I Graciously Accept

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.