Turning circles and other ways to suffer......musings of an old crank

The Long Road back

2011-09-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Over 2 months since my last post, 2 months spent mostly recovering from a pulled muscle in my lower back, a muscle I permanently weakened about 25 years ago while lifting an air tight stove that I had no business lifting, the friend on the other side of the stove being a zillion times stronger than me, which I knew beforehand so of course I had to do it, being a stupid male and all. Anyway, since then the riding has been limited, until last Saturday and yesterday, 180k and 310k respectively, and I felt them both, not the back so much, although I can feel that it's still not 100%, but the level of fitness, which is nowhere near what it should be in late September. Ah well, I've got all winter to get back to normal.

Saturday's ride was the Ironman Canada bike loop, which is getting old for me; still a nice ride but there are better ones out there, and in particular yesterday's loop into Washington State (see my April 19, 2010 post) http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=209915...still a beautiful ride. Bob agreed to hang with me, he'd otherwise have been about 2 hours quicker I think, 'cause he wanted to check out the ride for next year's Brevet season http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/ ; it passed, I gather.

Now, a bit of a snigger for you; this is what I originally posted:

But my new bike, oh my, what a mess; Bob suggested that I have a woodpecker stored in the frame, based on all the crashing and banging going on, none of which seems to be coming from any of the attached equipment, like wheels, handlebars, fenders, lights, bag rack etc. etc. Here's hoping that it's a loose headset (although it doesn't feel loose) or something treatable....gave me some cause for concern yesterday, let me tell you, as I barreled down through a couple of canyons at 60kph+, all on the premise that "at 40kph or 60kph, a crash is gonna hurt, a lot, so let's get this over with asap". Sound reasoning don'tcha think? Anyway, today or tomorrow, it's off with all the brevet type equipment, and to the shop, where they can check it out, it being surely still under warranty, I trust.

And this is the situation.......a shim I placed under the bag on the rack came loose, and all the crashing and banging was indeed the bag bouncing on the rack and sounding for all the world like the whole frame was about to explode, imminently. Thank god I discovered that before making a fool of myself at the shop.

Get out there.

Of monsoons and bridges

2011-07-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

"Am I having fun yet" I muttered as, bikes in tow, Randy and I scrambled through some tall grass, over an open culvert awash in water, and onto the mud under the bridge, all to avoid the torrential wind and rain, that had already mostly soaked us, while we pulled on rain pants, yet again. Such was the midday situation on Day 3 of the Southern Interior 1,000k brevet that had started at 06:00 2 days earlier when 7 of us fools pulled out of the parking lot in Barriere and headed up the road, already waving adieu to Ken and then Bob, who just like at the 600k (see previous post), soon shot off the front and in Ken's case, notwithstanding 3 punctures, finished 10 hours ahead of Randy and I, with Bob an hour behind him, notwithstanding a ditch excavation event (of which more later). Little Fort and the monster climb arrived soon enough and we had a pleasant jaunt over to 100 Mile House, the 900m climb and first storm behind us. A tailwind carried us North to Williams Lake and Quesnel where we enjoyed a meal, courtesy of Randy's wife Jill, and a 5 hour sleep, before heading North again to Prince George and the 2nd Control. The 55k jaunt to Purden Lake Resort was pleasant enough and the meal there was a lifesaver, especially since the next 150k leg to McBride, featuring nothing but trees and mostly into a headwind, seemed endless. For a while it looked like we would be too late to catch anything open, so we banged out a 25k highish tempo ride and arrived with what we thought was 15 minutes to spare, only to discover that the place was open an hour later than we thought. I haven't turned the big chainring that hard in a while, and all of it needlessly! The midnight to 4AM mostly endless uphill slog to Valemount, in a drizzle, put an end to 22 1/2 hours of fun on the bike. After a 4 hour snooze we were off again, headed for Blue River, Clearwater and Barriere; the wind and monsoons started immediately and didn't quit until Clearwater. Along the way, the bridge provided some shelter, once, but we were otherwise tossed around and thoroughly drenched a bunch of times, not to mention cringing at the thunder and lightning that accompanied said wind and rain and the endless rigs that flew by providing needless showers and pulse spiking moments. Bob, several hours ahead of us, got blown upside down into a ditch, still clipped into his bike, when he made the unforgiveable mistake of stopping and putting only one foot down. After a welcome meal in Clearwater, we headed into a beautiful evening and the final 60k to Barriere, where we arrived some 66 1/2 hours, 1,009k, and 7500+m of climbing later, after the start 2 days earlier. Another well earned few days off the bike is now in progress.

Get out there.

A fine 'ole sufferfest

2011-06-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I may have beaten back some demons on the aforementioned 400k brevet, but it seems that I didn't learn much.....just back from the Southern Interior 600k and another sufferfest, this time for 35 hours, up the North Thompson river from Hefley Creek to Valemont and back...god save me from myself, please, and quick, the 1,000k is in 3 weeks.

6Am saw a somewhat groggy looking bunch head out of the parking lot, do a quick jaunt to the South to make up a kilometer or so, then turn North and settle in. After a bit Ken Bonner and Bob Goodison jesttisoned off the front and we didn't see them again until 15k South of Valemont, when they passed us headed for home 285k away....both rode right through for chrissake, and finished in 25 hours and small change; no sleeps, no sit down meals, just pit stops for liquid and fuel re-fills.

Randy and I, by way of contrast, had dinner in Valemont, a 2.5 hour sleep in Blue River, brunch in Clearwater and with half a dozen black bears, a huge bull moose and some deer populating our view of the passing landscape, the river in full runoff mode, periodic train whistles keeping the night eerily alive, although it was cold, we had a fine ole' time, for a sufferfest that is, in spite of my front fender issues, Randy's puncture with the barn in our noses, a good hard rain shower, and the final 100k into a good headwind.

Got a new bike for this strange business, a Trek Cronus full carbon fibre frame fitted with a triple chainring crankset, an 11/32 cassette, full fenders, and my newly beloved dynohub wheel and LED headlight/taillight setup. Why? Well, try this....if my Trek Madone feels like an office chair in the full upright position, ready for business, the Cronus feels like the same chair but with the thingy on the back turned counter clockwise a turn or two so it's just that little bit more relaxed, and a touch easier to suffer on....and my knees are still congratulating me for the the smaller gearing. So, if you want a bike you could race but you like to relax on a bit as well, give the Cronus a look. Oh, and have a look at Gore's bike jackets as well....the AlpX cost as much as a whole Canadian tire bike, but it performs; kept me dry and warm through the rain and the cold.

But back to those fenders.........

No more excuses, get out there

Certification pending....

2011-06-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while those little germs of doubt inside us all surface and try to wreak havoc. And so it was this past weekend on the BC Randonneurs Southern Interior 400k brevet. Not once, but twice, those little buggers got me thinking, "I can't do this anymore, it's too hard, I'm hurting too much, and my knees will kill me if I don't stop". I actually turned around and started back at one point before my ever diminishing residue of well used, and well worn, bits of determination self deployed and fought them off, yet again. I muttered "f--- you", turned around, again, decided to focus on the next obvious feature and not on the 260k yet to go, and staggered on. And again, at 265k, deploying their dizziness and 'you're about to bonk' cousins, they almost got me, but I beat them back, again, with a 5 minute sit down, a sandwich, half a dozen fig bars, and a litre of gatorade. Apart from that it was a fine old ride, Kamloops to Princeton return, lots of hills, lots of wind, lots of rain, the hardest 21 hours I've spent on a bike, the most times I've put on, and taken off, rain pants, the coldest descent to the finish that I've suffered through, and one of the darkest nights on the bike that I remember; thank god for dyno-hubs and modern LED lighting. But I had a great time, no really. And the next day's 100k ride with a friend, after a fine 90 minute sleep, was a real treat. What doesn't kill you...........

Get out there.

What's in a name?

2011-05-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

"Must be a joke" I thought, as we staggered through Sunshine Valley in a driving horizontal rainstorm, about 21 hours into our 24 hour stagger from Penticton to Harrison Hot Springs, via Oliver, on our annual Fleche Pacifique http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/fleche/fleche.html sojourn from the Interior to the Coast. It started well at 6PM the day before, with an 82k cruise from Penticton to Oliver and back, in reasonable conditions, an hour twenty layover at Tim Hortons so we'd not get to Princeton before anything was open for breakfast, and an 11PM start up Green Mountain Rd, where it started to rain and didn't quit until just before Princeton in the early hours. Thoroughly frozen, thawed, frozen again, and always soaking wet, we arrived in Princeton at 6AM, battered by the wind and weather, to a welcome breakfast and rest before heading up to Sunday Summit some 2.5+ hours of climbing, and gallons of sweat, later. Miraculously though, it didn't rain, because I guess, it was saving up. After a monster downhill, where an 18 wheel driver tried to force Bob into the ditch, and an endless plug on some "sort of" flat ground, we arrived at Manning Park Lodge for lunch. It was nice when we went in and ominous looking when we came out, and so it proved to be; slashing rain, huge wind, sunshine, freezing cold, snow and hail showers and and terrible road conditions combined to give us fits all the way into Hope, passing thru the aforementioned "Sunshine Valley" enroute. After worrying that we'd not make the time limit because of the weather, we managed to arrive at the 22 hour mark with only some 35k to go and miraculously, the rain and wind stopped, so we cruised along Hwy 7 (is there a more boring road to ride in BC?) into Harrison with 20 minutes to spare, finally putting an end to 377k of self torture. Last year we did a 450k route that was a lot easier...next year?...well, at the moment I've taken my bikes apart as their punishment for putting me through this again, so we'll see....

Get out there.

Here we go again.....

2011-04-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Early March, another winter almost done and freezing cold rides into that damn south wind almost done. 1,800k so far this year but mostly 50-90k stuff; time to get some longer efforts in the legs so that the Randonneurs Spring Brevet season isn't the end of me, and see how my knees hold up. Now, Ken Bonner might do a 200k every other day but I'll settle on just a couple of mine, for now. Here's some reflection on how they went..............

Partly sunny skies and a temperature of about 1c greeted Randy and I as we kitted up and headed out for some fun in the sun a couple of weeks ago. We quickly warmed up on the climb to Yellow Lake, arriving earlier than the ice fishers, and even more quickly cooled down on the descent into Keremeos. A favourable breeze made the rollers heading for Osoyoos easier than they usually are in that direction and the turn for the Border crossing soon arrived along with both better sun and temperature. The ramble along Palmer lake to Loomis and the cruise over to Highway 97 was downright pleasant, with gloves off and jacket open. After a 10 min break to chow down an unusually good pre-packaged sandwich, we headed North into a less than disheartening headwind and eventually turned up at the return Border crossing. 10 minutes later we were having coffee at the Husky in Osoyoos, which cost an outrageous $4.50; I’ve been stopping there for years on rides but that may put and end to that. Off again after 15 minutes or so, we cruised N thru Oliver, OK Falls and along Eastside Road just as the cool evening air was beginning to bite; Tim Horton’s was a welcome sight, 9h 45min into the ride, and another coffee, with some soup, made for a good end to a fun day.

An nice early season 200k ride which avoids a lot of climbing by sticking to main roads which, at this time of the year, are sparsely travelled by the auto going bunch, although we still managed to be found by a couple of idiots in pickups, as usual. Give me strength.

And again last weekend......

I’ve made plenty of fresh tracks in new snow over the years, but none on a road bike, so it was a tad tentatively that I headed down the back side of Green Mountain Road in a fresh blanket of the white stuff, all the cars on the road having turned off at the top to head for the Apex lifts. ‘I’ll just try the first steepish bit and see how it goes’ I thought and, after not wrapping myself around a tree, or enlarging the roadside ditch, or making a bouquet of snow angels on the road, I finally found bare pavement again after about 7km of nerve racking tip toeing down the road. Mind you, it was still raining and freezing cold, just like on the way up, so it was a relief to get to the 1st Control in Keremeos where I could thaw my claws into hands again. Nothing I could do about the lost time though, as if that matters.

After the thaw, I headed for the Rollers and Richter Pass, which I duly slogged up (they never get any easier) and arrived in Osoyoos for a welcome coffee and sandwich (and a few sidelong looks from a group of Penticton roadies). A bit of a tailwind made the trip to Oliver passable but then the hills started again (who built this route anyways?) and they had my number today….took an age to get to Twin Lakes and the 3^rd Control, where I downed some chocolate milk before heading downhill to OK Falls and then into what was now a brisk headwind; fortunately though, only for a few klicks before a I turned North and headed for home with a (now) brisk tailwind. Tim Horton’s and the final Control was a welcome sight. Awesome day.

Try the route, you’ll love all 202k of it, but wait for fresh snow...............

Early April....what now? Time to get the Trek down for starters, and hang up the Tank 'till the snow flies again. Maybe I should take on a 1,000k while the bike still seems like it's weightless, but I don't think so....I've built a 400k ramble that takes in Republic WA and I think I'll give that a go in a week or two. And then it's on to the Spring Series http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/index.html, the Fleche Pacifique http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/fleche/fleche.html, and all that.......more on all that later........

Get out there

Not another hill.......%$&^!!

2010-07-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

"Jeez", I said to Graham, "these rollers are easy on one of my usual rides, it feels a little different after a long night and 530k on the bike"..........the BC Randonneur's Southern Interior 600, my first shot at organizing a ride, has come and gone, and it came off OK, although it seems that it was a bit on the hard side, what with above mentioned rollers and a big climb in the final 60k attracting a lot of the wrong kind of attention. Actually, the elevation gain over the whole ride wasn't that big, about 5,300m, but there was no climb that took care of 1,000m of that, or some such thing; rather, there were climbs throughout the ride and that got the better of everyone. 10 started, 6 finished, so a 40% DNF, but one of the 4 quit due to boredom (no kidding), and another broke a wheel, so really only 2 couldn't make the time limit.

