Attempt of Castle

I'll start off with a rather embarrassing story of what happens when you get two Holmes brothers together. By ourselves, we are often late. But the two of us leaving for the long weekend on Friday afternoon, for activities Tim has barely done before, was, well....put it this way, I was supposed to be home at 5:30 so that a 6pm departure would put us at Mt Athabasca by 9pm (for a 4am start to Saturday). We ended up leaving at 10pm! and so scaled back our plan to hit Brewer's Buttress, a 5.6 rock climb on Castle Mountain (the "Castle Junction" Castle Mountain, not the ski resort near Crowsnest Pass). So we still got to the carpark at midnight, briefly wondered whether the car stinking of Safeway roast chicken would attract bears, and rose for an "alpine start" at 8am. By the time we changed out packs from being equipped for glacier travel to rock climbing, we left the car at 11am.




Castle Mountain is really, really big. It has two obvious tiers, with our rock climb starting on the second tier. I figured the approach similar to Yamnuska, a 45 min to 1 hour tough switch-backing hike to the base of the cliffs. Castle, however, took four hours to hike to the bottom, then climb 4th class (i.e. just easy enough to not use a rope) rock to the large ledge at the top of the first tier. Wow. We stopped for lunch at the hut and pondered an attempt on a 8 pitch rock climb with 5 hours of daylight and a rappel descent back to the hut, followed by a descent of hike and climb we'd just taken four hours to do in daylight. Being stubborn and wanting to get at least SOME rock climbing done, we headed off to try to exceed all reasonable expectations of climbing speed.

The dunny for the hut has a killer view!


Hiking to and from the base of the climb traversed some pretty steep scree slopes. In the following pics, Tim and I tried to show how wild it was, and the massive scale of the place in general.


I'm the tiny black dot in the very centre of the photo

The ledge we climbed to is on the upper-right of the photo.


After two pitchs at the expectable pace of 1 hour per pitch, we decided to call it. We rapped back to the ledge and got to downclimb to the base of the cliffs in twilight, getting back to the car at 11pm. So tired!

Iron Girl!

Tim, Jess and I went to Penticton on the last weekend of August to support Emilie as she attempted an Ironman: 3.8km swim, 180km bike and a marathon (42km). And she killed it...under 13 hours, around 1300th out of 3000 people. Congrats Emilie!!

August racing

After a somewhat slack July, filled with wanton excess, relaxation and misadventure, it should have been no surprise to me that August was not filled with podiums and champagne. What happened instead was a wake-up call that my recent arrival to cat 2 was going to require more training than ever, or suck a lot. With that spoiler, on to the race reports:

The Tour de Bowness stage race is held on the August long weekend - first race since June. Hill climb Sat, Provincial Criterium Championship Sun, road race Mon. My hill climb time actually improved by 8 or 9 seconds from last year, but given the massive tailwind, it should have been 20 seconds faster with no extra effort. My power data told the story: an average power output that would have been dismal even if I was doing week-night hill repeats. 35th out of 38

The crit was a repeat of Banff: immense pain, then dropped in 20 minutes. One of my team mates, Trev Williams, was dropped in the stupidly fast "neutral" first lap, but at least he had an excuse! Team mates Keith and Jared were in the mix right to the finish, but Mark McDonald was at his peak for the race, and crushed in the final sprint to win by several lengths and defend his title from last year.

Monday's road race was shortened from an already short 80km to 60km...and so the pace was blazingly fast from the get-go. After being dropped by the race leaders in just 2 laps (of 12) I pace-lined with some pretty big names, but they too dropped me after lap 8. Despite a reasonable solo-TT effort for the last few laps, I got lapped by race leader Jamie Sparling on my penultimate lap to make it 2-for-2 DNFs in mass start races in cat 2.

The Provincial Road Race Championship was two weeks later. I'd started training again in earnest, but apparently had not regained my fitness...dropped after 30km, after a good downwind attack at the top of the first of three big hills. Ended up doing a 90km team trial trial with team mate Dennis...but at least I didn't DNF...

