Will train for food

That seemed to be the idea for this weekend with two family dinners to enjoy and 3 days of training in what almost felt like spring. Started out with a good 3 hour ride with Dr. Bill in the big backyard. Legs were feeling great and feisty on the climbs, good conversations and great weather. A good way to start the long weekend.

As early early Saturday morning came around that notorious sound of rain and wind returned. It was such a nasty sound that it woke me from a wonderful sleep to let me know what my morning ride was going to be like. Screw you Mother Nature was my thought and pulled the trainer out into the living room, fired the video wall up and watched Sir Watson and others kill it on the world cup. Little did I know I was about to kill myself. There is a reason I train in the cool padded room, there is a reason I don't train in a warm, fire heated living room. The body is currently used to cooler weather, well I felt like I was sitting on the equator and after the first of many 5 minute beat the shit out of myself pace intervals I blew up, HARD. The legs were questionable but my head was ready to explode with the heat. Yes, I'm aware that I could have opened a door or do this or do that, but I didn't' and I got what I deserved.

After a few minutes of refocusing I gathered myself, added a layer of clothing, grabbed the hard tail and did the ride the way I should have in the first place, outside. A good rip around the horse trail single track got the bike dirty, me wet and the the training done. Returned home, did the clean up and look respectable thing before heading south to Toronto. No more than 20 minutes after we left here the sun came out and the temperature double. Yes, Mother Nature is a $#&%#. Great meal was followed by a trip back north for what turned into and AWI Racing team meeting. There was beer involved. The topics discussed are top secret, sorry.

Topped out the weekend with an epic adventure on Sunday. The epic part came when I had my first ever mechanical on my Anthem. Not the one I race on that has seemed to have a bit of a curse when I train on it, nope the one that I've put quality time of use and abuse on with next to nothing more than clean, lube oil and filter type upkeep. As I did something stupid popping over a log I knew exactly what was about to happen. Crack, snapped a chain. Got the chain repair 101 lesson from Jacob that made it well worth doing it. Continued along for a while before picking up 2 more AWI team members. Scott flew in just for this ride. It only took about 15 minutes for him to decide that he should have missed the flight.

Scott left his geared bike up north and suffered hard keeping up on a rigid single speed. Of course with the team mentality Jacob lead us to pretty much all the tough climbs on the east side of Copeland. Climb and descend was the name of the game for the next couple hours. We finally finished up at the bottom of the 5th line downhill where I cut the strings and turned right while they turned left towards home. I still had miles to go and hills to climb. This included the gravel climb beside an unnamed ski hill. Never realized how steep it really is. Back on pavement eventually I motored my way towards home where another family dinner would be waiting for me. Rolled into the driveway at 5.5 hours of exertion time. 2 hours on the road, yes I know riding on the road sucks with a mountain bike but when the mid way point destination is Copeland forest it's worth the suffering. 3800 feet of climbing, most of that being in the 3 hours of trail play. A solid weekend or eating and riding. The countdown till race season is sub month now. After this ride I'm feeling a lot more confident in my legs. Felt great through the whole ride right up to the last climbs. Of course Shannon laughed when I said I was driving the 2 blocks to dinner, walking, like running, low on the priority scale.

Posts up on AWI Racing also.