I needed it to balance myself

Well the day was long but in the end was fun and interesting as I made my way up to Gravenhurst for the Multisport Tri. First off, holy crap do they start everything way to early!!!! I may or may not have sped past more than 1 or 2 cars loaded with tribikes as I was running a little late. I'm an early riser but leaving at 6 am instead of getting out of bed just after that time hurts.

I still had training to do later in the day and my original plan of riding around Lake Muskoka through Port Carling and Bala etc was so tempting except for the thoughts of all the crazy cottagers and I would probably be risking my life riding. Instead I loaded up a mountain bike just to rebel against the areo'd bikes.

Many hours later of trying to break the thoughts of triathletes, they are a very interesting group as many of us know, I had a lot of them very interested in Infinit. Hey what can I say, this stuff is the best. Spent the rest of the time being amused at the bike technology rolling around transition. Fun day. One thing about starting so early was finishing early, by just after 12 I was starting to get packed up, time for me to play and play I shall. I had some vomit paced riding to do.

It was hot, dam hot, which was great. It also got extremely windy which was not so great. My thoughts of wanting to be out on the road were being altered. The options Heather had given me were all some sort of torture, non any easier than other, it was just the where would I do it. I looked through the sunroof of the car at the Anthem sitting comfortably on the rack. I could pre ride the 8 hour course. Why didn't I think of that earlier. I know, because i woke up way to early. Not long after that I was heading up the start climb at Hardwood Ski and Bike.

The plan was simple, 2 laps of endurance, one race pace lap followed by at least one more endurance lap. To say I was very happy to be on my mountain bike would be an understatement. After spending the morning around some sightly less technically skilled rider all morning, riping it up over roots, rocks, and lose dirt put a smile on my face. As i made my way around the course I also kept saying to myself how good an idea it was to be out here. The course has a lot of random left turns that turn right into a steep hill. There are some good changes made on the wilderness side. Yet again this is an 8 hour course that is more technical that some of the o-cup courses and also having more climbing.

Unlike Mansfield where there were two long climbs every lap with a couple short ones mixed in here it's just a one after another of short steep climbs. There are one or two that the singlespeeders will be walking almost right from the start. Some great downhill sections too including a cool berm section. It's as course that it's very easy to work way to hard on if you can't keep your lines smooth. Abrupt turns that will stop you dead if you are off the mark.

Thoughts on the course, big ring and granny ring will be used on the same lap, it could be earlier in the race than many expect. There will be more climbing total at this race than Mansfield. It is a course that I really like and works well to my riding skills. Shorter climbs means less of a gap lost to guys like Logan who loves long climbs. Lots of tight tech stuff which is where I close that gap. Should be good. I won't tell you what my lap time was for race pace but I was 32 minutes for each of my 3 endurance laps. It's a course that I'm glad I pre rode.

One other interesting thing happened. When at Hardwood a little birdy told me an interesting thing. Apparently my 24 hour tag team partner has this idea that he is going to run me into the ground at the 8 hour. Mr. Spurr feels he can beat me in the solo division. HMMM well to steal a line from Peter Glassford used a few months back. "I love ya brother, now shut the hell up!" Notes for the Mighty T, there is not a lot of double track, there are some very narrow sections of trail called single track that have some turns mixed in. Of course I do welcome the competition. Logan, Box, Tristan, could make it a very tough race with the pace even higher than normal.

Today, will be a nice long spin. Congrats to those at Nationals. Check some blogs to the right for their stories. Should be some interesting ones for sure.