As mentioned
last post, I returned from the Summer Solstice 24 hour race on Sunday and flew
out to Saskatchewan on Monday where my sister met me at Regina airport to drive
to my small hometown (two hour drive). I
had a nephew graduating on the Tuesday in Saskatoon…unfortunately timing kept
me from attending.
My daughter was
graduating high school in Estevan on the Wednesday. This is me and her (in case you thought that
old dude was her escort!!)
I also was able
to catch my niece’s grad enough to get a pic with her before heading back to
catch my plane home on Friday night.
(Again, that old guy is me…not the general Saskatchewan grad escort!)
By the way,
during my stay my mother mentioned that she still had my very first bike ever
stashed away in the garage. So we had to
drag it out to take some pics!! (Yes,
that old guy is me!!)
The interesting
thing is that that little ball of steel weighs more than my current mountain
bike!! Seriously!
Flew out of
Regina at 7pm Friday, and with a 4 hour lay-over had me land in Toronto at
5:45am on Saturday where my Loving Caring (she would have to be to drive to
Toronto that early!!) Wife, Heidi gathered my exhausted arse.
Part Two B: XC Marathon
Challenge 60Km Race in Mansfield
So, I get back
home Saturday morning, and get my life back in order (OK… at least similar to the
order it was in before I left)…which basically meant opening my suit case and
letting Heidi’s borderline OCD complex kick in and have to clean it out (just
kidding…ish). I head down to
BicycleWorks to pick up my Mountain Bike (where I had left it before my
vacation to attend to a couple of minor mechanical issues…a perpetually loose
pivot bolt, and a broken spoke in the rear wheel), only to find out that the
chain-stay was broken…so my bike won’t be available for the race Sunday. Paul at BicycleWorks offers to lend me his
bike…it’s not an SWorks but it is a carbon Epic decked out with all the top end
components so I jump at his offer with a very appreciable nod! So with a borrowed bike, it’s off to the
races!
So…how out of
shape can you get in a week?? Apparently
a lot; a week of non-athletic eating (hot dogs, sausage, bacon, bannock…mmmmmm
bacon and bannock) and an abundance of beer and whiskey is not really conducive
to maintaining athletic performance. The
race, for me, was a mess…no serious crashes, however I did go over the bars on
a steep descending sandy switchback that I tried to take the inside line on a
little too fast. However, a lack of
energy and endurance of any kind kept me from maintaining any kind of
respectable pace…and the heat and the extreme Mansfield sand (sand sucks for
mountain biking!!) did not help.
So what do I
have to do now? First, get back on the
training nutrition plan. This is already
done.
Second get back
to training…not just riding. This means
much more road riding; with all the great weather we have had I have been
hitting the trails with almost no road riding.
But road riding is so great for building endurance…and they have to be
training rides. This means extended
rides at race pace, and rides involving endurance training…like High Intensity
Interval Training (HIIT) rides. Trail
rides will be geared towards training…hill repeats, extended race pace rides,
and rides to work on certain skills (steep descending switchbacks??). Apparently my mountain bike will be repaired
and ready tomorrow.
So…let’s get back
to work.
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