holy crap, SNAKE ORGY

Hey all,

Another great week went down in terms of training goes. We're not getting any hot weather, I've kinda given up on that before IMC. Oh well it's co-operating enough to get all the training in.

Thursday we had an awesome hill workout in Cochrane. Greg, me, Iona, Leslie, ummmm I think that was it started out at the Church again. Rode out to Cochrane together, not much wind to report. Perfect weather for some climbing. The first hill Greg and I stuck together, we started really easy, and I stuck on his wheel. We even got to chat for the first half of the hill that's how easy the effort was. Later on towards the top my legs started to complain. You see riding to Cochrane does not suffice for warming up the legs, they need one or two big steady climbs to get the blood flowing. Hill number 2 did that and Greg decided this team thing had come to an end. He steadily rode away from me, I tryed to up the pace and get back on his wheel, but just couldn't. He's a rock star and rode like it. Thankfully he'd always wait at the top for me and we'd ride down together. The 3rd climb I paused to take my sunglasses off and put them into my jersey pocket. Wow that was bad timing, cause he attacked and rode like a man posssessed to get to the top. I hear her rode to a personal best on that one and by the top I could barely see him, lol. So he waited for me again and I took the lead on the way down. Hey, it's the only way to get a bit of a cushioning for the ride up. I ride faster on the way down and after that 3rd rep I decided I didn't need to wait for him anymore. So I'd start the climb as he was still finishing the decent and give him someone to chase. On number 5 I pushed as hard as I could and didn't relinquish the lead till near the top. He came by and I stayed on his wheel for a bit. Then he pulled away. 5 hills in the bank, I think that's 15km of climbing and some of them were pretty hard. Woo hooooooo I kept it down to one water bottle so I could keep the weight down, hee hee and by the time we reached the Church I was nursing that thing. 2:45 ride with only one bottle, and I managed, but just barely. I could feel myself starting to bonk while putting the bike in the car. hee hee oh well no more workouts for the day. :)

Friday was a day off and Saturday Curtis and I headed out for a med. length ride. Funny cause 120km isn't what most people call a short ride huh. ha ha. Anyways we started out at Glenmore trail/Sarcee. The temp out wasn't super warm and when the clouds covered the sun it def. was a bit coolish. My legs complained for the first bit, I guess even with yesterday off there was still some soreness/fatigue in them from thursday's hill work. The body was still complaining about not being able to sleep longer. Curtis is so mean waking me up at 9 am. pfffffffffffffffft. I still craved the nap at Bragg Creek. We refueled and continued on south towards Millarville, 2 hours in, at the turn to head east into Millarville my legs still were not happy. If they were fine I probably would have said legs just continue on to Millarville, but no, we stuck to the plan, 60km/2 hours out and then we turn around. Just about this time my legs started to feel better. Greg wanted some tempo riding so I decided now would be a good time, and shifted up to hit the first hill hard. No granny gear for me, rode right through the top and kept going, head down all the way to Bragg Creek. Ok, my head wasn't down the whole way, it was figuratively in this case for pushing hard. I think we went from like 55 min out, to aprox 40 min back to Bragg Creek. Good effort as my asthma complained(coughing). We even got a few drops of rain, big big drops. Refueled again, chatted with some fellow riders and moved on back towards Calgary. Ahhh such a short ride, after a couple minutes I lit the pedals up again. After a couple minutes I assume Curtis is further back again. Not this time, he calmly rides beside me and asks if I saw the Doe with the couple of fawns beside the rode. I'm like...... (dude I'm friggen Time Tialing) aughhhhh that hurt my feelings a bit. He is getting so hard to drop, I remember spring when I wouldn't even have to push at all and have to wait for him. Not that I minded, if he got too far back, I'd just ride back for him. Now I have to go all out just to gain a few minutes on him. So eventually he drops off but then I feel the familiar thump thump. Yes you guessed it, a flat. Weird how when he stops getting them, I start. I had just got new tires on for this ride and now this?!?!?!?! So I jump off the bike and start to change it as Curtis rolls up. I figured I'd do it as fast as I could, see how long it would take me. I think it was about 12 minutes, and I did check the tire, there was a staple in my brand new tires. /cry Oh well I actually was relieved, can't do anything about sharp pointy things. So tire back in place I let Curtis know we were pushing hard till the first big hill coming into Calgary. So we both hammered away, it felt really good, he informed me we were doing 40-42km ph coming back from Bragg Creek with no wind aid. I think it was a side wind but I really couldn't tell, it was strange and gusted at weird times. Short 30 minute transition run after which also felt good. Lately it's been the transition runs that feel the best, it's the time when the legs are warmed up, no fatigue or soreness. I guess that's a good sign.

Today I went to Coral Springs to do a open water swim. Lisa, my fiance lives there so she got me in with her card. There were some dark clouds and some thunder so I waited a bit till the clouds moved on. Started swimming and almost right away decided that this was not a good place to swim. Sorry Lisa and thank you so much for getting me in, but the weeds are too much. As a kid I was completely comfortable swimming in that stuff, but I guess now it creeps me out. Most of the lake had weeds and at lots of places I had to swim directly through it. :( It's too bad cause it would be a good lake to swim back and forth in. It's not really big, kinda narrow and long and with a beach on each end you can do laps back and forth. Oh well I swam to the other end(beach) and back and called it. Maybe I'll go for a swim tomorrow at the Talisman again since today's wasn't long.

So I came home and headed out for a 75-90 minute aerobic run as per Greg's schedule. The legs were tired/sore so it took a while to feel good. I ran to Deerfoot trail, across, then along the Bow south a ways to Barlow/Blackfoot trail, across than along the bow north then west towards Prince's Island park. Didn't quite make it till there, my time was up, so I headed back and crossed over the Bow and ran around near the zoo. While running by the zoo, right near the spot I nearly stepped on the snake and yes right near the naked chick I was looking down and noticed another snake. He was sitting on the rocks along the edge of the path. The path is on the side of a hill so the rocks with the help of some fencing hold the path up. Hope that makes sense, so I see this snake, look a bit further and see another, then another and another, they were crawling all over the place, eeeeeeeeeep. I didn't count by I guess probably 2 dozen garter snakes sitting around perhaps mating??? I've heard these things do get together once a year, maybe it's that season? I noticed some shed skin, maybe they do that then too. Take off their clothes for some hard core action on the rocks wooo hooooooooooo. Oh well the rest of the run went well, I'm pooped now, very pooped. Tomorrow's the long ride, I can hardly wait to see what the IG has in store for me. Curtis is on his own adventure riding north to the Yukon in a rented RV. What a taper eh? I hope he has a good time and a safe drive. Cheers,

Darryl

PS: Take care Jenna, I'm wishing your dad a quick and sound recovery.