After a great Cyclo practice with stairs, sprints, and relay's my derailleur decided to break again.  After sprinting through the grass my derailleur wrapped around the gears.  The arm and the little wheels broke off and the chain became stuck between the spokes and gears.  At least it happened at the end of practice.

 

After yesterday's 4 x 1mile in the rain I decided to look ahead in the workout sheet to see what's coming up.  Apparently on this Wednesday the workout is 30 x 400m.  Then on Nov. 1st we're doing 40 x 400m, that's just insane.  That's 12km and 16km worth of intense running.  If you include the warm up, cool down, drills, strides, and running between the 400m that's gotta be 3+ hrs of running (or 25-30km).  This intense jump in running comes out of nowhere!  Who wants to be injuried?  Sometimes I question how these workouts get on the program.

I was up this morning at 6:30am and in the United Cycle van at 7:30am.  Waking up so early in the morning sucks, especially when you know that in Red Deer its cold, windy, and pissing rain.

The Expert Men started at 12:00 so John E. and I had a good long warm up before the race started.  I wore my winter coat and pants on top of my racing clothes.  This stupid mistake cost me later.  Anyway, I had a really good start; I was in second position as the count down came to an end and raced aggressively to hold onto fourth for the first lap.  I managed to stay in third for most of the race and not crash once.  The course was so muddy and wet. I was soaking wet and freezing cold.  I was so cold by that on the third last lap I started shaking and almost decided to quit despite being in third place with no chasing group behind me.  With one lap to go, fourth place caught up to me so I drafted off him.  However, after running through the 25 meter sand pit, I jumped back on my bike, pedaled for about 100 meters and then my piece of shit derailer decided not to work properly and get caught in my spokes.  I stopped and tried to bend it back into place but it wasn't cooperating.  So with half a lap to go and having done 55 min of racing, I had to DNF (did not finish<---quit).  Looking at it positively, my technique is getting better around the corners and I'm getting in better cycling shape (probably because I'm only running twice a week now and biking 5 times a week).

After showering in the College I realized that I forgot to bring extra pants.  As I said earlier, it was really wet and cold out so I decided to warm up in the only pants I had.  So after a nice and warm hot shower (lips are still blue at this point) I decided to look in the lost and found for some dry pants.  Yeah I know it’s pretty gross but I really wanted dry pants.  I couldn’t find any so I had to put on my nasty, cold, wet, dirty pants.  What a rookie mistake!

Next week I'm racing in Canmore, AB and hopefully being on the podium and out of Expert and into Elite.  Hopefully the course will be dry with lots of dismounts and hills.  I need 14 more points so a 1^st or 2^nd would be nice.

 

Hr Avg: 172

HR Max: 181

Total Distance: 17.5km

Result: DNF and a broken derailer

What a disaster of a race.  The race started at 10am this morning when the temperature was dancing around -1C.  The race started out really well.  I sprinted my way to fifth place at the gun.  I got my feet in my pedals very quickly and managed to stay aggressive and hold that position for about half a lap.  However, after about a lap I had no more fuel left in my legs.  They were completely fried from yesterday’s race.  I just didn't recover fast enough to race today.  Each lap got slower and slower and I felt like shit throughout the entire race.  After realizing that I was no longer a top contender my goal changed from a top 5 finish to a "don't get lapped finish." I was beaten badly from people who were lapped in yesterday's race. I know, it was embarrassing but I decided to push on anyway.  I managed not to get lapped and finished in 13th. United Cycle must have been embarrassed to have me on their team haha.

I had absolutely no power in my legs today.  I could even get my max heart rate to yesterday's avg.  Anyway, another Cross race is under the belt.  Looking at it positively, my technique around the corners was very good. A major improvement over yesterday in that aspect.

Max Hr: 172bpm

Avg Hr: 162bpm --that's really bad!

Total Distance: 20.5km

 

Fun Fact: After yesterday’s race I ran over a dog on my bike. Yes, a real Golden Lab-Dog.  It came around the corner as I was biking home and I ran over it.  What a big bump!  My bike was okay and the dog managed to hobble away on 3 legs. I'm sure it's okay.....I think.

Fun Fact #2: During the race today I almost ran over a squirrel. It ran across the trail and almost under my front tire.  Lucky for it because it wouldn't have been moving like the dog did afterward.  It probably would have been crushed lying there as the other 25 riders bike over it each lap.

 

On Saturday October 7 2006, I raced in the Expert Category in the Juventus Cyclo-cross race in Edmonton.  It was an extremely demanding course that required everyone to dismount numerous times throughout the course to run up stairs, hills, over logs, etc.  It was definitely a course the suited my skills: lots of running, fast, hills, and lots of dismounts.  I had a shitty start because I couldn't get my feet clipped into my pedal, so started the race in the middle of the pack.  After about half a lap I made my way up to 6th position and slowly creped my way up to 5th place.  With one lap to go I caught another rider and we raced tactically until about 200m from the finish.  I was drafting behind him and started to sprint with 100m to go.  Unfortunately, he beat me to the line according to the officials (it could have gone either way). That gave me 8 more points for a total of 26 for the 40 points I need to get into the Elite Category.

Max Hr: 183bpm

Hr Avg: 174bpm

Total Distance: 18km

Welcome to my page.  It's the first one I have ever created but looks to be in working order.

Currently I'm in the Cross Country Running and Cyclocross season (it's pretty much riding as hard as you can through mud, grass, pavement etc. and running up some nasty steep hills and over barriers - The steeplechase of cycling).  I'll be racing just about every weekend until the end of November.  In these blogs I'll keep you updated with the unimaginable cross country workouts that I do as part of the U of A team in addition to the cycling workouts throughout the week.

Let me know what you think!