the bad news about television

Everyone always said watching television is bad for you - and I completely agree. Last week I was on the couch proudly celebrating my cast-free followed by first road ride, second road ride followed quite rapidly by first mountain bike ride days - and watching television. Marc had found a documentary about an adventure race in South Africa, and the local team was carrying photo gear and providing commentary. The race started on foot and progressed through various stages including two 150 km mountain bike stages, a 5 hour paddle, several 5 hour bush wack hikes and such for about 5 days. The team slept once at a mandatory stop for about 2 hours, and once took a 10 minute nap. That's all the sleeping they mentioned, and they looked it.

So I thought after an easy and super fun day teaching mountain biking on Saturday that the YANA Century Ride should be a breeze. After all - I've slept, the ride is on a road and at whatever pace I chose, and there's no running/paddling or multiday requirements. It's only one little road section on skinny tires. Right?

Sunday was lovely weather and so my cyclocross bike Fiona and I headed down the road to Black's cycle where the ride starts. Marc was teaching the second part of the mountain bike course so he headed off to Cumberland at around the same time. Given the wonderful weather and that this is the 5th annual ride there were a lot of people present, from extremely serious looking to quite relaxed mountain bikers with suitably fat and knobbly tires. At 9 am we headed out.

I'd forgotten how great riding in a pack was! We fairly floated around the first lap, and given the number of people in the pack and my recently broken ankle I decided uncharacteristically to hide in the pack and not take a pull. That was probably a wise decision given my lack of knowledge of roadie sign language!

Unfortunately I missed the pack take-off for the second lap and rode after them too late to ever see my new-best-friends again. But I met new ones, which is the great thing about a road ride. Unfortunately there were several flat tires (not mine) red lights (mine) and other incidents which had me riding alone for about half the lap, and by the end my legs were getting a smidge tired out. I couldn't think of anywhere I would rather be than on my bike though, so I just relaxed and spun the wheels around.

Back at Black's before the next lap I looked for volunteers to ride the third lap, but most people had been lured by the BBQ and were looking far too relaxed to consider riding. I finally managed to find another rider, but our speeds seemed to alternate wildly, so I gave up trying to ride together and stopped for a stretch in the shade. I realize now that feeling that there was nowhere I'd rather be was merely a lack of imagination, because as the day wore on there were a LOT of places I could think of that I would like to be. I focused on Comox Lake and how lovely it will be to stand in the lake - and before too long there I was. A group of riders caught me right at the Lake but I couldn't forgo the cold water, not even for a group and the drafting possibilities it offered. The water was lovely, and for the next half hour I had new legs!


Shortly afterwards I ran out of water, and the last 20 km were a bit tough to get through. I was a bit worried I might have to walk up Comox Hill, but as usual the hill is not as bad as it seemed, and back to Black's I went.


The BBQ was out of veggie burgs, which had me briefly devastated but then I sat and drank cool drinks and recovered my composure. Les proceeded to order veggie burgs from the grocery store, and since I was starving this sounded lovely. Marc dropped by about 10 minutes after I got there to inform me that I had to get home so we can go to a beach picnic asap, and although I had trouble standing up I managed to hobble the bike home and get to the beach.

It was a lovely night on the beach with some friends and the dogs. Marc carried and paddled boats while I stared into space and looked like a zombie. But what doesn't kill you.....
Now - about that adventure race. What would I need to do to be in that kind of shape????