My team, Speed Theory, was hosting the last big race of the season, the Jason Lapierre Memorial stage race, featuring the Provincial ITT Championship. A unique course was mapped on the yet-to-be-opened-to-cars Calgary Ring Road highway. I felt in good form after the prior weekends' beatings. That is, until Cyrus passed me in the opening stage time-trial, after starting 3 minutes back. Ouch. I ended up 5 minutes off the pace to finish 12th of 16.

JayLap Cat 1/2 crit (photo by Satnam Sidhu)


An interesting crit course was created at a highway interchange (on 24-hour-old pavement!) and I made up for a complete lack of warmup (due to my typical lack of pre-race organization) by pacing the pack for the first two laps. Shortly after saw a two man break-away, and lots of surging in the pack as people tried to bridge but avoided pulling. The smaller, less-aggressive field gave me a chance to stay at the front and although I lost some ground in the final half a lap, managed a respectable 9th of 17.

In the road race the following day, the field started off with a mild pace (as we expected for a 140km event), but after about 3 seconds went to warp speed, shelling many riders. I hung in and avoided getting dropped by the surges as the field reacted to Shawn Bunnin's non-stop attacks, but the field never caught four breakaway riders, including team mate Dallas Morris. I had a mechanical and lost the peleton on the second last lap, but decided to grind out one more lap alone to avoid a DNF and get my offical placing of 13th loser in a field of 21.

Kayaking - first the bad news

I went on a great sea kayaking trip with family and friends recently. Much like last year, the injuries didn't happen until after the big event was over...Tim and I did a little white water on Elbow River, just downstream of Elbow Falls in Kananaskis.


It was actually quite the adventure in the end...turns out I don't have to be rock climbing to epic (people that know me always bring a head lamp when we do something, even in the middle of the day). After bumped our way down the shallow river (lesson 1), Tim and I came around the corner, side by side (lesson 2), and proceeded to be eaten alive by one of two (lesson 3) fairly intense rapids on the stretch of river we were running. I remembered the other one, but this one had slipped my mind... Tim flipped and wet-exited, while I fought to escape the unintentional (and unwanted) surfing: I was actually pointing *down stream*, and got pulled back in enough that I ended up with my bow in the air. Eventually I flipped...and was flipped back upright! I decided anything that could flip me back upright was not for me, and so I bailed and immediately shot out of the rapid/falls. My boat came out 30 seconds later (it's amazing what times of stress will do...it's now looking for a place on Church St).

In flipping, I hit my face on a submerged rock, so now I had blood pouring down one side of my face. In a total rookie move, I also let go of my paddle (lesson 4), so that was somewhere downstream at this point.

The adventure did end there...now Tim and I are on the side of the river with dozens of kilometres to the nearest road. The other side was a giant, steep embankment. Given that we were blocked just 20 metres upstream by a cliff that met the river in white water, it didn't bode well for walking back to the put-in. So we decided Tim would go downstream about 50 metres to the nearest shore-eddy, then I would follow, paddle-less, and he would throw his paddle as I came past, so I could eddy-in.

That went fine...I was able to eddy-in by paddling with my hands. Although my hands hit rocks on the bottem and were bleeding.

Then we had to get up the side of the big scree-slope embankment. Tricky at the best of times, but with two WW kayaks and a paddle? Hmm. So one of us did a little "lead climbing" with a tow rope, up to a large, solid looking rock, then the lower person tied the rope to the kayak, and proceeded to push the kayak up, and scramble up behind it, while the first person took in the slack so the kayak didn't slide back down (and into the current, to join my paddle wherever it had gone).

After doing that five times (so I guess the slope was just shy of 100 metres), we went back down to repeat with the second kayak. This time we tied the tow ropes off on trees, for a little "fixed-rope" effect. Then we bush-whacked to the road, and flagged down a passing car, who were nice enough to take me back to my car and not even tell me to try not to bleed on their seats.

