Ride Like The Wind

Lake to Lake and a few things in between

2011-06-20T22:22:00.002-04:00

I'll start off with training leading up to the race, didn't do much. My hard day was set to be the 8x12 but a flat ruined that. The walk was tough though. Starting to adapt to working 6-2:30 everyday, waking up at 5 sucks but way she goes. Lots of beer consumed to help me sleep early and plenty of coffee to help me wake up. Friday took an especially large amount of beer to get some snooze but eventually I got there.

So since cross bike was flat I figure I'd better just use the Kona and worry about cx in a few months.

On to the race. Start was fun, De Cal off the front and I was just hangin on. Couldn't take a pull because I was already spinning out my biggest gear so everything came back together pretty quick. After that it was just holding my spot to the first quad trail section. Lead group was still pretty big at this point. Chown got in first, Preston next, they both dabbed and I somehow made it to the front. I kept the pace high with a small gap but Anton came flying by with Chown on his wheel. Couldn't latch on, Soutter, Preston, De Cal rode by so did Schmidt at one point because I was chassing him down for a bit the lead group just out of reach.

Schmidt and I worked good together for a bit keeping the gap about the same. He crashed out in Mosquito Valley and I was left to chasse alone. De Cal was just ahead for so long but I couldn't bridge until eventually I came out of Suzanne to see Chown and De Cal with only a few seconds. Bridged up and should have been patient and waited for the rocky trail to attack but I was impatient. Chown got in that trail first and my race for 4th was over. I didn't have good enough power Sunday to shed two strong guys on cross bikes with my mountain bike on the road so 6th it was. I was happy with that.

Good day for the team with all 3 guys in the top 10, Meg 4th overall female and crushed some pretty fast guys too finishing 45th overall. Nice.

What to say about Nationals this upcoming weekend? Strategy is easy, sit in for the first lap to warm up, attack the first time up Appleby and solo the rest of the race riding nothing but the 53x11 and only shifting down to the 12 for the steepest part of the climb.

To be honest though, it's just going to be a cool experience. I'm way out of my league but I'm going to enjoy the experience for sure. Maybe get my butt signed by someone famous or something.

It has come, Mt Bellies Belly Buster Challenge Sunday. I've been training, I am now ready.

No power

2011-06-18T22:56:00.002-04:00

Hmmm, what can I say about Albion. Start off with something like holy shit that was probably the scariest experience on a bike.

Don't know what happened from Friday to Sunday, pre-ride I felt amazing, field was small, course suited me pretty well, it was shaping up to be a great performance (relatively speaking of course).

Right from the gun I wasn't feeling it at all, start was horrible but actually ended up being the best part of my race. From the first piece of singletrack to the last I was in survival mode, I was so confused why I couldn't just go faster. I was barely in the big ring, I don't remember much but I'm pretty sure I took a couple descents in the granny ring. Fast forward to last lap, felt like I had done 8 laps and not 3, was riding like shit just like the rest of the race, then Koffman rode by me. I held HER wheel for a few minutes and actually started feeling good, contemplated passing but I figured I'll keep that pace and make it back to the start in good time. All of a sudden the terrain got steep, I got dizzy, dismounted and tried to pull myself together. Did this a few times, one hill I looked up and could have sworn I seen snow caps on the summit. It was not pretty.

Apparently I didn't DNF, but they pulled me. I wouldn't have went out for another lap anyways so in my head it's a DNF and I feel soft as hell for it.

8x12 was a bust, Etzl and myself had a big gap up front before heading into the first singletrack then next thing I know I'm walking for an hour to get back to the start. Down an expensice tire, the rip on the inner tube was big enough to just let all the stans I put in flow right out. Maybe I didn't do it right, fixin them fancy things was never my strong point. Either way, mtb tomorow, hopefully get to the quad trails in the lead group and see how she goes from there.

Good luck to Alain Deschamps tomorow, attempting his first race on two wheels instead of two feet. Who knows? Maybe he'll hang up the sneakers for good and trade em in for some razors and spandex.

Good power

2011-06-11T21:54:00.002-04:00

Took thursday off and had 2 days in a row of good power after that, Friday I headed out to Port and did some motor pacing. It kind of sucks when the driver isn't someone you know, just a random vehicle turning onto the same street as me. You gotta be smart about it though, 50km/h limit streets are the best, look for an old clunker that can barely hit 60 or an old person driving a Buick. The Buick has less of a draft then an old rust bucket pick up but the fumes aren't as bad.

Today was Albion pre-ride, got a ride up with the Fleury express (big thanks Keith), rode 3 laps at a pretty good pace. Felt good on the climbs, singletrack is bermy like around here but better with the rock features and roots.

Tomorow I'm hoping for good power so I can keep it in the big ring the whole time, and that it stays a little greasy because it's funner that way. Tonight I'm gonna chill and watch some Planet Earth, tomorow it's pancake time!

I believe that is all.

Hills

2011-06-09T14:07:00.003-04:00

Many hills climbed this week, for me anyways. Tuesday me and De Cal pre-rode the Albion course, good thing the Green Monster isn't in it, there's enough climbing on that course as it is. The singletrack is so sick, rock gardens, a few drops, bermy turns, good stuff.

I couldn't follow the spinach and anchovies diet to get down to race weight so I got a hair cut instead, probably a good 5 pounds, so I should be good for a few months to eat whatever I want.

The L!B 12 mile series was fun, an early attack from De Cal that only Etzl could respond to ment chasing for the whole race, passed De Cal after he rode right off the trail, didn't really know what he was doing turns out he was in the midst of a shit storm. It's funny how everyone in the top 5 had some good stories about crashing and whatnot after the race, no one really had a solid ride but De Cal definitely had the worst/best story. No one broke any bones so it was a good night.

Albion this weekend, pumped.

HARDwood

2011-06-06T21:31:00.002-04:00

My first legit Canada Cup, I did the race at Hardwood three times now but unless you're Cadet/Junior Ex or Elite it's not really a Canada Cup. Right from the start there was definitely a HUGE difference from an O-Cup, I took the start climb way too easy trying not to burn out by the top. Lesson learned, pin it right to the first bottleneck then grab your bike, throw it over your shoulders and yell "Tasses-toi mon collise" as you plow through the field.

Once into the first singletrack it was all downhill from there, literally. I thought that I would have plenty of energy and I was so pumped to get going but I just couldn't get there. I was riding like a knob and climbing like a plug, therefore, making up not a single spot in the first lap. Caught a couple guys on the opening climb, but once back into the trail I was useless. For laps 2-4 I had times where I would feel amazing, but they were short-lived and soon I would be feeling like a shithawk trying to fly low enough to stay out of the shitstorm.

The best part of the race was when I jumped the biggest gap on the BMX descent, just before the second berm. I know it's nothing, but I haven't jumped a bike like that since my days riding the Raleigh CT special, destroyed pretty much every part on that thing. Good thing my sister had the same bike so I could just use it for spare parts.

Anyways, so lap 5 and 6 were awful. I was riding with Jamie Wagler for a bit and we were closing in on a couple guys but next thing I knew he was gone and I was nothing more than a pilon on the trail for anyone coming up to pass me. I got a last burst of energy just before the BMX descent and sprinted a guy at the end that actually ended up being a sprint to not be the last finisher. I can proudly say I crushed it and crossed the line a whopping 55th, oh well, it was so much fun to experience a Canada Cup, hopefully do a few more next year.

The weekend was alot of fun, felt amazing on the pre-ride Saturday which made for some fun riding. Highlight was definitely showing up at the fanciest place I've ever been too in my life wearing my french socks and Jamaican kicks, me and DeCal with our matching O-Cup shirts. I swear we were the only ones in there not wearing a suit and tie. First they wanted to tell us that they were booked til 8, but they couldn't even say it seriously as we looked around at 30 empty tables. Then the waitresse tells DeCal "so, I'm guessing you guys don't need a wine list", I guess only little kids wear matching t-shirts these days. We got a pint of steamwhistle and the most amazing pasta dish I've ever had, ever. And I've had alot of pasta. Come to think of it, maybe it's not actually called pasta, but I call any dish with noodles pasta so that's that.

Solid weekend for team Lib. Meg on the box, Schmidt got a solid race in after some bad luck in Québec. De Cal finally broke his curse at that place, no broken frames so all was good.

Just finished my last exam today, this week I'll be on the mountain bike every day. Hopefully get a BG fit if there's enough room this week then it's nothing but spinach and anchoves to get down to race weight, gotta counteract the cinnamon buns and apple pie that made up the majority of my diet over the weekend.

T.O. crit

2011-06-01T13:33:00.003-04:00

Just lost the whole report I wrote up on the crit this weekend. Tried writting it at school and I guess the Toshiba can't compete with the Macs for internet reception.

All I'm gonna really mention is what happened at the end, because that's the best part. So I'm riding up along the side of what I think was the JetFuel train but can't really remember, got a little excited and tried to take the inside line, I wasn't really thinking straight because the JetFuel guy was just to my right and I was hoping he'd stay there because I was calling inside, he cut in and I had to grab the front brake hard, wheel popped up and skid for a bit, on Etzl's wheel (big thanks!) but luckily didn't go down and no damage was done. Just a lesson, merge into the pack a bit before the corner to keep everything smooth then keep going with the attack or leadout or whatever after the corner.

Anyways, felt like shit just before I did it and when I slowed down, I really slowed down because I was heaving pretty good. Never actually puked after the race I don't think, but that is all changed now. Let out a good spew half way down the finishing stretch as everyone was blowing by me trying to stay in with the sprint. Nutella and french toast it was, I understand why a kid in the crowd went "Eeeewww", there was some coffee in there too.

Good times in T.O. afterwards.

Training this week has beed pretty crap, usually takes me a couple weeks to get used to the heat. Hoping for gewd power this weekend and Hardwood... and RAIN.

Nothing a little R&R can't take care of

2011-05-25T22:36:00.009-04:00

So, how slow was I this weekend? Well, if you look closely, that there, ladies and gentlemen, is a snail who not only managed to catch me but then proceeded to drop me on one of the many rollers out on the course. My excuses are we were going into the wind and I was pulling the whole time AND is that shell even UCI legal? Super light and aero, there's no way that thing has enough protection to withstand a crash.

Not sure when the shitty feelings stared but when I was barely hanging on to any surges and found myself off the back about 5km into the race, something wasn't quite right. Maybe a little overtrained? Underrested? Who knows, or better yet, who cares? What I know is that this week is going to be super easy, tomorow I'll try some 30/30s to get some top-end training in before the crit this weekend and every other day will be very easy spins. Tuesday night was another brutal attempt at intensity, I'm not worried though, I'm bound to string together a few bad days in a row here and there. It's all part of the learning process. At least it's going much, much, much better than last year.

Can you say winter training partners?

Some awesome interval sessions going down along the Feeder in Wainfleet, a big question I have is are those beavers or muskrats that have their little dams in there? I didn't think we had beavers this far south but they look like they have flat tails and buck teeth.

Hopefully I start to come around by this weekend. I'm pretty sure I was at my best form of all time last week and was loving every minute on the bike. I'll post up before the T.O crit with what I hope are words of happiness.

Round 2 - Woodnewton

2011-05-17T11:38:00.002-04:00

Sick weekend started at casa De Cal with all the boys on the Lib! team loading our stuff into Schmidt's van, a couple hours or so of driving and we were at the venue. We remembered to shut the car doors this time during the pre-ride and all went well. Some good singletrack, good climbs to go hard and a couple drag race sections to get to the singletrack in front. Just like last year, we hit up subway for some fuel and Vince's for some groceries. The team chefs cooked up some potent fuel at a cool B&B on Scugog Island. The night was super chill, just sittin around, eating and I even got in a foam roll session. Won't be long now before I get myself one of them fancy things.

Morning of the race was awesome with about 6 pounds of french toast in us and seeing Contador rip a mountain stage apart we were all set. Good vibes on the drive there, pulled in with plenty of time to watch Meg take a win in the cadet expert field after opting for the rock garden which gave her a big enough gap to hold to the line. Then, with the help of JC, I got my bike dialed and I was ready to go. Warm up felt good, some spinning, some efforts, it's all pretty much the same.

Had a good start position, I was riding behind Peter Glassford for a bit then by myself. The Lapierre train came rolling by and I hopped on for a bit, turns out my stop was the first one and I was all alone again. I was hurting by the end of the first lap, not being able to hold anyone's wheel that came by. I don't even remember who came by me and where I was position wise, I just kept a pace that wouldn't blow me up before the finish. I think it was Tim Carleton that came by me at the end of the third lap, we battled for the 4th lap, caught someone, now it was starting to get funner.

Fifth lap was by far my best one, I dropped that group and just kept hammering everywhere I could. The tight sloppy singletrack section was probably the worst riding I've seen from myself in a while but it was slow for everyone anyways so no worries. Not sure when it really started to come around but next thing I knew I was bridging up to Jamie Wagler, then a few other guys, then Simon Wagler just before the last climb. I punched it and just kept hammering into the last descent, I didn't want the race to end because I was finally going like I was the first lap. I'm very happy with 20th because my goal for the first half of the season (pre-Nationals) was to get in the top 20s and because I get some points.

Another successful o-cup for the team with Meg's win, Schmidt (huge thanks for the weekend of driving!) coming in 6th, a solid result in such a stacked field. De Cal always doing his thing, only 3 spots away from a top 10. Sara got herself on the podium again at Bike the Bruce, should be some fun racing this weekend on the pavement.

Mansfield XC O-Cup

2011-05-02T19:36:00.002-04:00

First race in the big boy field went as well as I could have hoped, my goal was to start off at a pace that won't blow me up then pick people off as the race went on and I did just that. Here's a video of the start with some halarious commentary from mama De Cal.

The guy leading our group into the first set of singletrack was going pretty slow then clipped a tree, I ended up at the front after that then caught up to the next group before the first of two steep climbs. Ended up on Soutter's wheel before the third lap, nearing the end of lap 3 I got away from him, then the next guy up the trail, then the next guy. Now I was getting pumped, maybe a little too much because I came into the technical(ish) descent and had a pretty sick crash. Lost the two guys I passed and ended up back with Soutter.

Last lap wasn't too exciting, I got away from Soutter on the start climb. I was feeling surprisingly god on that climb byt the third lap, big ring until the steeper part. Then it was all about making my way around lapped traffic efficiently. I caught another guy and dropped him near the last few trails, he caught me on the descent but I stayed in front coming into the last cyclocross turns. Or at least I should have been, he cut me off big time on the first of the turns, I had to slow down enough to lose his wheel and I couldn't take the next 2 corners quick enough to catch him, oh well, I'll crush him at Woodnewton. The only shitty part is that was #20 Ontario finisher so the last position to get points. This video would be awful evidence because it misses the most important part but I'll post it anyways.

Solid day for Lib! with De Cal getting a good position to go up if history repeats itself. Meg on the podium and Schmidt in the top 10 in a very strong junior field. Sara was up there at Springbank, her first year in Elite and she's killing it! Again, huge thanks to the guys at Lib! for the last minute hook up. Had a skipping cassette during pre-ride Saturday (thanks to De Cal for the drive!), I thought it had plenty of life left and would be good for a new chain... nope.

Anyways, does anyone know if ZM Crit is on? If not, I'll have a good 2 weeks to focus on round 2 of the XC series, if it's on, it'll be a great time.

Ride in the wind

2011-04-29T09:42:00.005-04:00

The wind that is. I'm stuck inside the house all day because I have to watch my sister's new little husky puppie, I was going in waves of getting pumped to ride out in yesterday's wind then actually considering riding the trainer for a whole minute or so. This video is what pushed me over the edge, I was psyched, I couldn't wait for someone to come home to take over the babysitting shift so I could get out there.

I was loving the crosswinds, there's something about leaning hard into the wind while hammering that gets you jacked up, like pressing your check into the boards and holding em there til someone picks up the puck. A great thing about big winds is that you always have to be alert, keep an eye in the direction the wind is coming from for flying debris, cars, trees, cows or anything. You have to be ready to react quickly, either dismount and hind behind your 15 pound bike and hope the welders weren't hammered when they put 'er together or get out of the way. If it came to it, I would have chosen the latter but to each their own. I'll admit I was a little scared at times when the wind would really pick up only because I heard rumours of a tornado warning and it's pretty gloomy near Dunville especially with no sun. I still had my shades on but that was more to protect my eyes against the flying odjects mentionned earlier, it's always good to be able to see IF you go down so you can pull yourself together.

Facing a massive crosswind on river road I actually managed to put together a decent plan for the ride. Fight the wind hard til Pt. Davidson, 1-2-3-2-1 minutes intervals with equal rest time in the tailwind to keep an effort going instead of unzipping my jersey to use as a wind sail. Then attack the mini rollers all the way home. Lots of trees down on the route and even a chunk of road flew away.

A couple pics from Wednesday's ride. The first one is a sick piece of land that I would like to own, it was taken at (probably) around 40km/h, because of a nice tailwind, besides the pole getting in the way it doesn't look too bad. I took it 2 minutes before I saw Morka coming from the opposite direction, did a U and rode against that beautiful tailwind I was having and had a solid chat.

Not much else going on, I'm taking a couple courses in the spring. A physiology course and injury care & prevention, so 7 hours of class on monday and wednesday, gotta figure something out for the 3 hour window I have on those days. Maybe a 3 hour jumping jack session at the gym.

Good Friday Road Race

2011-04-26T09:53:00.002-04:00

It's getting better, this race actually went pretty good. Minus the DQ of course.

The day started off the same as P2A with a bowl of oatmeal and 4 pieces of french toast, only difference was 3 eggs intsead of 2, that's probably what did it. Left home a little behind schedule but it was cold anyways so hanging around to watch the earlier races wouldn't have been too fun anyways.

Warm up was pretty short, rode up and down a few roads, a couple leaks and I was good to go, or so I thought. I was trying to ignore the fact that I had to pee and the race was about to start any second, the race started and just as I made my way close to the front De Cal mentionned he had to pee as well. It really only bothered me at the start when there were only a few surges and I couldn't drink because it made me want to pee, by the second lap I guess I forgot about it.

When I made my goals for the first half of the season (before Nationals) a big one for me was to be able to hang with the S1/2 pack. I'm not strong enough to make anything happen yet so basically my plan is to always be looking for shelter from the wind and going hard to stay with the surges. There were a few exciting things that happened during my race, the first came at one of the short climbs either on the first or second lap. Anton was to my right, the guy to his right either fell or just bumped him, which made us go shoulder to shoulder, a solid body check. We both stayed up but someone must have hit my back wheel and I heard there was a crash so either that guy went down or the guy that nudged Anton went down. Either way, close call.

Another close call came when I was on the left of the pack, on the yellow line coming into a turn, I wasn't paying attention for a sec and when I looked up there were the pilons that I had seen every lap but managed to forget about them, swirved to the left to dodge it then cut right before the next one which lined me up good for the corner.

The best part of my race preceded the worst part of my race by about a minute. There was an attack, Anton went with it, Cam Jette tried to go and I was on his wheel. As he started to slow down I jumped and made it to Anton and some other guy. I wanted to go but they were already sitting up waiting for the pack, probably a good thing because apparently just getting to them took a tonne out of me. The reason I say that is because once I was back in the pace picked in a crosswind section and the pack was strung out from front to back. It was cool to see but not when that string of guys is coming zipping by you and there's nothing you can do about it. I couldn't latch on just before a right turn, Trevor was dropped at that time as well and we worked hard to get back in. Good thing it was a tailwing, I thought for sure my race was done at that point.

Nothing too exciting after that, the crosswind section where everyone was on the other side of the line was probably the toughest section. I always found myself near the back here, there were many surges and to hang on to the guys wheel in front of you not only were you across the yellow line but you had to be careful not to end up on the gravel shoulder, ok, maybe not that bad but it was pretty bad. I couldn't see up there but I imagine the guys responsible for the surges were going close to the yellow line so one could get shelter but since it was after a corner the guys wouldn't come back on the right side of the line and kind of like a domino effect, by mid-pack everyone was on the wrong side of the road. A couple times I didn't go but when that would happed you would be the guy that would cause a split, everyone would come by you on the left and you're right back where you started.

The closing kilometres were pretty fun, I got beside De Cal, we were boxed in but I seen a line on the right that involved a little riding on the shoulder. I knew he'd be down, I yelled for it and I thought he was on my wheel so I went for it. I got up there but looked back to see a JetFuel guy, damn it! I dropped back a bit again to go get the guy in yellow, next thing I know we were flying and I started cramping, just survived to the finish.

I didn't expect the cramps because I didn't feel anything near a cramp during the race, the fact that I drank half a bottle for the entire race probably caught up with me. First no-snow (or so we hope) mtb race this weekend, pumped!

Paris to Ancaster

2011-04-23T16:32:00.002-04:00

Gonna be a short one.

Started off around 300, start was pretty quick and I had a hard time moving up. We turned onto the first gravel stretch and I tried to move up as much as I can, riding off the trail or in the ditch proved to be ineffective, all the rain made it too soft to keep some good momentum. Moved up pretty close to the front and next thing I knew everyone surged then slowed right down, turned right, I guess this is the hill that I was told about. It wasn't too bad but everyone started dismounting in front and all around me so I was forced to do the same. Running didn't feel good.

I was in a group of 8 guys or so, Montague and Dakin were in it. We were working pretty well together, the pace wasn't too high but I didn't have the power to fight the wind by myself. I screwed up quite a bit in the mud sections and the last ones I actually did ride just filled the space around my brakes/fork/wheel with mud. I don't remember much from then until the finish, just nearly cramping up bad going up the last hill.

Again, huge thanks to the guys at Lib! for getting my bike dialed for the race, they're sick. Also, solid rides to DeCal, Chown, Perry all in the top 10. Schmidt had a good ride as well.

Homage to Bronte

2011-04-10T21:38:00.003-04:00

2 race reports in one, could get long, here we go. Training was great since my last post, finished a few weeks ago, during the rest week I felt great and super pumped to start a new block. That was last week, the first hard ride was probably my best ride yet, rode hard to Hamilton, did the Big 3 three times each and rode hard home. I was pretty congested for the rest week but didn't think much of it because I'm always congested. Friday night before Bronte I really started to feel bad, brutally congested, ear infections, migraines, chest cold, I was a disease infested pile of shit. Saturday night I thought for sure I wasn't going to race but woke up feeling alright and after Derek from Lib! just made my bike a beautiful working machine (HUGE thanks for that!) I had to race it. Also, big thanks to DeCal for the flatbar. I started off pretty good, made my way close to the front and that was it. Turned onto the snow, rode it good but still lost a bunch of spots. Started the long hill climb and I watched everybody walk away from me. The rest of the time was spent feeling pretty good for a couple seconds and putting the hammer down then back to feeling like crap. Everybody rode away from me effortlessly, it really wasn't good for the pride. I had full intentions on pulling the shoot after the first lap but then Cayley Brooks caught me and convinced me to do another lap, glad I did because I ended that ride on a good note. Congrats to Meg and De Cal for their wins. Then it was on to a brutal night, finally fell asleep around 3am after 4 advils, not so liquifast. Doctors the next day confirmed a sinus infection, chest x-rays, throat swab, urine test, breathing test, ECG and physical just to be sure. Got meself a bunch of meds and took a week off the bike, still haven't even cleaned my mtb from the race. I wasn't expecting anything today but I was going to watch for sure anyways so I figure I mine as well race, maybe it was the 8 hours with the chicken shit yesterday that did it or the 5 hours of dishwashing last night but something gave me some good legs today and it was awesome. Start was really slow, the first few surges weren't so bad based on everybody's expression around me but I was hurtin bad. There were 8 short laps to get warmed up, nothing too drastic happened, an early break got away but they would later need assistance to survive. The surges were getting easier and easier as I started getting some legs, I was starting to feel good and made my way close to the front. Did a little work and a couple attacks but nothing too useful. Morka and De Cal were doing most of the work for the group, a chase group of 5 formed and stayed a few seconds ahead of us but they didn't seem like they were going anywhere. Not until Chown hammered away from the group to join them, the solo bridge was nuts, just sick to watch. Then they started making some ground and soon joined the lead group. I kept surprising myself every time we made it to the turn around and seeing the numbers go down while still being in the bunch. With 3 to go I thought it was over, I started cramping up really bad but thankfully the pace slowed and I was able to recover enough to stay in it. Same thing happened a few times but somehow I managed to stay in for the bunch kick. I made my way up good, got in the 53-12, started my sprint on the grass, still moving up and now I was pumped. Got back on the pavement to avoid the barricades and got boxed in. Oh well, started cramping up again anyways. Huge props to Chown for the win. Exams next week and hopefully feeling good enough to start some intensity again.

Making the best of things

2011-03-12T18:00:00.004-05:00

Posts are coming pretty consistently at once a week, not bad I guess. I hope all you guys are nice and warm down south, I'm not jealous, ok maybe a little but only because the teacher's assistant union from Brock (CUPE) are supposed to be going on strike starting Monday, if the strike lasts 10 days I'm gonna snap. No I won't, but I'll be very sad that I didn't get to spend that time in some warm weather. That's a lie too, I'm not soft, I'll deal with what I'm given.

I'm pretty cooked right now and it feels good, great ride today with Csikos, met up with Etzl and Sheldon and cruised around St. Kitts, stopped for coffee (of course!) before heading out to Smithville at a pretty good clip. We were going to make it a 2h ride but it started getting a little nicer out than the snow storm we headed out in so we extended the ride to about 110km. Big effort taking pulls on Pt. Davidson into the headwind, twas fun indeed.

So far 19 hours this week, after tomorow it should be 22-24 depending on my softness, for once I might actually go through with it and head out with the St.CCC. Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Motorpacing workout on Tuesday was awesome; 5x10min followed by some sprint work. Why do this behind a car you ask when I can do it by myself? Because riding behind a car makes you feel faster, therefore in better shape, need I say more?

