Bar graph of 500m split average speeds. Red line denoting average HR for those splits and the thick dotted line denoting the average (speed and HR). The thin dotted line is my goal pace heading into the run.

My third successive visit to the Calgary Police Half Marathon, and my fifth race over this distance (not including triathlons) was by far my fastest… a six and a half minute PB. I also ducked under the 90 minute marker which for me back in mid-November when I was drawing up a season plan, was a rather ambitious goal. I am quite happy with this result and will be happy to store it somewhere in my brain to rely on for confidence through the rest of this season. I can run, and I can run tough, and I can change plans on the fly, and I can pull myself back together when things are falling apart. These are skills that need to be developed, and having tough races is one way to make sure that you learn the lessons.

I’ve run 660kms in the past three months, and did a grand total of 9.5kms of “speed work” amongst all of it. That’s not much. As the race approached I was fully aware that I had no idea of how fast I actually thought I could run it. I’ve been doing strictly aerobic running for the past 3 months (well, up until last Thursday) with the focus on increasing running consistency, durability and volume. The result of focusing on those items is that I’ve been developing consistency, durability and volume, and doing testing to gauge progress of those markers has confirmed that. Running with a strict HR cap well below a HR that you would normally average for a full Half Marathon means that you don’t know how fast that effort corresponds to and you don’t have a whole bunch of confidence that you can keep up a high effort for that long.

So last Thursday I cruised along for a mile at 172 bpm to see how fast that was, the result was about 6:30. Not bad I thought. Steven confirmed that he thought this was about the right pace to set out at and see how it felt. Then Tuesday I did intervals at Hawrelak with the Tri club (also gunning for about 170-172bpm), 4×1km leaving on 8minutes. I nailed all four at 3:35 or less… things felt great. Friday I also ran 3×1km, this time aiming for the 4:00/km split and taking only a 2minute break. I finished the intervals somewhere around 170bpm and rising from one interval to the next, realizing that the 4:00/km pace was going to be a stretch but I figured that I’d stick to the plan of trying to split 4:00/km for the race.

It was barely warm enough to wear shorts, but I certainly prefer it so did opt to skip the tights. About 2^oC with wind from the west (more on that later). I rolled out from about the fifth row of people in the start chute, knowing that I’d either wind up a bit stressed out in the first kilometer by either running too fast or having to weave my way through the melee of people who think they can run faster than they actually can and line up too far up the chute. I split the first kilometer in 3:48. I then spent the next 3 kilometers trying to roll back the effort ever so slightly as I watched my HR make a steady rise and found myself nicely pacing off of “short guy in funny tights” which I use to mentally relax for a couple times for a few hundred meters each as I try to stop obsessing about my pace. Split the first 5kms in 20:09, not bad, but my HR was now higher than I knew I could maintain for the race, having come through the rolly climb behind the Rockyview Hospital. There’s a big glut of people crusing down the path and I’m right in the thick of it pretty pleased with how things are going but slowly realizing that my HR is likely not sustainable even though until this point my legs are feeling pretty fresh and pretty fast with the turnover.

I’ve been letting people get away from me on the ascents and trying to reel them in a bit on the descents to try and keep my effort level in check but decide on the next long gradual ascent along pump-hill I’m going to stay with at least the back of this group and not drop off. The group doesn’t spread at all and this was a good mental choice, I make the ascent under relative control and am able to go off the front down the descent on the other side with the second place female “blue jacket girl”. We’re through 10kms in 41:20, the 4 minute pace is quite clearly out the window at this point as I know that the second half of the course is far more challenging than the first. I get myself a bit worried that I’m really going to pay for the first 5 kms towards the end, but do manage to drive those thoughts out of my head pretty quickly as we encounter the first serious stretch of headwind. I slot in behind “black toque man” to try and catch a draft, probably mostly a mental draft, but it works for a stretch and I string together a few good kilometers. Then we head down the hill and “black toque man” absolutely flies down the hill. I feel like I’m standing absolutely still and run down the hill pretty quick but totally loose contact with him and the “green shirt guy” who we had just caught. Getting to the bottom of the hill I want to get back on with those two because they’ve got a good even pace going and mentally it was simple to stick on his shoulder than do this all my myself. I give it a push for maybe 50m and quickly realize that’s a bad decision, my breathing spikes even though my HR doesn’t come up like it should and the muscles that are probably a bit chilly and tight due to the weather and sore from rocketing down a rather steep hill make themselves heard with a voice that’s loud and clear.

