20 Minutes of pain

Well, I did it. OUCH!

I started off with a good 18 minute warm-up, and then let my HR drop for a couple of minutes. Then it was time. After 5 minutes I was really wondering if I could hold this pace for another 15! As it turns out - I couldn't. I dropped off a fair bit over the next 5 minutes.

I ended up averaging 231 watts for the 20 minutes. At 86kg, that gives me a watts /kg of 2.67. That puts me as a middle of the pack cat 5 racer. Not what I'll need to be able to win. Interestingly - by hitting my weight goal, without increasing my wattage output, I can boost that to 3.07 - middle of the pack cat 4. That should be enough to win some races and get boosted up to cat 4. Hopefully I'll be able to increase my wattage output, as well.

Average HR for the test was 174, and I maxed out at 186. I never felt like I was "sprinting" - so I could've probably pushed my max HR another few points higher, but I don't think I'd have been able to hold it long enough to have any impact on my average wattage. (Max wattage for the test was 471). Average Cadence was 92. Over-all, a good work-out.

So, the baseline has been laid down. I think I'll try and test myself once/month to see what kind of progress I'm making. Tomorrow will be a recovery ride for one hour - Friday will be a hard interval session - I'm thinking of trying the intervals that John and I built last year. That'll hurt, but I should see rapid growth doing those a couple of times / week. Saturday will be a long recovery ride.

The real challenge is going to continue to be the food intake. My weight has gotta fall.

WATTS!

Well, in my workouts, I've gradually seen myself starting to get a little faster. Given that I've got some racing I want to do this year, I wanted to get a baseline of where my wattage output was going to need to be. Given my current wattage output, the fast way to get faster is going to be to get lighter.

The measurement to look for is watts/kg of body weight. Many top coaches have said that in order for a cyclist to win the Tour de France the magic number is 7. Seven watts/kg. While out looking for some more information on this, I came across a great article on it by Druber at True Sport.

Here's a link to the article Druber put up - it's got a great chart that gives some general information on what it takes. http://www.truesport.com/Bike/2007/articles/druber/druber15.html The chart shows that to be competitive at the Cat 5 level I need to be looking at generating 2.81 watts/kg

So where am I currently at? A measely 2.3 (upper end of "untrained") - but that's also for a one-hour effort, not a 20 minute one. I'm thinking that tomorrow, instead of doing my planned interval session, I'm going to do a nice little warm-up for 15-20 minutes, then do a flat-out 20 minute test to see where I'm at. This should fit in well, as today was a recovery ride. (I just rode for 1 hour with my HR around the 145 mark. I did let it climb a bit at the end.)

I also found a pdf book along with some computrainer files that I'm going to download. They're about $21.50 USD. Hopefully this will help in better developing my work-out program.

Diet is still my major issue. I seem to do well all week, but on weekends, specifically on Sundays, I do not do as well. I have managed to keep my 2 pounds/week pace going, but know it should be more like 3 or 4 and eventually this "easy" weight is going to be gone.

Back on the bike - sort of

It's been so long since I've been riding. So, this last week I finally got my computrainer back up and running and started riding. I was shocked on Monday at how much it hurt to do just 30 minutes. Wow. Lost a lot.

Tuesday was more of the same, though I went a little faster and pushed a little harder - and went 35 minutes instead of 30.

Wed I took some heat from Johnny - he was going on about how I just wasn't cutting it. He was riding for an hour on the Canmore TT course at just shy of 200 watts and his HR at around 165. I rode for 40 minutes, averaged 180 watts and my HR was over 175 for a good chunk of the ride. I warned him to be careful, 'cause now I was gonna have to kick his butt!

Thurs was an easy spin for 45 min.

Fri was my first shot at the Canmore course - rode an hour at 204 watts and a HR of 166. Look out Johnny! I'm on my way.

Today I did 90 minutes, keeping my average HR at 150, average wattage was just 154. (I did do a little sprint where I kicked the wattage up to 700 watts and a HR of 185, but I kept that pretty short. Just trying to get some saddle time so that my butt can start handling longer rides again.

My weight continues to come off at a regular rate - nothing really fast. I'm now under 189. I'm trying to hold to 2lbs/week. So far that's doing good.

Just checking in

Man, it's been along time since I've posted anything! Life has definitely been running fast for me, and I've been having a difficult time keeping up.

Just wanted to check in and say, yes, I'm alive, and I'll post more when I've actually got something worthwhile saying!

You're Doing What??!

I can't believe I haven't posted since December. It's been a long, hard 4 months full of great personal growth and introspection. I'm not going to go into the details here, but the stress was high enough that it stripped alot of weight off of me. Not a plan I'd recomend to others trying to get some weight off, but it did work.

I'm in a much better place now. I'm still working hard at getting things right, and putting "first things first".

The good news? Well, In December I'd hit a weight of 196 lbs - creeping awfully close to that 200 lb mark again. Today I'm down to 170lb, and the weight is coming off in more manageable amounts. I've been running lots - and haven't been on my bike more than a couple of times in the last 4 months. (It's been cold and snowy around here!)

In some ways I wish I was more able to completely open up about this last 4 months worth of introspection and growth, as it's been a real learning experience - but they're the kind of thing I feel is better shared in a more personal way.

So, as part of my new look on life, I've decided to really become a triathlete. I'm already signed up for the 2 Olympic distance events I've done for the last couple of years - Magrath and Fort McLeod. But now I've decided to really suffer. While still wanting to do some crit, ITT, and road racing - I'm also going to try and do a 1/2 Ironman race. For those of you who don't know exactly how stupid this is, it's 1.9km swim, 90km bike, and 21km run. Needless to add, my training has become a little more focused. I'm going to try and complete the Sylvan Lake Half Ironman - that only gives me 12 weeks to get ready for it. I've run more than the run distance this year - back in Feb - but wow. I'm a little scared and intimidated by this one.

I wake up everything morning now thinking to myself, "You're Doing What?! you NUT!"

Doping In Sport

You'll note I called this doping in sport, and not doping in cycling. Sports, in general, have had this issue thrust in their face recently, but it's not a new problem. The solutions are not going to be quick, and they are not going to be cheap.

Recently I had a discussion on bikejournal where one particular poster posted the idea of "who care? Let 'em dope. It doesn't affect me." I'd like to first address that issue.

What drives us to watch sport? In my own life I've found that it's the possibility of of seeing a human being lift themselves up to overcome. One of my all-time favorite movies, Vision Quest, has a scene where the wrestling hero, Louden, is wondering why his friend, a short-order cook, would take time off of work to come watch him - after all, it's just a wrestling match, and it's only 5 minutes! His friends reply says it all. He tells him that it's not the time, but what happens in that time. That sometimes an athlete lifts himself above a challenge and excels, and when he does that it lifts everybody that's watching it. Doping cheapens that. Suddenly it's not the human spirit over-coming, it's drugs.

Additionally, younger athletes look to those at higher levels for inspiration and direction in sport. If they're using it influences younger kids to use.

Who cares? I do.

