Beer, Bacon, and egggman - #bikeschool

Summer holidays are many things. They are amazing and anti-stressing. They are a time to enjoy the things life has to offer. Family, Friends, a getaway to the cottage or camping etc. They can be an excuse to break from the normal. Unfortunately they can also be an excuse to eat/drink heartily and ignore your training regime.

For me that meant a juggling of my usual diet of 2 parts vegi and one part meat to a rough 3 part meat 2 parts beer. Also my usual run/ride schedule was decreased to only a few rides and running back and forth from beach to cottage for supplies etc. I added in canoeing and swimming to make me feel better. Generous portions of steak, ribs, and sausages nightly were a wonderful treat. I am definitely not complaining about this but trying to learn to train better through the holidays.Returning home from this leaves me feeling a little soft and slow. Actually I seem to come back faster in short sprints but slower over the long haul. A little of the additional weight probably also being due to muscle healing but the cardio relaxation seems to be a hinderence overall. I'm sure the daily Muskoka beers on the beach, by the bbq, and in the evening by the fire did not help. I did however truly enjoy the Hefe-Weissbier and the Dark-Ale.

Anyways back to the real world yesterday I rode the fixie and ran feeling a little sluggish. Today I felt great back on the 29er in the morning and on lunch but got a little winded a couple times and did not have the same speed as usual on climbs. A great lunch hour ride with the usual mix of single/double track and 3 climbs up the back of a 4X course for climbing training and decending back down the course for fun.

Another #bikeschool lesson came through me deciding to reward myself for making all the climbs fairly strong after holidays with a relaxing totter ride. I may have learnt this lesson before but a rigid singlespeed 29er works just fine on a 4X course and even a teeter-totter. Maybe the park kids may look at us a little funny but it works. Enjoy your bike whatever it may be in the way you want to use it. Only caveat to this being if you dont have a strong bike dont break it doing something it cant handle.

Paul was kind enough to take a couple snaps of me on the teeter-totter with his blackberry. He could convince himself to ride it though but will get it next time.

That's it for now... I'm out...