Oh shit

I’m wondering if I’m going to cramp up, I’m wondering if I’m going to have to stop for a second and stretch, I’m wondering if my HR is going to plummet and I’m not going to be able to drive the effort level up anymore. This situation gets scary rather quickly. I decide I need to do my best to take control of the situation and say to myself 15 breaths, I stop running and briskly walk for 15 deep and fast breaths, I feel ready to go again after 10 but restrain myself and take the whole break I had allotted as the “green shirt guy” and “the black toque guy” get far enough ahead that I know I’m not about to bridge up to them any time soon. Then “green shirt guy”’s shoelace comes undone and he looses at least the equivalent of 10 walking breaths distance as he reties. It’s reassuring, I feel like I just blew the race but knowing that I really haven’t lost all sorts of time brings a bit of peace back into my head and I get back on a solid effort level across the bottom of the weaselhead. My HR is down but I’m not about to try and get it up again before I have to start the hill out of the valley. The hill arrives sooner than I would have expected because I really found a good mental zone and I tell myself not to push it, I don’t need to explode, and I know I’m close.

The ascent is tough and my heartrate does indeed come back up, I walk maybe 10 steps through the aid station at the top of the hill to let myself get down two full cups instead of the mouthfuls I’ve had prior. The 15km split is 63:16, not my nicest 5kms, but sub 22 minutes isn’t the end of the world. I can’t calculate how fast I have to run for the final 6 kms. I’m too stupid to do the math, but do start nailing splits that I find acceptable on my watch and give up on calculating anything for a while, just run. I once again find the zone I was in during the weaselhead and enjoy it, I get a bit lost in my own bubble until we have to climb up and over the bridge over Glenmore Trail where my peace is rudely interrupted. Down the other side the rhythm is still interrupted and I think I can calculate that with 3kms to go I need to run 4:30 pace to finish under 90 minutes and figure I have that in the bag. I decide I’m going to try for sub 1h29 which is 4:10 pace and I have some serious work cut out so I quit calculating things for the rest of the race. The whole final 4kms is a gentle climb and into the wind.

The dude next to me starts swearing at the wind and it’s pretty entertaining. I’m ramping up the effort level right through to the end. I hit the 21km sign and realize I didn’t calculate in the extra hundred meters for 21.1kms and 1:29 was unrealistice. I round the corner with the finish line in sight and can see I’ll be in under 90 minutes and don’t have to pull myself completely inside out to do so, somehow coasting in the final 50 yards doesn’t save me from some serious dry heaving after I cross the finish line. The lady who was trying to over-eagerly put a medal on my neck is rather appalled at my circumstances and myself and two of the other male volunteers nearby have a good chuckle about it. No puke gets past my teeth. That’s a successful day!

Since the Canadian dollar has been doing so well in comparison to the American dollar recently all of the online shopping that I debated doing last fall has recently been, in effect, put on a 15% sale. I have since gone ahead and ordered a GPS based bike computer from online. It’s available to purchase in person in Edmonton but the exact package that I wanted is something that only ships from the states (so far as I’m aware). I spent a while flip-flopping about if I wanted to spend more money to get one shipped that I wanted or save the money and buy one locally that was a bit less than desired. The thing costs enough that I was plenty content to just defer making the decision perpetually and even though I decided that I wanted this thing back in November it took until mid-April for me to actually place the order as a sort of birthday present to myself. The decision was based on the fact that I could now order things online from the USA at cost thanks to the relative strength of the dollars.

This morning I received an email that said the shipment was delayed another 10 days because of a shortage of the units. I presume this is because every other cyclist in Canada decided the same thing as me, order your spring bike gear from the USA while it’s cheap. The email suggested “Please let us know if this poses a problem for you so we can work to suit your needs.” I figured I’d see what that exactly meant and visited their website again to see what the cheapest thing they had for sale was. I saw that they had socks on closeout from the 2009 season and figured it was worth the experiment. I responded saying that there was no problem waiting for the GPS device but wouldn’t be opposed to the inclusion of some of their closeout socks in the package when it ships in a couple weeks. The reply came a few minutes later. Score!