Anyway, 10 of us pulled out of the Walmart lot at 06:00, in a clear, cool morning, and headed North along the lake for 6 hours, finally turning west just outside of Vernon, having enjoyed the lake views and suffered the Westside Road for our morning constitutional. That road is just plain hard. Along the way Peter broke a spoke and his rear derailleur was acting up, so he abandoned, and I lost Randy just before the Hwy 97/Westside Rd junction when I stopped for water and he didn't, which was just as well as he ended up riding through with Bob, which I was not gonna do no matter what! Instead, still nursing a sore knee (more on that later) I hooked up with Graham and another Bob, and we stayed together for the duration.

After wonderful Westside Rd, a tailwind carried us along Hwy 97 and Barnhartvale Rd; I knew we'd pay later and boy, did we ever; once we turned on Campbell Creek Rd, the headwind was relentless for about 5 hours, until we finally staggered into the Tim Horton's in Merritt about 11PM. Along the way though, we enjoyed the gravel portion of Campbell Crk Rd and a beer and Natcho's at the Quilchena Hotel...never done that before on a Brevet and boy did it hit the spot...brilliant, Graham!

Tim Horton's revived me as usual and we then headed up the Princeton hill, 40 minutes of snail's pace riding in a clear, cool, starry night with virtually no traffic, before heading South through Aspen Grove to Princeton where we arrived at dawn...one of the best nights of riding that I've had, and the shower and 90 minute sleep in Princeton felt like real luxury. A quick A&W breakfast later we were off, in a tailwind, for Keremeos and then the %$&^%$!! rollers into Osoyoos, which are a lot harder in that direction than they are in the other direction, which is the way I know them better from my Ironman days. But, gallons of sweat later we did arrive for lunch in Osoyoos and a much needed ham and cheese sandwich, soup etc.

Then it was off again to Oliver via the rollers on Black Sage Rd, where we got a bird's eye view of the mudslide that has been so much in the news recently, followed by the climb to Highway 3A, the last part against a howling wind that almost did me in and certainly made me ignore the wonderful scenery unfolding like a slow motion movie in my peripheral vision. Arriving at the penultimate Control with 5 minutes to spare before it closed, the store that is, not the Ride's Control closing time, we stocked up, caught our breath and headed downhill through the final Control at Okanagan Falls and along Eastside Rd to the finish at Tim Horton's in Penticton, Thank god for that!

So, another 600k ride in the books, sore knees and all. I have to find lower gearing for those big hills deep into a big ride if I'm gonna keep doing this. The 34x28 just doesn't do it; maybe if I was 36 but not at (almost) 66. I've found an 11-34 cassette built for 10 speed Shimano road systems and we'll give that a try; if that doesn't work a new bike with a combination of road and mountain bike drive trains will be the only remaining option (in other words, the usual Randonneuring setup) and I don't know how I'll rationalize those $$ since the longer, plus 400k rides are maybe 15% of the riding I do. Anyway, all that's for another day, and another blog story.

Get out there.

Oh.....that was fun

2010-06-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

"So Doug, it's raining, I'm already cold and wet, I've got all the clothes that I brought already on, and we're gonna do 400k....what's wrong with this picture(?)", says Ryan to me as we roll out of the 5AM start this past Saturday into a grey dawn and steady light rain. A minute later a truck rolls by and sprays us for good measure.... "welcome to another "nutbars only" event, the BC Randonneurs Southern Interior 400k Brevet", think I, as Ryan puts his head down and disappears into the distance with Peter, leaving Bob B and I to follow at a more modest pace, which we do until 02:45 Sunday morning, following which we re-hash things over coffee for an hour before I down a bunch of pizza and finally hit the sack at 04:30, 25 hours after my morning porridge and tea. I need help.

Along the way we got thoroughly soaked several times, battled headwinds from time to time, actually saw a sun shadow once or twice, grumbled about traffic from time to time, and mused about the whys and wherefores over coffee, milkshakes, lunch, and dinner stops. We even had a cheering section of sorts; my friend Cristina and her partner Will knew where we'd be at about 10AM and listened to our babbling over coffee at the 2nd Control for half an hour.

So, all in all, it was fun, sort of...but only if you, like me, put a premium on process and not on, in this case, a fast completion time...ya know....it's the journey, not the result, yada yada, yada.....cliches all, but true nonetheless so far as I'm concerned......Vince Lombardi I ain't.

But there's a limit, and 150k of rain, not 300, and some sun, woulda been nice!

Oh, and 2 weeks ago, Peter C and I wandered thru the Interior 300k in much nicer weather, although the 60k on the Trans Canada Hwy, to start and to finish, was.......regrettable.

So, the 600k Brevet is in 2 weeks and maybe a 1000k 2 weeks after that...should set me up just right for the summer don'tcha think? I'm a bit worried about the 600; it's my route, my organization, and 600s often attract some of the "hard core"...sure hope they like the route and my directions don't send them off the wrong way...and I sure hope it's a full 600k; you don't know for sure 'till you ride it and there'll be complaints if it's short.

Get out there.

Woe is me.....

2010-05-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

So, another Fleche http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/fleche/10_results-details.html has come and gone and it almost took me with it. Maybe it was the gusting winds throwing us all over the road on the 45+kph downhill start that got me all churned up with anxiety over what the next 24 hours was going to bring, maybe it was the still sore knee that had me a bit concerned, I don't know, but at about 8PM my stomach started feeling grumpy and the legs headed South, and stayed there for the next 12 hours until they finally relented and headed North for the duration, and by the finish I was feeling pretty good. On the plus side, my new LED lights, powered by my new Dynohub, were and are fantastic; it's so nice being able to properly see what's coming and so fun to scream downhill in the pitch dark and not be freaking about that pothole that might be there, but which I can't really see, quietly planning my destruction. If you're gonna do this crazy stuff, fork out the ~$600 it'll take to buy the gear, you won't regret it.

But back to the start; following the aforementioned wild start, the jaunt along the Salmon river and Barnhartvale Rd was uneventful and we arrived at a very muddy 12k gravel section along Campbell Creek just at dusk. The cattle guards were slippery, the mud made a mess and it was dark at the turn onto the old highway to Merritt, where we put on all our clothes before heading South in the dark and, thankfully calm, night. My stomach woes then took hold and I struggled along, bringing up the rear, all the while debating the sanity of what I sometimes get myself into, you know how that goes, and by Merritt I was grimly hanging on, just. However, a Tim Horton's meal revived me a bit and about 01:30 we headed for Spence's Bridge and the aforementioned fun downhills in the dark, albeit with me still feeling definitely sluggish. Maybe it was the early dawn light, maybe it was tiredness, maybe it was a gremlin, who knows, but just after starting South on Hwy 1, I clobbered a rock, damaged the sidewall on the front tire and blew the tube. Then, owing to the fact that I haven't had a flat in such a long time that I forgot to check my spares, the first fix blew up as well, as I inflated it, and I had to change it again, all with frozen hands but thankfully with Ryan present, he nursing a sore knee, and able to lend a hand. We took so long that Captain Bob reversed course to see what was up and then sped away again when he discovered that all was, sort of, well. Both tires were brand new and I didn't have a spare, but the damage to the sidewall caused no further trouble, thanks god. The breakfast stop in Boston Bar finally arrived about 09:30, which Randy blissfully rode by, forcing Captain Bob to sprint off yet again to rein him in, and a welcome sight it was. The eggs, pancakes, coffee and toast revived me quite a bit and we headed off, after about a 45 minute stop, in warming weather and better spirits. The tunnels, hills, bridges and whatnot passed uneventfully until we headed East on the last leg and ran into a 10 minute monsoon that provided the only, so far, missing ingredient, a thorough soaking. Thank you god. However, it was brief and we arrived in Harrison pretty much dried out, not to mention exhausted, and headed straight to the Bar. Another Fleche, done, in all ways. Oh, and we won the furthest distance covered, again...drats..now we have to store the trophy for yet another year, somewhere.

Get out there.

Talk about a sting in the tail...

2010-04-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a leisurely day...having tweaked my knee a bit in the pool the day before, I'd decided to hang around with Pete C and cruise thru the Interior 200 at an easy pace, you know, gear right down on the hills, hang about at the controls a bit longer than usual and generally have a light day and let the knee, hopefully, sort itself out......and things did go according to plan until 150k, when the temperature plummeted, it started to rain, blow, hail and even snow, and hanging about was no longer a smart option, especially since I made the mistake of taking the Weatherman semi-seriously when he said there was only a 30% chance of rain and it, generally, was gonna be a nice day, and I didn't have the "full conditions" rig on board.....so, having chowed down a bunch of Vitamin I, otherwise known as Ibuprofen, off I went into said conditions and it was oh so much fun while it lasted until I arrived at the Finish Control barely able to get the control card out of my pocket for the "whole lotta skakin goin on", which lasted for 20 minutes before a beer and burger finally changed the tide for the better...so much for the leisurely day.

Get out there.

2010-04-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

OK, it's Brevet Season again and I'm reviving this meaningless musing for anyone who wants some flavor of what cycling means to me. I don't do much else that's worth musing on so you can, with some justification, assume, I guess, that I'm pretty much a one dimensional old fart.

But to the riding; after a winter suffering frozen fingers and toes but mercifully not so frozen that I even once repaired to the rollers in disgust, I got myself, sort of, ready for the longer efforts, which started with a 200k Permanent Brevet in late March. Niece Joanne and I started out at 9AM and after 10 minutes launched into a 20k hill that turned into a semi-freezing 14k downhill before Joanne sensibly headed North for home for an 80k+ ride, whilst I, being much less sensible, headed South to Keremeos and a wonderful "wind in your face" event as a I crossed several undulations and so called Richter Pass into Osoyoos. After a sandwich and coffee, I headed North with a tailwind which I managed to nullify by turning west after only 20k and clobbering myself with a horrific 2k hill (sounds short and it is but do it yourself without a triple if you don't believe me) followed by several more Ks of climbing, before a well timed Control and a big downhill provided some respite. Then it was into a headwind for a bit followed by 20k of tailwind home to coffee and donuts at the Tim Horton's Finish Control. Yummie. For more on Permanent Brevets, Controls and other obscure delights, see http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/

Then yesterday it was another Permanent, this time a 300k ramble through the South Okanagan and Northern Washington; a fantastic route with views to die for and enough climbing to kill...only it didn't....and I arrived back at the start for coffee and donuts about 9PM..13 hours on the bike and 2 hours eating along the way. The route heads east and south to the Nighthawk border crossing, runs along Palmer lake, jogs over to Tonasket, goes forever up into the Wauconda high country, then heads west and south past Beaver and other lakes to Chesaw, where, by that point, I needed my basement gear quite a bit thank you, before continuing up and south and finally down.....Thanks God !!....to Oroville. Its a short hop to the Osoyoos border crossing and then a 60k cruise back up Hwy 97 home. Wow, a ride for the memory bank....couldn't have been passed by more than 20 cars other than on Hwy 97...well OK, maybe a few more, but not many. Don't die before you ride this route.

In between those 2 rides, amongst the usual training efforts, I met up with my Fleche teammates for a 110k shakedown cruise in advance of the Fleche in early May. Check that curious event out here; http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/fleche/fleche.html . All is well with them and we'll be doing our [now] usual 450k ride over the 24 hours from May 7 @ 4PM. Crazy? You bet! Why? I've no idea. Anyway, we spent a morning wandering the back roads in the Armstrong, Enderby area and what a beautiful area that is to ride a bike; I have to acknowledge that it's better than around here, hard as that is to do.

And, finally, my generator wheel, new LED head and tail lights, are all on the way...looks like I'll have them for the Fleche....and I'll be able to see where I'm going in the dark.....way cool!

Get out there.

3 tales and 1,100 k

2009-06-17T08:12:00.001-07:00

So...it's been a while and the BC Randonneurs Interior 400 and 600 are done, and so am I. The 400, on May 30, was a mostly fun affair, Peter C and I slogging into a headwind up to Helmken Falls from Kamloops, and then cruising back with a tailwind...I usually find that the wind seems to switch direction with me so this was a nice change. The day started at 05:00 with a 40k out and back...which I always find a bit tedious, especially when I get another good view of the car that could make the trip a whole lot easier....before we headed north to Clearwater and the Falls. Peter's my type of guy, happy to break at 100k and 170k for a quick sit down and fuel up and another a 215, or thereabouts, at the Falls turn around. Along the way he had a front flat, so we stopped and I talked him thru the change, which he hadn't done for years (see my earlier post on the 300...it's the same Peter)......and let me confirm that the road into the Falls from the highway ain't flat, no sirree, but it was fun on the way back with the tailwind. Along about Barriere, and nearing dusk, I almost bonked owing, I think, to a shortage of electrolytes and a skull cap that's good for sweat but not for heat dissipation. After a quick stop, a sandwich and a bottle of water with some electrolyte powder added in, I'm fine and we're off again, only for Peter to have a rear flat, where I discover that he's running super light tubes that are good for the track and maybe for the road if you have a follow car and swept roads, but not much else.....so after a bit of a lecture from me on tubes and the existence of heavier ones, including thorn resistant and kwik seal ones, I talk him thru another change and we're off again.... the wind dies to a light breeze butit's still at our backs and we cruise into Kamloops and the finish about 23:30 (Ian, who's training for RAAM solo in 2010, did the ride 5 hours quicker, ouch).....all in all a fun day and I'm back at Steve's and asleep by 01:15...where I get 5 hours before rising, and sort of shining, to head off on the Armstrong Metric Century ride with him...where I take it easy, needless to say, for most of the 100k, only revving up on the last 20k to get the darn thing done. Steve arrives about 5 minutes later, we relax on the grass for a bit while draw prizes are handed out, I win a $20 gift certificate, we lunch at a local pub and then we head back to his place for a lazy end to a ride filled weekend.

The 600, this past weekend, was a different affair; 34 hours, about 5,400m of climbing according to organizer Bob, and a much larger project that the 400. Kelowna, Rock Creek, Greenwood, Osoyoos, Princeton, Oliver and back to Kelowna. Four major climbs and a whole bunch of small ones, all the hard bits of the Ironman Canada bike course, some bad road, and a horrible finish from Summerland to Kelowna in Sunday afternoon traffic.