So Wednesday I needed to get about 3 hours in but it was supposed to be at a nice easy pretty much recovery pace, planned out a route and a meeting point but then the wind picked up, the rain started and the temperature dropped 5 degrees. Let me explain myself why not going out in that was a good decision, training against the elements is arguably the best kind of training you can do. Mentally you feel tough, you feel like a badass, because you are. Everyone can agree that training weakens you and it's the rest that follows the training that makes you stronger, the deeper the hole you dig the higher the mound of dirt you have to stand on once you crawl out. Well, the tougher the elements, the bigger the shovel you have to dig that hole, you feel me? The analogy makes sense in my head so let's go with it. So if you're goal for the ride is to hurt then don't bitch out when it comes to harsh weather, the body will adapt. But if you're goal is to cruise, chill, recover or whatever you wanna call it then heading out in harsh weather seems counter productive, example, try recovering in a 40km/h headwind.

I've come to realise that my gym membership was a waste of money, the only thing I use is a set of dumbbells and the chin up bar, the olympic bar too for some squatskis but there's usually a line up so I don't bother. I do, however, enjoy laughing at meat heads, especially hearind them speak about how intense their workouts are. Seeing that intense workout in action is probably as entertaining as it gets; bicep curl a piece of iron for 18 seconds, pump arms in the air in different directions, fire a couple texts, call up their girlfriend or mother, hit up facebook and a sip or two from their protein shake before getting back at er. Then again, some pro guy can read this and be like: "24h week, yeah I remember my days as a cadet". Well screw you man cause I'm tired.

Thoughts everywhere on this post, could be a good thing. Maybe I should stop writting so much and post up some pictures like I've been saying I would countless times just like my foam roller routine and daily yoga sessions... yeah, maybe.

Already been a week!?

2011-03-04T10:35:00.002-05:00

Not much has been happening since the last post but since I'm training now and it's been a week I figure I should do some sort of update.

I woke up Friday morning feeling a little more tired than I would have thought, the only sort of workout I got done was shoveling the driveway. I was good because of the crazy amount of snow we got but a little short, after that I was a zombie for the rest of the day. Saturday... well let me tell you about Saturday. First 5+ hour ride of the year, I wasn't feeling it right from the start, I was enjoying turning the cranks over but I wasn't getting anywhere fast. First bonk of the year also, but that's what pastrie shops and coffee are for, it was quite the recovery, enough to get me home anyways.

Sunday I was still feeling it so I got out with the dog for a couple hours in the Short Hills, ran a bit, walked a bit, no push ups or pull ups this time. I wasn't feeling like Rocky.

So that was the end of my reading week, this week flew by and now I'm up to my eye balls in homework that needs to get done by Monday. Today was supposed to be circle route #2 but there's no way that's going down considering I have to work tonight and tomorow night as well. I've got a paper to submit by tonight so I've got to get that done before heading in to work. It would have been good to get in a really long ride today because I've only got about 8 hours in so far this week.

Club ride tomorow is looking like a good idea, gotta get home in time to do some mathematics.

Some time with my bicycle

2011-02-24T17:55:00.003-05:00

A wee bit of snow fell Sunday night, enough to leave the roads too shitty to ride on for 5+ hours so De Cal and myself headed out for a 4+ hour hike in the Short Hills with my dog who was chassing dear and squirrels the whole time. He's getting a little braver and starting to venture way out of sight only to come running back onto the trail to catch back up, pass, and jump back off the trail to do it again. Maybe one day he'll actually bring something back with him, but doubt it. We threw in some push-ups and attempted some pull-ups so we can feel like Rocky, it worked, I felt ripped.

Tuesday morning I hit up the Short Hills for 3 hours with the studded tires, I don't know if it was me or the tires but I was riding like shit for what the trails seemed like. On Monday there was an ice base layer and a little bit of snow on top, Tuesday it was pretty similar but the snow was a little firmer and ate my wheel quite a few times. Oh well, crashing is fun in the snow. Energy was very low as I was finishing up in the 8x12 loop so I decided to finish it up on the road to get back to the car. Followed that up with a couple hours of strength work on the farm carrying pales of chicken feed around.

Yesterday was supposed to be crap out and my boss needed me, plus I knew I'd be tired so it was perfect. After a couple hours of work it was really nice out and I wasn't feeling tired at all, oh well, can't complain about making money. For the first time in a long time I was motivated enough to come home and ride the trainer for an hour or so. Today I was planning on 4 hours on the road, it would have been pefect if I wasn't stuck in my big ring. I tried to downshift coming out of my street but nothing, with no choice but to hammer all the climbs and keep a decent pace when it's flat I ended up with 3.5hrs, after killing myself up DeCew I knew I wasn't going to bother with another little loop to get the time in. I felt really good today, recovered quickly from uphill efforts and stayed strong the entire ride.

It's good to finish rides this time of year feeling like you could have kept going physically and mentally. Physically because this isn't the time of year (for those starting their race season in April like myself anyways) to be putting in those kinds of rides because that calls for an early season burn out, especially if you live where it's a little colder than places like AZ or Cali. Mentally it's great because you're already pumped for the next ride from the second you get off your bike and wipe it down.

So I guess training is now in full swing, so is calorie consumption. I'm hooked on dates now, I always seen De Cal munching on them when we were at races and whatnot but never really liked them that much. Now, for some reason, I can't open the fridge without popping one or two in my mouth.

Hmmm, what else is new... I'm in charge of groceries now and cooking most nights so pics of deliciousness are defenitely on their way.

I haven't decided on mtb or road tomorow, if we get alot of snow then it's going to be mtb for sure, but if we get more than alot I might head out for another monster hike. Saturday is supposed to be nice enough outside for a few hours on the road and then some, we'll see how she goes.

The Frostbike - déja vu

2011-02-21T18:02:00.002-05:00

I was feeling really good heading into the race yesterday after an amazing pre-ride on Tuesday and a very similar one Saturday. We did a lap and a bit with the big frenchman in the picture below who ended up taking second overall! I felt I was riding strong and started to find some good rhythm in the trails, top that off with am amazing bike tune-up by none other than Mr. Derek McCaulay himself and I was good to go.

Got to the venue just after 9am to find that all the prime parking spots were already taken, so I found a nice hidden spot right by my dumpster friend. Got registered and was surprised that the guys from the SHCC had reserved my number for me, big thanks. Did the usual pre-race shoot the shit, get kitted, complain about a thing or two like the cold and eventually get spinning. We headed out onto the course for a lap and my rear tire was slowly losing pressure, I topped it up and made it back to the start/finish with a little less pressure again. You'd think I would do something smart like throw a tube in there or swap wheels, but no! That's just not how I roll. Well, I didn't roll far.

The start was pretty relaxed, settled in behind Spak with JC leading the train. He started pulling away with De Cal right on his wheel so I was looking for a spot to get around Spak. First attempt was unsuccessful because my chain jammed, I got around him on some pavement and hammered into some awesome singletrack with JC in sight. I rode his wheel for a bit then when things opened up again I hammered and didn't look back until the next set of singletrack. I had a decent gap but the one between De Cal and myself was even bigger. Next thing I knew I was almost riding on my rim, huge thanks to teammate Alex for stopping to give me a CO2 despite a hard chassing JC. The tire filled well then emptied even better before the end of the next doubletrack. The walk back was long, boring and shameful but it is what it is.

I got back to the truck, threw a tube in and was destined to hammer out an awesome lap to try and get a spot on the podium. I started off strong and motivated only to find myself on some crazy slick trails and I knew it would take one hell of a ride to pull off a good time on a course like that. I guess you can say I rode like a knob, a knob on a mission though. I wanted nothing but to hammer my brains out and found myself down hard a few times, again, you'd think I'd learn and slow down, ride smooth, not! In the end I missed the age cat. podium by 10s. On a positive note I did have the fastest second lap time, but that, of course, doesn't mean squat.

Huge congrats to team L!B for 2 wins and a third (+ age cat. win), they killed it. JC is a machine, old news, but a 2nd overall is a great way to start a season to be raced in expert. AJ posted a crazy fast time despite riding 3 times since November!

Of course, big thanks to the SHCC for all their hard work to get this race going. It was a great time, already looking forward to next year.

Rider(s) announced for awesomest training camp in the world

2011-02-18T16:59:00.003-05:00

It's official, the applications came in and the selection was made, riders attending the super awesome 10 day training camp are;

- Justin Henri
- Your name here

Originally I had plans to go to Blue Mountain for 5 days but when I found out I could be riding 3-6 hours a day straight out of the armpit of the world I couldn't resist. Big reason is that I've been slacking, school work has something to do with it, but in the end I blame it on poor time management.

Today was day 1 of the training camp and it was a solo 2.5hr ride until I met up with Keith Fleury and Chris heading towars DeCew, shot the shit then we parted ways heading up DeCew. It was a great ride, the wind was strong but it wasn't cold so it wasn't bad at all. First ride without a jacket this year, pumped about that. Too bad it's going to get cold again by tomorow morning, -6 isn't too bad but the wind coming from the North is freakin cold. That being said, Frostbike cold go either way conditions wise, if the trails got flooded from the melt we just got then I might be better off swapping the spd's for my skates. If the trails managed to stay alright then the little bit of snow we're supposed to get will make for some perfect conditions, we'll just have to wait and see.

So the next days of camp should look something like Frostbike pre-ride, Frostbike, century ride and a 3-5hr ride Tuesday morning before I have to be at work for 1. Wednesday I told my boss I'd work a full shift because he needs the help and it's a good way to get two birds stoned with a rest day and a money making day in one. If I'm feeling motivated I'll hit up the trainer afterwards or maybe, just maybe, I'll put a lamp on my head and go see how many times I can eat it before I get tired and start crying for my mommy.

Say it ain't so

2011-02-03T18:11:00.003-05:00

It's been quite some time but my life isn't all that interesting, especially with the lack of physiology-related courses this semester. I do, however, have zoology which is kind of cool, sponges are sick, that's pretty much what I learned so far.

I'll start from where I left off about a month ago, that weekend was pretty rough, turned out to be a 3 week process because I was only able to work weekends. My weeks have been pretty much the same until this past weekend where I didn't have to work and I was able to ride Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I've been getting out as much I can during the week and making some money while cross-training during the weekend. I might have to work this weekend, it won't be so bad now that we got about 12 feet of snow! Snow day yesterday was awesome even though I didn't get much done because I was tired from all the outdoor riding. It's crazy how much of a toll the cold takes on your body, but push through it and the body will adapt. The only thing that keeps me going when my hands and feet are numb is that it will only make me stronger. I'm pumped for the third year exercise physiology course I'm going to have with Dr. Cheung to understand the scientific explanation behind those adaptations.

Hmm, what else? I tried to ride the Hood sometime last week and the trail wasn't packed in at all so I stayed on the ski doo tracks for a couple hours. Today I didn't even bother with the outdoors because I had a 2 hour window to get some tempo done so that brought me to my first trainer ride of the year. Thursday mornings are good for trainer rides because I don't have much time and tempo work is pretty efficient on the trainer. Tomorow I'll try and get out on some trails, I have a loop in mind, depends on the weather and tonight's festivities.

Now that De Cal has announced it I guess it's official; I'll be riding for team Liberty! Bicycles this season, big thanks to Kurt for how generous he's being for us. The guys at Handlebars are awesome but it's hard to build a solid relationship when the shop is over the border and I am rarely racind there on top of that. Great group of guys though and I hope to see them when I head over there for some racing.

Now that training is in good swing, I wouldn't say full swing yet, I'll post up here a bit more often. Frostbike is coming up quick, then before you know it it'll be race season. Some big days on the calendar include National's for road racing because it's real close for the next couple years, there's Hardwood because it'll be my first legit Canada Cup, and of course Green Mountain.

Oh yeah and this thing needs some pictures once in a while, so next post will have a few of those... maybe. It's pretty darn cold out to stop and take some snapshots and I'm not one for self-portraits on the trainer. So maybe pictures will have to wait a bit afterall, ok now I'm just wasting your time. Later.

This should be interesting

2011-01-05T23:06:00.002-05:00

It's 11pm and in an hour I'll be heading off to work, I'll get to that in a bit.

Starting from where I left off at the last post, Christmas was fast approaching and if you've watched TPB Christmas Special then you've learned everything you need to know about what Christmas is all about. I'm not gonna lie, I was drunk for 5 days straight, then when the dust settled I went for an awesome mtb ride with De Cal and since then I've been riding alot on the mountain bike. Before the heat and rain came the trails were so amazing I couldn't not go for a ride. New year's came and went, not much to say about that night, really, I worked from 5pm-3am in the kitchen because the other dishwasher that was supposed to be with me cancelled at the last second. My breaks consisted of beer, tequila shots and when it was midnight I drank some champagne, then some more, and more. Before I knew it it was 3am and I was finally done all the dishes, I was heading out calling around looking for some place to enjoy my buzz but apparently everyone passes out early on new year's. Whatever, I drove to work so I needed to find a ride regardless of where I was going.

I just thought of a good resolution now; learn how to fix my freakin bikes. I only thought of it because that's what I've been doing anyways, I got my cross bike and beater mtb working perfectly minus the avid juicy 5 adjustment. I'll give that another go when I get the chance.

I have a rough idea on what my season is going to look like but some changes to class schedule will most likely alter what my weeks will look like. Oh sweet, just though of resolution #2, stick to a training plan. Meaning proper train/recovery cycles and learn how to peak and taper for races. So, I guess I'm in Base 1 now. Had a good cross training workout today with a good 9-2 shift on the farm, since one guy from our 3 guy crew moved away to Dominican I've got to step up this crop and help out with the shipping which means in 30 minutes I'll be back the farm ready for an 8 hour shift to get thousands of chickens loaded into a truck. Then it's time for some hockey with the St. Catharines CC, hopefully I wake up tomorow afternoon because I've got to go back to work for some quality time with the scrapper, shovel, and tonnes upon tonnes of good ol' chicken shit.

Happy new year!

Then til now

2010-12-21T10:01:00.003-05:00

I'll try and do a recap on what's been going on since my birthday from how much I can remember, more on that in a bit.

So after giving 'er for a couple of days I had to settle right back down in the books because exams were right around the corner. The weekend before exams was my best weekend for training this off-season, mtb ride in the hood on Friday with De Cal, I rode out to Jordan Saturday morning with plans to ride with the junior SpiderTech team but apparently I was a few minutes late. I stuck around for about half an hour in case they were still coming but nope, I was late. Sunday I hit the trails again but this time with running shoes, great trail run with Al Deschamps and Molson. Monday I was back at the hood again with De Cal doing some secret Frostbike training.

Since then I haven't been back on the bike, jusy burried in the books and going on some good hikes with the dog. Rides, hikes and study seshions have been fueled by pitas and espresso. Of course among other things because studying always makes me hungry. My first exam was Tuesday morning and my last one Saturday night, they all went really well even my Saturday night exam that had me somewhat stressing ended up being one of the easiest ones. All week I was looking forward to a good ride Sunday morning before hockey but the game was at 1 so that ment for a somewhat early wake up, well that didn't happen because everyone knows what goes down the night after your last exam.

That brings us to yesterday, oh boy let me tell you about yesterday. The day started off really shitty with another missed riding opportunity, I got out for a good hike with the dog. Went to school to try and sell my books, only sold one, made 60$, not too bad. Drove to the dentist office where my mom works to get my wisdom teeth pulled out, I was hoping for the gas mask to knock me out but apparently I was getting conscious sedation instead. They gave me those 2 little blue pills and the sunglasses, I waited and waited, 30minutes later still nothing. They gave me a shot of something that started with a Z and another one of those blue pills crushed under my tongue so it would get abosrbed quicker. A little while later, still nothing, another one crushed under my tongue and the Dr. came in to do his thang.

You'd think I'd be out cold with double the recommended dose of the knock-me-out special and a shot of some stuff that was supposed to relax me and help the blue pills absorb, but no. They say not to eat a few hours before because the pills work better and the only thing I had was toast about 6 or 7 hours before that, it's not like I'm a big guy, maybe the doctor went for the cheap drugs, I don't know. The only thing I do know is that I was fully alert when he was hammering, slicing, and pulling away in my mouth. I got another thing done too, forget the name and don't feel like looking it up but he burned off two muscles just inside my lip because they were pulling and causing recession of my gumline. The smell that the burning created wasn't very pleasing I must say.

When I got up from the chair I had a hard time finding my balance but other than that I was fine and alert, got home and don't remember much except for fighting the worst headache of my life all night because I refused to take a T3 with the fear of an OD after all the shit they gave me at the office. So now I'm sitting here, in a decent calorie deficit because eating sucks right now, trying to munch on some apple pie to get something in my stomach. I know I'm not right when I have to force myself to down some apple pie, especially during the holidays.

Exam/final grades should be posted up soon, so should the 2011 road o-cup schedule so those are 2 things to look forward to... oh yeah and CHRISTMAS!

Happy Holidays!

Birthday present

2010-12-07T12:51:00.002-05:00

So big 19 today, no big deal you know.

Got a present from Chico this morning here, seems a bit better than last year but the provincial champs are way out in September, second weekend, right after Green Mountain which I'm planning on racing, maybe in the S1 cat, who know's, we'll see how she goes. Haha that rhymed.

I checked the schedule for the Canada Cups as well and it's possible that I'll be racing the first 2 Canada Cups which are in Québec on back to back weekends. I have lots of family that live close to both the venues that would be happy to see me for a week or 2. Or I could be doing road races those weekends, we'll see what falls on which date. I'll defenitely be racing the local stuff, Frostbike should be a good party, hopefully there's a Tour of Pelham this year, CDMBR and hopefully the Lake to Lake if there are no road races on that day. The weekend after L2L is National's and since it's in Burlington I'll be racing that fe sho so I'd like to do a tough S1/2 road race the weekend before to get ready for it.

My focus this year for road is going to be sprinting, I'm pretty heavy for a cyclist considering my height (5'10'' ~175ibs.) so maybe I can put that weight to good use this season in the sprint or a solid leadout for a teammate. The end of the season will probably be the same as this year but having the xc provincials in the mix, Paul's, Marathon Champs, Squeezer then cross time.

That's the rough idea for the season right now, things will change by the start of the season no doubt. I'm getting pumped for next year already, I realise I haven't done any posts on cycling since cx national's so I'll talk about my training for December. I've been trail running/hiking and mountain biking and sometime tomorow I'm going to stop by the school to get a gym membership so I can start pumping some iron and swimming. Some days I get super motivated and do some core and other days I sit on my ass and eat alot. I play hockey on Sunday afternoons, nothing serious, just the beer leagues with paps.

My goal for the month is simply to establish a good, regular training routine with cardio stuff 6 days a week, weight lifting 3 days and have some sort of core/stretching routine on a (almost) daily basis. Maybe I'll even get one of them foam rollers I've been saying I would get since one of the first mtb o-cups this year.

No title

2010-12-06T20:19:00.002-05:00

I guess I clicked "new post" on Nov.25 and that window has been minimized until today...

It took a while, but here it is

2010-11-25T14:23:00.005-05:00

So last I left off I was talking about how the increase in red blood cell count would increase the potential amount of oxygen your blood can carry at a given time, would this increase VO2Max? Theoretically it should right? Noah provided a good short reading from JAP in the comments of the last post on the trainability of VO2Max, maybe a good post for next semester when I'm taking the 2P09 physiology class.

The importance of red blood cell count is pretty easy to understand, a red blood cell has a pigment called hemoglobin that has a heme (iron) component responsible for the red coloration of the blood as well as the color of what we excrete after it's broken down and a globin (protein with 4 polypeptides) component. The oxygen binds to the iron component and the amino acids of the polypeptide component bind CO2 to be carried away from the tissues and out by way of the lungs. There are 4 heme components per red blood cell and each one can carry one molecule of oxygen, when oxygen is bound to hemoglobin it becomes an oxyhemoglobin. The reason that carbon MONOxide poisoning is so dangerous is because the iron of the hemoglobin has a higher affinity to carbon monoxide than it does to oxygen, the hemoglobin will pick up carbon monoxide and it will take up one of the 4 spots it would have for oxygen. The more carbon monoxide that a red blood cell picks up, the less oxygen it can carry, you're slowly suffocating yourself.

So, more red blood cells means more oxygen can be carried in the blood at a given time, which means more fuel for the working muscles and because road and mountain bike racing require big aerobic efforts and use up quite large quantities of fuel, the more oxygen they have at their disposal the better. How can we get more of those little red things? A red blood cell is also called an erythrocyte and the production of erythrocytes is called erythropoiesis. There are cells in the red bone marrow with receptors for a certain hormone, when this hormone reaches those receptors it stimulates the cells to transform, multiply, and synthesize reticulocytes secreted into the blood and eventually (1-2days) it loses its remaining polyribosomes and becomes a mature erythrocyte. It would make sense that the hormone would be called erythropoietin (EPO), it's secreted by the kidneys and liver when it sense a state of hypoxemia; a deficiency of oxygen in the blood stream. The reason for the lack of oxygen could be from a number of things, but when you're exercising hard and blood can no longer keep up with the large oxygen demand of the tissues they enter a state of oxygen deficiency called hypoxia. When there is less oxygen in the air (lower partial pressure), such as at a higher altitude, the kidneys are already sensing a state of hypoxemia even before training begins and the body adapts by increasing hematocrit, or red blood cell count, to accommodate the needs of the body's tissues.

As you all know, for some, EPO doesn't come solely from the kidneys and liver, you can call these people blood dopers, although they aren't the only kind. Everyone has heard the famous quote from Dr. Ferrari that "EPO is as safe as orange juice", well not that I'm pro-doping in any way whatsoever but from a physiological point of view he's right. EPO will increase hematocrit, or how much of the blood do erythrocytes make up, and therefore make the blood thicker and harder to pump, but unlike the lungs, the heart is trainable and can overcome this disadvantage. The heart is trainable because it consists of a thick layer of myocardium, or muscle of the heart, that can increase the strength of each contraction, the ventricles stretch more each time they dilate and the more they stretch the stronger the contraction because it has more blood to eject. An endurance athlete should have a low resting heart rate because, at rest, the heart can supply the body's needs in fewer beats in one minute than it could if it wasn't trained. Also, drinking more water will make the blood thinner. Although EPO is safe, it's not like you can take as much as you want without any bad effects because too much of anything, even orange juice, can have negative effects.

Orally ingesting EPO isn't the only way to raise hematocrit, when you're testing to see someone's hematocrit you have to remove a sample of blood and spin it in a centrifuge. Once the plasma has been separated from the formed elements you can remove the formed elements and re-inject them into the blood stream. Another very popular method of blood doping is to have a training camp for an extended period of time at high altitude and the "athletes" will get many tests done to keep checking their red blood cell count, the higher the count the better the blood. However, they also have to make sure that the level does not exceed the legal limit set by the UCI which is 50%, on average a person's hematocrit will be roughly 45%. This isn't a relatively large increase but a 5% gain makes a HUGE difference when it comes to endurance training and racing. Once the team "doctors" are satisfied with the number, they remove the blood and store it at the proper temperature, those clear bags in the fridge contain red liquid gold when you're 14 days into the Tour and every energy source in your body is being depleted as you speak. A fresh bag of quality blood is more than the body could ever ask for.

So, maybe after reading this you feel like doping, if that's the case then I'm very sorry but you were a cheater at heart anyways so I take that back because I'm not very sorry at all. Either way, having proper knowledge on blood doping and knowing exactly how to do it is one thing, the equipment involved is expensive as hell, it's very time consuming, it has to be done properly each and every time with absolutely no error in execution. Think about a screw up like giving person x's blood that is type A to person y who has type B blood, yeah, not good. BUT I can tell you that proper nutrition can help to increase red blood cell production; of course there's iron seeing as it's the reason the blood is red so must be kind of important, also, vitamin D and folic acid promote rapid cell division and DNA synthesis and there's vitamin C and copper that are cofactors for some enzymes that synthesize hemoglobin.

SOURCES: PEKN 1P90 course notes & Physiology and Anatomy 5th Edition by K.S. Saladin

The time has come

2010-11-19T19:11:00.005-05:00

I told myself that the day I couldn't walk my dog over to the park, play, and come back without feeling out of breath would be the last day that I would be totally physically inactive. Well, today I walked in the door with my head down as I tried to hide my deep breathing, so why am I out of breath? You've heard it just as often as I have "I could hardly breath" or "my lungs couldn't take it anymore". Well, although that is how you FEEL, it is not what is occuring from a physiological standpoint. Your lungs are providing your body with enough oxygen but due to reasons such as nitrogenous waste build up in your muscles, the oxygen being delivered to your muscle tissues is insuffice. Even with no metabolic by-product build up, you're feeling out of breath because your tissues are depleted of oxygen, not because you aren't breathing hard enough. So, it's not that YOU are out of breath but your tissues are out of breath so to speak.

You're going to feel as though if you can just inhale a little more air you'd be able to keep the effort or take it up one more knotch, you're breathing harder and harder as you ramp up the effort but no matter how hard you breath you're still feeling out of breath, don't try and take deeper breaths. Breathing rate and strength will increase from sympathetic stimulation triggered by insuffice oxygen (fuel) being delivered to the tissue, so long as your breathing isn't abnormal then you're fine.

Why can't the lungs be trained? Because the lungs are not muscles, plain and simple, think about it, if your lungs were able to take in more air then they would need to get bigger, if they were able to get bigger then they would have the potential to outgrow the cavity in which they lie. You can argue that the muscles involved in respiration can be trained, notably, the diaphragm, external and internal intercostals, and the transverse abdominus during forced exhalation. But, these will not increase your vital capacity (amount of air you can inhale and exhale during maximal inhalation and exhalation), they MAY be able to increase the force at which the air enters the lungs but not the amount of air. This would have very, very little, if no significant effect on performance because the diaphragm and intercostals don't have a hard time inflating a couple of bags with air to begin with anyways.

If your lungs are taking in enough oxygen then why are your tissues not getting enough? Well, as I mentionned previously, it could be a build up of metabolic waste that is inhibiting exchange and overall muscle function for other reasons that can become a whole new discussion of their own or your blood isn't able to bring your muscles enough fuel. Therefore your tissues are in a state of hypoxemia and a message is sent from your brain to your heart telling it to increase cardiac output because increasing blood flow is how your body increases the rate of nutrient delivery. Vessels that do not supply your working muscles become constricted to increase blood flow to the muscles that need it most, this is why if you were lying on the couch and you were to get up and do some sort of intense physical activity right away if would feel like your lungs are about to collapse.