61:47 for 4000yds. This is pace for a 65:15 IM swim. Compare with my December 18 result of 68:19 and my February 19 result of 63:51 and my March 19 result of 63:01. This is one of my biggest leaps forward to date. How impressive this is in my mind is really highlighted by the fact that my swim volume over the month preceding it was pretty miserable. I had no swims for 13 days while I was off riding bike in Penticton because the pool was closed there. Then since getting back I had two weeks where I only managed to fit the club swims into my schedule and no others. My swimming consistency has been alright but it’s nothing to be proud of, certainly nothing indicating that I could break any records in the TT.

How’s this possible then? Well, for starters the pool was abnormally cold which means that you don’t heat up as much when you really get down and start working hard. That’s a big plus as the pool we swim in is often uncomfortably warm if we’re swimming at really high intensities. The other big contirbuting factor was that I started 5 seconds back from Jan Plavec who was swimming a 1650ydTT and after about 400yards I caught up to his draft (he started HARD! way harder than my 40sec lead-out split which I even knew was a somewhat stupid pace to push off with) and then I proceeded to mooch about 500 yards of nice drafting off of him before he pulled over and let me pass. I dutifully maintained the approximately the same pace that we were swimming so he could also benefit from a bit of a draft for his splits. Although once him and Ernst left the lane at 1500 I was alone in the lane and cruising along without much frame of reference. I managed well for about 500 more yards and then a combination of less peripheral motivation to maintain pace as well as fatigue had me trail off. The splits look like I totally died a miserable death in the second half which is somewhat true, but at least I did so in a relatively uniform manner. +5.4% decoupling is pretty close to as bad as I’ve ever done without actually doing something like getting heat-stroke, getting a flat tyre, or bonking, even or negative splits are something I can normally do while running, swimming and cycling without really dying over it. I think it’s probably a bit of being conservative in my pace-judgement early on and having above average mental focus at these sorts of challenges. To this end, there isn’t all sorts of jumpy pacing happening like I did during some of my earliest long swims. I also suffered some serious cramping during the final 1000yards, my right arch of my foot, my right calf, my right hamstring and my right ass-cheek all cramped simultaneously and I had to really back off the kicking for a stretch while I tried to stretch out the muscles as I swam. The big bump at 2000yds was me taking a quick break to re-tie my swimsuit so I didn’t loose it during the second half of the swim.

The next question is clearly… how long until I get in under an hour? Well. HCH really wanted to see all the datapoints so let’s have a little look here:

If we incorrectly presume that my progression is linearly tied to how many yards I swim, and incorrectly assume that every week during the past 120 days I swam the average yardage that I’ve covered over this period (9600 yards/week) then I should make linear progress towards the 1 hour goal. These assumptions suggest I’ll meet the goal in approximately 3 weeks time around May 12, 2010. I’m going to need a cold pool to do it though and a bit of drafting wouldn’t hurt either. I also need to put in the time in the pool and rack up those yards. 9600yds as a weekly average is alright considering that Christmas break, a trip to Ontario and the Penticton training week are all averaged in. I do however need to make sure I’m getting in that fourth and maybe fifth swims in each week to keep the progress coming instead of resorting to the default of 3 club swims which will soon become 2.

A few circumstances changed in my life in early February and part of the result was a decision that I was going to really take my crack at Ironman seriously this coming August. Prior to this my intention was to take my best crack at the race given my circumstances. The difference is likely largely pedantic to the observer, and that’s not really the point of this article. It was a decision that I would allow my training for the race to dictate my circumstances for the next few months. Part of that decision was that the situation would change from one where I was happy to make my best season planning, training and goal setting decisions completely alone to one where I decided that outside input was now necessary.

What exactly would be the source of this input was a tricky thing to decide. The coaching options available were either ones I could source locally; where I couldn’t be all too picky about method, philosophy, or price; or online, where I could precisely choose philosophy and protocol, select an appropriate price bracket, and resign myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be meeting face to face or doing any training sessions with him/her.

