some goods

Here's a look at my new TT rig.

I'm just tweaking it a little here and there, there are a few changes that have to be made with the bars and such, but it's pretty sweet.

Is Time trialing my favorite thing in the world? No not really, but last year it was definitely my Achilles. But it was my Achilles cause I didn't ride it, at all.

My Cross riding was at a whole other level this year and I think it was due to riding the bike, so ipso facto I'll ride this one a little (well I say a little but that is relative) and I should be able to throw down some good speed.

The only hard part about riding the TT bike in training is this bike feels nice and fast and I just want to ride it fast. It feels pretty stiff and yet it isn't intolerable to ride for 2 hours at a time.

So it looks fast, which makes me feel fast, which will yield a favorable outcome. We'll really see over the next couple weeks when I get to light up a little how fast it really is.

I got a little rest after the last annihilation of training over the last month and I'm feeling good.

SO that means I get another chunk of work left to lead into my classics.

My first race will be the RWR Clearance Rockland Classic April 10th. I expect it to be a hard day which will be a perfect setup for the UCI Tour of the Batnkill PRO event in NY the following week.

DSJ

She's back!

Where did Natasha go? I bet you didn't even know that she was gone. I did.
Where was she gone? Well that's a little harder to explain.

If you're regular on this site you may have noticed that we haven't really been saying too much lately. Tasha hadn't been feeling well since November and we thought she was just tiered, so we took a break, took a holiday, but still not better. She almost actually got worse. She was unable to train, had no energy, had huge issues with her stomach, lots of pain and her legs felt "empty".

I'll spare you all the details, cause some of them are kind of personal, but needless to say it was looking pretty grim. We even brought her to the ER twice! Now if you know me, I'm not one to panic over small illnesses or a little sickness...remember Tasha broke her wrist in Belgium one year and I made her wait to get back to Canada to get it checked out....as a Nurse my slogan was "...I really wouldn't worry about it".

Well, we did worry, alot. In addition to going to the ER, she was a physio, sports med doc, family doc, had a vascular ultrasound, had an echocardiogram, ecg's, x rays, 5 rounds of blood work and is still awaiting a GI and Vascular Surgeon and Cardiology follow up. Man she even saw a naturapath!

Well on one side good thing we live in Canada or else we would probably be in debt for the rest of our lives with those bills. On the flip side, damn the Canadian Health CARE system is slow.

Well through all of this Tasha did what she could to start feeling better, she started eliminating certain foods that could have been causing her symptoms. So she started by eliminating yeast and gluten, then dairy and lactose, then she eliminated sugar, then caffeine, then meat. Gradually she started feeling a little better here and there until this week, boom she was back! So I now date a Vegan.

Her heart rate is responding to training, her stomach is normal, she can feel her legs and most importantly she is smiling! It was a rough few months for both us. Well mostly for her, racking her brains to try and figure out what was happening, why it was happening and most importantly...how the hell to get better as no one had any answers. I mena we went from thinking that she had thyroid problems, to food intolerance's, to vascular problems...it was crazy.

But she took it by the horns and fought with an amazing will power to just point blank, cold turkey change her entire eating pattern in order to basically cure herself. Even her blood tests, in which her hemoglobin and hematocrit and thyroid function were low have responded. If you told me that nutrition had such an impact on health I would not believe it without seeing this for myself, cause realistically we are talking about someone who eats better than 98% of the population to begin with...it's truely crazy.

Maybe a little rest and time played a key role as well, but I can't help think that the changes she had made have greatly contributed to her new state of health and happiness.

The intensity she brought to her training in the past she used to fuel her fire to get better...she didn't wait for a doctor to give her a magic bullet, I'm not sure if I could have made all the changes she did...heck I have trouble only having 2 espressos a day, never mind not eating any gluten...do you know what that means? No bread, no flour, no pasta, no yeast not even eating anything that is made in a the same factory that processes wheat...yah right good luck with that...but she did it, everyday, 100% no cheating.

Anyways she's back training, smiling, looking healthy and happy.

Yah so that's the deal. I just didn't want to talk about training on the blog when I knew the most important person in my life was miserable cause she felt awful, couldn't train, felt sick and wondered what it was going to take to be healthy again.