Saturday, 06:00, 8 of us fools headed up into the orchards in E Kelowna for about 16k and then onto the Rock Creek highway and the summit at 1,250m or something. The last time I did this climb I started with 150k in the legs and this time feels a whole bunch easier. Ryan, Ken and Bob are soon out of sight and Pete (a different Pete) and I settle into the ride, reaching the summit easily and Beaverdell at about 95k. Another, mostly downhill 45+k later, we make the turn at Rock Creek, where I grab my first of the 5 litres of chocolate milk I drank on the ride, and head for Greenwood, which we hit at 176k and 13:40, or thereabouts. After a break, and another chocolate milk for me, we head back to Rock Creek and while I stop to repair a broken fender fastener, Pete heads off and entertains the thought of riding straight through; after a bit, he comes normal and I catch him at Rock Creek where we head UPHILL and into a driving thunderstorm that has the road hosting a creek for a while. We stop to put on jackets and carry on, my Raynaud's syndrome playing havoc with my fingers and both of us getting thoroughly soaked. Fortunately, the rain stops before the summit and we're dry by the time we head DOWNHILL into Osoyoos, where the winds make the descent a wild affair, bike blowing all over, brakes on, and cars and trailers crowding us on the tight switchbacks. Dinner at Tim's in Osoyoos is a welcome break. After chowing down, we head for Keremeos in a beautiful evening; Richter pass and the rollers beyond pass easily and we pull into Keremeos just as Pete, who's diabetic, is having a "must have sugar now!" episode, so the coke at the 7/11 is most welcome. As twilight deepens we head for Princeton and arrive there, after an uneventful cruise (except for 1 rock which I was sure had broken my wheel, but hadn't), at 00:30, having located, and passing, our sleep stop, and chatting with Ryan for a bit, who's apparently on a mission...."me.."hey Ryan, how're you feeling?"....him..."I'm great, heading straight for Kelowna and not stopping", and he didn't, finishing at 06:15 for a 24:15 ride...and not only that, he dropped his control card in Summerland, 60k back, hitched there, found his card, and then rode the final 60k AGAIN, and still finished before anyone else! We, meanwhile, carried on back to the sleep stop. After a shower and a doze for 3 hours, we headed out again for Hedly, Keremeos and Oliver, some 85k away, where we had a welcome hot breakfast. Then it was N thru OK Falls, Penticton, Summerland, Peachland and the horrible gigantic strip mall that is West Kelowna and Harvey St in Kelowna. To make matters even worse than the usual Sunday PM traffic, a cancer ride of 12 roadies, with follow car and all the trimmings, passed us while we were stopped N of Summerland, and we were thus treated to the 100+ car back up that they caused...oh well, it's a good cause. So....we arrived back where we started at 16:00, where Pete assessed the damage to his truck from some jerks that thought they might steal it and I headed home for a shower and as much food as possible.

So ends another adventure, get out there!

Brief epilogue...Pete's truck needs a new door lock and the key ignition mechanism repaired, but is otherwise OK...and he lost some clothes and stuff, but nothing major.

Freakin' frost heaves and wind

2009-05-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

Cruising thru Kamloops at dusk, I muttered to Tracy that I was ready to be done with all this fun and he muttered back that he'd been "done for a while". A few minutes later, slightly dazed, we collapsed onto a couple of chairs in the Husky station/final control in Kamloops. "That was the hardest 300 I've ever done" he again muttered, and since he's done about a zillion of these, it's no wonder I felt slightly wobbly. An ice cream bar and a litre of chocolate milk later, we we're able to crawl off the chairs and make our way to the cars where we formally ended the day.......

.......which had started 14 and a half hours earlier in the same spot. Along the way we rode thru Merritt, Spence's Bridge, Cache Creek and back to Kamloops. The BC Randonneurs Interior 300km, forever branded in me as "that freakin' frost heaves and wind" ride. But to the beginning.......we headed out at 06:00 and almost immediately climbed about 550m out of Kamloops; well we didn't immediately climb them, that's for sure, but they did start about 06:15 and went on just short of forever before we topped out S of Knutsford, following which we screamed down the following hill and settled in to the rest of the 100k to Merritt. Around 10:15, after a pleasant jaunt with a few sprinkles and not much wind [especially for that part of the world], Tracy, Peter and I slipped onto more chairs for a quick break at Tim's before heading west to Spence's Bridge. Peter is new to this crazy business; he's full of questions and it's fun to hang with him. Strength ain't a problem though and he keeps close, if a bit back since tight drafting is a bit nerve wracking for him, and it's kinda obvious where his son got the strength to ride RAMM solo last year http://www.ryansdream.com/. From Merritt we enjoy a tailwind and downhill terrain into Spence's Bridge. This is my 3rd trip along that stretch and as I emerge into the Thompson River valley I'm remembering my first trip, the other way, in 33c heat, uphill for 60km, a year ago on the Interior 400km; that was as brutal as this was fun. Anyhoooo, we cross the bridge into town and hang out in a local cafe for a bit before heading for Cache Creek, where the freakin' frost heaves take all the fun out of what would otherwise be a spectacular jaunt along the scenic Thompson. Barry caught us up in Spence's Bridge and hangs for a bit, but since he only drafts well behind women, he trails off after a bit, and as we pass the 1/4 mile track near Ashcroft, and watch a couple of mustangs scream by at about 100mph, I'm reminded again of the good reasons why the internal combustion engine was invented. Finally, we bounce into Cache Creek, get the cards signed, the bottles filled and head for home. Along about Juniper Beach the wind shows up and it's a brutal cross headwind, one of the worst I've encountered [think gettin' down toward single digit readouts on the Km/Hr display]; the downhills into Savona are fun with the wind blowing the bike sideways at 50km/hr plus, the Savona hill passes painfully, the wind picks up where it left off on the hill, and we struggle east past the Cherry Creek Ranch toward home. Finally, it eases up and we slide downhill into town and the aforementioned chairs at the final control. All in all "a character building day", to put a cheerful note on it. 308km, about 2400m of climbing.

Get out there.

Clear, calm and frozen

2009-05-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

Uh oh, I thought, I've waited too long to get some clothes on and now I'm cold; sure enough, we stop to layer up and it's too late......takes me about an hour to warm up and we're almost to Merritt before my hands feel OK........but back a bit to 4PM, Salmon Arm and the start of the BC Randonneurs Fleche ride...450km over 24 hours...Salmon Arm to Harrison Hot Springs, about 3,350m of climbing. Bob, Randy, Pete, Ryan and I head out in the sun and immediately are up to 50kph as we scream down the Hwy 1 hill headed for the Salmon River Rd and the first control stop at Westwold, about 70km in. Just North of Falkland the road turns to junk, a short storm soaks us, and the rigs shower us with mud for good measure before we pull into the Control for a quick bottle refill and head off again for the Barnhartvale Rd and my shortcut along the Campbell Creek Rd that, even with 11km of gravel, will be a happy alternative to the drop into Kamloops and the wonderful climb back out. The shortcut makes Bob, Randy and Pete, who have done this before, very happy as they arrive at Hwy 5A not already totally exhausted from that cursed climb. Ryan and I arrive as well, but not before Ryan loses it on a cattle guard and tries his best to take me with him; happily, he's not successful and we all manage to turn South and brace ourselves for 90km of headwinds into Merritt, which miraculously do not arrive. It's also clear and the moon is gorgeous, particularly around Stump Lake, but it's cold, real cold, and as I said, it stays that way all the way to Merritt, where we arrive at about 00:30 having also endured a cold shower from a farmer's irrigation system that was stuck watering the highway. We're ahead of schedule so we pull into Tim's for some soup and pass a bit of time with a happy drunk who's wandering around the restaurant entertaining himself but no one else. Pete manages to spray the windows and floor with his chocolate milk so we wait while he does his mop and bucket routine which brings back memories for me of one of my many teenage jobs which was eerily similar. Along about 01:20, we head out into the cold, check through the 2nd control downtown, and head for Spence's Bridge, about 65km down the road, where we arrive at about 03:50 and where it's even colder....but daylight is beginning to threaten and that cheers me up. After a curbside sandwich and drink, we turn onto Hwy 1 and head for Boston Bar, about 75km away, where breakfast awaits....except that when we get there, at 08:00, we discover that the restaurant, whose sign says "Breakfast served all Day!!", doesn't open until 11:00...go figure. Fortunately, a small diner is open and we manage to fill up with hot, but not good, food. At this point we're about an hour and a half ahead of schedule and we have to slow down; that's weird, so let me explain something about these Fleche rides...the point is to go for 24 hours, without a big sleep stop, so you can't stop anywhere for more than 2 hours, plus at 22 hours, you have to be at least 25km from the finish. So, we dawdle a bit taking our time into Yale [except for young Ryan the kid, who has turned into a powerhouse and climbs away out of sight at every chance] where lo and behold, we not only have to shed clothes, but apply sunscreen. This we do and we're off on the penultimate leg to Hwy 7 and the required stop at 22 hours in. We spend a half hour lying around in the sun while we wait for the 22 hour point, and then we're off on the never ending straight sections along the river [pity the guys that have to endure this sort of stuff all the time], to Agassiz and then north to Harrison Hot Springs where we happily arrive at 15:10. Randy and I head straight for the bar, since Jill hasn't yet arrived with our clothes, and thus the day and event wind down with food, sleep, more food and the like. A curious event, but repeatable.

Get out there.

Where are the April blossoms?

2009-04-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

The orchards are still looking wintery....Booo.

Just back from a session in the pool and time to update this useless collection of random musings. Log for the last 2 weeks:

Mar 30 - Apr 5......311k on the bike and 4800m in the pool

Apr 6 - 12.............315k on the bike and 2500m in the pool (pool closed Good Friday)

For my money, with the inevitable focus on the legs via the bike, swimming is a great way for a cyclist to keep the upper body supple and strong (well, as strong as this 64 year old upper body can be, that is). In the pool I usually do long sets (200s, 300, 500s and sometimes 1000s, free, pull and back), some drills, and the occasional bit with the kick board. No speed work, not the point. If you're a cyclist and can swim, give it a try; my guess is that you won't disappointed. I know you didn't ask but I told you anyway.

Got the summer bike down at last and what a relief; about 5 lbs lighter and so much more precise, if not quite as soft as the longer steel frame. But I've gotta thank that winter tank for the fitness it gave me over the last few months. Spending more time in the big ring than at this time a year ago and feeling ok fit for early April. The IMC bike loop is in mind for this coming Saturday; that will be a good marker, a hilly 180k, and we'll see how things stand after that. Actually, the Sunday ride will tell the tale.

So, I'm dreaming of a establishing a "permanent" ride in this beautiful part of the world; a big 1200km circle. The Randonneur Rockies 1200 crosses the Rockies Mtns. and my dream crosses the Columbias Mtns. The BC Randonneurs have a policy that a club member can establish a ride, a "permanent" ride that any member can do (well, anyone can do it but only a club member can have the ride officially recorded). Time limit would be 90 hours withh 6/7 checkpoints. We'll see if it happens; I've ridden most of the route at various times and it would be a beauty I'm sure (well except for that durn 90 hour limit which would add an element of purgatory at times, no doubt). Will keep you posted.

And the F1 circus continues. A bunch of teams complained about a downforce device that 3 other teams are using to leave them in their wake and they lost; so now the scramble is on the get the device installed before Sunday, but I doubt that they'll be able to do it; in fact it might be a 3 horse race for the rest of the year....and Mclaren have got themselves in hot water again for lying to race stewards about what they did/did not tell Hamilton to do during a safety car event in the Australian GP. After the spying fiasco that got them fined $100m (yes, $100m), I doubt that the F1 bosses will cut them much slack. What a circus.....and the hockey season starts today, finally....I'm pullin' for Pittsburgh, Washington and Detroit 'cause I want to watch Malkin, Crosby, Ovechkin and Datsuyk as much as possible; they play a different game than the others, like Gretzky did in the 80s.

Just watched a You Tube video of a 47 year old Englishwoman by the name of Susan Boyle singing a tune from Les Miserables. She brought down the "Britain's Got Talent" house. I'm hardly a fan of these reality shows that are, mostly, made to showcase adverts. but when an unknown shows a huge talent that could bring her dreams to life, it kinda' makes you wonder don't it?

Book of the week, "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill; a great story about the slave trade and the Black Loyalists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Quite a family the Hills, a rights activist, high achieving father, one son a novelist and another a singer/song writer (Dan Hill).

Over and get out there!

Spring!!! or so they say.....

2009-03-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Okaaayy, end of March and starting to feel a bit fit; maybe I'll feel OK come the 450k Fleche ride in early May. Aanndd, I put away the neoprene shoe covers and pulled out the itsy-bitsy toe covers...can warm weather be far away?...noooo! Next thing you know I'm gonna take down the carbon frame and hang up the winter tank for a few months. But maybe not tomorrow, with a forecast high of 8c and rain in the PM :(

Log for the last couple of weeks:

Mar 16-22....270k on the bike, 4800m in the pool for 12.9hrs total,

Mar 23-29.....312k on the bike, 4800m in the pool for 14.2hrs total.

Oh no (!), just watched my hero Jack Bauer get tagged with a killer disease from a biological weapon, and there's no cure! Lucky I read in the Globe on Sunday that Kiefer Sutherland just signed up for another, 8th, season, filming to start in May, or I'd be devastated. Man, that guy sure packs a lot into 24 hours, eh?

So, the F1 Australian GP is done and Ross Brawn worked his magic to take P1 and P2; and he only bought the team a month ago. Hamilton a surprising 3rd after a penalty to the real P3 guy; surprising because McLaren's testing has been dismal. And I see F1 decided to backtrack on their "most wins equals champion" position and stay with the guy who is consistently better/faster (see my previous post) on the year. And 23 year old Mark Cavendish won Milan-San Remo, a fantastical result...too bad about Armstrong's busted collarbone but something tells me he'll be at the start of the Giro even so...don't know about his chances tho', there or in the Tour de France....he said something at the start of the Tour Down Under that may be telling..." I used to know every single rider in the bunch and what they could/couldn't do on a bike....I've never even seen or heard of half these guys". I wonder if the absence of that kind of detail knowledge/preparation will be too much to overcome, and even whether it led to the collarbone incident...time will tell.......And Tiger Woods did it again, another fantastical result, in his 3rd tournament after 8 months out for knee surgery, he comes from 5 off the pace to win on 18 with a birdie...fantastical! And for good measure, he maybe saved pro golf from dropping off the sports pages altogether.

