Patrick Dennis

word up

2011-04-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

Two beauties to start you off with.

Lots to catch up on here.

I’ll; try to touch on all the important things that have happened recently and keep it short and sweet because lets be honest, you don’t want to read about every training ride I’ve done since the last time Ive written anything.

One exciting thing that I should touch on is Paris-Ancaster. This was my first race of the season and something that I hadn’t really been doing any specific training for. That being said, I love this race to bits. It’s epic, fast and amazing training for the upcoming season. I think its safe to say that everyone who competed in this years installment of the race can agree with me, especially on the epicness part.

I started off about mid way through the first wave, probably in about 100th position. I knew it was important to get a decent place in the group before you funnel into the first doubletrack along the river, and had the best of intentions to pin it as soon as my feet were clipped in. I guess it panned out? I funneled into the doubletrack in probably the exact same position that I started in and just sort of shrugged it off and kept on plugging. From then on was when my race really got going and it was an attempt to keep picking people off one by one until the end of the race. By midway, the crazy winds and snow squalls were starting to phase me a bit but the Belgium-ness of the race gave me a bit of a second wind and I caught and passed a bunch of people on the second half. Great day overall, love that race and am definitely looking forward to doing it again next year.

I’ve been having some highs and lows with rides recently, and last Friday was for sure one of the highs. I got out with about 15 other people of all skill levels to partake in an annual ride that was started a long time ago by a pretty sweet dude who isn’t with us anymore. We took over the trails and stayed out for about 2-3 hours in beautiful weather albeit a bit windy. Sunday’s ride was pretty uneventful and only lasted 2 hours instead of 4 like I had planned.

These things happen so I won’t sweat it too early in the season. It wont be long till I'm racing and getting my butt handed to me but its all fun and games anyhow. Once the season gets rolling, we will see some drastic improvements and all will be right again. Until then, I’ll be the dude who looks like he is trying harder than everyone to go fast…its because I am.

Candy makes your problems go away.

2011-02-25T08:08:00.000-08:00

I’m pretty sure I’ve been given a complex by a co-worker. There is a good chance that come race season I will be hovering in and around the 90lb mark. Lean is good, right? My tactic isn’t going to be just going cold turkey but to slowly ween myself off the stuff and develop the ability to extract vitamins entirely from the sun. It all makes me excited for those hilly courses but something tells me that it may impact my ability to hold myself up with my own strength. Send me an e-mail if you want on the program. *side effects include almost certain death*

Trying out some new products right now….decided to jump on the Ergon bandwagon for my training bike. Using the Leichtbau something or others, the ones that look like real grips, also in baller white. I have toyed with the idea of trying to go with the flanged ones that are all the rage but my hands don’t really like them for some reason. The ones I’m using however are pretty awesome. They have a really good lock on system and are pretty comfy to hold. Only thing that I have to get used to right now is the volume of the grip itself, it’s huge. Only about 80k on them as of now so once that number is a bit higher I will have a bit more of a conclusive answer.

Since last week I have become a huge fan of Greek Yogurt and also adding quinoa to things I normally wouldn’t have before. As far as quinoa goes, I was never very experimental with it, only really adding it to salads and the odd baked good. As I mentioned, I have been a little more careful with what I am eating, and since quinoa is just awesome for making you full…Boom….I start putting it in my eggs, cereal, pancakes, granola (I like breakfast foods at all times of day), sandwiches, and more. Another good rule of thumb is that if it’s going in a pan at any point, you can probably add quinoa to it.

Did some DIY repair to my booties (had to really think for a second before phrasing that) this morning before work with some needle and thread stitching, some epoxy cement and some good old fashioned staples. Looks L-E-G-I-T.

The plan for Monday is to get two hours of riding in before work…going to be arriving at Joyride for 6am. Watch me zoom around on breakfast television.

Going Viral.

2011-02-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

Hopefully this post isn’t so late that Tristan thinks that I have let him down. Apologies if that’s the case.

I took the weekend off of blogging so that I could do two things….1. Get a consistent amount of exercise done and 2. Sort out my internet connection with my provider who shall remain nameless. To give everyone a bit of a recap of my escapades leading up to today, Friday was spent on the internet…not something that concerns any of you at all but my blog is going to take a serious upwards turn in quality once I can stop doing this during my lunch hour or in that scary corner of my house where I can steal a weak signal from someone down the street. I did manage to get some strength training done in the morning but decided to take the day off my bike because I didn’t want to be blown away by the 80 km/h winds on my way to work.

We have a sweet little set up here at Norco for working out. It definitely has everything I need as a cyclist and sure beats paying 300 dollars a year or more at extreme fitness. A lot of the things I have been doing up until now have been very plank/pushup oriented with some minor leg work thrown in there. I have also discovered the art of the skip rope, which is super legit. Helps you with co-ordination a lot and also makes you think you’re Rocky, which I’m super okay with.

The steed. It's working out really well. Fits like a glove.

I spent last week with a combo of strength, rollers, regular trainer, riding outside and snowboarding. Saturdays outside ride was good but I started way too late so the length of ride I was looking for was a bit lacking but my ride back home was incredible. I love this city. Despite all the crappy brown snow…it’s still a pretty good place to train and live.

Here are some pictures that should sum up a general week for you.

Beautiful ride home in the sunset!

Cruising along the Davenport bike lane.

My desk at work!

The faux babe I created on my bulletin board...Silly calendar + wolf shirt = awesome babe.

I Graciously Accept

2011-02-15T05:11:00.000-08:00

3 big events this week.

1. I have been added to Tristan's blog roll.

2. Tristan has been added to my blog roll.

3. It's going to be 10 degrees in Toronto on friday.

This is huge.

A pox

2011-02-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

Finally had to do an indoor ride for longer than an hour last night...same again tonight. Watched 127 hours...good stuff, always tell people where you are going. This sucks though, because I was really enjoying getting by on all these outdoor activities. Soon enough. Can't wait for above zero temps this Sunday.

What are you even talking about?

2011-01-31T04:31:00.000-08:00

Had a good few days of fun this past weekend. Managed to get up to the cottage with a few friends and just so happened to get some of the most ideal winter weather imaginable during our whole stay. Friday was spent doing work and driving but Saturday found us throwing down a big classic ski around the lake and getting a little bit burnt. In the après midi, we decided it was a good idea to get the shovels out so we could get the pond cleared off so we could refine our hack skating skills. 2 hour xc ski, an hour of pure shoveling and another hour of skating was sufficient exercise to warrant eating some tasty lasagna and beet salad for dinner.

Sunday I ventured off exploring on the skis myself and spend a good amount of time in the woods rather than on the lake.

It was much windier that day and I am just starting to enjoy skinny skis and didn't want to risk having a bad experience with them plowing into the wind.

Might have some better shots on the way. Waiting for them to get uploaded.

Into work early this morning so I can spin but training room is locked so it will be rollers tonight. Might try to finish watching my copy of Black Swan. Intense so far. Cursing that I started it so late last night and had to force myself to bed.

Told you I would.

2011-01-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone has been keeping busy over the past week. It's always hard to stay motivated to get on the bike or do things that keep you fit during these gloomy months. When it comes down to it, unless your eating/exercising regime is truly poor, chances are you wont have to work too hard to keep fit(ish). What you may lose out on however is the chance to drastically improve on last years performance.

Myself for instance...Last year, even though I spent hours and hours riding my bike in the sun over three months, I didn't come close to doing enough intensity and therefore even though my endurance was there, my speed was straight up pitiful. This year, I have a slightly different approach of ramping up a lot closer to the spring months that should either help things or just make me even slower. We will see, I am still learning too you know.

EIther way, my plan thus far is to have fun. I am having fun strangely enough trying to slam down as many pushups as humanely possible in an attempt to just make myself more legit as a person overall. I think its working. Also, snow rides are awesome fyi. Just saying. Here are some photos...

This is a video at King City where we tried to ride in some SICK POW BRO. With rider weight it was more than hub deep at parts and good and tiring to ride through...it is also true that I am wearing a hoodie under my jacket. Sorry if I offend any roadies.

Holy Costanza wallet.

2011-01-16T15:37:00.001-08:00

Good day at Joyride today with a bunch of people from the northern region of Horseshoe/Barrie region. Few hours spend chasing each other around the XC loop and playing around on the skinny sections of the bike park to brush up on how to actually ride a bike. Feels good to get bike work done multiple days in a row and it will feel good to continue this trend.

Tomorrow won't be too exciting though. Have a ton of errands to run in the car but will be able to get a spin in during lunch and probably again once I get home so all is not lost.

You know how I said I was going to take pictures? Yah...that doesn't work very well when you leave your camera in your bag so I'll get to that eventually.

In other good news, saw Mike G. at the bike park today and he brought to my attention that he now lives IN Toronto. Like the legit city part. Always to good to have one extra person to ride with during the winter. Makes life happier. Much talk at lunch/supper with Tammy, Jer, Tristan and Watson about paleo diet vs cold fx daily supplement. Wondering which has better immune booting capacity...ie. which one will make you get less colds and flu's with. Result was inconclusive as food arrived and it was never spoken of again. Pete?

Other than that, hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

Food: Dinner tonight is a big ass bowl of veggies. That is all.

Big Red

2011-01-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

To get one thing straight. I do not have the Internet at home. I know it sounds prehistoric and ridiculous but to be honest I almost like it. 5 days a week I sit at a desk and work on a computer so it;s kind of liberating to come home and not feel the need to go on Facebook or youtube because I can't. That being said, it seems like kind of a waste to have this expensive laptop if I can't really use it. As a result, our house will be getting linked to the online world of social networking within the next few weeks so I will have to just deal with urges and make sure that when I get home I make time to ride and not catch up on episodes of Californication instead. It also means that I will start updating my blog on a regular basis. Crazy I know.

Just got back from Joyride tonight and managed to find a weak connection in a really weird corner of the living room so I will keep this brief. Was my first time bringing an XC bike to Joyride and it was WAY more awesome than I thought it would be. Spent a lot of time goofing around in pumptrack and skinny lines and then did about 30 laps of the XC loop there to get a bit of a workout. Gotta love that place for what it has to offer. Mr Mark Summers and the whole crew there deserve a big high five for what they have managed to accomplish.

Will be building up my new CX bike in the next couple of days. I will be picking up my new frame/fork on Monday and have the parts kit waiting to be transfered over. Quite excited for that. I'm surprised that I am finding time to ride honestly, I really thought that when I took a full time job, I would be toasted after work and just lounge around and get fat. Not really the case. Aside from a bad case of the flu which kept me off my bike for a good week or so, I have managed to ride a decent amount. Especially now that I have probably the most ballin' winter/training bike of all time thanks to the wonderful people at Norco. One thing that I haven't really been doing is taking pictures. I have been pretty good about keeping my twitter account pretty stocked with "flair" but my blog is a whole other matter. Pictures seem to be the lifeblood of these things and no one wants to read your blog if you 1. don't update it and 2. dont post pretty pictures and videos all the time. It's a work in progress but I am working on it nonetheless.

There have been talks of going back to Joyride tomorrow with some of the crew from up north so I may take them up on that (perfect photo opp). If not, big fun outdoor winter ride. It's really, really crappy and wet out right now so no trail riding for the time being, only epic mtb park system rides...which despite sounding terrible are actually really fun.

Racecar bed needs a new garage

2010-12-01T06:10:00.000-08:00

Moving is a pain in the butt, always will be. I just happened to have gone through this process, probably slower than necessary but feel the need to tell someone now that it’s completely done.

Continuing…Riding has been on and off this week so far, with moving on my table, I have been more occupied with lifting and driving in my spare time as opposed to riding. I do plan on having a pretty big weekend and if all goes well, I may even opt to do a little cyclocross race on the 5th. Not going to lie though, I am ready to start training for next year.

This is going to stray from last year’s formula a bunch though, staying in Toronto can be a pain in the butt when you are racing against some people who are going to Girona for three months, but to a certain degree I’m sure it’s going to toughen me up. After my season this year I have way more of an idea on how to better prepare myself for this upcoming season. It’s going to be a good time this year, I’m looking forward to going on freezing group rides and watching a bunch of movies on the rollers after long days of work.

I plan on making flexibility a bit of a higher priority this year, looking forward to seeing results…maybe I should buy a Wii so it can tell me how to do yoga.

New job is going really well so far, can’t say enough good things about the people involved with this company. Looking forward to the year ahead and building my new race bike. Can’t wait to post pictures when it’s all finished, Starting off with this and will be changing a part or two…

I'm told that more pictures need to be used here so I'm on the case. Next time.

Breaking bad habits.

2010-11-16T17:38:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, I would like to thank those of you who have been getting on my case about doing this again. It feels good. I'm sorry.

As you may have noticed, a lot can happen in 4 months. New home, new career, new bikes and new friends to name a few.

To give you all a brief synopsis, the season end was a little bittersweet for me. I hadn't reached most of my goals and I was really, really tired but I have to say that in the fun department, this season exceeded my expectations in every which way possible. And for that I want to do it all over again.

Big news to note is that the logos I sport over there on the side have changed. I now am working full time for Norco Products and am really enjoying it so far. I've already gotten on a few of the bikes and have nothing but good things to say about them and the organization behind them. Lots of good people there and looking forward to moving in this direction.

That being said, I never moved away from the Trek Store because I didn't enjoy riding their bikes or didn't enjoy working there. Barry Near and everyone at the Trek Store are essentially the reason that this sport has grown on me and developed from a hobby into a career and passion. I can't thank Barry and everyone at both Trek Store's enough for everything that they have done over the past 9 years and wish them nothing but success down the road.

In case you were wondering, even though I haven't really been racing, I have been riding. My new office is a lovely 22km away from my current residence and I have been riding to and from work everyday, which has been awesome actually. I've decided it's the perfect distance that doesn't require me to put tons and tons of "focus" on recovery and still keeps me thin and fit for this time of year. I guess you can consider my training for next season started. I haven't started riding in doors yet and don't intend on it until absolutely necessary. When you work for a distributor it's not terribly difficult to come up with the parts to make a beater mtb for the winter months a la Eric and Peter.