Having spent a good amount of my prior time training developing my own training philosophies and approach it was important to me to find someone who was going to provide coaching in line with those ideas rather than completely different to them. This meant that I’d spend more time doing the sessions given with good confidence that they were going to make me a faster triathlete rather than spending my time arguing with the training plan’s protocol and not investing myself in the sessions as they had been set. The result of this desire was a now rather specific search. A search for someone who would take on an “enjoyment first” approach to training and racing but with a serious understanding of what it means to be competitive. I needed someone who was going to be a proponent of developing the broadest and deepest aerobic base as possible, someone who wasn’t going to be afraid to boost up the hours of work. It also meant that I wanted someone who was keen to make me fast, challenge me, and had a pretty good idea of what it takes to split hairs on details for the sake of success. I wanted coaching that was directed and purposeful, with a big plan behind the scenes, I wanted to be able to buy into the plan and be able to trust that it would work.

The search was both extensive and not-extensive at the same time. I spent a good amount of time searching, most of the places I looked though were obviously not a good fit from the outset. Some were pretty good options with a couple drawbacks but after having poked around for quite a while and sent out a bunch of inquisitive emails I settled on one of the first options I had considered. I’ve joined up with the Everyday Training Crew and I’m being coached by Steven Lord. Steven is quite an accomplished ironman athlete, having qualified for Kona four times and set an Ironman distance PR of 9:15. I found out about him a couple years ago reading about Epic Camp and had followed his blog on and off over the course of the past few years. His approach to the sport is pretty much characterized by repeatable high volume.

Since starting with Steven the biggest change to my program has been to running. I’ve axed intensity in favor of increased frequency. Absolutely all of my running with the sole exception of one testing run every 2 weeks has been done with a strict HR cap of 162 bpm. Steven also posed a challenge of completing 30 runs in 30 days which I successfully accomplished ending on March 23. All runs were of 30 minutes duration or longer. This has led to the best consistency in running I’ve ever achieved in my life. My training log suggests I’m on about 25% better run form than I’ve ever achieved in my life.

My training analysis system gives a measure of form as an indicator of predilection to absorb further training or perform at a race. I measure form in Aerobic Hour Equivalents (AHEs) as a way of taking into account the relative exertions of different paces. Time spent doing aerobic work counts towards AHEs essentially at one-for-one and time spent at threshold counts towards AHEs at approximately two-for-one. Interpretation of form should be indicative of capacity for running speed, however this is nowhere suggested to be linear and I certainly am not running 25% faster than I ever have in my life. I do believe however, that my ability to absorb base training is at least 25% stronger now than it has ever been.

Having a coach has provided, I believe, a beneficial amount of accountability to get things done. I did feel the risk on occasion of being pressured to get workouts done just because they were scheduled even when I felt like I normally wouldn’t have tried. This was an artifact of adapting to this new system and the urgency to nail everything right now is basically gone, there still remains a healthy dose of pressure behind having to write up a weekly report of the work completed. Taking the time weekly to report in also makes me more interested in tracking how I’m doing, this is of real benefit as it’s an added reason to keep paying attention to details from day to day. Steven is likely one of the most detail oriented people I’m aware of, maybe even moreso than me! This has already rubbed off a bit on my approach to triathlon and believe that as it continues to do so I’ll continue to reap the benefits. This is something I believed was a strongpoint of mine last season and it allowed me to both train well and race well, the fact that this is something I can see noticeably improving I believe is a sign of good things to come.

So, to wrap up the post I guess the question to answer should be: “Am I going to be faster as a result of seeking help instead of doing this myself”. The answer really has to wait until August 29, although based on the consistency I’ve been able to manage, the endurance I can already sense I’m developing, and the resilience I’ve seen in my ability to load up on some serious running – the answer is almost inevitably yes. What I’ve really done by jumping into this coaching relationship is make ironman the only goal this year. The base-fitness development that I’m working on at the moment is very much geared towards ironman-speed and in some sense it’s a good thing I’m not even debating an olympic or sprint distance race this season, it would be frustratingly short. Having real support from Steven in making these decisions of where to focus my time and effort all-but-guarantees that I’ll be faster than without him. If there were no coach I can almost guarantee I wouldn’t have the same commitment to sole focus at developing Ironman-speed. For starters, I probably would have been out and running at a bleeding-eyeballs kind of effort for the Frank-McNamara race this evening.

