Holy Hot It’s Hell!!, and the Summer 8 Hr

Finally, today normal temperatures cuz yeah…it has been hot this week!!  Hot enough that EnglishJim quit parking by the high school…hot enough that NewfieSteve has not been secret training (no I think he still is)…hot enough that I actually did not ride Tuesday.  So I rode twice Wednesday to make up for it.

I have actually amped up my training since my week off in Saskatchewan; slowly getting back up to where I would like to be right now.  Still aiming to be peak for the Crank the Shield race in September.  In the meantime, the Summer 8 hour race at Hardwood is this Saturday and I teamed up with NewfieSteve to do this race as a two man team.  When Steve sent me this…

...I thought I had better get training. For sure I don't want to drag him back too much.  Steve is a rocket on these types of courses…I like to fancy myself as more of an endurance guy (please leave the “that’s not what your wife says” jokes out of this).  So over the last two weeks I have logged serious road, and MTB miles through all this heat, got back to being more disciplined in my diet, and have made it a point to get back to more strength and core workouts, in an attempt to keep up to Steve this weekend.  We shall see!!

Also, EnglishJim is going to make his first attempt to solo an 8 Hr race this Saturday.  When I asked him why he sent me this…

(Reminds me...I should feed the cats...)  Actually, I am trying to motivate him to get in at least 8 laps…ridicule and finger pointing are good motivators aren’t they??  Besides, I know he can do it…otherwise I will send him this…

Anyways...back to our original programming.  On another note as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have begun using MyFitnessPal to log my diet, and workout information.  It has worked great…not only to track progress, but logging your info makes one feel much more accountable.  Also, using the social aspect of it, to accumulate goal oriented friends makes it that much more of a tool to be accountable, and motivational.

What else was motivational this week?  Fig and Centurion were in a 100km Centurion road race on the weekend.  Fig averaged over 37km/hr, Centurion over 35km/hr.  That is blazing frigging fast!!  So, I know that if I ever want to ride with these guys again, I need to be vigilante in all aspects of training, otherwise I will get left for dead, or at the very least dropped off the back…and that is not my style!!

In the meantime, today and tomorrow are rest/recovery days in prep for the race Saturday.  Then it is back to it!  That is all I have for now, so in the theme of silly pics in this post…I will end it with this…

 Damn rights!!  Do it!!