The numerous rules I broke:
1. Avoid shallow rivers; they hurt more than full ones.
2. Go single file: it's less social, but much safer.
3. Wild rivers (unlike domesticated ones like the Upper Kananaskis) need to be scouted. It kinda sucks to get out every bend, when the river twists every 100 metres...but it turns out you kinda have to.
4. Hold on to your freakin paddle.

As a past motorcyclist, I should know that you can't learn all lessons from experience. I'll try to avoid doing that in the future...

The Decathlon That Mattered

This was the one I was super confident about. Last time, I talked a bit of trash - 7 personal bests for the weekend. Well... here's what actually went down.

On Thursday, I was notified of the absence of any other competitors in the decathlon. Did I really want to do 10 events all by my lonesome? ... Hell yes!

On Friday, an uneventful 3 hour team bus ride from U of C to Edmonton was followed by a nutritious meal of a burger and fries courtesy of Boston Pizza (it didn't look like this). A late night (11 PM is waaay past my bedtime) was coupled with an early, early morning, but whatevs, I'll still dominate.

By the time it was time for me to race, a small crowd had gathered to watch the guy with the accent silly enough to attempt a decathlon by himself.

100 - Naturally, my start was awesome. Starting by myself is way easier because I can concentrate on starting and not beating the guys either side of me. The last 30m is a bit harder, but I managed a Canadian PB (that's a PB while I've been in Canada, heh). Despite having to wait 10 minutes for a wind indicator be setup, there was no wind reading, but take it from me that there was a headwind: 11.94

LJ - FOUL, 6.22 (-0.6), FOUL. Meh. The two fouls were BIG jumps but I had my foot over the line by a little tiny bit - that's the rules.

SP - Being the only one competing in the event, I had a 4:1 official-to-athlete ratio going on. I must say I quite liked the attention. I can warmup however I like, pretty much whenever I like, and I can be totally relaxed and focussed on the job at hand. My first throw was "like BAM!". I've possibly been saying that too much lately, but it was definitely deserved this time: 9.66, PB by 0.59.

HJ - Training for this event has been going very well, so much so that Coach Duncan was rallying support from the team, to come and watch me PB. I, unfortunately, disappointed my fans: 1.60

Not me, but a wicked photo photo all the same. This is actually my teammate Todd jumping at 1.85m.

400 - Luckily, the individual 400 events were being run at a similar time so I was put in the 6th lane of the last heat: 53.50, Canadian PB.

A solid Day 1 (2887) was wrapped up with a 10 minute ice bath (cold!), a lively meal of chicken parmigiana with the cool kids from the track team, a trip to the nearest sports bar to watch the UFC 100: Canadien Georges St-Pierre dominated his fight with flawless takedowns. Woo!

My arrival at the track was met with a pleasant site: the sky was the same colour as the track - blue, yay! My warmup felt tired and sluggish, but by the time I was ready for hurdles I was feeling good. Clearly, I was feeling very good.

110H - Form over the hurdles was as good as it has been during some training sessions but it was definitely good enough for a 1.26 second PB: 18.57, BAM! ... The 3.2 m/s tailwind may have helped a little...

DT - The situation was the same as discus - a crazy relaxed and focussed warmup followed by success. Coach Eric (sitting down on the right) had a wickedly simple and effective cue for me: "See the front, see the back." The last two warmup throws were in excess of 33m, but I didn't throw that far when it mattered. This experience (and the one from shot put) gave me huge insight into the mindset I should be in when I'm throwing. Another PB, BAM!: 30.66

PV - At this point, I'm 2 for 2 personal bests for the day. I'm not really expecting another until the 1500, but, well, it sorta just happened. BAM!: 3.90

JT - Although, it's beneficial in the physics sense to have a strong headwind when throwing javelin, I'm not really used to it. The result was acceptable : 31.55