VO2Max will come into play for delivering enough oxygen to the working tissues as well because it's the effeciency of O2 uptake, this is not trainable either. If you're VO2Max is as high as Trevor's then you don't have to stress yourself out about it but if it's somewhat low, no worries, there are ways to overcome it. Most importantly, increasing red blood cell count, or how much oxygen is being transported in the blood and makes its way to the tissues in need.

So, how to we increase red blood cell count? Well, that is also a whole other discussion and within the next couple days I will post up the process of producing red blood cells and the legal and illegal ways of going about doing it.

*Note: I am by no means an expert on physiology but I do think I have a pretty good understanding of what I've learned so far, feel free to add to or argue what I have written*

Crunch Time

2010-11-12T10:33:00.002-05:00

Every semester there is one week that is just rediculously overloaded with stuff to do, well that happens to be next week for me. Three big midterms worth about 20% each (different classes of course) in four days, plus a 10 page project I've yet to start and some French work thrown in there. It could have come at a little better time, like say next week so I can do one more race this weekend to attempt to end the season on a somewhat high note but at this point it seems pretty much impossible.

On top of all the work due next week I picked up a shift Saturday night because this season and schooling has left me with roughly 87 cents in my bank account, so not only do I not have the time but I don't have the money either to race this weekend. My funds wouldn't have lasted me through the season if it wasn't for the support from my rents, Chown, Liberty! and many more people who have helped me here and there along the way so big thanks to all of them, you know who you are.

I which I could say something like "well, it's time to relax and sit on the couch for a few weeks before I start getting back into things" but it's more like: Well, it's time to go ape shit for the next couple weeks to try and get all my work done while trying not to OD on caffeine then I can relax for a bit while I wait around for my 19th birthday! Then it's go time for a few days then I've got some finals to study for, so far it looks like I might hit 180-185 by the end of December, maybe I'll try and loose a few of those pounds before 2011 race season comes around, but who knows, the only off-season goal I've set for myself so far is doing the Belly Buster challenge at M.T. Bellies, many brave men have tried and failed, I've just got to focus on building up the courage and going for it.

CX Nationals

2010-11-09T20:14:00.004-05:00

Well, not much to report on this one. I thought I was feeling alright the week leading up to it, the course was pretty quick so I liked that, it was a good thing I met up with Chown before the course pre-ride because he passed me a rear wheel, big thanks for that.

I was called up first row because I registered early, felt pretty good at the line but when the gun I went I just seemed to go backwards. From there on it was just falling further and further behind until I was one of the last guys, I got pulled just before the start/finish on my second last lap. He wouldn't have caught me but the 80% rule was in effect, I was happy to be done. Not sure what's going to happen this weekend, I would really like to hit up the KB race but I have 3 mid terms next week starting Monday so a solid few days of studying will be needed.

Huge props to Perry for his National Title.

My tubular tire still isn't reglued from when I rolled it at Parma in warm up so I need to get on that before this weekend for sure if I'm going to race. Tomorow could be a hard effort in the dark with the St.CCC folks, should be fun.

Parma CX

2010-10-31T23:05:00.005-04:00

Opted out of racing in the blizzard and did a race across the river instead, it was also the state champs so I figure some good competition would be out. Kind of the same field as Cobb's Hill, but a few more good guys.

Headed out from De Cal's with his awesome parents in good time and arrived at Parma with plenty of time before outr 2:45 start so we shot the shit with watt and moote while watching McCarthur destroy the SS race and doing pretty good on a geared rig. Got changed into some some sweat pants and a lumberjack jacket for warm up, rode around some trails in the park with AD and did a few laps of the course before the start. Oh yeah, I also had two unfortunate incidents, I rolled a tubular and the other one I don't want to talk about.

The course could have been a little longer and maybe had a few more "cross" features, the stairs carved into the hill was pretty cool and so were the off-camber sections around a tree, both rideable but the second one was quicker to dismount and do a Tarzan swing around the tree. But other than those it was just a few turns, a couple straights, a couple barriers and some gravel. Our race ended up being 12 laps and the winner was most likely well under an hour, definitely the shortest cross course I've ever raced in my long career as a cross racer.

I got a call up so that was pretty sweet, lined up outside ride, I was feeling the hole shot today and actually got er. Motored through the little off camber turn before going up and had a tiny gap but shut down by the time I turned my head back. I got cut off by a few guys who really wanted to get out front for some reason and just kept moving backwards from there. Got dropped real quick by AD and Lance, then settled in train with Roden and Craig. We were working good at one point and closing in on Lance. I was getting a little tired and took the barriers for granted, hopped the first one and didn't even get the wheel up for the second one and over the bars I go, wasn't too bad though. Lost the 2 guys and couldn't get back to them by the end, oh well, it was fun. It was even snowing a little at one point.

Before the race I really wasn't feeling it, but after a massive coffee from McD's, riding some cool trails around the park and seeing a massive buck running through a corn field jumping about 6 feet in the air as he ran for the trees I was ready to go. I wasn't feeling too bad at the beginning at all, just couldn't seem to ride my bike. No matter how hard I was pushing I was just being too inefficient and steadily moving backwards, the train with Roden and Craig would have been awesome to stay on for the rest of the race, maybe we would have even reeled in Lance.

Huge thanks to Rob for the wheel after I rolled my tub, Moote was ready to pass one as well so that's just awesome. And of course to De Cals' parents for everything from the drive to an amazing post-race Italian feast. Our small group of Canadians did really well and had the best cheers by far. Maybe I'm going to put in more than 2 hours on my bike this week and hopefully have the form to battle it out for U23 Nationnal Champ, oh yeah, there might be a few other guys there that might be a little faster than me. Or alot faster and there's no chance in hell that I can beat them unless both their pit bike and race bike explode to pieces, whatever.

Kelso Cross

2010-10-26T10:24:00.005-04:00

Woke up to a perfect day for some cross racing; warm(ish) and muddy. I wasn't too sure how mud factor would play out because I had never done a cross race in the mud before, I guess it went alright.

Same start to the day, only I arrived at De Cal's a little earlier and we got smaller coffees, loaded up the SUV and we were off. Got to Kelso with plenty of time to get ready and cruise around for a bit, we hopped on Saturday's course and followed the tracks, I was first to crash then De Cal went down. Cruised around some more and got lined up front row on the outside, I had joked before that I wanted the hole shot, but then you're front row and there's nothing in your way it seems very possible. GO, nailed the start and was even with Chown, he could have been agressive and been first out of the corner but he told me to go so I went for it and started hammering up the climb in the lead. It didn't take long for him and Hughes to come flying by.

From there it was just moving backwards until I found a comfortable pace, then I realised that it was a one hour race, there is no comfortable pace! That's the whole point. Oh yeah, and De Cal motivating me to grab his wheel after he had dropped me helped as well. So the second paved climb I attacked but only Kevin Black stuck with me, not what I wanted, but no big deal. We kept hammering and next thing I knew I was in a train with Kevin and Marco Li and we were catching Peter Morse, we made contact on the first paved climb but by the second one he was gone.

That brings us to about 3 to go, there's a soupy sweeping left hand bend at the top of the course around a pavillion, there was nothing too hard about it but I started taking a few more risks to hang with Li and Black so I can attack them on one of the climbs and hopefully get away. I was taking the turn relatively quick and down I went, head first to the ground, good thing it was soft mud or I might have knocked myself out. Instinct is to grab your bike and go and figure it all out when the dust settles, the only thing wrong was that I was a little dizzy and didn't realise that I was kicking about a foot away from where my pedal was to clip in.

The rest of the race was spent chassing but no matter how hard I went it seemed like they just kept pulling away. Crossed the line in 8th, not bad, 6th would have been better but I was trying to ride beyond my ability to hang with them and crashed, sometimes she doesn't go. Even though I was climbing better than them I was just too inefficient around the stakes and using up too much energy blasting out of every corner just to try and hang on.

Big thanks to De Cal's rents for the drive and professional number pinning. And to everyone who stayed and cheered us on through the greassy course, especially Rob Watt who had one hell of a sprint racing me up the first paved climb on the last lap, that's exactly what I needed.

Huge props to Chown for owning the race right from the start, should be a good time chassing him around Firemen's Park tonight.

Provincials

2010-10-23T18:20:00.004-04:00

Munchin out on some apple pie right now, gettin the glycogen stores back up for possibly another performance tomorow at the same place.

So a pretty solid race finally, I'm happy with it, it could have gone a little better when we got there though but whatever that's the way she goes. The morning was a little rushed as usual but I got to casa De Cal in good time and we hit up Starbucks for a massive coffee before heading to Kelso. Got there and noticed that the course had more than a bit of climbing but the turns looked nice and flowy. Watched Perry crush the Junior field, it was too easy for him so I tried to throw him off his game, might have worked a little.

The pre-ride was pretty good, 2 or 3 laps and some cruising around before going to the start line. Second row wasn't so great for the start but things got pretty sorted out by the end of the lap, I was sitting in around 16th through the first lap and moving up pretty good. I kept it pretty steady the entire time, gaps were closing slowly but surely and I just kept the pace high when I came by someone and rode away. I ended up closing in on Hughes and we were together for a half lap or so, he passed me going over the barriers and I watched him ride away. Stafford had a mechanical so there were only 3 espoirs left in front of me, I closed the gap on Preston and Marco Li and went by them. I couldn't shake Preston then he passed me and opened a small gap again. I had to close it when De Cal started calling me names for slowing down only because of some lower back pains, I had no choice but to suck it up.

I had a good boost with 3 to go and passed Preston and Kyle Douglas on one of the climbs shortly after the run-up and rode the rest of the race with Marco Li. I thought I had the podium spot locked but when I saw Stafford flying a few turns back I knew it would take one hell of an effort to hold him off. I picked up the pace but he still caught me no problem, I rode with him for a bit but couldn't hold the pace and he was gone. I put in a good dig at the end because I was feeling pretty good, too bad there was no one to sprint with.

I'm about 85% sure I'll be racing tomorow, I have yet to do a cross race in the mud so that should be a fun time. I was going to pass on it because of school work but I was convinced to get on that tonight to free up some time tomorow for some cyclocross fun.

Huge thanks to De Cal for the drive and even though the authorita did not let him participate he was still super pumped and motivating me when I was starting to fade, I'm going to hire someone to heckle me while I'm racing, but no pay because I'm pretty darn broke.

Toronto UCI

2010-10-19T12:00:00.003-04:00

Well, another botched go at cyclocross, oh well, I learned how to remount a cross bike the right way so no more scooter pushing!

Day 1 went a little smoother than day 2, my start position was pretty good after a guy on the left couldn't clip in and held quite a few people up. At one point I was right behind Watson, so he was held up big time. Once the pack got sorted out I found myself pretty far back and lower back pain had already kicked in by the end of the first lap. I rode with De Cal for a while but him and John Roden eventually rode away from me, about a minute later we were pulled. Frattini was coming up on us quick, I knew from the start this was innevitable.

Had an awesome dinner at De Cal's Saturday night, the morning of day 2 was much calmer than the morning of day 1 when me and paps were driving around the wrong side of Centennial Park looking for the race. I got in a few warm up laps before the start, I liked this course alot more, it was longer but it was much easier to carry some speed through. Start was a little shaky but there were plenty of sections to pass up ahead, hopping the barriers I somehow managed to kick the cantilever undone, it was the back one so I had to pull over because it would be pretty sketch with only a front break. Chased from dead last for a while, start moving up then managed to pick up about 40 feet of tape, it got nice and ravelled in the cassette. Chased again for a while, started riding with Kiernan O. but ran out of time and Frantini came by me in the sandpit.

The weekend was a great experience racing in a stacked field, I'll give'r another go this weekend at Provincials.

Big thanks to the De Cal's for the drive and fooood. More than one o because it was alot of food.

Cobb's Hill

2010-10-10T20:12:00.002-04:00

Another beautiful day in October for some cyclocross action, headed to Rochester with Aly and Neil Armstrong and their future-physicist son Zander. Neil was racing at 12:30 so that gave me enough time to scramble around trying to get my front brake problem sorted out before the start, good thing Moote was there to help me out big time. Thanks bud.

After a few laps I got lined up and was feeling alright, it was a course that suited me big time but during the pre-ride I really wasn't feeling it at all. I found some motivation and we were off, settled into 4th in the lead train and started to come around a bit, heading into the singletrack the pace was a little slow and I thought I would actually move up. Well, long story short, 4 laps later I had dropped down to 8th or so and was actually thinking my lower back wouldn't make it for the remainder of the race. I went from feeling confident enough for a spot on the podium to hoping the leader would come around soon so I could do one lap less, finally with 2 to go he came around so that became my last lap.

Not my day at all, hopefully this isn't the point in the season where it's all downhill from here, I've got to stop with the negative thinking. OK, so looking for a sweep next weekend, rack up some UCI points and have the form come around in time for the World Cups overseas where I should be able to land a spot on a pro team, no problem.

Thanks again to Neil for the drive and everything, and to Zander for the entertainment.

ZM Oktoberfest Cross

2010-10-05T21:20:00.005-04:00

This is what a race report sounds like when I didn't wear my argile socks... Or barely put any glue on my tubular, one of those two.

Headed out to Toronto in the pouring rain with a pretty bad cold and a big cup of coffee, I really wasn't looking forward to racing once we got around Hamilton and it was raining even harder and there was quite the wind, being new to cross I'm still a little soft for the rough weather. I figured that the streak of dry courses had to come to an end sooner or later since it's fall in Ontario, but when we got to Mississauga it was pretty much bone dry, still too cold for my liking. I grabbed a breakfast omelette from subway and crossed the street to top off the breakfast of champions with some carbs and another coffee from Tim's. I chilled around the St. Catharines CC tent while I watched the earlier races, Etzl totally destroyed the junior race, Visser is a sandbagger and Neil rode so hard he knocked himself out. All in all, great riding from members in the St. Catharines CC.

I threw on way too many layers for my course pre-ride and by the time I got lined up I was pretty much sitting in my own personnal sauna, 5 minutes later it was turning into a fridge; moisture on the body doesn't go good with cold. Start was pretty sketchy, pretty much a funnel, good way to spread guys out I guess. I was pretty far back, myself and De Cal were stuck in a train of guys taking the turns pretty slow and it was a pretty hard course to make some good passes so we were stuck until it opened up. I moved up before the start of the big steep climb and rolled the rear tubular before I even started climbing, ran to the pits from there instead of simply rolling it back on and riding easy to the pits, the whole thing was off so maybe it wouldn't have stayed on anyways. Good thing Neil was there to lend me a hand and his wheel so I can get going before Stafford came around.

Once I got going again I was just out there to have a good time and get a good workout in, it was a really fun course but most were saying it wasn't really a "cross course", I haven't done nearly enough races to have an idea of what that might be, but I can say it was pretty different from the other ones I've done. On the third or second last lap I started to ride harder and pick up time where I can; like running the log hop and the sand in the playground and actually stayed with the guys that were coming around for a bit. The last lap was a battle with the second placed M1, he took me right at the line.

So not as successful as Saturday but cross is fun so it was a good day anyways, big thanks to Neil for the drive and for being the pit-man for the local guys in the 1 oclock race. He was riding pretty strong before his incident, oh well, shit happens, at least the form is there. Chown had a pretty solid ride from what I saw when he blew by me, results show De Cal didn't do so bad for being in total off-season mode.

I just finished munching out after some solid cx training, hammering on a slick course is an awesome way to clear up the sinuses before bed. Steve DeBoer has set up an awesome cross course at a top secret location where no miserable people are giving us shit for riding on the grass that their dogs like to shit on. Neil and myself have a good system going now for Tuesday and Thursday cross nights, I get scooped from school as long as I provide the coffee, so big thanks to him for that as well.

First of many Unit Exams tomorow, should be awesome.

Romp in the Swamp

2010-10-04T12:34:00.005-04:00

Crossed the river for a cross race put on by Handlebars at Buffalo U, pretty sweet campus, too bad starbuck's doesn't take monopoly money. I started the day with a pretty greasy breakfast from the gas station we met at in NF before hopping in the Canadian Cyclist magazine van with their big-time editor Dan Dakin. No delay at the border so we got to the course early enough for some awesome free pastries while watching the M2 and Women's race, good rides Neil, Aly and Leslie. It was great to be able to sit in one spot and see a huge chunk of the course, it was too cold to walk around anyways at that point.

Got in three or four pre-ride laps after them and lined up at the fron on the outside, this was the first time I can feel a really fast heart rate at the start. I took the hole shot but it didn't take long for Chown to come around, I got in front before the final set of turns before the start/finish to take the first lap prime, oh yeah, no first lap prime. So I started off a bit fast for no reason and started loosing some ground to Peter and Nathan for the next lap, I was towing Greg around the course for I didn't mind because the gap wasn't getting too big from the leaders. Peter rolled a tubular and Chown just sort of rode away effortlessly so it was now a race for second while trying to hold off the others.

Nothing too much exciting happened until the last lap, I had led the back stretch (one of the only parts of the course where drafting was a big advantage) for the last 2 or 3 laps so it was his turn. He took it really slow to conserve something for the sprint but for the first time in pretty much ever, I waited and waited until just before the pavement that brings you to the last set of turns. I took off and saw I had a good enough gap to take the sprint, I pushed really hard for the sprints anyways because it's fun.

Awesome food afterwards, amazing prizes, only 30 bucks race fee, how can you go wrong? I won some Avid Shorty Ultimates, and even some cash. Stopped by Handlebars afterwards with Chown and met the guys I've been racing for all year, sweet shop and good bunch of workers there. Big thanks to Dan for the drive up and Chown for the drive back and to everyone who helped put on this event.

The time is gone, the season's over, thought I'd something more to say

2010-09-30T20:40:00.002-04:00

The leaves have pretty much all changed colours and have already started to fall, the trails are no longer lines of dirt in the distance, now just a big cluster of leaves and branches. I've gotten into the swing of things for school and the cross bike is starting to come around thanks to a quick pit stop at Liberty! today (thanks). I've decided that the mountain bike race season is over for me, after an awesome night ride on Wednesday night with JF and the boys from Hamilton, I realised that I just want to enjoy what is left of the none-snow riding conditions before we get to that point in November-December where the trails are too wet to ride and we have to wait for the snow to cover them. I'll go hard Tuesday and Thursday nights on the cross bike and go for fun mountain bike rides when I have the time on other week days, so probably one a week.

I'll be doing the races listed on the right and possibly a few across the river until I have no motivation to go hard left, hopefully I can get a few solid races in before that. The only iffy thing about training this time of the year is that it's the easiest time to catch a cold because everyones immune systems weaken simultaneously with the drop in temperature and the strong presence of new bacteria and viruses because everyone is getting sick, causing a negative spiral of sickness until the right antibodies and macrophages are recruited. Hopefully the season doesn't have to end that way but if it does, so be it, that's just the way she goes. I'm being very careful by always wearing multiple layers on my chest and eating a whole lotta greens, to the point where I'm eating baby spinach right from the box like De Cal showed me at Elliot Lake.

So, what have I learned this year from road and mountain bike racing? Can anyone really boil it down to two or three things in point form? Not a chance, not if you want to be realistic anyways. Every ride, there are millions of synapses firing in your brain, new bridges/connections are being formed the whole time you're riding. You learn the whole time you're riding the same way you learn from every little thing you do during the whole day, it may not be obvious or even clear what you have learned, but you're learning. During rest, your brain can sort out and store everything you've learned in long-term memory, the more time you spend resting, the more the brain can thoroughly sort out and store. What you have just learned from your ride becomes a little part of who you are until it has been totally forgotten, if it ever does, some day down the road. So, what have I learned? Ride and learn, race and learn, that's the only way to get experience because experience isn't measured in how many years you've been racing or riding but instead how many hours you're logged in the saddle riding or racing during those years as well as the quality of those hours.

I went through a pretty rough patch this season in terms of motivation on the bike, I really didn't think I would keep racing right through September, I was ready to call it quits before Buckwallow and my performance at Buckwallow didn't help much for motivation even after taking a week off work by going on vacation prior to the race. It took a while for me to really realise the importance of rest in practice and not just in theory and the amount of rest needed relative to workload, there is still alot to learn. All things that I will carry over to next season and do right this time.

I'm not going to write a recap race-by-race, but I do want to touch on one race; the Squeezer. I was asking around after the race and nobody seemed to have seen my awful start, I thought for sure since I was closest to the sidewalk that's the first thing people would notice; everyone seems to be going forward except for that guy in black who's going backwards. Turns out, I have video evidence! Look for the last racer to go by the camera in the lane closest to the camera (sidewalk), if you're good, you can listen for the loud crunching/dinging noise as I go by.

Squeezer

2010-09-27T19:44:00.005-04:00

The big local bash has come and gone, for me, it went a little something like this;

Start was awful, I got clipped in and dropped my chain about 20 times before I finally got going. I was pretty much in last and had to blow quite a few matches to catch back up to the back of the group. When we turned onto St Paul I took the far outside line, no brakes because if I slowed down I would need to stand and hammer to get going which would innevitably result in dropping my chain. I blew a few more matches to get much closer to the front and by the time we got on the gravel I was in a good spot. That turn is pretty slow though, so of course I lost pretty much all my spots when I kept dropping my chain trying to get up to speed. From there to the trail I just remember barely being able to breathe or see, ending up on the grass a few times as a result of this and just barely missing the big pile-up.

There we go, some trail, it was hard to keep up trying to spin in my little ring but I tried to keep it as smooth as I could. I forget who I was with but the guy leading our train was going super slow in Marv's new singletrack and myself, Wagler and Paziuk couldn't get by till the twisty open stuff before the first road climb. I hammered hard up that and we got a good group of 3 working together and another 3 or so hanging on to the back. I didn't mind working because we were gaining on the next bunch. Kept it smooth on the next set of trails and hammered up the second DeCew climb bringing only 2 with me. Some fast trails, road, more fast trails and next thing I knew I was with Etzy. Him, Jamie and myself were working on the road then I lost them in the trails not being able to stand and hammer out the bigger gears.

Mike from Long Sault was my carrot through Brock, along the creek and into Suzanne's. The gap stayed the same from 2 bridges until after Suzanne's, when Garrigan was closing in (he had a flat) I took it easy hoping to be able to grap his draft when he came by. Kind of worked out the same way it went for De Cal when he tried to grab Watson's wheel, I tried to gather up some motivation for a good sprint up the hill but with no one in sight there was nothing to bring out that epic effort where every single muscle in your body is flexed, mouth is open and inhaling is harder than breathing in Toronto.

Not ponying up the cash for a big ring might have been the wrong decision, but I couldn't bring myself to spending another 260 bucks on a freakin chain ring for the second time in a year, I just couldn't do it. Oh well, I'm already fired up for next year's race and despite the circumstances, I finished 18th... AGAIN. Another goal failed, but I'm happy with the effort I put in and I'm thinking a top 10 isn't unrealistic for next year, but I'm not one for long-term thinking so who knows?

Big thanks to everyone who helped put on such a great event and to Marv for building some more sweet trails, that guy is awesome.

Solid rides to De Cal and Etzl for top 10's, amazing.

The night before the Squeezer

2010-09-25T22:28:00.003-04:00

Rode the course today with De Cal, a good quick pace to open the legs up and ride the local trails one last time before we race them. I always get so pumped for this race, it's the biggest race I do during the year, so many people watching and being able to line up with all the top riders in the province from the cadets to the elites, it's sick.

It's time for bed, in 12 hours I'll be warming up then soon after it'll be go-time. It's gonna be a great race, I was hoping for some rain today to stick to tradition but a little change is always good I guess.

Plate number 14, now I gotta crack the top 15, hopefully under 1:15 as well. Took a look at the start list posted on the OCA website and the A1 wave looks pretty freakin stacked, hopefully she goes tomorow.

Oh shit!

2010-09-23T19:05:00.004-04:00

School work is starting to pick up, this year I'm doing things a little different than last year. Instead of focusing on riding before school, I'm going to actually put a little effort into my classes and see how that goes. Last year I got a little crazy with off-season training; fully dedicating myself trying to hit 24 hr weeks through November and December, not the way to go about doing things. This is the time to just relax, if I don't feel like riding or I know I've got alot of school work to do then riding is out of the question.

I love the Tuesday and Thursday night cross practices, but it's hard to find a ride there when my class finishes at 5 and cross starts around 6. Burgoyne is easier because the place is just down the hill from school, but both days it's French and my friend who has the same course drives me there in her brand spankin new Ford Focus, I don't even want to try to run the idea by her of throwing my greassy bike in there. The first one I drove myself, but not too long after that my sister drove the minivan into a hydro pole and knocked it over, she's fine but the van... not so much.

On top of that, the basement flooded yesterday because the hot water tank rotted out and water was running out of it all day. Brand new laminate flooring in and alot more stuff such as speakers and even the christmas tree are damaged and I don't even have to tell you what a pain in the ass and how corrupt the insurance companies are. Alright, I'm going to stop myself from ranting on about corruption, I'm pretty sure out of 40 hours or so of driving this year with De Cal, 30 was spent talking about corruption.

My classes this year are much better than last year because I've only got one elective this year and it's French, as in oouuuhh la bicyclette! One of my professors is the mother of one of the young guns in the club, the one and only Biran. Her class is growth and development, I call it child exercise physiology because that's what it is and it sounds alot cooler haha.

I'm going to start posting up some of the things I learn that have to do with exercising, unless you guys also want to hear about verbes and le complément d'agent, nah didn't think so.

Oh snap!

2010-09-21T21:02:00.003-04:00

Since Paul's I've been pretty exhausted, especially before noon, so this morning's lecture from 8-11 wasn't the funnest thing in the world. There was no way I was getting on a bike Sunday, but I did play some hockey, the combination of fried legs and being super rusty because it was the first skate of the year made for an interesting game. I didn't ride Monday either only because I didn't have any time at all, it's been so nice out that it's a shame not to get out for at least a short spin.

