Time to Taper!

Last year, I thought about going to race at the Master's road cycling championships.  I was in good form and had several races under my belt.  However, nobody else from here was going and it seemed like quite a bit of work to organize - relative to not organizing myself and simply spending another weekend riding locally and mucking about the house.  Next year I thought, next year, I'll be ready.

After a good winter of training on the trainer and cross country skiing I was in good shape by late March and ready to roll with the big guns.  Then I accepted additional responsibilities at work which impacted training time, the weather sucked and we took 10 days to go to Arizona (no regrets there).  In Az, I did get a few good rides in, but all in all, the month of April and start of May proved to have a deleterious effect on my form.  An ultra hard 30 minutes at lunch time is no equal to 2 and a half hours on the bike in the evening.  Performance on Wednesday Hammersquad night rides suffered.  Thoughts of going to nationals were replaced by the familiar refrain of "next year".

Then, with a couple of good weeks in the saddle, this happened:

A new bike.  Suddenly I was flying up hills with energy remaining at the top.  What's more, resident champ McKeown was going to nationals and might have a spot in the van - what's this, I don't have to do any planning....  I'm in.  What's more, I'm in the Grandpa division 50-59 (even though I'm not there yet). And so it was.

2 weeks of solid training was possible before tapering for the event.  850kms later and lots of hills.  The legs feel fried, but I still hammered out a couple of good segments today on a short ride. 

While I will not have my tt bike at Lac Mégantic, I feel that with this machine and some bars, the old boys better watch out.  The road race is 119kms, it'll be a test.  Can't wait to get rolling.