Doping, and other forms of cheating, is not some recent discovery. In the late 70's and early 1980's it became a joke that the women competing for the Soviet Union could beat most of the men competing because they LOOKED like men. EVERYBODY knew that the Soviet's were using. This created the thought that anybody who could beat them must also be using. Evelyn Ashford ran into this when she beat the Soviet women (and later won the gold medal in the 100m sprint at the 1984 Olympics). The saying went, if she was able to beat the "shemales" she must be using herself.

It's common knowledge in cycling, especially the Tour de France, that there have been cheats. Everything from hitching a ride, to using amphetamines. Although it was well known there were cheats, there was a general belief amongst competitors that you could win clean. That all began to change in the mid 1980's. And, not just in the cycling world.

The Soviets dominated almost every sport at the Olympics. Women's sports, especially, were made a joke. I remember watching women's swimming events and being amazed at the masculine features of these swimmers. Initially Soviet dominance was credited with the fact that these athletes were able to train full-time - they were basically professionals but still credited as being amatuers. That story didn't last long.

Soon it became policy for everybody else to use some form of doping. Until just after the 1984 Olympics the practice of blood doping (removing your own blood and later tranfusing it back to you) was NOT illegal. It was policy within the USCF that you blood doped. I find it incredulous that a single cyclist on the 1984 team would even attempt to try and convince the public that he didn't blood dope.

The real problem that developed was that athletes started to believe that the only way to win was to dope. If everybody else is doing it, you're only levelling the playing field, right? I recently read the story of two Olympians in the 1970's. They were friends, one from the Soviet Bloc, the other from the US. They traded victories and records. Before they competed at the Olympics they got together to discuss their training. One told the other what drugs he was using. "Sounds like the program I'm on." was his reply. One won gold, the other silver.

One of the best articles I've read on doping in sport is a recent article (from which I pulled the above story) in RUNNING TIMES - a running magazine. It's in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue and is called "Protect The Innocent."

The bottom line to busting doping in sport is to create the biological passports that cycling teams like Slipstream and Team High Road are putting together, and that now the UCI is promoting. There is no way that testing is ever going to catch all the cheats. There will always be a new drug that can't be identified. (To this day there is not a test that can realiabley detect transfusing your own blood, though one is in the works.) Testing, by it's very nature, will always be one step behind the dopers. However, by creating a profile of an athlete it is possible to detect changes in their physiology that are sudden and enexplainable. The kinds of results that doping creates. Now you're not testing for a specific drug, but the physiological changes a drug is creating.

It also eliminates the ability of an athlete to challenge a test. The fact is the equipment used to run these tests is VERY complicated, and very sensitive. To get accurate readings it requires exact protocols to be followed. I've spoken with people who work on these things and all that I've spoken to say clearly that if the protocols aren't followed exactly the results can't be trusted. Guilty athletes rely on this to create doubt. Innocent athletes could get rail-roaded if these protocols aren't followed. A passport provides an avenue for an athlete to prove his innocence. In an ideal world he shouldn't have to. Everyone should be competing for the love of sport and honor - in the real world we know there are cheats, and the only way to catch them and level the playing field for those who are competing clean is to use the passport.

Doping is a complex problem. It's going to require complex solutions to get rid of it. The only solution I've seen that I would have any faith in is the passport. Is it perfect? Not a chance. There will be some who slip through the cracks - but combined with testing (note: I'm not advocating eliminating testing.) it will make it more difficult for athletes to dope.

The fact is: we KNOW of dopers who were NEVER caught by testing. I'm absolutely convinced that the only people who get caught doping are those who are stupid or who make mistakes. (The case of Tyler Hamilton and Perriero come to mind.)

Dopers suck. Let's get rid of them and return sport to that place where we can all be inspired by amazing performances.

Friday sufferring

Well, it looks like computrainer problems are completely resolved. GREAT! Friday is my scheduled T-max interval day. wooohooo!

I had a few problems at the beginning - but they weren't the same kind of troubles. Looks like someone was messing around with me bike and the cadence magnet and pickup were moved. One of my kids is gonna be in trouble. A little frustrating to have to mess around with that, but it's done and off I went for my T-max.

I had changed the interval session slightly - increased the wattage on the recovery space by 25 watts, and decreased the interval wattage by 20 watts. My reasoning was that I haven't been able to keep the cadence up during the intervals, and that's one of the areas that I'm working on - so, I figured a slightly lower interval wattage would lead to higher cadence. I was right.

I was only able to do 3 of the intervals instead of the scheduled 6 due to some time issues (amazing how much having to mess around with equipment before a ride can eat into available time!)

I was able to keep my average cadence at 95 and kept the interval cadence over 90. That's a huge improvement. So, my intervals wattage was 300 watts even. 2.5 minutes at 300 watts. I was definitely working, but even at that, my max HR only got to 175, so I know I had more to go.

Later today Steve and I are hoping to be able to get a T-max test in for him.

TO THE PAIN!!

Computrainer frustrations

A short post this go round - I'm getting really frustrated with my computrainer - well, not really my computrainer, but my computer.

For the last few rides - for about a week - every time I get to 30 minutes or so the computer loses the connection with the computrainer and my ride program is effectively over. I've been chatting with Computrainer about (their customer service is fantastic!) but as far as we can tell, something, somewhere, has been changed on my computer and it's making the program do wacko things.

Hopefully the changes I made tonight will allow me to go for a full ride tomorrow morning. As it is, I've just been getting warmed up when it goes Kapute!

Friday Night Thoughts

My son and two of his friends are currently downstairs watching Mr. Bean. This means that I will be awake, upstairs, waiting for the show to end (it's not cool for Dad to be down there watching it with them, ya know.) and then driving 'em all home. So, I decided I'd blog a little.

The last couple of days I've done something I wasn't going to do - I've posted a few times to Bikejournal. I guess I really can't keep my mouth shut!

A few things that I've seen re-emphasized to me lately. I'm seeing more and more intolerance. Especially in the anonymous world of the internet - but not just there.

Yesterday morning Mitt Romney was basically forced to give a speech on religous tolerance and freedom. Being a bit of a student of politics I found his thoughts and comments especially uplifting. He didn't get into trying to defend his faith in terms of doctrine. He simply emphasized the founding fathers conviction that freedom of religion, faith, and values contribute to freedom in a general sense. I've recorded his speech so I can make my kids watch it - though I know that's not going to help any. Anyway, here's some links to the speech:

Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV


Back to my original train of thought. I posted on the low carb weight loss thread at bikejournal because I was getting tired of the intolerant expressions that were creaping up there. As much as I try to stay out of the way of some of this stuff, I really do believe the saying of "all that's needed for evil to triumph is for good men to sit idly by." - so I posted.

Time Trialing

Tomorrow my TT bike will be ready to go. I probably won't actually get it picked up until Tuesday - so pics will be a few more days - but here's what I've got.

I have been riding a GURU trilite bike, but last year at a Provincial ITT 40km race my bike didn't pass inspection - I couldn't get the seat moved far enough back to meet UCI regulations. I made some adjustments, and I can now make it work, but I decided that eventually I was going to do something different.

Then one day last month, as I was doing my usual searches on ebay I found a Specialized Transition from 2006 that was for sale and coming up in a couple of hours, and at only $150. No, it's not the unbelievable machine that the 2008 Transition is, but the 2008 runs $8500. I decided to follow this bike, and if it went cheap enough I was gonna jump on it. I ended up getting the frame for $400.05 plus $70 shipping.

