September 2011

Summer seems to have come to a sudden end this month. Temperatures this week have dipped below freezing overnight. Cold winds are blowing in. Leaves abandoning their rooted homes. Mornings are pitch black. The s-word has been heard muttering around the house and on local news shows. Snow, that is. Although usually followed shortly thereafter with the more infamous s-word.

Bring on cyclocross season! While I have been able to get in a few good heard workouts on the road bike still, including recently some hill repeats up Mackenzie Lake golf course road with Darryl, the month has seen me fall-erize the Devinci, putting the big knobbies on it, lights on both sides, and a helmet light.
It's actually kind of fun, knowing there is no 100km race for which I must maintain peak performance and "racing weight".
I've also started to increase my running over the course of the month, and am getting in some laps in the pool while Kieran is taking his Saturday classes. I recently bought a cadence sensor too, which has been very interesting to see where my RPMs are at these days. I remember starting out last year and having everyone I ride with comment about how big a gear I pushed and how low my cadence was. Been trying to get that up, and what I've seen is that by now my average seems to be high 80's, low 90's. I'm quite happy about that, but I will try to increase that 5% by next season.

Bit of a set back mid-month with a slight cold + lack of sleep, but otherwise pretty consistent saddle time for this time of year.
Also, missed out on the first two weekend Cross races this weekend due to my brakes being ceased up.
Ended up phoning and visiting 4 bike stores before finally finding 2 sets of cantilever brakes for sale, and put those on today.

Highlights of the month were doing the Terry Fox run with Kieran (4 km around his school, over and over, jumping over and dodging kids), and climbing a crazy steep dirt trail hill at the North end of the Mac Lake Golf Course. Garmin Training Center lists it as 29% grade for about 50 meters!  I had tried it once last year and stalled half-way up. This year, I made it on my first attempt!
(I did fail the next day... when I put my weight on the back to keep the torque going up the hill, the front tire would come off the ground and veer off the trail).
 Here is the Garmin report:



Stats:

• Bike: 31.25 hrs, 860 kms
• Run: 5hrs, 57 kms
• Swim: 25 mins, 400m