1500 - It was me telling everyone there was a PB coming up this time, but it was still me doing the disappointing. I was so sure was going to though... I put in a huge effort, so it wasn't for a lack of trying, but the conditions sucked (lots of wind). The support was amazing. Yelling people lined the track - inside and out. Lockie was running the infield screaming encouragement. I laid everything on the track, but it wasn't good enough for a PB: 4:40.65 (1:11, 1:18.5, 1:19, 0:52)

Day 2: 2534. PB, BAM!
Overall: 5421. PB, BAM!

Maybe it was the numerous personal bests, extremely supportive team, sibling and sibling-in-law or being the centre of attention for practically the entire weekend, but even I'm exhausted but I would totally do that again... BAM!

Impressive bike handling

Some amazing free-cycling. I was really impressed, and I'm not that easy to impress...oh, look! A blue car!

Devon Grand Prix

The weekend past was another stage race, the Devon Grand Prix. Similar to Banff, in that there are more races than days, as well as great organization and community involvement, and a great prize purse ($6,000 is nothing to be sneezed at for the amateur cyclist). I had a fun time last year, and this year was no different.

In Friday night's hill climb, I went out hard too hard on the flat start, and crumbled like an aged cheese. Tied for 6th. Saturday morning was the same 30km time trial course as last year - unfortunately I'd given up on keeping stats by this time last year, so I can't compare my time, but I did improve on a 30/45 to getting 2nd this year, out of 20! Near the end, a car slowly pulled up beside me...my first thought was that it was a commisionaire DQ-ing me for a centre-line violation. But I wasn't being THAT erratic. I saw out of the corner of my eye as they pulled level that the window was down and they were pointing something black at me...I've seen enough movies to expect to be staring down the barrel of an automatic weapon. It was even a clean, black, European car like all the bad guys drive (I'm the hero, of course...). Then I see Bill Quinney, a FLASH! and then his SLR camera. So here's the photo with that going through my head:

Eat, ice bath, hot shower, sleep, then back to cheer on the cat 5 team mates. The race organizers had made the crit a points race format, so every 5 laps was a sprint for points (5 points for first, 3 for second, 2, 1, 1), and then a big sprint at the end (10 for first, 8 for second, down to 1 for tenth).

David went out hard from the start, with Clarke on his wheel. It looked like a bad move, until three laps later when there were only four guys in the group! David dropped off the pace, and two bridged up, but essentially David handed Clarke a 5th or better finish. Clarke pulled a lot, but stayed near the front for the intermediate sprints to take third overall. Great teamwork, guys! Champagne for the podium!

Keith and I had a great race, and were often right up the front. I was off the pace for the first sprint (I think I sprinted past the guy in 4th to...still get 1 point, doh!), and started ramping up to get better placings for the subsequent sprints. I didn't realize who the players were, and I guess Dan Hunka won the first two. Anyway, after the last intermediate sprint at five laps to go, team mate Harlee got on the front and went like a bat outta hell for three laps, stopping anyone from thinking of attacking. Then with half a lap to go, I got on the front and let 'er rip...Bailie came up on the inside on the final straight...I threw for the line (about 20 metres early)....and just squeaked out first! Woo! A half-bottle of champas and a beer later, and I was giddy as anything. :)

So it turned out that Dan also got 24 points, but the final sprint was the tie-breaker, so I took the win. Wow...first crit win. And a commanding 15 point lead in the weekend's omnium.

In the following day's road race, I got in a breakaway with 30km to go. I went super-hard, thinking for some reason we might get caught, when the two biggest workhorses were in the break with me (Blaine and Batstone)...with my overall lead, and a team mate in the break, I should have taken it easy. Anyway, I managed to edge out one of the guys to take 4th at the line, giving me the omnium win, a handful of cash, and an upgrade to cat 2!!

Kayaking is FUN!

