slowdad

Joining a Club

I'm fairly anti social when it comes right down to it. Mainly because nobody wants to hang out with me.

So it's a big deal when I seek out the company of other humans.  And it's even a bigger deal when they take me into their ranks even if they've done it without meeting me.

I've taken the next step to improving my cycling.  I have sent in my paperwork, and have been seemingly accepted, into the Lapdogs Cycling Club.  And therefore, in order to avoid embarrassment, I will endeavor to do more hill repeats. And by more, I mean more than zero.

I've even put in and got my OCA race license for the cyclocross races in the fall.

So the plan, as it stands, is:

Over the next 18 days get in decent enough running shape to finish the Around the Bay 30km.

In the 18 days after that get in decent enough cycling shape to finish Paris to Ancaster.

There's hope.  I ran a very solid 1 hour yesterday and felt great.  And a 2.5 hour ride on the weekend went much better than my rides last spring.

Now, here's to meeting some new people and breaking the anti-social cycle.

When in doubt, do two things poorly

Last year I had dreams of running greatness.  That was before the marathon. 

Sometime in the middle of the summer I decided to sign up for the "Around the Bay 30k" in Hamilton, one of the popular events around here.  They have really nice shirts.  And I want one. All the cool kids are wearing them.

Sometime after the Marathon I was convinced to switch over to the bike and try my hand at cyclocross.  And in the spirit of mud and pain I decided to do Paris to Ancaster.  Another cool event.

The 30 km is on March 28th.  The cycling classic is on April 18th.

I am prepared for neither.

I've been for about 2 runs in the past 2 weeks, same thing for the bike.  Here's hoping that my somewhat adequate cross country skiing fitness gets me through. 

I'll settle for finishing both and bringing home a shirt and some stories for the kids.

This'll teach me to be cheap and sign up for races a year in advance.  After this it'll be all cycling all the time in the summer, Cyclocross in the fall, and cross country skiing for the winter.

YouTube - RMR: Rick's Rant Olympic Breakdown

via www.youtube.com

Last youtube video for a while I swear.  But I'm really really am picking up what Rick's putting down in this video.

We all need to do a better job of supporting our non-hockey athletes and sports programs. 

Now I just need to make some money and do just that.

The Blogging will Continue

When I'm not totally knackered from training.

Last week I did a total of 9 hours of training, with a 2 hour bike on Thursday, a 2 hour bike on Friday and 3.5 hours skiing on Saturday, at which point I got on a plane for California.

Training this week is lighter, but I'm doing 7 hours of skiing this weekend so bed calls...

Just after I look at my heart rate data from today.

It's not happening

This was supposed to be a big week.

Lots of time on the trainer.  A fair bit of running, and a nice long ski.  And some gym time.

Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday have been write offs. 

I'm going to bed and try to shake this funk.

Witticisms escape me at the moment.

Gimme some Sugar

Well at the very least I feel like I am back on the wagon, or, if not on the actual wagon, I am back, chasing it and trying to get back on.  Forward progress.

This past weekend was pretty good, with some cross country skiing, and a bike ride through the crazy streets of the big smoke.

Skiing at zero degrees C is fun, although my wife was rather embarrassed that I wore the one piece race suit.  Middle aged men should not normally wear one piece purpleish spandex even if it is made by Sugoi.  The 5 pounds I want to lose is being carried in a donut shape that surrounds my belly button.  The kids find it amusing which is some kind of consolation.

Cycling at zero degrees is not normally super fun, but the 2 hour ride on Sunday was nice.  The main problem was the drivers.  I am fairly certain that there was a competition in town that involved cell phones, right hand turns, and stopping in the bike lane. Unfortunately for their game, they failed to run us off the road and no points were scored.

It was nice to be out riding in January, and managing to keep up with my fatigued riding partner was even better.  I even put in a short burst up a hill at the end that let me get at least 15 meters ahead at the expense of my heart turning into a vibrator.  It was very sexy.

