A Canadian Century - 100 Kilometers

I picked up the new bike as an early Father's Day present on Friday afternoon.  Coach fitted me to the bike and we were good to go.  I went out early Saturday morning leaving at 5:15 am and wanted to ride hard for an hour by myself before meeting up with Lisa.  I love this time of year as it is so bright at 5 am but the sun literally begins to rise later on June 22nd.  I headed over to Kennedy Road and went north until I hit Stoufville Road.  I tried to get used to riding in aero position but it felt weird and I assumed that it was because I was used to a road bike.  Then I realized the handle bars were slipping down and I had to keep pulling them up.  I was supposed to meet Lisa at 6:15 am so I didn't want to stop and tighten them so and went east until I reached York Durham road and went south.  This road is nice and smooth so it was a great place to test the bike and Powertap...drooping handle bars and all.  I passed a guy on a road bike and said hi as I cranked it up.  I hit 55 km\hr generating some 550 watts of power.  I held this for a couple of kilometers and then backed off.  I looked behind me and the guy I passed was about five meters behind me so I cranked it up again and after one kilometer he was only five feet behind me!!  I couldn't drop him as he easily kept pace with me.  He caught up with me and we chatted for a couple of minutes before he met up with his ride.  My legs were fried after those two long blasts and after getting mixed up I finally got to the spot where I was supposed to meet Lisa.  The handle bars were moving around so much that I had to stop and tighten them as now it was becoming dangerous.  I tightened them at the wrong height and could not ride in aero position for the rest of the ride.  That really didn't matter as my legs were fried and I was wiped out.  We rode for an hour but I was done like dinner.  According to the Powertap, my top speed was 55 km\hr and I generated an average of 175 watts for the ride which is not bad but needs to be around 225 watts.  Lots of work to do.

When I got back, it was time to head out to Guelph for Tammy to enter her first sprint Duathlon.  We left a little behind schedule and I was worried about getting in there in time as last year I entered the Aqua Bike and because it was so busy getting into the park, I barely made it.  The Try-A-Tri, Sprint and Sprint Du were sold out but luckily they were at different times so getting in the park was a breeze compared to last year.  It was a great day to be racing but I got to watch from the sidelines and play with the kids.  Tammy did great and finished 1:40 good for 13/23 for her age group.  \

While we were still in Guelph, Paul S called me and wanted to know if I wanted to join him for a ride Sunday morning.  I initially declined as I needed to be refitted on my bike and Sundays are an off day.  I was still a little tired from Saturday's ride.  Later I called Coach and mentioned the troubles and he said to bring the bike up when we got back into town and he would fix the problem.  After getting refitted, I called Paul back and told him I couldn't ride the entire five hours with him but I would go out for two hours to keep him company.  Paul is a very strong rider and is training for IMC so this would be a great opportunity to ride with someone who is much more experienced.  We agreed to meet at 7:00 am (holy that's late).

Paul showed up at 6:30 am Sunday morning and I was a little unprepared.  I rushed around to get ready and headed out.  I fully intended to only ride for 1.5 to 2 hours with him and only had one bag of GU Chomps, one gel and two bottles of water.  It was a great day to ride and we headed west and then doubled back to head north.  Paul gave me a lot of tips especially about the importance of holding a steady cadence of 85 revolutions per minute.  This allows for easier peddling and as we went up hills, I had to gear down in order to maintain the cadence at an even 85.  It was an awesome day to ride as we headed out west and then double backed to go east and then straight up York Durham line where we eventually hit the small town called
Zephyr which was about 40 km from Markham.  Normally there is a store that is open on Sunday mornings as I was running low on water and needed to refuel but for whatever reason, it was closed.  This was going to be a serious problem.  I had ridden a lot longer than I antipicated and did not have was getting tired and hungry.  We made the decision to turn around and head back home despite that Paul had originally planned to ride for another hour before heading back.  We rode for about five minutes when I told Paul I would ride back by myself and he should continue his planned ride.  Why should he screw up his ride becuase of my lack of preparation?

The ride back was tough as the countryside was pretty hilly.  Not as bad as Muskoka but still pretty tough.  I ran out of water and stopped at a house to reload.  Paul gave me one of his gel and I used it up as I was heading into a slight headwind.  My legs were burning and on some hills I had to shift into the easiest gear in order to make it up some of the hills.  I was pretty happy when I hit familiar roads and turned down my street.
All in all, it was a pretty good unexpected ride.  The roads were much hillier furthur north and that's somewhere I'll have to ride more often if I want to improve my bike time.  Total distance was 100 km and I burned over 2,000 calories.

So my triathlon season is pretty much over.  The plan is now to do a couple of Aqua Bike events like Peterborough half iron next month and maybe Calgary 70.3 but it will be tough to bail on the run.  There is a slight chance of doing Muskoka 70.3 in September.