 6%)

Either way, I hope the points of today's post are clear:

• Winter stinks for training
• Riding inside is more fun when you are hooked up to a computer
• Marriage makes you slow
• Squaw Peak is important to Provo in ways other than enabling freshmen girls to get out of the VL club (you know who I am referring to)
• Split pea soup and shoe size have nothing to do with anything

Well, I'm off to find a computer program that lets you set up virtual rides consisting of 24 miles of downhill.