You’d think there’d have been some fuss. That I’d have made a bigger deal. I thought so too. Somehow we were both wrong.

Though this blog has been relatively silent on the topic since the first 1000km rolled by, our Gentlemen’s Wager to see who would be the first to 3000km has continued unabated. For most of us. No mentioning names but a rider – who’s name rhymes with Salberto and is spelled q u i t t e r – quit riding shortly after he passed the 1000km mark saying something about having a life. As a married father of three, I have no idea what he’s referring to, my time consumed with potty training, mess-cleaning, how on earth did you get that up there?? emergencies and an endless stream of he/she said/did fights. The rest of us and a late entry continued to ride on.

I have to admit a sense of accomplishment of sorts. What started out as a desire to ride my bike to work spread through the office, drawing first Adam, then Chris, Alberto and finally Jon last year. This year saw Johan – who’d always claimed to ride, but was never seen on a bicycle make the journey from beyond Sarcee. Admittedly it was just once but he still managed to do it until the mornings became too dark though it might also have something to do with the looong climb from Edworthy park all the way up into Coach Hill at the end of a long day. The late entry Trevor stumbled across a bike in much the same fashion as I – not looking for one but it fell into his lap. Trevor picked one of the longest routes for his first ride and racked up a 44km round trip. To his credit, after some navigational improvements, he made the trip a couple more times before he let his inertia fall away. I may have harassed him daily about his 4-wheeled conveyance, which is nothing short of annoyingly smug I’m sure, until he acquiesced and agreed to ride again. We’ll see what tomorrow and the promise of a 2’C morning brings.

So in the Gentle’s Wager, Race to 3000, herein after referred to as GW-Rt3K, there are 7 names. Mileage not being limited to commute-rides only, everyone has racked up more than a single commute which is, in my mind, a tremendous accomplishment for a facility that had none in 2010. It’s almost 20% of our employees. That’s pretty cool.

However…the GW-Rt3K is officially over. It ended Friday evening when one of the seven – me – finally put a nail in it. With Adam and I swapping the lead position a couple of times over the last few weeks, it was time to put it to bed before he decided to. With 2800km on the board Monday morning, I had a slight lead over Adam. The slight part concerned me as he’d proven himself more than able to put 100km down in a single ride so a 100km lead was not what I would have considered solid by any stretch. When I sent the message that I’d crossed the magical mark, there was part of me that steeled itself for an “I finished a few minutes ago” response…which I got. I was split between belief in his earlier assertion that he wasn’t going to push on after I told him I likely would, and the knowledge that he’d had exactly enough time to get it done. He didn’t leave me hanging for long. “Nahhhh. How about first to 4000?”. So there it is – I managed to be the first to 3000km of our group of seven.

And so it continues. The truth is that Calgary’s weather could wreak havoc on this latest round. Having a bitterly cold Thanksgiving weekend is as likely as a balmy Remembrance Day, a -20 Halloween night or a +20 Boxing day. We don’t know when the end of “reasonable” riding weather is going to rear it’s ugly head or how loose the definition of “reasonable” might be if the onset of winter is slow and gradual. I guess that means it’s time to get it done. If you’ll excuse me…

Three thousand and one point one five…or so.

It seemed like a good idea at the time – a ride with no direction, no destination and no schedule.  I had the day to myself, a beautiful day and a Rescue Bike – what more could I need?  A better sense of direction apparently.

My first thought was to do my short 20km NW hill climb route before making a trip out to Chestermere along the canal.  I’d done that trip a couple of times last year but haven’t been out there once this season.  As soon as I left the house, I changed my mind, not wanting to ride along my daily commute to get there so I headed down 10^th street’s bike lane into downtown.

With no real plan and without much reasoning – maybe I’ll ride up Edworthy  - I headed west along the south side of the river taking paths unknown until I found myself at the base of what’s known in Strava as the Crowchild Popper.  It’s not long, but it’s an average 15% grade for the first 300 meters followed by a further 10%ish grade for another 300 meters.  It humbled me before throwing me out on Bow Trail like last night’s bar conquest.

