230km in one weekendOctober 1, 2007
A couple of weekends ago Hannah organized a get together down at the cottage for our Grebel friends. I planned to bike down with Matt Langeman and Doug Friesen, but this time I was going to bike back as well. The ride south was a good one... we got away at about 1:40 PM and covered 27 km in our first hour (which admitedly is fairly down hill). My average heart rate was flying high at about 180, yikes. During the second hour, I had to ask the guys to slow down, because at the pace we were going I was going to turn into silly puddy :)
We stopped in Burford (half way) for a 15 minute break to get some more water, and then we were off for part two. It was a fairly windy day in the wrong direction... not bad, but it was noticeably harder than when I did the trip in August. Drafting helped, but I was also a bit tuckered from my intense first hour, and it's a bit harder exerting yourself in the late afternoon VS early morning.
As we came within 22 km of Turkey Point, I took the front and as has happened before, started peddling like a mad man. We got our speed up to 26, 27, 28, 29, heading West. The wind had died down since by this time it was 6:00 and the sun was setting. For the next 50 minutes we motored at a pretty constant clip. During the last 10 minutes I had to stay pretty focused not to slow down. The whole while my heart rate was fluctuating in the 180-185 range, which is pretty crazy after being on the rode for 4 hours!
We arrived after 4:42 on the bike, with two 15 minute breaks bringing our total enroute time to 5:12.
The ride back started at 5:42 AM on Sunday morning, and I couldn't find my sweat shirt in the darkness, so I headed out without much on my upper body. It was coooold! My poor hands got numb with the wind rushing over them, and I anxiously awaited the sun to rise. My first hour was a slow one at 19k. For starters, I lost around 3 minutes because of the hill coming out of Turkey Point. But it was just harder than I expected to get my body going. It seemed cranky, and my heart rate at one point fell all of the way to 125, which is a far far cry from the 180 I was doing the first hour coming down to the lake!
I did ok until the climb from New Dundee to St. Agatha. I was tired, I had already been on the bike for 4:30, and it is a long 12k stretch of slight upward grade between the two towns. To make matters worse, you can see St. Agatha about 8k before you actually get there!
By the time I got home I was pretty cooked and ready to get off of my seat post. I willed myself to have a quick shower before collapsing into a chair. Within an hour I could tell that something wasn't right... my energy level was nowhere to be seen and it was work to even stand up. That evening I collapsed into bed and slept for 13 hours. I got hit with a nasty cold which I think started to manifest itself during the last hour of my ride, plus bad sinus alergies from getting lake water up my nose the previous day. Ouch. Here I am 7 days later and I'm still trying to kick the cold, but it's almost gone... I hope.
Some memories:
  | Taking a Friday afternoon off of work :) |
| Doug eating like crazy... we couldn't fill the guy up! |
| A crazy 26.5k the first hour. It felt like I was running a marathon! |
| Average of around 26.5 km/h the last 50 minutes, covering 22k... after 4 hours on the bike... what was I thinking?? |
| Flying down the hill into TP, the perfect way to end a bike trip |
| Eating at the only restaurant open in Turkey Point... Crawdaddies! A burger and fries never looked so good! |
| Some deep thoughts before sunrise on the way back... the world is a more dramatic place in the dark just before the sun rises, and the additional blood flow to the brain is probably a factor as well :) |
| Having a group of 4-5 riders fly by me just southwest of New Dundee. It was on an uphill stretch: They were going about 30 km/h while I was doing about 15 km/h, partly because I was trying to find the gum I had buried in my pocket. They quickly made 300m on me, so I figured, what the heck, I'll give it some effort to see if I could close the gap at all. No luck, they were out of sight within 10 minutes! :P |
Biking to Lake ErieSeptember 8, 2007
A few weekends ago I woke up at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning and headed out on my bike while it was still dark. My plan was to bike to Turkey Point on Lake Erie in five hours. The distance was 110 km, so that would require an average of about 22 km/h. Here was the route:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=359+Havendale+Crescent,+Waterloo,+ON,+Canada&daddr=ERB's+Rd+%4043.435110,+-80.627410+to:Blenheim+Rd+%4043.311980,+-80.535450+to:Blenheim+Rd+%4043.214950,+-80.498040+to:Blenheim+Rd+%4043.192150,+-80.488280+to:Maple+Ave+N+%4043.157180,+-80.450690+to:Maple+Ave+N+%4043.103410,+-80.429190+to:Maple+Ave+S+%4043.067920,+-80.414070+to:Windham+East+Quarter+Line+Rd+%4042.996820,+-80.410730+to:Windham+East+Quarter+Line+Rd+%4042.971840,+-80.400660+to:42.950832,-80.392628+to:9+Ordnance+Ave,+Turkey+Point,+ON&mrcr=9,10&mrsp=10&sz=14&mra=dpe&sll=42.966535,-80.402756&sspn=0.046226,0.079823&ie=UTF8&ll=43.068888,-80.263367&spn=1.476756,2.554321&z=9&om=1
It turned out to be a beautiful ride... I loved the energy of being out on the road before sunrise, making ground fast. By 7:00 AM I was 35 km into my trek, over a third of the way there. What a feeling! I ended up making it there in about 4:45. Actual start and end times were 5:35 AM and 10:20 AM. Some memorable things:
| Riding the whole way without stopping (well ok, once for a stop light and once to circle around to get the apple I dropped) |
| Eating about 1000 calories of food while on the bike. I've discovered that I absolutely love eating while running or biking. |
| Having rode over 100k before 10:30 AM! |
| Sending an email using a Blackberry while riding my bike (that's a first!) |
| Padded bike shorts are another brilliant invention |
| Seeing the sun come up |
| The realization that as a cyclist out on country roads, you can be as much of a danger to cars as they are to you. If they have to pass you at the crest of a hill, they have little to no time to react to oncoming traffic. I decided I'd keep an eye out for this and move onto the shoulder in these cases. |
| Lots and lots of green |
| Morning doves looking down curiously from the telephone poles |
| Comes moo'ing at me |
| A grass farm... acres upon acres of perfectly cut, emerald green grass |
| Dirt roads |
| People out in the country out for their morning walk |
| Seeing a freakshow of a person standing in a barn and then realizing it was an old beaten up manakin |
InjuriesJune 17, 2007
As I've become more active this year, I've been more prone to injury. It started a ways into my half marthon training with a tight back and tight legs. Then my left calf muscle went haywire on me, taking 3 weeks to recover. Not long after that was fixed, I hurt my left foot. And now, just when that's feeling back to normal, I've pulled my groin. What's my problem?? I think partly it's due to following a race preparation schedule that hasn't been tailored for the individual (me), and partly it's due to not knowing my body well enough to see the problems before they hit. If I've learned anything it's that, while the body can adapt and grow stronger, it is a complex thing, and any weakness can cause a breakdown as you push yourself further and further.
Now that I'm getting back into some half marathon training (targeting September), it will be interesting to see whether I can train injury free. This time I'd like to fare on the side of progressing slowly, even if it means that my long-slow-distance runs aren't up to 20k by September.
July 8th Update: This week I pulled the other side of my groin at ultimate. Two realizations: 1) Not wearing cleats appears to put more stress on your stability muscles, and 2) Playing ultimate in a competitive setting is not a good idea unless you're in a very good, injury free state!
My plan at this point is to train for next May's Ottawa marathon.
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