Glory Hole Camping / Angels Camp Tri Preview

Camping at Glory Hole was awesome! I was able to preview the Angels Camp Triathlon and go camping for the first time in eons at the same time.
We arrived on Friday afternoon. Set up our camp site. It is amazing how much crap 4 women can bring to live outdoors for two days! We had both a station wagon and a full size car FULL. We each had our own tent, two dogs, bags and bags of food (we ate really well), three coolers filled with drinks and more food, and all of my tri gear of course. Friday night we fixed tilapia, asparagus, potatoes, corn on the cob, and a spinach salad. Everything was gourmet; cooked on the grill. And we topped it off with a couple of roasted marshmallows. Yummy. The other girls did a bit of drinking, but I held off knowing I would need my strength and no raging hangovers for the next day's exercise. I had seen the hill I was going to need to tackle the next day and didn't want to be dehydrated.
Ruby, my dog, really didn't like being in the dark out in the open. She spent most of the afternoon and evening in the tent. She knew where her home was as soon as she saw the Mexican blanket.
When I crawled into my tent, I had a really hard time getting comfortable. I got next to no sleep. I had to turn over every hour or so to relieve my hip from becoming one with the earth. It is amazing how little the Thermarest does. You still really feel like you are sleeping on the ground. Ruby needed to move about every half hour and wanted to sleep inside the sleeping bag with me, making it impossible for me to easily roll over or move my legs. It is no problem having her sleep with me at home in my queen bed, but in a small mummy bag, it is incredibly awkward. Of course I had to pee at 3:30am, as did Ruby. Then she disappeared. She decided it was a good time to get a little bite to eat! I was somehow reminded of my friends with babies. And to top it off, my friend across the camp site snored the entire night. My earplugs didn't work at all.

I was relieved when the sun came up and I had an excuse to get up and start my day. I treated myself to a lovely cup of coffee. I thought I wanted a nap before going to check out the site of the tri and starting my brick workout. As it turned out coffee and some French toast breakfast was perfect.
It was about 10:30am and getting really HOT.

We all drove over to the boat launch, where the tri will begin (off Angels Creek Road), with all my gear in tow. The boat launch looks like it's a mile long, down down down. And it is concrete corduroy, not so great for the feet. I walked down and threw on my wetsuit... more like squeezed my sweaty self into it. Take note: it is harder to get a wetsuit on when you are wet in any way. And I forgot my conditioner to help be more slippery. After what felt like a workout in and of itself, I was zipped up and ready to go.

The lake up close looks nothing like what you see in a satellite photo. It was difficult to discern where I was supposed to swim based on what Mark had told me two days before. I figured I would swim for 20 minutes or so and call it a swim. There were lots of boats coming in and out which was quite nerve-racking. I hope that on the day of the race there won't be many boaters early in the morning when we are doing our swim. Apparently, however, they don't close the boat ramp or the road at all during the race.

The swim felt good. The water was cool but not like Aquatic Park! It was warm compared to swimming in SF. Once I finished, I got out, climbed up the boat ramp and jumped on my bike.
For those of you who may go out there and check it out before the event, you will get out of the water, run up the LONG ass boat ramp, hop on your bike and ride out Angel Creek Road to the right. When you get to Glory Hole Road you will take a right turn and take that road all the way to the other boat launch. There you will turn around and go back, passing Angels Creek Road, and heading up the hill (this is the most difficult part of the ride) to Highway 49. Just before the highway, you will turn around and ride down and back to the boat launch. It is about a 15 mile ride.

Once you return from the ride and are ready for the run, you will be running up a good hill for the first 100 yards or so. before the top of the hill is a little trail heading out to the left. Take that "turn." From that point on the run is a single track trail, which circles a small peninsula. It is beautiful, especially with all of the wild flowers! I believe there is another fork about a mile in, again stay to the left. When you are almost finished with the loop, there is yet another fork in the trail. Here is where things can get a little tricky. This time you will go right. Just when you think the run is almost over, because you come out of the woods and can see the parking lot, you actually have to turn to the left again and go around another loop, coming back to the most recent fork where you took a right. You are essentially doing a figure 8. This will make much more sense when you see it for yourself.

Check yourself for ticks after your run. Ruby got a tick out there. Yuck! And stay away from the poison oak too! It is growing all over the place. Although the trail is very well kept up, there is some poison oak growing into the trail. Last but certainly not least, there are holes and roots riddling the trail. You will need to watch the ground some when you are running so as not to trip and fall on your face.
That is pretty much it in a nutshell.

I think it is going to be a challenging, but very fun event. If you have been training with See Jane Tri, you are going to be more than ready to tackle this and just DO the damn thing!