Training Log Archive: veinbuster

I thought I'd best get out before the extended warm spell. I had two objectives for today:
1) see if I could find a route to Supercenter, not because I have any special interest in it, but it would be nice to know I could restock by foot
2) see how viable an 8km snowshoe at PB early February would be

There were a fair number of bare spots and lots of ice. The first thing I noticed was how thick the river ice could be and still break apart. If ice this thick can break under its own weight, you have to be really careful what you walk on. There was lots of this a good meter above the current river flow.


I'm in these woods a decent amount and rarely do I see any trash, so coming upon this really annoyed me.


I carried on to my planned railway crossing and was happy to see enough snow on the climb up to be able to step up nicely. I wasn't sure how much snow would be left on the golf course. It was mostly covered, but frequently not with snow.


I took what I thought should be a fairly direct route to the road I would need to cross to get groceries. One longish detour where the hydro lines were fenced off, and then just river navigation. Once I found a path up to the road, I turned back - unfortunately stopping the timer rather than setting a lap marker at about 3.5km.

I wanted to come home about 200m south of the hydro line and managed that all right other than having to adjust for a river crossing once. I did get back to the tracks at the point I wanted, only because it was relatively flat to get across. I didn't want a steep climb on the sunny bank. Pretty easy to navigate in this.


I took the most direct route from the railway. Finishing up, I did a small loop because I didn't see our decorated tree. On the second pass I noticed the tree was GONE. One partial decoration left behind. 20m up the trail somebody had started a fire that included a couch, and I'm guessing the tree.

I took the 1/2 decoration home and broke the news to Mrs. She thought I just meant the decorations were gone again and was extremely disappointed to find out that the whole tree was gone too.

C • Newmarket Adventure! 6

Calves still feeling the social part of the Fat Festival so I'll save my woods trek for tomorrow.

Wondering how to dress: -14C start of the day here or -7C it might be for the starting line.

C • You have a car 2

Albion Hills Fat Fest

It was a troublesome start. The arm that grabs the top of the bike had the adjuster frozen so it wouldn't open. I got past that, and the extenders needed to lock the fat rubber were in the trunk, which was frozen shut. I started to prep the other car to carry the bike with it disassembled somewhat. Just before committing to the switch I got into the trun, so put the bike on the roof. This put me on the late side of my planned departure giving me one of the last convenient parking spots. On my way a low tree branch grabbed the top bar, which hadn't fully locked in place so extended a enough to release the tire - but close to parking so not tragic.

I wasn't expecting race time to be especially meaningful so ran the Garmin for test runs, then forgot to start it again for the race start. Neither of the bikes I wanted to test were there for demos making an Apollo Carbon the most interesting tester. As I had found previously, the weight loss offered by a carbon frame isn't particularly significant for a snow bike. At least not for me.

So...the race was about 150 in a mass start. I was maybe slightly ahead of mid pack. It was very congested up to the first single track, and correspondingly slow. The pack broke up a bit after the exit to the first single track and everyone could go their own pace until the checkpoints where things bunched up collecting cards. Just a couple of spots collecting people in the second single track after which it was clear sailing. I followed a father and so into the third single track and ended up riding to the finish mostly with them. The loop was just under an hour - about the finishing time of the 20km race leader. Congestion early probably added 10 minutes to the ride time I would likely have had on my own.

The single track was in much better shape than I expected. I think close to 3km were single track, with maybe 3 features in total that got my attention, other than not always being sure where the trail would turn given the light conditions. All of the ice was on double track and was quite manageable with my chosen 5psi tire pressure.

It was a nice outing. I've been anxious to try some of the single track to see if it would suit a fat trike. A trike absolutely would not have worked for this event. I think each of the trails we were on had at least one spot that was too narrow for a trike even in summer.

I was a bit surprised at the elevation total I ended up with. Those relatively short climbs added up.

C • Fat trike 4

C • So fun! 4

Day 3 soloflex

Sufferfest: downward spiral

Two sets of hard/easy sequences of decreasing duration.
Hard 9/10 (280 watts), easy 3/10 (150 watts)
2 min hard, 2 min easy, decreasing by 15 seconds each interval
At 45 sec intervals push hard to 9.5/10 (290), at 15 sec 10/10 (310 first set, 350 second)

5 min recovery between sets. 3 bonus 15 sec hards at end of 2nd set.

Good workout for me. I can magage my heart a bit better with the short intervals. I hit the max heart rate in the first set and got my oxygen intake under control in the second set and peaked at 165.

Power: avg-194, max-370

Day 2 soloflex and free weights

Even though it was a bit quick, I felt like I was in slow motion. My cold that seemed to be improving has given me a bit of a wheez exhaling deeply. But others symptoms still seem improved.

Given additional rain followed by a deep freeze I opted for the 10km poker run at Albion Fat Bike Festival over the 20km race that would go into single track. I'm expecting conditions to be quite icy and it will be easier to skip card stops in icy areas than have to disqualify myself for skipping a particularly icy stretch of single track.

It will give more time for demo rides, and if my guess about conditions is wrong I can do my own 20km.

Since there isn't a bike/snowshoe duathon for the Personal Best event a few weeks later, I'll probably opt for snowshoe, but might take the fattie for followup.

Fresh snow and more falling.

-3C and fairly brisk winds with 4cm of overnight snow. Another 2cm fell while I was out. I did the west side - east side Rogers Reservior loop. I left the seat dropped to get down the backyard. Good thing because I learned you can endo a fattie. A bit too much front brake locked up the wheel when I hit an iced up snow shoe rut. I just stepped off the bike and left it flip without me - I would have got caught up if the seat post had been extended.

There has been very little traffic, and by the time I got to the woods there were no tracks. The fresh snow and my fat, low pressure tires made for pretty easy going over the glacier pack on the west side.

The east side was much more demanding in that there was rarely a hint of packed line. My 116 rubber floated nicely over the frozen crust. I could hear it crack a couple of times, but never went through. The rear did fall through one spot of ponded water that hadn't frozen through to the ground. There was almost constant steering action, because the snow disguised the ruts underneath so I had to adjust when the side wall of the tire met an ice crust, which was frequent.

My cold must be improving: only spat up blood twice. Too nice a morning not to be out.

It took over an hour and a half to shovel today's snow. The morning snow was nice and light, but the afternoon snow was heavy. I got the driveway mostly clear before the switchover to frozen rain.