Kelowna Apple - Quick and Dirty Race Recap

Last time I did the Apple in 2008 my overall time was 2:47:28, and it was a PR that I haven't beaten since.

In 2008 I was determined to set a new run PR and was so disappointed at failing to do that it took me a while to realize I'd set an overall PR (I've put a lot of work into the mental side of things over the last three years because of this meltdown).

This year I again went in with high expectations for my run and was again unimpressed with it, but it did at least turn out to be better than 2008. The bike was on par with what I've done in the past few years but apparently this is the year of the swim!

2011 splits:
Swim: 26:54 (2008 - 31:11, no wetsuit)
Bike: 1:19:26 (2008 - 1:18:56)
Run: 51:48 (2008 - 53:52)

Overall:2:41:33

Now I need to figure out how to get the same improvement for my bike and run.

Iron Mountain Sprint Race Report

Another short triathlon, another small field and another podium finish. I could get used to that last part!

I had been warned the race might not be the best organized but was still surprised that it started half an hour late. My swim warm up went from reasonably long to way, way too long - I was in the water for 55 minutes before the race started. That was plenty of time to get chilled and lose all benefit of my warm up run. I guess I'm not used to doing the "second fiddle" races, like sprints seem to be.

It was a beach start but with only about 70 racers and a wide starting area it wasn't too crazy. From some reason everyone seemed to swim way off to the right. After the initial 100m the swimmers around me all swerved to the right and to get a draft I would have had to swim about 10m off course to get a pair of toes.

I opted to keep my line and try to get a draft at the first turn. Unfortunately the swimmers at my pace took the turn wide, I didn't get jostled but I also didn't get close enough to draft. Same thing at the next turn. Very odd. I spent the return leg just out of draft range from a pack of about 10, never managing to catch up.

Swim time: 15:39

I lost a bit of time in T1 cleaning off my sunglasses, it had been raining all morning and they were too fogged up to see through. The guy next to me on the rack took the time to towel off! Did I mention it was raining?

I spent most of the bike passing people, which was good for my ego. There were lots of beginners, so a lot of yelling "On your left!" so they'd move over. It was pretty spread out though, not s terribly crowded course.

One of my bike goals was to be passed as late in the ride as possible by Natasha. I'm a faster swimmer than her (for the moment!) but she's a very strong cyclist so I knew she was coming. She caught me 2/3s of the way through the third lap, so I was happy with that. I kept her in sight the rest of the ride.

Bike time: 48:20

A bit of a rookie move at the dismount, I got off my bike a too soon and had an extra ten seconds of running.

Quick change to run gear, to the cheers of LETC folk who'd done the Olympic earlier in the day.

I could still see Natasha in front of me but knew from her pace it was unlikely I'd pass. Not that I didn't try!

On the second loop Stephanie, who had her schwag from winning the oly women's race, told me I was probably the 4th woman. This gave me an extra push and as I passed a two women I had the urge to ask which lap they were on. Sadly they were on their first and I never caught Natasha so I finished 4th overall. Also, because the race had ten year age groups, Natasha was in my AG and took first.

Run time : 22:04 (4.6 km course)

Overall time: 1:28:41

Be Prepared!

After a week of "too much overindulging" over Christmas I'm trying to get myself back into some semblance of a workout routine that I can carry over into the New Year. 

In mid-December I decided to sign up for a swim clinic in the week between Christmas and New Years.  I figured that as I'd avoided the pool for two months I'd need a bit of a jump start for my 2011 swimming.

I opted for the Infinity Clinic, put on by the coach of my masters swim (can I call it "my" swim when I bailed on almost the entire fall session?).  Until about 8:45 last night I thought this clinic was at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre.  Turns out it's at the UBC pool, rather a significant difference as that's an additional 25-30 minutes biking.  Annoying, and a bit embarassing, but at least I figured it out before I left for the pool this morning.

Also turns out the swim starts at 5:20, I'm not sure what was in the flyer (that came out, like, two weeks ago, why should I remember?) but that seems a bit early.  Even just ten minutes later would be lovely!  The coach sent an email stating that the pool wouldn't open until 5:15 and apologized to those folks who'd want to get in earlier.   That made me laugh.  My plan was to come screaming into the pool at the last possible second.