Anndd, I read another of Andrew O'Hagan's books, "Be Near Me", which got me back to "Our Fathers", which turned out to prove me wrong, again (see previous post). Both are thought provoking, sensitive, beautifully written books. Guess I was being insensitive and block headed before. But I'm still having trouble getting through "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for the 2nd time, the first being 30 odd years ago.

Hey, give Cyclingnews.com's April 1 post a read, and....

Get out there.

Tweet...tweet

2009-03-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know about this Twittering business; been following Lance Armstrong's tweets just for a laugh and it seems a bit ridiculous...just a bunch of short choppy thoughts that don't say much....but how much can you say with a 140 character limit. I'm not a Facebook user either and I guess I'm just too long in the tooth for all the latest and greatest.....at least this blog allows for something like thoughtful expression, not that I have much of that, but there you go.

Just when I thought winter was heading south it returned with a vengence and I had the 2 coldest rides of the year last week. One was with full on winter gear...overmitts, toque, neck warmer, neoprene shoe covers, wind pants, 2 polypro shits, and water bottle in a stuff sack...the lengths I'll go to so that I avoid the purgatory of the rollers. And I was still cold! Today's ride started out in the sun with the jacket open, no toque, etc...and it was snowing like mad at the top of the climb and then freezing on the way down. Looks like our Fleche ride route is determined...about 450km winding our way from Salmon Arm to Harrison Hot Springs...should be a fun 24 hours (or thereabouts) in the saddle.

http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/fleche/fleche.html

Haven't posted the log for a couple of weeks...Mar 2-8 was a short one 'cause a friend from Scotland was visiting, so 3 rides for 147k on the bike and one 2200m swim in the pool, for 7.2 hours total......Mar 9-15 was 4 rides for 248k and 2 swims for 4800m, 12 hours total. Still averaging about 25kph on the bike and hopin' that the heavier winter tank with all its gear and the heavy, 32 spoke wheels, will make the carbon bike feel like a feather when I do take it down for the season.

So, Milan-SanRemo is this weekend, the first big single day road race of the season; 300k from the hills to the Med. Should be interesting to see who has the early season form and whether Armstrong is competitive. And Formula 1 has just decided that whoever wins the most races this season will win the drivers chanpionship; so a driver who has more points total because of consistently higher finishes, could finish second (or worse) to a driver who came first more but who was otherwise consistently slower....sounds wierd to me. And I doubt that many of you follow curling but 2 of the best games ever were played during the just completed Brier, and both times Kevin Martin won (he won back to back championships and didn't lose a game, 25 straight wins). Yeah, I know, golf is full of action compared to curling....guess you have to be from the Prairies to appreciate the game if you never played it, and that's me. Anyway, the NHL is finally getting around to games that matter and the real season is about to start. I like Pittsburgh's chances and I hope Washington goes deep as well, mostly becasue I love watching Crosby, Malken and Ovechkin play the game...they're at a different level from 99% of the rest of the guys.

Book of the week.....The "Mission Song", by John LeCarre....if you're a LeCarrre fan, you should love this...non book of the week, although it was a Booker prize finalist, "Our Fathers", by Andrew O'Hagan...the writing's too abstract and wierd for me.

Get out there.

Enough hibernation

2009-03-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

Soooo..........another winter is almost in the books, although today I suffered yet another cold and windy 2 hours on the bike. That makes a zillion of them versus 2 pleasant ones since early January and I'm gettin' sick and tired of it. I'll suffer through a lot to stay off the rollers, but this is gettin' ridiculous. And the winter tank is gonna start complaining pretty soon if things don't improve; no bike should have to suffer the indignities heaped on it through 2+ months of having crap thrown all over it several times a week. And the winter months are when I miss running the most; less clothes to pile on, no problems with cold hands and feet, half the duration (or thereabouts), and no bike to be constantly cleaning and keeping workable. At least the pool is consistent, no matter the weather outside. Anyhowww... things have been ticking along OK I guess, starting to feel a bit of bike fitness again on the hills, and 2500m in the pool doesn't seem a stretch, so by late April I should be able to contemplate the Spring Brevet series and Fleche event ( http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/ ) with some enrhusiasm. Been suffering with a sore back for a while tho', what with too much snow shoveling over the Xmas (and subsequent) period and insufficicient brain power to stand down long enough for any recovery to happen (I'm putting all my money (what's left of it that is) on warmer weather and Spring renewal), and I sure hope that 200+km on the bike ain't gonna be pain city. We will see.

In the meantime, NASCAR and Formula 1 have survived the winter (the latter just barely I think), so I'll get my car racing fix OK, and Armstrong's return to the pro bike racing scene has revved up that environment to the point where I'm interested again, so I'll be able to write off some more of the cost of my big screen TV. What more can I ask?

Maybe I'll start posting my weekly efforts so readers can see how pathetic those efforts are and what they nevertheless allow me to get done, small potatoes and all that it is. But the weekly efforts do add up; my log runs September - August (a holdover from Ironman days I guess) and last year I rode slightly more than 11,000km (2,500 of that being official Rando events), and swam 115km from early October to mid June (2 swims per week, max.). So, the log for last week (Feb 23 - Mar 1): bike - 4 rides for 228k (avg. about 25kph), and 2 swims for 3800m, 11.2 hours total effort, on the high end for a late winter/early spring week.

Book of the week...."The Road" by Cornac McCarthy.....intensely beautiful writing.

Get out there.

A touch of Fall babble......

2008-09-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

So, having started out this Spring with the bright idea of doing one, or maybe two, of the BC Randonnuer rides as training for the Seattle to Portland Bike ride, I've ended up doing a full Brevet series, the 200, 300, 400 and 600km, plus an "Ultra" [as in beyond the norm.....no kidding], the Interior 1000. They say that retirees need to work on keeping their mind sharp.....I think I now know what they mean. What possessed me to torture myself like this is something Marge can best answer, I guess....but ya know what, I loved it and I guess I'm set to do it again next year, and maybe even throw in a 1200 for good measure.

As I say in my mantra at the end of all my posts, I like getting out there and doing stuff. This "Rando stuff" adds another dimension, the "beyond the norm" factor, and I've been pondering this. It's not about winning, these folks aren't Lance Armstrong/ Michael Jordan types, ultra competitive dudes who need to win at whatever they do. Although there is a competitive element to the sport, as evidenced by the fact that the results of a ride are ofthen catalogued quickest to slowest [and pains are taken to discount the relevance of this], this seems to show up in only a few, and most folks are there, I suspect, for the social side and to see if they have it in them to do the distance...a 200k....a 600k.....whatever. The Ironman world has a saying, "ordinary folk doing the extraordinary", and that's a fact, but this Rando riding is a bit different; it's more personal 'cause, for the most part, you're on your own out there without much, or any, support infrastructure [it might be a bit different in the Vancouver area, or on a big ride like Paris-Brest-Paris, where there are more like mided souls around, but here in the BC Interior the rider numbers are often single digit].

For me, Rando riding seems the next step [pedal?] in my cycling adventures after Ironman events, seeing how I cope with a "beyond the norm" biking event on my own, without that infrastructure, and it evokes memories from my days in the Hills and 2 or 3 of us setting out on a day, or multi day, climb or trek [in those days we didn't have GPS, we didn't have radios, except on the E Ridge of Logan and we deliberately left it in the tent on the glacier when we started on the route]. We just headed up, and these rides have the same sort of flavour to them, maybe not as "out there" but I ain't 30ish any more either. And so far so good, I've enjoyed all of them and even though I felt, and looked, totally done after the 1000, it was a tremendous experience. I remember saying to Ross, during the 600, "this distance is OK but I don't get a 1000, or 1200", and him replying, 'I know, pretty stupid, but all the same...." Well. now I get it, I think.

Over and out.....get out there!

Sufferfest.......with a capital S

2008-09-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

It was Bob's brainchild [it can't have been mine, since having voluntarily participated to the bitter end, it's clear that I have too little to work with]. The BC Randonneurs Interior 1000; start in the flatlands of Kamloops, head for the hills, and believe me, I do mean hills, wander all over them and then head back to Kamloops. 1,000k+/- over 3 days....take 75 hours if you really need to....about 6500m of climbing. My first "ultra", to use the Rando jargon.

05:30 Sat AM...the Husky in N Kamloops....."Hi Doug, it's just you and me....everyone else has bailed. They must have looked at the elevation profile on Bikely.com and remembered some family business that needed tending to". But I'm up for it...feeling rested and strong. Anyhow, we rig up and are off to Vernon via Barnhartvale at 06:00. Bob's wife Susan, being a woman and therefore smarter than us guys, fires up the Van and heads home for coffee [why oh why didn't I think of that?].

So, S into town, E on the highway to the Barnhartvale turn and the fun begins...the climb out of the valley bottom passes and we're soon ambling thru beautiful rolling countryside towards Hwy 97 and the road S to Vernon.....which we duly pass thru on the way to Kelowna [along with, by that time, a zillion other people who are rushing somewhere; they're all late I guess]. It's around mid day...about 165k in.....so far so good...and all that's about to change.

S on Hwy 33 and the first of a seemingly endless series of climbs begins....about 900m in about 35k I think.....Bob's the stronger climber [actually the stronger rider...but he's something like 20 years younger and that's gonna be the only reason why that I'll ever admit to....and never mind that his rigged up bike is 5kg heavier than mine], and so he eases away and I'm able to suffer on my own, the sweat pouring off in the sun. Finally the top passes and the long descent thru Beaverdell begins, during which I get reminded of how a bike can jump all over the road in cross winds when it's loaded down at the back and light in the front....now, a bike jitters on you when you're so cold you start shaking, but this is different....at one point the bike jumped 3 feet into the middle of the lane at about 45 k/hr before I could slow down and get back under control....whoaaa. Anyway, the riding S of Beaverdell is beautiful, especially after the sand, so artfully and thoughtfully placed on the road by the Highway crews, stops, and at around 300k, we arrive at Rock Creek and a welcome stop for a hot pasta dinner. So far so good, 27.5kph and feeling OK.

After slamming back the pasta and filling bottles etc. etc, we're off again, headed for Grand Forks and a sleep stop. The climb up and run down from Greenwood to Grand Forks passes uneventfully I guess, since I can't remember any of it, and apart from some grooved pavement that almost catches both of us out a couple of times in the dark, we arrive at the stop at about 22:30, some 370km in. A shower, a sleep and we're off at 05:40, headed for Castlegar. Along about Christina Lake, the road tilts up and after an agonizing several hours and 1000+m of climbing over 30+k later, we top out on what we think, at the time, is only the "warm up" climb for the real challenge of the route, the hump between Castlegar and Salmo.....so we're both freaking out, silently and individually. Down we scream to Castlegar, stuff in some Tim Horton's food, strip off the clothes and face up to the coming hump.....which turns out to be half the size of the morning climb and very anti-climactic, but welcome nonetheless [some mapping confusion, I gather the 2 climbs got placed back to front on the profile, or something]. Bob tells me he heard a thunder clap while waiting for me at the bottom and the weather turns ugly on the run into Salmo at 500k, where we fill up again, put on all we have and head off in a downpour for Nelson, some 40k away.

After a suitable time, that being however long it takes to get us thoroughly wet, the rain stops and we sail thru Nelson in clearing weather and head for Kaslo, another 65k away. The lumpy ride along Kootenay Lake passes uneventfully and we get to the restaurant in Kaslo 2 minutes after it closed! Thankfully the manager takes pity on us and we are served 2 large Natcho plates with coffee. Now, I don't like sour cream and I don't like olives, but it's way good and I ate every last bit. In the gathering gloom we kit up for the cold and the coming 30k climb and head off. Soon its drizzling a bit, and dark, and it's a magical and surprisingly easy climb to the top after 30k on beautiful pavement and zero traffic. Maybe the highlight of the ride for me. Heavier mist as we roll down thru New Denver and on to Nakusp, some 45k away. After some time thinking that the mist is getting heavier and heavier I realize that my lights are getting dimmer and dimmer, so we stop and I fumble thru a battery change, no small thanks to Bob's help, following which we cruise into Nakusp, arriving, near frozen, at 00:45. The slightly irritated motel manager checks us in and we stagger into the room.....which Bob vacates at 04:00, headed for the 06:30 ferry at Galena Bay.

I, being far more sensible, not to mention far more tired, lie in until 06:00 and catch the 09:30 ferry after a nice 50k ride along the lake. 2+ hours after the crossing I pull into Revelstoke, sit down for lunch at Timmy's and fuel up for the last 200k plug home. Bob tells me he hammered that 200k and I believe him, he's one strong rider; me, I decided to not torture myself and I cruised along thru Sicamous, the penultimate Control, to a dinner stop, at Timmy's again, in Salmon Arm, about half way home from Revelstoke. In ever clearing weather I headed out again and made my way along the Shuswap to Chase and eventually Kamloops and the final Control, funnily enough, right where we started this nonsense, some 66 hours earlier. Bob was done 6 hours earlier.

So, 43+ hours rolling thru 1,020k, according to my computer, and 22+ hours of sleeping, eating, changing clothes, etc etc. All told, an unforgettable experience; it's a terrific route, albeit with a ton of climbing. If you like suffering, give it a shot; if not take an extra day, or 3. Thanks to Bob and Susan for sussing the route and all the related organizing.

Over and out.

Life, it's 80% mental and 20% attitude...just get out there!

Call me crazy....everyone else is...............

2008-08-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

Why, you ask...well, I guess it's because I've decided to give the BC Randonneur's Interior 1000 a shot. 1000k on a bike in 75 hours or less.....6AM Sat to 9AM Tues......I shouldn't be surprised at peoples reaction and I guess I'm not. Still, after all the fun on the 600k ride in June, it seems like a good idea....time will tell, that's for sure.

