Monday, February 23, 2004
Big weekend equals less blogging. Sorry.
Saturday, I did a fair amount of work on the car, all too boring to describe. And then, concert! David Jalbert playing the piano. He played an eclectic mix, from Bach to crazy modern stuff by a composer he described as "a bit of a commie." Those pieces were among my favourites, clearly indicating I have descended into full-on music snobbery. Or maybe my taste is just better than yours.
I got a good opportunity to chat with David, since I drove him to the airport early Sunday morning. We had a funny conversation, one in which we chatted about The Simpsons, the fate of heavy-metal drummers both real and fictional, and my eerie resemblance to an American pianist of David's acquaintance.
That was only the start of a very long day (for serious: I rose at 5:00 this morning). By 10:00 I was in Langley, having dropped off David, come back home, quickly baked some cornbread (you know, because I had a free 40 minutes), and loaded up the bike for the Langley ride.
Which was epic. The longest ride I've ever done, at nearly 125 km in over four hours of riding. Average pace: 29 km/h, which is deadly serious speed for me. It felt amazingly good, and riding with about 20 others, we did a long tour of Langley and surrounding areas in preparation for the EV Spring Series of races. My bike computer has a heart rate monitor that showed a peak HR of about 210 bpm, far higher than I've ever seen before. It also has a fairly bogus "calories burned" readout, which is somewhat useful as a description of total effort. It thinks I burned 1728.4 calories on the ride.
On one hand, it was hard riding that left my legs noodly. On the other hand, I had gas in the tank right to the end, I got to clear out the cobwebs with some race-pace simulations, and while I got dropped in pretty much every one of the race tests, I was taking it a bit more cautiously than the fast guys on the un-marshalled corners (lame excuse) and I didn't get beat by anyone I'm likely to face in Cat 5. The last race-test featured a serious hill, and I got dropped again, but nearly caught on. Most importantly, I showed good discipline. I didn't try to overcook and let the group go when they were too hot for me, and as a result, I still had pace the second time up the hard hill, and ended up picking off two or three riders who came off the back after me.
After that, not much more. Small pizza for dinner, nap, a little housekeeping, and now, bike maintenance.
Sorry about the lack of photos. I brought home the nice camera from work again, but was just too busy.
Ridiculous link for you, instead, to the Smurfs web site.
Saturday, I did a fair amount of work on the car, all too boring to describe. And then, concert! David Jalbert playing the piano. He played an eclectic mix, from Bach to crazy modern stuff by a composer he described as "a bit of a commie." Those pieces were among my favourites, clearly indicating I have descended into full-on music snobbery. Or maybe my taste is just better than yours.
I got a good opportunity to chat with David, since I drove him to the airport early Sunday morning. We had a funny conversation, one in which we chatted about The Simpsons, the fate of heavy-metal drummers both real and fictional, and my eerie resemblance to an American pianist of David's acquaintance.
That was only the start of a very long day (for serious: I rose at 5:00 this morning). By 10:00 I was in Langley, having dropped off David, come back home, quickly baked some cornbread (you know, because I had a free 40 minutes), and loaded up the bike for the Langley ride.
Which was epic. The longest ride I've ever done, at nearly 125 km in over four hours of riding. Average pace: 29 km/h, which is deadly serious speed for me. It felt amazingly good, and riding with about 20 others, we did a long tour of Langley and surrounding areas in preparation for the EV Spring Series of races. My bike computer has a heart rate monitor that showed a peak HR of about 210 bpm, far higher than I've ever seen before. It also has a fairly bogus "calories burned" readout, which is somewhat useful as a description of total effort. It thinks I burned 1728.4 calories on the ride.
On one hand, it was hard riding that left my legs noodly. On the other hand, I had gas in the tank right to the end, I got to clear out the cobwebs with some race-pace simulations, and while I got dropped in pretty much every one of the race tests, I was taking it a bit more cautiously than the fast guys on the un-marshalled corners (lame excuse) and I didn't get beat by anyone I'm likely to face in Cat 5. The last race-test featured a serious hill, and I got dropped again, but nearly caught on. Most importantly, I showed good discipline. I didn't try to overcook and let the group go when they were too hot for me, and as a result, I still had pace the second time up the hard hill, and ended up picking off two or three riders who came off the back after me.
After that, not much more. Small pizza for dinner, nap, a little housekeeping, and now, bike maintenance.
Sorry about the lack of photos. I brought home the nice camera from work again, but was just too busy.
Ridiculous link for you, instead, to the Smurfs web site.
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