I then picked up a Renn 575 disc clincher wheel with rubber, cassette and skewer for $400.

As I started swapping components over I decided that I wanted more adjustability than what my Oval Concept A700 bars allowed, so I picked up a T2 base bar and mounted my T2+ clip ons onto it.

As I started putting things together I realized I really didn't want to have to fish the cables through the internal routing - so I took the bike into Ascent Cycle and asked them to put it together for me. I picked up a new chain and cables from them, too.

So, the finished bike will have: Dura Ace 7700 Front der and rear der, Dura Ace 7800 bar end shifters, Ultegra 6600 cassette, Ultegra 6500 brake calipers, and some inexpensive Tektro brake levers. I'll be running my Roval Rapide Star front wheel (the stuff I've been reading says that it's faster than the Specialized 3 spoke wheel is) and my Renn disc. I'll need to pick up some new rubber - as I want to put 20 mm tires on 'em.

I've also picked up a new TT helmet - a Giro Advantage 2.

One of the best articles I've ever read on aerodynamics and equipment can be found at http://home.hia.no/~stephens/aero.htm It's written in every day language and allows you to make some good predictions of what kinds of times your equipment will save you.

One of the big surprises I found was that slower riders actually benefit more in time saved than a faster rider does from some equipment changes. However, the biggest single factor is rider position, specifically, getting the back flat.

This year I really want to break one hour for 40km. An "excellent" body position with my current wattage output should be able to get me there. Of course, I'm going to be working on increasing my wattage output. Right now I'm able to hold about 225watts for an hour. (That's average wattage for an hour - with the hills there's points where I jump up well over 300 for brief periods.)

Me and my computrainer begin our December program tomorrow morning. In the words of Monty Python... TO THE PAIN!

Riding in each State

A couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to ride my bike in each state - and see where it went from there. Yet, I've never actually sat down and made a list that I could update as I went along. So, I've decided to make this entry my list, at least for now. I'll try and add more details as I work my way through my journal. This post will definitely be a continually updated one!

Arizona - Nov/07 El Tour de Tucson
Arkansas - BJ First Union 2004
California - Death Valley Double March 2006
Colorado - Triple Bypass 2007
Idaho - Far too many to mention
Illionois - BJ Reunion 2006
Montana - Tailwinds N/S Tour 2004
New Mexico - BJ First Union trip 2004
Oklahoma - BJ First Union 2004
Texas - HHH 2005 & 2006
Utah - SLC century and Alpine Loop, And Zion's Century, St. George (amongst others.)
Wyoming - Tailwinds N/S Tour 2004

Outside of the US I've ridden in Queensland, Australia and British Columbia

I also thought I'd keep a list of organized rides I've done, but will not include here the races I've done in Alberta.

HHH 2005 & 2006
SLC 2005, 2006, & 2007
El Tour de Tucson 2007
Zion's Century 2005
Death Valley Double Spring 2006
Bike Journal First Union 2004
Bike Journal Reunion pre-ride 2005
Bike Journal Reunion 2006
Triple Bypass 2007

Well, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. As I go through my journals, I'm sure more will come to mind.

Planning Next Year's Rides / Races

I won't have my Alberta Bicycle Association racing schedule for a few more months, but I've been doing a little planning and this is what I'm tentatively looking at for 2008 trips, and why.

April - Tour of Phoenix. This is purely to go fast and see if I can qualify for Platinum at El Tour of Tucson for next year.

May - Salt Lake City Century. This ride is flat, and actually a little boring after having done it time and time again. BUT, it's close enough to Bart that he'll be able to ride it with us, so we'll go down and see just how fast of a century we can turn in there. To make it really fun, we'll probably ride the Alpine Loop the day before like we did last year. That one's great - lots of scenic, tough climbs (and this time of the year, closed roads on a big chunk of the climb!)

June - Elk Horn Classic. This one is Oregon. It's a 4 stage, 3 day race. First day is 80 miles of relative flat, second day is a ITT of 10 miles in the morning, and a crit in the afternoon, third day is a 100 mile mountain stage.

July - something going on in Colorado...

August - still open. Could bring a return to HHH

September - the possibility exists that I can be talked into doing the LOTJA - Logan, Utah To Jackson, Wyoming. 200 miles of racing fun through the mountains.

October - no plans

November - El Tour de Tucson.

I'll update this as things start to come together, but that's the tentative plans at this point.

EL Tour de Tucson

John, Sheri, and I left Cardston about 3 or 4 hours late (thanx John) on Tuesday - and then began the journey south. We arrived in Cedar City, Utah at about 5am and woke Bart up so we could get what we euphamistically referred to as "sleep." It was a long drive, but an Ipod loaded with 3,000 some odd songs makes for some great "name that tune" moments.

Wed John, Bart, and I went for a ride. Boy, did I feel rotten! It was 18 miles of climbing (about 4,000 feet. From a starting altitude of 6,000 feet and finishing at 10,000 feet.) I don't know if I've ever felt that rotten on a ride before. I was seriously concerned whether or not I was going to be able to even finish the TDT, never mind my original goal of sub 5 hours. The descent down was frightening. Not because of the speeds, but because of the cold. Once the sun went down there the temps dropped fast. At one point Bart checked his thermometer and it was about 35F. I had sweated aLOT on the climb, as I was really suffering. (I won't go into the details, but the stats were really ugly.) I was shaking so hard that I had to stop because I was scared I couldn't keep the handlebars straight anymore. Finally I got cold enough that I stopped shaking and continued the dash for daylight. Took me awhile to warm up when we got back to Bart's, but I was okay. (Hot chocolate never tasted so good!!) It felt like a tough ride to me, and I pointed out that it sure felt tougher than the climb to Brian's Head had - Bart and John told me it wasn't, and that my thinking so was all because I wasn't feeling good.

Lesson learned so far?? Well, John and I simply didn't have much time to train for this ride. Our longest, most recent ride was Triple Bypass in July. The longest ride I did since then was I did one tailwinds ride into Lethbridge of about 2 hours. I just checked my journal, and I only did 3 other rides outside - and for the last 2 months John and I have managed 3-4 computrainer rides a week. Fortunately, we were doing T-max interval rides 2 times / week, so the intensity was high. We're hoping that it's gonna be enough, but after the ride with Bart I'm having serious doubts. Bart and John tried to convince me that it was just the travel and lack of sleep, but I'm really wondering.

Thursday we travelled to Phoenix. John's sister lives there, so we crashed at her house. I didn't sleep very well (it was very hot in their basement, and I was very uncomfortable.) - I think I finally fell asleep about 6:30 or 7am. Not a good start. Because of that we didn't get up in time to head over to JulieB's place to ride with everybody and share in RaleighDon's pie.

We jammed down to Tucson and headed straight for the convention centre. While getting our stuff there we ran into Z'man and chatted for a few minutes before he headed back to get his bike and deal with the Trek guys on it.

RustyRoadie knows us well, as he was able to walk right over to where he figured we'd be setup and find us. He lead us over to where the rest of the Bikejournal gang was gathering, and we went over and chatted for abit. Was good to meet a few new faces and a few old friends. I finally got to meet FastEddie (and he IS fast, as he proved at the TdT ride.)