So, I've been doing a lot of riding, a bunch of 180-200k rides and a bunch of hard climbing. Swapped out the 12-27 cassette for an 11-28 by SRam and I hope that the smaller gear will make a difference on those 50k never ending hills in the Salmo/Nakusp region. The bike, sporting fenders, lights, a rack and a mirror has defintely lost it's sleek "racer" look and someome at Trek would be unhappy I'm sure. But you need this stuff when you head out for 3 days and 2 nights, unsupported, in uncertain weather, on the bike. Seems like these low profile 1000k rides aren't all that popular with the masses, especially when they are in "big hill" terrain...only 3 of us are giving it a shot. Anyhow, I'm off shortly...will report in when I've dragged my sorry ass back home.

Ironman Canada went off this past weekend and I took some of it in from the other side of the fence.....after 4 years of slogging it out on the course it was definitely an odd experience and I did feel a bit sorry that my knees aren't up to the running anymore...but there you go...this Rando stuff is a good, albeit totally different, next step in the journey.

Been spending a lot of time in front of the new HDTV with all the Olympic coverage this past couple of weeks and I've been amazed at some of the performances; I only hope that we weren't looking at what EPO etc. can do for your 100m or 200m or 4x100m time....and isn't it a shame that I, and a lot of others, think that way. We can only hope that WADA and other dope cops catch the bad guys and we get past this.....with all the money that goes with gold, I have my doubts.......but you've gotta think positively [no pun intended] about this stuff or where are you, really. And I do agree with the pundits who lamented the sterile atmosphere in Beijing....it seemed that way to me on the TV and I guess it was to be expected, given the totalitarian regime that governs China.

And it's good to see a competitive F1 season again. Hamilton is leading the pack but Ferrari is more than in the mix and it makes for good TV. And no big scandals [and $100 million fines], so far...but not to worry, there's still a few months to go.

Life, it's 80% mental and 20% attitude....just get out there.

Father daughter relays and such.......

2008-07-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

....Elk lake near Victoria, June 21, daughter Kathryn and I over the water to have some fun on the New Balance Half Iron course. First though, if you're K, is the obligatory shopping stop where oddly enough, I buy an "under the jersey white singlet", women's large, which I've been looking for forever,,,and no, don't read anything into that last part....cool and clear early the next early morning, we stagger over the the event, really early so we don't have to park so far away that we fall asleep, or get lost, on the walk back. Me with a LOT of time on my hands since I'm doing the bike only...but the start finally comes 'round and K is off on the 2k jaunt in the water....She's a fish that girl and I'm over taking pics of niece Joanne's arrival, expecting K in about 2 minutes when she arrives in transition seconds after J, shouting "Dude..get over here",,,so off I go, fumble on the chip and take off on the 87k bike course, which is a very nice course, all things considered, it being in the City and all....anyway...round and round I go, then into transition and I get to catch K not ready and waiting, but she slams back the gel she's just started, bundles up her hair and takes off on the 20k run....which she completes in good order a couple of hours later. Then as K says a looming busy work week calls [I'm not so sure it wasn't a boyfriend calling], I huustle her down to the ferry and she's off back home.....J and I follow a bit later and it's a wrap for that weekend......a fun time at a very good event....if you're thinking of a Half Iron to do, that one has a lot going for it.

Life, it's 80% mental and 20% attitude, just get out there.

STP...one last time

2008-07-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

Another hot, noisy, only semi comfortable room and bed....another 03:30 wake up....will I ever learn?......this time to answer the bell at 04:50 for the One Day ride from Seattle to Portland......a double century.......niece Joanne along and just as dozy as I at that hour.....in fact she didn't wake up 'till the 25 mile mark. Chilly in the very early morning at the start area, us and several hundred of our new best friends. Then we're off, thru the quiet Seattle streets, along Lake Washington, thru more streets, 'round and safely down some S turns, where a guy touched my rear wheel in '02 and deposited himself in the ditch with a broken collarbone, thru more streets as the light strengthens, and finally to REI and the first food stop at 25 miles. A quick survey of the stuff, chow down a bit and hit the road as the sun hits the pavement....almost time to shed the jacket as the first pace lines form and we charge on toward the only real hill on the route, a 1 miler that I work on just for the fun (?) of it, and then the next stop at Spanaway. Definitely time to expose the bright yellow "Ironman Local" jersey that makes me easy to spot in a crowd and, hopefully, on the side of the road. Spanaway arrives at 54 miles and another chow down.....this ride, seems to me and as I remember from the first 3 times I did it, is all about eating with some ridin' thrown in, albeit quuite a lot of ridin'. No Gatorade available, instead some Vitamin and sodium free (?) drink and Insure, which I later discover tastes funny, even when mixed properly, so it's water for this cat.....which as I do more and more of this longer distance stuff is coming to be my drink of choice anyway, as it's easier on the stomach and I can get my calories, carbs, sodium etc etc etc from regular food, which is also easier on the ole 'tum 'tum. Off again, Joanne doin' fine, and we charge on another 43 miles to the halfway point at Centralia at 10:45; a longish break. Joanne meets one of her Tri Club buds'...we chow down yet again.....we have a pee....we fill up....we realx with helmets and shoes off.....we watch the place fill up....and we take off again... this time headed for Lexington at 150 miles and, oddly enough, another food stop....which we reach in good time and chow down again while relaxing in the shade for a bit before I manage to step in some melted tar and cover my cleats and front tire nicely [which as any of you who know me will be aware, is enough to drive me to exreme distraction]. So, I clean it off as best I can and then we're off over the bridge into Oregon and the last 50 miles, punctuated at it's halfway point by...wait for it....another food stop! Another mini rest, more food, and we slam on into Portland where it takes FOREVER to wind our way to the finish. We shower, hit the beer garden for a glass or two with some pizza, I stand around while Joanne collects some swag and buys a jersey, and we climb on the bus for the delightful 3.5 hour ride back to Seattle.

All in all a fun day; 11.25 hours in the saddle over about 325k plus 2.5 hours eating along the way. If you haven't done it, do it...the organization is great, the food is never ending, and the route is OK...but me, I'm done.

Life...it's 80% mental and 20% attitude....just get out there.

If you EVER hear me complain about the traffic in the S Okanagan.........

2008-06-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

So, 09:30, I'm in Steveston, gonna put in 6 hours or so on the bike, do the Seymour and Cypress hills and see the City....off we go, up the street, 'round the corner.....light comin up...OK, good, 2 left turn lanes with an arrow, hustle, hustle....into the intersection......light goin' amber.....hustle....AH SHIT! she doesn't see me....gonna hit her....bike's going down...OK, put it down and slide.....OUCH.....hurts, never miind....use the front wheel to buffer me from the car.....SMACK! Ah, God damnit.... is the bike OK....yep, am I OK.....yep, did I crumple some of the car....yep, good! Am I pissed, you bet....go away lady, I got a ride to do....over to the curb, get out the patch kit and patch up the elbow, shake off the adrenaline and other bruises, get ready to get going....and the freaking Cavalry arrives, a fire truck for chrissake, and an ambulance, and the cops....someone called 911 I guess.....so another 20 minutes down the drain as I explain 20 times that no, I'm OK and I don't need to sit down, no, I didn't get a name and a licence number, no, life's not all about pinning blame somewhere......and can I please just go riding..... Finally I'm off, leaving the Cavalry shaking their heads over the hayseed dude that didn't even get a licence.....on the 2 Road bridge I discover, since it hurts to rotate the leg, that I've done a nymber on my left upper thigh, but the shorts aren't torn, so I wisely reckon that the hamburger pattie sized road cherry [as I discover later] will be OK and the pain will go away...it does...sorta, and I proceed to make 8 gazillion stops at lights and stop signs, almost get taken out another dozen times, cover about 150k, enjoy 2 trips over the Inlet, 2 climbs up 2 beautiful hills, which are hard but have nothing on the Apex Mtn. climb back home.... and thoroughly enjoy the day,,,,,,,but if I EVER camplain about traffic back home in the S Okanagan, slap me silly upside the head, will ya...please?

Life.....it's 80% mental and 20% attitude.....just get out there!

No, I didn't misspeak......

2008-06-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

the 80% mental and 20% attitude bit.........is just reflective of my take on life......it's the process that counts, the doing of stuff, not the results.........yes, it's wonderfult that Tiger Woods is, perhaps, the greatest ever and ditto Michael Schumacher, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretsky, Pele, Mark Spitz, Eddie Merckx etc, etc, etc.........more power to them, and I like to watch great performances as much as the next guy........but my heroes are the Rick Hansens and Terry Foxes of this wonderful world of ours......... Terry Fox did less than half the run he set out to do.....did that matter?... ......Noooooo.....he got out there and showed the world that anything is possible, that physical limitations are irrelevant when it comes to making an impact, on yourself or on others, and just look at the result. So no, I didn't misspeak.....now stop reading this, close the computer lid, gear up, stop feeling sorry for yourself 'cause you're outta shape, or tired or whatever, and get out there......you might not start a movement that raises a gazzillion dollars for a cause........but you'll bring a better attitude to your own world and maybe, just maybe, someone else's, and aren't those worth more than 10 US Open wins....I mean really!

Life...it ain't 80 % mental and 20% physical, it's 80% mental and 20% attitude...just get out there!

How I spent my Saturday, and Saturday night, and Sunday morning and..and..........

2008-06-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 15:15, we pull into Tim Horton's in N Vernon and I wearily half fall, half climb, off the bike and stagger in to get the final signature on my control card, the one that follows the ones in Kamloops, Revelstoke and Nakusp. Yep dear reader, you read that right, a bike ride from Vernon to Nakusp to Revelstoke to Kamloops to Vernon. "Man", I think, "that was a long ride, what the hell was I thinking?", and, as I'm barely am able to swing my leg back over, to wheel to the cars, "that top tube is 2" higher than it was yesterday".

Rewind, Saturday, 04:58, The BC Randonneurs Interior 600, the Wal Mart parking lot, cold, fog at street light level in Vernon, Richard and Bob casually explaining about rough rail crossings and ferry times, 15 or so other nutters chatting as if this is a regular occurence, which it is [for them!], and me thinking, "God it's cold", and "what the hell have I got myself into?". Then, with a casual "I guess that's all, let's go", Bob climbs on his bike and we're off. Immediately, Ken Bonner and two young ex-racers fire off the front like jackrabbits and that's the last we saw of them [Bonner, apparently a bit of a legend in the Randonneur world, finished in 26:11 I think, a great time for anyone...and he's 65 years old!.... but then he's in practice, having done 600s the last 2 weekends, and I hear he's in training for 1,000s the next 2 weekends !!!]. Meanwhile Ross and I, Ross being the old friend alluded to in a previous post, amble along getting the legs working and some heat generated. Soon enough, we hit Hwy 6, dawn shows up properly, we ride out of the fog, and the long drag, some 80+k to the summit of Monashee Pass, begins.

After a bit, Ross and I do 1 k pulls to reel in Tracy, Graham and Bob and we settle into a 5 man rotation, until Bob eases away, and that's the last we saw of him as well. Graham and Tracy ease away at some point and Ross and I amble up to the summit at a comfortable pace, where we encounter Tracy and Graham, and a problem....in his haste after over sleeping, Tracy has forgotten his control card and left his credit cards spread out on his car seat back in the parking lot. Now, let me put you in the picture about these control cards.....the idea is to ensure that you properly exhaust yourself by doing the ride with no shortcuts; the ride organizer provides a "control card" that notes the "controls" and you get someone to sign you in when you reach them......it's an honour system really, 'cause there's no way to effectively check that the scrawled signature was, in fact, the cashier at the Husky in Kamloops or the Deli restaurant server in Nakusp......and that's part of the attraction of the whole Rando scene for me, the casual approach to audacious undertakings......no timing chips in this world.

Anyhooo, the upshot is that Tracy's ride is over, he'll return to Vernon, turning a 600 into a mere 200, and that's that. No serious talk of trying to get 'round the rules.....ya gotta love it, at least I do. So, Graham, Ross and I scream down to the ferry at Needles [now that's a fun descent and at 70kph on a bike, you do feel like screaming], and before the ferry arrives Randy shows up, so we're 4 again and we stay that way to the finsih, a mere 470k away at the aforementioned Wal Mart parking lot. A brief truce while we cross the water and then we rejoin the fray and plug our way to Nakusp and a relaxing break at a local Deli, until Graham decides that we can make the 16:30 ferry at Galena Bay, if we hightail it, now........so on goes the game face, another 50 odd km plug passes with a little more urgency, and we do make it, with 2 minutes to spare. The other 3, having done this sort of thing a lot, cheerily note that we've saved an hour of daylight for the road beyond Revelstoke.....I'm not so cheery, my Reynauds kicks in with the wind on the water, my fingers go into their blood draining routine, and they stay that way through much of the next 50k to Revelstoke......

........where we indulge ourselves with a Tim H's meal, a bit of a relax, and a coffee before turning on the taillights and heading west for Salmon Arm, 120k or so down the road [funny that, how 120k can seem not so far away after 300k has been done.....I think it must be some sort of psychological defence we put up in the face of all that's left to do]. This being my first experience with extended night riding, I'm curious to see how it goes, and relieved when it all goes well.....an 18 wheeler ripping by at 100k/hr is no worse when you can't really see it ........ a quick blueberry pie and milkshake in Sicamous and we're off again, passing by the shortcut to Vernon [those damn contols] and onto Salmon Arm, where we arrive at about 01:45. Tracy has paid for a room where he intended that we stop, and so we do, even though he's half way back to Vancouver by this time.

A quick shower, an hour's sleep, and we drag out butts outside, where it's COLD. I threw my extra shirt and gloves back into the car just before the start, based on the forecast [a critical mistake that, basing anything on a forecast], and so I make do with a hand towel 'round my shoulders, which I hope the $5 bill paid for, some paper place mats on my chest and 2 plastic bags over my biking gloves. Not surprisingly, owing to my innate genius for improvisation, it worked a treat, except for the plastic bags, which worked well until they got moist from the sweat and started to reverse the warming trend with a cooling trend, at which point, thankfully, I could do without them. Apparently I didn't look the picture of a Randonneur, more like a lost soul from Outer Momgolia according to Graham, and Ross just had to record it for posterity.