I went straight from class to cross today, I was pretty exhausted but started riding around the park and felt much better. My legs were unusually sore considering how slow I was going but after 10 minutes or so I was able to finally shift up to the big ring. I found out there was a run-up on the course so I was heading to the truck in one of my smallest gears and next thing I knew my chain was in two pieces. I haven't had any problems at all with that chain then it just suddenly snaps in two places when I wasn't even hammering. Good thing we got some cool people like Conlon in the club who let me use his pit bike, that thing rode super nice. Thanks alot man.

Did 2 laps of a pretty tough course, then rest, then 2 more laps and have a close encounter with a man cutting across the course with his dogs. One would expect a sorry for such a gesture but instead I had the pleasure of receiving a nice warm f**k off. Then rest again and be told that there have been numerous complaints of destructive cyclists riding around causing alot of damage to multiple blades of grass and we needed a permit to be there, then one more all-out lap. I felt alot better than I thought I would during the efforts but I was faiding big time on the second lap, hopefully after another easy day I'll be tip-top at Thursday's cx practice.

I found out that although I might not have a natural talent for fixing my bike, I'm sure good at taking it apart. The only thing left on my road bike is the crankset/bb, I don't think I have the tools to take it off and I can't find anything online on how to do it. I'm hoping to get it all cleaned up, re-greased, re-cabled and re-bar taped before the end of the mtb season to free up the stand to get some work done on my cross bike. The saddle seems to be at the right spot now but needs to be raised a bit and the hoods need to be moved around and maybe a longer stem.

Got my Ambrosio Nemesis' in today, pics soon to come!

Paul's Dirty Enduro 100km

2010-09-18T22:24:00.006-04:00

What an epic race, I can pretty much sum it up like that. There's nothing better in the world than nearly 100km of singletrack in one day.

Started off really slow, maybe too slow, but I remembered that the first 20km means nothing. I got caught by a couple guys and we rode together for a bit, they told me we were on perfect pace for a 7 hour finish time, I sure as hell didn't want to be riding that long. We were already 14km in, so I picked it up til the first feed zone. Topped up one bottle then headed off with a higher pace. Finally caught the lead female who was going really strong, I kept on going solo til the second feedzone with no one ever in sight. The only things keeping me on edge were the sounds of the forest that had me thinking someone was close by, but anywhere I looked I couldn't see anyone.

I arrived at the second feedzone feeling super fresh, Bretton Matthews and SS guy were just leaving. I stopped for a bit, took my arm warmers off and grabbed some fresh bottles, I even stayed for a PB&J sandwich and some banana and found out I was already 18 minutes behind the leader, which wasn't De Cal yet. I felt really strong so after I got rid of angry legs I picked up the pace. I only rode with Bretton and SS guy long enough to know they were from Midland, or Kitchener, I can't remember anymore and that SS guy's favourite band was from where I'm from before I rode away from them. I was riding strong and was hoping that someone would appear in the distance, but nothing. I heard the 60km start cheers and made my goal to hold off all of them, third feedzone and I'm still feeling strong, got some more PB&J, threw a banana in the jersey and kept on going hard. It was frustrating not seeing anyone and I had some stupid crashes just from losing focus.

I was hoping to either get caught or catch someone soon so the time went by a little quicker. Still no one close by when I got to the fourth feezone, I wasn't feelinf tired at all yet so I was hoping to be able to pick it up even more and have enough to finish strong. I tried picking it up and had to drop the pace within 10k or so, I got dropped by the 60k leaders and... ah man I can't remember what happened for the last 2 feeds but at the last one I was 15 minutes down from De Cal, that got me motivated but "motivation means nothing if you don't have the legs" as Lance has said. I had nothing left, it was discouraging how slow I was going but I was close to the end and was just hoping to hold my spot. Finished just ahead of JC from the 60k, apparently he was riding behind me for a while, I didn't notice.

I'm happy with just finishing, I was hoping for a top 5 but 6th is quite alright. It was just an accomplishment to finish, the course was amazing, the climbs were painfully long, the downhills were long and fast, the trails were flowy and endless, it was epic. The first 40k was the thoughest part and when we came through the strart/finish I thought we were going out for another lap of it. I'm glad we didn't. I'm already looking forward to next year, my arm warmers didn't make it back from the feed and a couple bottles, but it was worth it.

I knew De Cal would win it, I would have been surprised if he didn't, 18 minutes is a pretty commanding gap. I sense a new course record set next year. JC had a solid ride for being a bit out of shape.

Big thanks to everyone who helped put on such a great event, marking that much trail so well is no easy task. The draw prizes were great and the food was delicious, what a day.

If you don't use it, you lose it

2010-09-16T21:49:00.009-04:00

But, if you overuse it, you'll lose it too.

I'm talking about fitness of course. After my race at xc provincials I figured that that was my peak, along with Elliot Lake but misfortunes had me out of both races, but I feel like I'm still getting stronger as the weeks progress. It was hard to judge my fitness during the 2 weekends off racing using only the Tuesday nighters but I knew I wasn't loosing anything. Had confirmation of that on the weekend and I know that if I would have raced the marathon a little smarter or knew how to handle my cross bike a bit I could have done a bit better, but there are always millions of "what ifs".

I'm most likely being a little too cautious right now with training but I guess it's better than what I did in April. I couldn't get out of bed earlier than 11:30 today and when I was finally up it felt like I had only slept 4 hours, not a good day to train. It's almost 10 now and I'm pretty much ready for bed, maybe it's just my system trying to fight all the new bacteria that was introduced to my body during the first few days of school. Either way, it's all about learning, trying to figure out what the happy-medium is for myself when it comes to trying to maintain peak fitness, even just trying to figure out if you've peaked or are peaking. If I don't push hard enough then there will defenitely be some loss in fitness and I know all too well what happens when you push too hard.

So I was giving cross some thought, maybe I'll give it a good go and not just a go. I spent all season looking forward to the next one and having the "I just wanna get this one over with" attitude but now that I'm happy with how things are going I'm starting to look at things more from weekend to weekend. It saddens me to think of the whole season as a throw-away and how much fun I could have had if I would have trained alot smarter. It's an awesome feeling to be super-pumped for a race, do well in it, then before you're even recovered from it you're already so pumped for the next one. So I'll go hard for cross, I'm not going to invest nearly as much money as I have on xc and road, maybe it's just that I can't because it's all going to educational purposes at the moment but I'll gor hard from a training perspective. I feel like I've got alot left to give for this season and I won't be satisfied if I end it now.

Heading out to Port Hope tomorow with De Cal, apparently the conti breakfast at the hotel has a waffle machine, I'll be all over that. A 100k mountain bike race should burn at least 10 giant waffles, maybe I'll have 11 just to be sure. I know I don't have to say it but... stoked!

A few pics from Jump the Cheeseburger, courtesy of Dr. Cheung (ok, stolen from Flickr);

Mansfield Marathon Champs

2010-09-14T10:51:00.002-04:00

Just finished my "Health and Physical Activity Promotion" course, the course title is pretty deceiving because I thought it would be something along the lines of how to make the proper bristel boards to encourage kids and not-so-in-shape people to exercise but it's not that at all. The professor is the ex-athletics director so he's got some pretty good insight on alot of things, he asked some pretty interesting questions today that get you thinking quite a bit. Makes the 3 hours go by a little quicker but I'm hoping my ass doesn't cramp up everyday from sitting in such a small chair for so long. Could be because of the race, oh yeah, the race.

So I arrived at De Cal's just before 7 and there was no time waisted getting packed up and gone, we were out of the driveway by 7. A few stops for this and that and we arrived at Mansfield, got a pretty sweet T and suited up to warm up. I found it funny how my warm up for this race was longer than my warm ups for the first o-cups at the beginning of the year, race and learn.

The start was pretty relaxed, my race almost ended very quickly when I tried to ride over the first bridge over a log and nearly ate it since it was as slippery as ice. The first hill was a hike but thankfully there wasn't much more of that, I stayed at a steady pace with no one around and slowly realled in the 2WE/3Rox train of Preston, Jamie and Cory. We rode together for quite some time, it was great to follow them in the trails because of how smooth they ride, we picked up the pace after the first feed zone because a couple SSers were catching up, can't have that. I still had a full bottle by the second feed zone and I remembered Kerton saying the 1st and 3rd weren't too far apart so I skipped it and kept riding. I was riding very smooth in the ST and going hard on the climbs, ended up realing in a guy who told me he was in 6th. Kept it steady and caught another guy from La Bici before the third feed zone so I thought I was in 5th. Right on.

Turns out I was 6th with 5th 2 minutes ahead, that got me pumped, a little too pumped maybe because I started going super hard on the DT and standing to hammer all the climbs, no one was in sight but I was hoping I can hold the pace and the guy in front was cooked. My legs were feeling great but I had to back the pace way down because of how sore my back was, upper and lower, it was awful. Coming towards the parking lot I was just happy I made it and kept my spot until we turned right and had to go up one of the biggest climbs and I saw Tim Carleton just ahead. I couldn't bridge, I was done, it was just a relief to make it to the top of the climb and crawl in to the finish alive.

I ended up finishing 6th with Tim under a minute ahead and 5 and a half minutes down from the winner. Huge props to De Cal for the win, he knew he had the win no matter what so he rode a few trails extra out there just to get some better training in for Paul's. After Sunday, I'm super pumped for Paul's, I'll have to hold back a little longer and maybe start out even slower, should be a good learning experience. Nothing much to do this week but empty the fridge and listen to some very smart people talk, maybe a ride or 2.

Jump the Cheeseburger

2010-09-13T09:14:00.004-04:00

I had a pretty good week leading up to this past weekend's races, Tuesday was the hilly course and it was pretty sweet hammering with dark clouds moving around and lightning a few miles away, looked like the big shitstorm was going to be unleashed, big disappointment. Wednesday was nothing, Thursday I rushed to get my cross bike together to make it to Chown's cross practice, I learned quite a bit in an hour or so, had a nice crash trying to take a sweeping bend too fast but it's all about learning. Friday was an easy spin on the cross bike after I attempted to tune-up the drivetrain, I've got to say, I didn't do too bad at all.

That brings us to 2 days ago, the Cowbell race called Jump the Cheeseburger for this year. Great event put on by Nathan Chown and a group of volunteers. I actually got to this race 3 or so hours early, I watched what I could of the S4/M3 race then got some spando on to ride the course, got in 3 laps before the next start, cheered on the M2s and women then got some more food and coffee before heading off looking for some singletrack. I found a couple trails but they were super short but still pretty fun. Got in another 2-3 laps before lining up.

I got clipped in pretty quick for the start and was sitting 4th going into the first corner, I thought I'd loose plenty of places quickly but then next time around I was sitting comfortably in 6th or so. I was focusing on riding the corners smooth and accelerating hard out of them, I wasn't burning any matches to pass people, just kept it smooth and waited for them to make mistakes. It worked out pretty good, gained and lost a few spots, I was doing real good at one point closing in on 5th then I started to get thirsty, really really thirsty. I was debating asking Rob Watt to throw me my bottle that was under his chair but I figured I would stick it out since we're not supposed to get a feed unless it's above a certain temperature so I gotta get used to racing thirsty for an hour or try something different before the race to stay hydrated.

Anyways, dropped down to 7th just behind Isaac Smith (big thanks to him for a bunch of St.CCC clothing) he rode away from me but I reeled him back in on one of the flat drag race sections just before the finish. I made a big mistake giving him the inside line on the last sweeping bend, he took it and got around me. That's alright, I probably would have lost the sprint anyways because when I tried to stand and hammer the chain was jumping in the back. OK, so I guess my tune-up still needs a little tune-up.

Big thanks to Chown for putting on such a sick event and for the cool prizes. Huge props to Robby Watt for his W, Wes for totally crushing the M2 field and Sara for coming 2nd in her first cx race ever. Rumour has it Chown won the sprint at the end but didn't take geometry in high school and painted the line crooked.

My cross bike needs a bit of work, function and position wise, before the next cross race which is about a month from now. After tomorow, I'm going to start taking apart my road bike, slowly of course, to clean everything and recable it. Last Tuesday nighter of the year, I'm hoping for a bunch sprint.

Feels like thanksgiving weather, smells like it too

2010-09-05T13:50:00.003-04:00

Another windy day, solid ride, but no shakes when I got home, beauty. Cross season is almost here, as well as going back to school. It won't be so bad, I'll have much more energy to get out and ride because I won't be working all day and I've got some pretty interesting classes this year. First year I only had 3 classes that had to do with my major and the rest were all electives, I had stuff like philosophy and political sciences.

I haven't made any goals for cross, just looking to improve my handling skills and have a good time with it. It's also a good way to avoid getting fat and lazy, that's for December. I'm not sure how long I'll last before I burn out, it's been a long season, I'm guessig mid-Novemeber. Once I feel that I've got nothing left, that'll be the end of my season, hopefully all goes well until then.

What remains of the race schedule is pretty much finalized, there's a conflict between the fourth U-Cup and UCI Toronto, pretty sure I'm doing the Toronto race weekend. There's also a conflict with the third U-Cup and ZM Octoberfest cross race, that's a tough decision. After the Squeezer it would be nice to get right into cross but the U-Cup series is awesome and Dave does alot of work to keep it running, it would be a bummer to not get to do any this year. Either way, I'll be racing both those weekends, so it looks like the next weekend that I have off of racing will mark the end of the season.

Time to put on some loose pants for the fish fry/JF's big 4-0 birthday party, mmmmmmmmm fooooooood.

Change

2010-09-04T13:39:00.003-04:00

Well, that has to have been in the top 5 most windiest rides I've ever done. Once again, I was late getting to the meeting point in Jordan so I spent the first part of the ride chassing. The only difference was that I was super late this time so the pack was nowhere in sight, oh, and there was alot of wind. I hammered in the headwind but never got out of my 39T, I took a few shortcuts and met up with them before Mountainview. My legs were there, but I felt like shit overall, when we stopped I couldn't stop coughin up some big loogs and they kept coming the whole way home. Once I was home I had the shakes and passed out on the couch for an hour, sweet, woke up and had a solid munch. My body doesn't cope well with pressure and temperatue changes, hopefully it's just the sudden change outdoors.

Riding in such a strong wind is a pain in the ass but you appreciate it once the ride is done because it gave such a good workout and you have an excuse for walking around the house like a zombie. Well, from the couch to the fridge and back. Oh, and I can't forget those rare times when the wind is at your back and you can ride at some awesome speeds, of course, it comes as a price.
I made my attempt at fixing my mountain bike, I've done all I could and it wasn't enough. Time to admit defeat and head on over to the bike shop, after a snooze and some more grub of course. Kill two birds with one stone and get my road shoes checked out, the cleets keep twisting on me even with lock-tite and having my foot pointed outwards kills my IT band.

Just watched José Hermida win the World Champs on the boob tube, not sure if it was live or not but it was a cool race to watch. Too bad for Schurter's mechanicals.

Good luck to De Cal tomorow, hopefully he makes his way back home with some paper. Also to Etzy, Hopky, and Perry at Green Mountain.

Good late season riding

2010-09-01T22:08:00.003-04:00

Since Thursday I got some pretty good riding done, starting with a mountain bike ride on Friday with De Cal. We hit up most of the trails in the St. Catharines area and even got on the Bruce Trail to climb up a small river before parting ways on the canal path. My mtb was working pretty horribly and I had no big ring, but other then that the ride was awesome. Nearly 5 hours of riding and a day off work, good start to the weekend.

Saturday was the hilly club ride, I was feeling awful and was late getting to the meeting point so I spent the first little while chassing the group down, good thing Hopkins dropped back to help me. I had almost nothing on the hills, Etzl was hurting pretty bad too so we crawled into Smithville together. No townline sprint. Sunday was completely different, flat and I felt great. The pace of the echelon kept picking up on the way in from Attercliffe until we reached a point where there were attacks thrown and 5 of us were left. The stretch to the townline sprint got pretty intense, haven't pushed that hard in a while.

Monday I had absolutely no strength after work, just munched out and slept. Last night was the flat Tuesday night course in North Pelham. I guess everyone was feeling pretty cooked because the pace was brutally slow, there were some decent attacks but nothing getting away for even a lap. The 10 laps felt pretty long after nearly puking twice from efforts, I actually squeezed out a half decent sprint on adrenaline alone, timing was way off though. I got a little motor pacing from my dad in the soccer mom mini van on the way home, great draft but I find a truck is better.

Today, again, not much energy. We just finished barn prep today, I was hoping for a day off tomorow to get in a mountain bike ride but I'll be working and I've still got some repairing to do on the mtb. My repairing usually results in a trip to the bike shop, so it'll probably be the TT tomorow.

I won't be doing Via Italia, I think one more weekend off racing would be wise. I'll be at the Marathon Champs and if that doesn't go completely wrong then I'll be at Paul's as well. I was thinking about my goal for the Squeezer this year, based on last year's results I'd have to beat Kinsie to do that, he was fourth U23 at Nationals. I think that's a little unrealistic, if it's a similar field then I'd be happy with a top 15. We'll see how she goes.

Days off

2010-08-26T15:28:00.004-04:00

Just finished cutting all the grass on the farm so I've got the next three days off before barn prep starts, what to do, what to do... ?

Monday I didn't do much at all but Tuesday I had a solid Tuesday nighter with the cadets and Chown. I was feeling somewhat alright after a day off, launched an early attack and had Perry and Hopkins with me in a hurry. We got away, Chown and Etzl joined us and we had a good thing going for the next 2 laps, after some attacks we were at the bottom of effingham and by the top I was completely cooked. Got dropped by my paps on the way home.

Last night I got out for an easy ride in the rain on some slick and rocky ATV trails with Nat, JF and a few guys from Beamsville, it was a good challenge just trying to stay upright on some trails. I wasn't too tired at work today but pretty sore, I'll take today easy and get a good stretch done in before bed time.

I'll get out for a solid mtb ride tomorow probably on the hood trails and do the club ride on Saturday, we'll see how she goes for Sunday. Good forecast for the weekend, sun and more sun, it'll probably rain...

Woodnewton XC Provincials

2010-08-23T09:22:00.004-04:00

This was by far my best race performance of my life, just like last year, everything came around in time for provincials.

After a moderate paced lap and 2 quick laps with De Cal on Saturday I was starting to get a good feel for the course. The laps felt crazy short, doing a lap in 23:30 had us thinking sub 20min laps for the big boys for sure. We were staying at End of the Lane B&B about 15min away on Scugog Island, the place was sick. We ended up having the whole house to ourselves and enough food for a good week, too bad we were only there one night.

Sunday morning the weather wasn't too nice, but better than hot and humid. Having the course a little slick helped me out a bit since the tires I have mounted are the Rocket Rons and with tubeless I was able to run about 22 in both tires. We had a massive breakfast and got our minds warmed up with a few games of checkers while we had some coffee. Headed out to the course for 12:30 and got everything ready, big thanks to the Etzl's for letting me use the nut that goes at the end of a quick release, mine must have fallen off somewhere. Got in a good warm up and I wasn't feeling too bad at all.

Got in the pen a little early to get a spot up front, it's amazing how much better your start can be after a good warm up and lining up first or second row. I missed my pedals a couple times on the start but no worries, I made my way up to fourth on the false flat and eventually the lead before the first set of trails. This was the first time I've ever led an o-cup, hopefully not the last. I was feeling really good in the ST but not so much on the climbs, I would lead in the trails and Matt Ellis from esteem would pull up the climbs. We had a good thing going until Zach Tatem came blowing past us on a climb, I knew the only chance I had at beating him was on the climbs and if that's where he was passing me, he was gone. So now it was a race for second, I was just pumped to be in contention for the podium.

Lap 2 I felt awful, a mix of feeling really tired and wanting to puke, Matt and I were still going at it, I knew if I started to feel better I's be able to drop him on one of the climbs because I was able to keep his pace even though I felt like shit. I focused on riding the trails as smooth as possible to save up enough energy to get away. This lap ended up being my slowest.

When lap 3 came around I was feeling great, I pushed myself really hard on the climbs but felt a little gassed in the trails to ride smooth, I dropped Matt a few times but he would make his way back to me and get in front of me before the trails so I couldn't ride away from him. Finally I got that boost of energy I needed, could have been the gel kicking in, and I upped the pace on a climb. "Have a good race" he said and I was off, the rest of the lap I was running on adrenaline since I was able to see the leaders jersey closing in on me.

Fourth lap I was way too pumped to get caught, I was totally drilling myself on the climbs, trying to stay in my big ring and forget about the on-coming cramps and massive pain in my lower back. I was still able to see 3rd in the trails but when we got to a climb I was pulling away, I knew if I could hold my spot through the back to back slow and slick single track sections I would be good. The Morka-Batty-Glassford-Jette train came by me before those sections and I followed their lines for a bit, I stayed really focused and kept upright the whole time without dabbing. I took another look back after the last climb on the doubletrack section to see I had a good enough gap to stay calm and not take any risks on the last section of trail. No other Elites came by me and it was the first time I didn't get passed by the lead juniors, I wanted to bust out a good sprint to the line but my chain is toast and I dropped it twice before saying screw it and just cruising to the line. Man was I happy.

Solid rides De Cal and the new Cadet provincial champ; Etzy. Also, big thanks to those cheering me on, it's really something to look forward to when finishing up every lap and, of course, big thanks to paps for another pro feed. Another one to De Cal for driving up and around both weekends (Elliot Lake report below), too bad he had a crappy co-pilot both times.

I was rewarded with a day off work today for my achievement, I will use it wisely with some stretching and napping. Maybe a short spin if it stops raining later, my lower back is still very sore today, defenitely something to work on in the next 2 weeks I don't race. Looking forward to some long rides to get ready for the marathon champs and Paul's, then it's pretty much cx training and racing until I burn out. School starts in just over 2 weeks, yay.

Elliot Lake Weekend

2010-08-23T08:38:00.009-04:00

Quick recap of the great weekend, my Internet was down all week so I never got a chance to post. For a better report see De Cal's blog.

Friday morning we headed out just 30 minutes behind schedule and stopped in Parry Sound for a quick ride to loosen up the legs. We arrived at Wilderness Lodge and realised that we had driven the race course, sweet, that'll be easy to find Sunday. We cooked some good grub and munched out on our patio, some bike and body tuning and it was bed time.

Saturday morning we woke up and the weather wasn't very nice, especially for a crit, unless you're De Cal. I lined up at the very back and when it was time to start I couldn't clip in, I was using Look pedals and made them super tight to try and get rid of the play. When I clipped in the pack was just 30m or so away, but we go right into a downhill, a couple sick corners where many crashed out on, then it's flat for a few pedal strokes until you take another bend and climb back up the start/finish. Super short and quick laps makes being up front very important. I rode around for 20 minutes then got pulled, oh well, made it out of there without a scratch. Stayed around to watch De Cal crush a chase group sprint then chilled around for a bit before the hill climb. Hill climb I felt awful and went too hard at the start, I thought it was going to be much longer so I played a little conservative until I realised I was 100m from the line. Oh well, gotta save the legs for Sunday anyways.

Sunday I actually felt great, I got shelled a couple times near the turn around but caught back on everytime, except for the time when I stood up to give a little effort to catch back on before a downhill and I broke a spoke. The wheel truck was between the break and the group so I had to ride painfully back into town by myself and wait around and cheer. De Cal had another solid race and just missed the Espoir podium, next year.

I'm already looking forward to the Elliot Lake weekend for next year, defenitely gotta get a good group of racers up at the Wilderness Lodge and maybe stay a little longer to get more swimming and fishing done. De Cal also taught me a lesson in fishing when he realled in a beauty large mouth bass right in front of the damn that was behind our cabin.

Noah, Etzl, De Cal, Perry and Hopkins all had a solid weekend of racing.

Here's some pics;

Mount DuFour (anyone french will appreciate the name)

Our Cabin, beauty

The Munch Station

View from the balcony

I hope my legs will still be attached

2010-08-12T17:20:00.006-04:00

Heading out for Elliot Lake tomorow morning with De Cal, the plan is to drive for 5 hours or so then stop for a ride to loosen up the legs and get some munch. Then another 4 or so hours until we hit Wilderness Lodge about 45 minutes North of the race, at the very end of highway 546. Should be a great weekend, the drive won't be so bad with the right tunes and some good scenery. Packing tonight is going to suck though because I'll always be feeling like I forgot something no matter how many times I check.

Good talk with Chown on race strategy while I was running errands in St. Kitts. I'm feeling pretty confident, well, as confident as I can be doing a century ride with the fastest guys in Ontario when I've never done a race over 100km. Good thing it's two big laps, if I get dropped I'll still get in a solid training ride, but I'm not going to think like that. Ideally, I would be the only S3 that doesn't get dropped so I can rack up some good upgrade points.

Training this week was alright, low volume/high intensity just like the previous couple weeks starting with nothing but my commute to work and back on Monday. Tuesday was the hilly race night, just 2 laps of the regular course. It was almost a replay of the previous one which was a replay of BtB, but this time I managed to make the solo bridge from the chase group to the lead group. I pushed myself super hard on the last climb to finish off a good intensity workout, I felt alright the whole time, like I could ride a really good tempo forever but as soon as I pushed any harder than that I was shutting down fast. Could have been a combination of lack of sleep and being outside in the heat all day then trying to race in it, I'm not too worried about it.

Yesterday I headed out to Dundas Valley with Nat and JF to ride some pretty sweet trails, we met up with locals Greg and Kevin and headed off for a few hours. I still can't get over some of the stuff Greg was doing, he hits the knarliest stuff that you would never think of trying in your life... with spd pedals! I took a good spill which left me with just some good scraping on my elbow and hip and some trail rash, it was one of those falls where you stop paying attention for just a second because the trail seems very easy then next thing you know you're down. Oh well, you ride and you learn.

Time to start packing, getting stoked!