Signing up for the clinic gave me the impetus to finally  get the rack put on my new bike and to finally use it to bike to swimming.  As I put my paniers on last night, however, I realized that they don't quite fit the new rack, the s-hook is about 2mm too small to hook securely onto the bottom of the rack.  Probably would have been useful to figure this out prior to biking the breadth of the city at 4:30am with fully laden paniers.  It was a bit of a slow ride as I was anxious to avoid potholes or bumps that might send my gear flying off the bike but I made it to UBC with everything intact. 

I was also slow as I'm getting used to the new bike and to mountain bike clips, as well as to riding with paniers for the first time in seven years.  I vididly recall when I had paniers on for the first time and tried to take a corner at speed when they were full of heavy groceries.  For your future reference, your ability to turn declines sharply when you have a lot of weight on your back wheel.

Much as I hate getting up at that hour, and despite my various trials and tribulations with the bike, I love having the road to myself.  It's a super fast ride (even when you're being uber cautious to avoid flinging your belongings onto the street) when you don't have to stop for traffic.

And the clinic was well worth it.  There aren't a lot of people in this session so I'm sharing a lane with just one other person.  The small numbers also mean we get a lot of feedback from the coaches.  Plus I got to try swimming on a tether and, just for added weirdness/geek factor, swim over a mirror while tethered so I could see what I'm doing when I swim.  I move my head to much, on pretty much every axis, and my elbow is way to high in the water making for too shallow of a pull (the coach pointed this out, I'm not skilled enough to figure out for myself).

When the swim was done I had my proof I haven't swum in ages - I forgot to bring a towel.  Happily the woman I share a lane with lent me a towel as she brings two.  Yay for prepared people who're willing to lend things to strangers!!! 

I expect to be somewhat more prepared tomorrow, although I just realized that I will have to bring two towels (mine plus the borrowed one) so my precarious paniers will be even more heavily laden!

The Long Lost Calgary 70.3 Race Report

I found this in my drafts on my blog. It's a bit rough around the edges but it'll do.

I had a great swim - took over two mintues off last year's time. I started way further to the front than last year and had no issues with the washing machine for the first third. Kept ending up behind swimmers who couldn't sight and ran into them when they stopped to look for the bouys, annoying but fun to pass people. It was a bad decision to wear my blue goggles, have had trouble sighting the red bouys all summer with them but in the gloom at 6:30am it was impossible to see them - I looked where the swimmers in front of me were and aimed for the middle of the pack, assuming the swim support would herd the outside stragglers.

After a great swim had a stupid T1 and set out on the bike about the same time as last year - I was a bit spiny after the swim and not moving straight plus it was super muddy and slick after a night of hard rain so hard to move quickly without going down.

Wet roads and a slight headwind made for a slower bike. I raced the first 60 or so km as usual - found a pace group and leap-frogged with a few people. On the second big hill it started to fall apart, I couldn't keep up and suddenly everyone was passing me. The last 10 km was a slog and all I wanted was to get off the bike.

Decent T2 then a horrible run. I had nothing in my legs and my lungs weren't cooperating, I just wanted to quit and finally decided I'd do 10 and 1 and ignore splits as by 4km I was already off my target pace by 5 minutes. I couldn't push the pace as my breathing would get out of control, and halfway in I had nothing in my legs. The upside was that I didn't "catastrophize" and managed to keep positive and adjust my game plan to suit the reality of the day.

Lot of little things I did wrong - didn't adjust sleep patterns in advance (late-ish nights and slept in), not the greatest diet, more alcohol than usual - but I think it was the throat infection that killed me as I've been knocking out long rides for months and while I can see a bad run from the above I don't see why I'd die on the ride. I think my big mistake was not opting for a slower bike pace to account for being sick. I could be deluding myself.

My feedback on the race - the pre-race logistics are a serious pain in the butt. Made for a long Saturday, I was pretty tired and cranky by the time I got to the hotel on Saturday afternoon even though I'd drank lots of water and eaten well. Also the post-race food was nasty - a can of pop, small bag of chips and a subway sandwich. That's it. For $230.00 I expect a bit more. Think this is my last time at this race.