That being said, Im in the process of moving and my new place has a pretty swell area for my rollers, so we will see once I get that sorted out.

Went to joyride on Friday after riding in and will be going tomorrow as well so this week should be another good week.

I will be updating this more often now but will have to do things bit by bit because I'm too tired to recap 4 months of events in one sitting so stay tuned!

Tasty Lunch

2010-07-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Baby spinach

2 Hardboiled Eggs

Hefty amount of Alfalfa Sprouts

2 Raw Beets (Thanks a lot Adam, now I'm hooked)

Strawberries

Flax seed oil

Canmore Race Report

2010-07-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

Done and done. First pro National Championships out of the way. The day was wild pretty much right from the get go based on the sheer volume of waffles that Adam and I consumed (Not to worry, gluten free so no ‘poofy-ness’). With that out of the way it was off to the Nordic Center. Rick Batty and Zach had gone a bit early to set up the tents so it was all business with we arrived, or in other words it was pure chaise lounge time. We had spend a bunch of time all getting our bikes ready the day before and I had decided to change tires to something a bit slicker than my Karma’s. The course was still really bumpy though and flats were a definite concern so I decided to go with Continental Race Kings. They are a fast rolling tire but have big volume so they still soak up lots of impact and on the super bumpy stuff were a huge bonus. Those of you who raced Buckwallow would appreciate them a bunch, they would be perfect for that course assuming its not a mud fest like a few years ago.

I got called up about 4th row in the Elite Men’s category. There were 36 of us in total so that put me somewhere smack dab in the middle of things, if not slightly towards the back of the group. The start loop was short and stupid. We blasted off at mach 10 up the feed zone climb and hit some bumpy doubletrack for all of 30 seconds before we were spit out in a group onto the road. Round again, we went up the feed zone climb again and then back down in front of the nordic center building and then back up another open climb (that’s right, again) before we started the real climb into the singletrack. If that all sounds confusing, it’s because it was. As it was Nationals, the organizers wanted to give the spectators something cool to watch which I can totally understand, but it was boring doubletrack climbing and well we have to start mountain biking at some point. If my description makes it sound hard, that is also true. All that big ring climbing totally KO’d me for the first lap and it turned into one of those survivorman type races. Second lap I had recovered on the totally awesome descent and started catching people on the climb when I could go at my own pace. A lot of other people were gassed from that start pace too. The rest of the race went down with little excitement and I rode with Matt P to the end. Finished 25th or 26th in all. There were a few DNF’s that were inevitable either from exhaustion or the downhill eating parts of your bike.

Even though the start loop was silly, the rest of the course was actually super awesome. 200+ meters of climbing was probably a bit much per lap but it was super super fun to go down with the singletrack being super fun to ride. Look for next years Canmore course to blow this one out of the water though.

Post race was all about recovery nachos. Went out with Emily, Adam, Zach and Rick to the local establishment and ate too many jalepenos. Photo documentation will probably surface on the interweb somewhere.

Sunday’s race was wicked, as I wasn’t racing and could go down to set up and leave all the chaise lounging to Zach who was great to us the previous day and watch him completely destroy the expert men’s field. Putting a 100 foot gap on your field in 10 seconds isn’t easy to do. He ended up winning by something like 2:15 so watch for him to put tons of hurt on the pro field next year. Jon Barnes was having a great race until he unfortunately crashed out and ended up with a concussion. I can definitely sympathize there so I hope he is fully recovered asap.

Currently driving back home to Toronto and are sitting somewhere between Winnipeg and the Ontario border. When we haven’t been driving, Zach and I have been making slide shows of the trip on Imovie so we will each have up our own in a day or two.

Last but not least I want to throw big thanks out to everyone who was there this week. Zach especially but all the Trek Canada/World team were super fun to stay with and also Rick who volunteered his time to help out at the races and feed me during mine too.

Good luck in Europe everyone who is going/already there!

Canmore - National Championships

2010-07-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

In the Canmore now, have been for a few days now. For a town that seems to ooze relaxed atmosphere I seem to be keeping myself pretty busy. First and foremost, it’s insanely beautiful here which just makes it so hard to rest and recover for this weekends race when ALL you want to do is ride ride ride.

First day we got here it was snowing. You heard me right, snowing. Blanketed mountain ranges and slush barreling down on the town provided the backdrop for believe it or not, one of the most enjoyable rides I have been on in a while. Zach and I set out when it was pouring rain and went exploring. Both of us have had stints of living out west so we relished the opportunity to ride similar terrain again. Stopped for a coffee break and finished up the ride with only about 2 hours in our legs but it was enough. Rain is rain and it was just nice to get the legs moving again.

Wednesday was course day. Did 3 laps in the morning with the rest of the Trek family. My first impression of the course was that it was so much climbing that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the race on Saturday. Sure enough though, after doing a few laps you get used to the pacing of the climbs and start to understand where to push and where to chill out and you get the hang of things. After cruising down and eating the biggest panini of all time I headed back up and killed another lap and a half but stopped there due to bear warnings and the fact that I was alone.

Today was a little bit more chill, bit of stretching, rode two laps and then came home to eat a monster taco salad. Delish. Some SMR and stretching to cap off the day and Im knackered. Assuming I recover well tonight I might do a race lap and one super easy lap to make sure I’m 100% on the course. Im feeling more and more confident on the course day by day so if I pace myself the race will be painful but should go well and I’m looking forward to it.

Emily riding my 29er. Tell me it's not faster.

Edmonton Canada Cup report

2010-07-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

So Sunday came and went with some good company, some great weather and a course that was surprisingly fun to ride. We (Emily, Adam, Eric, Eden, Rick, Zach and I) were staying with Kirk Hamilton and his wife Serena, who were extremely welcoming and very gracious in letting us use their kitchen to eat and floor to sleep.

We arrived at around noon on Sunday so that the Trek Canada team could do a small loop with some super enthusiastic kids before our race went off. Looked like everyone was having a good time. Zach and Rick had gotten there a few hours earlier and set up the tent so when we arrived after watching an explosive and disappointing tour stage we were all a bit shocked at how awesome it looked. Having the trailer, with all the tents side by side looks super great and definitely drew a crowd throughout the day.

It had rained the day before but overnight it had dried up so much that we all decided that running a bit of a faster tire would be the best idea so I went with Bontrager XR0’s front and rear which was perfect. There was one small muddy uphill that had I run something more aggressive I might have been able to ride it but I didn’t see a single person ride it anyhow so I still feel I made the right decision. My race performance however was a bit lackluster. Because of my recent Euro trip I had spent a decent amount of time in the gym but 100% of it off of my bike so as soon as the race took off up the first hill it felt like my lungs were going to get heaved up onto the ground. In the grand scheme of things, this is how it is supposed to feel anyhow so I kept on chugging away into the single track and got caught up in a bit of a train that had formed. Even though I felt like I was pushing hard, my legs weren’t burning like they normally do during a race and actually felt too good considering how hard I was breathing. This was annoying because we were going...well, really slow and I wanted to speed up but could not whatsoever. By the time my third lap was coming to an end I was starting feel really bad and couldn’t recover from the very anaerobically demanding course. Unfortunately, so much that it put an end to my race. I felt pretty bleh after the race and just kind of depressed that I had to pull the plug. On the bright side though, my legs did feel okay and with all the great riding I have the opportunity to do this week I am one hundred percent confident I can make it up this upcoming weekend at Nationals in Canmore.

After the race, everyone on the team helped Zach and I take everything down and get everything loaded back up into the trailer. All the bikes got washed and stored until everything was all purrdy just like when we came. Needless to say, I’m actually really excited to show off all our awesome bikes, the balling trailer and tents at next weeks event. Zach and I stayed and swept the course for markers and tape and helped Kirk anyway we could as thanks for letting us stay with him and for putting on such a great event. Team Trek Canada however, did have an exceptional day with everyone putting in a super solid effort with 2 podiums and everyone putting in a top 10. No crashes and no mechanicals, mostly in part to Zach who made sure that all of their bikes, (mine too!) worked better than they ever have. Would like to thank Rick Batty as well for the feed. That family has feed zone techniques on lock.

In the car right now bout 40km away from Canmore and have hijacked Emily’s Ipod so we can blast Lady Gaga and make Adam feel uncomfortable, even though I'm sure he’s just as into it as we are. Stoked to have a full week of riding here to get my body up to speed with what it should be doing. Ill keep everyone posted as much as possible along the way!

2010-07-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

Truck stop stories. Zach eating caramel corn. Popcorn covered in caramel molded into the shape of a cob. Delicious.

Alive and well....

2010-07-09T16:58:00.001-07:00

Almost there...

Out about on my bike today with the rest of the gang. Zach, Adam, Emily and Kirk (who was very generous in letting us stay here) went to the course today to check it out. 5 minutes in, it was easy to see why I was really enjoying myself, it's the EXACT same as the don valley trail system, just...well..different in it's own westernly ways. Did one lap with Adam, Emily and Kirk then went for a tasty coffee just up the street (this is a definite perk of having a venue in the middle of the city). Zach and I were still ironing out our legs from our long drive so we hit the trail for two more laps and went a bit harder and draining our bottles super fast. It was hot today and the punchy steep few climbs are making me very happy that I added bar ends before I came out here.

Adam trying to sneak attack pictures of people.

Going to take a whole bunch of pictures tomorrow to give you guys and gals back east a taste of this west coast Don feel.

The entire prairies summed up in one photo

Training wise I think this race could go very well considering my recent time off the bike. Heartrate was a little high today but that was expected, all in all. Going to be a great warm up for Nats.

"Did you get all the beer?" - Adam Morka

Eat your salad, no dessert.

2010-07-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

Jeez, I guess I dropped the ball a bit after my last post. Time to make up for it. Things are in motion to get myself, Zach Tatem and the whole team trailer to the Edmonton Canada Cup and then Nationals in Canmore Alberta.

We are somewhere just outside of Thunder Bay right now with one full day of driving behind us. The whole day was pretty painless and we and the trailer are all still in one piece.

Before I continue with this however, let’s backtrack. I arrived home from Europe on the 30th at around 7:30 pm and was supremely excited to get back to everything I was missing ie. Laura, regulated nutrition, bicycles and my own bed. I had been experiencing some discomfort in my right knee and had attributed it to the running and weight training that I had been doing combined with not enough stretching. Fair enough, I had that coming. When I woke up the plan was to head to Durham for hours and hours to got a good long ride in that would leave me gassed and at least get some of my riding legs back before we headed out for this trip. I had been trying to stretch as much as possible for the last bit since my knee started hurting and again once I got home but apparently it wasn’t enough, I lasted about 2 hours before I had to call it a day and head home. After more stretching and a good sleep I felt better and headed out on my road bike for a bit in the morning before heading to The Trek Store to get some work in. Again, lasted about an hour before heading home. Uh oh. At the very least, I managed to get in some good efforts right? After some worrying and intense amounts of stretching I did manage to curb the problem and now my knee is just glorious. Went for another mtb ride on Saturday with Row-bear after work and managed to get a stick caught in my something, which stopped something from rotating, which in turn ripped off my derailleur. Wonderful, half an hour of riding that day with 45 minutes to an hour of walking ahead of me to gt back to the store. Fiddlesticks. That is until thanks to Rowbear’s wonderful piece of Bontrager apparel, we McGiver’d a tow rope and I was pulled to safety. Highly recommended for those interested in electric bikes. Why spend thousands of dollars when there are fit co-workers for free?

Sundays ride was great. Headed out with Mr. Carleton on the road bikes for 4.5 hours after the first crash filled stage of the Tour. Great stuff boys, keep it up. Oh right, forgot to mention it was 40+ degrees outside with humidity. 7 bottles and zero pee breaks. Even tried to ‘givr’ once or twice on the return and wasn’t sad with my numbers.

Monday was good. Good in the sense that I did something that I should have done many weeks ago. Clean my bike top to bottom. It’s wonderful. All the protective nasty tape is gone, all my parts look new, new cables and even made some cockpit changes for these two western races. It’s even cleaner than Matt P’s bike! (who is having a great season on his Gary Fisher Superfly and has provided the reader with some good info on why you should get one too!).

Yesterday! (almost caught up) Loaded up the trailer bright and early with Barry Near and ZT, who’s name has been phonetically changed to (ZA-CHE TAH-TEM) by telemarketers recently. We headed out around 11 and ended up in White River by around 11, each taking marathon pulls through intense fog in the driver seat. Our accommodations there couldn’t have been better. We were referred by a motel with no vacancy to a small grouping of ‘cabins’ down the road about a km and it was a real treat considering we were fully prepared to sleep in the car. A whole separated cabin with 3 beds, full kitchen, living room, wireless high speed, TV and a very nice lady at the front desk. It was also $55.00 for the night. why can’t they all be like that. A friend pointed out that I should probably write down the name of the place in case we need an extreme northern party adventure cabin. Consider it done Kasia.

After a good family breakfast were off again on the road now and are shooting to get past Winnipeg tonight. We are going to stop mid day and do some form of riding. I have my rollers so worst case scenario rest stop intervals. Have been trying to fit in as many push ups/sit ups as possible during our limited stops and seeing how many I can get up to each day of travel. Yesterday was 180 push ups, 40 sit ups. Did some good jumping squats as well. Should easily beat that today, plus the ride. Aiming for Thursday night arrival in Edmonton or maybe Friday morning latest. Any Trek Canada team members who might read this, your bikes will remain in pristine condition *taps nose*.

2010-06-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

Have been without internet for about 5 days now. Not good. Have a small chance at a train station to update now but due to time constraints will have to tell you some stories later on tomorrow. Have some good info about travelling and nutrition!

Lazer AND Tower?!

2010-06-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

As per my title, I'm watching American Glradiators. My breakfast is digesting, its 9:45am and this is the only thing in English that's on TV. It's OK though, it's getting my all psyched up to go to running in the way that only rednecks with perms can.