O-Cup #6 Kelso

2010-08-08T20:11:00.002-04:00

Munching on some post-post race All-Bran bars, post ride was pasta and chicken wings. You know what's aggravating? The fact that these big companies like Kellogs and Quaker can advertise a product that is high in x that is good for you when they contain so much of y and z that are bad for you. People buy into this stuff and wonder why they aren't loosing weight when they are eating this crap, not that I'm trying to loose weight, but it tastes so good haha. Anyways onto the report;

I had an amazing start after a good warm up with Etzl and De Cal, felt good enough to move into 5th on the opening climb. I punched it in the following singletrack and got on Bayden's wheel. We moved through some traffic then I started loosing and gaining positions, passed 3 guys before and after the first feedzone where I didn't take a bottle. I knew I was in good position on the second climb.

The second time up hurt quite a bit more and I was surprised to see Emily Batty at the side of the trail cheering everyone on, training for Worlds I guess. I was sitting maybe 5th at this point and I wasn't feeling very cooked at all so I pushed very hard on the DT, people were drafting but I didn't mind, I wanted to move up. I realised how exciting it was to race up front, was having a good time on the rock gardens and berms, should have worn gloves though.

The feedzone was brutal for exchanging bottles, almost lost my front wheel. Took a bottle this time and punched it before the climb, I don't know where I was but I'm guessing maybe even 3rd at one point before the top of the third time up Ascencion, Trev was gone so it was a race for second. I was pumped I was in contention for a podium. I lost a few spots here and there and couldn't move up from 5th or 6th the whole lap. Coming down one of the rootier gardens I kicked the rock I always came so close to and my shoe popped out of the pedal, luckily I stayed up. Lost a spot before the feedzone but we were bridging to the group ahead then I seen a guy sprinting so I thought it was the last lap and I went for the line haha. The guys at the table told me to get back on the course from the back so I had to turn around again, got some chain suck and watched the guys I was with disappear in the trees.

So now I was racing for 7h with a couple other guys, I treated it as I was going for a podium spot since I really had no idea where I was at the time. There was quite a bit of traffic with the Master Exs and a few elite women here and there, but there were plenty of lines to take to pass so it I wasn't really getting slowed down at all. I passed Erica Bota on that rooty downhill and my shoe popped out of the pedal again but this time I didn't kick anything, pedal's loose again, probably from kicking things. This time it was way harden to stay up because it happened before the hardest part. Luckily stayed up and I pushed hard knowing it was my last lap and I might be near a top 5. Sprinted for the finish and crossed the line feeling pretty cooked and also very happy I had a good race. Looks like the form is coming around afterall.

Watched De Cal crush another sprint and headed over for some intense first aid, cooled down and talked with the Vegan Vagabond and Kerton about their races, bummer. Solid rides De Cal and Trev who dominated the Expert category today, the race was much closer if you don't count his time haha. Big thanks to paps for the drive and the pro feed.

Just checked something;

Hardwood: 84.4 upgrade points

Buckwallow: 89.6

Kelso: 91.9

Total: 265.9

I now have enough points to go Elite, defenitely not before provincials, maybe I can be convinced in the off-season. Alot depends on provincials, I'd like to get that closer to 275 so I'm hoping for a top5, a podium would be nice.

Start

Practising for a competition

2010-08-07T22:58:00.003-04:00

Kind lady: "Watch out for the arrows, we have people out practising for a competition."
De Cal: "What, you mean the o-cup?"

Good ride today at Kelso, there were times where I would be riding very smooth and my lines were bang on then I would start riding like crap. It makes a huge difference following the lines of an Elite rider and we even hopped on a Two Wheel Express/3 Rox train for a lap which helped with a few more lines. Hopefully tomorow will be all good riding and I won't see De Cal until after I finish. I didn't feel that great on the climb(s) so hopefully that changes tomorow.

This is by far the most confident I've felt the night before an o-cup, top that off with the fact that it's 11 and I'm already home from work ready for bed AND the drive is less than an hour so I don't have to be out of the house until 11-11:30 which leaves lots of time for sleep. 6 laps in total on the course and I'm pretty sure I got it somewhat memorized; grass that will tear my legs off, a climb that will rip my lungs out and a whole bunch of rock gardens and tight turns to get me recovered and ready to do it all over again... something like that.

So I remembered the camera but didn't snap a pick of the rock garden because apparently it was never in the race. I want to say it was a useless wipeout but there's always a lesson learned when you go down hard. Big thanks to De Cal for the drive.

I gave my goal for this race some thought, I would be happy with a single-digit result, top 5 would be awesome. Since I haven't cracked the top 15 yet, my goal will be top 10, but not 10th, actually come to think of it I'd still be pretty happy with 10th. Ah now I just don't know what I think. All in all, I'm just hoping for a good race.

This would have been a good time for a peak

2010-08-06T20:42:00.004-04:00

Pretty much on a every other day training plan right now, nothing but intensity when I do get out. The way I had planned my season during the winter was that I would start my peak right after the CDMBR and try and hold my "race" fitness as long as I could. When I would feel a loss in fitness that would be the end of my peak and I'd go back to long easy rides for a couple weeks then try to build something up for cross. Maybe next year.

This would have been the perfect time for a peak since I could hit all but one of my goals of the season in the next three weeks; try and get on the podium for kelso and/or provincials, get enough points to upgrade and try to get enough points at Elliot Lake for an upgrade. Regardless of my points for road at the end of the season, it's going to come down to how well I do in the 150km road race with the Elites. As for mountain bike, I won't be requesting an upgrade or taking one if I just barely get enough points unless I surprise myself at the next two races. I'm looking for 90+ points each race, I really want to get in to the top 5.

So this week I had a good ride with the club on Tuesday, a group of 4 managed to get away. Pretty much a replay of Bike the Bruce; I let them go a bit then was never able to bridge solo or with someone. Chown set me up for a beauty solo break that I was able to hold to the line then nearly pass out. Last night I headed to Kelso with Neil Armstrong, the course was sick, met up with Ian from The Hub and rode three quick laps with him. There is one rock garden that is just nuts, I'm not sure if it will be in the race or not but I'm going to ride it tomorow at least 10 times after the massive spill I took. Somehow I managed to get out of it with just a bruised ankle and some minor scrapes on my legs, could have been alot worse for me or the bike. Got back to the truck just after 8 and we headed back home. Thanks again for everything Neil.

I brought my camera with me since it came to my attention that I haven't posted any pictures (besides the last post) in quite some time. Tomorow I'll remember to snap a few shots of the rock garden I'm talking about.

In the meantime...

Pile of tires collected in the garage to make some room for...

With quite a few days off work lately I had time to pin up every number plate I've had since grade 9 from #976 being my first high school track meet to this past weekend's CDMBR where I was #69. However, I'm missing 4 races; Twilight Crit 2009 and Good Friday, Bronte, Niagara Classic from this year. The empty spot is for this year's o-cup plate.

On a very positive note, my boss is starting to realize just how important rest is and that even though working on the farm is going to make me tougher, it won't make me faster. Afterall, the lawn mowers aren't pedal powered. However, it's prime off-season training and you won't have more respect for or from your boss anywhere else and did I mention no chemical spraying in the massive gardens or growing hormones for any chickens!

Canal Days MTB Race

2010-08-01T22:34:00.008-04:00

My legs felt pretty good as I headed out the door and onto the Bauer trail, I was a little behind schedule looking at a 10:50 arrival when the race starts at 11. I got my plate yesterday when I was out there pre-riding in case of something like this but I was unsure if we needed chips. The start was delayed a bit so I had some time to chill.

I knew De Cal wanted to get a gap on right away and when he started out fast Etzl was quick on his wheel and Tom on his then me. Good thing he slowed down because my legs were already burning a bit. I got bumbed back to 5th going in the first trail, the pace was a little slow so when I had to get around DeBoer who flatted I was able to hammer back to them. First set of double I couldn't make it around Tom and when I did De Cal flatted. Rode smooth the rest of the lap and leading De Cal through a short section of ST was cool.

He went off and I lost both him and Etzy by the end of the lap. I got caught in Mud Lake but in the first section of ST I punched it on the short climbs and made a good gap. Pinned in during the second lap trying to chasse and hold off and the same time. Cramps started to get me so holding off it was. Next time I saw anyone was at the finish.

Finally a decent day on the mtb, I know I still got another notch that I hope I can find at Kelso and provincials. Plans are being made for Elliot Lake, should be a good time and some good suffering. Until then I'll be on the road maybe twice to do some sprints and the rest mtb then the following week will be all mtb. Maybe I won't take that month off racing if I start to come around, still questionning Paul's though haha. This week is barn washing which is a little easier than the cleaning but still a tough job nonetheless. Maybe 15h on the bike?

Solid rides De Cal and Etzl, everyone I know had a solid race, sometimes it just takes a local race like this to bring the best out of you. Good food afterwards but not before I got a good rub down, my lower back started seizing up about 20min after the race. Got a pretty sweet stem after trading with Anderson, anyone need a 90mm RaceFace Evolve XC? I'll most likely be posting a bunch of things up for sale tomorow like a fork, pedals, helmet (a beaut), crankset, and possibly some shoes for either mtb or road.

Bike The Bruce

2010-07-26T22:17:00.003-04:00

Not much to say about this one

I guess it's just the way road racing goes, the break got a good gap early on but it got shut down quick, next thing I knew the group was split and I watched them pedal away a minute down the road with a good 10-12 guys. I knew if the gap got any bigger it would make it because they would be working well together. We had about 3-4 guys working in our group and they had a 12-man break with 11 of them sharing the work. Much more effecient than our group because there were still attacks and I was never able to make the bridge alone. Had nothing left for the sprint at the end, cramps got the best of me. I was running out of water with 3 laps to go so I drank very conservatively for the next lap (considering the heat) and finished off the bottles with a gel with 2 to go.

I don't think extra fluids would have helped, I was cramping a bit from the start but nothing painful enough to ease the effort. It was all those accelerations and slowing back down to allow the lactic acid to build up. Guess I gotta get on some intervals soon.

I think I'm a bit too tired coming in to the weekends, I guess I'm not at a high intensity, low volume point of my season. Going to take it easy for the next couple weeks and see what I can muster up for provincials. I'll most likely be taking a month off of racing even if that means missing the amazing U-Cup series as well as Paul's, but I think it will be a smart choice to properly prepare for a race and try to attain my last goal of the season at the Squeezer. If all goes well it should give me a good confidence booster going into cross where I'll be able to take high intensity and low volume for those one hour shit shows.

Solid rides De Cal and Max, and big thanks to De Cal for the feed and driving and whatnot.

Big draft, but it has a tailpipe

2010-07-22T20:46:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I had the day off work and it went pretty similar to Monday but with a little more pain going up and down the stairs to get to the fridge. I knew I had to take 'er easy after Tuesday's effort following a nice big week.

That feeling in my legs carried over to this morning when I was playing with the dog at 6am, I knew work was going to be tough. The birds leave tomorow and I'm missing the first two days of barn cleaning because I'll be heading to Wiarton on Saturday to save a 4h drive the morning of the race. The unwritten rule is that to show you're sorry for leaving when there is so much work to do is, of course, to do work, lots of work. Cut some grass, pulled some weeds, cleaned some feed bins and ate some delicious food right from the property from 9-4. The best part about pulling weeds today was that it was the row right beside the green peppers so every now and then I'd pluck one off for fuel and keep on going, beauty.

As I was leaving the farm I did a quick acceleration on my mtb and my legs had absolutely nothing. I had some oat meal, grains and a banana and headed out for the ITT. It was the annual old school TT so no aero stuff was allowed, Rick took it one step further and sported his 1970's bowling shoes (it's what they look like) on his bianci 7 speed with dt shifters and all so he gets big props for that. He was my minute man and he held me off until under 3k to go, I saved a bit too much for the end because I was feeling somewhat good at the pace I was going and didn't want to start feeling bad again. I put the hammer down and caught my 2, 3 and 4 minute man before sprinting in my 53-11 on the slight downhill finish that makes you feel very fast. Lost to Max by 33sec for the title but I was happy and surprised I had some power despite feeling so brutal for 2 days.

Max's dad motorpaced us on the way home with his truck, I was not expecting this but how can you turn down a free 50km/h draft? I cracked before he did but we made it pretty far considering we used alot of fuel just 10 minutes before that. I was considering hopping on the mtb tomorow and heading South for a lap of the CDMBR course that I was too cooked to do Wednesday, we'll see what the legs say. I need some points so I've got to be nice to them for the next couple of days. I'll defenitely be watching the stage tomorow, haven't seen one in a week.

Pavement is overrated anyways

2010-07-20T20:58:00.005-04:00

Heading out to Sunday's group ride I found another nice stretch of road that got chewed up, at this rate the cyclocross training in the fall will be prime. Going super fast on gravel sounds awesome on some knobby tires, not so much on 23C bald ones. Well, I guess it is fun, but the only thing I keep thinking of is grit getting in to where it shouldn't and the rocks chewing up my tires that I will soon not have the funds to replace. Every ride I've gone on for the past 2 weeks I've seen at least one new stretch of road that got chewed up, some much worse than others.

Sunday's ride was good, I considered the mtb but I knew I wouldn't have the punch for the short/steep climbs at the Hood. The course requires barely any fitness but you'd have to pack a good punch on the climbs to get away if you can't do so in the ST, come to think of it, they're much too short to actually get away so it all comes down to skills in the ST haha. I'll post up a better description of this year's course tomorow if I don't have to work. Anyways, Sunday's ride, good pace through Wainfleet/Canborough and good echelon on the way back. A good 4 hours to top off a 22ish hour week, the hours weren't extremely high but it was all about the time spent at/above threshold.

Yesterday was pretty much a blur, my boss thankfully had too much paper work to do to get any work done outside so I had the day off. I was up early with the dog but after that I slept/ate then it was today. I slept through the whole stage yesterday and woke up just in time to see bbox guy on the podium then I think I fell back alseep. Would have been a good stage to see, as well as today's, going to get updated on what happened right after I post this. I think I read something in the paper about Pelham resurfacing a bunch of roads but I can't remember, maybe it was a dream.

Today's workout was pretty tough, just over 3 hours (100km) with plenty of sprints on the way to the club race. The pace was pretty high but still not where it should be but considering the cadets, Max and myself were pretty cooked from the week before I guess we did alright. There were so many attacks just nothing that would stick and the pace was a tad slow to sit in for too long but it was a bit too hard to stay off the front for a while. Wolfgang rode crazy strong again this time showing his TT skills out front. Sprint was alright, I started a bit late and by the time I got in my 53-11 it was too late and I didn't have enough ground to get up to the top guys or, even better, out front. I was tempted to just keep going to try and see how fast I can go even past the imaginary line but it was a little too tight to open it up. Oh well, I had a good wheel going in to the sprint just started a bit too late, one step at a time I guess.

My biggest weeks are now behind me and I'll be focusing on intensity until the xc provincials, gotta get some top end and sustainable power to race 150km with the big boys at Elliott Lake and if I want to even think about a top 5 in mountain biking, oh yeah, some trail skills would help too. Okay, so technical skills and intensity it is for the next 4 weeks or so then some big volume weeks before my next big chunk of racing.

Shut Up Legs!

2010-07-17T13:37:00.003-04:00

Laying in bed right now, extremely tired, might fall asleep before I finish writting this. When I wake up I'll make my way over to Liberty! to pick up the rear wheel and drop off the front, going tubeless now with Stan's ZTR 355's.

Quick recap of my training during this week off work, complete day off Monday, somehow I still slept in Tuesday and had to get some stuff done before heading out in the afternoon. I rode for an hour and a half before the club race working on my sprint, 15 or so full out efforts and a grind up Saylor's and it was time to start the workout. Chown, Holtzman, Noah and the cadets were absent so Csikos, Wolfgang and myself attacked and attacked until everyone was looking a little cross eyed and we got in the workout we wanted. I don't really remember riding home but I sure remember getting an awesome night's sleep.

Wednesday's recovery spin went a little longer than planned when I took a few roads that I ride all the time in the off-season and had a total brain fart on Four Mile Creek rd. when I had no idea which direction I was heading. For some reason I didn't think I was going the right way but after a few side road turn arounds I stayed on that road and eventually ended up on York right on track. Easy(ish) 3:15 spin with Tuesday's 3.5, the heat was really getting to me.

I don't even want to remember Thursday's ride, you see, when you go out and do tempo and hill reps with De Cal it hurts, alot. Csikos and I met De Cal at the top of DeCew and formed a mini echelon holding 35 in the headwind (reading Max's computer) until Smithville. De Cal showed us how to sprint then we eased up a bit and headed North, met up with Stan Ambus who was considering doing Woolverton, but doubted it and we managed to get a Woolverton climb and 2 Fifty climbs out of him. After 2 Woolverton climbs we had to fill up our bottles and headed back up for the third. By the time we climbed Fifty and McNeilly 3 times each we had to refill again. It was brutally hot, I must have wiped my lenses 30 times. Single file this time and with more of a crosswind we held 40 (38-44 sais Max) along the bottom of the escarpement. The only downfall coming home along the bottom is that to get home you have to go back up again. We took DeCew and had to stop at the Mill to refill again. Nearly 8 tallys of water to get through that 5h ride.

Yesterday I headed out for a mountain bike ride with the coach, we rode for about 2.5hrs around some trails in Thorold and Brock, my legs were yelling at me to stop but the fun-factor of mountain biking was enough to keep the pedals turning until I got home. I didn't think I would have enough gas for today but I felt surprisingly good on the climbs, I "worked like a dog" as Max put it. Had nothing left for a blue sign sprint which is a good thing because I wanted to leave it all out on the climbs. I'm still awake but just barely, my legs are very angry and after 18 hours this week so far they are going to have to listen to me for one more day before I can shut 'er down. I don't think they'll listen if I ask them to take me through a pre-ride of the CDMBR course with the youth club Monday night even though I don't work that day either but for tomorow they are just going to have to shut up as Jens would say.

Let's speak of suffering

2010-07-15T16:20:00.007-04:00

What seperates the break from the peloton, the podium finishers from those, well, not on the podium? Sure, strength, tactics, blah blah blah comes into play, but you won't win a big race unless you are willing to suffer. Suffering itslef might not be the hardest part of suffering, but preparing yourself mentally, telling yourself that pretty soon I will be pushing my limits and it's going to be everything but fun and enjoyable. Suffering is not fun, I don't care who you are, if you're having fun then you're not suffering. The feeling you get after suffering, however, can only be explained by those that suffered. It's an accomplishement, sure, but there's this weird feeling you get mentally afterwards that is very hard to explain. You made it over that hump, the work is done, it's time to ride home and eat some food and try and stay awake long enough to see the sun go down so you can get a good night's sleep. There's also some stretching and foam rolling to do if you're commited enough and not lazy, I am going to commit myself to a stretching regime starting today and a foam rolling regime as soon as I get one.

Don't get me wrong, a race is not won by who can suffer the most. By that I mean Cavendish's pace at "suffering" while climbing is much slower than that of Contador's, so even if Cav is suffering more than Contador he'll still be way way back. However, if Contador is not willing to suffer himself then he won't come out on top, no matter how fast you are you're going to have to suffer.

How do we know if we're suffering and not just putting in a hard, hard effort? Well, in my opinion, there is a fine line between a hard effort and suffering, only to be crossed when the effort is no longer fun. When you're pushing your body further than your mind is willing to go and you have to keep telling yourself "don't quit, this is good for me, keep going" to keep the effort and hope that you make it across that imaginary line before you collapse whether it be on top of a hill or to the "blue sign". Either way, it isn't until the effort is over that you're happy, there is nothing to smile about when you're trully suffering.

Some days you just can't suffer, you're not there whether it be physically or mentally or both and you can't get into that "zone" that elite athletes often talk about. Sometimes suffering is forced upon you from an involuntary bonk, you find yourself completely tapped out 15km from home and have no choice but to endure that awful feeling until you get home. No matter what the pace, as long as those pedals are turning then you're suffering. Are they the same kind of suffering? Maybe, just in one case you're going faster than the other?

Suffering can be brought on by yourself or by others, why is it that when suffering is brought on by others it's always so much more intense and you went even harder than you thought you could go because such an effort was never achieved alone? Is there a level of pain higher than suffering? I believe it's called racing. Agaisnt the clock (TT) or others you are no longer "suffering" but "racing", no one has to say they suffered in a race report, of course you did, it was a race. It's just understood, but we say it anyways because that's the one word that best describes a pseudo-death effort whether it be to hold on to the top spot on the podium or just finishing the race. I think that's why I sleep the whole way home from a race but have no problem holding a conversation for the entire drive if I just went to a venue to ride, even if I rode so much more during the ride than the race. You don't even realise how much you're gutting yourself during a race because you're in that racing "zone" that doesn't wear off until a good 30min after the race is done.

Maybe I'll look back at this in a few years as an Elite racer (hopefully!) and realise I was way off, but that's one of the best parts of having a blog, you can look back at things you wrote when you were younger and less experienced and see how your perspective on certain things has changed over the years. Anyways, time to cut the lawn in 30 degree weather, yay.

O-Cup #5 Buckwallow

2010-07-13T12:39:00.002-04:00

The week leading up to the race was pretty good, some swimming, fishing, resting, waking up somewhere in the range of 2-4am every night to bring Molson out to play and do his business. Oh yeah, I rode my bike too, Tuesday we were way too far behind schedule to make it to the course in time to ride before it got dark. Wednesday I did 5 full laps and rode a few trails multiple times, I went through about 3L of fluids during the ride. Thurday I headed over there in the afternoon to get a couple laps in and do the weekly race series there. Conlon, Kerton, and myself got hustled by a "firt timer", the race itself was alright, start was much faster than my wave on Sunday. I was sitting in fifth and closed the gap to fourth, I went to pass on a rooty climb and I dropped my chain, lost 2 spots. Tried to pass a little bit later but dropped my chain again and that was it, stuck in no-man's-land. I dropped it one more time before the end, I checked out the limits on the derailleurs and everything seemed fine.

It didn't happen on Saturday's pre-ride with De Cal but my crankarm was suddenly touching my derailleur cage, she was crooked. I didn't feel good at all on Saturday but riding there is always fun so I didn't really mind the lack of power.

Now, onto the race. The start was pretty slow so I tried to make my way up from the very back, the leaders were in sight for quite sometime. I was riding conservatively for the first bit to same some quick bursts for the climbs and steep rock-ups. I was about to make a quick sprint to get on the next guy's wheel as we entered a trail when my pedal popped out and I smashed into a tree with my shoulder and head. I got up, a train of guys went by and I started the chase. Next thing I knew my derailleur was completely bent again, I tried to push it in with my foot but no luck. I rode the rest of the lap in the small ring and realised it wasn't bad at all. The big ring would have been nice for more hammering in the doubletrack and a quick sprint before the downhills but whatever. I passed a few more guys as the laps passed but I guess they were all Masters because my position didn't change at all from the first lap. Trev came by on lap 3 I think so I must have only passed one guy since the wipeout that was in my cat.

I can't say I didn't feel good, I was pushing hard the whole time, am I just a top 20 senior expert rider? No matter how I've felt or what I've done the week before I've been 17th at best. Am I just in denial that I'm not cut out for the post-ride brew, wider-tired-bikes-with-suspension dirt scene? I like the pavement but venturing off-road has always been a part of me, maybe just not on wheels? Whatever, mountain biking is alot of fun, I've never been one to give something up just because I'm having a hard time with it.

I've gotta say that I was super-pumped when De Cal was coming by me on my last lap sitting in 5th spot, I knew he would catch the guy in fourth but to "loose" in a sprint for second, siiiiiiick.

Huge thanks to Liberty! for loaning me a wheel for the race, now that De Cal got his new rims in I'll be running tubeless. Maybe I can top him by running single-digit psi for Kelso.

Pre-trip ramblage

2010-07-05T21:01:00.004-04:00

Great Tour stage today, too bad some guys are willing to deal with the conditions while others are complaining about it. Come on, to race in a race like that you must have ridden more hours in the rain in a week then I've ridden this year, when the road is wet it's slippery. Maybe I'm missing something but there's no possible way a protest can be supported by the argument that "we crashed because we were ripping down a slippery road at Mach 10 on skinny bald tires and had no idea where the front group was". Anyways, it was good to see a Frenchman race such an amazing race to take the win and claim the yellow jersey with a gap big enough for at least a couple of days.

So I'm sitting in my room now, after a much needed stop at Liberty!, and I'm procrastinating about packing enough stuff to go up North for the rest of the week. This trip was supposed to be for 2 reasons, family time (of course) and to be very close to Buckwallow so I can do my training as quick as possible to leave more time for family bonding. Well, paps decides to book a place 1h20min away haha, we'll see how this pans out. I'll be bringing my laptop up to see if I can get some wifi somewhere to post up about the course and ramble on about a few things that I can't ramble about with the family.

Brought my dad's new whip home today from the shop, a Specialized Allez, surprised him with a receipt indicating paid in full. Hopefully that softens him up a bit to let me take his truck to the course, he cares way too much about that thing, if anything in the back box is moved out of place he gives me shit for driving like an animal because if things moved then that means I took my corners too fast or I was too heavy on the accelerator.

Anyways, I wrote a bit too much for a day that I didn't even ride. Better start packing so I can get to bed soon, the dog will make sure it's an early morning. I'm good with that, the earlier the morning the sooner I'm riding some amazing trails just a little ways North of here.

Need water... and sugar!

2010-07-04T13:54:00.003-04:00

I've been looking forward to a weekend off for quite some time now so I can put in two solid rides back to back with none other than the St.CCC. And two solid days it was.

Yesterday was climbing, we held a tamed pace until Quarry rd. and I decided to test my legs early on so I launched at the first steep chute, I wasn't feeling too good but I got a good gap fast and held a quick pace until a fellow member bridged, it didn't take too long for us to get caught and I thought I would loose the leaders completely but by the top I made my way back to the front, Perry was gone though. Mountainview and Park are great climbs and it always helps to be in a strong group pushing a good pace with attacks to top it off. I was riding clean in the echelon but started to feel the dizziness that I would feel at the top of the climbs, I knew I was dehydrated. How dehydrated? Well, I drank about 3L of water when I got home and my pee was still dark yellow. I had some munch and passed out on my bed still wearing the see-through Handlebars CC kit and all, minus the riding shoes. I woke up three hours later feeling like I had a hangover but I knew I was in need of some calories.