Finally off to bed - and now, the actual RIDE REPORT.

John and I got up early - but not early enough to be right at the front of the Gold group! We actually got to the line about 4:45 and were probably 100 feet back. Saw RustyRoadie a litte further back.

I was just wearing my arm warmers and leg warmers - so it was a little chilly at the beginning. The start finally came and we were off! The start was FAST. I could see that there were alot of people in this group that shouldn't have been, and that there would be some crashes. I made a mental note to stay alert.

I saw DecafBeanBoy, and he let me know when we were getting close to the first Wash - for those who haven't done this ride before, this is not a simple creek crossing like I was originally led to believe. This is a "pick up your bike - don't ride it or push it along, as flats are VERY common along here - and carry it for what will feel like 20 miles (it's really only 19)

At the end of it my cleats were packed pretty solidly with sand. It meant I spent the next mile pounding my foot onto the pedal and trying to get it to clip in. Finally got both of them clipped in and continued to hammer. I had cleat covers, but somehow they got lost. Speedplay's don't do well in sand.

I got onto a quick paceline - more like a pack. Probably close to 200 riders in it. We were moving pretty quick and I was enjoying the ride. I saw FastEddie with this group. Ol' FastEddie was doing more than his share of pulling up front, and I made my way up to give him a hand. I made a couple of pulls, and felt pretty good - then I'm not sure where everybody went to....

First hint of trouble happened around mile 15 or so - don't remember for sure. My calve muscles started to cramp. I continued through and the cramping eased up, but I should've taken the warning and done something about it.

Suddenly we were at the second Wash. This one was worse. Forced single file. I heard lots of flats going off all around me. I was grateful for the advice I'd recieved earlier from an experienced TDT rider, "Do NOT, under any circumstances, think that you can ride this stuff - even if you manage to stay up with the deep sand, you'll end up with a flat tire. It's just not worth the risk." I saw that time and again.

I laughed when I saw the "wall" I'd been warned about. I didn't check what the actual grade was, but it couldn't have been more than about 12% for maybe a couple of hundred feet. Nothing that killed me.

A little later, while climbing a short little rise I felt my quads cramp - HARD. And then all strength left me. I knew right away what had happened, and I was very mad at myself. I was hitting the wall. I hadn't had anything to eat yet. 75 or 80 miles into it, and I hadn't eaten anything. Yes, I'd polished off a full gatorade bottle, but no food.

This was my first attempt at doing a century riding straight through, and so the first time that I really needed to concentrate on eating. Normally I just eat something at each rest stop. In this case there was no rest stops for me. I was hammering. "Was" being the operative word.

I pounded back some gel - I have no idea how much. I washed it down with more gatorade - and I crested the hill to see FastEddie pounding away at the front of the group and knew there was no way I was catching back onto this one. I looked behind me... oh oh. There wasn't anybody back there. I slowed. Finally after 6 or 7 miles of pounding along on my own another paceline came by - I jumped on, felt rejuvinated, and on the next downhill found myself coasting up to the front. Suddenly I was at the head of the paceline at the base of a hill. I decided to see what was in the legs and pounded up this short 2-3% grade. We crested and I started to drop back. Pants of "nice pull" invigorated me again. I hung on for awhile longer - and then the cramps hit me again.

With 25 miles left to go, we headed back into the wind. As another paceline came by me this guy calls out, "jump on, don't get dropped here, it's into the wind the rest of the way." I tried to jump on - I stood and up and felt my legs spasm hard - it almost threw me off the bike. Somehow I managed to get on for a little while. I soon fell off, though. I checked the time, checked my average speed, checked the miles left, and realized that if somehow I could pick it back up I could still make 5 hours but it would be close.

My speed dropped. Another paceline went by me and I couldn't even manage to catch it. I was really struggling to hold anything close to a decent pace.

At mile 100 and change I realized that I would be able to get close - maybe within 6 or 7 minutes, but I was not going to break 5 hours, so the next rest stop I went by I stopped and fuelled up. I dumped a couple of water bottles on my legs to help cool them off, and hopefully get the cramping to stop. It seemed to help. Another paceline came by and I managed to get on. I even gained enough strength to help pull a few times. But, I was cooked and I knew it. At this point it was just about finishing - and finally I did.

My time was 5:17 - I had about 10 minutes of stopped time at the one rest stop. I learned alot about eating on the bike and what I need to do for rides like this. I wished I'd have gotten it through my head earlier, but at least it's there now! I also need to find a way to do longer training rides - and definitely need more time on the bike!

I don't know if I'll be going back next year, but I will go back. I found the support at this ride incredible. EVERY intersection was manned by police. People lined the streets and really made the riders feel like they were wanted there. In discussing it afterwards with John and Sheri they agreed that there was amazing difference between riding the Salt Lake City Century and the TDT - and it's in the way we were treated by the organizers. I'll be sending a letter to the TdT and letting them know how much it was appreciated, and that because of that I'll be back.

El Tour Prep

Well, tomorrow we leave for El Tour de Tucson. Originally my wife was going to join me for the trip, and I was looking forward to a little get-away with her to someplace warm, but she's decided that she needs to stay at home with the kids.

We're hoping to be out of here by noon tomorrow. We'll see whether that actually happens or not - you never know with John!!

Our schedule will have us blasting through Montana, Idaho, and northern Utah in one fast-paced trip. We'll stop in Cedar city for a little sleeps, and then a ride with Bartman on Wed. We'll stay the night with Bart, and then Thurs head for Phoenix. We'll spend Thurs night there, then head for Tucson on Fri - sleep in the parking lot Fri night, race Saturday - head back to Phoenix Sat night, and at least as far as Cedar City Sunday. We'll be home late Monday night.

Both John and I have been limited in our training time - no long rides. We've been doing high intensity work, and I've seen my average wattage for an hour climb by 23 watts. Will it be enough? Guess we're going to find out. I know that this kind of training is what John and I need to do for our crit racing next season. We've also decided to do the Elkhorn Classic stage race in June - that will mean some tough racing!

I'm still way overweight - weightloss keeps taking a back seat to other things. I'm hoping that I'm on the right track again, and that I'll actually be able to take off and keep off the weight. Fortunately there's not a lot of climbing on the TdT route, so my weight shouldn't hurt me too much.

Khan's football

Well, the Oct 26 game was a good game and our kids fought hard. We came out of it with a win against McCoy from Medicine Hat. So off they went to the next round - the quarter finals. We'd be playing a team from Okotoks, the Foothills Falcons.

Our boys had some injuries to deal with, so all week my son was learning plays and a new position. I was excited for him, as he was learning the Full Back position, and it's where I really feel like he should be playing.

Okotoks had scouted us pretty good and they marched the ball against us pretty badly in the first quarter. Our Defensive Coach turned to my son and said, "I'm pulling you out of full Back and putting you on the D-line - now go stop them!" And he did. I'm sure there were other changes that took place at the same time, but from the time my son started playing d-line we were able to stop some huge 3rd downs and made some good progress. Turned out to be a very good quality game. Yes, some REALLY bad reffing (The head ref actually came over to the sidelines for a call and said, "Cheap shot to the back" as his call.) With less than 2 minutes left in the game we were down by 2 touchdowns. With one minute left we were down by one touchdown. We went for an on-side kick, but weren't able to complete it (really tough to do when your kicker is down with a dislocated knee!) So, the season is over. It was exciting. It was an amazing lift from previous years. The future bodes well for this program. A big thank-you to our new coaching staff.