The view from my hostel room is beautiful. I have been to Stockholm before and remember enjoying it. When we arrived and were on our way to check in, we passed the neighbourhood I was staying in last time so i'll be sure to go check that out.
(Photo taken on photo booth on my mac and doesn't do it justice)

Starting to get the hang of this crossfit thing and I really am starting to enjoy it. Once you start doing workouts like this one, it makes a big difference. Gotta say though, I can not wait to get back on my bike again. All I want to do is go for a 4 hour ride.

Who is your team?!" - Crazy Norwegian lady "Blue Jays?" - Me

2010-06-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

Good solid days of delicious food here in Bergen. Hours of walking around the city combined with some crossfit workouts to counter my indulgence into Euro cuisine. Took a stroll through a marked the other day and saw some interesting things for purchase. Moose and smoked whale stood out for sure. I frown upon this from an ethical standpoint what with whaling becoming such a problem but man...think of the omega 3's.

Workout yesterday was good:
- 35 minute run
- 5 x 5 Sets burpees
- 5 x 20 Situps with 15 jumping squats in between each set
- As many pushups as possible in 1 minute
- 2 minute break
- As many pushups as possible in 1 minute

Tried to do planks after this but collapsed into a heap on the floor of my hotel.

Saw lots of mountain cyclists around the city here, being essentially in the mountains there is probably tons and tons of trails minutes from here but haven't had time to scope them out. Plus, it would just make me outrageously angsty to be on a bike.

Good photo from Marathon surfaced today. If you scan through them there is an excellent portrayal of Tim vs Puddle.

Gotta go catch train to Stockholm now. Taking the overnight so hope to get a decent sleep, action packed day tomorrow.

Pow! Right in the kisser.

2010-06-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Sitting on a train right now that heads north to Bergen from Oslo. Went for a half hour run this morning around my hotel. Scandinavia, as with most cities in northern Europe, seems to be set up for cycling in a way that dwarfs the best efforts of North American cities, so it’s nice to be in an environment that puts us at a higher priority. I gotta say though, even on my run this morning, the structure of the city makes it super easy to “zone” which could be both a good and bad thing. Good because it allows you to push through pain easier and achieve distance at a perceived faster rate, but bad because according to the Darwin awards, if you “totally zone” when you train, you run the risk of just running off a cliff by mistake.

Another tasty breakfast this morning post run. Hard-boiled egg, slice of cheese, tomato, cucumber and an apple. Carbs this morning were all taken care of by a crepe. Nutrition fun fact: Nutella is available in tubes here. If the world worked the way I wanted it to, I would substitute toothpaste and just brush my teeth with that.

I bought a Runner’s World at the Airport to get myself psyched up to do all this cross training and it’s actually a pretty dope read for any endurance athlete. I’ve learnt that you have to be totally be totally nuts to enjoy “ultra-marathons” and that hill-training provides very similar benefits regardless of the transportation you decide to use. Also there is a wicked article about the pros and cons of using rate of perceived exertion as opposed to heartrate, power, and speed. The result in a nutshell according to most seems to be that training with gadgets is better for the most part but sometimes just going by feel is better to help you avoid overtraining. If you scout around in the interweb you might be able to find the whole article which is called “The exertion factor” and was featured in the June issue of Runner’s World. Lots more info in there too. Learned also that because we are all outside in the sun so much when we ride that on top of sunscreen we should be upping our consumption of brazil nuts. Selenium, which is an anti-oxidant found in brazil nuts and tuna can reduce the skin cancer risk by up to 60 percent.

Probably the most bizarre/intense fact learned this trip from misc running magazines is that Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days to raise awareness for the sport. Some things just aren’t meant to be understood, although you must develop pretty intense cal muscles from wearing heels for so long.

Just passing by a massive green field right now with a lightly graveled trail running through it, then up what looks as if its about a 15-20% grade hill, then off into the distance. I can see why Gunn-Rita ran away with so many wins with this as a training backyard. For the most part though its very reminiscent of Canada, which is probably why we have the fastest riders in the world (give it a few years, I won’t name names now but you’ll see).

2010-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

Much to talk about. Firstly, last Sunday I participated in one marathon race taking place at Ganaraska Forest. This place is huge if you've never had a chance to visit. The course was 67 km consisting of one big lap. The course was awesome and I have to give big props to Substance Projects to putting on the race and bringing more people out to mountain bike races. It's great having more organizers who are willing to "git' er' done'' so to speak.

The race was fun and I had a great first 25 or so km, after that I was all alone in no mans land and had no idea where I was. Unfortunately I took a wrong tun all by myself and lost probably a full 2 minutes but I can't complain, I was "in the zone." and just wasn't looking. Ended up in an decent position and was stoked that I didn't bonk in such a long race.

Other news consists of the terrible passing of Peter's clavicle. It totally sucks as Nationals is coming up but he is one of the most disciplined cyclists I know and am pretty confident that he will have a god performance at Edmonton and Canmore.

I am in Oslo right now. After a really, really long flight to Helsinki on Monday overnight we transferred planes and landed here shortly after about 2 pm. This city is pretty crazy and I really wish that I had my bike here but am liking the selection of foods here and am doing just fine taking a small break from the bike and replacing it with running and spending time doing crossfit workouts at the hotel gym. We head to Burgen on the train tomorrow but am going to fit in a run early morning and then enjoy another Scandinavian breakfast buffet. This morning was hardboiled eggs, tomato, cucumber, organic bread with slice of cheese and fruit salad. Even though it was canned fruit salad, I have been pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to eat properly here. Drastic difference from buffets in the states where waffles are your best bet.

Wish that I could update with pictures because I have lots to share that can only be shared via visual image but I forgot my camera cord at home. Must sleep now.

2010-06-09T06:51:00.001-07:00

Decided to take this past weekend off and not race Midland. Would have liked to but complications and my stomach decided to turn itself inside out all of Thursday night. Lying in bed holding your gut isn't really the best way to pre-ride a course. Having only ridden that course just last year I remembered it being super fun to ride but with upcoming trips to Sweden, Norway and Nationals, it's probably a good thing that I saved some money.

Oh yah, I'm going to Scandinavia in a week. My mom's background is Swedish and Norwegian and she has never been there, so we are all taking a family holiday to go explore.

I have been to Sweden before on a trip a few years ago and really enjoyed it but holy smokes is it an expensive place to live. Either way, the big bummer is that I'm not going to be able to take my bike. As much as I would love to go there for a riding trip, we are going to be jetting around too much to make the potentially $1000+ investment of getting my bike there, around and then back worth it. What am I going to do? RUN. I hate running, a lot. In cities at least, but hopefully new landscapes will provide me with some super cool distractions. Needless to say, I'll take tons of pictures and try to update as much as possible to give you an idea of how training is going.

Today I have a 20min test on the road bike and am NOT looking forward to doing it in the rain so I'm enjoying some oats in the meantime and looking forward to another delicious post ride smoothie afterwards.

blueberries
raspberries
silken tofu
soy milk
flax seed oil
2 scoops hammer recoverite

Blend.

Combine this with sitting on the couch in compression garments and you have yourself an afternoon my friends.

2010-06-02T22:31:00.001-07:00

Just a few pics/videos accumulated from Tremblant.

Post race Nutella binge

Bikes on the roof getting slammed with kamikaze bugs.

The car taking another turn for the worst.

Tristan's moustache.

I got some iiiiceeee creeeaaammmm

2010-06-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

One day, you’ll see. I’ll be updating this thing so often you won’t be able to keep up. However, in the mean time you are all going to have to deal with my lacklustre effort and sub par blogging quality. I’m trying I swear.

I have lots to talk about today. Three races in fact: Dukes epic 8 hour, Mont Tremblant Canada Cup, and the recently raced Hardwood Hills Canada Cup.

The 8 hour was interesting to say the least. I was doing it in a team of 4 with some friends who were all about going to the event with racing as the secondary objective, the first being to have a good time. I was totally prepared, and then some for an atmosphere like this and it was nice change to my typical Sunday race. Of course, I don’t want to give off the image that we still didn’t want to go there and kill it.

The race was going in our favor and we were sitting in second with all of having done one lap. I went out on my second lap with hopes of bettering my first time because there would be far less traffic and getting through the singletrack would be easier. I was about a kilometre from the end and then something happened, however, I’m not entirely sure what. I went down hard, somehow, and briefly knocked myself out. I’m a little hazy on the details but from what I can gather, I finished out my lap totally cross eyed and concussed tossed the ‘baton’ to Nick and went to the first aid tent to use up ALL of their oxygen. I recovered fine from the traumatic event aside from being a little rattled and even tried to go out on another lap but was hurting a bit much in the rib area and didn’t want to push it too hard as I had another race the following week. We ended up 4th but only because the rest of the team were serious troopers and slammed out some pretty solid lap times in my absence.

That's right, someone caught it on camera.

After a week of mostly recovery went by, it was time to get my ass over the provincial border to “La biblioteque de pamplemousse et racinette” (Literal translation for Quebec). Left in the sweltering heat with Matheson on Thursday so we would have a solid night of sleep before pre riding. Having never done any of the Quebec Canada Cups, I had no idea what to expect except what I had seen in pictures from previous years, which was essentially just mud. I thought that was cool, but when we arrived it was 21 degrees out when it was pitch black so our thoughts were that it was going to be warm the next day, which it was. The Tremblant course now ranks as one of the funnest, most awesome mountain bike courses I have had the pleasure of riding thanks to some gnarly climbs, some sweet bicycle atmosphere, and a massive descent. Mountain biking in it’s truest form. My race was far from spectacular but managed to learn a lot about high profile races, like getting to the start pen on time helps you, same with acquiring a timing chip and drinking fluids while you race will probably prevent you from having the cramp of the century. All in a days work I guess. Not to worry though, I still had a smile on my face when I was driving home in the sauna that is Brendan’s car because I still got to ride a super fun course, I got some decent training in the legs, got some better descending skills and had a killer time at a certain establishment post race.

The crepes were awful the next morning though, I might have to write them a letter.

The next race I have to breakdown is this past weekends Canada Cup race at Ontario’s beloved Hardwood Hills. Believe be when I tell you that I have never had a good race here and have had the pleasure of seeing those three horrible little letters next to my name three years in a row due to mechanicals and sickness. Not this year! Finishing this race was honestly my big accomplishment as I was beginning to develop a ‘thing’ with Hardwood and was beginning to think that I couldn’t finish the race no matter how I was doing. All is good though.  
The race itself was all about pacing. I had the pleasure of riding the course on Wednesday morning with Mical Dyck, Steve, and a wonderful customer of the store named Melinda. Following them was great and even though I had ridden Hardwood I can’t tell you how many times, there was still lines that learnt, and riding skills that I’m all about picking up right now. The key from my perspective was that in order to do well come race day, the course was one that required you to be as smooth as possible in the singletrack. There was lots of area where if you were going balls to the wall to pin it, you would be almost start/stopping with all of the sharp turns and tight corners that you had to get around. Pacing was the other thing. In a Canada Cup, the ideal time that race organizers plan for the winner is about 1:45. This usually means that my race will be just a tad over the 2:00 mark. This year the course ended up being 2:05 or something for the winner which meant I was racing for a loooong time. On top of that, I forgot to mention that it was 30 something degrees outside so yah, pacing was key. All in all, it was a killer course that was a blast and the event was put on in stellar fashion by both Hardwood and The Trek Store. Having events like these are what is going to further Canadian cycling so we should all give kudos to those who have the resources and willingness to do things like this so THANK YOU!

Not sure what’s on the plate for tomorrow but I have the day off so who knows, I may do this little practice race in Midland for this weekend. One of those courses you love riding but hate racing. Looking forward to it all the same.

This is a quote from a great movie I just finished watching called ‘No-impact man.’ I highly recommend it. If anything, it will make you really hungry for ridiculously healthy food.

“Its not about deprivation, it’s not about not taking care of yourself. It’s the opposite. It’s about seeing if it’s possible to have a good healthy life simply without wasting so much.”

2010-05-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Albion was cold. Extremely cold, snowing in fact.

When I woke up bright and early in the AM waiting for my chauffeur and current expert series leader to come and pick me up. It's becoming a bit of a tradition for us to eat pancakes pre ontario world cup races and Sunday was no exception.

The drive up there was pretty uneventful aside from the snow. Zach and I were half hoping that our bikes didn't work when we got there so that we didn't have to race in sub zero temperatures.

As it turns out, when you push yourself to go as fast as possible, you warm up pretty fast.

My race was far from perfect but my lap times were much more consistent than Mansfield at least, so things are looking up for me. I gotta say, I'm loving being able to race against these guys. Ontario is such an amazing place for those who want to expose themselves to proper elite racing as we have some of the best mountain bike organizers, some of the fastest guys and gals and also some of the best sponsors you could ever hope for.

This year has been a bit of an eye opener but even though so far my results haven't been that amazing, Im sure they are going to get better, especially now that I have a proper coach and some new tools to help me train.

This weekend was supposed to be the first Canada Cup for me but I think I'm going to be sitting this one out and opting for the 8 hour on Saturday. I think the environment will be nice and relaxed for me to get some decent training in at Mansfield, which for what it's worth, is a 29er's dream.

As a bonus to myself, I got a sweet copy of 'Race Across the Sky' to watch tonight. Should get me psyched up to head out on my bike tomorrow.

See ya!

Success on examinations.

2010-05-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

I hate that I have allowed myself to become one of those bloggers that starts every post with "sorry its been a while' or something similar but things have been INSANE these past few weeks. Work has been crazy in the store as the days are getting nicer and nicer. It's always nice to have the store be busy because you can appreciate that more and more people are getting into the sport but holy smokes, some of those busy weekend days can take years off your life.

With nicer days though comes the anticipation and desire to ride more. Training has been going well since Mansfield. I had a good week capped off by a 4 hour or so mtb ride on Sunday that was great. Felt like I was 1 step ahead of this massive rain cloud the entire time.