All Right Already!

Apparently people do read my blog and a few of them even like it. I always thought it would be great to have adoring fans but it turns out they can also be demanding. So fans, here's a post for you - now leave me alone!

What's happened since my last post?

I did finish the Calgary 70.3 - blew up on the bike (I'd been sick, remember), had a slow run and a long day and came away generally unimpressed with the race. The raison d'etre for the whole trip to Calgary turned into the least fun part, happily the rest of the trip was a blast. Next year I'll do a race first then head out across the rockies.

I then decided to take a break from running to give my foot a rest and I focussed on biking and swimming.

Swimming with Fast Lane at Kits pool was phenomenal and I felt that I made huge gains in the water. I've built on those gains in the fall by signing up for Dolphins and, um, mostly sleeping in. Something about getting up at 4:30am in the off season is just plain wrong. Various people have tried to point out the error of my ways, none have come up with a suitably compelling reason.

I had fun doing long rides with the IMAZ crew, building up distance for the Gran Fondo. I got sick with a horrendous cold the week before the ride and wasn't 100% (not even 75%) on the day of but still did the ride. It was tough grind at the very end, everyone seemed to have issues at about the 100km mark, but fun. I'm not sure it was $250.00 worth of fun, however, so I'm passing on doing it next year.

Apparently riding 120km mostly uphill while suffering from a cold is not a good way to kick said cold. The cold took another week to go away then a cough settled in that lasted for almost two months. The upside was that I discovered you can get cough syrup with codiene without a presciption and that the stuff gets me seriously high!

In late September, after not having run for two months, not having exercised in almost a month and with my plantar faciitis issues unchanged, I decided it would be a good idea to sign up for a marathon. There was a ridiculous travel industry deal for the Bahamas Marathon, I figured even if I crawled the marathon it would be worth the trip.

I went back to phsyio and figured what my issues are. Basically I'm an idiot - a weak core and unstable supporting muscles were causing the problems. This was bad in that the plantar faciitis was caused by neglect but good in that there's a workable solution. A week of doing the plank and various exercises from Janet and I was doing great. I'm not 100% but getting there.

I got back on the bike, riding with Barb Zimich's group. She's a fantastic coach and I'm really enjoying riding with her. Her surgery and the cold weather has put an end to that for now but I'm really looking forward to riding with her in 2011.

So that's where I'm at. I will publish my Fall Classic race report soon. I promise. Really.

A billion dollars of bridges

Quick recap - the plan for the weekend was to do the Peach in Penticton as my last race before tapering for Calgary. Without going into the whole gong show, that didn't happen and instead I had the brilliant idea to spend the weekend with a bunch of folks training for Ironman.

For Saturday's ride Teresa's friend invited us to ride with him then come back to his place for beer. I was so enamoured with the idea of beer that the part about 120km route (later changed to 140km) or 5 hour predicted ride time didn't really sink in!

It was a fair bit longer than would have been in my plan, if my plan didn't have me in Penticton readying for the Peach, but sometimes you have do stuff that's fun rather than smart. Hmm, that didn't sound as meaningful as I'd intended.

Most of us, being diehard West Side or Richmond folk, were pretty much lost as soon as Clement took us past Port Moody. "Where are we?" was the most common sentence uttered. I'm not entirely sure of the route, but we did ride over the new overpass leading up to the new Pitt River bridge and then the new Golden Ears Bridge - over $1B of bridges in about an hour!

Places I do know we got to:

• Fort Langley - the countryside out there is lovely and the coffee shop we stopped at was excellent.
• Entrance to Allouette Lake Park - not a good place to be on a bike on a sunny weekend afternoon. Valencia called it a "Goat show" - I'm a city girl so not quite sure what that means but the traffice was nuts.
• Pitt Meadows - flat, pretty, llamas and horses.
• Top of a ridiculously (as in "are you kidding me" ridiculous) steep hill that George's Garmin pegged at a 13% grade. This was about 90km into the ride.
• Presumably lots of other places - 143km is a long way.