While in San Francisco for Photonics West 2010 at the end of January I tacked on two days of vacation time, one to explore the city and one to ride a bike, in addition to a week of fitting in eating and exploring around my attendance of about 70 talks at the conference crammed into 5 and a half days.

Briefly, the highlights of the week included some of the best pizza I’d ever had at a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria, basil, red onion and olives on a hand-tossed crust. Early morning runs along the Embarcadero, cracking out 7 minute miles had never been so easy in my entire life, down at sea-level, cool salt breeze, and shedding the tights of the last three months for just shorts. A fantastically welcoming yoga studio at the health club I joined so I’d have access to a pool to swim in for the week. Discovering the lunch-buffet at Whole-Foods, especially the curly-kale salad. An evening walk to the top of Nob hill and listening to the bells of the cathedral ringing out over the city at sunset. Seeing Clint Eastwood, Matt Damon, and Steve Jobs… (Ok that’s totally not a highlight, but it was at least entertaining to see other people getting really excited about them). Best lemon macarons I’d ever eaten, they had taller feet than I’d ever seen in my entire life. An excellent paella one day for lunch, squash, pumpkin seeds, pimento and arborio rice. A delicious chicken shish pita from a tiny Jewish restaurant smack dab in the middle of chinatown, grilled by an absolutely tiny 70 year old Jewish man hustling around the kitchen. A tour of the Museum of Modern Art that had me totally lose track of time one evening. Perhaps the best combination of least anticipated and most appreciated, was an exceptionally majestic evensong service back at Grace cathedral. The organ inside was even more ear-filling than the bells outside, it bracketed a collection of very appropriate readings from Jonah, in brief: the Lord had better plans than Jonah, Jonah’s heart was set on making best outcome from the current course of action, God’s plan was to turn everything upside down and start a new and unforseen story, not make the best of the old one. The best decision making process is one based on listening.

The day of exploring town included a climb to the top of Coit tower and fantastically clear views from the top of Telegraph hill, Dungeness crab for lunch at Fisherman’s wharf, a beautiful walk through Golden Gate Park in the rain, a much enjoyed visit to the deYoung Museum and if the theme hadn’t already made itself evident, a great dinner of cream of roasted artichoke soup and polenta with a delicious mushroom sauce.

Then I got to ride a bike!

I wanted to make an ascent of Mount Tamalpais, as it’s the classic ride from the area that I’d known about for a few years. With a bit more research I figured out which other strips of pavement I wanted to roll along and rather quickly had myself about 100 miles of riding I’d like to fit in on the day. The morning started out a bit chilly and somewhat foggy but soon enough I was on my way, up and over the Golden Gate Bridge and rolling along the bay front in Sausalito. I made my first ascent up and over the hills from Sausalito towards the Pacific on wet pavement through some dense trees. I crested the top of a hill and started a very fun descent back towards the ocean. The huge advantage of building roads in California is that they don’t have to worry about ice or snow. That means that they can bank the corners to let cars get around them faster. That also means that it’s darn near a roller coaster ride when you’re tearing along on a bike.

I then headed north along the coastal highway in bright sunlight. The day was beautiful and I enjoyed fields of blooming flowers, blue skies and great views out over the ocean. When I eventually turned east, and back uphill from the ocean, the road was narrow and very small. I saw a grand total of one vehicle, parked by the side of the road, some guy was harvesting some wood from the forest to turn on the lathe. The road climbed like crazy. Up, Up, Up. I think they rent bikes with 39-25 gearing just as a prank on the tourists. The variety of trees was great. It kind of reminded me of some time I spent in the south of France, although to be fair this was far wetter, and hence there was lots more growth beneath the trees. The point is though, that there are loads and loads of different species of trees in the forest. That’s a lot different than what I’m used to in Alberta.

After a solid period of climbing through the forest I suddenly broke out of the trees onto a ridge-top where I got to ride across a meadow along the top of the mountains. I think this road is called Seven Sisters. I was riding along it and felt like I’d already seen it somewhere… and then I realized it was featured on a video from Purple-Patch Fitness with the Lieto brothers. The road headed into the clouds… and I stayed in them for about the next hour all the way to the top of the mountain.

