Part I: The Gauntlet Thrown (or A Whole Lot of Testosterone)

Here's the first of a two-part Sanville story - apparently the sheer awesomeness of this tale can't be contained by a single post.

The first part of this post is a direct response to Spencer’s challenge to find an interval workout cooler than the one depicted on the Isle of Skye. Normally I’m not a one-upper, or a Mario as they’re known (think about it, you’ll get it eventually, maybe), but I just can’t let that kind of challenge go unanswered, especially since I was at the Isle of Skye last summer and did intervals up this:

As proven by this picture of me with a muddy shoe after I put my foot in one of the numerous mud holes Scotland seems to be covered in:

Well all right, as some of you have already deduced from the cargo shorts in the picture, I didn’t actually run up, but I did hike it as proven by this picture of me at the top:

Which is actually a picture of my little brother, but he looks enough like me that you get the idea.

Anyway, last Saturday Scott and I set out to actually top Spencer’s interval workout. We woke up early in the morning, loaded our skis, poles, and running shoes into Scott’s small and now very stinky car and set out from campus. Eventually we arrived at our destination and ran from here:

To there:

Yep, we ran all the way up Sugarloaf. It took us about forty minutes and was certainly an interval workout, alternating from the highest ends of threshold to just below cardiac arrest. We ended up walking a lot of the steepest parts, keeping our heart rates right around 180 (for the Polaskys on the team, that’s right about the very end of threshold for those of us who fit into airplane bathrooms), but whenever the slope was greater than a 43° angle we would start running again, spiking our heart rates to just below heart attack. Not going to lie though, it’s pretty satisfying to run past people walking up Sugarloaf with their Trek Poles.

Afterward we had lunch and napped here:

And then went on a two-hour rollerski. The ski was pretty baller. It’s nice, in a painful sore calf kind of way, to be able to ski altitude bigger than a those few bumps out on Pleasant Hill Rd. It’s a whole different kind of training on actual vertical.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, that is pretty sweet. I wish I did awesome things during my summer like sit in an office with no windows for forty hours a week and then run up ski hills on the weekends, but does it really top Spencer’s interval workout?” To which I respond, “No.” It is indeed pretty sweet, mysterious reader voice, but you are correct in wondering whether Spencer’s workout is indeed one-upped. Nay, it is merely on par. In order to truly show Spencer who loves suicidally painful training more, Scott and I plan on running the entire Presidential Traverse next Saturday, rain, shine, lightning, or 30-mile-an-hour wind. So yeah, um, take that Spencer.

Anyway, I’ve also decided to get a head start on the beards off a little early this year. I hope to win by Bowers-esque margins this season. I actually consider it part of training, and unless Riley and Alec have some as-of-yet undiscovered facial hair growing talent, I think I might actually have this one in the bag.

(Beard at one week two days)

Oh, and Erin says “hi!” to everyone:

TO BE CONTINUED…!