Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I rode a loop starting in Caledon East on a fantastic, cold, sunny day. We'd planned to start on the Caledon rail trail and were surprised to find long stretches of ice and rock-hard snow. Things were going OK until I did a 360 on some ice (while remaining upright) and 'Bent skidded out when he heard my surprised yell. So we moved onto roads for most of the ride. It actually made things harder because of all the hills and winter-damaged gravel roads. We climbed the escarpment a few times on the way to The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain so we definitely earned our reward.



That and a slice of chocolate zucchini loaf = a healthy lunch. (Zucchini is a vegetable.)

Thanks to Coast to Coast, I kept biking regularly through the fall and winter this year. As a result, everything felt much better than it usually does this early in the season - especially hill climbing. Yay.

We stopped at Caledon Hills Cycling in Inglewood to shop on our way back. By the time we got home, we were wearing big smiles and mud from head to toe. Awesome.

Very proud of our longtime Tree Hugger teammate and friend VO2Max (Pate Neumann) on his 5th place finish today at the National XC Ski Champs in the 50K mass start skate. No, he didn't medal at the 2011 Champs. (Last year he medalled in the 15K skate which wasn't offered this time.) But today he raced consistently with the front group for 50K and was leading the race after 30K. After 2 hrs 7 min, he finished just 46 seconds out of 1st place. To put that in context, only 12 guys finished within 5 minutes of the leader. At least four 2010 Olympians finished behind him.

At age 23 with only 9 years of skiing experience (half as much as most of his competitors), he's getting better every year and we hope to be in Sochi cheering him on in 2014!