This photo was taken in the first moments of paddling downstream from our put-in point Bowness Park. On my face is a big smile for the camera, but behind that smile is a pretty strong sense of fear and excitement. What if I fall over?


This photo was taken after we did the second half of the trip to the 10th Street Bridge. The gnarliest water (ie. slightly less tame than the rest) on the Bow is a standing wave below the Bridge. It owned me. Now, behind that smile and bloodied shin is a need to conquer that wave.

Banff BikeFest

This past weekend was the biggest, best, highest-level race I've ever been in. Had super fun and got a few good results over the 4 days of racing. A super quick recap, since I'm in need of many recovery Zzzz's.

Prelude: With Jared at Ironman Coeur d'Alene, Dallas knocking off 1,600km in 3 days, 18 hours, and Trev busted up from his 65km/h crash at the Pigeon Lake road race, the Speed Theory cycling team had room for a couple of cat 3 shleppers...enter Keith and I, stage right. Banff-Lake Louise tourism has really gotten behind the race, and offers a total of $20,000 in cash to be won, so the best teams from western Canada and a couple of NW US teams come to compete.

Thursday afternoon was the hill climb on Hwy 93...6.5 km of undulating pain and ascending. Since I have a remarkably heavy road bike, quite a nice TT bike, and was lucky enough to have Trev/Speed Theory lend a set of lightweight Shimano wheels, I bucked the trend and took my Cervelo up the hill. Managed a decent 34th out of 84, and I gave a sigh of relief that I wouldn't be laughed at all weekend. Alex, probably our strongest all-round rider, didn't have a good race, which threw us a bit, because this was supposed to focus the team on our GC hope. Frank threw down a storming ride to be fastest for our team, in 24th place.

Friday took us out on 1A for a very picturesque, fun course that had sections of one-lane, one-way, twisty, rolly road - total blast. I crumbled in the final km and ended up back in 59th.

Saturday's TT was great, I posted a time *5 minutes, 29.7 seconds faster* than last year!! which funnily enough was 34th, keeping my overall at...34th. Saw some big names in the results sheets below me...wow.

Photo: kayphoto

That evening was some of the hardest, highest-intensity racing I've ever done, on the best crit course ever...but I couldn't handle the pace and ended up getting lapped, although I managed to be the last person not in the pack to be lapped. I found out today my little brush with one of the barriers cost me $150 for a new brake/shifter.

Photo: Bill Quinney

Final day was the road race, on a great 13km circuit with some tough little hills and wild descents. I was feeling the pain, for sure, but not too badly, but got stuck in a minor crash that put me just out of reach of returning to the pack...game over. Bummer, but all in all a great experience, and general good times with the team.

Coldplay!

Jess's Dad, Ken, invited Jess, Tim and I to come a Coldplay concert. Wicked seats, and an absolutely amazing performance. They started out with a few well known tracks that got everyone fired up, then performed from a stage a catwalk on stage left, right in front of us, then a stage way back in the stadium...basically all over the shop. They released some giant yellow balloons that bounced around the crowd for a while, and later a shower of coloured paper. Sounds cheesy, but it was good times. Lead singer, Chris Martin, was totally rocking out, and it didn't hurt that we got a free CD on the way out. Probably my favourite concert ever.

More Photos From the Decathlon

100 - There were 2 false starts (the first from me), so my start was more tentative then usual. That didn't stop me from moving into the lead at the 40m mark, though, BAM! Finished in an acceptable 11.95 with a 0.4 m/s headwind. (current decathlon PB - 11.58, +1.0)

LJ - I was looking for a PB in this event since the the last competition was 2 cm off and after two 100m races. The first jump was a solid 6.18. This set me up for 2 nothing-to-lose attempts, a foul and a 6.24. (current decathlon PB - 6.32, +2.9)


An amazing takeoff, only to have the official raise the red flag, signaling a foul.


