I topped off my final bike volume week before heading into the Chinook Half Ironman race on June 20 this week. The focus of this build was consistency in all three sports, doing my longest runs on days after my longest rides to ensure I had somewhat fatigued legs and trying to keep the volume high, in theory building from 16 -> 18 hours over the three weeks prior. I didn’t want a full two weeks of taper and with my race on a Saturday my “weekly” goals got dislodged from the calendar week wanting to still schedule in rest days or off days appropriately. I felt pretty good with my final three endurance efforts placed back to back just before the taper began. I am planning a big bike weekend 2 weeks prior to the Calgary 70.3 race in August and wanted to simulate that to the best of my ability during this buildup.

The first was a 165 km bike ride the day following the race on the ring road. Ben, Lindsay, Stefan, Pat and myself headed out of the south end of Calgary along the Chinook Half course towards Bragg creek. We enjoyed the sunny weather while we could but knew there was a possibility of rain later in the afternoon so we were prepared. We ended up riding right into a snowstorm as we ascended the pass just past Elbow Falls and reached the top in a full bore blizzard. The descent was fun even though the roads were a bit slick and my fingers were absolutely freezing and we quickly broke out of the snowstorm back into nice weather. We recharged with a bit of food and coffee in Bragg Creek before splitting ways for the ride back to Calgary. Ben, Stefan and I were to head via the Millarville route into town to tack on a bit more distance and hopefully a couple more climbs. We ran into two riders from the H&R Block cycling team and they joined up with us and the speed of our trio leaped by a significant margin. They were taking turns up front and I was redlining in the back jut trying to stay in the draft as we cruised the rolling hills and curvy road. I couldn’t really stick with them on the steep little climbs where someone would inevitably attack the group but was able to stay in contact while giving it a serious effort along the rest of the way. Eventually winding our way over the the Road to Nepal we wound our way back into town. I was pretty beat from the effort but Stefan and Ben had plenty of energy to race a half dozen times during the final few kilometers.

Monday night I opted to skip the pool and do my long run that the trip to Calgary had delayed. I managed 24 kilometers in 2 hours which I was pleased with considering I tried to find the hilliest route through the river valley that I could on trails that were run-able.

Tuesday I took a vacation day and towed a bob trailer behind my retrofitted cyclocross bike. I’m planning a bike trip to Penticton at the end of August to watch Ironman and we will be towing all of our camping gear along for the week. 1100 kilometers in 7 days is planned so I wanted to ensure that I could do a solid 200 kilometers with the trailer loaded down with camping gear. I probably towed 40 lbs along with me for the day and will probably be closer to 50 once I’ve got an extra day or two worth of food loaded in there. We followed 16A out of town before switching over to the Yellowhead and then rode the beginning of the Alaska Highway towards Lac St. Anne. A quick lunch break in Darwell and then I spit ways with Glenn my riding partner and headed south to Wabamun. I elected to ride into town on the Garden Valley Road instead of 16A meaning it was a bit more rolling and would have less traffic (going my direction at least). All in all I was out of the house for 9 hours and spent probably a shade less than 8 hours on the bike. The grand total mileage was a tad over 200 (204) which was fantastic and I additionally had the winds in my favour for a good training day, tailwind on the way out and headwind on the way home.

Nothing with the trailer was a complete disaster which was the reason for the trial run. Glenn’s trailer though was a bit of a problem… he needs less weight if he hopes to get up the hills through the mountains, that shouldn’t be too difficult though, loose the hatchet and lawnchair and he’d be down more than 10 lbs already. I’m going to have a look to see if I can put a slightly smaller chainring on the front. I rode basically everything in my big chainring but a few of the climbs did require getting down to my lowest gear to remain seated. I have a feeling though that the steepest long sections of major highway aren’t going to be nearly as steep as the steepest sections of minor roads around Edmonton. I would have no problem managing central Alberta’s worst grades for 10 kms at a time and even a bit steeper for few hundred meter sections but couldn’t handle an 8% grade with this gearing plus the trailer. I might have to do a bit of checking in on the road grades before finalizing the decision.

The plan has already been made to take a small BBQ along for a triathlon club group ride with the trailer. I’ll definitely write about that if/when we do it.