So I'll have some pics coming soon of our new kits , new bikes, new toys now that things are almost back to normal.

I've called in a lot of prayers to the man upstairs, cause all I could do was pray...has me thinking that having faith through tough times is so important. I would just lay in bed at night and I would just talk to God so loud in my head just begging for her to be better.

Thank you.

Derrick

into the wind

Crazy that the weather here is just as nice as the weather was in SC...looks like a few nice days, so I get to take advantage of it...a little. SO there are a couple good ways to get a really good ride in. Here is my recipe...first one shot espresso right before the ride...go outside, ride...see where the wind is coming from and ride straight into the headwind for as long as you can, so today that was about 90 km's, I ended up some where around Chesterville...next turnaround and just start riding into the tailwind for as long as you can handle with proper food...20km after you run out of food, look for a store...hydrate, cal up...then start making your way home...but before you get home, veer off to find some nasty roads, with some steep pitches and torn up pavement/gravel...but you gotta make sure you are at least 4 hours into the ride, you have to be tired...then race pace for as long as you can tolerate...and when you can't take it anymore...that is when you need to do some more...then you should feel pretty messed up...ride 10 km easy to flush out the system...get home eat stretch...brag about how tough you are, write it on your blog just so everyone knows you are a stud or at least think you are...then yah...that's about it.
6 hours at the office...
Oh yah...it's better to do it alone so that at one point you will feel devoid of thought.....that is what you are looking for, don't think, just do...then you have achieved a good training. That's the cool part about this kind of ride, there is a point where you just let go...that's the sweet spot. It's like yoaga and meditation all in one.
You don't want to do this all the time...but it's good every now and then. Maybe don't do this as your first ride of the year, you gotta have some form and some color on the legs for this...
DSJ

Almost done

Well tomorow is gonna wrap our timehere in South Carolina. I have no excuses for not posting other than I've been spending my energy training and there ain't a whole lot left in the PM to write about. Needless to say, we wereset up with our I bikes, they are pretty cool, still getting used to some of the features, really cool to see gradients, altitude,drag factors and watts.

More about the gadgets later once I have time to really test them out.

Other than that, lots and lots of solid riding for me. Good group of guys here and lots and lots of up and down. A few of the longer rides were in the 165km and over, it doesn't really sound that epic, but it was all solid quality riding. Yesterday the rain was pretty intense and I just rode as hard as I thought I could handle for 3 hours, well, I rode that tempo for almost 4 hours, it was pretty intense. Needless to say almost 2000km of riding, almost glad to get back home.

I managed to bring some of the crew out for some SC BBQ which was great.
Weather looks nice at home, so should be able to keep off the trainer...

later

Oh CArolina

Well we made it to South Carolina a few days ago for the training camp.
I never really understood why so many people came here, but the riding is really good.
Where we are in South Caolina, we can easily ride into North CArolina and the other day we even did three states in one day crossing into Georgia. http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/sc/six-mile/244126766523338990
I uploaded the ride if you want to check it out, almost 1600 meters of climbing, and my watch turned off for a bit so....
It's a littel cooler than usual, but apparently the nice weather is coming. Today I got a lift down the road then rode up and down Ceasers Head mountain a bunch of times and then rode home and then rode some more.

There's 13 people in the the house, a bit of an aminous number so we're throwing salt over our shoulders and not walking under ladders.

We've got a few of the Quebec guys here and a couple guys from BC, and a few other riders from Quebec so it makes for a good sized group and there is enough testosterone that I can punch it and there is always someone who will duke it out with me.

It's funny how fast 5 hours go by with a group of guys at a good tempo. It's a great way for me to be getting in lots of quality, quantity and a little Vitamin D. I wish Tasha could come along but her stomach has been giving her some grief still and she's just taking it day by day.

I'm sure it's hard for her to see me training my brains out and she wishes she can do the same. But in someway I think it will inevitably lead to her cross season being even better as it's not quite time for her to be training full gas.

Anyways, tommorow is a meet and greet with the people from I-bike so it should be like Christmas!
DSJ