Hey, it's something.

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

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?

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

Recipe! Vegan 'Neat'-Loaf

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!

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.

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.

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 ;)