Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Day 1 soloflex and free weights
Now to load up for the beach

Day 3 soloflex

13C to start the day after two snowy mornings was as close as you could get to an engraved invitation for a dawn ride. The river path was pretty quiet so I was able to maintain a decent tempo with a nice cadence.

It didn't warm up at all during the ride, which was ok with me. I made it back 4 minutes before the 10:00am worry alarm successfully burning enough calories to make up for the accidental Starbucks lunch yesterday.

Nice to get some cardio exercise in. I felt strong and my right Achilles is tight but not sore.

Day 2 soloflex and free weights

Achilles is coming along nicely: tender and a bit tight but not especially sore.
The bit pealed off my thigh by the dermatologist is healing well.
Ball of left foot that was punished on consecutive long days in the tdp no longer hurts stepping out of bed.

It seems rest does work.

Day 1 soloflex and free weights

Not sure if the rest day will hold up again today

C • Resting 4

Day 3 soloflex
Now caught up

I've been debating taking a week off to heal some little things before vacation versus during vacation. Today seems like a good day to relax inside, so maybe I'll start with that.

Day 2 soloflex and free weights

Day 1 soloflex and free weights

Commute check - 8:30 Green Lane traffic

Much lighter than 7:30am. I guess everyone streaming to the 400 and 404 was gone.

There was a good bit of fog along the river. Mid 20s and very wet yesterday to single digits this morning will do that. 9C for the ride, but bright sun.

I neglected to note after the MTB-O this weekend that I concluded that QR codes wouldn't be particularly good for that type of event. When I looked into them a few years ago it seemed natural to have a bunch permanently mounted that you could compose a course from. While that could still be fun, having to scan the code with your phone at each check point isn't something I would want to do while riding a bike.

Commute test.

J asked me to check Green Lane traffic for an 8 am and 9 am start before she committed to riding to them on a weekday. I targeted hitting Green Lane at 7:30 and got there just as the 7:30 train arrived. This collected quite a lineup a good 150m long, but once that cleared the traffic thinned out some - but never enough to make a U turn without going to the lights into the theatre. Lots of dump trucks.

I thought of riding in the woods for a while and coming back to check the 8:30 traffic, but Mrs. has been planning to ride the changing leaves today for about three weeks. We'll head to Tottenham for about 11am, then pop into Albion for her to try the short course from the weekend. Beyond that will depend on how the weather looks. She wants to ride for a couple of hours.

Colour chase with Mrs.

Took the Caledon Trail into the wind to Albion Hills entering at Patterson. We went in via the single track which I thought would hook up with the red trail pretty quickly. Not quickly enough for me to get banished from *most* Albion single track.

We then followed the red trail to the chalet. It was a bit hillier than Mrs. was keen on for a bit but smoothed out nicely. The sewage was being swapped out so the chalet bathrooms were closed - a brief disappointment before I found an alternative at a nearby campsite.

We then start the short course from the weekend. I paused my timer to go over navigation with Mrs. who doesn't like maps and really wanted a compass. She quite liked the ride on this course, but opted to take the road back to the Caledon Trail. This did mean a long climb up Hwy 50.

It felt like a storm might come in so she punched out a brisk pace with the tailwind back to the car.

Driving home, my right Achilles was quite uncomfortable. I might have to rest it a bit.

C • Great stuff! 7

Day 3 soloflex
dips and pull ups were quite strong this morning - even the overhanded pull ups weren't bad

Event: Star Tracks Mountain Bike Adventure
 

STARS MTB-O short course.

19 1/2 year ahead of my schedule for starting to race, I tagged onto this because I think it is a good event that deserves increasing attendance - that and Bash had things under control so didn't need any extra help.

My plan was to take a fairly relaxed approach and focus on accurate navigation. The plan was to take the time at each check point to pick a route to the next one until I was finished. Without a compass I tried to get my bearings using the big trail map at the Chalet as reference once we got the race map - North was a bit different than my instinct wanted to believe.

CP 1&2 were straight forward being on trails I remembered from testing the novice course two years ago.

CP3 was a big error and where I think I lost most of my time. I clicked a lap on my Garmin at each check point so I could look at where the flaws were later, and so I could see the CP-CP distance in lieu of a bike computer (I stayed on a screen showing temp, heart rate, heart zone, speed, distance in lap and an 8 point pseudo compass). I missed the small trail to the left from red to greed. Not a problem because I could go the long way around on green and catch the other end of the little trail. I stopped where I thought the CP should be, but didn't see it. I then raced around the area like a bit of a fool until I picked up the flag exactly where I had originally expected it. So two lessons:
1) not all trail entrances look the same - some aren't traveled as much so don't have that tell-tale worn to the ground path
2) trust yourself and look *carefully* before going off plan
I did pick up the trail easily when picking up the CP after the race and the flag was very visible coming at it on the right trail.