Catching up... again.

It's amazing how busy life gets. I really do need to make this a regular "must do" 'cuase to try and go back and remember the emotion and details of things that have happened 2 months ago is difficult.

Since I last posted 2 of my sons have been playing football and one volleyball. (I think he's decided that next year he's gonna play football too.) My oldest, Khan, was making a huge impact in the games he played in - and then got injured pretty badly. He was diagnosed with a torn rotater cuff, and so I began the research of what we were going to need to do. We were able to witness a miracle when just a few weeks later he fully recovered. Last week I let him play in his first game back, and tonight his team makes an appearance in round one of the playoffs.

Brady, my other football son, is doing great. He still plays like he wants to be Khan, but he's developing his own style, and is playing different positions now (he used to insist on being on the line - like his big brother.) He's made a couple of big receptions, and some big hits as a defensive back.

Michael has had fun playing volleyball, but kind of likes the idea of being a Barfuss twin playing football with his brother.

There - that's my boys all caught up. Keisha is doing ballet.

Me: Well, the weight loss has been slow to say the least. I would go weeks without getting on the bike. Life just seemed to be moving in high speed and I wasn't making time for myself. No more.

This last week I made the committment that I'd be going to El Tour de Tucson. And if I'm going to do it, I wanted to Platinum. (complete the 109 miles in under 5 hours) That will be difficult, but it is doable. John and I have been working hard. We won't be able to put in the kind of long rides we'd like to, so we're working hard at intervals and high-spin on the rollers. I have managed the occassional trip into Lethbridge for a couple of hours at a shot - and a couple of weeks ago did a 100km ride into Leth (out to Leavitt first) I felt good and was able to really lay it down during sections I'd previously had difficulty with. I hammered up every hill and recovered on the way down.

The weight has finally started to come off a little - but would definitely do better if I didn't succomb to snacks as easy. I don't understand why I've had such a hard time saying no to crap food lately. 3 years ago I did pretty good. I need to find the internal discipline re: eating again. Hopefully this week is the beginning of that.

Up, up, and away!

Last year I never got out to do Logan's pass even once. This year I hadn't done it, either. So, yesterday John and I headed out to ride Logan's Pass. His wife, Sheri, decided to join us. We were planning on riding both sides, she was just going to do one.

We drove down to Sunrise campground and unloaded. Off we went. The wind was howling - but never from the same direction. Great. We stopped for a couple of pics at the bottom - and then John and I left Sheri and began to ride in ernest. John set a pretty good pace, and I dropped back a bit to get a pic. I guess I shouldn't have done that, 'cause shortly after John decided to do a little interval and hammmered away. We were coming up on a corner and as he hit I saw him rise and just knew what he was gonna do. We kicked the pace from 14km/hr all the way up to 25, and I saw him glance back a couple of times to see where I was. Dirty rotten scoundrel! He's not supposed to do this kind of crap until later!

I kept the gap the same, but couldn't close it. Then I settled in to recover. John gradually pulled away from me. A few times as we came around the corner the wind changed direction and where I'd expected a bit of a tailwind I ended up with a full-on head wind! Climbing grades of 7-12% is tough enough, throw in headwinds of 40km/hr and it gets ugly. There were places I was standing and hammering in the granny just to keep going.

I got a kick out of watching some of the tourists faces as they went by, amazed that anybody would want to do this!

Near the top, about 3km away, I came around a corner and saw a guy standing in the middle of the road, taking pics. I realized that he was taking a pic of me and decided to give him something exciting to photograph. I stood up and kicked it up a few notches. When I went by him I was doing 20km/hr on a 8% grade. (Of course, my HR was at 185) He waved and cheered me on.

I went hard, and when I hit the top I'd lost about 5 minutes to John. I told him there was no way I was going to do the other side today. In checking his HR - his max HR was only 163. I'm in terrible shape!! We hung around at the top for about 20 minutes, and then headed down to meet Sheri and ride with her back up. About 3km down we caught up to her and flipped around. She pushed it hard and made it to the top for the first time ever. Good job Sheri!!

We took some pics of Sheri at the top, and then just as we were getting ready to head out, a cyclist came up from the other side. I went over to talk to him, guessing that he was from Great Falls - turns out he was and we chatted for a couple of minutes and then I turned and headed back. I'll probably see Ron at the Belt Omnium next year, as he's planning on doing it as well. John and Sheri had already left.

Now the fun part - descending! Scary today because of the wicked cross winds, but also a whole lotta fun 'cause I can further develop my descending skills. I caught up to a motorbike and drafted off of him for a bit, as there wasn't any room to get around him, finally hit a section I could pass in, and laid it down, went around him and 3 other cars - that was fun!! (I always love the looks I get when I pass cars coming down a mtn pass.) I caught John and Sheri and we zipped down the rest of the mtn. John and I would stop, wait for Sheri to go by, then chase her down, get ahead, and repeat. Was a whole lotta fun, and we got to meet and chat with some interesting people at the pull outs while we waited for Sheri.

Near the bottom John was up ahead of me, and there was a BMW SUV between us, the BWM couldn't get around John (he was doing 60km/hr in a 40km/hr zone) and I just sat off of his bumper. Finally he got to a point where he could pass and accelerated to go around John - I laid it down and managed to stay in his draft all the way around John, and for a few hundred yards after that - then he laid it down and took off. No matter, our parking lot was right there (I almost missed it!)

Finally, we got to the bottom and this guy in a truck pulls into the parking lot where we're at and drives over to us, rolls the window down and says, "you guys were WAY over the speedlimit!" - I shout back, "Every chance I get!" He smiles and gives us the thumbs up and pulls away. Speed limit was 45mph, there were a few places I got up to 50, but it wasn't particularly fast because of the cross winds (I was on the brakes a whole lot more than I'd have liked.)

In looking at my data afterwards I see that I spent pretty much the entire climb in zones 4 and 5. Hit 180+ many, many times. Maxed at 185 5 times. I've really gotta get doing more intervals and riding more regularly. I haven't been on the bike since the triathlon in Ft McLeod a week ago. That's not good.

School starts this week, so I'm hoping that I can get into a better routine and get some good training miles in every day. If not on a bike, then by running. I've gotta get this weight off!

Some guys never learn

Guys like me, of course. In July I went into a triathlon having only been in the water twice before, and having run a total of about 10km before the event. It hurt, I wasn't particularly fast, and I wanted to be better prepared for the next one in August.

August 18th. I seriously considered bowing out of this one 'cause I wasn't ready. I had done even less than I did for the Magrath one! I hadn't been in the water once since Magrath. I hadn't run once since Magrath. And my biking time was, well - I think I got out once /week. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting very big things from this one. I decided to do it anyway for 2 reasons. One, I'd already paid the non-refundable entrance fee and figured if I was gonna pay to suffer I was gonna get my money's worth. And two, my twin boys were entered and there was no way I was gonna bow out in front of them.