I headed back down the mountain to the beach. I hadn’t thawed out from descending through the cloud until I’d reached sea-level so I spent the descent shivering and didn’t barge down this part too hard. I headed back south on Highway 1 for a stretch and then headed back inland to climb through the Muir woods and take in the alternative approach to Mount Tam. This climb got pretty serious at the top and I even felt a bit hot out in the sun. I got nice and sweaty before heading into a rainy patch where the cloud was smooshed up against the mountain and proceeded to get quite cold (as had become the pattern of the day).

I then scooted back down the mountain, through Sausalito to refill my belly and waterbottles before taking in a final ascent of the on the way back to town, another climb up to the Marin Headlands lookout over the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. The view from the top was spectacular and the skies were blue once again. I met some guys from a road racing club while I ate some food at the summit and they invited me out to do one more climb called the Rodeo Loop. We went right to the end of the road, where it just disappears into nothing, it wasn’t even evident where it used to go. You can only ride like the locals if you ride with the locals.

I had a Giant TCR Alliance rented. It was a very nice bike but had some funny quirks. It really took some effort to keep the back end down, it didn’t seem to be balanced fore-aft quite properly, I’m pretty sure that was a matter of bottom bracket placement with respect to the wheels because it happened in and out of the seat. Vibration damping was excellent and appreciated on parts of the road that were rough and fast, but it wasn’t vertically compliant enough for my liking. Both of my Cervelos do a better job in that regard even though the dual can get a bit of a hum in the frame if you are going 40 kph on it on mediocre pavement. All told, I wouldn’t buy one with my own money, but it was nice to be able to ride one all day and get it all dirty and then just give it to someone else to clean and lube before the next ride.

Note: Some of these images were stolen from Google Earth… which was relied on extensively to make sure this bike ride wasn’t going to be a total disaster. I had a pretty good idea of what things were supposed to “look like” along the way regarding which valleys I should be trying to head up or down, and as a result I spent zero time being lost. Staying not-lost is an important aspect of racking up big miles without getting into a situation where I can’t make it home.

The second half of the bike camp was far larger in volume than the first, and that meant we got to ride more and see more… and consequently get more tired and have more fun!

Wednesday we rolled south out of Penticton bound for Osoyoos. Some of the camp shuttled down to Oliver in the van and met up with us there allowing for a slightly abridged version of the ride. We made our way along a newly paved road between Oliver and Osoyoos that wound its way through the vineyards stretching across the entire valley floor. There were basically no cars on the road and we cruised along in a double paceline enjoying the good weather and watching the miles tick by. Once through Osoyoos our odometers read about 70kms and we began the ascent of 17.5kms up towards Anarchist pass. The climb was steady and even, or steep and relentless, depending on how you look at it.

I parked my heartrate at around 145bpm for the entire duration of the climb and got to the top in 59 minutes, quite pleased to have made it in less than an hour. I was sweating like crazy but it was pretty chilly up there and I had to deal with the dilemma of doing up my jacket to stay warm or keeping it open to prevent myself from getting so soaking wet. I wound up at the top having avoided neither, both chilled and wet. I pulled my arm warmers on over the jacket, slapped a toque back on and shot off down the hill getting nice and cold on the descent due to the windchill.

We recharged at Tim-Hortons and then headed back north through the valley with a light tailwind. We cruised most of the way at more than 40kph again in a double paceline until OK Falls where we climbed McLean Creek road and then raced across the top, I put in a really solid 10 minutes after about 5.5 hours of riding, really drilling it in a big gear, 60min TT kind of effort. If you told me at the beginning of the week that I’d feel that strong on the bike after 5.5 hours this early in the season I’d have laughed at you. Apparently I’m in decent form already. I followed up the ride which amounted to 175kms with a short run and an icing of the legs in Lake Okanagan for 10 minutes. My longest brick workout to date, a record that would last only a few days.

Thursday was an easy day to freshen up for a final serious effort at the camp over the last two days, I started out with a nice run along the canal in the morning and then rode out to the coffee shop in Naramata with the crew and averaged a heartrate below what I’d even consider to be the beginning of zone 1 training for the entire bike ride including the ascent of a big beast of a hill up towards Chute Lake, we only made it as far as the end of the pavement but it was a solid 10 minute standing effort. The ride was followed up by another dip in the lake.