This week leading up to Albion looks promising too. Im looking forward to using my new fancy little yellow computer that tells me when I'm slacking off. Seems like a good purchase so far.

In other news, today I saw a nutritionist. I am fully willing to admit that I have the most spastic diet ever and I'm hoping she can help. It went really well and I got a whole bunch of interesting ideas passed along. The only thing that is going to take a bit of getting used to is ditching coffee, or seriously cutting back at the very least. I think I can handle it.

Going for a good ride tomorrow and will regale all with photos and potentially a new video entry. Watch for the shoddy camera work.

MANSFIELD!

2010-04-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

That was awesome. Super fun race. First elite race in Ontario this year was at Mansfield outdoor center. Woke up bright and early at about 8:30 to get my stuff ready and start making pancakes before the fastest chauffeur on two wheels arrived at my house. Pancakes were....delicious. Aunt Jemima can adopt me if she really wants to.
Arrived in time to get the scoop on the course from Barry and be re-assured that it wasn't ni face going to rain cats and dogs. That was a huge bonus but at that time I wasn't quite sure how much dust I was to be swallowing in the near future so I was only temporarily put at ease. Elite men had a hugenormous field this race as team QC came down to hang out too. It made things better too because Im sure it pushed the pace a bit. Once we went off I had slotted myself into a great position through the first lap moving nice and quick through the singletrack with all my pieces in tact and then came around to the feed zone with a big smile on my face thinking I could totally do this for another hour and a half. By the 4th lap, I had started to fade a bit for sure and was making silly mistakes in some of the singletrack. I misjudged a corner a bit and accidentally ran my front wheel off the track and burped it just slightly. Not to worry, the group I was in didn't get too far away as I re-inflated it with mach speed. However, when I was sprinting back up to them to catch up, it was lights out for me. I turned off. I for sure didnt drink enough water throughout the race and that sprint to catch the group I was in just flatlined me. I finished the race in an ok position but could have definitely done better. Had a great night with some tasty Thai food and a Mcflurry to make me feel better.

Overall, great experience, Can't wait to race some more and finally get all this dust out of my lungs from yesterday.

Im alive!

2010-04-16T18:06:00.001-07:00

RECAP!

2010-03-31T14:43:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don’t necessarily follow my antics on a regular basis, let me take this opportunity to enlighten you as to what exactly I do here.

I sit currently on an Air Canada something or other plane, contemplating the good and bad things that have happened to me since starting this blog and subsequently, my adventure in becoming a pro cyclist. Let me tell you there has been a lot of each. To be fair and try to keep you reading a bit longer, I’ll start with all the amazing stuff that this trip has given me the opportunity to do.

Ask yourself these questions. What is your passion? If you could do anything in the world utilizing your skills as a human being, what would you do? Sky is the limit here people so don’t hesitate in your answer because of work obligations or money savings or material commitments, I didn’t. For me the answer is simple. Bicycles. I’m kind of nuts for them. The functionality, mechanical efficiency and finesse of riding a bike might as well be the peas to my carrot. Me of course being the carrot.

Sifting through my confusing analogy which I now regret using, what I mean to say is that on any given day, no matter what I’m doing, chances are, Ill be thinking about the next time I get to ride my bike.
 Recently, in the past few years I have taken a huge interest in racing my bikes. Who doesn’t like to go fast? This interest, which started honestly with a friend saying “Hey, you should race Patty.” has exploded into well kind of what I do now...which brings me to the reason I’m sitting on this plane. People don’t really get the opportunity to say they ‘went for it’ in their lives. In the later months of last race season and the last year of my undergrad, I decided to do just that. I saved my ass off working 7 days a week, still found time to train a bit and hang out with my awesome, supportive girlfriend who doesn’t get my attention nearly as much as she deserves, and booked it down to Tucson to train for my first season as an elite level bike racer.

The three months are over, I rode (pardon my French) a fucking ton, and I did my first pro race in California just last weekend and still managed to finish with a smile on my face. Aside from needing a few minor tweaks here and there with my fitness, things are looking up towards fulfilling my goal of racing at the World Cup Finals in New York state this year. I had a total blast on top of that too.

There were a few minor hiccoughs along the way however. On January 20th, I crashed on my road bike in Tucson and broke my left clavicle, pretty bad I might add. It broke really close to my shoulder so simple surgery wasn’t an option as the bone on one side of the break wasn’t long enough to get screws drilled into. This resulted in a full week totally off the bike, cursing the beautiful weather and that I was alone for the whole thing. My week of bicycle abstinence was followed by a week on a trainer graciously sent down by the BEST STORE IN THE WORLD, which allowed me to train enough so that I didn’t completely lose the fitness I had gained previously. How many employers do you know would do that for an employee? That’s what I thought. Once I got the OK from my orthopaedic surgeon in the states to ride, It was back to longer rides pretty quick. I had company at this point so I didn’t just spend the whole ride focusing on my shoulder, which was nice. I cant say that this was entirely why my performance was so poor at Fontana but I don’t mind playing the blame game a tiny bit. That was the other thing I was sort of grumpy about. Granted, it was my first pro race and I had no idea what to expect, I really did think i was going to do better than I did. I thought my fitness was good at the very least but I guess I have a lot of work to do when I get home. This however, I am looking forward to...a lot. The race was the punch in the guts I needed to really realize what it takes to go fast. The sheer volume of riding that I did means that my fitness base is great and I felt that throughout the entirety of the race. I wasn’t going very fast, but my body was up for doing about 10 laps. The thing I need to work on is the punch that will get you into a good starting position off the back of a start line and keep you there for the rest of the two hours. This, I am excited to achieve.

To keep this short and sum up exactly what I have been trying to say this whole time, is that this was by far, the BEST experience I have ever had in terms of reaching goals. Despite those few problems, I can’t help but look on the bright side of this. I got to go ride my bikes in the sun for 3 months, I got to ride with and race against the best of the best in all of North America, and I even got the chance to explain to some curious people in waiting rooms why the Canadian health care system is pretty neat. Oh, and my tan totally kicks ass, you can ask Barry about that one.

I will surely keep blogging away with my learnings on and about the bike this summer and hopefully people stay interested in what I have to say. I know all my family only reads this for the recipes.

Stay tuned!

Oops.

2010-03-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

That was one hell of an experience. We had done a small grocery shop Thursday and there was a small kitchen in the hotel room so Friday night before the race I treated myself to a tasty microwave sweet potato and a bit of pasta with black beans. Saturday morning, the big day, we all went downstairs to enjoy some coffee, juice and helpings of our tasty continental breakfast before quickly returning to our hotel rooms to prepare bottles and equipment. The women’s race was great to watch as it gave us a bit of an insight into how we were going to have to battle against the wind. Needless to say, it looked debilitating. Here is some insight into what we all raced in. (VIDEO) Congrats to all the women who did a great job yesterday.

I actually somehow ended up getting a pretty sweet call up, about 4th or 5th row. I have no idea how that happened because I currently have no UCI points and did not compete here last year and haven’t raced at all this year. Ill take it though. The start loop was interesting to say the least, the ground was loose, it was twisty, tight and fast so 100 pros going through there at almost top speed meant a lot of people washing out/un-clipping and fighting for position. It was a pretty big shock to the system and my good call up got thrown out the window. Up the insanely steep climb I was probably in something like 60th position and at this point it was too tight for out section of the group to all be riding so off our bikes we got and up the hill we went. I had started to settle into a bit of a groove on the second lap but due to my own silliness, when I was coming through to get my feed on to start my third lap, I was looking down, frustrated with myself for being in the position I was in, subconsciously shook my head while I dropped my bottle, which signalled that I did not need a new one. Oops. Huge thanks to Cindy Batty though for feeding me, she is a feed zone guru and it was 100% my fault for shaking my head. Oh well! No bottle it is and I'm off on my third lap. To make up for the missing bottle in my bottle cage I had a gel, which was tasty for about 10 seconds until I had no water to wash it down and then became stale in my mouth and just tasted gross. It was much better than nothing though. I kept going and finished out my race in 73rd, out of about 90 something starters, losing a few positions on that lap.

I had no idea what to expect coming into this race but I’m not going to lie, I really did think I was going to do better than I did. I have a lot to do and even though this was a poor performance from me, I realize now what needs to be done for me to fulfill my goals for the season, which remain unchanged. I know my performance will improve now that I know the intensity that I have to train with. Overall however, It was a great experience on one of the toughest courses in the North American circuit and in some of the craziest weather. Im just satisfied I didn’t DNF like many other people.

Next on the chopping block is to get packed up and head home to Toronto. I am really looking forward to getting into my own bed and back to my old training grounds so I can improve for my next race which will probably be Le Bicicletta’s Hell of the North and then Paris-Ancaster for some more intensity before the Ontario and Canada Cups start. Mansfield is about a month away and Im still hoping for top 10 in that race.

See you in Canada!

WInd, 2:30 start times, race days.

2010-03-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

Its 9 am here in Fontana, made the beautiful drive here just fine on Thursday so we could ride the course a few times before the big day (today). Just had my tasty continental breakfast and am drinking a hotel room coffee, looking outside at the gale force winds that are literally bordering on uprooting some trees. Its pretty wild stuff. Luckily for us, we start our race at 2:30 and hopefully it will have died down by then.

The course is nuts, its the first bit of real mountain biking I've done in a while which is really nice. Tucson has some great trails but they are either straight up, straight down or totally flat and boring. Not going to lie, the nerves are starting to get to me, so I'm just ready to get this done with. Our 5th lap is going to suck big time.

On a lighter note, Barry, the owner of the Trek Store is in Fontana and might actually be racing right now. He brought me a brand spanking new kit to race in and like I've said before, if you look great you'll do well haha. Anyways, gonna go stretch some more before we head down to watch the pro women's race so wish me luck everyone and I will have a full race report ready tonight or tomorrow for everyone to read.

See ya!

2010-03-21T17:02:00.001-07:00

*thank you Emily for taking the pictures.

Great training up Lemmon today with some Ontario folk. Made some sweet videos. Here is shoddy self video of my daring attack of the easy paced group ride.

Two first names for a last name explaining the benefits of elliptical chain rings.

oh dear, this is really happening.

2010-03-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Up early, having a cup of coffee and making some black beans for breakfast. I have had a good last few weeks as far as training goes. When my mom was here I found a great new road that took me out for over 5 hours in the brilliant sunshine.
I have been loving the weather we have been having as of late but nicer weather also means that other things, aside from summertime are approaching. The first races of the season are right around the corner and I can't tell you how excited/supremely nervous I am to get out there and mix it up.

It all really started to soak in last weekend when the first US Triple Crown race went off. Aside from the brilliant performance of the other Trek Toronto infused athletes Adam Morka and Peter Glassford, I was finally coming to terms with the fact that I was going to lining up at Fontana with not only these guys, but Kabush, JHK, Plaxton, Taberlay and the list goes on. Luckily, due to my zero priority starting position that I will have, I'm pretty confident that I won't have to deal with following any one's wheel haha.

What are my expectations for this race? Do I have any? No, not really but let's be honest, considering the field, I would be happy with not coming dead last in my first pro race. I watched the footage of last years race on Cycling Dirt last night and made a few goals for myself that I think are going to be realistic for me.

I would absolutely love to be able to finish top 40. In a field of 120 men like last year, I would also be totally happy with my ride to finish in the top half. For the most part, I just don't want to make a fool of myself and see those horrible three letters next to my name at the end of the race. Unless there is some sort of catastrophic mechanical though, I can't see this happening. My full proof plan is to go out to the start line, rip it and see if I can't push my way overly aggressive tires I brought down with me up and down that hill as fast as the next guy.

I am really excited to race my new bike, with friends in a crazy huge race and just be toasted when I cross the line. I will have a brand spanking newly designed kit for the race too so I mean that's gotta move me up 5 or 6 places at least too. Looking good is half the battle.

Hey, it's something.

2010-03-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

Not much of an update but here is me cruising through a street that takes me to my favourite place to do intervals. I promise my camera work will improve one day.

Bug Spring trail MTB ride

2010-03-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

Fun stuff today on the MTB. Apologies for the ridiculous sudden tone drop in my voice. I also have no idea how to turn off my camera apparently.

What is it you want to hear?

2010-03-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

Video update. Sorry for the shoddy camera work and the template changes. I have been experimenting.

Recipe! Vegan 'Neat'-Loaf

2010-03-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, this actually turned out better than expected. Consistency was that of a rice bake more so than what I can remember from actual meatloaf but held together nicely was so good to have next morning as breakfast side dish. When and if you do make this, just keep in mind that it is not at all supposed to re-create the taste of meat loaf (it's better).

1 cup cooked basmati rice
2 cups chopped/peeled carrots
1 cup red lentils (I was out so I cooked up some black beans and that worked out just fine too)
1 cup diced onion
1 1/2 cup thick rolled oats
2 stalks of celery
8-10 ounces tomato sauce
2 teaspoons of sage
2 teaspoons curry powder.
1 egg (optional)

m'kay...

Start by making the basmati rice (it will be done when it's needed to complete the loaf).
Steam 2 cups of carrots until tender enough to mash and set aside.
Simmer 1 cup of lentils or beans in two cups of water until soft (15-20 minutes, note: dried beans take WAY longer), then put them in a strainer in the sink and drain excess water.
Use a potato masher to mash carrots, then combine the lentils and carrots in a bowl with onions, sage, curry powder, oats, celery, tomato sauce and cooked basmati rice.
*fun part* - mix all ingredients really well with your hands. This is where the optional egg comes in. If you are planning on using it as a next day sandwich filler or something similar then the egg would just hold everything together a bit better, so if so crack it in and start mooshing everything around.
Grease either 2 loaf pans or one casserole dish (i used casserole dish as you can see but once you get to this stage you can see how much filling you have to work with, its a lot) and bake in the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes. When finished it should be browned a bit on top and the middle shouldn't be too moist. Let cool for 15 minutes then serve.

