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Thursday, March 31, 2016

My Own Spring Classics



Paris to Ancaster
Toronto Marathon
Storm the Trent

Man I love these races.

Paris to Ancaster - probably the best cycling event in Ontario, a real classic cyclocross/gravel/mud thing.  60km from Paris, Ontario to Ancaster, Ontario.  Thousand or more cyclists of all abilities and from all backgrounds - roadies, mountain bike guys, gravel guys, whatever.

Toronto Marathon - what's more fun than running from North York, down Yonge Street, through Rosedale Valley, across the Lakeshore, through St. Lawrence Market... it's just an amazing experience to see Toronto by foot.

Storm the Trent - running around in the woods looking for checkpoints, mountain biking, and paddling!  Hits the spot.

The only downside - these three races are all within a 4 week span!

Whew.

Toughest is the marathon - it's my first in years, but my training has been going well so I'm optimistic.  It's just hard to tune up for it with a bike race the weekend before, and then to recover for an Adventure Race 2 weeks after... everything has to go really well for this all to work out for me.

Should be challenging and fun!

Monday, March 7, 2016

Mountain Biking in the Snow: Perfect Temps, Horrible Conditions


I've written about Mountain Biking in the Snow before, but ran into some un-fun conditions this weekend worth noting!
Me in happier snow days

Temps were perfect, snow was a few days old (and had been groomed/packed) so I figured this weekend was going to be really great.

It was not.

Why?  Under the powdery not-very-grippy snow was a layer of ice.  It was pretty awful... couldn't stay upright even, I tried for a few minutes and quickly realized it wasn't happening.

Seems there have been too many thaw/freeze cycles.

Abandoned for the gravel roads.  Gots muddy.