And so onto to Chase and eventually a truck stop near Kamloops, another 100 or so k, where we chow down a horrid and expensive breakfast before dragging our butts outside again, where it's HOT, so......off with the arm warmers etc. etc. ....pull out the sunscreen.....find the darker lens and head for the Monte Creek hill and the long pull up to Monte Lake and the last 80k home. That road would be a beautiful ride in the early morning; it's not so great on a Sunday afternoon with the entire population of BC headed for Vernon on motorcycles and pickups.....but we finally hit the turn for the dog leg thru Armstrong and the final 18k back to the Wal Mart parking lot.

And that dear reader, is that; 611k [apparently close is good enough, so long as it's never short; my legs disagree] in 34 hours 15 minutes with about 16,500' of climbing.

So, I've done a Spring Brevet series, 1,500k all told, a lot of fun, a lot of learning, a LOT of riding, a LOT of sore butt, and a certain sense of accomplishment. Call me crazy, I sure would, but this sort of thing may be worth a repeat.

Over and out.

Life...it's 80% mental and 20% attitude...just get out there!

So....ah.....Ok, I admit that I've been a bit lax.....

2008-06-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

.........but 8 months is just a bit beyond last week, 'innit, when you're as old as I am....... Time to resurrect this blog and pass on some more musings, for what they're worth. If you read earlier posts, you'll be aware of my knee issues. Well, over the past Fall and Winter I subjected them [the knees that is] to more x-rays, an MRI, a cartilage clean up 'scope, more x-rays and some consults, all ending with the funeral of my running days owing to extensive osteo in both knees and the certainty that if I kept ignoring the advice I've been getting for over a decade, and kept running, knee replacements would happen sooner rather than later. So....common sense finally won out and I retired my running shoes to the garden.

Sadder still, I also retired my climbing and trekking boots, for the same reason, and that will take some comig to grips with. Over the last 20 years I've been to some wonderful high places and had some wonderful adventures in the hills, including a first ascent, a couple of first winter ascents and a whole bunch of climbs in the Coast Mtns, North Cascades, Columbias, Canadian Rockies, St Elias Mtns, Scotland and Europe, and some very fun treks in those same hills. Organized sporting events like Ironman are great things; I have a lot of fun taking part in them and I thank God that I was also able to experience some of the high places in this World of ours; 3AM on a moonlit winter night, high on a snowy, narrow ridge, with a single companion, takes some beating, I was there quite a few times and for that I'll be always grateful.

So, what now? Well, an old friend has been at me, off an on for while now, to start Randonneur riding...ya know, that's where you get on the bike in the VERY early morning and get off after you've ridden 200, 300, 400, 600 or, God forbid, 1,000 or 1,200 Kms. Now the 200/300 sound OK, the 400 out there, and the 600/1,000/1,200 totally daft...right up my alley I guess. Anyways, with running and running related events a thing of the past, I decided to give it a try and so far, I've slogged my way thru the 200/300/400 events and this coming weekend is the 600. The 200 was fun, not much more that an Ironman bike leg and home late afternoon. The 300 was harder, a lot harder; in fact given my fitness level in May versus my fitness level these last 4 years in August getting ready for Ironman, it felt as hard as an Ironman event. But...somehow I got thru it and was home for dinner...and let me tell you, the Westside Road near Kelowna is a brutal ride when it comes at 180km into the day. Might be fun with fresh legs...isn't fun without 'em.

And on the 400 I discovered that a heart rate monitor is not required when you're so tired that you can't get the heart rate up no matter what; sounds obvious I know but still........this was my first experience riding at night, at speed and with lights, and I can now see why a several hundred dollar light set-up might be worth the investment, although my 2 $50 Cat-Eyes and $20 helmet light worked OK, until I hit that pot hole at about 40km/hr and almost did an endo that is......but I survived...and had fun....sucker me. Seems the worst problem on these long rides is not the legs but the stomach; hard to find food that the 'ole tum tum doesn't want to return to sender soonest, thank you very much. The more of this endurance stuff I do, the more I'm heading back to real food and away from gels, energy bars etc. Tim Horton's chicken noodle soup, and an orange, saved the day on the 400 I think. Oh, and in case you're thinking that a ride from Spences Bridge up to Merritt, in 32c heat, with no shade, might be fun next Saturday, or whenever.......uh, no, it ain't so.

So, the 600 is coming up this weekend...30-35 hours in the saddle...you've got to be kidding...totally daft....only a fool.....or your's truly and some other equally off kilter folks. The no longer sleek looking Trek, sporting lights, shorty fenders, a seat post rack and bag, tail lights and a nutter in the middle....will hopefully prevail......sounds an adventure...hope it turns out that way and an 18 wheeler doesn't blow me into next month at 3AM as I stagger along debating the insanity of it all....and these guys do 1200s as well! Stay tuned for the post ride report, or post mortem.

Life, it's 80% mental and 20% attitude...just get out there!

Blah...blah...blah

2007-09-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

Whoa....!!... a US$100 million fine and 75 under par in 5 tournaments, those are a couple of stunners...eh? The McLaren F1 team will have to do bag lunches for a week or so after they fork over that largish fine for spying on their Ferrari buddies; or maybe Tiger Woods can pay the fine for them instead, after he pocketed US$11 million on the weekend by winning, again, and going a modest 23 under par, running the number to 75 in his last 5. Pretty soon they're gonna have to add a 4th tee box to golf courses - women, men, championship, and T Woods. Jeez.

Canadians placed well in the men's ITU Beijing Triathlon on the weekend and things are looking good for us to have 3 spots at next year's Olympic event. Which reminds me to wonder, again, why in hell they would ever stage Olympic events in a country where the athletes have to use inhalers to breathe; oh yeah I keep forgetting, as presently structured, the Olympics isn't about the athletes, they're just the props, it's really about money and politics...

Was reading about NASA's Mars project the other day and it reminded me of the epic journeys of the Polar explorers 90 and more years ago. Times and technology have changed, but not much else; those guys have already shown us what it takes to spend 2-3 years enduring all kinds of personal and physical hell to achieve an objective. So it will come down to picking the right people, perfecting the technology and wishing them well....too bad I won't be around to watch it all. If you've never read about any Polar journeys, start with 'The Worst Journey in the World' by Cherry-Garrard, you'll be astonished.

Was glad to discover that the climbing legs are still around post Ironman; did a 5.5 hour ride on Saturday, mostly up for the first 3, and felt good the whole time. I'd tell you where, but it's such a great ride that the fewer who know the better it will remain :)

Remember.....it's 80% mental and 20% attitude....just...do...it.

Now it's really over.....or is it?

2007-09-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Well, Ironman's done and the body has fully recovered, but I can't help wondering if I left something on the run.....I eased up a lot as the knees started to ache about mile 12 and I had no real swelling or chronic aching afterwards. Actually I felt fine and have been on the bike a bunch as I ease back into some sort of exercise routine. So, do I have unfinished business with Ironman? Should I have pushed the knees harder to finish 30-60 minutes quicker and would I have regretted it? Would it have been worth it? Do I care about time? Will I be back in 2009 after my running knees take a year off any large mileage [I'll be 65, a new age group!] ? I was advised to stop running about a dozen years ago after I had a quarter of my left medial meniscus removed, and x-rays 18 months ago showed significant wear to both sets of menisci. Is it time to heed that advice? Don't know about any of this at the moment, it's something I'll think about for a while; I'm planning a Himalayan trip with a buddy for next Spring and that will certainly test them. In the meantime I'll just ride 3-4 times per week for a bit, ease back into the pool in October, and leave any running until winter. Niece Joanne made us proud with a 12 hour first effort; pretty damn good by any yardstick!

I see that the Formula 1 soap opera is getting nasty; Mclaren may be loooking at a 2 year ban if they're found to have spied on Ferrari...my my, what next, And rookie Lewis Hamilton is still in front in the Drivers Championship but teammate Fernando Alonso is closing fast; this is the best F1 season since the Canadian Villeneuve was in the hunt and Michael Schumacher hadn't yet started his total domination. And Tiger Woods chalked up win #60 on the w/e; jeez, is it really only a year since he chalked up #50...the guy's amazing.

Well the junior hockey super series is over and what a yawner, 7-0-1, Canada. It's really too bad that the Russin kids didn't have their act together 'cause the skills are there, but the coaching wasn't I'm afraid, and the results reflect that. It will be interesting to see how the Canadian coach, Brent Sutter, who's been nothing short of spectacular coaching kids, does with the big egos in the pros as he heads to the New Jersy Devils for his first shot at coaching in the NHL. Guys who've followed his path, and gone before him have had mixed results. He did play for something like 18 years in the league tho' and that will help, a lot, I think. And they really have to do someting about the TSN play by play guys!

Life....80% mental and 20% attitude....just do it.

It's over......well the prep anyway

2007-08-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

So, we're done with the big sufferfest weeks for IMC...finally. 3:31 on the bike and 2:37 in the running shoes today and if I ain't ready now, I ain't gonna be...period. It's fun being fit enough to blast thru a 70 mile bike ride and feel fresh as a daisy afterwards, like I did yesterday. Total for the week, 21.5 hours of......427k on the bike, 8,650m in the water and 4 hours in the shoes. A variety of weather today, 55k of headwind, with rain, then sun, on the bike, and cool and overcast on the run, which was nice but not especially good news, since the IMC run is more likely to be hot and it's always good to suffer thru that in training......right? Anyway, 10-12 hours this coming week, 3-5 the next, and lots of rest; sounds yummy.

Got home in time to watch Tiger Woods win his 13th major golf championship; I love watching the best do their thing, whether is Woods, Gretzky, Federer (who lost today!), Alonso, Williams (either of them), Crosby, Reid, Rooney, or whoever. It's amazing how they all employ the same few mental skills; the physical stuff is different and, for the most part a learned skill, but the focus, discipline, motivation and patience (well for the most part anyway) is the same, and some of that isn't learned; like someone said of Woods today, "he's wired together differently" and like someone once said of Gretzky, "he sees thru his ears, that's how he knows where everyone is on the ice".

Life.....it's 80% mental and 20% attitude; just....do it.

Wars...ending, lost and won

2007-08-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

So, 3 more days and I can relax for a couple of weeks; thank God! Final big workout coming up on Sunday, 3.5/4hr bike followed immediately by a 2.5hr run, all on the Ironman course. Then it's off to Invermere to visit friends for 2 days before getting back into the routine, albeit only a 10-12 hour week. Even though I can't wait for them to arrive, I always feel a bit torn during the first of these 2 taper weeks, like I should be out there hammering away and not relaxing, winding down, and actually resting up. Last week's workout totals, 21 hours of....400k on the bike, 8,400m in the water and 4 hours in the running shoes; this week will be about the same, maybe a bit more in the water. No wonder I'm getting tired.

Don't think I related my total collapse in my shoe/pedal war; having bought new cycling shoes only to discover that Shimano had changed its required cleat setup for the shoe to the "Look" style, and having got an adapter from Shimano which let me use my old pedals and SPD cleats, I discovered that the result would be that my foot would be another 1/4" above the pedal. Didn't work for me and so I admitted defeat and bought new pedals, but Look pedals, not Shimano, I was so annnoyed.

And speaking of wars, this one I won, finally. One of the computers in the house got infected with "VirusProtection Pro" and after many attempts with various pieces of software, I got it. Watch out for that one, it's nasty. And, along the way, I found a bunch of other spyware and malware that had been deposited on the machine by those nice people out there. And all this happened with the newest version of Norton running all the time; doesn't say much for that program.

Time to hit the hay.....later.

Just......do it.

Endings

2007-08-01T20:36:00.000-07:00

Not much to report on the Ironman training front these last few days; just doing a whole lot of it is all. Getting to that time again, when I'm waiting for it to be over and can catch up on much needed rest for the last couple of weeks before the event. Slogged up to the lifts at Apex again on Tuesday; felt a bit silly with a jacket stuffed in a jersey pocket while riding along the lake, but was sure glad I had it for the trip down as it was COLD at the top. Did a count of "signed up" participants the other day. and got 2750+. That should make for an extra large load in the washing machine that is the first 5-10 minutes of the swim; maybe I'll have to dust off the ole' water polo elbows that I once had trimmed to perfection, in an earlier lifetime.

So the Tour ended on Sunday and Discovery swept up, but partly by default after Vinokourov and Rasmussen shot themselves in the heart and were tossed. Amazing what the lure of fame and fortune will do to some people. Heartening tho' to see that the crowds still supported the event through all the nonsense. They say that the Tour will survive no matter what, it's such a part of the French culture; I can only hope so. For me it became a bit of a soap opera after Rasmussen was tossed, but I got back into the swing of it when Leipheimer did that great time trial and the final stage was fun to watch [maybe because I could have kept pace for the first half !!]. Ah well, there's always next year and hope springs eternal, as the saying goes.

And not to be outdone by the sport of cycling, Formula 1 is staging its own soap opera these days with a dustup over whether McLaren spyed on Ferrari. I simply can't imagine that such a thing could ever occur, can you? I mean it's not like a lot of money is involved or anything; no more than a billion or two I'm sure. Should be fun to watch the bun tossing.

Time to hit they hay; schedule says 3 hours in running shoes tomorrow....what fun.

Just.....do it.

Ah...redemption

2007-07-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

So, after suffering through a big headwind on the Ironman bike loop acouple of weeks ago, I did the loop again the other day and had a tailwind for 75 miiles. Felt like a regular hero, and was 15 minutes quicker! Wonder what will happen next week. Other than that, another few days of training is in the books. A biggish run today, 2:35 with 1:35 of uphill, on dirt roads that were scoured with the big rain we had last week and so were more like creek beds than roads. Managed to go ass over tea kettle on the way home, on a relatively smooth track, after all the creek beds were negotiated ok. Go figure. And had a big breaking chop on the 4k swim yesterday...what fun. If it's like that on the day, a lot of people won't finish the swim. Half way through the last big 6 weeks of training...yiippee!