Lots of good for you stuff in here but if you wanted to make it even tastier serving it with avocado is excellent (my breakfast this morning). Also, I'm sure there is a way of incorporating quinoa into this but will have to experiment next time. Cheese would probably make this tasty too but I'll leave that up to you.

If anyone tries this and likes it, or has any suggestions I'm all ears!

2010-03-08T10:20:00.001-08:00

digging this band right now, great riding tune. They are playing in Tucson just before I leave...hmm

Don't be sad if you can't see the whole video.

Dude, look to your right. Look at that guys shorts.

2010-03-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

The past week has provided, with a few minor exceptions, hands down the most perfect riding weather ever. This is totally starting to make up for the rainy days that aren’t as much fun.

Good week of training. Some intensity, some mountain biking and some long rides. For the most part though, I have been feeling kind of like my body is lagging behind me a bit. Not that much, but enough for me to take notice. I made so much progress in the first three weeks that I was here it was crazy. In my head I had made fake plans to continue improving at this rate and by the end of my three months here be the fastest...person...ever. RIdiculous I know, but it sure felt that way for a while. Although after my collarbone break, improvement tapered off a little bit, I am now improving more and more and taking it day by day, the only thing I have to come to terms with is that it’s just not at the same rate as when I first arrived. No big deal.

Having a blast with some of the workouts that I have been given to do down here. Since we are closer to race season, my intensity has ramped up and my long easy rides are starting to get toned down to only about two days a week now, instead of 4 or even 5. As far as intensity, on Wednesday, Laura was leaving so I wanted to spend as much of the day as possible with her so I had 2.5 hours planned. Did quick rip around the Saguaro loop and then took the long way to Catalina Highway (the highway that goes up Lemmon). I have a love/hate relationship with this road now because it is perfect for doing intervals on but well...usually when I’m there, im killing myself doing intervals. My ride home from there is about 15-20 minutes of cruising so it’s perfect to finish off rides there and get the sensation of putting in strong efforts at the end of a race. Killed it with some 40/40’s for about 20 minutes, then 10 minutes of cruising up and down the road, then another 20 minutes of 40/40’s. That second set of efforts is the one that gets you making silly faces as you are cranking away at the pedals.

Thursday was a bit of a bust because of how sleep deprived I was after Laura left. Her flight was leaving at 6:50 in the morning and because she was traveling internationally, it was recommended that she arrive nice and early for her flight. Needless to say, the shuttle came to pick her up at 3:15...EUGH. Even though it was a beautiful day I did two easy hours and then called it quits to come home and stretch and relax. Friday however, was awesome. I got a decent nights sleep and had some tempo intervals to do so up the mountain I went. 3x20 minute efforts were good. There was a bit of wind so it was hard to tell how I was improving because even though I felt great, my speed seemed slow for how hard i was pushing. The next thing I have to sort out when I get home is some sort of power meter. The more I’m training now the more I can appreciate the benefit of having that as an objective way of determining progress. It can get pretty windy down here and that can screw with your head a lot. A super windy day can completely destroy you emotionally even if you are pushing hard or make you think you are having a great day when you aren’t doing anything special. But either way, After doing my tempo workout up to mile 15 I came down, grabbed an Iced tea at the coffee shop and kept onwards to do another lap of the ‘east end’ finishing with a 74 mile day with lots of climbing and what seemed like a billion kcalories burned. I felt wiped but my legs felt great all day and this morning when I woke up at 5:20 to get my ass to the shootout, they still felt good. It takes me a long time to get to the university starting spot where the ride leaves from, about an hour or so. So theoretically, riding there, doing the whole ride to Madera and then riding home from the university would be a 7 hour day with tons and tons of intensity. Eff that. I have found an excellent formula of meeting up, pushing myself in the lead group till my heart feels like its going to explode, then riding home, usually taking a few detours along the way. Today was no different, except my legs exploded a bit earlier than I had hoped. Oh well, still got 4.5 hours in with what felt like a 40 minute sprint.

Tomorrow Im going mountain biking again. This time heading to what seems to be Tucson’s answer to the Don Valley trails. It’s called “Fantasy Island” and is something like 4 square miles of land but has 28 miles of flatish singletrack packed into it. Excited.

Oh forgot to mention that there was a guy at the shootout this morning who had old school Sport Swap shorts on. CJ, two first names for a last name and I were flabbergasted. New goal is to find out who that is.

Here are some pictures of the last little while.

Laura and I ate at this place near the Trek Store here in Tucson called the Guadalajara Grille. Holy smokes it was amazing. Here is Laura's meal.

On my first mountain bike ride.

It doesn't get easier, you just get faster.

2010-03-04T14:14:00.001-08:00

All by my lonesome again. For a little while at least. Laura M left on the 27th, was great having her. Laura B left this morning. Sad goodbye at 3 am when the shuttle came to pick her up. In retrospect though, It is only 27 more days until I am caching my own flight home so I'll survive. Can't believe it's gone by so fast.

I tried to get out and do a proper ride this afternoon and actually thought my body was feeling good after a small core workout but even the sunniest of days couldn't keep me out for longer than 2 hours. I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep right now after waiting up with Laura and did not feel good on the bike so going to take it easy today to prepare for 5 hour day with tempo tomorrow. Going to try to get up early enough to do the shootout on Saturday, maybe I will see some Canadians?

Yesterday, today were amazing weather-wise and it looks like the rest of the week are going to be stellar as well, so looking forward to working on my silly tan. Had lots of arm warmer days in February so it's not as bad as some might think. In about a day I will be done my book so if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears. So far this trip I have read:

"What is the what" by Dave Eggers (I actually had started this book about a year ago but it got put on the backburner and then I finally finished it when I got here. Despite my procrastination, it is actually a super interesting and intense read about a refugee who makes his way across the better part of Africa during the height of civil war.)

"The Cyclists Manifesto" by Robert Hurst. (About bicycle advocacy. I like it a lot actually, lots of interesting history about the bicycle and not preachy as one would expect)

"World War Z" by Max Brooks. (An oral history of the zombie war. Sound stupid? read the reviews, its incredible, super fast read and super interesting)

"Let the Right One In" by John Lindqvist (Great book, If you liked the movie, which was hard not to, then you will love the book. Lots of great back story to the characters that you didn't get in the movie.)

Good news though is that mother bear is coming to visit soon so another Costco trip is in order!

Now that it's March, my training has cut down slightly on hours but has definitely increased intensity. A lot less long easy rides and now more long-ish super intense rides. I like it though, structure and me work well together and I like the progress that I'm seeing so far. In a way I'm looking forward to getting back to Ontario to get back on my old road ride stomping grounds and see if some of those hills still hurt like they used to. probably.

I went mountain biking on Tuesday. Managed about 4 hours all together and had a blast. Took it nice and easy on one or two of the descents (reallllllllly don't want to crash again for a bit) but ended up climbing up Lemmon on the road part to mile marker 7 or 8, went in the Bug Springs trail and climbed, climbed, and then climbed some more. Its pretty steep and doesn't really let up but is one hell of a way to get your heart rate up. Had a total blast on the way down, took me about 10 seconds to get used to my bike again. It's so awesome. Anyone who has been apprehensive of the whole 29er thing - THINK AGAIN. Go HERE and try one out, they are wicked fast. I recommend the Superfly ;)

Rain.

2010-02-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

Not that I really have much to complain about but this is what I woke up to this morning. Lots and lots of rain. Riding in weather like this can either make for great rides or miserable times. Had a pretty hard interval session planned for today and hammering it out in the rain was incredible, especially with the right tunes. Flatting on the way home and barely being able to fix it because my hands were frozen...not so much. I was filthy when I came home but it was just a great time.

Spent some time downtown yesterday, drank some coffee read books. Reading 'Let the right one in' right now. Excellent.

While downtown yesterday made another shopping trip to Food conspiracy co-op. GRANOLA!

Left to right Organic Agave Nectar, Organic Local Honey, Fresh organic almond butter (cheaper than I have ever seen), Fresh organic cashew butter, Fresh organic peanut butter
Underneath is a bunch of oils and soy sauces.

Not a bad view from a ride earlier this week.

One of the only pictures I have of me that wasn't a self shot. Felt I had to put it up.

Why are you doing...whatever it is you're doing?

2010-02-22T17:06:00.000-08:00

These days, focus in the cycling industry all seems to point towards the future. What is the next evolutionary step in the technology we use? What are we going to do to prepare for next year?

From my point of view right now though, it feels like looking forward is the last thing I need to be concerned with. Sitting down at a coffee shop on a rainy rest day in downtown Tucson, Arizona, a city that hasn’t changed substantially since the late 1800’s and where pigeons haven’t reached that stage of urban de-evolution where they no longer use their wings and simply waddle away from predatory child-kicking, has me thinking about what aspects of cycling really have changed over the years?

I mean of course interpretation has a lot to do with it when you closely analyze the mechanics of what has evolved in the construction of a bike, but objectively? A bike is the same as its always been: two wheels and a frame that operate on a chain drive and propel the rider forward under their own power. The same can be said for the lifestyle that modern pros experience. Sure a training camp nowadays is compiled with a lot of nonessentials like media exposure, high tech bike fits and nutrition counseling, but really isn’t it still really just a bunch of group rides in a row with some people who enjoy doing the same thing you do?

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the other dimension of the sport too, the one I spend hours and hours a week reading about on the internet, in magazines and in books. The kind that has me fascinated by wheels with a 50mm dish that weigh under 1000 grams a set and about outrageously intensive and structured training blocks and nutrition restrictions that make your head spin...I’m totally hooked, but I respect that It’s a luxury, nothing more. All this I can do without, and sometimes, it’s the best. When you have access to power meters, heart rate and cadence monitors, altimeters, gradient meters and more, sometimes the only thing that I give a shit about is riding my bike as fast as I can until I’m tired. It may seem silly to some, but the core values of training that I respect more than anything, are the ones that embody the cyclist that wins because he/she went out riding on the days when you were too tired because they love riding their bicycle and not because a coach made them. When they were bundling up in winter clothing and braving sideways hail for four hours, you were watching a movie and having your third “rest day” in a row. That’s the type of stuff that winning cyclists nowadays have in common with those from 50 years ago and something that I hope never changes. Even with all this amazing technology that helps us no doubt go faster, it still comes down to the individual’s “drive” and the motivation created from the love of riding your bicycle. You don’t even have to race to share the enthusiasm. Working at the Trek Store in Toronto, I’m happy to say that I know many many people who can get just as jazzed up to ride bicycles to and from work as they can from a 6 hour mountain bike ride. It’s nice when the people you work for love what they do.

I’ve plotted out a huge ride for tomorrow. I’ll map it out and post it tomorrow when I return. Should be in the range of 6/7 hours. Giddy up. Also to report is how awesome the shootout was. Tons of intensity and tons and tons of wind. Shoulder was feeling pretty good too but I called it slightly early and headed home as I had an extra hour to ride back home than everyone else. Still 5 hours before noon on a weekend, fun stuff.

Forgot to mention, we found a skull on the hike.

Yes Yes Super Excellent Fun Happy Time

2010-02-18T20:00:00.000-08:00

For any type of athlete, there is for the most part an off season. It includes anything and everything you can do to properly prepare yourself for the upcoming races or contests of whatever type that will ultimately dominate the other part of the year. One thing lies in common with all types of sport that experience this phenomena, that first race of the new season.

I don’t think it is possible to be fully prepared up top for that first race. You can train like a monk for those few months between last race and first race and still think on that start line… “I totally could have done more.” Then you have to worry about the other people you race against. “I bet that they didn’t have that extra glass of wine.” When all this boils down, if you are like me, you just have to put your head down, do your work and show up to the first start line of the season only knowing that you are going to have a great time pushing yourself to the limit going around that course, no matter how fast that may be. Most of the time, I’m pleasantly surprised with the result...most of the time. This year I’m coming into race season fitter than I’ve ever been but still those questions are still looming, am I doing enough? There are times when I think there’s no way I could possibly train more in a week then I have, and others where I can’t help but think if I would be that much stronger if I hadn’t taken that effing corner wide and broken myself. The point is, I’m still learning and the only thing that I can know for sure is that I’m having a totally awesome time riding myself into fitness this year. One thing I’ve learned for sure is that you have to indefinitely change things up to keep yourself motivated. For instance on Tuesday instead of a four hour ride we decided to go on a four hour hike to explore some mountain bike trails on Lemmon.

Turns out, hiking smoked my legs, in a good way. Had lunch overlooking some of the best scenery and in one of the best settings I have experienced this whole trip.

Next day had a four and a half hour ride with a solid 50 minutes of intervals on Catalina highway to finish it off. Today was a tempo day up to top of Lemmon 3 x 20 minute tempo efforts had me feeling awesome. Its amazing how much my comfort level has improved during those efforts since I have been here. Good sign.

After seeing this article on Velonews I had to give it a try. Anything to help with recovery. I happen to have a freezing pool outside my apartment so I stood submerged up to my midsection reading my book for about 15 minutes. Combined with some stretching tonight, I will let you know what my ‘results’ are. The overall experience was terrible at first but once you are in, everything kind of numbs and it starts to feel pretty good so we will see.

Easy 2-3 hours tomm and then ‘the shootout’ for some intensity on Saturday. Pretty sure the national team will be there too so it will be a good sight to see a bunch of Canadians throwing down.

Went to the Desert Museum on my off day. Big huge mountain lions surveying the gathering crowd and noticeably singling out the young and weak.

FACT: All things dog related like to munch butt, even big huge wolves.

Its the dream we all share, it's the hope for tomorrow...$%!# YA

2010-02-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

I feel that being by being in the states, now for longer than a month, that I have certain obligations that require me to tolerate the odd Amurikuh-nism. I'm fine with this, in fact I have been finding that down here people have been fantastically helpful, friendly and polite. That being said, there are just a few things that push my buttons and make facepalm like no other. Let me elaborate.

