Well, unfortunately this month’s report will not contain the expected racing kickoff; ma’ nature has sabotaged the first two races of 2011 – including the one who’s name/style are cloned from a race dubbed “hell of the North”!
That says something.
I did manage to get in my first group ride a week prior. Good ole’ Road to Nepal. For some reason I seem to get this categorized climb out of the way in early Spring each year. Glad it’s behind me now.
It was tough, for me. Dave Holmes seemed to fly to the top whereas I definitely became acutely aware of ever gram I accumulated over the loooong winter, and my lackluster spring training took it’s toll.
Despite a lengthy (20 min) respite at the “summit”, about 20 km into the ride, I was not faring well at holding the tire in front of me, as the pace averaged around 45 kmph. I ended up as part of a 4 man splinter group which diverged to cut about 15 km off the original 80 km trip.
That pace was very light, combined with my 2nd wind, but it was definitely an enjoyable ride, with the company of Mike Huang, a new guy named Aryeh, and a guy on a cross bike.
Not two days later we got another massive dump of snow and cold that would push all us roadies back indoors for another week.
Overall, the month ended well with consecutive double digit temperature days, which cleared the majority of the ice from the pathways!
Days until my first triathlon, and to say I’ve insufficiently prepared for the swim would be an understatement.
My goal will be a) to survive, b) complete the race. A stretch goal would be that I can bike fast enough to catch Vince, or run fast enough to catch Eric.
Leith looks like the strong race favorite. I should be able to beat his bike time, but little else.
Some stats for April:
Bike: 20 hours, 548 kms
Run: ~4 hours, 44 kms
