Alpine Loop Emerald Lake Triathlon
Bike-Run-Swim-Run-Bike
Karl and I like to go on adventure dates. Not sure if we've ever done a dinner-and-a-movie date. That is way too much sitting for my liking. But because we don't live close to family who will entertain the kids all day while we are playing, this only happens about twice a year. Once in the winter and once in the summer while we are visiting Utah. That's ok with me because Utah is my favorite playground anyway! This adventure goes down as one of my all-time favorites.
We packed up our stuff and started even before it got light right out the front door of Karl's parents' house in Provo. Love early summer mornings! We headed up to American Fork Canyon on the brand-new Murdoch Canal Path which was great to ride on! Then we climbed and climbed some more up the Alpine Loop and over the top. I have ridden my bike many years in many different places, and the Alpine Loop is at the very top of my list! It's such a gorgeous ride!
These awesome views make the climb go by in a jiffy!
Karl was being a great sport riding my road bike. There wasn't enough room on the car to bring the kids' bikes, my TT bike, my road bike, and his bike, so he left his bike home. (In case you are wondering why in the heck I had to bring two of my bikes, that is a long story and involves a crack in my TT frame which needed to be sent to Canada...) He is quite a bit taller than I am but we made it work and he (hardly) complained. He is mostly a runner these days anyway, so he was happy to explore by foot during our vacation.
At Aspen Grove on the other side of the mountain, we parked the bikes, changed into our running gear, and headed up the trail toward Mount Timpanogos. The last two years I did the ULTOT with a group of friends and we went to the top of Timp which was awesome! This year I had a bunch of bigger races coming up and didn't want to run for 6+ hours on rocky trails, so we took a different route and my goal was to make it to Emerald Lake. Karl wanted to run to the top and, considering that he is a gazelle and runs about twice as fast as I do, that was fine by me.
What can I say. It's a gorgeous and we were loving it. Karl was off the front and I was having a party by myself. Not sure if it's acceptable to call this a date when we weren't even together the whole time, but hey, it's my blog and my our marriage, so I can call this whatever I want. Experiencing joy and beauty at the same time in (almost) the same place counts for a lot in my book! And so does independence...
Eventually I caught up with Karl who was having some issue with his foot (or something like that) and decided that my plan sounded better than his.
We made it up to Emerald Lake and that's when we decided that this was going to be a triathlon! We were going to swim in the glacial lake! And we called it the Alpine Loop Emerald Lake Triathlon.
I grew up biking with my family every weekend and we would make sure to go by one or more lakes and always had our swim suits with us. Just in case. And we would always swim. I loved it and still do! If there is water, I need to go in it. Karl is not a swimmer by any means but he doesn't mind a little dip in the great outdoors. We didn't bring swim suits but it was hot enough to jump in and dry off in no-time. In typical fashion, I made Karl get in first. I guess I just like the anticipation to last longer. Or I am a wuss when it comes down to it. Or I need a guinea pig. Who knows. So in he went.
We each had to take a few strokes out and back to actually be able to call it a swim. It was painful in a good way!
Here I go:
It was the best. I felt alive!
Trying to get back out of that darn thing as quickly as possible which wasn't all that easy:
Happy wet kids!
There were two guys on the side of the lake when we got there and they watched the whole thing. At first they thought we were crazy but by the time we left, they were taking a dip themselves. Awesome! You should try it too some time!
We ran back down. Biked by Sundance and through Provo Canyon. Stopped at Bajio's for lots of yummy food. Got home in the late afternoon to play with the kids collapse on the couch.
Good times! Great memories!
Love you, Karl Jarvis!
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