Last night the plan was set in stone to go to IHOP this morning so we could truly be a part of the American collective. We all agreed that this couldn’t be done more effectively than through all you can eat pancakes. I was loving this idea, everything from the ridiculous slogans that try to convince you with rhymes that fried steak, 5 eggs and hollandaise sauce are your friend to our supremely awesome waiter Kalvin. Also I would like to point out that despite how it may look by reading my blog, that I actually very, very rarely eat pancakes and that the aerosol/all you can eat novelty is the only reason I have indulged the two times recently. Continuing on. Here I am enjoying my breakfast coffee and one of my four flavors of syrup to top my pancakes with and these two ladies and a gentleman sit down at the table next to us, order, and start reading the paper. The entire remaining time that we were there, they spent it loudly discussing their distaste for our waiter (who like I said, was awesome), and making him uncomfortable. I’ve been in the presence of obnoxious people and in the service industry long enough to just put my head down and cruise through rocky transactions with a smile but I have to give Kalvin a big kudos for that one. Not only that...and here’s the kicker, they were laughing hysterically at a Marmaduke comic, saying “Oh that is so us.” Let me set the record straight here. No Marmaduke comic strip has, is or will ever be funny. It is the worst, most inane frustrating part of the entire paper. I won’t continue to dwell on this but it totally put a damper on my “patriotism.”

4.5 hours completed after my super breakfast that included heading up to Summerhaven at the top end of Mt. Lemmon. Did some Muscle Tension intervals about halfway up and actually felt really good once we arrived at the illustrious cookie cabin. Man was it ever cold up there though. Saw some awesome sights while we were up there. The views up there blow me away every time. Came home to some tasty spinach salad and some butternut squash risotto. A good stretch and shower has me primed for tomorrow’s ride too. Really want to get some foam rollers...yet another thing to purchase when I come home.

National team is in town for a while too so the city is littered with Canadians. Good stuff. Getting more and more stoked for race season but still have much to do between now and then. Terrible shame about Uxbridge Icebreaker though, I had only done last year for the first time but had a great time and was looking forward to it again. Maybe I will give Paris to Ancaster a shot instead.

Last but not least, I'm very interested in this new venue for provincial champs. It will no doubt prove to be a fantastic course.

All is well.

2010-02-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

Trip to the doctor on possibly the most dismal day Tucson has seen since my arrival proved to be well worth getting a bit wet. New X-rays revealed that my bone is sitting pretty and well on its way to complete "fusion" with its better half. No mountain biking quite yet though. At this point I can't really think of a more efficient way to jeopardize the whole healing process than bumping around for hours at a time. Although I really, really want to. March 3rd I have another appointment to get the OK to go off road.

SO, back to riding my road bike outside! My bike did in fact hold up well, no major wobbles or anything and My fitness seemed to be just dandy this afternoon in the wind. 4 hours and 2997 calories was a good day of tempo.

Came home to some tasty sweet tea, a bowl of organic banana/vanilla yogurt (banilla/vanana?) and some organic low fat apple cinnamon granola purchased in bulk from Food Conspiracy. SO crunchy. Delicious. After that, some stretching then r&r in the hot tub and we are game for tomorrow.

On a side note, rode about 20k with UnitedHealthcare/Maxxis team today until our paths took us different ways. They are currently down here for team camp fun zone happy time. Tim Johnson's Mavic shoe sponsorship make him a dead giveaway even though he shaved. Had good conversation with Andrew Pinfold about being the lone Canadian on the team as well.

Great dinner tonight with grilled veggies, tofu sausage, some steamed broccoli and small helping of pasta. Early to bed tonight, too excited to get back out there tomorrow. Lemmon Saturday anyone?

Success!

2010-02-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

Cross your fingers.

2010-02-10T08:02:00.001-08:00

Today is the day. I'm off in an hour to find out about the status of my break. Wish me luck! If I don't hear good news at this point I'm likely to assault my doctor so he had better tell me I can ride outside again. Will let you know.

Carrot au Beurre

2010-02-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

So it turns out that when you ride many many hours in a week and don’t let yourself recover, you end up super tired. I pseudo dedicated this week to resting myself back to health so when outdoor riding comes along this week, I can be nice and fresh. All in all though this recovery week has been a blur of reading, eating organic pancakes out of an aerosol can, swimming, bits of riding and welcoming new guests to the residence!

My Monday last week was a rest day as scheduled, did some cleaning and puttering around in the morning but ultimately ended up downtown on 4th to go grocery shopping at my new fav place. Speaking of shopping in general, who would have thought that Tucson would have some of the most amazing vintage shopping around. Im never buying anything from kensington again. Especially not when leopard print onesie ski suits are essentially available in bulk here. Tuesday was two and a half hours on the bike with 40 second on 80 seconds off intervals thrown in there for some good measure. Wednesday was a crazy day that included 5 hours on the bike. 3:30 endurance with some micro-bursts in the morning finishing up before noon followed by another trip downtown and then 1:30 in the evening just easy easy endurance and one legged exercises. Wednesday was just super easy 45 minutes on the bike with a trip to the pool for some reading. Started an awesome new book about history of bicycle advocacy and such that Im enjoying quite a bit. Learned that the US almost had camels. The secretary of war in 1853 , faced with the increasing cost and general difficulty of hauling freight from the Kansas Territory to New Mexico introduced the idea of using camels for this purpose. An initial test run led to the request to import over a thousand to the region. Then the civil war came along and everything got put on the backburner which led to railways taking over but think of it...for a second there in United States history. CAMELS.

Continuing, thursday was a great tempo day. I say great only because my comfort level at tempo is starting to greatly improve from what it was when I first arrived. Usually, its not something I would look forward to. 3 hours later followed by some day trip planning and then off to bed. Friday I took off to entirely to spend lounging around by the pool with my feet up. Saturday only 90 mins easy before Laura and I had to clean up all my stuffed animals and go get some last minute grocery shopping done at Trader Joe’s before our guest arrived in the PM. Laura 2 is here with us now and seems to be enjoying herself a bunch and is comatose after her ride this afternoon. Friday’s antics included a bit more intensity on the trainer. 2.5 hours this time with reps of 20 seconds full gas and 10 seconds off. Man, those suck big time but the numbers and sensations that Im getting are looking better and better so it’s not all bad. Finished off the night with Chimichangas courtesy of yours truly. Those things can knock me out faster than any intense exercise. Managed to stay awake for a screening of Hamlet 2 which takes place in this lovely city. Great film.  

As I mentioned briefly, this week I was fortunate enough to give something called “Organic Batter Blaster” a shot. Pancake batter in an aerosol can. Im pretty sure that anything with peanut butter and syrup on it will taste delicious but these definitely had a distinct je ne sait quoi. I shall not be purchasing it again. Today was the last rest day of the week so we went to buy Laura 1 some hiking shoes and went for a long walk along broadway. Tomorrow it is back to the grind with wednesdays doctor appointment holding much promise. I will update the second I know what the status of my recovery is. Until then, here are some photos of the week. Also, my good friend Tim Carleton has added a dot com to his name and revamped his website so check it out in the link section.

TEA

Delicious Mexican food downtown

Aero - Pancakes and my un-official Italian flag

Grandma Tony....probably married to Grandpa Janice

I'm never microwaving brie again.

2010-02-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

Had a jam packed week in comparison to the last few. Laura arrived on the 28th and I have been playing suburban tour guide for the past few days. Having someone else here to help cook has led to some pretty crazy meals too, which is a huge bonus. One armed cooking is just as hard as it sounds.

Tallied everything up and rode just over 18 hours this week on the trainer. It sounds crazy to me too, and let me tell you it's something I wouldn't prescribe to anyone if there was a way around it but in my case, there isn't really. To ease the pain I have decided not to shave until I can ride outside again.

Should be back on my bike soon and am looking forward to this "shootout" ride that everyone seems to be so keen on. Feb 20th? I'll be there if anyone is interested. I have heard legends of this ride even being done on a mountain bike, which I may be riding for my first few rides back as it is much more upright than my road bike and therefore easier on the shoulder. Whether I do the shootout on it is a different story, so we shall see what condition I am in.

February brings about a bit of a change in the training structure which is nice (less long days on the trainer). That being said, more intensity can be painful sometimes too. Any monotonous trainer riding I do now just makes the second half of my trip that much more satisfying and will make me want to kill it even more once I get outside again. Speaking of which, my shoulder, although still kind of pokey is feeling pretty awesome. I really hope that my surgeon shares my optimism when we have our appointment on the 10th.

Today was an off day so Laura and I decided to escape the east end and head downtown to explore some areas around the University and more of downtown. We ended up having such a great time and found some amazing places that are going to require return visits. The first being a little espresso bar called 'Cafe Passe' where we had a super tasty panini lunch. Then we went to a place called 'The Food Conspiracy Co-op.' When I was looking for places to go shopping when I first arrived, my mom sent me a message pointing me to this place but because I'm doing all my grocery shopping by bus I thought that it would be too much of a trek so until now, I have stuck with Whole Foods. This is totally fine but once you see the produce and prices at this place the walk down there and the extra 20 minutes on the bus are totally worth it. I am excited to use the bulk, fresh raw honey that I poured myself tomorrow for breakfast. It blew my mind, I've been doing that with nut butter for a long time but never with honey, it was hot when I poured it into my squeeze container! mmmm (that's what she said...i think). Laura and I also bought something called prickly pear cactus jelly. We haven't tried it yet but it smells...terrible. We will let you know.

As I mentioned earlier, we have been eating really well this week so here is a small sample recipe that we experimented with but ended up loving.

BBQ STUFFED RED PEPPERS

We had these with a vegan kielbasa sausage, roasted zucchini slices and roasted asparagus:

- Cut the top off of a red pepper and hollow it out. Put aside
- Make some boring brown rice, no salt, no oil, nothing. That will come later.
- While the rice is cooking, sauté some chopped onions and mushrooms until the onions start to turn clear and the mushrooms start to brown.
- Add desired amount of canned and rinsed, or fully cooked dried red kidney and black beans. (we used probably just over a cup of cooked beans in total for one cup of uncooked rice)
- Add cooked rice to pan with onions, mushrooms and beans.
- Add 2 tbsp olive oil
- Add 2 tsp paprika (we also used a tiny bit of stuff called 'jalapeño shake' but the real thing would have been even better)
- Add salt and pepper to taste
- Here is the great part and is a total necessity for this recipe to come out well. Add beer. We used about half a cup of a bitter ale but I can't imagine there being much restriction to this.
- Stir till all ingredients are mixed, then cover on low heat until most of the beer has been soaked up.
- Lightly wipe outside of hollowed out pepper with oil and then stuff away. Cook on the bbq for as long as you want and voila! It was delicious.

Had an impromptu barbecue with some Ontario folk tonight. Much 'Sweet Tea' was consumed and good times were had. Tomorrow I have a rousing game of pedal my brains out for 40 seconds then stop for 1:20 then do it all over again for a long time. Should be great fun.

Back in the swing of things...........sort of

2010-01-26T15:39:00.000-08:00

As "fun" as it was napping, doing other workouts and not riding over the past week, I have been absolutely itching to start turning pedals over again. I'm happy to say that I was able to ride yesterday for the first time since my accident (indoors of course). My trainer provided by The Trek Bicycle Store Toronto has saved my season start date. Yesterday I tried it out and did an hour and a half just to see how my shoulder would feel. I gotta say it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

With my test session out of the way and successful, I'm able to get right back in to my routine that I had before. Granted, those longer days aren't going to be nearly as entertaining as they had been the previous couple weeks but whatever, I'm just happy to ride again. Pulled off just over 3 and a half hours today before my bottles emptied. As much as I wanted to make it to 4 hours, once you get off after that long there's no getting back on again, let's face it. I'll see how my week pans out but it feels good to know that my fitness won't suffer immensely while I recover from this...annoyance. Things are looking good in the recovery department though, my follow-up appointment on the 10th of February will be when I find out about riding outside again! Awesome.

Me training and my "confines" for the next little while. Could be worse. Could be in Toronto.

See you on the trails...soon

So what is it that you DO...exactly?

2010-01-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

Good question...

How does one keep himself occupied and focused when they have a broken collarbone?

A. With lots of things! The main thing being rest.

I have made napping a serious priority and honestly, I think its working. I am now able to do sit-ups, type with both hands, leg lifts, lunges and step-ups all without pain. The mobility is slowly returning to my left arm and pain is essentially non-existent when my shoulder is supported. I am ITCHING to get onto a bike again so I really want this process to be as fast as possible. Your body only does so much while you are awake in the means of repairing itself so I figure if I'm sleeping, it will take care of itself.

I have also taken this opportunity to refine my one armed cooking skills which will very much come in handy...never. Some interesting recipes have been attempted though. Being in this sort of "regenerative" state just puts more focus on what you put into your body. Because I am not out burning calories on my bike for the time being, I am putting tons of effort into reducing the un-necessaries...things like sugar and fat. Not to say that I'm cutting these things out entirely..just cutting back. Your body sleeps much better if you don't deprive it of what it needs and I gotta say, the 12 hours I got last night made me wake up feeling fantastic.

Putting a focus on rest does not really give me a get out of jail free card when it comes to staying fit. I have made a daily routine that involves step-ups and leg lifts that I am doing to exhaustion twice a day. On top of that this morning I was able to do sit-ups comfortably so theres one more thing to add to the daily list. I have also been walking a lot. Running is still a bit jarring to do for any substantial period of time so just to burn a few calories I went for a 12k walk/hike from my door two days ago and then walked another 8 k the other day too. Not much but gets me outside.

When I first broke my collar bone and was seeing my orthopaedic surgeon the following day, I took a walk around a mall that was close to his office. On my little expedition I bought a copy of "the comeback 2.0," that Lance book. It was on sale and I thought it would give me a little bit of motivation as he also broke his collarbone, and during an even worse time of the season. I'm pretty sure you can get it through The Trek Store Toronto and it's pretty cool. Lots of pretty pictures.

As a bonus, we have actually been getting a decent amount of rain here in Tucson overnight for the past few days and it's just making everything here seem more tropical. All the palm trees are getting much greener and the temperature is beautiful. It even snowed a bunch on Mt. Lemmon two nights ago. It's bizarre seeing snow next to palm trees but it's nice none the less.