I've managed to go to the gym and put in a couple of hours on the trainer.  And my legs feel like driftwood.

Today's spin on the trainer, an hour easy, felt like a 3 hour ride.  I've been trying to cut out sugar during the past few days.  Exactly 27 minutes into my ride I gave up, ate some chocolate chips, and drank a ginger-ale.  I figure I expended just about the same amount of energy that I consumed. 

Getting a handle on this eating thing is tough.

But, I watched a video of the Kona Ironman Triathlon.  Watching people finish that race was very motivating.  People with no legs, people with transplanted hearts, people who are 80.  It makes you keep turning the pedals when you see someone at mile 100 with no legs at a higher cadence.

I'm not special, I'm just some guy who gave up exercise for 10 years and decided that wasn't a strategy for success.

I totally talked to Alberto Contador, well sorta not really, not at all

 

Today, team Astana, which means only Alberto Contador, decided to hold a press conference.

During this conference we learned that Contador sometimes prefers paella, sometimes cocido.  We also learned that he does not follow @lancearmstrong on twitter.

He told us that his fancy Specialized bike was very light, stiff, and a smooth ride. That is, horizontally stiff and vertically compliant.  The big specialized banner that was behind him might have had something to do with it.

We also learned that his power numbers were higher this year than last. I wonder what Greg Lemond will have to say about that.

Mistaken for my namesake, Robbie McEwen I managed to sneak in a question over twitter, which he totally answered.  Something about cobbles, belgium, and possibly cyclocross but maybe not.

Having received a direct message from Robbie, and basically having had a conversation with El Pistolero, I think that makes me more qualified then most other road bike industry commentators.

Perhaps if I can grab a musette off of Carlos Sastre as he hammers up some climb towards a Giro win, I'll put together some kind of trinity of power and become famous.

Hamstrings Suck!

Yeah! I'm amazing. I'm going to go to the gym and pound out some awesome!

I'll warm up on the bike for a couple of minutes and then try some squats.  Sheesh.  That's not much weight.

Give'er!

Uh oh.

And so ended my short lived stint of not being injured.

I guess it could have been worse.  The same old hamstring is sore, but not sharply painful.  If I'm lucky an easy week will have it back in action.

I'm not actually sure if I should ride on it or not but I think I'll just rest till it feels better.

My skiing escapades might suffer a bit.

Race Across the Sky showing in Canada

Just in cased you've missed the memo, the movie, Race Across the Sky, about the Leadville 100, will be showing in Canada. It's in theaters, one day only, on January 27th and February 7th.

You can check it out here.

DVD's will be available for purchase at www.raceacrossthesky.com on March 1st.

I'll probably wait for the DVD unless someone wants to go see it in the theater with me.

Cold Weather Crashing

I hate this time of year.  It's not really winter, and it's definitely not fall or summer.  I'm more a fan of extremes.

And it's the holidays. I don't really like them either. When it comes to Christmas I'm a grinch.  Too much consumerism and too much "What's the true meaning of Christmas" BS.  I like Thanksgiving as a holiday concept much more.

Anyway, because of the Christmas break, I'll likely blog less between now and New Years, although I am working slowly on a couple of posts.  I've slowed down recently but will pick things back up in the new Year, when we can finally get out of the decade that's impossible to refer to by a name. 

The only thing of note to happen recently is that I managed to get out of the house for both a ski with the kids this past Saturday, when they skied with Santa, and I went for a nice, but not super intense, ride with Tom on Sunday.

The Kids really enjoyed Santa.  My oldest got a good workout keeping up with him for a couple km.

The bike ride was good, nice and easy at the start.  And somewhat more difficult, at the end, that is, I could barely hold on when the pace lifted.  It was cold, about -5 deg C but very bearable.

And then, turning down my street, I made the rookie mistake of firmly planting both my wheels into the streetcar tracks. My bruised hip is a testament to the lapse of my attention.

It was the first time I've ever crashed a bike.  Hopefully I'll go another long while without seeing my wheels higher than my cranium.