The rest was pretty uneventful. I crossed paths with a fair number of rides, mostly going in a different direction than I was, but didn't second guess my plan. I paused at the bigger intersections to make sure I was where I thought I was before moving on. I generally picked a route that I felt was least subject to error without going a long way out of the way. I paused a couple of times to help people identify where they were on the map. I guess I looked like I knew what I was doing.

I was under an hour at CP11, so figured I might as well pick up the two bonus CP and stretch the ride out a bit.

Great event. It was nice that the rain settled down for the bulk of the actual race time.

At the pub I asked a group of guys if they were dirty bikers - they were so I sat with them for a bit. Turns out they had been riding Palgrave so I made sure they knew they could have been racing. A couple of them seemed keen on it based on having done some orienteering in school. Their families needed the seat I had taken so I headed home to elevate my leg (it finally clicked in that I had been about 4 hours standing, walking or riding a traditional bike and was likely to sag if I didn't).

I am now in the market for a good compass. My last one was military and worked a charm snowshoes across woods and fields in the north. Recommendations most welcome.

C • Great job! 5

Post race roaming.

Part 1: 'Bent wondered how the fattie would handle the trail around long course CP14, so I headed out that way and rode a bit of single track. I should have just sent him out so he could compare the tire grip to the Kodiak. After this much time upright the climbing on muddy trail with big wet roots was demanding, but most of that I attribute to by diminished vascular capacity. I did get a bit of rear wheel slip, but I'm pretty sure a lower tire pressure would have addressed that. I was running 7 psi, which was perfect for my course. I think that 5 psi would have been right for the long course.

Part 2: collecting a few checkpoints south and east of start-finish.

Day 2 soloflex and free weights.

Beautiful morning for a dawn ride, but my Achilles is feeling the stress. Rode Js new bike home from the shop and did a 6+ km colour walk with an old friend and her dog in addition to the logged activity.

Needing to be back to help J finish bike shopping meant not going to Albion Hills to look for flags. Instead the south end of the Holland River to see if there was better colour there. Even Sheppard's Bush had limited colour n the trees - the leaves are falling as they turn and not staying on the trees long enough to get the big, broad brush splash. There were so many leaves on the ground that it was hard to pick up the trail in spots and I completely missed the entrance to the ragged single track in the south.

The colour looked much better coming home. I'm starting to believe this mono vision setup with only one eye carrying a distance prescription is compromising my depth perception. I misjudged clearance on the right side a couple of times. I did find a new stretch of extremely bouncey trail on the return.

6C starting out was a bit cool for the layers I chose starting out, but it was perfect once I got going.

Grabbed a tiny wheel folding bike to go out with J on her last test ride. She liked the first one enough that she didn't bother retesting the one from yesterday that she was prepared to ride again. She is now a bike owner again: cruiser styling but 21 speed.

The little folding bike had better ergonomics than I expected. The butt-pedal-bars geometry was much like a typical hybrid. The tiny wheels did notice everything on the road and got a bit upset by larger rocks, it a better than expected ride for something that would pack up into regular luggage.

Day 1 soloflex and free weights

Search for colour.

The plan was to go along the river to find the best place to take an old friend and her dog for a walk later this week. The colour I had hoped to see in the northern woods didn't really show up until I got to the bridge construction. I ran into minutes old asphalt on the way to Shepherd's Bush so don't know if that maple forest has changed yet.

It was interesting to notice some spectacular single trees. A few fully turned and others with splashes of colour scattered over the body of the tree. The joys of having lots of time.

9C to start so I got to practice layering a bit. The neck warmer I got from the Ride to Conquer Cancer this year works like a charm.

Day 3 soloflex
Pull ups a bit weak today for no particular reason. I certainly can't blame the stressed Achilles

Day 2 soloflex and free weights

Tree walk with Mrs. About as nice a day as Thanksgiving can be.

Bike trade for J's commute. The 3 speed she took in isn't the best gearing for a couple of hills so I took a mountain bike up for her. Tiny bikes certainly use the legs a bit differently. I also took a better headlamp just in case the one I put on the 3 speed - turns out it detached when being adjusted so I'll have to take time to figure out a more robust mount.

Not much space in this hotel so skipped some bits. Also the exercise room has weights, but no bench of any kind and barely room for the cardio equipment - guess I'll settle for extra laps during recumbent tests.

