I’ve spent the past four days riding in Penticton BC to kickstart my cycling fitness for the 2010 season. I’ve been outside a bit prior to this in Edmonton but this week is a great opportunity to kickstart the cycling for the season, hopefully giving me the fitness to make my way into the next 5 months of cycling able to really do effective work for the whole time. Usually the beginning of a season requires a bit of time to gradually build back the ability to do hard work on the bike, and log big miles. Hopefully this will accelerate that and allow me to move into some very long rides to continue building base fitness in the next few months.

We’ve got a group of ten cyclists from Alberta, a collection of clubs and a collection of skill levels, I find myself in a good spot amongst the crew, definitely fast enough to keep up and strong enough to not worry about completing, but lacking a few watts/kilogram compared to the other roadies meaning I really have to work hard on the climbs to keep up. What’s really great is that the camp is almost entirely climbing focused! What you can’t do in Edmonton you’d might as well do in excess while in Penticton.

Saturday commenced with a long rolling climb above Summerland and an assault on the Giant’s Head climb. It was my first time going totally anaerobic on the bike so far in 2010. I wouldn’t say it felt good, it actually felt really really hard, but it was good to get out there and feel like I had big power. Day 2 was the “climbing extravaganza” and we did the Carmi Road climb out of town, I completed it in 32 minutes after building effort across the climb and finishing very strong. That was followed up by a paceline up the Green Mountain Road. I started riding in the whipping seat and gradually moved past people as they fell off the pace. I was working hard at 160bpm and didn’t want to go any harder so never volunteered my help on the front into the wind. The guys up front were really drilling it and eventually the paceline got pretty jumpy as the pulls turned into attacks and I eventually rolled up to the front to try and set a steady pace and calm things down a bit. Ultimately they’d explode at that pace and I rode off the front after their successive implosions. The regroup included some heckling but I reminded them that it was their choice to ride harder than they were able to maintain the whole way, and knew that I’d have to do my share on the front for the rest of the week if I were to not drag my name through the mud too much. We continued up from the Apex junction another 20 minutes until the first switchback and then packed it in for the day, cruising down the hill at 50-60kph.

Monday we took an easy day, rolling out to Naramata through the vineyards and then stopping for some fantastic coffee, we then cruised out along Skaha for another hour of easy riding and called it a day on the bike, and headed over to the local yoga studio for a stretching session. Tuesday was a great ride, starting out on Eastside road and doing the McClean Creek climb. We then double pacelined it all the way into Oliver and then headed up into the White Lake valley and towards the radio observatory. The road was winding and pretty good pavement. I really enjoyed it and pulled on the front for 20 minutes at around 40kph with almost the full crew strung out in tow. What a beautiful day! The weather began to turn for the worse as we got a bit of snow for a while, it soon disappeared but we descended the back of Yellow Lake pass now rather damp and chilly. Following that we began the long ascent of the back of Green Mountain Road. Greg disappeared into the distance as Bruce and I summitted together and then descended like a freight-train through a snowstorm, then a hailstorm and finally a rainshower before being spat out into Penticton with 125kms under our belts, most of it seriously rolling or full on climbing.

Important news folks! We’ve now crested the peak! Cyclocross season 2009 has been moving further and further into the past and now Cyclocross season 2010 is advancing closer and closer in the future. Today marks 6 months until Hardcore’s Hop’n'Hurl Race in 2010, it’s time to start getting excited! In case that bit of news wasn’t enough alone to light the fires of inspiration, I’ll add a few photos to the mix.

I think I need to get outside on some grass and practice my footwork for the flying mount. RIGHT. NOW.

63:01 for 4000yds, big thanks to Simmon for writing down my splits otherwise I would have only had 4 splits as that’s as much as I can remember in my head. Compare with my December 18 result of 68:19 and my February 19 result of 63:51. This is not quite the same enormous leap in progress I had last time but is still an improvement and for that I am happy. This is pace for a 66.5 minute Ironman swim. That’s a 1.5% improvement in my TT pace over the course of the last month. I had much less of a negative split this time, basically swimming the same pace as the second half of my TT last time for the full swim this time, only -0.2% decoupling.

Since my last test I have had a real focus on short and fast intervals, and swimming these short distances I have seen marked improvement. This hasn’t necessarily translated over to the long distance stuff the same way I’d have liked it to, but it is an improvement so I’ll take it. The longest week of the last four was only 12200yards, compared to the previous times I’ve made big gains in my swimming when I have put in some 20km weeks in the pool. It might only the addition of a few longer steady-state swims to beef up my confidence to hold those faster paces for the full duration, but I haven’t done them yet so this was the best I had today.

