05-02-07-Canada Rd-Woodside-Huddart Park-Mtn Home-Canada College Loop.gpx-t0

A very nice solo training ride – mostly easy to moderate, with a couple of minor harder efforts, including the first time doing the Canada College loop – did a very respectable total time for the loop of 8:15 – automatically a new PB!!! For comparison, Linda Gallo did that loop in 9:30 – but the Nooners crowd does that loop in just 8:15 !! I broke the loop down into 4 parts – the first climb, the little downhill to the next climb, the second climb, and the last downhill to the start of the loop – this would be laps 10, 11, 12, and 13 on this ride. To compare my times with the Nooners – the first climb was 2:48, Nooners did 2:15. For the first downhill, I did 0:55, the Nooners did 0:45. For the second climb (I need to work on this one big time), I did 2:39 and the Nooners did just 1:30 (ugh!). Finally, for the last downhill, I did 1:45 and the Nooners did 1:20. I suspect that if I was with the Nooners, the draft would suck me along for some of that difference – and I was also not trying my absolute hardest (average heartrate on the 2 climbs was 142 bpm and 147 bpm – so I could have pushed quite a bit hard for both of them). All in all, a really good ride today – no complaints, really – hopefully, I’ll be totally ready for tomorrow’s big Swanton Time Trial – will this be my first one, finally? I sure hope so – I really don’t want to chicken out like I did last month – I should just go out there, do my best – and then see if I can improve each month until the end of the year, when I will hopefully have improved enough to break the 33-minute mark – I’m absolutely positive that I will not break 33 minutes the first time – I’m hoping to just get in the 35:xx range for this first attempt – this is 18 mph or so and is good enough for starters – then I can work on getting down into the 34:xx range, then the 33:xx range – and finally, break 33:00 (get into 32:xx territory) at the end of the year. Tomorrow’s test – assuming that I go through with it and the weather holds up – should be very interesting, indeed!!