Other random ride notes:

• We all got very good at counting to 9 - everytime we regrouped we counted heads. Had someone else inadvertently joined us we would have likely left one of the group behind.
• I really don't know much of the Lower Mainland East of Burnaby.
• Peanut butter on a bagel is about the best food ever on a long ride.
• My Sugoi bib shorts are great for about 100km. Which I figured out on the 145km Mt. Baker ride then for some dumb reason I wore them again on this weekend's ride.
• I need to clean the lens for my cell phone camera before taking pictures.
• Heavy traffic when I'm tired stresses me out.
• I train with a really good group of folks.

A couple of fuzzy pictures taken at the top of "Ridiculous Hill":

Baker Baby!

See below for photos.

A day after telling someone I didn't think I'd make it up Mt. Baker this summer I got invited to ride it with some friends. To be truthful, I invited myself ("please, please, puh-lease can I come?"), and the crew my friends were going with were kind enough to take me along.

I would like to go off topic for a moment and say I don't think I'll win the lottery this summer. (Can't hurt to try!)

We parked by the Sumas border crossing and biked across. I had it in my head that the ride to Glacier was a gentle uphill and had somehow managed to wipe from my memory the nasty hill out of Sumas. Nothing like feeling like your legs are fried when you're only 15km into a 140km ride!

The hill split up the group and I was riding with Clayton and two guys from Dean Stanton's group until I got dropped. Eventually another rider from Dean's group caught me and we either chatted or pacelined into Glacier.

We regrouped in Glacier - had coffee (surprisingly mediocre for Washington State), snacked, refilled water bottles, and had pit stops. The stop seemed to take a long time so we decided the "slower" riders would take off first ("slower" = impatient to get going).

Teresa, Bronwyn, Clayton and I rode together through the first few hills then it was just Clayton and I. The first 20km or so from Glacier are tough but with flat or downhill sections to break it up. When you see the warning sign that there are switchbacks for the next 10 miles that's when the real work starts. It's very hard - relentless uphill with no flat or even easy spinning sections until you reach the top. If you've ridden Seymour it's like all the hard bits but with more corners. At one point I rode around the edge of a viewpoint pullout in the hopes I could get my cadence up. No luck.

Clayton stuck with on the ride up, I'm sure he could have been far, far ahead, but he's a nice guy. Or he didn't know the way. Nah, I'm going with the former.

Paul Cross, who we'd seen at the store in Glacier, caught up with us at the round about at the top and Clayton put in a sprint to try to beat him to the top.

For us the top was the building with the pop machine - the only food source open in the summer. That cold bottle of Mountain Mist was about the tastiest drink I've ever had!

A bit of a delay before heading down as one rider who'd started in North Van, and had done about 150km more than us, was not feeling so well. He recovered after about 15 minutes then proceeded to smoke us all on the downhill. We regrouped at the bottom and pacelined to Glacier.

The people I drove out with both had functions they were in danger of being late for so this second stop in Glacier was briefer - we said our goodbyes to the rest of the crew and carried on.

What I was hoping would be an easy ride back turned into a hard core paceline. I was good up to about the last 45 minutes then ran out of steam. I'd pull at the front then get dropped by the group. I was fine with that but then they'd all wait for me to catch up, ride at a sensible pace for a bout two riders then speed up and I'd be off the back again. At the time I just wanted them to let me ride my own pace and go away, now I realize that considering how tired I was it was smart, and very kind, for my friends to keep an eye on me. Big time bonk on my part!

Aside from running out of steam at the end, it was a great ride. Hopefully we can go up again in August.

Clayton shooting Cliff.

Clayton forgetting that he's not the one who's supposed to be posing.

Teresa ready for the ride down.

Bronwyn and Clayton.

Me at the top.

Vancouver Sprint Triathlon

Overall time: 1:32:06
Swim (500m): 10:12
T1: 4:11 (Yikes!)
Bike (26km): 51:27
T2: 1:25
Run (5km): 24:53

The swim was nuts, but everyone was in the same boat (that boat most likely the Titanic). It was a beach start, we lined up about 10m from the water and when the gun went off we ran to the water. It was the craziest swim start I've ever been in, a total washing machine to the first bouy then it got worse!