Friday we bundled up and rolled south again knowing that the clouds that were slowly pouring over the egde of the valley in the distance were bringing rain or snow in our direction. The goal when getting dressed was almost universally “how can I stay as warm as possible”. We rolled out into a headwind and after ascending McLean Creek road and scooting through OK falls we took on “The Wall” on the Green Lake road and ascended the 15 odd percent grade out of the valley. We were greeted by fierce winds and snow as we entered the next valley although the road was spectacularly scenic and the falling snow set a picturesque scene, deepening the green of the spring’s new grass. I was reminded of the Easter weekend I spent in the south of Germany way back in 2001. Driving through the foothills of the Alps we watched as snow fell on some of the most beautiful vistas of that entire trip as we drove a winding road bound for Fussen. I discussed with Bruce the necessity of having a gradual introduction to miserable riding weather, that the enjoyment of riding in soaked cycling gear with temperature hovering just above freezing is really an acquired taste. The beauty of acquired tastes though is that they make themselves all the more appreciated when the taster realizes that they are among a small small minority of the population that can appreciate them. We rolled carefully down a winding road from the observatory and I blasted home along Skaha appreciating the tailwind as warmth re-entered my legs. Re-warming of the toes would take a while longer.

Day eight was to be the culmination of a week’s tough work. An assualt on the Ironman loop. The roll-out included our fourth trip down Eastside road and an ascent of McLean Creek. The wind once again greeted us from the south and I started the morning with a long hard pull along the lakeshore to get revved up for the day ahead, at our first stop I pulled out the stash of cinnamon buns I’d been hiding under my jacket and distributed them to the group. Now warmed up, a bulging jacket now emptied and a lightened load, and with freshly baked buns in my stomach, I was super excited to get on with the long ride ahead. Brimming excitement.

As we left OK Falls the cycling team Total Restoration rolled past us decked out in matching kits, riding matching team bikes and with a matching team car following the group. Our ABA group caught on to their peloton and sucked their draft for the next hour. On one climb out of Oliver they dropped one of their girls off the back, leaving the guys of the ABA camp with a mission in our minds, draft her along to get her back on to their pack. What a mission it was, we totally drilled it along the road for 10 minutes, going all out into the headwind, and then up past 70kph down a small hill, spinning out my 53×11 to catch back on. After the adventure we let Total Restoration continue off into the distance as the ABA camp regrouped as we co-operated well with few pauses until Osoyoos. A lunch break was taken at km 70 on the day at Tim Hortons and followed immediately by ascending Richter’s pass.

We were greeted by light rain on the second of four benches, which became hail by the time we arrived at the third bench. The ascent through the worsening storm over the final bench was only completed by Greg and myself, and the descent and subsequent trip through the seven rollers led us onto the flats of the Keremeos valley. The sun was shining and the next valley over was quite warm, not exactly what was anticipated as we headed into the maelstrom atop the pass. I worked the rollers hard and then and I parked myself at a hard effort on the flats as we cruised at 40kph into Keremeos, hard enough to get a little ache in my lower back, a common symptom of mine for early season efforts. Another brief food stop and we headed out and up over the Green Mountain Road, my effort had drained Greg a bit on the flats, but now his effort on the climb was draining me as I had to work a pretty moderate effort to keep up on the long gradual climb. The third descent of Green Mountain Road this week was very similar to the two prior, all three being two-person affairs. I’d become familiar with the road by now and was confident that the whole thing could be ridden with full gas, and that’s basically what I tried to do, scooting down the entire road without letting up the effort. I tacked on an extra ride back south to OK Falls and back along eastside road to rack up my mileage on the day to 200kms. A brick run of 5kms rounded out the camp for me and I was quite content with the pace I was able to maintain, I definitely wasn’t ready to run a marathon at 5min/km pace like I have visions of doing in August but that’s not yet supposed to be the case anyways. I did realize quickly that I was cruising through energy on that run unlike I think I’d experienced ever before. This was certainly the longest and toughest ride I’d ever tried to brick run from, and despite continuous eating all day and consuming 350 calories during the last hour aboard my wheels, and even eating a bit after 1 km on the run I wrapped up the short 5kms run hungry and knowing I would have needed to start getting serious calories in soon if I were to have kept running.