The scheduling was set up so that I should be able to be done before they started and so I'd get to watch all of their race. I was looking forward to that!

As we were lining up for our start times at the pool I chatted with the others whose expected swim times were close to mine. I was gonna be sharing a lane with a lady who looked pretty out of shape (look who's talking, right?), but she mentioned that she'd completed a half marathon the week before. At least she'd been running!

Finally we hit the water. I konw I'm not going to be able to hammer through this, so I've decided to alternate one length front crawl with one length breast stroke. My lane partner slowly starts to pull ahead of me. (Her name is Dawn.) I see Dawn get out of the water and figure she'd got about 4 lengths on me. I guess I must have lost count, 'cause suddenly there's the kickboard in the water in front of me and my counter is yelling "last lap" - I turn and go hard for the last lap. I'm a little surprised at how much strength I feel I have. I should work at this swimming thing... I'm out of the water in just over 38 minutes. 1500 meters in 38 minutes. Winning time was 20 minutes.

My transition goes pretty good, and I'm off and on the bike. I look down at my HR and am surprised to see it so high so quickly. Oh well, it's nowhere near the red zone right now, so I stay down in the bars and pound it out. 5 km out I catch up to Dawn and pass her. Now the climbing. I can see lots of guys in front of me. One of the really nice things about staggered swim starts is that there's always rabbits in front of me to chase on the bike. I really pour it on during the climbs.

This bike course is really hilly. There's one particularly brutal climb of about 3 km averaging 7% with kicks up to 10%. On a TT bike it REALLY hurts. But, I'm reeling in lots of folks because of it. I can see one of my Headwinds bike club buddies up ahead. His name is Don and he's a good guy - at Magrath he did just the sprint, and then for the last km or so of the run came down to pace me in. I pass him just before the turn around. He had about 6 minutes on me out of the water, so I've made up good time.

After the turn around I want to recover a little - so I ease off slightly. Don comes around me, and as he goes by mockingly calls out, "hey, slacker! Give too much to catch me?" That's all it takes. We're at the bottom of a hill and I stand and hammer hard. I pass him and start pushing for every second I can find. There's more people in front and I start reeling them in, too. I'm feeling pretty good on the bike, and know I'm making up lots of time - good thing, 'cause I know I'm gonna need this gap on the run.

I finally hit the transition area again. My bike computer says 1:11 - not a bad time for this 40km. Later I learn that there were only 4 guys faster than me on the bike - and all 4 of them placed 1,2,3,4 overall. My official time is 1:17 - a total of about 6 minutes of transition time.

The first kilometer of the run was extremely painful. Both calf muscles were cramping badly. I got to the water station a km 1 and took up after cup of water and dumped it on my calves. Cramping went away and I was off. My goad is just a 10km/hr average, as I know I pretty much suck at running. This 10k will make about 30km total running for the year. I used to really enjoy running, and there was a time I turned in 40 minutes 10k's regularly.

I finish lap 1 (5km0 and see Don coming up not too far behind me, I call out to him and we share a bit of a laugh. He catches me at the 6km mark and settles in beside me. What a guy! He's gonna pace me the rest of the way in. We are chatting, which is kind of amazing that I can talk this freely, as my HR is over 170 with a couple of jumps in the mid 170's. With 1.5km to go a friend doing the sprint distance passes us. He chastises us for talking too much and not running hard enough - my HR is at 179.

With 1km to go Don says, "ok, we'll hold this pace 'til the corner, and then kick it up for the final straight away." I agree and when we turn the corner we speed up - it's a bit of a down-hill. With a little over a block to go he kicks it up again - I tell him to go ahead, my HR is at 182 and I don't feel I have anything left. He takes off for the finish. With 100m left I feel that maybe I can close it up, and push myself to sprint hard. I hit 19.8km/hr, and my HR goes to 186, but I catch Don at the line and we cross together. My run time comes in at 59:46 - just under the one hour mark. I broke 3 hours by about 5 minutes.

There's so much room for improvement in the swimming and running that I really think it's possible for me to break 2:45 next year. Just getting strong enough to swim front crawl the whole 1.5km will shave a few minutes off. Transition is another area I know I can shave a couple of minutes off. And, finally, the run. I know I can get my run time down to the 50 minute range. This is the single greatest area I can improve in.

Tales of pain

Friday night was a difficult night. My twin boys and I were out for a ride with the Headwinds Cycling Club (our racing club) and Brady had taken off with the fast group into a headwind. Him and John were holding the front - I stayed back for awhile with Michael - I THOUGHT Michael had slowed down to stay with the slow group (he doesn't like to go as fast yet) but had actually been dropped. He was really upset about that (it was supposed to be a no-drop ride.) I had gone up to check on Brady (a bridge that took considerable effort.) Anyway, there was a group of 9 or 10 of running a double paceline. Brady was #2 in line on John's wheel. John stopped pedaling for a second, Brady wasn't paying attention and hit wheels. Almost recovered, but not quite. Went down, I was at the back of the line and got to be the last one to pile in and go down. I ended up with some minor scratches and a little road rash.

Fortunately, one of our riders is a doctor (and an ER doc at that.) He did a quick assessment, and it was readily apparant that one of our number was hurt pretty bad. We decided to have the doc and injured rider hitch hike to the ER to get things going rather than wait for someone to show up (all of our family was 30-50km away, and most were in an area that had no cell coverage.)

They crossed to the other side of the hiway and waited for a ride - nobody stopped. This is on one of the busiest hiways in Alberta (#2 between Lethbridge and Calgary) and a long weekend - there was lots of traffic. Finally I got fed -up with nobody stopping, so I walked across to the other side of the hiway, stood in the middle of the road and started waving my arms.

Amazing - somebody stopped. Asked them if they could run these two into the hospital for me, they said yes, and off they went.

I went back over to check on everyone else - most were okay, bikes were a little scraped (wheels were really out of true) I told everybody that could ride, to take off and head back, we'd wait for someone to come get us. That left me and Brady out on the hiway in the sun. I tried to keep him in the shade of my shadow as much as possible. It gave us time to talk and reflect a little.

The injured rider turned out to have a broken elbow, and Brady's got some pretty bad road rash. What was worse was the night's sleep I got - or rather, didn't get. What I kept seeing in my mind last night was what COULD have happened. Brady, after he went down, rolled out of the way of the rest of the bikes - into the lane of traffic. We were on a busy double-lane hiway (with a nice wide shoulder) - if there'd been a car coming when he rolled out he'd have been killed.

It's amazing how when it's just been me cycling I've never worried about all the things that can go wrong - but now that my kids are out there... it really bothered me Friday night. He was in a fair bit of pain, and we'll changing dressing regularly for the next few days, but he's going to be okay. I've tried REALLY hard not to scare him, don't want it to take him away from cycling, but at the same time, I don't want him to ever roll into traffic lanes again!

That was crash number one.

Next up - Hill climb time trial in Calgary. Now, you might ask, exactly how does one have a crash on hill climb??