Time to go check on the kidney and black beans I have soaking, then more workout. I spent the morning trading nutrition tips with my vegan cousin who is training for her first triathlon. Go Jaime! Passed me on a delicious sounding black bean and quinoa recipe so I will have to try that out tonight.

see you guys soon.

minor setback

2010-01-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

Well...here's the story:

Yesterday's ride was a scheduled 3-5 hours. I felt awesome after having a rest day so I decided to do closer to 5. I had ridden about 65 miles so far and was starting a lap of that 8-mile road in Saguaro. About a third of the way through, I had gotten my speed up nice and high (about 55km/h) and was just having a blast whizzing around these rolling hills and corners. There is one left hand corner however, that is mighty tight and at high speeds and I was forced to take it wide, but well within means of making it. As I was coming around the corner, in my drops head tucked down close to the bars, my front wheel nudged a very small rock that didn't knock me off or really do much more than to change my navigation about 4 or 5 degrees. That being said, it was enough to drastically alter my turning radius, thus sending my front wheel off the course to dig into the sand and throw me onto my shoulder/face to slide along the ground for a bit. When I stood up to gather my wits and things that has scrawled along the road, like my glasses, bottles and pump, I started to feel outrageously nauseous...like the "oh shit, im going to puke" kind and sat down right away.

It was then that everything that had led up to me being in this situation started to flood into my head: working seven days a week for months and moving back in with my parents in order to save up enough for this trip. Barely spending enough time with my girlfriend in the months prior because she knew how important it was to me that I go and that I work to save up enough money. Training my ass off for several hours a day since I've been down here for three weeks and seeing huge improvements - BAM...thrown away because i knew as soon as I put my hand on my shoulder, I had broken my collarbone.

In place of where a smooth surface used to be sat a bone that still is now, "tenting" my skin up into the air. I didn't write about it yesterday because not only was I in a horrendous amount of pain, but I was devastated. As I gathered my things and started to walk back to the ranger station I was lucky enough to come across a lady named Eileen who generously offered me a ride back home and then to the hospital. So thank you very much Eileen. Still sitting in my bibshorts, leg warmers and ripped jersey, but now running shoes instead of cleats and booties, I sat patiently with my travellers insurance papers waiting for diagnosis. Just before I got the X-rays back I guess there was still a shred of hope in me that it had been dislocated instead of broken and could be set and see me ride again this week...not so much the case, as you can see.

Last night was spent in a lot of pain trying to get hours of sleep I will inevitably need for recovery. Today's task was to get to the orthopaedic surgeon so he could give me all the gritty details about my recovery time, methods, and if surgery will be required. I can now say with the first bit of optimism that has cruised through my head in 24 hours, that everything should be OK, in time of course. We are 95% sure that surgery will not be required, I can start very easy stationary cycling as early as a day or two from now and I could be back on my bike in as early as 2.5-3 weeks.

Although this will alter my training program, let me clarify that I'm looking at this as an almost insignificant setback. I came into this season with certain goals and if anything, this only makes me more hungry to achieve them. The next few days will be focused primarily on keeping my shoulder raised and immobilized, getting whatever exercise I can (today was step-ups), and eating as healthy as possible. I'm not burning nearly as many calories as I was previously was so smaller, calcium rich meals are on order for the next while.

This whole experience has me sympathizing even more with my good friend Zach, who is recovering from a broken elbow and probably going through a lot of the same annoyances with having to stay docile when all you want to do is train. Get better soon Zach.

Another high point is that I should receive a stationary trainer at my door sometime soon courtesy of the amazing management at The Trek Store of Toronto. This sucks wayyyy less now so thanks a million.

Needless to say I intend to keep myself very busy during my recovery and am still very much looking forward to the upcoming race season.

24 hours after accident...

R&R

2010-01-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

After a big week of training, I’m exhausted. Both mental and physical parts of me just need time to chill. With that said though, I’m tired in the best possible way a cyclist can be. Yesterday’s ride was shortened a bit from five hours to three and a half due me half feeling like I was going to fall asleep on my handlebars, but that ride put me at 24.5 hours for the week...satisfactory and then some! As a result, today’s activities are highly structured around doing things that I have neglected earlier on in the week when all I wanted to do was ride and eat. Laundry being wayy up there on the priority list. Slowly, throughout the week as I chose to put that chore on the backburner I noticed that I was having to resort to using my least favorite pair of bibs with a mega rip in the crotch and almost having to resort to re-using socks.

Trying to fix a crazy creaking noise coming from my bottom bracket is number two on the list which should just take some time and good old grease.
At some point today I really should go grocery shopping. Its amazing how much my intake volume has increased since arriving here. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised though, lots of riding will do that. I do have to congratulate myself on my cooking thus far. I’ve always enjoyed cooking and eating well but riding this much and having to eat so much as a result has really opened doors for me to experiment with some recipes. Yesterday for example was another pizza creation. Started with a gluten-free crust and then basically emptied the vegetable contents of my fridge on top and voila, delicious.

My excitement is growing exponentially with every passing moment it seems, as my girlfriend arrives at the end of the month and my mountain bike should arrive any day now. I’m very much looking forward to my first race of the season which also just so happens to be a UCI sanctioned race. Still not sure exactly how deep the points go, and it is usually a massive field in Fontana, but this could be an opportunity for me to snag some points nice and early. I’m not holding my breath though, because aside from the fact that it is my first race of the season, it is also my first race as an elite, which will hugely affect my start position…in a negative way. You really can’t be, nor is there any point to being a pessimist in a situation like this though because I’m totally excited and I have to start somewhere, let’s just hope I have a great day.

Last order of business today is to be jealous of my co-workers, who are taking the day off work to go ride all day at Joyride 150, the new, much talked about indoor bike park that is nothing short of amazing. Hope everyone has an awesome time and takes lots of pictures!

Time to head home from the coffee shop to go stretch and do more laundry.

4 hours tomorrow.

Bonjour le pamplemousse de racinette avec poubelle rempli d'education physique

2010-01-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

I rode with team QC today. Great times. They speak French much better than I do.

For yesterdays ride I decided to venture north into the wilderness that is over by two first names for a last name's place, do a loop there and then come back into civilization and finish out the rest of my ride there. Perfect weather and a delicious mid-ride snack (fresh baguette with choco spread and banana-totally into those right now) made the 4 hours pass by almost too fast. I came home and treated myself to some yogurt and granola before going for a walk/run to a Safeway about 4 or 5 miles away from my place to pick up a few necessities ie. cottage cheese, soy milk, avocados. Picked up a coffee and briskly walked back home while the sun was setting. It was totally beautiful until it was actually pitch black because there aren't any streetlights here whatsoever, and did I mention there aren't any sidewalks either?

Got up and did some leg lifts this morning before having a delicious oatmeal/blueberry/peanut butter mix and sorting out some important interweb business.

Today the ride I had planned was 2-4 hours with a little bit of once a week intensity thrown in. That being said, it was team QC's last day here before they take off back up north and they were doing Lemmon with some other Ontario folk so I decided to join in. Only went up to mile 21 or so before everyone decided to turn around but at about mile 16 things started to split up so i had a chance to sneak off the front for a bit and get my heart rate up nice and high a few times.

Over the past few rides I've discovered a few interesting things. The first being that Arizona is the only "free-range state" and that no cattle are bound by fences. This means that if you don't pay attention to the road and smoke a cow, YOU owe the farmer (and probably an insane amount to replace your messed up car).

Arizona is also privy to soil that doesn't absorb water very well (naturally), and eeevery once and a while they get pretty insane flash floods. To prepare themselves for this, urban planners developed these things called washes that funnel the water. What I'm trying to get at here is that for 99% of the year, the city is FILLED with pseudo-BMX and freeride bike parks. Just wild.

Miniature horses.....why?

Anyhow, had some good coffee with a few good people when we arrived at the bottom of the hill, saw a few more good people on their way up, then decided to head home to satisfy the stomach. Tasty burrito followed by a shower is a great way to finish a day of climbing. 5 hours tomorrow.

2010-01-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Au Nord
Find more Bike Rides in Tucson, Arizona

Great ride today. Nice and easy. Little bit of intensity tomorrow. Will update when I get back from my ride.

Desert Rain!

2010-01-14T07:35:00.000-08:00

Crazy couple of days. Phoenix Coyotes game was a great time. We got a flat tire on the way there which added some stress for our drivers. Replacement wheels have a limit of 80km's an hour so even in the slow lane we were being chased down and passed by massive trucks every couple of seconds it seemed. Made it home though, great time was had.

Cleaned my bike yesterday only to wake up this morning to it pouring rain in the desert. Not unhappy about it at all though because the temperature is just fantastic and its very refreshing after 15 days of no precipitation whatsoever. Apparently Tucson has been experiencing a drought for the past decade and hasn't gotten more than about a foot of rain.

Wet Arizona!

Breakfast this morning was delicious.

1. Started with 2 egg omelet filled with:
spinach
tomato
onions
green peppers
red peppers
mushrooms

2. Some thinly sliced baked white sweet potatoes.
3. Carrots, an apple and a banana.
4. Half an avocado

Should be great for the three hours planned today.

Since we are on the topic of 'fillers' I recently read a great article in Bicycling magazine regarding all those salad toppings that most would assume to be nutritionally baron, ie. onions, cucumber, celery, iceberg lettuce...and so on. The article goes through each vegetable and outlines the importance that each one has on your diet. Needless to say, DO NOT underestimate these vegetables. You can pick up the latest Bicycling magazine at the Trek Bicycle Store in Toronto or Barrie to read more. I think the article was called 'All Vegetables Count.'

So today will start with a bit of strength similar to yesterday but instead of sets of different workouts, we are going to alienate one, ie. push-ups/sit-ups/lunges and and destroy one of those instead. I'm thinking of doing these things that were shown to me by my good friend Zach Tatem last year while he was training to become provincial downhill champ. They are called 'Spider-man' push-ups. They entail you positioning yourself in a push-up position but elevating your legs on a coffee table or couch (something not too high). You then do a push-up but reach with one knee until you touch or come close to touching your elbow. After doing a few sets of 4-10, you will understand that it's like a super push-up and works the side of your core like crazy. If you are superman, you could also try elevating your legs onto a small exercise ball to test your stabilizing muscles. I will try to get a video up for you within the next day or two of what it should look like.

Really looking forward to riding my mountain bike which arrives in the next couple of days. I started to plan out my race schedule for this year and will be heading to Fontana for the opening of the US cup or PROXCT or whatever it is now which takes place on the 28th of march. Chances are Cycling Dirt will have some pretty awesome coverage so definitely check that out if you are around then.

So we aren't riding?

2010-01-11T19:40:00.000-08:00

Woke up at a pretty respectable time this morning to head to Whole Foods to restock fuel. Pretty successful shop. Fresh ground peanut butter is just the tops. Had planned a super easy 3 hour day but came home to a message from two first names for a last name saying that we were to meet him and CJ for coffee at shop near Lemmon. Leaving without being 100% certain that we weren't going to do the climb, I prepared for the worst and ate small section of baguette, toasted with organic hazelnut spread and some banana slices. When I arrived for coffee though, some Trek Store Toronto celebs were already there. Adam Morka and Emily Batty were enjoying a rest day as well. When the whole gang arrived I was assured that we were not going to go up the mountain so I kicked back with the crowd and had a coffee. I spaced and didn't take any pictures but it was good times for sure. After coffee session was over, left to do a lap of Saguaro and at least burn off the calories from this mornings breakfast. Put in super easy 28 miles today. I was still pretty tired from yesterday's ride so its all good. Going to a Coyotes game tomorrow in Phoenix. Should be pretty awesome, not sure who else is going but I think team QC is going to make an appearance so there will be lots of northerners ready to cheer on the worst team in the league. Now..need to find an outfit..where is the purple bear suit when you need it?

For dinner tonight I ended up eating some leftovers from last nights dish with an apple and orange on the side. Dessert was bowl of non-fat yogurt with little bit of granola and scoop of chocolate soy protein powder. Here is last nights pasta toppings, compiled from the remaining vegetables in the apartment before I went on my shop this morning, ended up being really tasty:

-In fry pan combine chopped onions, green peppers, red peppers, zucchini, mushrooms.
-Add fresh basil chopped finely with fresh oregano, pinch of salt and pepper.
-Stir in ground soy/veggie ground round/something of that nature along with chopped spinach and tomatoes, saute until spinach cooks down.
-Add two ladles of pasta water to fry pan, then drain pasta and empty contents of fry pan into pasta pot.
-cook on medium heat for a few minutes until ingredients have pretty much soaked up water.

I didn't have it last night but something to add to this that is really tasty is "nutritional yeast flakes." You can get them at any health food store or big supermarket, they are little yellow/orange flakes that contain an unbelievable amount of your daily B vitamins (have no fat, especially compared to cheese) and when stirred into hot foods, turn into a really cheesy consistency that despite its really unappetizing name, is really good tasting too.

3-4 hours tomorrow. I think.

Arizona Sunset

woah...that was fun.

2010-01-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

Pat's Long Ride Jan 10th
Find more Bike Rides in Tucson, Arizona

Big miles today. Felt like I was on celebrity watch. Rode by fellow Gary Fisher/Trek enthusiast Sam Schultz, as well as two Garmin-Slipstream boys (one who was wearing a US national champion jersey, Danny Summerhill?) Not sure either way, but was cool to watch them ride for a bit before our routes took us different ways. First half of the ride was very cadence oriented and was taken very easily. Tried to hover around 100rpm as often as possible. Took more of a "whatever" approach to the second half but after my Starbucks stop around mile 65 I was able to gear up enough to test the legs a little more and felt pretty good considering how long I had been in the saddle. The tan is coming along very well in case anyone was wondering, although it was a bit cloudy today but that probably played to my advantage with beverage consumption.

