It is lovely here in Vancouver.

Yeah. Sunshine and warm today. Everyone I saw on a bike today was smiling and friendly. Even the tri-geeks. Vancouver is like that; as soon as the sun comes out and it gets warm people get very happy. I still rode with knee warmers and jacket though. 100 kms today. Out to Whytecliff Park, around Stanley Park to UBC and then home. Wanted more. Life got in the way though. :(

Bike (isn't it lovely!?!)
Girl with Bike
The race is only a couple of months away! I alternate between thinking that we'll be fine and have no problems finishing the race. Then I have a shitty day on the bike and think that it's gonna be DNF from day 1. Good thing today wasn't a shitty day on the bike. So many riders out on the second nicest day of the year so far. 12 degrees C and light 15 kph winds.

At one point on the way to Whytecliff park a guy passes me and then the woman and other man riding with him come by. It was nice to take someone's wheel for a while as 95%+ of my riding is alone. Too bad they weren't faster and only had about 5 kms left in their ride. I do admit to being annoyed at getting passed, sitting on their wheel for a bit only to find myself going slower than I wanted on the next climb. It's like guys hate to have a woman in front of them..happens all the time on my commute. Wish I could be relaxed about it and laugh more!

Another thing I find myself doing is riding slower than I want because the people in front of me (who I've just caught up too) look fast. Nice legs, bike shorts/jerseys with logos and race teams. Did I catch up with them because I was drafting or are the actually slower or are they just between sets and having a short spin?

Final thought during riding today...if I ever manage to get a cycling boyfriend please please please kick me if I start wearing matching jerseys on rides! (However since the whole 'boyfriend' thing is just hypothetical right now....)

I didn't cycle this weekend

Bring on the castigation. The goal of the blog is to hold myself accountable for BCBR training and I didn't get on any of my four bikes this weekend. No excuse but laziness and maybe a little sloth.

April has been unusually cold. It snowed (again!!!) on Friday. There was still snow on the streets Saturday morning and the high was only 5 degrees C. A friend made an unexpected weekend stop in Vancouver after working in Whistler for the week so we did 'city things' and sat in a cozy pub having pints and conversation. There was no snow Sunday and we exceeded the forecast high of 5 degrees to an impressive 6 degrees. I'm tired of wearing neoprene booties, two layers of gloves, full length tights with knee warmers underneath. Call me a fair-weather rider.

Consolation was found in crepes with strawberries, bananas, bittersweet chocolate sauce and whip cream.

Life is easy

I sometimes feel embarassed or a little guilty about how easy my life is right now. Work is very slow and there is a lot of time for riding.

Saturday was the warmest day of the year so far. K really wanted to have one last ski for the year and we went to the Elfin Lakes hut. It's about a 24 km round trip in Garabaldi Provencial Park. There can be good skiing, but temps were at or just above freezing all night and you could almost see puddles in the skin track. We didn't even bother to yo-yo any slopes. The trail is very popular with snowshoes and novice skiers as you can get to the hut without crossing any real avalanche terrain and there are bright orange trail markers every 5 -10 meters for the low visibility days. The high traffic load has beat down the last 4-5 kms into a luge track. Kind of fun.

View back to Howe Sound
Mt. Garabaldi (it's a volcano. Part of the same chain as Baker and Rainer and Meager)
We got back to the car and joined another friend for a short XC ride on some of the lower Squamish trails. The BCBR training guide said Saturday should have been 3-5 hour road ride. We only rode for about 2 hours, but I have admit that my legs were 'a bit fatigued' and I wasn't too sad to have a short ride. Anyway, the shorter ride meant a shorter time to beer!

Howe Sound Brew Pub in Squamish has their spring Rasberry Wheat beer on tap for the season. Sunday dawned nicer than expected. I was lying in bed trying to decide whether to ride road or dirt. It's like trying to decide between having the chocolate croissant or the cinnamon bun. Tortuous decision.

Sent my buddy M a text asking if he was headed to Seymour for some mountain biking. He had ridden on Saturday and his wife won't let him ride both days on the weekend until he finishes building their kayaks. M gave me some suggestions on which trails to ride that are within my skill level. But, it was sunny out and I have a new road bike.... so I put in a quick 75 km ride (quick relatively speaking as I couldn't hang onto the back wheel of the guy on the Cervelo near Point Grey) and then changed clothes, changed bikes and attempted to exchange the mountain bike spds for platform pedals. Since I would be riding alone and on new-to-me trails it seemed prudent to have platforms. But I couldn't get the right foot pedal off. Why isn't there a rent-a-man service??

The ride on Seymour was very nice. Went up Old Bucks, a wide non-technical climb. Traversed along the Baden Powell trail to the top of Severed Dick where the downhill starts. On went the leg and arm armor, down went the saddle and I set the pedal tension very very low. It was a fun trail, pretty old school riding with just a few man-mades for trail protection. There are a series of 6-7 bigger drops on the bottom 1/3 of the trail that I walked though I'm sure most north shore folks not only ride the drops, but huck them.

In all, it was the best of all possible worlds this weekend! I was tired and hungry and happy by Sunday night.