John and I were warming up on the hill - it's 1.3km long, and averages just under 10%. Most of it is 8-9% with a short kick up to 15%. The hill is at the park known as "Canada Olympic Park" - it's where the 1988 Olympic bobsled run was held - and it still is the main site for Canada's Olympians to train on. There's ski jumping and skiing on the hill, too.

Anyway, the route down was to take the bobsled path - this is a path that follows the bobsled run so that spectators can line the bobsled run. It's not really a good route for cycling, and everybody was warned at the top to be very careful, it was steep and there was gravel on it. (What they didn't add is that there's some stairs that planks had been put on to allow our bikes to travel.) No problem if you go slow...

John was making his way down, and behind him he hears this older guy yelling "Go, Go!!!" - and son is in front totally out of control. Kid goes flying. Somehow he hits John while flying through the air - John doesn't know what part of the kids bike hit him, but he's got some cuts and bruises to prove he got hit! John jumps off the path and heads down the grass slope (he still keeps thinking he's Lance Armstrong sometimes...)

Anyway - I was really beginning to woner if I ever wanted to be on John's wheel again...

We did the hill climb, and John beat me by 21 seconds. I finished just shy of 6 minutes (something like 5:50) I couldn't walk - I couldn't pedal. I had a hard time getting off the bike to lay down for a minute. My whole body hurt. I definitely did all I could, it just wasn't enough. To put just how slow I was into perspective, the course record was tied that night at 3:19 Of course, maybe the fact that the next day John and I were racing in a crit that turns out to be the Alberta Provincial Crit championships and so all the best racers from the whole province are there might have something to do with our poor showing...

Which brings up the next event. Provincial Crit Championships. John and I had planned at the beginning of the year to race alot of crits. Actually, to do alot of racing period! Yet... it just didn't happen. So we choose, in our infinitely optomistic way, to race our first crit of the year at the Provincial championships.

Because we're such super-dedicated and hard-training guys, the night before we went out for BBQ (btw, we found a place that has BBQ every bit as good as the best Texas BBQ we had down in Texas!) and then went to the hotel to have a not-so-good nights sleep. During our strategy planning over dinner we finally admitted to ourselves that we were going to get our butts kicked the next day. John decided that he was gonna go out in a blaze of glory... might be a blaze the intensity of a flash bulb, and for about as long, but it would be glory! I decided I was gonna try and hang with the pack for the finish.

Before the race things just didn't seem to be coming together for me. Took me forever to get ready - finally got onto the course to see what it was like. The course consisted of 1km. 100m from the start finish is the first corner - a right hadn 90 - at the end of the long straightaway. No doubt this corner will have some crashes - and the organizers knew it, as it was REALLY well padded. Up to a 45 degree corner, then up a little hill. Not much of a hill, but I knew that at crit speeds, and with a few laps, that hill would be the deciding point. At the top of the hill, a sharp 90 RH turn onto some of the worst pavement I've ever been on. Frost heaves, potholes, the whole works. Only 2 fast lines - hard inside, or really wide. Anything in between would risk throwing you off the bike. A quick 45 RH, followed by a 90 LT (again, really rough road, and the best line is only one bike width wide on the inside.) a 90 RH, another 90RH takes you back onto the finishing straight.

I do an extra lap - bad idea, as they're lining up and I end up at the back. That's okay, the announce the first lap will be a nuetral lap, and then as we cross the start/finish it'll be race on. Race will be for 30 minutes plus 5. Off we go. I'm relaxing, pounding back my gel that was half down my mouth when we started. I guess I should have realized that neutral does not mean slow. By the time we get onto the straightaway we're doing over 45km/hr. Then the racing started.

I'm hanging in the back third, trying to work my way up the group. I know I've gotta get further up, or I'll miss the big accelerations. Second lap and as we crest the hill the pace accelerates a HUGE amount - I'm still on the hill as I see... yup, you guessed it, my team mate Johnny burning his whole match book. He blasted off the hill and opened up a 20 foot gap - looked back and dropped the hammer. By the time he hit the finishing straight he was cooking with a good gap. The announcer was announcing that there was an early breakaway and it was john from the Headwinds... he was getting his glory. By the time we hit the hill again the pack had reeled him in and he was cooked. As I passed him I yelled "get on, let's keep this thing going!" He held my wheel for a lap or two, but he was done. A couple more laps and he was pulled. I didn't know that, didn't know where he was until I went by the finish line and here "go Robbie!!"

I get dropped - not by much, I'm just off the back. It's lap 9. I don't want to get dropped. I put everything in and just as we hit the hill on lap 10 I've gotten back on. In checking my stats later, lap 10 has an average HR of 176, with a max of 179 - I was throwing pretty much everything I had at it.

I'm struggling to recover - I burned alot of matches getting back on. As we hit the finishing straight of lap 11 the speed ramps back up again, and I can't hold it. I needed more recovery. I get dropped. Unknown to me, there's been a group of 3 go off the front.

Lap 12 - I go by the finish line - hey, don't they ever change that "time left" sign?? I'm suffering. I'm not far off the pack, they're only a couple of hundred yards in front of me, just around the corner - I might get 'em yet! An official steps out onto the road in front of me just before the corner waving me to slow down... there's been a crash in the corner. I find out later some guy blew a tire out in the corner and took down the front 5 or 6 guys. (minus the 3 on the break.) That little slow-down to get around the carnage costs me - takes me a bit to get back up to speed (I like that corner, as I had been diving hard into it and taking it at 42-45km/hr.) This turned out to be the decisive event of the race. That slowed the pack in general down enough that the 3 escapees stayed away.

I hammered as best I could, picking up pack-fodder drop-offs along the way trying to get them to work with me to survive to the end, maybe bridge back up. Most were way too cooked. 3 guys hung with me and we tried to work together. Eventually there was only 5 minutes left before the final 5 laps and we all realized we weren't going to make it back to the pack. Now it was about survival. That cost us 2 of our number.

The two of us tried to stay away. We heard the motorcycle behind us - saw it on the hill - and hammered for everything we were worth to stay away for one more lap. But, alas, the 3 breakaways caught us and we got pulled - only 2 minutes more and we'd have gotten to the final 5 laps.

My average hr for the race was 174, with a max of 179 (which I saw on two laps - 10 and 14) My average speed was 39.5km/hr. I couldn't hardly breathe. I couldn't walk. I was in pain.

Now that was fun!

Maybe I should train for this stuff

When I sat down to develop my goals this year I had some pretty high hopes as to what I’d accomplish physical fitness-wise.

I’d planned on riding lots of hills and getting in lots of miles so that I could put some hurt on the Kitty at TBP – that didn’t work out.

I planned on losing 35lbs – that hasn’t happened.

I planned on running 5km 3 times / week – up to yesterday I’d run a TOTAL of 10km

I’d planned on swimming 1km 3 times / week – up to yesterday I’d been in a pool 3 times, and swam a total of 2.5km

The reason why I’d wanted to do the running and swimming was two-fold. One, I figured the extra cross-training would really help with the weight loss, and TWO, I was going to be entering a couple of triathalons this year.

Yesterday was the first. Open Water swim of 1.5km, Bike of 40km, and 10km run. (Olympic distance) I probably should have bowed out and done the sprint distance or something. I really wasn’t ready for this. However, I’d been giving the sprint distance friends of mine a rough time about not doing the Olympic. Guess I kind of hoped myself on that one.