The current was extremely strong. We watched the half iron swim start and saw how much even the strong swimmers at the front were pushed to the West, most of them undershot the bouy and had to backtrack to get around it. We planned our swim accordingly, start to the right of the beach and aim far to the East of the first turn. Despite aiming wide I got to the first bouy slightly to the left, which wouldn't have been a problem except that most people had missed it by a far greater margin and there was a mass of people almost at a stop trying to get around it. I was boxed in and couldn't swim around or over anyone, it took me about a minute to get past. Apparently one of the men from the earlier wave was clinging to the bouy, which was causing some of the problems.

The second leg of the swim wasn't much better. The swim bouys were small and hard to see and just for fun one of the lifeguard boats was in the line between the bouys and made it impossible to see the bouys anyway.

I made it out of the swim close to my predicted time of 10 minutes and then had to get out of my westuit. I'm happy my A race has wetsuit strippers!

My instructions were to go all out in this race. It was hard to do so in the chaos of the swim so the bike was where I could start doing this. Teresa got out of T1 just ahead of me so I chased her to the hill and caught her there. Then she passed me back, and the trend for the bike was set - she and I leapfrogging the whole way (she won the race to T2). It was fun having her push me on the bike, the idea was to all out the whole time and she kept me honest.

The run was hard to get started and my breathing got a bit out of control but I didn't panic so I'm considering that a victory! I also ran through a stitch (passed two people while doing so) so I think I was reasonably tough!

I figured 25 minutes or less would be good so I certainly hit my goal.

There were a ton of LETC'ers racing (lots of AG podiums; the women took first, second and, as we consider Stephanie's sister an honourary club member, third overall; and RJ came 2nd overall). Actually I knew a lot of the people taking the podium, one of the fun parts of being in the tri community for five years.

There was also a ton of LETC folks volunteering - great to see the club well represented and all of them cheered us on as they went by so that was a big boost.

Final note - chocolate milk as post-race food was the BEST IDEA EVER!!!

Shawnigan Lake Race Report

Yesterday wasn't my greatest showing at 3:07, but it was supposed to be a training race so I'm being philosophical about it. Or trying to be.

Exec Summary: So-so swim in cold water, excruciatingly slow and cold ride on dead legs, decent run with a big negative split.

Take aways: 1) Cold really saps my energy. 2) Not sure if doing the Vancouver Half is a good idea, wondering a fast oly be better than a slow Half IM? I want to do another tri prior to to Calgary, just trying to think what would be best.

Long version:
Ended up without enough time pre-race to do a real warm up for anything other than the swim. Would have liked to have run but that wasn't in the cards.

The water was very cold. I had a neoprene swim cap (purchased last Tuesday - yay!), which likely made a big difference, I definitely didn't suffer as much as most people. I got into the water about 15-20 minutes before race start as 1) my watch was fast, 2) I didn't run so my whole warm up would be in the water (in retrospect I might have had time for a short run but everything after that would have been a panic) and 3) it was very cold so I wanted enough time to acclimatize to the temp. After about five minutes I was comfortable in the water and quite warm, however I totally froze during the 2-3 minute wait at the shore for the race to start.

The swim was unspectacular. I had difficulty drafting as either the people I was drafting off couldn't swim a straight line or I couldn't. I kept losing the toes in front of me so gave up and swam my own line and took the draft when it presented itself. About 30 min for the swim, not great.

T1 was a gong show. I lost the use of my thumbs and the rest of my digits didn't work too well as my hands were numb so getting out of my wetsuit was interesting. I also opted to wear a jacket and gloves, which slowed down T1 but definitely helped on the bike (an Elite racer was taken off the bike course in an ambulance due to hypothermia - it was cold). My legs were totally dead - mostly due to my long rides earlier in the week but also my thighs were frozen from the swim and didn't warm up until halfway in.

I tried to keep a high cadence, especially nearer the end of the ride, to get blood circlating to my feet but that didn't work. I got passed a lot on the bike, didn't like that but managed (mostly) not to get agro and try to re-pass everyone. The course was hilly, wet and full of potholes/uneven pavement so not easy to stay in aerobars.

T2 was faster - less need for opposable thumbs.