Eat, drink, sleep and before I knew it it was 6:15am and the dog was up waiting to be taken outside. Can you believe he's only 6 weeks old and he has yet to pee or poo in the house? I made a good effort to get some fluids and calories in me before heading out.

The pace was good heading out to Wainfleet and the pack split in half with the A's heading as far west as Abigdon. I was still feeling the effects of dehydration but not nearly as severe. The echelon was quick but some didn't realise how far we had left to go, everyone worked hard, I saw David Jack attack on the left so I took the gravel shoulder on the right and dug deep to bridge the gap he quickly created. By the time I caught back on to him the group was swallowing us up, amazing how hard you have to work to catch a TTist. Chown shielded me from the wind for a while so I can attack and give it a good go, and that's what I did, I would have liked to drag a few with me because there are no breaks when you're solo. I was caught and shelled and faught hard to latch back on, I had nothing in me for the sprint. You didn't even have to ask how the group felt once we got to Tim's, the look on Rob Visser's face explained it pretty well, cooked.

I was in need of some sugar fast, to be taken care of by a large ice cap. I had mine with choco milk despite my intolerance, there is barely a gulp in there though. How much lactose do you think there is in an ice cap? I guess I'll find out in a couple hours...

CHIN Picnic

2010-07-03T17:21:00.002-04:00

An early rise of 5:30 had me not so eager to race, coffee changed that. I'm lucky I even woke up, set my alarm for 5:15pm instead of am, somehow I woke up at 5:30. 20$ to park at race site, ouch, I've gotta start showing up a bit earlier to races so I can cruise the streets nearby and find somewhere to park for 20$ less.

I took my time getting ready because for the first time in a while I was there on schedule, an hour early, by the time I was done it was 8:18, 12 minutes to warm up and line up. It wasn't so bad, the start was delayed a bit so I had a bit more time to ride around. Shot the shit with Holtzman and Csikos before lining up. I was hoping for a win today.

In hindsight, I did race the perfect race to have enough in me for a sprint, for the first time ever I just sat it. I wasn't feeling good at all let me tell you, it wasn't cramps, tired, stomach or anything like that. I just couldn't go fast. I was hoping my legs would come around because everytime we came by under that banner before the S-bend I knew we were one lap closer to the innevitable group sprint. I made my way up a few times but just didn't have the power to hold my spot so I'd soon find myself near the back. The group was taking the corners brutally slow and some people had a really hard time holding their line. No big crashes though, so that's always good when you're at the back.

So sitting in the pack all day you'd think I would at least have enough in me for a good sprint, not at all. I made my way up to 5th or 6th wheel but as soon as I got there I started loosing ground, fast. By the end of the sweeping left bend I was sprinting at the back, I almost felt alone. The good part about this race is that I know I can, at the very least, stay in the pack on a bad day even on a course that doesn't suit me very well. I guess 12th isn't a poor result, but I'm in need of some upgrade points.

Big ups to Etzl and Perry for their 1-3 in cadet (couldn't sweep the podium again boys? come on...), Holtzman had a solid race after driving the pace and leading everybody out at the end but still managing to get on the box, Visser must have a good sprint because he took his first race as an M2 and from looking at the results it seems De Cal fits in just fine with the big boys, I knew he would. Paps didn't want to stick around afterwards so unfortunately I didn't do any spectating. Leaving for Gravenhurst early Tuesday so I can get in a good ride of the course after getting settled in at Honey Harbour.

Glad I Went

2010-06-29T21:19:00.003-04:00

I'm still feeling pretty sore from the weekend but I knew I needed to get a good effort in today to loosen the legs and get an idea of how things will pan out for CHIN. I got home from work and slept until 5:30 which gave me just enough time to get ready and head out to the tuesday night rr, I'm surprised I woke up that early without an alarm. Looking back at tonight's effort, I feel confident and not so confident at the same time, let me explain. During tonight's club race on the Niagara Classic course I felt great, legs were good, breathing was under control and I was very responsive. However, there were a couple times where we would drive the pace super hard for a bit and I would get shelled, I think it happened twice. I fought hard to get back in the group and having my team mate Chown drop back a bit to give me that last pull back in to the group helped a ton because the last 50m or so away from the slip stream is the hardest to bridge, thanks man.

There was a group of two out front, Holtzman and Hopkins, and it took us quite some time to bridge. Once we caught them everyone sat up and I attacked and had a pretty big gap for a little while, that got shut down before our third time up Saylor's. Last lap Chown told me he was going to attack and I was to sit in and wait for the catch then go, a pretty standard team move that I just wasn't getting at all previously. He launched into a massive head wind and got a good gap quick, the small peloton that was left started echelonning and I was feeling good, pulled through every time while a few others were fading and just hanging on. I knew I would have a good kick once we caught him.

The deciding move of the race came when we caught him and as I was getting ready to go on the left Perry was going on the right so I got around the group, grabbed his wheel and we peaced. Maybe I did a little more work than I should have but I was feeling good and I really wanted to get away, and we did. Hopkins bridged before the bottom of Saylor's but faded halfway up where Chown came flying by on his cross bike and ran out of road before he could catch Perry, I thought Perry's attack was a little too soon on the climb but he had the legs to hold everyone off, nice.

In other news, I bought a dog, a border collie/lab mix, he's black with brown paws. I'm picking him up Friday after work, then it's a ballin' 2 weeks vacation! First week will be spent in Gravenhurst where I'm hoping to get a solid 4 pre-rides at Buckwallow and a long ass road ride before race day, the week after will be a big week at home, there will be a ride out to Hamilton to climb a few times.

Raccoon Rally - CX, I mean XC

2010-06-27T17:25:00.003-04:00

Breakfast consisted of an egg, a waffle, a fruit salad, toast with PB&Banana and a spoon full of some pasty oatmeal that created a very disturbing look on my face. Paps showed up with my mom at the race site, some chatting, reg, bike prep and some spinning around; ready to go.

I was feeling pretty comfortable off the start, AD took the lead and I sat in about 8th wheel, from the start of the first climb I knew it was going to be a long day. Pretty much a 30 minute grind and loosing spot after spot after spot. I lost a couple more at the top but I was hoping for some singletrack to make up some ground, well, back down on DT and back up again, it was very similar to the layout of the road course. I found my rhythm near the end of the first lap and started making up ground, I bombed down the only twisty descent and made up 2 more spots there. One of those spots I gained by taking the line that goes straight off a rock drop instead of going around it, I was riding smooth today, strong, not so much.

My bike was making a funny high pitch sound right from the start but I blocked it out and pressed on, after the descent I had massive break rub in the back and it didn't go away. I stopped real quick where our rents were feeding to see what was going on but lost 6 spots so I hopped back on to chasse. I caught them 2 minutes later and attacked, only one guy came with me and we were pretty close for the next half lap, we caught two guys then I dropped him when I saw another guy just ahead. I faught real hard but it's tough to close gaps on the downhill, bombed through the DH and rolled in for 22nd overall and 1st in my age cat, got a set of Kenda Karma tires, not too bad.

It was an awesome weekend of racing, I would have liked today's race to be a little more epic with some mountain bike features but it was tough none the less. The weather was perfect, a little humid but at least the sun was hiding most of the time.

Huge shout out to the De Cal's for the hotel room and driving me around, much appreciated. AD had two solid rides and seems ready for S1/2 on Thursday, should be an interesting race to see. Big props to Chown for the win.

Just a thought, maybe I'm a roadie?

Raccoon Rally - Road

2010-06-27T16:59:00.003-04:00

Climbing, climbing and more climbing pretty much sums up both days. Here's a little recap;

The morning started off less than ideal where it wasn't for sure that we were even going, by 7 we were out the door and a little behind schedule. Got to the race site just after 9 with enough time to sign up, get the number pinned, suit up and ride to the start. I rode down the road for 15 seconds to see if my legs could even turn the crank arms, it'll have to do.

The first climb was a little bit of a shock and I decided to do a little attack and found myself off the front for a bit, once I got back in I started following everything that went and by the top I was hoping we would start going down soon because I was red-lining pretty bad. De Cal should be able to post up some better descriptions of the climb when he checks his Garmin file. It was LONG, not so much steep, there's nothing like that around here. The descent was pretty tamed and I felt like shit starting the second climb.

I survived, we'll put it that way, sat in the whole time and anyone that attacked I would wait for someone to come by and grab their wheel to bridge. The second climb was a little shorter than the first one but it was steeper because I was barely in my 39T on the first climb but I found myself in it a few times on the second climb. I was relying on a super-high cadence to hang on because I couldn't find any power. Back down and around to where we started and it was time to do it again.

The race was two laps of climb, descend, climb, descend. There was no time spent in the valley at all to get the legs ready to go up, but before starting the second lap it was flat for a k or 2. I felt much better going up the first climb for the second time, when attacks were going I felt much more responsive, De Cal was going with or shutting down anything. Anytime I would go off the front with a couple guys it was guaranteed that when I looked back it was De Cal effortlessly closing down the gap (at least it looked effortless). The descent was pretty calm again, one guy off the front but we had plenty of time to catch him on the next climb. Turning right to begin what would be the toughest climb of my life, I was mentally prepared for the worst.

My goal was to hang on to the lead group until the end, finishing result didn't matter so much, I was prepared to empty the tank to hang on knowing I would have nothing left for the end. Attack after attack, I just kept my head down and hammered, I don't really no what happened between the top and bottom but there was alot of pain involved. By the top, three guys (or so I thought) were off the front and the gap was a little too big for my liking once we started the descent. I was feeling alright so I went up front and pushed the pace, De Cal was right there and before I knew it we had a good pace train going. Spinning out our 53x11s we were determined to reel them in, by the bottom they still had a good gap so the echelon began, we didn't have much time before the end. I was cooked and screwed up the pace for a sec so I dropped back and hung on for a couple pulls then I hopped right back in, we reeled them in and the pace instantly dropped so people can recover for the sprint. I had nothing left and that didn't change for the sprint. 9th in my first S1/2 race isn't too bad at all, the form is starting to come around

Big ups to De Cal and Csikos for a solid ride

We did a bike and luggage swap with De Cal so there's enough room for me in the vehicle, we made our way over to Jamestown where we were staying. Had an awesome apple spice muffin from a bakery and enjoyed our huge selection of TV channels at the Best Western. After a delicious Italian dinner we headed out on our mtbs for a little cruise by the river. Saw a beaver, built an awesome North Shore style skinny line that we sessioned for a bit until De Cal flatted, I rode back to the room for some flat repair and we finished off the ride with some more skinny sessionning. An attempt at stretching, bed time.

Papa's like a rolling stone

2010-06-25T20:47:00.003-04:00

Pap's has informed me that he's on the fence about staying over in Jamestown tomorow night, like it would be better to come home and go back again Sunday morning at the crack of dawn. I'm not down for that at all, I should use the "I just went to the bike shop and paid for your bike (minus his deposit)" line but I want to keep that a surprise for when he picks it up.

Now I can get started on turning his 1972 steel framed bianci in to a singlespeed/fixie with a small gear to build up some leg speed. By get started I mean most likely pay someone to do it and teach me as they go along. Should be a pretty sweet ride.

Yesterday's ride hurt a bit with some sprints and attacks and whatnot, my top end decided it wasn't going to come along with me for the ride so the sprints were slow and painful. It's all good though, I feel pretty recovered today and hopefully when I wake up at 5:45 tomorow morning I feel ready to race S1/S2. It should be a good workout trying to keep up with the big boys, looking forward to it. STXC in the afternoon will be a fun time, last year Chown won by 2 laps on his cx rig, someone has to push him for at least a lap or two.

Hopefully the rain holds off for both races but if it were to rain for one of them I'd pick the road race because after KW, I feel pretty confident racing on slick roads. I'm still a plug when it comes to racing on slick rocks and roots, hopefully a week of riding Buckwallow will change that. More on that later.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend.

Earthquake

2010-06-23T19:23:00.004-04:00

Apparently we got hit by an earthquake today, supposedly around 2, I was probably holding on to the weedwhaker so there's no way in hell I would have felt some little vibrations when my teeth were already chattering from la machina.

Brought my wheels in to Liberty! since some of the spokes on the non-drive side were like noodles and I'm also missing a spacer. I acquired some new blisters on my thumbs from peeling off the tubular, I must be getting pretty good at gluing them. I've only done it about 6 times so far this season.

Easy ride today, nothing exciting at all.

It looks like the plan to buy De Cal's sexy wheels fell through but I'll most likely buy the rims and throw those on the XT hubs (the rear needs a new freehub body) that way I can ride tubeless as I await for a set with hubs that have the missing R.

Soy Milk

2010-06-22T22:04:00.003-04:00

Just having a big bowl of vector cereal with a cut up banana at the moment, I can't really taste the difference between regular milk and soy milk so that's alright I guess.

I finally made my way out to Woolverton today for the first time since March or April, I wasn't expecting to climb much today since Max said he wanted to go for 140-150km steady. I'm glad we somehow came to a workout plan that included a few escarpment climbs because I wanted some sort of comparaison to my early-season form.

We kept a good pace heading out, caught a good draft off a small school bus for a while but he turned left and we were heading straight, very sad. Got to the bottom of Woolverton in under 2 hours, first climb is always the worst. We stayed along the top to Hamilton, down and up Fifty, felt very good. Pushed a good pace and didn't feel any weakness sprinting up the last switchback. The roads were a little damp so I was a little nervous heading down but all went well. We thought there would be less wind at the bottom so we stayed down to get to McNeily, there wasn't any less wind. I was surprised the rain was holding off for so long, just a few sprinkles here and there but nothing compared to what those massive black clouds could unleash. I pushed a little too hard at the bottom, had a massive gap on Max but by the last switchback he had realled me back in. I still had enough left to upshift and sprint over the crest, I wasn't feeling too bad at all.

We made our way over to Dewitt, the bottom part of the climb was through a subdivion, Dewitt itself is a one way street so we stayed up top until New Mountain. Just before heading down the rain had started and it was coming down hard, the drops actually kind of hurt. Both climbs were pretty similar, no big pitch changes just steep the whole time. Now we were stuck in the middle of a storm somewhere in Hamilton with very little fluids left in the bottles. Made it to Tim's in Smithville on fumes and refuelled before making our way back home. The rain stopped for a bit and it got warm for about 18 seconds then the rain started again. Shorts and T was still a good choice because it was pretty humid.

If we would have gotten out a little earlier I might have tried to head over to the tuesday night race but we got back at 4, a little too late. Now that I think of it, I don't think I would have even had the legs to make it out to the start line after that 5h ride. I love days off work, tomorow isn't looking like it's going to be one. That's cool, easy distance anyways.

Lake to Lake

2010-06-20T21:44:00.003-04:00

Rolled in at HH Knoll for 10:15 and got a good warm up in, shot the shit, the usual pre-race stuff. I lined up at the front and was ready to go, the start is always sketchy and today was no different, starting with an old lady driving through the intersection then stopping as she saw the group coming towards her. The look on her face was priceless. Some guy was trying to take the smoothest line on the road by avoiding all the cracks and sewers and almost took me out, not 10 seconds later did I hear that awful sound. The same sound that was produced during the finishing straight at Good Friday, carnage. These things happen and are very unfortunate, however, they are very avoidable. Let's not get into that right now.

So I continued on in the hopes that everyone was OK, I didn't bother looking back because I didn't want to see it and to stay focused on what was in front of me since that probably shook a few guys up. Wow, just over a paragraph and I didn't even take the first turn yet. Going through Port I was sitting 10th or so and once we got on the gravel stretch I was shelled and hopped on the next group of guys. Worked with them for a while going in to the trails and back on to the gravel along the canal until DeBoer attacked and I tried to respond. Even though I never bridged, it ended up being a good move because I had dropped that group and was chassing for the next. I caught them and passed before heading into Mosquito Alley which was a total shit show and gave me flashbacks of last year when I ran the whole section and gained 2 spots.

The Coach and his boss gave me a bottle just after the train bridge and I was on my way chassing down the next train, thanks a bunch. I couldn't bridge on the road but once we got in the trail I was making good time and caught them before leaving Allanburg. Got a good cheer from Boston Marathon star and long time friend Al Deschamps (blog on right) which got me pumped and ready to rock. My cleet had been loose for a while but it was starting to get really bad and I was trying not to think about it coming apart on me. Our group was working well together and eventually reeled in Rahim, I attacked a bit later and held them off until the singletrack, I was told my 2km/h pace was a little slow and tried to ramp it up a bit resulting in a body check to a tree and a headbutt to his friend across the trail. No biggy, Rahim and I managed to get away and were riding strong going down the escarpement.

After Suzanne's we saw Trevor Montague up ahead and started to hammer to catch him, this is where the race got interesting. So Trevor is about 10-20s and we can see he's hurting, I'm on Rahim's wheel and as the gap starts closing I crack. No soon after Rahim cracks as well. You know those long ass boxing matches where the fighters are giving it their all at the end but the punches are just so weak because there is pretty much nothing left in the tank? That was how the chasse was, 3 guys within 10s of each other pushing hard but making up no ground at all.

Ian from The Hub catches me and we work together to get to Rahim, for about 3s we were all together, then back to the boxing match but this time between four guys. Although Trevor was out of sight, maybe he wasn't hurting as bad as we thought. Final road section was a blur, coming up to the final descent I seen De Cal and pointed to him with a nod because he was already changed so I assumed he had finished on the box where he belongs, little did I know he was in that first crash. Heal up quick buddy.

The Flying Frenchman, JC Roberge was also involved in the crash as well as Jenny Brown. Very unfortunate, I hope the healing process goes quick.

I made a goal for top 15 and came 13th, can't say I'm unhappy. It was a good day for my paps too who won the 444 fishing derby. Happy father's day to all the paps out there.

Here's a good one, so my mom parks in some dentists' driveway that she knows who lives real close to the finish. She leaves her keys with him so he can move the van when his wive gets home. We get back to the van and there is a note written on the windshield, the windshield of the van with my bike, my mom and aunt's purses as well as a few more valuables: "Hi... Keys are in the mailbox - had to leave for a bit" with his signature at the bottom. Nice, even after 14 years of schooling some people just never quite get it.

KW Classic

2010-06-16T14:24:00.005-04:00

Two quick things; first, there might be more stuff about what has gone on other than the race than about the race, and two, the race report itself will not be a traditionnal lap by lap summary haha. Sixteen laps!

After I got my disorganised self completely ready for the race I had about 25 minutes to warm up, didn't go so bad actually, did some sprints and a few longer efforts, shot the shit with etzl then made my way over to the starting pen for some pre-race chat.

It started to rain and I thought this would be for the worse since I was expecting to be in the red zone a bit trying to hold on. It ended up being for the better and I made my way over to the front quite a bit just to lead through the corners, sometimes I would launch off the front a bit and keep a comfortable pace hoping a good group of three or so caught me and we might be able to get something going. I was feeling very good at the beginning of the race and wasn't having any trouble staying up front in the climbs with guys like De Cal and Noble.

After a hard-fought prime, I just missed it by less than a foot, after I realised how close to the line we were I pulled out front still in the hoods trying to come around the front guy for it but ran out of tar, I sat in for a couple laps. There was an attack off the front by De Cal and I went to follow with another guy, he crashed out in front of me on the first left-hand bend and the gap got a bit bigger. I figured I 'd let it grow and see if I can help De Cal out since this was probably his last race in S3 and I knew he'd be hungry for a win. After about 30sec of keeping the pace tamed the second guy shouted "Are you gonna chasse him?" and I was like "nope" haha. So he pulled up ahead of me and I sat it until the pack was together again. Paps and I executed a perfect feed after me got a few tips from other parents, sick.

I was still feeling strong going off the front and was getting to be almost a habit to go out front before the S-bend and have a small gap going on the straight-away. With 2 to go my legs started to get tense especially on the short, punchy climbs so I dropped back and decided to wait for a sprint. There were a couple good attacks that came and a couple times I had no choice but to go up front to do work but I knew I wouldn't get dropped and was hoping to hold on to someone fast going on the straight-away and see what happens. Well I ended up getting boxed in to a horrible spot and when the sprint finally started I was making my way up then there was a loud noise very similar to the one I heard on the sprint at Good Friday road and had me holding the brakes for a second. I lost some ground and before I knew it I seen De Cal's hands fly up and the race was done. 12th, not bad, should get better.

Saturday I slept in too late for the club ride from a result of friday night's sprints and cornering work. Even during my easy spin with The Coach and paps my legs felt like rubber so a club ride might have been a bad idea considering I had to work at 5. Washed some dishes until 11 and hurried home for some shut-eye. By the time I get to bed it's not until 12 but that still leaves a seven hour sleep, not bad.

Monday was a day off and last night was a race on the hilly course, I attacked and chassed until I had no gas left in the tank before going up Saylor's the second time. I got shelled and the gap got too big before the downhill, it continued to grow from there and by Sulfur Springs I knew I wouldn't catch. But I hammered and hoped that I would pass all those that got dropped, I ended up only passing one because Hopkins hurt his calf.

I had the day off work today so I headed out for just under three hours with Max to loosen the legs up and I might get a core workout done this afternoon. I'm about to munch out for the second time since I got back and then I'm going to swap out my 100mm stem for the 110 that came with the cx bike I bought off Chown and I might put the Selle Italia SLR saddle that came with that bike on instead of the one I have now. Not sure which model of SI it is bit it's good quality, just doesn't seem fit right for me. If Contador can ride a Tour on the SLR then it should be pretty comfortable if the fit is right.

Tomorow I was hoping to make it out to McNeily and Woolverton but that will depend on what time I get off work and what I do there. If it's an easier day and I finish at 2 then I'll be out there for sure, let's hope there are some thunder showers tonight. Thanks weatherman, I dressed for the rain and not-so-hot today but the rain stopped and it cleared up not even an hour in to the ride. I was boiling.

Some efforts

2010-06-10T21:15:00.002-04:00

Tuesday night was sick, 4-man breakaway got formed halfway through the first lap and stuck for the remaining 9.5, I felt good throughout the warm up and did 3 sets of 5 jumps to work on my sprint form and to open the legs up a bit. With a long warm up, the race and the ride home I get in a good 3 hours of saddle time which is perfect before a night time munch out.

The same night time munch out is goin down right now following tonights workout. I was on my way out to Park and Mountainview to do some climbing and passed by the start of the ITT, stopped for a couple minutes to take in a banana since I didn't get much time to eat after work and had a chat with Glouco. It was decided that I'd do the ITT and then Saylor's 3 times on the way home, I wasn't really feeling lots of hill reps anyways after today's work so that was perfect. I spun around and did a few hard efforts/jumps for the next half hour before the start of the TT, the TT itself wasn't so good, legs felt like rubber going in to the wind. It seems my aero position isn't low enough, no argument there, I might try a 110mm stem versus my 100 and see what gives.

Spun towards home easy, with a couple attacks of course, then everyone had split and it was just me and Hopkins left to battle on Effingham. Three tough reps with a good sprint at the top and we were both thankful it was downhill all the way home.

Tomorow is an easy day, unfortunately I'll be washing some dishes tomorow night after the club ride but that's cool since I race at 10:45 instead of 8:30 on Sunday. Yeah, I sent in a request to upgrade and now one of my goals for the season is no longer achievable. That's alright, I'll make it up with some solid placings in S3.

I know I've said this a few times but I love having Wednesday as a rest day, I didn't realise how tired I was yesterday after working on the farm, I went to wash dishes at night and passed out at 9:30. I rode in to work this morning still yawning a bit even after over 10 hours of sleep. Also, I can go that much harder when I'm supposed to go hard which makes it so much easier to go super-easy on recovery days (didn't want to use easy 3 times in the same sentence).

Oh yeah, I might be lactose intolerant, hopefully not because I love milk but I guess I wouldn't have such a hard time switching over to some Parve stuff.

O-Cup #4 Mountainview

2010-06-08T20:21:00.003-04:00

Awesome course, brutal race.

That pretty much sums it up, first lap I felt very weak, didn't gain any positions. I started to feel better on my second lap and picked up the pace, I started to pick guys off 2 or 3 at a time. I have no idea where I ended up but I was chassing down some guy for the rest of the lap and somewhere near the end of my third lap I lost all my energy and any riding skill I had.

Fourth lap was pretty much survival, I lost all the positions I gained and then some. Ended up 2 away from last, I was even contemplating downgrading to Sport during my fourth lap. I know I'd never do it but just the fact that I was thinking it had me pretty depressed which made the suffering even less fun. I guess the egg beaters would have been better for this race since alot of time was spent off the bike and in the mud but I must say that I love the XTR spd's, they make me feel much more connected to the bike. In the end, I think the point is to stay on the bike anyways.

I've been feeling insanely weak lately, worse than just not enough rest or overtrained (they pretty much go hand in hand). I feel even weaker than I did in April when I got sick and totally overtrained, but I don't have a cold or anything. I'm getting a few "tests" done, I'm on some pills again because my digestion (lets leave it at that) hasn't been right at all since I went on the antibiotics in April for my sinus infection. The antibiotics are supposed to kill any bacteria in your digestive tract (usually in the intestines), but in there you have bad bacteria that is causing you to be sick and good bacteria that aids with digestion and prevents sickness. Well, the antibiotics don't know the difference between the two and just go in and wipeout whatever it can hoping that by the end of the cycle you are left with no more bad bacteria. If you kill too much of the good bacteria you are much more succeptible to be invaded by bad bacteria that we encounter in the food we eat everyday, it's innevitable. I think that's what could be the problem, I'm going to get blood work to see if I'm deficient in anything which would be caused by the digestion problem because I'm a pretty good eater. All the food we eat that the farm comes from their property (fruits, vegetables, eggs, goat meat, goat milk/cheese, and of course chicken).

Hopefully it's no more than just a flipped digestive system from the antibiotics and the pills I'm on now will take care of that. If it's an infection, let's hope it's bacterial.

Anyways, I'm getting hungry, just got back from the best Tuesday night race yet. More on that later.