My oldest boy kept me up until 1am Friday night – and even then I slept terribly. Not a good start. Up at 6am to get ready. It was hard rolling out of bed, but I managed. Unfortunately, it meant I was not thinking really sharp. I’d pay for that later.

Loaded my bike and gear (and this time I remember to grab my water bottle from the freezer. I’d put it in just before bed.) and headed out the door.

20 minutes down the road I remember I’ve forgotten my cleat covers. Normally not a big deal, but there’s a section between the swim transition area and where you can mount the bike that’s all sand and dirt for about 100 yrds. Speedplay pedals don’t do well in that crap. I called my wife and asked her to bring them for me. I called her a few minutes later when I remembered I’d forgotten a towel, too.

A little further and I realize I forgot to have any breakfast.

Got T1 set up, picked up my timing chip, etc. and then headed for T2 (the transition areas are 26km apart.) That’s where I realize that I don’t have any gels or powerbars or anything with me. Oh well, at least I’ve got some Gatorade, and it’s only going to be around 3 hrs…

Finally, it’s time, but my wife hasn’t gotten here yet. Oh well, no towel, no cleat covers. I’ll have to deal with it. I try to stay at the back at the start, as I know I’m not going to be fast in the water and don’t want to get kicked too much. No wind (how often does that happen in this country?!) so the water is like glass. One guy hits the water at the front and strikes out so fast that those on the shore can’t believe it. He ends up doing the swim in 17:46 I finish the swim in 36 minutes.

Bike time, my turn to shine. I drop the hammer. I’m trying to break the one hour mark on this one. Closest I’ve come in the past has been 1:08 for a 40km ITT (and that was a cycling TT, no swimming or running.) JohnnyE goes by me and calls out “catch ‘em in the hills!” I make sure that on the hills I really lay it down, and I catch lots of riders in the first 12km. They may have gotten out of the water before me, but I’ll be running before them! (and then I fully expect them to pass me on the run.)

At about the 15km mark I start catching and passing a lot of Sprint participants. Here is where I see my wife. She’s hanging out the window of the van, ringing a cow bell for me as I go by. I smile. Always amazes me how good it feels to have family watching, or friends cheering.

This is dangerous. The sprint participants typically are riding mtn bikes and wearing ipods They don’t hear me calling “on your left” and are swerving all over the road. It forces me out of the aero bars a lot. At the 20km mark there’s a 13% hill of about ¾ of a kilometre, and then a 90 degree left turn onto the main highway. Traffic is backed up most of the way down the hill, and I start passing vehicles on the left. Get to the intersection, hammer across into the main traffic lane and catch the eye of the SUV driver who turned at the same time as me and signal to move over to the shoulder. He gives me lots of room and I’m back down in the aero bars. 20 more km. I reach down for my water bottle and pop the lid to grab a drink.

You know, it’s not a good idea to freeze Gatorade in an insulated bottle unless you’re going to be out on the road for hours and hours and have more than one bottle with you. I squeezed as much liquid/Gatorade slush as I could into my mouth.

I’m in town now. I’ve conserved some energy on one of the big descents (where some people were hammering at 80km/hr, I held back and only did 65 and just coasted.) I’ve held 45km/hr across the flats. I’m close to the one hour mark. I hit the hard right hand turn that loops back on itself as I enter town – and get hit smack in the face by a headwind. Not a stiff one, about 15km/hr, but man, at this point it’s tough to hold speed. I hold speed through all the corners, leaning my TT bike hard. At one point I hit a little gravel in a corner and think I may have over-cooked this one and going down, but I stay up. The final stretch and I can hear my daughter ringing that cow bell from a block away. I smile some more, and sprint hard for the line.

As I approach the dismount area I’m coming up on another rider. I unclip my right leg, swing it over so that when I hit the dismount line I can start running. (or walking in the bike cleat way.) The guy in front of me hits the dismount line and locks ‘em up and swerves into the middle of the lane (he was on the far left.) I lock ‘em up. I feel the rear will lifting. The left hand crank hits my thigh on the way up, but I’m unclipped from it. I start running and save the bike from endoing. Sheesh! I hit the stop button on my bike computer. (The official times have all the transition times added to the bike.) My bike time is just under 1:03.

Now the run. I start out of the transition zone and immediately my calf muscles start cramping. Looks like I’ve pushed the bike a bit harder than I should’ve. Oh well, this should ease up. The first couple of hundred yards of the run are always the worst, right?

1km into the run and my calves are still cramping. Not full on cramps, just right there on the twitching edge where you know it could drop you to your knees at any time. I push on. I’m slow. I check my computer and I’m only doing 9km/hr, but I’m managing to keep my HR around 159.

2km and the cramping has eased, but my legs are tired. I can’t get any speed up. I try to increase the cadence, but my legs just won’t go. I tell myself just 8 more to go – and then I get passed by the first of many Olympic distance runners.

3km – a friend and organizer of the Fort McLeod triathalon catches me. I managed to kick up the cadence a bit to hang with him for a km before he runs off into the distance. HR is now mid 160’s.

Just before the turn around there’s a long hill of about 1km. I get passed by yet another Olympic distance participant at the bottom, but see my friend up ahead walking the hill. I figure if I can keep a good pace up the hill that I’ll catch him before the turn around.

Somehow, I manage to do just that – but my HR is over 170 now. As we turn around there’s a water station there and we walk through it while downing some Gatorade and water. I’m double-fisting the Gatorade in a hope of stopping the bonk and cramps from getting me. Off we go.

At km 6.5 my friend backs off. I’m on my own again. His pacing has really helped me to kick the speed up – I’ve managed 12km/hr for the last couple of k’s.

I get passed by some more folks.

8km – 2 to go. Holy cow this hurts! My body wants to walk. I won’t let it. Speed is down to 9km/hr again. I get passed by some people.

Less than a kilometre left. A member of our local cycling club who did the Sprint has walked down to the bottom of the hill, he crosses the road and starts running beside me, pacing me along, encouraging me – and then I hear that cow bell again. My daughter is yelling “there’s my Daddy!!” and ringing it as hard as she can. My wife and the twin boys are there beside her cheering. I start climbing this last hill.

Someone is a masochist, putting this hill here. It hurts. It’s not long, only a couple of hundred yards, but it’s fairly steep. I continue to speed up. I’m in my version of a full-out sprint now – only a couple of hundred yards left. People are cheering. I can hear JohnnyE screaming my name, one of my son’s has tried to pace me in for the last few hundred yards, but I drop him (revenge for his dropping me on a cycling hill climb.) As I cross the line they announce my name and I glance at the official clock – 2:51:10 A new personal best.

My running time was over an hour (1:06) I hurt all over. I know that’s only going to get worse over the next 24 hours. I enjoy the moment of being a finisher and chatting with my friends. Some people come up to congradulate me and they make a big deal out of my finish – I guess nobody can believe the fat guy did it.

I end up 15 of 26 men, 22 of 40 total. Right in the middle of the pack. Within a couple of minutes of moving up 6 or 7 spots. Lots of room to improve on the running, just need to do some of that stuff. Maybe I should do that before the next one I’ve got scheduled for the middle of August.