The start of the run was tough - uphill on tired legs and numb feet. I got feeling back in my feet at about 2km in, then immediately wished I hadn't as the pins and needles were terrible. I finally felt comfortable at about 3 km.

I was well over my target pace of 5min/km so I stopped taking splits and concentrated on form. I'm still working on headspace for the run portion, keeping positive is currently more helpful to me than killing myself to stay on pace.

At the turn around I felt strong and picked up the pace, repeating my mantra of "Easy", and started to reel people in. I didn't take my split at the half but as I was at 16:50 at 3km and I finished the run in 52 & change I can extrapolate a negative split.

My overall and AG ranking are lower than usual for me. Not thrilled about that but it's a training race.

Happily others in the club had great races: Marie came second in her AG in the Oly, as did Dominic in the Sprint. Not sure how Chris or Jeff did in the half, however Jeff's time was 5:05 and I believe Chris' was under 5:30, so they both had a good chance at the podium.

I have plantar faciitis, it didn't bug me in the race or last night, but my heel hurts a today so I definitely did some damage. I'm off to physio after work to get Janet's assessment.

May Day Ride

These are posted a bit late as I had some issues with downloading the pictures from my phone (I hate the phone with a passion, but that's a post for a different day).

I rode with the club on May 1st out to Deep Cove but left them at the Second Narrows and came home on my own. As it was a lovely day and I was on my own, I stopped along the way to take some pictures.

The view from the top of the bridge. To me the picture captures the "big sky" feel the day had. I also love the roiling water. I probably should have cropped out either the sky or the water to make this more balanced, but I like them both too much to remove - artistry be damned!

One of the grain elevators,looking freshly painted.

I'm not sure if this is a grain elevator but it's picturesque. The section of Wall St. along the bike path is one of my favorite parts of the city.

Finally, a view back towards the bridge from Wall St.

Quick Update

Since my last post we had time trial week.

Swim: 1500m - 28:17
I've never done a 1500m time trial in the pool so no idea where this puts me in terms of training. I'm usually about 30 minutes in a tri but that's open water so I'm not kicking off the wall every 25m.

We'll just hold onto this number for reference!

Bike:
16km TT - 31:28
Not a good time for me compared to the last year's time I can find - 28:50 from August and 29:41 from April. Something to work on, I guess.

Run:
5km - 24:15 (pace - 4:51/km)
3km - 14:24 (pace - 4:48/km)
This workout was nasty. We showed up expecting a 5km TT, but arrived to find out that would be followed by a 10 minute recovery and a 3km TT. I thought I was going as hard as I could for the 5km but somehow I managed a faster pace for the 3km rather than the 5km.

Alan said we weren't pacing properly. I think I just take a long time to warm up!

This week things are feeling solid. I'm finally feeling in the groove, I'm feeling strong and focussed and fit! It might have something to do with just coming off a recovery week, but I also think I've adjusted to my training schedule. Regardless of the why, I'm happy to be happy!

The week in review

"Week in review" sounds much better than "I'm totally behind on posting."

I blame drugs and alcohol!

Robaxicet on Wednesday, and no photo that day. I put my back out changing my bike brakes the previous Sunday and that threw me off from workouts and life in general for the week. The back is mostly better but I'm still babying it a bit.

I did get in a good ride out to Iona with the crew on Saturday and the back didn't protest until right near the end. I did my first post-bike run of the year regardless of the back.

Vast amounts of Malbec on Saturday night made for a fun evening but I forgot about getting in even a last minute shot. The Malbec also made for a painful start to my Sunday a.m. swim. The upside was that the workout would have been hell regardless (all out sprints interspersed with core work) so I got all the pain out of the way at the same time. By the time we ran I was feeling vaguely human and knocked out 1:20 reasonably easily.

And then the allergies kicked in Sunday afternoon:

Defunct playground equipment by Lord Byng Pool. sort of how I felt during the swim!
Sakura!
Rainbow seen in the a.m.
Cherry trees on the banks of the Fraser. I forgot my camera but the light was so fabulous I took the shot with my phone. It didn't turn out half bad.