What goes up... Hopefully doesn't come down

2010-06-05T17:38:00.004-04:00

After yesterday's post-ride breakfast with The Coach and his boss, as well as some sleepy time, I woke up feeling fresh for today's club ride.

Twas a good ride indeed, I got a ride out to Jordan and just caught the pack as they were coming in. Did a few good efforts on some hills and opted out of the third climb up Park to save some juice for tomorow. I rode back to Smithville with Neil Armstrong and met up with a total ass hole just before the sacred Tim Horton's stop who thought that we should have been riding on the sidewalk to make way for his F-350 with black fumes coming out of the 10 foot in diametre exhaust pipe. The only thing missing was one of those bumper stickers that sais "As a matter of fact I do own the road". What a guy.

So for the first time in a while it's 5:45 and I'm sitting on my couch and not washing dishes, no weddings or functions tonight. I didn't even have to go in to work on the farm today, odd Saturday, I'm sure not complaining.

Sent in a request form to the OCA to upgrade to S3, I know I made a goal to win a S4 race before going up but I just can't justify paying the same price to race 2 hours earlier, for less prize money, and it's shorter and slower. Hopefully I'll be racing alongside De Cal, Noah, Csikos and Holtzman at KW.

Good luck to everyone tomorow, should be a fun time.

Go Figure

2010-06-03T18:21:00.002-04:00

So I've recently started training smarter, much smarter. The layout of the week is easy Monday, hard Tuesday, easy distance on Wednesday (distance depends on work), hard Thursday, easy Friday, and hard on the weekend. Pretty freakin simple eh. My day off would be either Monday or Friday depending on how I feel and what the goal for the week is.

This weekend is the fourth o-cup of the circuit so I was hoping to get some more time on the mountain bike than I have been getting previous weeks but the forecast is rain, rain, and some more rain. Without work, today would have been an ideal day for a pre-ride of the course, but that was a no-go. So the plan was to head over to Mountainview and Park in Grimsby and do some hill work, I finally got around to flipping my stem and somehow there is now a small gap between the top piece of the headset and head tube? I'll take her in to Liberty! tomorow and see what's up. It doesn't seem bad at all but the two main reasons I opted to ride the mountain bike instead were that it was going to rain (and it did) so the water and grit would be free-flowing right in there and probably cost me a headset and also the fact that I would be going up hills, which means I'd be blasting back down them and anything that can go wrong probably will at 80km/h.

I was heading out to DeCew rd. to do some hill work there but the sky was pitch black North so I stayed on the short but sweet hill on Port Robinson. I did 10 hill reps, 2 sets of 5 with about 1min easy spin between reps and 5min between sets. They weren't straight hill reps, I started at the bottom in the big ring and about third biggest cog with a high cadence. Every marker on the hill (about 10s apart) I would shift up one gear and push harder until I got to the final marker which was a warning sign for a new set of lights up ahead where I would be feeling the burn quite a bit. This is where I would upshift, stand and mash the pedals as hard as I could and try to hold that effort without passing out before the set of lights. Rain started to come down hard on the last rep, felt refreshing.

All this to say that I had an awesome workout because I felt fresh after yesterday's easy day, it's amazing what rest can do for you.

O-Cup #3 Hardwood Hills

2010-06-01T22:08:00.003-04:00

Well, not much to report on this one.

My start was good, that's about it. I saw Trevor making his way up the right side so I hopped on his wheel, lost sight of the top guys at the bottleneck from the entance to the first singletrack. I was feeling pretty good but not riding so well. I felt even stronger on lap 2 and started picking guys off and I was hoping that the race would continue on this way, of course, it didn't.

Third and fourth lap were a blur, don't really remember much, just put my head down and pedal. DNF is not an option, heading out for my fourth lap I was actually somewhat considering pulling the plug but when I seen my dad as I was coming through the feed zone and how he ran up the hill to spray some water on my back I knew I was going to finish. Might not have been the same day but I was getting to that line, still wasn't DFL, sweet.

I'm not too worked up about it, it's pretty easy to understand why I did so shitty. You can't work 30 hours outside all week then wash dishes until 11:30 the night before the race and expect much from yourself.

There was something that Chown brought to my attention today that is so freakin obvious but I never stopped and thought about it for one second. "You can look at all the training plans and whatnot all you want, but they weren't designed for people that work." There's something to think about.

Tonight was the Tuesday night race on the hilly course, chassed down a group of 4 all day but never caught. Then I was outsprinted to the line yet again by Noah, who kicked some ass on the weekend in TO. Pretty pooched right now, looking forward to the next 3 weeks of build ending with the Lake to Lake then hopefully a full-on taper leading up to the Raccoon Rally weekend.

Another typical Saturday

2010-05-30T09:45:00.002-04:00

I'm not expecting too too much out of myself in 4 hours time, top 10 would be sick but maybe pushing it. After spreading shavings in a barn filled with lime for a few hours I was pretty tired, my boss and I sat down for a break and we were discussing today's racing schedule. I mentionned the Pro/Elites take off at 11:30 and he asked a two-part question that has stuck with me. "When are you going to be at that level and more importantly, why aren't you there yet?". It's not like I don't put enough time in the saddle, not enough intensity? Not enough structure? Well, Chown has been helping me out but this week was a rest week so hopefully my form comes around when I start training smarter.

I got home yesterday with enough time to cut the neighboor's lawn (side job) and get a 1.5h spin done with some jumps before heading off to the club to wash some dishes. "It'll only be until 10 o'clock" she said, so I was home by 11:30, nice. Of course you can't just get home and magically fall asleep so bed time was a little into the am hours.

So why am I not there yet? I want to be, that's a start haha. I'm not going to upgrade if I find myself with 260 points but never cracking the top 5. Maybe I don't rest hard enough, I get the training done either after a hard day at work so right away I'm not 100% there or I have the day off and get in an awesome day, chill, then wake up early in the morning getting ready for another day at work. Getting another workout done after that shift almost seems counter-productive since you become stronger during rest. That's pretty much what my schedule has been like for the past little while.

Anyways, enough ranting, I'm not one to feel sorry for myself I'm just waiting for my dad to finish breakfast and I thought I'd post something. Of course I'm not the only one who has a physically demanding job with alot of hours while trying to squeeze in 20 hour weeks, that's just the way she goes.

See you all in a couple hours.

It's a start

2010-05-27T20:58:00.003-04:00

Mtb is still at the shop to ITT on the road bike it was, about 14km out at Silverdale with 2 out and backs. These fit perfectly into my schedule once every 4 weeks, on rest weeks. Ride out at a pretty good pace (45min) to get the heart rate up, 20(ish) minute effort then ride home easy (1h). Makes for just over 2 hours of riding and opens up the legs pretty good.

Holtzman was giving me some pointers on how to tackle the course, I tried to keep them in mind but when it's go time I have a hard time pacing myself when it's such a short effort. The St.CCC junior TTT were my minute men so no chance for a catch there, I was Noah's minute man so at least I had someone to run away from. Felt pretty shitty on the first out and back on Silverdale rd. but picked it up and felt great on my way out on Sixteen. I almost wiped out on the U-Turn after taking it a little too fast and ending up on the gravel, a short sprint and the time was made up. I might have pushed too big of a gear on my way back in the headwind but I felt good.

The ITT is an awesome gauge to see where you're at since it's not long enough to bring about any fatigue to carry over to the weekend but it's long enough to bring on the pain for the time being. Maybe if I get a Thursday off in the next 3 weeks I can get my hill work done early in the am and get a ride out there to do to ITT in the pm, pretty unlikely. 21:47 isn't bad, but it's not great, it's a start. Something to build on.

Never-ending chase

2010-05-25T22:08:00.003-04:00

Had no Internet yesterday so today's blogroll took a while with the racing that went on this weekend, that's cool though, after a ride I like to read about riding so the more written the better. It seems half the posts I read were about crashing these past few days, from what I can remember Emily Batty, Guthrie, Kinsie, Dawson, Trevor, k I'm pretty tired but you get the point.

Yesterday's recovery ride went a little longer than expected at 2.5hrs, apparently the ferry closes at 1 on holidays, oh well. Good ride with Csikos and Hopkins through Pelham and the outskirts of Niagara Falls, all flat, just the way I like my R&R rides.

Got a solid 2 hours of sleep last night, this year all my friends my age are turning 19 so there may or may not be a few more nights like that. Farm this morning for 9am and it was freakin hot! Dragged some bags of shavings around in a barn with lime all over the floor for a couple hours and whatnot, fun times.

Pretty cooked when I got home, passed out for a bit and woke just before 5:30 in time to head out to the tuesday night race. Flat course today, I don't want to see Effingham for a few more days anyways. The pack was just leaving when I got there, Noah and myself were signing in as they rode off and by the time we took off they were nearly out of sight. We chassed, and chassed, and chassed, picked up Moote and Guy VK who dropped off the pack but just couldn't close it. After a couple more laps we knew we wouldn't close by the end, even after picking up Rob Visser who dropped off the pack. 8 laps of chassing full out leaves little energy for a sprint, I was feeling good today, did lots of pulling, if this wouldn't have been Noah's first ride in a couple weeks after getting hit by a car we probably could have closed it in a couple laps.

I don't think I'll be riding tomorow, working on the farm in the am and washing some dishes in the pm, Thursday will be either be the ITT or some trail riding. I'm hoping to see single-digit results from now on.

Niagara Classique

2010-05-23T18:30:00.004-04:00

After yesterday's 3.5hr ride through the rain with some good climbing and echelonning I was feeling really good, I was riding the echelon smoothly and felt punchy on the climbs. I was hoping that would transfer over to today's 60k race with 5 climbs up Saylor's and it did... sorta.

First lap I sat in, did no work whatsoever and took it pretty easy on the climb, I think I was second or third guy up but there were no KOM points for this one. I pushed over the crest and took the lead to try and thin out the pack a bit and drop some stragglers.

Second lap I started to launch some attacks to get a feel for the pack and see who was down for what, got away for a bit solo but shut that down because it was still very early and no one was with me. I was surprised at how slow the pack was taking the turns so I attacked a couple times before the bends to try and get rid of those that can potentially cause crashes. Once on Effingham the pace picked up a bit and some people pushed super hard on the climb, I decided to hold back since they looked like they were hurting and I did not want that feeling when we still have to go up 3 more times. No KOM points.

I was hoping to see Trevor Montague in the pack to try and organise something because I've been following his blog and he was to be here today, a fellow mtber who can really put the power down and probably had the same instinct as me which is to RACE from start to finish. On the third lap I seen the Brant Cycle jersey and we decided that we were going to try for a break. We launched a few times but nothing ever stuck, it's hard for 2 guys to get away from 50, but still very doable. I took off just before the downhill on Killman and put the hammer down heading in to the turn, I leaned but felt I can go faster so I started pedalling and my pedal caught the ground, I damn nead shit myself! Stayed up though, beauty. The reason I took off before the downhill was that we were passing M3's and I didn't want to be going down a twisty descent while trying to avoid smoking a M3. I looked back once I was on Effingham to see a crash, apparently it was just one guy, but it made me not regret my decision to go instead of completely saving my legs for some KOM points. Pushed a good pace up the climb but still pretty conservative, 3rd up gives me 1 point.

Trevor went off solo for a bit on the fourth lap (or third? it's hard to keep track), I was contemplating jumping to get up there but I knew a few guys would grab my wheel and I would eventually be dragging the whole pack. A few of us decided that we were going to push the pace after the fourth climb and we were down to commit to a break and work hard to hold it until the end. Second last time up I was third again, not enough for KOM, it didn't matter because I was getting ready for a bigger move worth more bills. I latched on the one of the guys who planned to go in the break with us and we got a little gap, I pulled through, Trev pulled through, some other guy pulled through then completely layed off the gas. We were getting caught so I pulled through, and the pace started to pick up again, we had somewhat of an echelon going then guy pulls through and dropped the pace yet again. It's easy to say "let's go for a break" but if you're going to commit then pédale tabarnak! So after a few surges then some more guys coming through and not wanting to push hard the pack was together again.c

No one was working so I guess that means it's going to be a sprint finish, I was feeling good and had been constantly drinking and took a gel so no cramps would occur for such and effort. We got the base and I made my way to the front, I took off on the left and heard "he's gone", I thought I was. Looked back and a group of 5 were coming on strong, they passed me and I couldn't hold on, came in 6th, one spot away from some cash and an upgrade point.

Realistically, I shouldn't have expected much today since it was my last day of a 3-week build, but I was feeling good and thought I could go for the W.

I really want to get out of S4 but I made a goal to win a race before I cat up, we'll see how she goes at KW.

It was a perfect day for a ride, my form is starting to come around, had some good talks with Chown about smart training lately and listening to someone who know's his shit can only do good. And it is.

Big ups to the Cadet boys from the St.CCC for their 1-2-3 performance, De Cal for his podium in the S3/Junior race, Csikos for a solid race, and of course Chown for finishing with the S1/2 pack with guys like Roth and Riggs in there. He was up since 5:30 and probably got a solid 5h of sleep last night, intense.

Big thanks to Bryan Sheldon for setting up the tent which helped me avoid heat stroke while I stayed to watch the rest of the day's races and to all those from the St.CCC and Alexander's Farm for putting together such a sick event.

So this week's mishaps

2010-05-20T19:51:00.002-04:00

This week was supposed to be the third week of my Base 3, the third week is supposed to be the hardest with a rest week waiting on the other side of the weekend. I'm still taking next week as a rest week going in to Hardwood then I'll be starting my Build 1. This week was pretty much a rest week, not by choice, but that's just the way she goes.

Monday was a recovery ride, felt alright, my legs were feeling it from the weekend.

Tuesday I had a great warm up and was feeling pumped to ride the Niagara Classic course at race pace with some fast guys. While signing in and shooting the shit I noticed my brake was rubbing, centered it, still rubbing. Backed it off a bit and spun it to see a crazy wobble then Holtzman pointed out that my spoke was broken, the good news was, said Chown, that I can probably use the rest. Fair enough, I rode home and chilled out for the rest of the night.

Wednesday I planned on doing a hot lap of the 8x12 in each direction, once I got to the trail I heard a loud ticking noise and realised that my hub (or something) came loose and there was some good play in my wheel. Last year the exact same thin happened while pre-riding at Mountainview, by the time I realised it all the shops were closed but some guy came over and stuck an allen key in each side, tightened and it was good to go. The last two times this happened to me I tried the same thing but it didn't work, nothing the LBS can't handle.

Today was my day off work, got a text from a friend reminding me that we were working at the club to wash some dishes. This left me with little time to drop off the money for some XT shifters (that I might "unlock"), drop off what need to be fixed at Liberty! (the new shop is saweeet) before heading back to Port Robinson to wash some dishes. It all worked out. Afterwards I gave a nice clean up to my road bike before taking it out for some 10min intervals. The plan was to do 3 and see if I was going to be good for a fourth, I was feeling really good even with only 3min recovery in between and wasn't loosing much power at all... Until the third one, with a minute and 30 to go I started to feel week but pushed through and decided to call it a day.

Getting fueled up and destinked to watch the Habs come back from a 2 game deficit, last I checked it was 1-0 with 13 or so to go in the first.

Just got a call from Derek M. from Liberty!, my wheel was to be ready for Saturday but it's ready to go now. Siiiiick, thanks guys.

Another 24h week

2010-05-16T22:30:00.006-04:00

Yesterday's club ride went a little longer than usual, met Csikos and Hopkins on Cataract and made it to the chip shop on time to start the ride. The pace was easy, as usual, heading in to Jordan. Afterwards it was a bunch of hills and echelons, I wasn't feeling too bad but my legs were very stiff then became very sore. Could have been the fact that it wasn't warm enough for shorts at 7 in the morning, but I don't have arm or leg warmers to peel off, just underarmor so I dressed for the 9am weather. Or it could have been Friday's ride.

I peeled off heading towards Smithville and followed Hopkins, Csikos, and Wes who wanted to climb one last hill. Quarry isn't too bad at all, but it sure as hell hurts when you're legs weigh 800 pounds. I was expecting to hammer from Jordan to Smithville, but with the detour I had already done 130km and I wasn't even home yet. We stopped at a corner store for some kick-ass cookies which gave me enough fuel to make it home, nearly 140km and close to 5 hours later.

Today was a mixture of gnarly, radical, and serious. I headed over to Hardwood with De Cal for some pure awesomeness, we rode every trail there and decided that an extra lap of the o-cup course was not going to happen after finishing the ride with Radical. Before doing this trail, we thought that Gnarly was the longest one, so we debated whether to go back to the car to fill up our bottles or not. Good thing we did because this trail went on forever, it was defenitely the toughest trail physical wise, not too sure if it's the toughest technical trail, it felt like it but maybe that's just because I was starting to fatigue after chassing around an Elite rider all day. Now that I think of it, all the methane that was being shot into my face could have weakened me as well, there was only one that went by that I didn't get 2 solid whiffs of, only because we were on a switchback. Thankfully, no triple whiffers.

What an awesome day, I can't get over how sick the trails are, when I'm older and I have millions of dollars that fell from the sky I'm going to build an exact replica of that place in my backyard. Phrases along the lines of "that was cool" or "that was awesome" were repeated at least 35 times.

Big thanks to AD for the drive.

Looking forward to a few more trips there this year, it's always a good time at Hardwood.

Tomorow there is alot of grass to cut at the farm, nothing like some quality time with the push-mower and weed-whacker on a recovery day. Tuesday is the hilly course, we'll be doing the Niagara Classic course 4 times or so and I've got plans for a good 3-4 more climbs up Saylor's before calling it a day. We'll see how she goes.

Winter flashbacks

2010-05-14T17:17:00.003-04:00

Just like a nice weekend day in the winter, De Cal and I headed out for the circle route. The weather was looking pretty miserable when I was eating breakfast and getting ready, but the weatherman said it was going to clear up by 10. I headed out with one layer too much, it turned out to be a shorts and tee day after all.

We had a good pace on East-West Line heading to Queenston, up the escarpment then it was time for some pretty big winds on the Parkway. We worked together and made some great timing, before we knew it the side road signs read 20...10...3,2,1... Pastry time! I can't remember the name of the place because I forget things very easily but I do remember that it was goooood. De Cal set a world record of highest calorie intake/time ratio, all was burnt in the headwind heading to Port so it's all good.

I was pretty cold heading out from the shop and to make things worse it was 20 degrees colder in Fort Erie and the winds were three times stronger. The sun made its appearance as we got closer to Port and before we knew it we were sweating again and on our way to Welland. A few sketchy intersections and a girl tanning in her bikini later and we were in the Rose City, saw The Coach and his boss jogging on the path, always good to see them.

An awesome 5h ride, our average speed was just over 30km/h so about 150km, beauty. Tomorow I've got an early start with plans to meet up with Max Csikos and head over to the hilly club ride. Lots of sleep and calories are needed for the rest of the day.

Plans for a pre-ride at Hardwood on Sunday, so pumped.

Change of plans

2010-05-13T16:28:00.002-04:00

After Monday's not-so-recovery ride I need a recovery day this week, tomorow is looking like a nice day for a circle route and with the club rides on the weekend that leaves today. It's looking like thunder showers anyways

I might make my way over to St. Kitts if the sun pops out but it's not looking good, I'm off work until Monday so the next three days will be focused on just riding.

Core it is...

Ready for Game 7

2010-05-12T20:08:00.008-04:00

After a late wake up and a few hours of procrastination I suited up in my old man socks and vest and headed out, for a whole 2 seconds, the temperature had warmed up a bit so the vest wasn't needed. Then I headed out for real, had a tough workout ahead of me and I'm feeling it now as I'm watching the habs smoke the Penguins, should be an interesting third period.

After a loop by the river I started a 10min build to get my heart rate up and my legs ready for a hard effort. De Cal explained how to do these intervals properly and he's the one who told me about them in the first place, thanks man. The plan was to do 5 minutes of 30s on/30s off with 5 minutes recovery 5 times, but I was to stop if my power dropped too much. The first three were very tough, I thought my fourth would be my last but decided to start my fifth set and see how I felt. I finished it strong but had a hard time spinning slowly for a bit with the strong headwind. I thought of turning around to recover but I found my groove in my second lowest gear. The hard part is that the 30s off is not really off but more like ease back down to tempo because by the time you start slowing down it's time to go hard again.

Next up was 4x8min cruise intervals with 3min recovery, perfect to start at the 2h mark. The effort is just a bit harder than tempo, like being in a break that just formed and you're trying to build a gap. I had to take a gel after the third one to make it through the fourth which was going straight into the big headwind, I was fighting off a bonk with 3 minutes left and managed to hold it off. I still had some time to do in the headwind, I spun as smooth as I could, I could feel the lactic acid attempting to drain from my legs and it made quite the burn. Got back home with just over 3 hours of ride time, 2 bars, 2 750ml bottles of water and a gel in me.

It's funny how full your fridge looks when you're resting or fighting off a cold and once you're training picks up again it's "where the hell's all my food!?!". If the rain holds off I'll be cutting grass tomorow at work and hopefully getting a good tempo ride on the mtb in the afternoon, if it rains then I'll most likely do some core in the am and head over to the ITT for 6. I'm hoping for no rain because even though I'll have to work I'll have some beauty trails to look forward too and money is never a bad thing either.

A perfect meal for a carb-starved body, that's chicken parmesian burried under the pasta salad

I'm running out of names for titles

2010-05-11T21:04:00.002-04:00

Just sippin on some Sleepy Time tea right now to make sure I pass right out after the movie I'm watching, gotta get a whole bunch of sleep for tomorow's interval session. I've emailed De Cal about the 5min of 30s on/30s off, I'd like to do a few of those, ride around a bit to pull myself back together then move on to some cruise intervals. I'll post up tomorow on what I do and how they go, if all goes well then I shouldn't be able to walk until I go into work Thursday morning.

The reason for the needed sleep is that testosterone took over on yesterday's youth mtb ride with Etzl, Perry, Hopkins, and myself pushing a little too hard for a rest day. A pretty dumb decision, mostly on my part, you'd think I would be the last one to push hard on a rest day after what I went through a month ago that stayed with me for a long ass time. A good ride though, I'm surprised how well the two roadies ride the trails even after being away from the dirt for so long, Perry still had mud on his bike from September, maybe earlier. We have come to an agreement that there will be no more of that.

On my way in to work this morning I thought that it was another one of those days that would be freezing in the morning then the sun would come out and make it perfect for a tuesday night hammerfest. Not the case, at all, it got colder and the shit storm rolled in. My hands and feet were numb by the time I got there, as I approached the baseball diamond I seen cars pulling out in groups of 5. Even if it was cancelled, I came to rip my legs apart in the freezing cold rain so that's what I was gonna do. 8 of us had the same thing in mind, although some of us were questioning our decision after 30 seconds, mainly me and Etzl. I had no excuse though, having the most layers on and some wool socks.

The ride went well, we rode hard, when the pace settled there would be an attack within 15s from someone who was either too cold or pissed about getting someone's road spray in the face. Noah was launching some good ones, one was bound to stick, and it did. Three though juniors, they were gone, Etzl kept launching and got some good gaps quickly but with no one to work with he couldn't bridge. We cut the "crit" one lap short and Etzl tried to set up something good for me but he pushed a little hard and he was gone. I felt my bike bobbing a little towards the end and realised I flatted, the air held in time to get me to the sign.

Big thanks to Moote for letting me chill in his car while I waited for my dad, nice ride by everyone who came out today, good commitment.

O-Cup #2 Albion Hills

2010-05-09T22:46:00.006-04:00

After my dad decided to go to Kitchener for the weekend for my sister's last b-ball tourney of the year, I was left without a ride. If worse came to worse I would have taken the shitbox that really shouldn't be on the highway for longer than, well actually not at all. It got me to St. Catharines to hitch a ride with De Cal.

Got a good warm-up in with Etzl then around the circle by the stage area that went down last year too, got staged second row and was ready to go. I wasn't feeling as bad as I thought I would, but I did develop a small cough that is still with me now. Probably just some chicken manure residue, nothing major.

The start was pretty quick and I found myself near the back in a train with Moote, we were moving along at an easy pace and once I started to catch my breath from the start I picked the pace up and only Moote responded. We were with each other for while then we weren't, then we were, I picked it up again at the opening climb and he was still with me for a bit. I found myself alone, started feeling really good and quickly started realling guys in, quite a few were past on the Green Monster.

Lap 3 felt even better than the first 2, I was pushing hard on the double track and was riding the single track smoother than the way I rode it last year. The course suited a roadie very well, only a few slick sections and no real technical sections. I was surprised at how fast I was riding up the Green Monster, I always passed at least 3 guys there and was never passed. Just good timing I guess, obviously there were guys riding it much faster than I was.

Lap 4 started to get a little iffy, I took a water instead of E-Load (filled up my bottles there since I still haven't got around to buying some mix) to wash down the pasty lemon taste mixed with the thick gel I had a little before the end of the lap. I was drinking quite a bit because I could feel the cramp coming on in my right quad, the fourth time up the GM it made its way to my hamstrings and pedal stroke I could feel my right leg throbbing ready to unleash the cramp of all cramps. I tried to ease the pressure by pushing harder with my left leg and pulling up to baby the right one, kinda hard on a hill that steep. On the last long(ish) climb I knew I had to stay seated over the roots and at the steep switchback pitches because I could almost hear my right quad saying "if you stand, I explode". Had a 4-man train going and attacked on the last doubletrack and stayed solo till the finish.

I'm pleased with my effort, thought I did much better than 19th but that's just the way she goes. Niagara Classic will be a good tune-up race for Hardwood in a few weeks, goal is top 10/-10min from leader, seems pretty realistic if things go well.

Big thanks to De Cal's rents for the ride and him for the gels and Oat Meal to Go and to those who stuck around through the cold to cheer me on. Kerton and Jakob were super motivating at the top of GM, thanks guys.

Huge props to De Cal for a massive ride in Elite, Kerton and Jakob both narrowly missing podium spots and Sara from the SHCC who went from winning her second-ever o-cup in sport 2 weeks ago to a podium in expert today. As well as Morka and Emily for their big wins, over 20km/h average speed for Elite Women! Apparently Etzl was rockin before he got his mechanical too, bummer.