SP - 8.43. Technique was off despite a PB a few weeks ago. If only those legs (as seen in the photo below) could be harnessed! LOL. (current decathlon PB - 8.54)


HJ - During the pre-comp meeting with the official, I asked for the heights to go through 1.66, a 1cm PB. I missed the first attempt at 1.63 but the second was an excellent jump. I couldn't repeat it at 1.66. (current decathlon PB - 1.65)

400 - 1. The lane draw sucked. I got lane 6... of 6. 2. Competitors in lanes 4 & 5 pulled out. 3. One the guys that pulled out false started... Despite this, I managed to stay out in front the entire way. The time so just how out of shape I still am: 53.57 (current decathlon PB - 51.44)

So this was a solid, but not spectacular Day 1. My score at this point was 2837. Current PB is 3030.

110mH - The second attempt at getting 3 strides between hurdles was much more successful than the last - 8 of 9. With this new stride rhythmn it was almost impossible to get a huge new PB - 19.83, +1.0 - previous PB, 21.22.

DT - Argh! The warmup was very good. There was lines marked out at every 10m, so I could easily see that I threw more than 30m during warmups (that would have been a massive dec PB). What happened in the actual competition was a bit unfortunate. The first throw felt a bit off coming out of the back of the circle - foul. The second - foul. I needed to make sure that I got points for this event, so I had to do a standing throw - 25.09 (current decathlon PB - 26.10)

PV - I didn't have access to a stiff enough pole, so I was in the right frame of mind from the beginning. Cleared my starting height of 3.51, but not 3.71. Disappointing. (current decathlon PB - 3.80)

JT - Here I could have easily set a new PB, but I didn't take the time to clear my mind after the pole vault and set up for the next event. I just wasn't feeling it. During the first approach I let my arm drop and the end of the javelin clipped the ground (26-something), on the second I overstrode and fouled the line, the last was a barely acceptable 30.49. (current decathlon PB - 33.22)

1500 - I chose to follow the pack. First lap was done in 71, a little faster than the goal of 76. During the second the athlete leading the pack pulled out, and had I been more experienced in running the 1500 I would have passed and lead out at this point. Instead I needed to heard that the last lap was done in 86. I made my move and finished in a surprisingly easy 4:42.6 (current decathlon PB - 4:39.7)

Due to the massive hurdles PB and unusual (for me) occurence of a decathlon with reasonably solid (for me) results for all the events, I hit a Day 2 PB of 2186 and an overall decathlon PB of 5023 - the first over 5000 points. Woot.

Coming, in 4 weeks time: PBs in LJ, SP, HJ, 110H, DT, JT, 1500 and overall. BAM!

Tim's decathlon

Haven't got time to do a full report of all the butt-kicking Tim did on the weekend at his "practice" decathlon, but here's a teaser: Tim on his way to his first win of the weekend.

Hail, rain, snow, and....time trials?

We've had some pretty nice weather for the past week or two in Calgary, particularly on the weekends. So it was a bummer to see this Saturday's (today's) Speed Theory ITT land on, and be bracketed by, days of forecast rain and even snow. Given that a) it was not a mass-start event, and b) so many people had signed up and/or spent many an hour in organizing the event, race director and Speed Theory el capitan Trev made the ballsey decision to go ahead with the race. And a good thing. The weather cleared up, and despite a bit of hail reported by some racers, it was generally pretty nice weather.

A straight, not-yet-driven-on new stretch of highway was the fantastic venue, with barely an incline to be seen. The significant head/cross wind and very wet road were a challenge, but everyone I talked to after the event was happy to be out.

But the big news was my first win of my cycling career!! After coming last in my last TT last year, few (including me) saw it coming, but apparently the hard work over the winter paid off. A big thanks to Speed Theory for hooking me up with my sweet ride, the Cervelo P3C, Trev for the lend of his race wheels (get well soon, buddy!), and Rob for his TT helmet...certainly I would be well down in the rankings without your gear.

