Two Wheel Blogs

Hey the weather's been just too good here lately to not be out riding. Since my last update I raced the third of five races in the Wednesday Night Timetrial Series, followed by a better than expected 3x20 session yesterday, Thursday.

Ah, but who wants to talk about pain and suffering in intervals. Let's talk timetrial. There's plenty of pain and suffering there too.

You know how some times you warm up and you're just not sure your legs will come around? Nine times out of ten they eventually wake up. Somehow in the excitement you find it and your performance comes through. Sometimes you're even surprised at how good that elusive performance turns out to be. That was not the case for me Wednesday night.

Last night we held the second of five races in the Wednesday night Timetrial series.

Despite weather conditions much improved over the previous week's race, turnout was a bit lighter last evening. Only a couple of dozen, give or take, riders showed up to test themselves.

Weather wise, temperatures at race time were in the middle 70's. Winds were out of the east at about 7-9 mph.

Photo: 

Last night was the first Timetrial in the Big Shark Wednesday night series. Thirty-five of us braved the 25-35mph winds to test ourselves on the flat out-and-back 15km course.

I'll save you the suspense. I managed a 4th place overall finish with an official time of 21:24.14. In case you have any doubts, let me just say it right out. This was an extraordinarily painful 20 minutes. I sort of wish I'd worn a heart rate monitor. I'm sure I would have seen my true maximum heart rate at the finish.

Photo: 

It seems like it's been forever since I've had a day like this one. Today was an all too rare combination of really decent weather and relatively good health. I'm still coughing a little every now and then, but this chest congestion is on the run. Sunny and high in the 70's today didn't hurt it any either.

It's been a while since I posted one of these workout power statistics lists. Here's the one from today's effort:

I can hardly believe it's been over two weeks since Froze Toes. Where has that time gone in my little world? That's easy. I went on a business trip for a few days and then I got sick. That's about it. The rest is just ugly details.

Today was a big and important day. My coughing and hacking had subsided enough that I decided to brave the upper 40's temperatures and go ride my bike. Wow, what a difference a couple of weeks makes.

Photo: 

I must be getting old or something. I've just never been one to get sick. I might catch a bug here and there but by and large the bugs don't slow me down for more than a day or so. I might catch a cold maybe once a year.

2008 isn't shaping up to continue that trend. Two months in and I'm on my second cold. OK technically the previous cold started in 2007, but the end result is it seems like I've been sick a whole lot this year and we're only half way through February.

Photo: