May 19th (Afternoon)
· Fluids Intake
o Morning: 1 bottle of Gatorade, 1 bottle of water, 1 cup of coffee
o Afternoon: 1-1/2 bottles of water
· Food Intake
o Morning: 2 pieces of white toast with butter and peanut butter, 2 lemon cookies, 1 banana
o Afternoon: 1 bowl of chili, 2 buns
Wow, I wasn’t paying attention to the weather, but I walked out of the office and just about got blown to Merritt!!! And if you know this area at all, Merritt is the exact opposite direction to home from work, so, yes, I was facing a brutal headwind! I checked when I got home, and winds were gusting over 70km/h (www.weatheroffice.gc.ca).
So, I knew I was in for a doozy of a ride regardless of which way I went home, so I figured I’d still ride the streets (I will further explain why a bit later on here). Heading down Hillside through Dufferin was brutally slow, and even once I hit the hill going down towards Wal-Mart I was pushing just to keep my speeds above 50km/h (normally I’m riding my brakes here to keep it under 60km/h). Thankfully, the flat stretch on Notre Dame wasn’t too congested, so I wasn’t in the way of too many as I putted along. However, traffic was very congested heading down Columbia all the way to Valleyview, so it was not a fun stretch at all. Traffic and headwinds = slow and grumpy! By the time I got to the Juniper hill, I was already quite tired. So much for taking it easy this week! However, the winds didn’t seem to be much of a factor heading up the hill, and I felt pretty good today. Definitely better than yesterday’s ride with rain in the face and winds blowing me back down! I was a good 4 minutes longer today, though, guaranteed that was due to the winds all the way from work to the Juniper hill.
When I got home, no one was there! So I phone Corrie’s cell, and it turns out she was out hiking with all 4 kids and both dogs!!! She had gone out on the trial where I normally come in, so as I didn’t go that route, I completely missed her... Oops... So, I hopped back on my bike and rode out to meet her as she was heading back towards where she’d parked the truck. Kind of funny, because I was quite tired already, but I made the hill just before the trailhead in a 2:5 combo and pretty fast. Normally I ride that in 2:2 or maybe 2:3 in the mornings, hah! Guess I was motivated...
But I was thinking about the different routes and the benefits of each. Obviously the trails are way more fun and I get more of a full work out with the upper body being much more involved in the ride. However, other than the Peterson Creek hill coming up, I really don’t have many long stretches of climbing. Any hard climbs are usually over pretty fast. So, I’ve been wondering the last few days if I will ever make it all the way up Peterson’s creek and I think I know where I need to improve, and that would be endurance. I think I have the skill, and my tires have the traction, to probably make all but maybe the steepest little section. I think I even have the muscle power needed. But where I fail is that I just can’t seem to keep pushing when I should, and so I stop and walk or take a breather. That’s where I think the Juniper hill will come into play for me. I think I should ride this hill probably twice a week at least to help build that endurance. It’s a long, steep climb in the granny gear. My legs don’t get nearly as tired as on the steeper Peterson’s creek trail, but they’re burning pretty good by the top for sure. So, I think if I through this route in a few times, it should help me build up the endurance I need to keep pushing and hopefully I will be able to make the Peterson’s creek trail soon. At the beginning of this week, I chose the Juniper hill route as maybe being the “easier” route. After two times up now, I can say pretty definitively that in the end, I’m just as tired so I don’t think either way is any different really.
May 20th (Morning)
· Fluids Intake
o Evening Before: 1 bottle of Gatorade, 1 glass of milk, 1 glass of water
o Morning Of: Nothing
· Food Intake
o Evening Before: Roast beef with potatoes and peas, 1 bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with milk
o Morning Of: Nothing
This morning was a blast! I hit a record time of 12.75 minutes to Lansdowne (previous best was 14 minutes) and 11.5 minutes to work from Rogers Way (previous best was 12 minutes). Granted, I had some 30km/h winds helping me along finally! I also saw a road biker ahead of me when I turned onto Valleyview road, so I pushed it trying to catch him. By the time we got to where the road splits, he went up Columbia and I went down Battle street and he was definitely starting to leave me behind. However, I noticed that I hadn’t left the big ring since Vicar’s street and I kept it in the big gear all the way ‘till the bus stop. Pretty cool! I normally gear down a few times in between, but this time I had enough momentum and “motivation” to keep pushing the big gear and it showed in my time for sure, slicing off over 1 minute from my previous best.
I again chose to ride the bus up to Roger’s Way. I am getting over this cold for sure, but still just want to play it a bit safe (granted this morning’s ride and the Juniper hill in the afternoons is sort of throwing that plan out the window). The ride up the Hugh Allan hill was pretty good, and I even managed to chop a bit of time off of that stretch as well, so that was cool! I got to work and noticed another bike outside, so I’m guessing that maybe Dustin rode to work today now too? He’s talked about doing it, so that’s pretty cool if he did! He lives in Aberdeen, so I’m thinking it would be a decent 30 minute ride for him or so? Even Alex and Aaron have been talking about wishing they could start riding to work as well. You never know! Maybe we’ll be installing a bike parking lot soon!
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