Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Take Two...

Ok, so Monday I typed this wicked race report and uploaded it to my blog, only to find out it never uploaded. It never saved, and I did save it. It just disappeared into cyberspace. Awesome! I love typing on a mini keypad (iPhone) for nothing. Anyways most of the time I am a pretty positive, glass half full kinda guy. But lately the weather sucks. Everyone is complaining about the weather," there's to much rain", "there is never any sun"," it's cold"," it's snowing" blah, blah, blah, and all rightfully so. I have had enough rain, I want to be "to hot" before winter is back again and then it's "to cold". Anyways not to sure where I am going with this, I am just kinda rambling.

I did 100km ride in the rain today. It sucked. Poured right from doorstep to doorstep. I did a really fun Mtb ride on home turf yesterday and that was rad. It looked like it was going to pour buckets, it didn't. I blew a corner going way to fast into a massive poison ivy patch. I am not itchy yet, that's a good thing because if you know me, you know what poison ivy does to me. Yay. Monday I sat in the team van for way to long. I hate driving. I had some homemade cookies when I got to my parents house, Charlotte made them and they were good. I had a couple more. So see I am really a positve guy, cause cookies and mountain biking are fun.


I had a crappy World Cup race last weekend and I am hoping for some better legs at the next round this weekend.

Peace.

-- Post From My iPhone

Monday, July 20, 2009

Buckwallow O-Cup

Yesterday was Ontario Cup# 5 held close to my home in Muskoka, so I did have a bit of a home court advantage. Although their are enough fast guys racing in Ontario that all are talented enough bike racers, that a "home court" advantage is very minimal. Right now Ontario has 7 of the top 15 racers in Canada and that makes our provincial series really fast. Which in the log run is a good thing because we all feed off each other and are faster because of it.

I started my morning off tired, I slept like crap, it was one of those nights where you go to bed and just lay there thinking. I hate thinking when I should be sleeping!! Anways I was up early because Meg was doing the gravenhurst duathalon and it was my turn to be the cheering squad. Yay. The clouds looked like rain and it was cold out, I was tired and wanted to be back in bed. Super Yay! That aside Meg had a solid race finishing 2nd in her catagory! Despite not getting home until 2am from a catering the night before her race. After she had finished her race we ran to the car, tossed her gear in and hit the road for my race.

We started at 130 pm and with a full pro men's field here to give'er. Most of us are heading to the world cups the next two weekends and were all probably equally tired coming into this race, from prepping with some sort of traing block the week leading up to this weekends race. I had a decent start going to the front right before the first singletrack and with Ryan Atkins on my wheel we ended up with a good gap going through onto the 2nd lap. We worked pretty good together, which we had to if we wanted to stay infront of a likely train behind with serious horsepower all wanting to real us in. Ryan was really strong, especially in the singletrack, he was riding very well. Anyways with something like 3 or 4 min before the finish I made a quick attack into the last singletrack section and tried to keep it smooth all the way to the finish and we put it one last good effort up the short finishing stretch, Ryan hot on my heels. I looked back quickly as I crossed the finish to take the win and then looked back up and BAM! I was into a crowd of people!! I skidded right from the finish line and still managed to hit Haydon Boucher's girlfriend, Catherine. I completely shoulder checked her and I felt really bad for running straight into her. It was a sprint finish and I could not get stopped in time. Obviously it was an accident, but one guy took it I guess the wrong way and maybe thought that it was intentional ?? He even shoved me and called me a "$&@!:; idiot" and that the finish line was back there buddy and that I should be dq'ed!! Not to sure what his deal was but he kinda looked like a goof trying to be tough or something? Anyways Catherine was ok and we joked about it after. And who the dude was that pushed me? No clue? It almost through me off my feet!! Oh and apparently I had a bit of an excited bottle toss in the feed zone, I tossed it up at mark, it somehow hooked straight up in the air and into the crowd of people in the feed zone, I did not mean for that to happen either. Anways all in all a solid day out and next up is the two races which I most want to be in good form for, the two world cups.

On another note, this post is from my phone with no spelling or grammer check. Yay. Thanks all for the solid cheers!!


Saturday, July 11, 2009

Nationals, Quick update...Kind of.

Today was our Canadian National Mountain Bike Championships in Saint Felicien Quebec and on probably the best course we have ever raced on. The sky was threatening with heavy rain, which luckily only was a couple quick passing showers. Our field was stacked with the fastest, fittest and most experienced racers that our country has. Canada has a really strong field of pro men right now and you have to come into a day like today with a full book of matches and be ready to burn them all. There are so many guys with some serious horsepower that if you are having an "off" day or, if anything at all goes wrong your chewed up and spit out the back pretty fast.

I had a decent start, sitting right where I was comfortable, in and around 10th place. The laps seemed to fly by, and before I knew it we were emptying the tank going onto the last lap. I guess I was having so much fun on this amazing course!! Ya right, it is kind of hard to have "fun" while you are working so hard, your heart rate MAXED for 1hr 50min and you are feeling a pain that you are inducing on yourself, all to go a bit faster and chase while being chased. Long story short, it's business!. Anyways back to my race, I cruised across the finish line the 8th fastest pro man in the country today. I had a personal goal of top 5, and a "back up" goal of top 10. I guess I am happy with my result.