Well, the Tour is losing me fast; hard to believe what's transpiring. All we can hope for is that they don't quit 'till they get 'em all and the sport goes clean, for a while. Call me cynical but I'm afraid I don't have much hope that they'll ever clean it up once and for all time. Human nature ain't like that; those that can't hack it legitimately will find another way, even if it kills them. It's all in the money.

And Lewis Hamilton finally got a taste of F1 reality at the Nurburgring; first a tire failure sends him into the wall in practice, then he gets clipped at the start while charging through the field, and then he makes a poor tire choice in the rain and ends up at the tail of the field. Finished 9th, but still leads in the points.

Time to hit the hay; another 4k swim at the crack of dawn.

Just.....do it.

So..where the hell have you been?

2007-07-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

Not sure really....around I guess, and doing other things than keeping this blog up to date. Done a whole bunch of swimming, running and biking in the last 10 days, including the Ironman bike loop where I pushed a biggish headwind for 75 miles and suffered big time. Did the Peach Classic and was surprised to hear my name called at the awards thing, for 2nd place in the old farts age group. Niece Joanne and I did hill repeats [x3] on the Richter Pass section of the Ironman bike course yesterday, in the pouring rain and wind.....what fun. Climbed the Apex hill to the lifts again the other day, including the top 40% twice.....it doesn't get easier let me tell you. And did a good 1:07 on my favourite run trail today [for those of you really into that sort of thing, it was...13:00 easy warm up, 9:00 easy hill, 10:00 hard hill, 3:00 stride, 7:00 hard hill, 5:30 stride, 7:00 downhill and recover, 12:30 steady and warm down]. Got soaked and hailed on in the last 3 minutes!

So the Tour is half done and it's a free for all, without the likes of Armstrong, Ullrich and Basso around to control things; makes for a better race maybe? Highlights for me so far have been McEwen's stage win off a crash, fantastic display of tenacity, and Rasmussen's tour d'force, again, to grab the polka dot and yellow jerseys; man, can that guy climb.

And horror of horrors, some of the detail from the final Harry Potter book has been leaked; are there no depths to which we will not sink.

Just........do it.

The tour...etc etc

2007-07-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

So, the Tour has started, the Prologue's over and Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara won, which wasn't much of a surprise, but by 10 seconds, which is a huge surprise. And Lewis Hamilton continues his incredible, fast becoming unbelievable, rookie season by taking the pole position at the F1 stop in the UK. So far, this guy is out doing Tiger Woods's rookie season. And boy oh boy, is the UK having a weekend; the Wimbledon womens final today and the mens tomorrow, the Tour de France today and tomorrow, and the F1 race at Silverstone tomorrow. Oh, and I forgot to say earlier, after being down 2-1, Alinghi won 4 straight to win the America's Cup, again. A swiss boat...go figure.

Hard run on Thursday, or at least it felt that way; 2:10 and uphill for most of an hour before the turn around, which was in a curious ~100 acre clearing with about 6 big mounds off to one side. No side of the white man's usual abandoned clutter.....I wonder...... Then a 3,000 metre swim in a fairly heavy chop yesterday and a 4 and a quarter hour ride this morning. Those swims in a big chop aren't fun but ya gotta do 'em cause you never know what the water will be like on the day. It's hot so I'm hitting the hay at about 9:30PM these days to get an early start in the mornings before the real heat hits, although it only got up to about 31c today; felt almost cool after the 35/36c mid week.

Gotta hit the hay...beautiful 3 hour brick in the morning...later.

Just.....do it.

Mid week scatter.....

2007-07-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

So, another trip to the top of Apex yesterday; made it up 5 min faster than 3 weeks ago and didn't freeze my butt off on the way down, for a change. That was, is, and always will be, a hard climb; some would say the last 11km is brutal, not hard. I met a guy from Colorado last year who had just done the ride and he said it was as hard as anything he was aware of back home. And 3000m in the lake this AM...the water is warming up fast.

Ya know, much as I love ridin' the bike, running [well not so much anymore what with the sore knees and all], and swimming in the lake, I'm looking forward to giving IMC a miss in 2008 and not having to put in the big hours that it demands, I think. Won't really know 'till I'm actually sitting on the deck with my latte and newspaper and not thinking about the last, or next, workout, how many hours I've put in this week, how many I have to put in next week, and whether the 'ole bod will stand for it.....and instead, thinking about.........? May give 'rando riding a try in 2008; we'll see.....ya know, that's where you get on the bike, start pedalling, and get off when you fall asleep or finish the 200, 300, 400, 600 or 1200km that is called for on that particular ride, whichever comes first. It looks to be an interesting pastime although some of those riders are seriously hard core...check it out - http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/

Or maybe I'll dig out the ole' pack, strap on the boots, and hit the mountains again. Been a long time since I've done any real mountaineering...think I'd have to take a refresher course in the basics so as to not kill myself and whoever was unfortunate enough to be with me. Or maybe I'll settle for some super sized trekking instead. And speaking of climbing, the local crag, Skaha Bluffs, had its first fatality on the weekend...it's always a tragedy but it's amazing that it's taken so long, really, what with the tremendous increase in the number of people getting out there and, I imagine, the increasing percentage that just start up with some advice from friends and no real training....or maybe the advice has been very good and/or the training shops have been doing huge volumes. The woman fell on rappel, always the most dangerous aspect of a climb, so far as I'm concerned.

Well, I've got my tapes assembled for the Tour, have you? I know, I know, I could probably get the whole thing on a single DVD disc, if I had one, and if I had a DVD recorder, which I don't, but hey, with VHS tapes costing a dime a dozen these days, why would I change? And besides, an ole' fart like me has to get up regularly anyways, so how much more effort is it to change a tape?

H just had a haircut...gotta take him to the lake for a swim now....later

Just do it....

The Lake......finally.

2007-07-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

So......an easy 1700m in the lake today with daughter Kathryn, on my day off; good to get outta the pool and into the lake for a couple of months. Water was tolerable, cold but not freezing, and not as cold as I'd been led to believe; last year I got in for the first time on June 28, so July 2 ain't much different. Kathryn tooled along beside me, not drawing a deep breath the whole time, as per usual.

And such a fun 3 hour brick yesterday; can't get enough of those things, really.

Six weeks of training, 2 weeks of taper and Ironman will be arrived. Gotta ramp up the weeks now, 2-16, 2-18 and finally 2-20 hour weeks; not too scientific I know but it works for me, and reminds me of Eddie Merckx's comment years ago when asked for some training advice...."ride lots". No one, including Armstrong, has come remotely close to his achievements yet, so I'm guessing he was onto something.

Well, Canada was there but that's about it; 0-3 to Chile at the FIFA Under 20s. Not a surprise really and there are games yet to play so we'll keep our fingers, and toes, crossed. And good to see Ferrari back in the swing of things on the F1 circuit, finishing 1-2 in France. Hamilton was 3rd, continuing his incredible rookie season. And no doping headlines from the world of cycling; I'm almost getting to miss them. The next thing will be a list of riders who aren't allowed to start the Tour, I suppose.

And Hockey's free agents are now signing for obscene amounts of money as that league starts the long road back to where they were a few years ago. I'm sure they would say that the salary cap will keep the playing field level; I'm not so sure. Ah well, that's a sport I left behind a zillion years ago so I can't get too fired up about it all....and when I played it was probably worse, as the players were virtual chattels of the 6 team owners.

Time for a bit of TV before bed......4 hour ride in the AM.....ciao.

Don't stop, it can be fatal

Upsetting

2007-06-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, that's an upset; Poland beat Brazil 1-0 in the first game of the FIFA Under 20 world tournament! Despite having the ball only 37% of the time and being outshot 14-2, they still pulled it off. Warms the cockles of the heart that does, when an unknown beats a tournament favourite. And Alinghi now is one win away from a 2nd America's Cup; after a poor start they've reeled off 3 straight wins to take charge. And the Tour starts in a week; despite all the doping problems in cycling these days, it remains one of the world's great sporting events and I'll catch all the TV coverage.

So, 2900m in the pool yesterday and 3 hours of hills on the bike today. Another fun brick comin' up in the morning. I'm gonna swim in the lake on Monday; usually a day off, but I need to get going in open water, and I need to find out just how cold that lake is. I'm told it's COLD!

I can report that Harcus is back to his usual self; keen to get to the lake and sulks when he has to come home. I'll bet he doesn't get up close and personal with those balls of pain anytime soon tho'.

Bedtime....later.

Don't stop, it can be fatal

Ouch......that hurts!

2007-06-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

At first I thought I'd really done it to Harcus and dehydrated him so much that his snout was rimed with salt; a closer inspection however, told the tale...porcupine quills all over his black nose. $77 later they're out and he's conked out on the deck, still zapped from the Vet's sedative. Another in the ltiany of workout hazards 'round here; I'm usually focused on not surprising a rattler on my runs in the hills, but I do it from 5 foot eleven and a half above terra firma.....H apparently gets much more up close and personal in his inspections of the hillside. Ah well, still a good hard 1:53 run today, 2 laps of my favourite hill. Which gets me thinking [always a danger], how can a hill be a "favourite hill"? We all say that, or something like it.......I don't get it; hills hurt, plain and simple, and the more they hurt, the more we say.."that's my favourite hill"......or maybe everyone else is thinking of the downhill side and it's just bozo me again.

And speaking of goin' downhill, after a miraculous several days of no doping headlines in the cycling news, the 07 Giro winner and one of the Pro Tour's top sprinters are now caught up in doping probes.......ahhh jeeezzz, will it never end? I guess not, we'll always have cheaters and sad to say, I'm afraid that even the tragic affair of Chris Benoit won't scare everyone into paying attention to the dark side of performance enhancing drugs.

So, Alinghi evened the score yesterday and now we're down to a best of 5 run off for the world's oldest sporting trophy, the America's Cup. I'm not a sailor but I think it's pretty cool; catch a race if you can.

And local pro triahlete Tom Evans almost won his 2nd Ironman race last weekend, finishing second at Coeur d'Alene after leading until the final 2-300 metres. Second time he's almost won. Disappointing but 8:34 is still pretty awesome.

Gotta go...kettle's calling..

Don't stop, it can be fatal

Human Oxers, a bad idea

2007-06-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

So there I was, cruising along on my way uphill, heading for Apex and thinking that a lot of the horses in the field on my left must to have come down from the hills 'cause of their foals, when, sensing something on my right, I looked that way just in time to realize that I was about to be the 2nd vertical in a failed attempt at an Oxer by the horse in mid air over the fence AND COMING RIGHT AT ME! on his way to be with his buddies. Thanks God! he saw me, realized I wasn't that 2nd vertical, and veered left while I was going quick enough that I wasn't where I was when he was in mid air, when he landed. Jeeezzz, if I wasn't quite wide awake before that, I sure was after! "So, what happened to you and how come you have hoof prints on the side of your head?......and your new bike's got horse turds all over what's left of it, which ain't much!" And to think that Marge is always worried that Harcus will get kicked by one of them when we come across them in the hills and he can't resist chasing them all over the countryside. Another in the litany of biking hazards 'round here. Oh, and an Oxer is a jump used in horse jumping competitions which consists of 2 verical obstacles placed some distance apart; the horse is meant to jump over boh of them in one jump, but you may have gathered all that. Otherwise, an uneventful 4 hours in the saddle this morning; ate everything I had with me and was famished when I got home. I'm not eating enough, got to start cramming it in.

Bedtime......ciao!

Don't stop, it can be fatal

Ahhhhh.....Monday's comin' up!

2007-06-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Another training week in the books.....good, hard 4 hour ride yesterday and a 3 hour brick today; 16 hours on the week. Can't say enough about the road riding in the South Okanagan; don't know why anyone would ride the Ironman loop for training; it's a nice ride [ok, ok...it's good to know the course, where the hills are etc etc], but almost all on highways, and there's WAY better scenery, and just as much climbing, flats for hammerin', descents, etc, etc, on the backroads. Yesterday I spent about half an hour on the highways [linking up some pieces of backroads] and three and a half hours "carless on the backroads". Then today I fit my aerobars on the bike and time trialed a 2 hour route followed by an hour in the running shoes up and back down a sizeable hill. Jeeezzz I don't really like riding with aerobars; there's a distinctly "this ain't cycling" feeling to the bike so far as I'm concerned. BUT, they do make pushing the wind easier, no doubt about that, even if bike control is a bit more tenuous. Anyhooo, they'll come back off for a bit now, 'till we get closer to the Peach Classic Tri, and then they'll come off again until Ironman is looming 'round the bend.

So, if you've been reading these posts, I bathered on a while back about my friend and his Norway trip. Decided to not do that, since I just know that the week after Ironman is not the week I want to skip across the pond and leap into a 2-3 week trek, nicely jet lagged and all. Hope I can talk him into a Nepal trip next Spring or somethin', since I'm givin' Ironman a miss in 2008.

I see that Vladimir Karpets has won the Tour de Suisse and his team won overall as well, so they're looking strong as the Tour approaches. Discovery's Devolder grabbed third in a biggish surprise I'd say. And surprise, surprise, no headline grabbing doping charges for a couple of days!

And, in tour de force for women athletes everywhere, Emma Jayne Wilson today became the first female jockey to win the Queen's Plate. Good on ya Emma! And, she won on a colt named Mike Fox, which just happens to be my brother's name....how wierd is that?

Time to feed the ravenous animals....later

Don't stop, it can be fatal

Nutting to report

2007-06-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

A blah workout day, 3200m in the pool.....BORING..... a bunch of back, a bunch of free, a bunch of pull and a bunch of boredom.....lake, PLEASE warm up.

Oh wait, there is something; Shimano tried to upsell me today and it DIDN'T WORK...Hah! I bought myself a new pair of road shoes, not for any good reason ya see [so I guess they actually did upsell me], but just because, and neither Will nor I thought to think about the cleating system, and my pedals, before we were done.....well, wouldn't you know, the cleating system on the new Shimano shoes is not compatible with their old system; BUT, dear sucker, "we have a cute fix, just buy this nice little packet of new cleats and new pedals, only $200".....uh, no thanks, find me an adapter plate that will transport my new shoes back to my old pedals..."ok, but we're otta stock right now, we'll get them to Will asap." Makes ya want to mash something other than pedals.