Of course, big thanks to my mom (and dad but it's mother's day) for all her support.

Day off work tomorow!

Stolen from Kerton's Flickr, coming up the Green Monster

We'll see how it goes

2010-05-08T23:52:00.005-04:00

Starting from Thursday, well the day at the barn turned out to be a little longer than I would have thought. There was no way I was going riding after an 11 hour shift, I had plans to hit up the clubs ITT but when the clock hit 6 and I was still in the barn finishing getting rid of the heavy it was not possible. I was so fried after that shift, I couldn't stand up at all by the end of the day and didn't really move the rest of the night.

Yesterday was pretty much the same, up at 7:30 trying to get some food in me before heading to the barn for 8. I was hoping for some easy distance after the shift just to get the legs going, 8 hours later I was heading home with the same intentions. Got home, showered up, didn't care what the weather was like because I needed to get out there. I started to get some clothing ready and the next thing I remember was waking up and realising that I had fallen asleep face-plant style with the towel still on for 3 hours, nice. Needless to say, there was no riding done. 19 hours of work in 2 days so far, it gets better.

So that brings us to today, same story, barn at 8. Got lots of work done in 6 hours which was enough to allow me to head home. I wanted to get a short tempo ride in but by the time I got home, do what I gotta do, it was time to head to my job at Club Castropignano to wash some dishes for 6 hours. 3 days, 31 hours or work, now I'm sitting in my room writting this out at midnight. I can't say I'm excited for tomorow's race, but I can say that I'm looking forward to a day off work and a day on the bike. I would be very happy with a top 15, satisfied with 16th.

Working that many hours wouldn't be so big of a deal if I had a desk job of some sort, although an 11 hour shift at the desk would have me coming home tired as hell, it's a different tired. Much like studying for a while then trying to get on the bike, it's all about getting over that mental hump. Whethere it be going from cycling to work or work to cycling, if you're job isn't physical then you've just got to be mentally strong enough to switch gears. Much easier said than done, I know, I'm just starting to ramble on now, time for bed.

I'll see you tomorow at Albion, well, today.

Work then more work

2010-05-05T17:52:00.003-04:00

Started work later than usual this morning, 10am, seems the catchers were slow as hell. I'm getting much more efficient at cleaning the barn and I convince myself that it will transfer over to the bike. It's good for strength building that's for sure.

Headed out around 3:15 with blue skies and lots of sun shine, oh yeah, and WIND. Very, very strong winds today. I had 4x6min intervals planned with 3 minutes of recovery in between, I headed down by the river to warm up then made my way North to start the intervals with a tailwind. I felt super strong through the first two and really felt the burn by the third one. After three I was on 8th Ave. heading east, so the fourth one was through a combination of crosswind and headwind depending on which way the road was curving. This one was really though but I pushed through and made my way over to Decew.

I decided to do one more after going down the wall, I pushed really hard through the headwind in the valley between both hills and I was really suffering trying to stay above threshold on the climb. With the stopwatch going I was able to time myself up the climb, starting at the 40km/h sign to the top was 2:45, not bad. However I still had a minute to go on the watch so hammered after the crest, made a quick right turn and finished it off with a sprint up the first hill on Cataract. High cadence spin in to the headwind on the way home.

It just started to rain now, I was hoping for some mtbing tomorow with a 5-20-5 tempo with equal rest thrown in. I guess it's gonna be 3h on the road with a 5min tempo then the St.CCC ITT which takes around 20min followed by another 5min tempo. Should be fun after a full day of shit removal, gotta make up for todays half-day.

If anyone needs some high quality chicken manure for their lawn, garden or to place in a glass bowl in your living room and call it pot-pourri, let me know. You'll have the best garden in the neighborhood, guaranteed.

It came down to Handlebars CC v. St.CCC

2010-05-04T19:47:00.004-04:00

Another good Tuesday night race, the pace was quick from the start with a few attacks on the first half lap. The climb up Saylor's didn't hurt so bad because Kerton, Moote, Watt and myself got the first one out of the way in warm up. Who am I kidding, my legs were screaming at the top and Etzl was feeling good so he took off. From then on it was attack after attack, surge after surge, everyone wanted to get a good workout in.

On the last lap there was a 6-man St.CCC train of pain goin on as we approached the Hollows so I attacked to break that up, it ended up working out and with Chown taking the switchback like Armstrong it was our turn to bring the pain. The climb up Hansler hurt as we made our way through the C and dropped B riders, I thought I was dropped but I dug deep and caught back on. This also happened coming through Sulfur Spring. I'm not very good at racing on gravel.

Coming onto Metler (last road before turning left onto Effingham) Noah launched a beauty attack and was quickly building a gap, his team mates played it smart as I was too gassed to chase and they weren't going to be giving no free rides. Chown told me to go, but I was loosing steam, for some reason I got a second wind a few seconds later and surged real hard in an attempt to bring Noah back. By this time the only people left of the 15 or so guys who started were 5 St.CCC racers (4 juniors) along with me and Chown. I knew Chown would have a much better sprint up Saylor's then I would so I tried the best I could to bring the pack back together. It worked, sorta, as we were closing in, Holtzman attacked and brought the pack back together without me. So I was popped off the back chassing as hard as I could up Saylor's, ended up catching Holtzman but the rest were gone.

Not a bad race at all, felt good and my top end is existent for the first time in a while. Albion this weekend... pumped.

Lots of chicken shit to shovel tomorow and 4x6min intervals after... not so pumped.

Monday Night Youth Club

2010-05-03T20:40:00.009-04:00

After a day of work around the house, mostly the garage, to make room for my bike-repair centre, I loaded up the truck and headed to Brock to meet the club. Yeah, I know, driving there is weak but mondays are my active recovery days so a 2h (usually 1.5h ride time) trail ride is perfect. As I was heading there it started to rain harder and harder, by the time I was at Brock it was coming down pretty good so I was thinking it would be a dump ride to work on skills which would have been fine by me.

We headed towards the trails despite the short rain fall and to our surpise they were not bad at all, a little soft heading towards the 8x12 along the creek. The 8x12 itself seemed like it would be soft so we avoided any damage to Marv's hard work. Since last week wasn't so hard on training I decided to give a few good efforts today, nothing Etzl couldn't shut down and easily counter with his team mate Hopkins close behind. I felt pretty good, my legs would burn any time I put an effort in but I wasn't exhausted.

We rode up Hogsback then some horse trail it was insanely humid and the rest of the trails we rode were bone dry. Somehow anything around Brock got much less rain than closer to suzanne's, even right after the rain fall the stuff around Brock was dry.

It was a great ride with some good guys, as usual. Even though I'm one of the guys that is supposed to be helping out the youth, I find myself learning from guys like Kirbie and Lemon (though he wasn't out tonight, back injury, get better soon man) and now even Etzl seems to have much more knowledge than myself.

Sorry for the lack of pressing enter, blogger isn't letting me tonight for some reason

Looks good, now I just need some mechanical knowledge

Handlebars Spring MTB Classic

2010-05-02T18:10:00.004-04:00

Neil Armstrong was over at 7:30 to pick me up, we headed south of the border for my first race in a different country. Rolled in Sprague Brook park before 9 and got registered and whatnot, hit up the first set of singletrack a few minutes later and realised I still had my toque on. I actually got in a very good warm-up today, around 40min, delayed start, some more spinning, shoot the shit, line up at a baseball diamond and we were off.

I entered the first bit of singletrack sitting 8th, up the first long climb I was pretty comfortable in the train. I didn't loose any spots but by the time we got out the open road I seemed to be behind 20, not sure what happened there, some people were talking about wrong turns that made for a short cut, I'm sure no one actually ment to do it. Anyways, this was before the second big climb so I picked off a few here and there and made my way back to my spot. Coming around the pond before the final descent of lap 1 a few people got caught by a flat trap, a dip just big enough to fit your wheel so if you hit it just right you find yourself with no more air, the guy in front of me who got caught was riding a 29er. Dismount and run it is.

Lap 2 I was feeling very good, the caffeine from the gel Nathan gave me was working its magic and I was starting to bridge gaps in the singletrack. I'll have a better idea of what position I was it at what point when the results are up but I believe I was in 5th or 6th and starting to pull in the next guy. I wanted to pick off 2 more guys before the end of the lap, but riding on the bumpy and greasy open field between trails just kicks the shit out of you. There was one nice really long doubletrack section that was pure horsepower, but I still couldn't seem to get the next guy. A few spots were swapped before the end of the lap but I think I stayed in the same position.

Starting lap 3 I could feel the depletion of energy in my legs and a hard-charging JC "the power house frenchman" Roberge wasn't making things any better. He ended up catching me on an open field section and I was unable to hold on to his wheel, I should have taken my gel before the next guy caught me that way I could have jumped on his wheel, but I took it after I realised that if I went hard on the next climb I would surely cramp. I had to let him go, lesson learned, eat gel before getting caught and not after. The rest of the race I fought hard but there was no one in sight behind me or in front of me, JC was gone. Came through the finish in 1:48 -corrected- and the winning time was 1:40ish by none other than Nathan Chown, no need for ""'s between his first and last name. Apparently he was leading the country in UCI points way back when, had no idea until there was a speach about him before his award.

Before the awards JC and I headed over to some 55 degree water to destinkafy and cool off, I'm not too sure where the water came from but I'll post up tomorow if I start to sprout a third arm.

Now get this, after the race we were treated to some deliciously greassy pizza, some salad AND FREE BEER! Yeah, I know, crazy. It nearly brought a tear to my eye, I think I saw JC crying out of joy though while eating out of his pizza box: "What? Dey ran out of plate". Although it was not as good as we make it, a wise man once told me that the best beer in world is a free beer, that would be my father. Out of respect, I couldn't not have one.

Huge props, first of all, to anyone who rode that course on a cross bike. Just finishing with one of those must have been a huge challenge, I couldn't bring myself to complain about how sore my arms and lower back were because of them. Of course, big props to Chown for the win, Neil Armstrong for his second place in 45+ (both on cx bikes), JC for an awesome performance for his first race of the year, as a matter of fact, Canada was really well represented with the SHCC and St.CCC. Also, props to De Cal, Perry, Visser, and Maccalum for their performance at Springbank.
Huge thanks to Neil for taking me there and back, that guy is awesome. Also, to Chown for his defenitely needed gel and bottle-and-a-half of Accelerade.

Tomorow is the opening night of the Youth MTB club, always a good time. Looks like a road race weekend in Hamburg as well as the Racoon Rally might be added to the schedule, which is getting pretty crammed if you ask me.

Another one bites the dust

2010-04-30T18:23:00.002-04:00

Opted for a mtb ride today since the trails won't be dry for much longer, oh yeah, and mountain biking kicks ass. It was an awesome day for anything actual, hot enough to make fighting a headwind on the road a fun challenge, almost a relief after sweating so bad in the trails.

I rode pretty hard until I got to Brock, decided to take the Bruce Trail after a little loop in the Dump. A really fun trail with some good log hops at the bottom, managed to make them all finally, a couple I had to question then man up and walk back then do it. Once I got out on Treemont rd. I started my tempo, did a couple hard climbs on the road before heading back into the trail. The first set of singletrack climbs right to the top of the escarpment, I had to take a little breather after that one, I felt the heat getting to me. After a couple minutes I got back on and continued the tempo out to Hydro Hill, got a call from Nat (The Coach's boss) and I was to meet them at Allanburg. So I pushed really hard through some trails, across the creek, very hard through the 8x12 and then finished it with an all out effort up Decew. Stopped at The Mill to top up the bottles.

Took the L2L gravel back to Allanburg where we met up with De Cal who was prepping for Springbank this weekend. Shot the shit then rode some trails for over an hour before heading back home along the canal trails. Of course, with not even 30s of trail left before we were to get on the pavement JF gets a rip in his tire, most likely from glass. The glueless patch actually held up for the last 3k. Perfect day for a 4 hour ride.

Just had a huge protein shake not too long ago and now I'm waiting for some potatoes and sausage to be ready. Gonna go to my grandpaps for Game 1 of the Mtl v Crosby series, can you believe they actually came back and beat Washington?

Tomorow is looking like a good day to get out for an early ride while its hot and before the rain comes.

Done... Now it begins

2010-04-29T16:11:00.007-04:00

Finished off my last exam yesterday, 3 hours of philosophy, hopefully my brain hardens back up in a couple days. Took my last antibiotic this morning, hopefully they worked. Now that school is done for the next 4 months, I just have work and training to worry about. Most of the summer days will go something like; wake up/eat/work/eat/ride/eat/sleep, not very complicated. Work will consist of shovelling chicken shit or goat shit (yeah, there's a goat coupe too), cutting grass and gardening. Pretty good work, keeps me from sitting on my ass all day.

This week's training, back up to Tuesday night's race, lots of attacks right from the start. Lefebvre, Toews and Holtzman got away and when I bridged a small gap to Etzl we put the hammer down and looked back to see we had a gap. Noah joined us shortly, don't mess with his cadence. We were chassing for a lap until they got away from me and I was chassing solo for the rest of the race trying to stay away from Chown, Perry, Hokins and maybe others but I forget. Lefebvre dropped off the first group so I was chassing two guys who were chassing two guys. In the end, no one caught anyone. Some pretty big gaps in the field, wind sure played a big factor in that. I was feeling comfortable above theshold trying to hammer in the headwind, Perry is defenitely right that I have to learn how to hold a wheel in a corner, I'm getting tired of bridging 50m gaps after every turn.

An exam 2-5 pretty much screws up any training you have planned since I like to take a nap after a ride, can't really do that when writting an exam. After the exam I decided to chill out a bit and pick it back up today. I sent out an email to De Cal and Morka on Tuesday to see if I can get a ride set up on today, totally forgot to check my email until this morning. De Cal was probably already out riding since he had work, but Morka wasn't heading out til 11:30. We met at Mossimo's, did some good climbs, battled some good winds and finished off through the Hollows after 3 hours. The initial plan was to head to Jordan but I got a flat heading North on Effingham, luckily a lady rode by on her nice new Trek bike because my back-up tube didn't work and I couldn't use Morka's because he was on his hardtail. I did a doulbe patch job and somehow it worked, so we stuck around closer to home just to be safe. Good stuff.

I told him about my problem with race starts and he said that my warm-up is for sure a huge factor in that, his warm-ups are never under an hour. So I'll defenitely try that out before this weekend's race and see if I can actually breathe for the first 10 minutes.

Tomorow I would like to get out on the mtb before the rain comes, Pipelines might not be dry but it's worth a shot to check it out on my way North.

O-Cup #1 Mansfield

2010-04-27T13:02:00.006-04:00

A couple days late, but with 4 exams sandwiched in 6 days I haven't had much time for anything. After studying Saturday, then writting an exam from 2-5, then rushing to get a chain for tonights World Cup to make it to work for 5:30, getting everything ready was left to Sunday morning. Good thing I race at 1:30 now because it was tight. We (me and pap) made it to the course just before 1 and I got signed in and peeled a layer off. Warmed up for a bit solo, then with Morka, then solo again, I got in the starting pen at the very pack. So here's a vid of the start to explain part of how the beginning of my race went. Yeah, that's me, third last.

The pace wasn't very high at all but I always tend to breathe uncontollably at the start no matter how fast it is. Weird, it's not the nerves, maybe a shitty warm up technique? Or I am just brutal at starts, I'll find out in a few races. The first lap went by very quick even fealing as shitty as I was, I started to feel better on the opening climb the second time around but once back in the trails I was just fealing tired and I had lost count of the amount of crashes. I was riding with Jeff Moote when the front Elite guys came by, that was cool to see. The third time up the climb I felt awesome, this is where my race started. A couple stupid moves, but nothing major, started picking guys off and was making very good use of the big ring.

The last time up the climb I pinned in and started fealing very good. My fourth lap was my fastest lap (besides the shortened first one) and I started picking off more and more guys, I dropped my chain for the third or fourth time on one of the steep climbs, but a little on-the-go fix and remount combination ment that I didn't loose much ground at all.

I had no idea where I was, I was hoping top 10, but that didn't end up being the case. Ended up 17th out of 30. Not too bad for my first expert race, hopefully get in the top 10 at Albion and start making my way up to the podium by August.

There was no time for socializing afterwards because I was getting some sort of energy exchange/mind clearing. Pretty cool stuff, did it work? Not sure, I was able to breathe better afterwards but that could have been caused simply by the rest and the fact that I was no longer inhaling second-hand dust. Who knows? Let's just leave it at that.

Just like any race, some good things learned. I'm defenitely going to get in a much longer warm up by arriving at last 2 hours early to have some time to chill and get on the trainer for 30min before spinning around and doing some tempo/sprints. Handlebars Spring Mountain Bike Classic this weekend with Chown, he's doing it on his cross bike, should be a quick race.

Props to Etzl for his podium in Cadet ex, De Cal for a strong ride for his first time in Elite, Derek M. just missing a podium, and Jeff K. cracking the top 10 in masters. Sorry if I missed anyone, I'm studying for my philosophy exam so my brain is a little fuzzy.

Rode hard, ate a lot, bed time

2010-04-22T16:49:00.003-04:00

Just got back from an awesome ride not too long ago, ate a whole lot and now I'm lying in my bed completely spent. In a good way.

Got a little later start then I would have liked, but sleeping is the shit. I was still out before 12 which is very good for me when it's a solo ride. I started off with the usual Bauer/L2L trails to get to St. Catharines. I knew it was going to be a sick ride right from the first stretch of trail along the canal, everything was completely dry and I was riding sections much faster than I could last year. Finally using the berms instead of my breaks and pumping in and out of the ruts instead of sketching out and loosing momentum.

Once North, I started off with the Mill trail then got to the Short Hills through Driftwood. The trail comes out on Wiley rd. and at the top there is a gate to go around for the main path OR there is some singletrack going right. Lately I've been exploring quite a bit so I took it until I came to camp Wetaskawin, I was having flashbacks of being there as a little fella in grade 7 and 8. That was our junior high bonding trip, I was always so excited to go because of all the salamanders I would catch and bring home.

Anyways, got lost for a while but did alot of very long and steep climbs and descents so it wasn't all that bad, turned around a couple times and I was back at the gate. Not sure which loop I took but I ended up where we go down that sketchy descent with a sharp left turn at the bottom for the Squeezer. Followed that out to Decew that back tracked but instead of taking the L2L, I took the ATV trail that brings me to the Pipelines. Two super tough climbs later and I was heading home on rail trail.

I rode hard the whole 4 hours and climbed all the hills at race pace, once back on the rail trail to get home I took it easy though. Tomorow is the last chance we get for some early season mtbing, then it's rain and more rain for 2 days straight. May isn't really early season anymore, not mid but not early. Or maybe it is, whatever.

The next couple days will be pretty chill, 4 exams in 6 days starting tomorow. Awesome.

A little sidetracked (pun intended)

2010-04-21T18:07:00.004-04:00

I would have slept in way past 12 today if the sun was shinning so bright right into my room. First off it was very annoying, but more importantly it ment that there was a possibility of riding the trails in the North. I started off by heading towards the Pipelines in Fonthill to find the ATV trail that should take me right to the L2L stuff. The plan was to take that North and after riding some trails I was going to take the L2L stretch and canal mtb trail home. I bombed down a hill and put the hammer down to get up one, then another, then another, I just kept pushing harder and harder while climbing and my descending skills were the best they've ever been. I had no idea which trail went where because the Pipelines were way too wet to ride last year.

Every time I came out onto a road I spun easy for a bit until I figured out where I was then went back in for some more fun. I had no idea that the place had so many trails. The climbs have to be the toughest in the region; very steep, suprisingly long, and lots of roots. There isn't any flat stuff, you're always riding on a ridge or climbing. There were some doubletrack descents that reminded me alot of a place like Mansfield or Ganaraska. One of them took me real close to the Hollows so I took a short road ride over to St. John's Conservation Area for some more climbing. I always wanted to take my bike there, but never got around to it. Very short but the climbs are very similar to those in the Pipelines.

I made my way back to the ATV trail and took it right to where the map said it would take me, Beaverdams where the red barn is. I took the L2L stretch and the mtb trail along the canal at tempo(ish) and held a good pace into the headwind for the rest of the way home. The ride was 3 hours but it felt much longer, anyone that lives in the region should defenitely ride those trails. There are a few creek crossings that aren't rideable but the hike-a-bike is pretty easy and there aren't bushes to walk through.

Tomorow I'll defenitely get an earlier start, up at 8 and hopefully out before 10. MTB fo sho, probably the Short Hills, Brock, 8x12, should be more like 4-5hrs.

Feeling good about not feeling good

2010-04-20T19:11:00.003-04:00

Let me start off by saying that it was pretty brutal of me not to mention how good Nathan Chown did at the P2A. He barely gets any sleep, this time he didn't sleep for 2 days, and 6th place! Apparently he was sick on top of that, insane. This is especially brutal considering he's my team mate and all. Yeah, I didn't even mention that I'm racing for Handlebars CC this year. I'm super-pumped about it and I didn't even share the news.

So on to the first Tuesday night race of the year. Not much to report since I didn't race too long, I left the house at 5 and rode to the star, did half a lap and waited around until everyone got there. By this time I was pretty cold, but so was everyone else, the sun decided it didn't want to shine anymore. The start was pretty calm, I was fealing pretty good so I made my way to the front after there was an attack that got shut down and went off the front for a bit. I knew it wouldn't last longer than a minute.

The pace was pretty high on our first trip up Saylor's, at the top Noah was off the front solo and when Chown launched an attack the whole pack responded, minus me. I was chassing for a while and the gap wasn't growing but I knew I was only one surge away from being out of sight so I shut it down and headed back up Saylor's and called it a day. Rode back home with Willie Coyle and we had a good, unfinished, talk. Gear ratios and whatnot.

"Yeah Justin, it's all about leg speed. Have you ever seen that kid Noah pedal a bike? That guy does not know how good he is."

Agreed.

I was pretty bummed that I got dropped before the real jam started but that's cool. On the weekend I didn't even think I would be back on my bike before Mansfield causing me to miss another race. So everything is going much better than I thought, meds work good as far as I can tell. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I was right about my sinus infection. So last week I was hit with a bad cold on top of the sinus infection (that I've probably had on and off for close to 2 years) on top of my ear infection. Nice.

Now that's what I'm talking about

2010-04-19T14:03:00.004-04:00

Got out for just under 2 hours on the bike I'll be racing on this weekend, I haven't ridden it since November and it felt freakin awesome! So much nicer than my other mtb that I've been riding through the winter, defenitely going to get a wide bar for the beater.

I've pretty much got the fastest/funnest way to get through Welland to be on my way to Port, lots of hopping around once I get closer to downtown and a sweet but very short singletrack stretch to get me to the canal path. I put down some good hard efforts to open up, well, everything a bit so that I'm not a slug in the trails. The trails were super-dry and fast which made for some really fun trail riding, for the first time in a while I felt good. I was on freakin cloud 9 until there was 15 seconds left of trail to ride before I hit the path to head home and I heard a really high pitch sound, a very painful one, mentally that is. My rear tire was completely flat and after a quick check I found a nice big rip across the top and into the sidewall. Looked back on the trail to find scattered glass, I was so pissed, but now that I think back, at least it happened as close to Welland as possible (in the trail that is) and my mom was just leaving for her lunch hour when I called. Yeah, the more I think about it the more lucky I feel, walking home from Port would sure have ruined the day. Another thing I just thought of, I didn't have to ride through the headwind to get home, nice.

My doctor's appointment is in an hour, we'll see what he sais. After this ride, I'm super pumped for the first race night tomorow. With the 8x12 turned into a night racing series on Fridays I'll be at all of the tuesday night races for sure.

-EDIT- Totally forgot to mention Jeff Lemon's 53rd spot at yesterday's race. That guy is sick, can't wait to start the Monday night youth MTB rides in 2 weeks.

Always learning

2010-04-18T20:03:00.003-04:00

I've been sitting here for 10 minutes now writting and re-writting trying to figure out a way to compare training to studying and how they are totally different. The more in detail I try to go with the comparaison the more similar they get, it all comes down to the fact that no matter what you read or what you're told, it's all you. No matter how much help you get, in the end, it's you that has to do the work if you want to succeed. Whether it be sitting down on a chair for 6 hours trying to understand a text or sitting on a bike seat trying to get through a tough day, it's all you.

I'm not too sure where I'm going with this, but as a self-coached athlete I sometimes find myself thinking that I'm at a disadvantage to those who are fully-supported. Of course I'm at a disadvantage, but does that mean I work harder than they do? Not a chance. To get fast you have to ride, lots, period. You have to go hard, very hard, harder than you think you can go and then even harder. However, you must also know when to take it easy, be able to take control. This is the part that led me to where I am today, no control. My rest week consisted of 4 very hard days in a row while trying to fight a cold. Every day it got worse and worse but I ignored it more and more trying to start a new block tired and weak. Look where that got me, I've rode once since Bronte and I've never felt less rested in my life. I worked my ass off while many were still taking it easy indoors, kicked the shit out of myself to get stronger, and then threw it all away. My hard work, my stupid decision, my fault.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, even if you have a coach, the only way you're going to learn something is by doing it yourself. Usually by screwing up, and if you don't give yourself shit for it then that's when you need to hire a coach so he/she can give you shit. I may be pissed at myself right now, but I know that down the road I can only take this and learn from it. At the end of a block you feel pretty tired, a couple days of rest and you'll feel like you can take on the world but your body needs to fully recover so you can tackle the next block fully rested and ready to go.

Tomorow I'm hoping to get out for a ride, going to see the doctor for sure to get some antibiotics, I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection of some sort which would explain the ear infections since both systems are closely connected. Hopefully this is the last depressing post on how shitty I feel. It better be because Tuesday Night Shit Shows begin in 2 days! When you get some of the fastest guys in the region together and the goal is to ride as fast as you can, good things happen.

To end on a more up-beat note, some awesome results today from the P2A with De Cal 13th, Perry 18th, and Etzl 44th. That's pretty freakin sick considering there were over 1200 racers.