On another note, I saw tons of wildlife today...sort of. I saw a javelina on the side of the road (kind of like a boar) but it was dead, so I don't think that really counts. A huge fox sauntered across the road about 20 feet in front of me which was really cool, and I also saw a dead owl. The owl looked like it had died of natural causes though (the only reason I say that was because it was on the sidewalk under a tree and didn't look like it had been exploded by a car), so it was still kind of cool to see.

All in all took me just under 5 hours and was a ton of fun. Definitely going to do that route again soon. Check back later for more updates. Thanks!

Recovery, wind, coffee and super awesome rides.

2010-01-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

None of the events that have happened since my last update really jump out as being more important to address than the next so let's start at the beginning. Yesterday morning I had a delicious oatmeal breakfast with some peanut butter, berries and an apple. I got ready to head out a little later than I have been because well, I slept in. I can usually fit in a lot more miles in the earlier, cooler weather though. When I got going I was hit with some of the most ridiculous wind I’v had the pleasure of riding straight into. Had the plan that morning to go for a bit of an easier ride and just do the first few miles of Lemmon and then turn around and take the long way home. By the time I had gotten to mile zero I had already burnt 650 calories and my heart rate had been sitting around 160 for the entire time. This is less than 10 miles from my door! This is a phenomena that I'm sure everyone has experienced at least once. Riding straight into the wind, going no more than 13-15 miles an hour and feeling like you are putting out 300 watts or more the entire time...it’s just no fun and totally demoralizing when you are by yourself. Needless to say, the thought of the tail wind coming back was a huge boost to my self esteem and I felt good starting the climb so I just kept going. Once I reached mile three, still feeling fine, frustrated, but fine. I was more concerned with the signs that were wobbling in the wind so hard it looked like they were going to tip over. Anything with a broad surface area (including me) were subject to being displaced by the wind at that point. Once I was passed the fee station at around mile 5, my exposed skin was starting to get super wind burnt and my initial thoughts of ripping it on the downhill had been replaced by trying not to die because at that point it would be coming straight at your face for a bit then a few seconds later almost knock you sideways off your bike. Mile 6 ended up being the turnaround point for me and I sloooowly made my way down after taking the first few corners fast and almost hitting the deck. Rode around a bit more after that and ended up still only being out for 1:45ish, so far my shortest ride by a lot. When I got home, rather than wait for the wind to die down, I decided to do an hour and a half of yoga/strength eat some delicious pasta (was going to take a picture but ate it, sorry) then capped it off by watching a few episodes of The Office and going to bed.

This morning’s ride turned out to be awesome, the rest and stretch that I had had from the day before helped so much that I decided to put in a few efforts to see how I felt. There was no data at all that I had available to me that could tell me honestly if I was any faster than the week before or if I was pushing more watts but I can for sure tell you that I felt great. Was out for 63 miles today but will try to put in a bit of a longer one tomorrow and maybe map it out for you so you can see what the elevation is like here.

I have been seeing a lot of Kelly Benefit guys and was pretty sure I rode by Andy Schultz yesterday but so far the only Canadian I’v seen was an older gentleman in a Team Canada jersey. I waved back at him but promptly continued my ride...away from the scary amounts of enthusiasm. I might go out and buy a stove top espresso machine today, just a small one but this way it will give me something constructive to work on as I’m about 2/3 the way done the first of two pounds of coffee I brought (thanks Lina!).

I’ll keep you guys updated on anything new that happens and like I said, I’ll try to plot out my ride tomorrow when I get back.

Pat

2010-01-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

I've officially been here for a week now. A week of awesome riding, fantastic weather and some fantastic meals. I have to say, when you are in a groove of burning anywhere from 2000-5000 calories a day, what you eat to fill that void in your stomach becomes mega important. During my rides I have been surviving on organic trail mix that has things like dates, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in it, which seems to keep me going, as long as I still have some drink left in my bottles. My morning pre-ride shenanigans have been spent doing anything from perfecting my omelet technique (which is stellar at this point if I do say so) to leftover dinner from the night before.

I took the bus yesterday to the nearest Whole Foods (delicious). Granted it can be pretty expensive but if you don't go crazy and buy things like gourmet cheese then you should be able to keep your tab to a minimum. Being a vegetarian, there are a few things in my diet one would think I lack in order to perform as an endurance athlete. Iron, protein and vitamin B are the three most common. To use the word lack though only suggests that I can't get these things ANYwhere in my diet other than eating fish or meat, which is completely false. If you are like myself and are "lacto-ovo" and you allow yourself to eat dairy, then all of the above can be supplemented in an egg. 1 large egg contains about 6 grams of protein, 10% daily value of vitamin B12 and B6 and about the same daily value of iron. Milk is also stacked with these things and acts as a super tasty recovery drink.

That being said, I don't actually eat that much dairy. It's hard to find eggs that are produced ethically, hard to find rennet-free cheese (google "rennet") and well, as much as I love milk, sometimes...we just don't get along that well. I do however, have huge respect and gratitude for local farmers who oppose factory faming and pushing animals beyond their limits. So bringing us back to that original point...spinach or dark leafy greens, nuts and soy. These tasty items are where I primarily get these nutrients from. Spinach is an excellent source of iron and it's super easy to incorporate into just about every meal if you're inventive. The only thing is that dry spinach by itself is super hard for the body to break down so its important to have some sort of acidity with it (balsamic vinegar, orange juice). Nuts of just about any kind usually have huge protein content and fat as well. Vitamin B-12 is the hardest one because its not naturally produced by plant, or animal. B-12 is produced by a bacteria that animals will eat which, in turn, make them good sources of the vitamin themselves. This is probably the hardest vitamin to get for vegans (those who don't eat dairy, as well as meat) because well, plants usually don't get around to eating other plants that often. Therefore, most soy products are enriched with the vitamin to compensate. Soy milk is a perfect example.

I would like to segue now into talking about the pizza that I ate last night. It was so good and filling that it took me about three hours before I could comfortably move anywhere other than shifting my ass on the couch.

Gluten-Free Pizza crust
little bit of olive oil
pinch of salt
sliced tomatoes
red onions
vegan kielbasa sausage sliced
white sweet potatoes, thinly sliced
fresh basil
chopped spinach
mushrooms
green peppers
topped with a tiny bit of mozzarella.

And there you have a pizza that has somewhere in the realm of 40 grams of protein and tons of other delicious things.

My riding has been good so far, It's hard not to notice some improvement, even after only a week. Yesterday though, when I woke up I had a bit of a tickle when I swallowed and my ears were plugged up so I only went out for about 2 hours to check out this place south of me called 'pistol hill.' It's an awesome little loop that I'm sure I'll get at a ton while I'm down here. Slept in a bit today to give me some time to get better and will probably do maybe 3 hours today and see how it goes.

Just finished my coffee and oatmeal so time to get ready to get outside. Hope everyone is enjoying this blog thing so far I'll be back at it soon.

2010-01-05T14:49:00.001-08:00

4 hours again today. Beautiful sunshine. Here is a clip of my ride around mile 15. Enjoy!

“This machine stoled my moneys and no one wants to be responsible”

2010-01-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

Southern accent grammar errors for the win. This beauty of a quote was scrawled all over a water jug refill machine outside the Albertson’s I went shopping at yesterday. Purchased many many delicious vegetables but was a little disappointed with their lack of organics. I seem to be smack dab in the middle of anything a cyclist could ask for, there are 3 or 4 grocery stores within a few miles, 2 or 3 coffee shops and in about 25 minutes, I can get to mile zero of Mt Lemmon.

Ride today was great, 4 hours, got out a little earlier than I had been which was a huge help because it’s a few degrees cooler than the middle of the day so I didn’t end up going through my bottles as fast. Started it off by riding to Saguaro National Park and doing 3 loops there. This place is incredible, its a protected nature preserve with a one-way 8 mile loop that gives you some small rolling hills, insane views and a 2 mile climb closer to the end. I was even lucky enough to see some wildlife there! I would like to brag and say that the snake was a lot bigger than it looks in the picture but it was pretty small and not that exciting, it didn't even move (that’s what she said). After that I explored some roads just outside of Tucson, I finishing up my ride by doing the first 5 miles of Mt Lemmon. When I started the climb, I was at mile 60 of my ride and it was crazy windy so once i killed my last bottle I just called it quits and headed to the coffee shop. Pretty cool place called “Le Buzz” that serves some delicious looking pastries and seems to pretty popular with the cycling crowd. Sat and enjoyed their free wireless signal, an americano and the rest of my trail mix before heading back home. The wind at the end took it right out of me so when I got home I ate a huge spinach salad and fell asleep on the couch for half an hour.

Right now I’m slammin’ back an Arizona Arnold Palmer Lite (half iced tea, half lemonade) and planning on what to eat for dinner. Last night was roasted sweet potato, steamed broccoli and asparagus with spinach salad. Tonight I’m thinking some type of pasta but we’ll see. After dinner it’s daily yoga time and then probably a movie.

I would also like to draw the attention of all you UCI registered cyclists. This video highlights a problem that is becoming all to familiar. We need to stop looking so awesome before this ruins our sport. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uS37-oPMPc

Pat

Day One

2010-01-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

Haha! There are so many awesome things about this place its hard to keep my jaw from dragging on the floor. I got settled into my great place (which is a lot bigger than I thought it would be so bonus), found out there is free wireless here courtesy of the old people surrounding me who can't be bothered to protect their signal, and then promptly went to bed because I was exhausted from being in airports and planes for 15 hours.

It was dark outside when I arrived in Tucson so when I woke up this morning around 7 to build my bike I got to watch the sun come out and expose all the mountains. My consensus: this place is the cat's pyjamas...or bees knees...or whatever the popular kids are calling it these days. My ride this morning was more of an exploratory one rather than training but got a good 3 hours in at a pretty relaxed pace with a few good climbs. Tomorrow will be much longer. I'm planning to hit Mt. Lemmon in a day or two to see what it's all about. Apparently I'm about 6 miles from what the locals would call the base. Mt. Lemmon is a 26-Mile climb at a pretty consistent 5-8% gradient. This is something I could barely fathom coming from Toronto where your biggest climb is at MAX 1-2km long.

Did some yoga this morning before my ride (something I realllllly want to improve in while I'm here) then had a sandwich with avocado, cucumber, red onion and salt and pepper followed by some delicious trail mix I picked up at LAX airport. I'm super low on supplies but would have been way worse off if my landlord (who is super great and rides as well) hadn't pulled into an Albertson's and let me grab a few necessities (yeah he picked me up from the airport too!).

After my ride i showered, changed and grabbed my reusable shopping bags and went across the street to a Walgreen's which seems to be the American equivalent of a new Shopper's Drug Mart. I found out that you can purchase microwaveable White Castle burgers that are pre-topped and bunned as well. One thing that I realized there however, is that I'm in Arizona....the HOME of a certain super tasty beverage that I drink non-stop in the summertime. It wouldn't have dawned on me except the store happened to have an entire Arizona tea isle with every flavour imaginable. As much as I would love to try them all, some of them are even worse than coke as far as sugar quantity goes so I'm going to have to limit myself. Current flavour is diet peach iced tea, it's everything I could have dreamed of.

My bike made it here all fine so big thanks to Zach and Taylor for helping get my bikes packed up on my totally unrealistic and crammed schedule leading up to this trip.

The riding here is just fantastic but obviously after only one short day out I haven't even scratched the surface of what's out there so stay tuned for some more updates.

Tired Already

2010-01-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, so….I’m sitting at my departure gate waiting for my boarding pass number to be called so that I can leave on one of the most important trips of my life. For those who don’t know me, my name is Patrick Dennis. I have been working in the bike industry for about 8 years now and riding mountain bikes for about 8 years longer than that. I grew up on the north shore of Vancouver with one of the best cycling venues at my doorstep so it’s hard to distance yourself from being outdoorsy at the very least. I moved to Toronto in 2001 and quickly made some good friends who happened to work at this awesome shop on Yonge Street. The Trek Bicycle Store of Toronto (formerly Sport Swap) quickly became my second home and employment. I got introduced to racing about two years ago and quickly found myself being more and more interested in the thought of riding cross country. I did my first race in August of 2007 and despite finishing in a miserable position in a miserable category I started to get into this whole tight pants/hardtail/leg shaving culture. A race or two more the following year, then a category upgrade and a few more races the year after that brings us to where we are today, in an airport, sipping coffee and telling you all about my plans for this winter.

Having just graduated from university this June, winter time over the past 4 years has been usually a mixture of stressing like crazy over exam schedules, studying, working over the holidays and seeing family. Cycling has never really taken precedence over these things but has always been a passion so last year especially I tried to fit in more and more trainer rides, lots of great snowshoeing in Vancouver with my parents while I was home for the holidays and a little bit of going to the gym here and there. Nothing too strenuous to say the least. This year is going to be very different however. I’m leaving the depressing clutches of winter in Toronto to spend the next three months in Tucson, Arizona so that I can train, focus and structure myself around next racing season. I’ll be racing a full Canada Cup schedule as an elite and hopefully all the Ontario cups as well. The goal at the end of the season is to hopefully have enough UCI points to compete at the World Cup finals in Windham, New York. Needless to say, I’m SUPER stoked. I understand that setting realistic goals is key to success and If i was staying in Toronto for the winter, these goals would have changed and I would be hoping to maybe do well enough to race as an elite by the end of the season. But I’ve never had the opportunity to train this hard and this year the support that people have given me has been incredible so fuck it, sky’s the limit.

With all this said, I find myself in an interesting transition place. That state of an athletes life where he/she decides that they want to compete at the highest level. In this blog I’ll try my best to keep you updated on things like my fitness, nutrition (Vegetarian for 7 years), and all the cool stuff I learn on the way to becoming an elite athlete.

Tucson is apparently a pretty popular place to hang out during the winter so I might be seeing some familiar faces which I’m looking forward to.

*Alright...on the plane and mid flight. Time to watch a movie, then finish my book. One thing I hate is when people with blogs update once a month so I’m gonna try to do my best to make this a regular thing so keep checking back for updates! Here are some pictures
Love Pat xoxo