Test riding a bunch of recumbents. Ride time estimated spread over about 3 1/2 hours. Most bikes I road for about 15 minutes. Mrs. took tons of photos with several cameras so it will take me a bit to get them in one place and sort through them. Here are the highlights. I went straight to Cruz because they are so different and I wanted to test them before it got too crowded. Brilliant bikes. The 20 degree Vendetta wouldn't work for me, but the 30 degree Silvio has about the same seat angle as the Greenspeed, which I quite like. I started with the commuter oriented Q100 and it was incredibly comfortable. Steering is quite heavy but I think I'd be tuned to it in one good long ride. Much easier to start on than the stick bike and very good power delivery. 'Bent needs to try one. I think the Q would handle trails similar to Caledon or Oro-Medonte very well. After lusting after a Lightening R84 since I started riding recumbents, I finally got to ride one. While it is a very cool bike, the ride wasn't significantly different from the Bacchetta. This surprised me because it is much lower to the ground. Greenspeed Aero. I wanted to try all the race oriented trikes and this one was by far my favourite. Handling was much like my X5, but the steering mechanism was very different with a pull/push lever on each side. They moved in synch so you could easily steer FAST with a little wrist rotation on one hand. Sweet bike with options for a very wide gear range. Azub tri-fly. I was really interested in this new take on suspension. I thought the suspension worked really well, but it uses a lot of space that I would like my legs to be in. I have quite a bit of ankle movement in my pedal stroke on a trike and clipped the front of the suspension plate with my heal (granted street running shoes, not clipped in). I also caught it with the top of my calf. Fatties: I wanted to try them all, but we ended up discounting some pretty quickly. One delta was just far too heavy. Another had ergonomics I knew I wouldn't get along with. It came down to the Azub and the ICE. I gave the ICE the edge last year, but this year they were very close ride wise. Mrs. preferred the Azub and the Azub team was very amenable to some customizations, most noteably building a spare set of 29er wheels that I could swap out for summer trail rides - for an extra $600. Other stuff. I finally tried an internal hub that I liked the shifting on: a Roloff set up by Cycle Monkey. It was geared a bit low for me, but we talked about a chain gobbler to easily move the boom and allow me to swap between 2 or 3 different chain rings. Or I could commit to one and get a belt drive - two loops of belt ganged together for one of the fatties trikes.

C • Wow! 2

Travel day, starting with breakfast at gramma's

Saw an incredible stretch of wind mills along the 401 in southwest Ontario today. Easily ran 50km south of the highway. Mrs. thinks it might have been as much as 80km. Nice alternative income for what used to be tobacco country.

Day 1 soloflex and free weights

Lots of running around doing errands to squeeze in today, so this might be all I log today.

Got the big yellow motorcycle ready for winter. Even the fixie got more miles on it than all the motorcycles put together this year.

I thought I would simulate different fixie gearing on the Greenspeed to try and get a sense of what gear I might be able to push on the track. Goldie has 69 gear inches. I did a set of laps with the biggest ratio on the Greenspeed, a 95, and was a bit surprised to find my pace was almost the same as on Goldie. Cadence was much lower and heart rate was about the same (150-160).

I did some sets in the next two lower Greenspeed gears with similar results. The key difference is that with the lower gears, the cadence is enough higher that I can accelerate quicker and more smoothly - no surprise really. Last winter on the trainer, it had appeared that my heart rate tended to run higher with a cadence approaching 100. I'll explore that some more this winter, in particular trying to determine the highest sustainable cadence.

Test ride with J to see if riding to work is viable for her. I led her on the route with the least traffic interaction and she kept up nicely on the long climbs west on Green Lane. Pretty good for someone not having been on a bike for about 15 years. A short pause for a Booster Juice before heading back.

C • Nice! 5

Rain delay on today's bike ride. Dry when I started working out the kinks so I dressed for a ride to walk into fairly heavy rain.

Day 3 soloflex

The ran was supposed to be a couple of hours away according to the forecast, which the radar appeared to support so I was all set to take the Greenspeed for some hills and cadence work. As I pulled the trike out f the garage a light misting rain that the radar misses started up. I switch to the bike with a fender and scouted a bike route to Loews. The safest way seems to be the river to the northern train station then across Green Lane, which has a nice wide shoulder and four lanes so plenty of room for traffic to pass.

I did find it interesting to observe that in a retail complex with 30 or so businesses, there wasn't a single place set up for bike parking. The best you can do is lock your bike to a light post. I guess we aren't really a bike friendly town.