The stats:
distance: 30km
time: 42:49.5
average speed: 42.03km/h

And before anyone says anything, yes, I bet I could save a few seconds by closing my mouth! :)

Photo by Torin Segstro

Pigeon Lake RR

Super day of racing up near Edmonton. Rather than plagiarize my own blog post, I'll just link to it:

http://speedtheorycyclingteam.blogspot.com/2009/06/pigeon-cat-3-recap.html

Penticton training camp

Wow, what a camp. Headed to Penticton, BC, home of the Iron Man Canada, for 5 days of big rides and bigger hill climbs.

Sunday was a tough intro to local riding: the 180km IMC loop, followed by Apex: 11km of 10-11% grade road. Holy moly. Second day was a gentle 100km to Summerland, a couple of repeats on Giant's Head (2.5km, up to 18%) and a nice ride through the country side. Tuesday we did a monster ride down through the US, back through the most casual border crossing ever (described as a guy sitting in a lawnchair beside a 6 person outhouse)...totalling 220km! Wed my bro Tim and I went back to Summerland to take a bunch of photos of the orchards in full bloom, then we rode through Summerland again, and the Kettle Valley Railroad on the way back.

Giant's Head is the peak on the far left of the horizon:




More orchards:



Thursday was my favourite ride...after a quick stint of work in the morning (while Trev knocked off a 100km ride) Trev and I drove to Oliver, then rode up Mt Baldy, which gained something like 1450 metres in 30 km, oh, and 24km of that was a gravel road! to the ski resort, down the back-side, to the summit of Anarchist, and then down Anarchist, through Osoyoos and back to Oliver. Kewl!

Velocity RR, Aerobic Power TT

The road race's plan was to attack, attack, attack...except for the odd man out, me, who was going to sit in as plan B and be ready for the sprint. Plan went well, I had a bit of fun near the front thwarting attempts by the non-represented teams to organize a chase, and although Stephen was sheparding me for the last few km, I was biting on every (fruitless) attack (mistake number one) and then flinched when someone swerved toward me with two km to go (mistake number two)...balanced on the edge of the road for 10 metres, before rolling into the ditch. Race over! Bugger. But Alex stayed away in the break and got a solid second place, to put him spitting distance from moving up to cat 1/2.

Next day I was less organized than usual (my bikes were being transported in Mike G's van (thanks!) and I had trouble finding him)...a quick warmup, realized I didn't have a number on yet, but made it to the line in time number-less. Hit it as hard as I could have hoped on the way out, passed some people and felt great. On the way back I was passed by rocket-man Trev and another guy (that I passed back, take that!...then subequently was re-passed by). Got a 4th for my efforts, and beat my previous PB by 2 minutes and 10 seconds!

The TTT was wicked fun. Alex and Keith are super-strong dudes, and we hit it pretty hard. Rotations weren't perfect, but we felt great about the pace and think we did well. No word on time or results yet.

Lethbridge stage race

A quick post since the race is already two weeks old...and I had a crappy end to the weekend.

Drove down with Andy Sat morning in gorgeous weather to the hill climb. I knew I had to get my new cassette (yes, I now have two cassettes. So pro!)on and deal with my powertap wheel having the low-gear (13-26) cassette, but I managed to fart around long enough (basically hang out with all the people that had they ducks in a row already) that my warm-up was a last minute panic, and luckily Alex was kind enough to throw my cassette on for me. Anyway, after the stressing, I got to the line in time (I think that's 3 and 3 for getting to the line in time now), spun like a mofo for the first flat section, before getting in a groove for the hill.

I often finish TTs thinking "did I really push it, or was there more to give" and when hill climbs are usually decided by a few seconds, it's easy to doubt yourself. But once I crossed the line I was hyperventilating and wheezing like I had to do the hill climb under water, and my heart rate was 4 beats off max, so I think that was all I had to give.