Oh, and Trek got me too. The bars on the new bike are 31.8mm versus 26mm on the old bike and so I had to buy new aero bars.......arrrghhhh.

Someone should explain industry standardization to the bike industry.

Dinner calls....later.

Don't stop, it can be fatal

Thank God for the Lake

2007-06-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

Well, the lake may be cold but it sure feels good on soreish legs. Did 2:17 on pavement today; so what?....well, ya see, I do most of my running on trails and old gravel roads and the legs filed several compalints today when I got them home...so I went to the lake with H, waded in the COLD water for 15 minutes, and presto, legs retracted their complaints. Probably the Ibuprofen vitamins I took helped a bit as well. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do; the run course at Ironman Canada ain't on trails and old gravel roads....no siree. Actually, the legs are doing pretty well; about a year ago the Doc and his X-rays told me that the cartilage in both knees is about 55% gone, which I figured was pretty good seeing as how the rest of me is about 75% gone, and so far, so long as I keep the pavement running to a minimum, I can get along OK. Got to get a box to file the complaints in tho'....

Uh oh, the talk in the Formula One world now is all about Hamilton's chances of winning the Championship; this is the rookie who's standing that world on it's head with his spectacular showing so far.....brings up thoughts of young Michelle Wie and the kiss of death that all the press about how great a golfer she was going to be seems to have been....the kid's just a kid, leave him to make his mistakes.

I see that David Walsh is about to release a follow up to L.A. Confidential and that Lance Armstrong has wasted no time slamming it. And Floyd Landis is about to relaese his book, Positively False, as well. Looks like there'll be no end anytime soon to the bludgeoning that the pro cycling world is taking, and fair enough I guess, since it's all self induced. I just wish that other pro sports would get serious about the cheaters.

Dinner calls.

Don't stop, it can be fatal.

Bah Humbug....the lake is still too cold

2007-06-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Just got sentenced to another week or so in the pool.....bah humbug! The water temp. at the beach near the house was ~62c just now...about 6-8c too cold for me. And just as I was thinking that I was done with the pool for another fall/winter/spring......oh well, I guess another few hundred tumble turns won't kill me. Good ride yesterday, 4 hours out and about the countryside and 3500m in the pool this AM. Doing a bunch of backstroke these days as the left shoulder/neck is sore, with a bit of a pinched nerve I think, and the backstroke rotation seems to help. On the way to a 16 hour week I think.

So, the cycling news reports that Alejandro Valverde is not involved in the Spanish doping case and he'll be able to start the Tour; seems that makes him automatically one of the favourites as a lot of other would be favourites have retired, like Ullrich, or been caught doping, like Basso. Armstrong says the the Tour is wide open this year.....no kiddin'. What a mess is the pro cycling world these days; it does more than all other pro sports lumped together to try and dump the cheaters but the leadership being shown by the so called governing bodies is becoming farcical; if they fought the cheaters as much as they fight each other the war would be won already. Well, I guess not, there'll always be cheaters and as soon as another test is developed, another way will be found to circumvent it, but jeeezzz, you'd think they could at least stop fighting over dollar sharing, who's the biggest dog, dollar sharing, whose jurisdiction it is, dollar sharing, etc etc etc, and focus on trying to weed out the guys who can't rely on talent and hard work alone. If they don't shape up quick, there won't be any dollars left to share.

So, tomorrow is gonna be clear and warm; a few minutes with the eball and a 2 hour jaunt is on the agenda.....later

Don't stop, it can be fatal.

Sunday, ever lovin' Sunday

2007-06-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

Well, another training week in the books and a rest day tomorrow.....yippee! 15 1/4 hours this week, 10 on the bike, 2 1/2 in the pool and 2 3/4 on the run; not yet a big week like a month from now, but starting to get up there. Heavy on the bike as per usual as I tend to get most of my cardio that way owing to woeful state of my knees (more about those later). Felt like a dog today after a couple of hours of hammerin' away on the pedals but after a gel and 10 minutes of running I got it together for the duration. Think the problem was the cardboard fries and chicken burgers we tried out the last 2 nights, but roast lamb tonight and that's got me salivating already. I know a lot of folks eat that junk regularly and I don't know how, or why, they do it; oh well, it's good to reinforce the awareness that "you are what you eat", I guess.

I see that Frenchman Christophe Moreau won the Dauphine Libere today; good to see a Frenchman win, but the real story of that race is how strong the Astana team, with Alexander Vinokourov, is riding; the team won 4 of 8 stages. For those of you who don't follow professional cycling, and I confess that I just don't know who that would be, the Dauphine is one of the 2 main warm up races for the Tour de France, where fitness levels start to show and 'Vino' is definitely looking good for July. It would be great to see him do well in the Tour as he was forced out last year when enough of his teammates were implicated in a doping affair [I'll save my rant about doping for a later post], and DQ'd, that they didn't have the full complement (9 riders) available to start. The Discovery boys finished second in the Team event but they still seem to be floundering without the strong leadership that Armstrong used to provide. And good to see 30 something Erik Zabel win Stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse, the other main warm up race for the Tour. I always like to see an older guy put those young bucks in their place.

And how about that Lewis Hamilton? 7 Formula One starts, 22 years old, a rookie in the series, 7 podium finishes with 2 wins, and 2 poles. A career start like that has never happened, not with Mansell, not with Senna, not with Fangio, not with Schumacher, not with no one! Talk about "phenoms", this guy may even surpass the likes of Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Roger Federer et al. And speaking of Woods, in a US Open where he was ordinary, he still came within 1 stroke of forcing a playoff....amazing how good these guys are at what they do.

Dinner time, gotta go.......

Don't stop, it can be fatal.

Polypro that just won't quit

2007-06-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

So....what do you mean that red bandana and 23 year old polypro should be retired to chain cleaners? That polypro has been everywhere..........to Mt. logan, Mt. Blanc and dozens of other peaks; it's earned the right to go on a mellow 300km trek up the West Coast of the Highlands of Scotland....which is where the picture of me was taken in 2005...and you thought all I do is swim, ride bikes and run......huh! It was John's harebrained scheme and I foolishly said ok...so, we plodded our way from Inverness to Cape Wrath over 15 days, and NOW he wants to plod across Norway....jeeezzz; AND he wants to do this the 2-3 weeks right after Ironman Canada, when I'll, no doubt, be bursting with energy. I don't know, some friends are high maintenance ya know, and that's OK, but this....... Anyway, I'm not retiring the polypro, so stop asking, it still keeps me warm on those -5c bike rides in Dec/Jan....and speaking of rides, I didn't do the brick today; it's so fun I saved it for the Sabbath, that's tomorrow for you lost souls, and did a 100k ride today in the Sun, including a local feature called "the wall" which smart people ride down, but not me, oh no. Oh, and I flatted today, first one of the year and first one on the new bike.....why does the derailleur always give me grief when it comes re-mounting the wheel.....those guys on the Tour can do it in about minus 5 seconds.....I spend 3 times that just cursing. And speaking of the new bike, got to put in a plug for Trek, and for compact cranks...I got a 5.2 Madone about 2 months ago, upgraded with the Dura Ace gruppo and the smaller chainrings, and much as I always said that my 1999 version 853 Reynolds Lemond frame would do me forever, this is a much better bike and the smaller chainrings, coupled with an 11-25 block, are way easier on the knees and give me a wider range of gearing. That's it for the techo talk...apologises to all non techies. Time for dinner.

Don't stop, it can be fatal.

Award Day

2007-06-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

So, after that biggish run yesterday, and a hardish bike on Tuesday, spaced with a good 3,200m swim on Wednesday, today was award day, and I lazed thru a 2,600m swim at the pool thinking that I'm starting to get fit when 2,600m seems a lazy day. So, let me tell you about that Tuesday bike; 91k, not that far really, but including about 4,400 feet of climbing, in 31km, up to the lifts at Apex Mountain Resort. I thought it was getting chilly on the way up, but so focused was I on how unfair it was that I wasn't smart enough to avoid this level of suffering, I didn't notice it much. Thanks God(!) that I had a jacket and knee and arm warmers with me as FOR THE SECOND TIME (see what I mean about smart, or the lack thereof), it was so COLD on the way down that I got to shivering hard enough to start shaking the bike and it felt like the wheels were gonna come off and I was gonna have a garage sale of used and broken bike parts half way up the hill to a ski area, and who would browse that? Somehow I made it down in one piece, looking a bit odd I'm sure, all bundled up in every stitch I had while all 'round me people had on shorts and T-shirts. And another thing that makes me wish I was smarter, I have Raynauds Syndrome, which causes the blood in my hands, and increasingly in my feet, to head for home when I'm stupid enough to do things like chill said home beyond a reasonble amount. So, in addition to being half frozen I could hardly shift gears and apply brakes. Think I'd learn but it seems not......another fun brick workout coming up tomorrow; who invented those things anyway?.........later y'all.

Don't stop, it can be fatal.

Self Induced trauma

2007-06-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

So there I was cranking along about two thirds of the way thru the swim when my stomach slipped to my ankles as I realized that I'd left my bike water bottles safe and sound on the kitchen counter at home, and I'd start the bike with NO LIQUIDS! I think that was the start of the bad feeling I got about mile 80 on the bike and that didn't go away until mile 13, or so, of the marathon. It's hard on the stomach trying to pull it all the way up from the ankles to where it belongs. Oh, and the Gatorade bottles they supplied along the bike course absolutely sucked, except in reverse, as they were real hard to actually get liquid out of in any volume, which didn't help me keep hydrated; and so on and so forth, yada yada yada, all in all, a forgettable day on the 2006 Ironman Canada course.

For those of you that are a little smarter than us bozos who actually torment ourselves like this, and aren't familiar with an Ironman event, it goes like this......at the sound of the starting BANG, jump in lake and swim 3.8km, the first 500 metres or so in a human washing machine since there are about 2,000 other bozos all heading for the first corner, about 1.5km away........when you next reach shore, run up on beach, get stripped of your wet suit (one of the good parts), throw on a bike helmet, bike shoes and bike 180km........if you're still partly functional after that, and haven't smartened up, throw on some running shoes and run a marathon. See I told you we're bozos.

Anyways, I've done 3 of these events in consecutive years, starting with 2004 (this year will be the 4th), all at Ironman Canada in Penticton, and notwithstanding that, so far, a reader could be forgiven for thinking that this must be punishment for some grievous wrong doing, it's a great event and something I actually enjoy doing (told you you were smarter), I think. But wait, maybe what I really enjoy is the lifestyle that is the training that goes into being able to survive these torture sessions. Ya don't just go out and cover 226km of swimming, biking and running with no training ya know......nor siree Bob. So, amongst other musings, this blog will bore you with random thoughts on my Ironman training routine, like today's, when I finally topped out on a hill I've been working on for a month or so and that my ex National Race Walking Team member niece quietly referred to as "insane" after doing it with me last year. Anyways we made 'er to the top today at 1 hour 29 minutes, about 2,200 feet of up following a self contrived route that avoids going straight up but still results in Harcus, that's our dog who foolishly comes along, looking at me like I'm nuts as we 'round another corner and it's still goin up. A quick 360 view around (great views let me tell you) and we're off down and back at the truck at 2 hours 23 minutes. I've topped out on that hill about a month earlier, and 3 minutes quicker, than last year, so things is lookin' good at the moment. Anyways, time to take the dog out walking, actually swimming, and yes, he wants to go.

Don't stop. it can be fatal.

Blame my daughter

2007-06-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm finally getting around to trying to corral my scatterbrained thoughts enough to put them down here; as I say, blame my daughter; for some obscure reason she thinks they might actually be interesting. I'm not so sure but hey, what does an old guy like me know about these things anyways. Actually, it's gonna be more like an attempt to remember my thoughts of a minute/hour ago, rather than an attempt to corral them. Oh well, we'll see how she goes....no pain no gain or something like that. Reminds me of a Junior hockey practice a zillion years ago in Winterpeg when our coach, lovable guy that he was, thought I was dogging it and so kept me on late for some more stops and starts.... with him slappiing me on the ass with his stick up and down the ice 'till I puked....."back in the day" as Dale Jr says on that Speed Channel show about the old Nascar days...when men were men [or some such rubbish].....wonder what some of today's kids would think of that sort of encouragement. Speaking of puking, and i don't do a lot of it, but thoughts are thoughts and once corralled, I'm gonna put 'em down; I sure hope I don't feel as bad on the Ironman Canada run this year as I did last year.....but that's a subject for another post, gotta take the dog out walking, right now

Don't stop, it can be fatal.

Turning circles and other ways to suffer......musings of an old crank

The Long Road back

Of monsoons and bridges

A fine 'ole sufferfest

Certification pending....

What's in a name?

Here we go again.....

Not another hill.......%$*&^*!!

Oh.....that was fun

Woe is me.....

Talk about a sting in the tail...

3 tales and 1,100 k

Freakin' frost heaves and wind

Clear, calm and frozen

Where are the April blossoms?

Spring!!! or so they say.....

Tweet...tweet

Enough hibernation

A touch of Fall babble......

Sufferfest.......with a capital S

Call me crazy....everyone else is...............

Father daughter relays and such.......

STP...one last time

If you EVER hear me complain about the traffic in the S Okanagan.........

No, I didn't misspeak......

How I spent my Saturday, and Saturday night, and Sunday morning and..and..........

So....ah.....Ok, I admit that I've been a bit lax.....

Blah...blah...blah

Now it's really over.....or is it?

It's over......well the prep anyway

Wars...ending, lost and won

Endings

Ah...redemption

So..where the hell have you been?

The tour...etc etc

Mid week scatter.....

The Lake......finally.

Upsetting

Ouch......that hurts!

Human Oxers, a bad idea

Ahhhhh.....Monday's comin' up!

Nutting to report

Thank God for the Lake

Bah Humbug....the lake is still too cold

Sunday, ever lovin' Sunday

Polypro that just won't quit

Award Day

Self Induced trauma

Blame my daughter

Not another hill.......%$&^!!