Ooooff

My belly hurts. Some days it seems like I can't get enough food. I know the vending machine isn't full of actual "food" just fatty, salty, tastiness smothered in chocolate. Lunch was wonderful (buckwheat soba noodles with tempeh, steamed veggies and homemade peanut sauce) but I broke down and had a candy bar and feel like....like it is a really good thing today's scheduled ride is 3 hours! Lesson learned: stick to the dark chocolate covered espresso beans in my middle left hand desk drawer.

It doesn't seem like I've been riding a lot, but this is likely the most regimented program for me since the university swim team in Golden (= long time ago). As I've gotten older, and a lot more comfortable with myself and body, my diet has changed. A lot more protein, though still all veggie based, a lot more oils and fats and nuts and my body hasn't really changed. I've weighed the same (+/- 5 lbs) since grade 10. The point of this paragraph being I wonder if I could have been a faster university swimmer if I'd had a better diet with more protein and fat and had been less worried about gaining weight? Nevertheless, it's a good thing avocados are expensive and generally poor quality here in Canada. But it would be nice to get some chilies peppers and decent Mexican food. Don't even ask about the margaritas north of the 49th parallel...

I think that the riding has been good and relatively consistent recently. No long rides this past weekend as my mother was visiting, but still managed a couple 2-3 hour ski tours and 5 mile trail run together. Lots of fun. I had a short 2 hour hill session Sunday after dropping mom at the airport. Monday was an easy 38 km. Yesterday was commuting and a short 1 hour hill session. Though with the new road bike hills are very enjoyable!

The forecast for the weekend shows Saturday as partly sunny with a temp of 21C!!! Perhaps a ride with just knee warmers and not full tights? One of my downhill mtn biker co-workers has promised to ride Mt Seymour with me this weekend. Hopefully hit Pingu/Pangor and maybe Corkscrew??

Picture from gutsploder.com where I spend hours of nonchargable time daydreaming. Wonder if I'll ever have the courage to ride this?

40 hours

So this is what a work/life balance is! That is assuming you're balancing only work life and cycling life :)

Work has slowed down for a little while and this will be a 40 hour work week with no evening or weekend emails, report editing or meeting preparation. This meant that Monday's (mostly) off day from training was just my normal commute and I still had time to mommy-ify the apartment and read a book at night. Tuesday was a 'high quality' commute with an extra 10 km tagged on and I still had time to vacumn the cats. OK, not really just the cat fur equivalent from the sofa cushions. Yesterday I took the long way into to work and got 30 km on the NEW road bike before making it to the office, rode another 40 km after work and even made it to a friend's 30th b-day party. Wow. There is a lot more time in the day when I leave the office before 6:30 pm!

There should be applications of this revalation to my nonexistent Vancouver dating life... but I have a suspicion that my bikes are a much more dependable source of joy and excitement than another round of bad first dates courtsey of match.ca.

Cross Training

Thursday it hailed as I was cycling to my weekly personal trainer session. Hard, biting pellets of solid rain with strong wind gusts.

Friday was snow.

Saturday dawned very nice but cold. Three degrees C. Kirsty and I joined up at noon (5 degrees C) to ride Burnaby Mountain. Taking the Trans Canada trail really makes riding Burnaby Mountain a lot more appealing than driving to North Road. But it is always nicer to ride from your doorstep than to drive to a trail. Had a great decent down Mels and Nicoles trail and then played on the wiggly single track back to the Trans Canada and some extra fun climbing Cardiac Hill again. You know, just for giggles. I've said it before but the Enduro is such a happier bike when I'm clipped in and not on platforms!

BTW. Saturday ended with MORE SNOW. We were so close to being home, just getting off the Second Narrow Bridge and the sky opened to solid rain. No ride pics as my camera battery did not like the cold temps. It was still a great 4 hour ride with a great friend and some great thigh burning.

When in Rome....
When it is snowing...go for a ski tour.

Kirsty and Neil scoping the routeThere is still amazing powder to be had on the North Shore! K, N, another friend and I toured Mt. Seymour on Sunday. The boys were on snowshoes and carrying their boards. Tough work! We skied out to the third peak putting in a couple short runs before a bomber route from near the first peak. The second best powder run of the year (after Kokanee Cabin, of course). The run is through perfectly spaced trees greater than 1 meter in diameter. Hugh trees. Safe slope. Powder. mmmmm deep powder.

Peek-a-boo view to downtown Vancouver

The boys were trashed after the hike back up. Of course, K and I being on skis only sank 3-4 inches when putting in the up-track. The guys were wading through knee to thigh deep snow for the entire climb back to the ridge. So the guys went to lay claim to a pitcher of beer while K and I went for another lap. When the snow is that good and you just put in the up-track the snow gods get angry if you don't do at least one more lap!

Yup! Our line started by ducking under the rope next to the Danger sign.

The day's training ended as all good days do sitting in the pub having a pint!
The only thing better would have been a post-weekend rub down. My legs were definitely fatigued during today's commute and short recovery ride!

Still snowing

No more snow.

*stomps foot*

I'ts about 2 cm thick on the ground now.

Tomorrow's mountain bike ride will be wet.