I think I would have had a shot at winning, except that, well a) I'm not that fast..., but b) it was about half as steep as Edworthy, and not really a hill-climber's hill per se. I was stoked to get 3rd. And lucky as hell that I beat A-Train by 1 second.

That afternoon was the MTB race, but since the only single track I've ever ridden was two years ago, and I don't own a mountain bike, I didn't think I was going to do it. But Trev was awesome enough to lend me his wicked bike, since I was racing with the Novices and he was racing Expert later on. Started off feeling good, crushed the first hill (compared to the 15 or so other people in the field, but was still gauging my comfort level at the top and was riding at the top in about 3rd. Trev and co were there, and yelling at me to pass...so I passed, and hit the first downhill in first. Woohoo! Traversing the hills at the bottom (think 45 degree hill with a 6 inch wide horizontal trail cutting across it) was not going so well for me, but the women's race slowed me down to a coordinated speed for the most part. But when was up to me I was often coming out of the track and have to unclip a pedal to stay upright, then taking forever to get clipped back in, since they weren't my pedals or shoes...thanks for the loan, Tom! I was considering riding in road shoes, since Trev thought I could do the entire course without unclipping, but since I ended up running half of it, it was lucky I had MTB shoes!

Anyway, that's how my race went, with one dude that was clearly a better bike handler, but potentially not as fit, passing me a couple of times. He'd just re-passed me with about half a lap to go, so I was taking a few (more) risks and bombing down the hills, when it all came unglued and I bailed down the hill (luckily in the grass) with the bike using me for cushioning. Back on the bike, battle battle, unclip for the friggen uphill again, and then I had no chance. But a solid second place anyway.

Turns out riding a somewhat new sport, on a bike set up for someone 6 inches shorter, may not have been the best recovery for the following day's road race. And not being able to handle a mountain bike wasn't good either. After much icing and vascillating, I rode in the following day's race (somehow with another last minute mechancial issue that required panicking and last-minute assistance). Felt great in the first 30km, and was in a breakaway with Alex and a couple of others, when he reminded me it was going to be a long race and we should get back in the pack. Luckily he was there, I would have been dropped for sure otherwise - most hills had me crying for mercy, and although I stuck with the lead pack for the entire race, my spirit was crushed and I couldn't summon the willpower for the pack sprint at the end. Lame!

Not a good first cat 3 RR.

First race of the year

April 15th or there abouts was the first race of the year, but more significantly, was the first race since:
a) I bought a TT bike, an uber-expensive (for me) Cervelo P3C
b) I bought a skin suit
c) I came last in a race, in my cat 3 debut at the end of the 2008 road season
d) I trained my guts out for 6 months over winter in warm (not!) sunny (not this year!) Calgary

So I was pretty nervous...if it didn't go well, then I was threatening to throw my TT bike in the dumpster and take up mini-golf.

I rode the course on the Friday before. When the guy from Crankmasters said it was hilly, well, he should have said really, really hilly. But custom made for a light-weight like myself.

The ride itself didn't go totally to plan...I just couldn't bring myself up to a "PHD level of suffering". I felt fast on the way out, but assumed that the way back would be a painful slog into the wind. Turned out that the way out was into the wind...huh. So I came screaming over the line with about 20km worth of energy left.



But once the results came out, it turned out that I did really well. In fact, I beat my race result from Strathmore, which I did the same time of the year in 2008, only, the race was two kilometres SHORTER! Looks like the hard yards (and big bucks) were not in vain.

No tracking

Camera play for Christmas 2006

Jess and I played around with the camera, making photos to send as Christmas postcards. This kooky one ended up going to our good friends Sarah and Leo.

Jelly bean in Millenium Park, Chicago

The reflective jelly bean in Millenium Park reflects skyscrapers flanking the west side of Michigan Ave in downtown Chicago. Jess and I were in Chicago in November, 2006, for RSNA, a huge radiology tradeshow.