The last entry on this blog was when I last did a 4000TT test, which is a pretty miserable fact. I have been under a self imposed ban on writing for pleasure since the beginning of February, I’ve needed to focus my efforts on getting a paper published. I now have a deadline for getting that thing out the door of next Friday, coinciding nicely with my departure for a week of cycling in Penticton BC. I’ll hopefully be able to unplug from the mayhem of Edmonton while there and do some catching up on some things that I’d like to have written about including: Endurance sports and caffeine, my cycling adventure in California, the search for a personal coach, the transition to working with a personal coach, a book review on “The Maffetone Method”, a book review on “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, and the highlights of some amazing bike rides in late February and early March facilitated by some outrageously unseasonable weather. OK, so maybe I’ll do some writing about those topics in a week, and most likely I’ll have some stellar riding to report on from BC, until then some serious work needs to get churned out…

A reading and some thoughts prepared for Wine Before Breakfast. Wednesday’s early morning church on Campus at the UofA.

Matthew 11:7-30 – NIV

⁷As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? ⁸If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. ⁹Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

¹¹Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ¹²From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. ¹³For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. ¹⁴And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. ¹⁵Whoever has ears, let them hear.

¹⁶“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
¹⁷“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ ¹⁹The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Woe on Unrepentant Towns

²⁰Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. ²¹“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²²But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. ²³And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. ²⁴But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

²⁷“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This morning’s Gospel addresses really one of the key questions that we must address in our lives. Here is God, what are you going to do about it? It’s a question that is posed in many different situations and probably if we sat around the breakfast table long enough we’d be able to come to the realization that it’s a question we will address in our lives today, that we answered yesterday, and the day before.

It could be in small everyday blessings. The sunrise on the way here to Wine Before Breakfast, an opportunity to encounter God and put on an attitude of gratefulness to approach the day. It could be seeing a friend for the first time in a few weeks, an opportunity to recognize that God is love, that relationship and community are vital to our existence and then to seek those things in life. An encounter with God doesn’t always feel nice, perhaps there is a breach of trust in your life, there is a sense of being shaken, the opportunity arises to encouter God as the unfailing one, trustworthy, reliable. Or we read scripture prompting is to go and spread the good news but feel guilt or failure as we’ve kept to ourselves about our faith in recent days, weeks, or months. The opportunity presents itself to respond to this encounter with God by refocusing us on the joy that our lives gain through him and then feeling it is natural to want to share that faith.

I start with these positive examples of simple encounters with God because they aren’t the ones that we read in Matthew. Hopefully at least they sounded possible, even if not potentially likely. Perhaps we can have a look at the encounter that Israel has with Jesus Christ and see where it falls short. Hopefully the difference between the two would give us some direction on how it’s possible to respond more appropriately to the question:

The gospel story tells us about a situation where Jesus is addressing the masses and talking about John the Baptist. John had clearly got the attention of some people, he was loud, dressed to kill, likely aromatic, and slightly eccentric, and told a message of the imminent arrival of a new kingdom. People were excited about him and he got a following… probably assisted by the fact that he had a charisma about him but mostly because the Jews were excited for a new kingdom to come. This brings us to Jesus, the embodiment of that new kingdom that Israel is excited about, at least in theory. How does Israel miss out on him? They just can’t believe that what they dreamed up for themselves is incorrect. Jesus, although he is exactly what has been promised, and described by John, is not leading a battle charge against Rome. The Jewish cities, Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum are deaf to anyone not saying what they want him to say. Jesus is so bold as to say that anyone who looked and listed at all, even the Gentiles, could fare better than the people who were prepped and ready and waiting for something specific.

Is it possible that this trap still catches us today? How can my readiness and patience for something specific from God shield my eyes from responding appropriately to daily encounters with him, his people, and his creation? Going back to a couple of the examples from earlier. If I am certain that God doesn’t want me to feel guilt I’ll respond to a passage in scripture that brings on that feeling by dismissing it as probably not important to me in my circumstances right now. If I’m hurt by trusted individuals failing me and I believe that God’s watching out for me leads to a life of no pain I’l slowly drift away from faith that God is at work in my life.

What expectations we have on God restricting us from responding to his influence in our lives is a question we each need to address for ourselves, but I think it’s possible that we can also learn from eachother so I’ll share a few thoughts that have been rolling around in my head about my expectations of God to wrap up these thoughts this morning:

• God is going to use this specific skill to further his Kingdom.
• God needs me to be better friends with this select group of people.
• God is pleased with all of my big decisions.
• God would make it easier to stop doing certain things if he really wanted me to stop.

In this context, maybe it’s easy to identify them as poor expectations, but from day to day perhaps they’d seem like good expectations of where God is working and that is the danger.