Crepuscular (thanks Amy)

I live under one of the great crow commuting paths in the Lower Mainland. This is my best attempt so far at catching the crepuscual rush hour, sadly it's not that great.

My fallback shot is my new mittens. My mother very kindly picked up a pair for me and shipped them out (seems almost coals to Newcastle, but I won't criticize as I like them very much). I will proudly, and warmly, wear them for the rest of the games.

On the topic of evenings, they're getting lighter later, enough so that I could fit in a ride outside after work today.

Goosed

I rode a bit later than usual today due to the swim clinic. I forget how crazy traffic can be as I generally do most of my rides early in the day.

I went past various Olympic venues (the Skating Oval, curling rink, Trout Lake training centre) but this was the scene that made me pull out my camera.

A park on the way to Teresa's house was overrun by snow geese. They normally head North in the spring, need anymore proof we're having a crazy winter??

I guessed there were at least 500 when got there.

And they just kept coming, giving me my shot of the day.

Saturday!

I started off today a bit cranky, probably should have ridden on my own rather than inflict myself on others but everyone came out alive so I guess that's all good.

Rode about 2.5 hours then ambitiously decided to invite friends over for dinner. Considering how sick I was earlier this week I probably should have taken it easy for the rest of the day.

On my way out to pick up dinner fixings I got a couple of good shots.

Crow in a tree:

Apologies if you're getting tired of the tree shots butI love them as photo subjects.

West Coast bragging shot, snow drop in the rain. In January:

This is my picture of the day, btw. And no, Mum, I did not spray the flowers with water, I found them like that!

When I got home from shopping I realized what I'd gotten myself into. I like my apartment very much but it is most definitely not set up safely for one of these:

I thought I'd reasonably kid-proofed my place but Hiroki quickly found all the breakable and sharp things I'd forgotten. Happily he managed not to kill himself or wreck the place. Too badly:

Recovery Drink

Had a fun ride with the club today. A small turnout, all women and one-to-one newbies to "old-timers" but a nice group. We got heckled/hit on by a male runner who told us we needed a guy riding with us. Marie might have got his phone number if we'd stuck around!

The major excitement was when Emma (?) had a flat and I got to show off my tire changing prowress. I like changing tires. Yes I'm weird, but I think that's been firmly established already. Turns out the issue was the tire itself (rubbing from the fender), but of course I didn't figure that out until right at the end. The Cheung brothers serendipitously appeared right when we needed someone with tools and know how and they patched the tire and rode with Emma back to somewhere she could buy a new tire.

This is my post-ride nutrition. I'm experimenting with smoothies. This was a grand idea - banana, frozen peach, frozen blueberries and milk. Then I added cocoa and it wasn't quite so good. Sad to realize that cocoa doesn't make everything better. Next time I'll try a bit of honey.

Biking is good for my sanity

I rode on my own this afternoon as I had a work commitment this morning. I'm very glad I did as I had a chance to clear my head and get a bit of perspective.

Biking is good for that - you have to pay attention to traffic and the world around you but this doesn't take your full concentration so you can let your mind wander. It's my version of meditation, instead of saying "ohm" I keep a consistent cadence.

Today was a wonderful clear day and the views on my ride were stunning. Initially I kept wishing I had my camera but then decided just to soak up the beauty. For a good chunk of the ride I had such deep and intellectual thoughts as "Ooooh!" or "Pretty!"

This helped to clear out the mental cobwebs and somehow while thinking of nothing very much I managed to figure out something from work that's been bothering me for some time and I may even have come up with a potential solution.

Glad to be back on my bike.

Information Underload

Had to skip the morning ride and go to work. Less crowds and more time gave me chance to notice things that I usually miss on my weekday commute.

Now I have to go for my ride!

Wednesday Spin

First ride of '10

Today was the first club ride of 2010. The folks in the lead had obviously eaten their Wheaties, Teresa and I got got dropped right away and at points along the way we found various others who had been spit out the back of the pack.

Teresa and I had a nice easy ride, eventually the rest of the crew will settle down and remember we're not doing a stage of the Tour!

Here is my morning in pictures:

Fuel for the ride. Only two hours so Gatorade is all I need.

Just me, Louie and the open road!

Post-ride road grit!