I made my way up to Edworthy which involved some climbing, thankfully on a rather gentle grade.  I’ve been to Edworthy before, but I’d always dropped in from the top so hadn’t climbed it.  It was a popular place with lots of people going both ways along the hill.  I coasted down to the bottom and feeling thoroughly warmed up thanks to the Popper, turned around and started heading right back up again.

There was a senior gentlemen in front of me riding a nice Pinarello at a very modest pace.  I debated about following, my ego over-rode me and around we went.  Briefly.  I managed oh maybe 55 full seconds before I’d cooked myself and pulled over for some serious gasping and wheezing.  The senior who was too slow to follow passed me without a word, but with a knowing smile.  I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up, so I crawled back on and pointed for the top.  I made it without any more stoppages, but I was back to hufflepuffling and chewing greedily on the Shot Bloks.

Not content with my performance, I headed back down.  I wasn’t willing to go on until I’d ridden it or keeled over trying.  This time, with more prudence and less ego, I pointed the Rescue Bike to the top, found my oblivious zone and pedaled.  And wheezed, and dripped and gasped.  I passed another poor soul but somehow managed to time it right where I didn’t get passed.  I say time it right because shortly after I finished, a number of rather fit looking riders rather sailed right past my collapsing place exhibiting no indication of effort on their part.  Cheeky.  I managed a solid 211th place.

With no plan and absolutely zero desire to climb up further along Bow, I dropped back down into Edworthy, crossed the river and headed for Bowness despite knowing I didn’t have a plan when I got there.  I decided to make the ride from Bowmont Park up to Silver Springs – a nice ride with a bit more reasonable climbing (not really).  I headed this way despite knowing that I had no plan once I’d reached Silver Springs other than I wasn’t going back the same way.

I followed the bike signs along the street, wondering where I was going to end up.  I’d managed 35km with a fair bit of climbing (by my standards) and was ready to start making my way home.  I hadn’t thought through the nutrition side of things and was desperately short on food.  I wanted to get home before I bonked out too badly.  I tried to read the map routes on the YYC Bike Path app, but the street names were obscured when zoomed large enough to read, so I just followed the signs.  This led to more climbing.

The remaining 18 kilometres of trying to get to Nose Hill were populated by long, seemingly endless climbs followed by brief, joyous downhill sections wherein I’d find myself utterly lost, stop to try and figure out my place and my route and realize I’d just wheee‘d my way down past a crucial turn, leading to now unnecessary climbing.  I rode a bike path that went nowhere I wanted to be, I sailed past countless (un-bike-signed) turns, climbed back up, then down, then up.  There may have been cursing, whimpering and some fetal ball positioning.

I was now well into bonking, barely able to maintain a pace that amused other riders and failed to bother the multitude of pedestrians on the path. My legs ached, my lungs were not amused and I had enough salt crusting on me to brine a flat of pickles.  All I wanted was to get home.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels between my lack of riding plan (and it’s result) and a lack of goals in general.  Sure – I managed to ride a couple of hills I’d wanted to and I toughed out considerably more climbing in a single ride than ever before, but the learning was painful and the lack of prep (food) was a disaster.  How many character building events do we suffer through because of our lack of planning?  Or maybe you’re the opposite – never veered from the plan.  Never bumped into something unexpected.  Surely there’s some happy ground?

Bagged.  Beat.  Hammered.  A few days of crap sleep and bizarre dreams have left me drained.  Barely have my eyes open.  A smart man would close this thing and go to sleep.  Luckily for you (or not), I’m not a smart man.

As a certified data junky, I use a number of different data analysis tools to look at my rides – the ubiquitous Strava, Garmin Training Center software, their online site, Garmin Connect and of course being a spreadsheet junky – Excel.  Each of these provides something that the other doesn’t – Strava the ability to precisely compare your performance on a given route or portion.  Training Center allows me to look at how much time I’m spending in the various heart rate zones.  From the Garmin Connect site, I can sort and examine my rides by almost any sorting or filter I want.  Of course Excel is far and away the most powerful of the bunch with perhaps the exception of Strava’s GPS routing ability but it’s also the most arduous to use.  Yet with all that at my fingertips, it was something much simpler that gave me the information I wanted.

I dislike hills so I seek them out.  On Saturday and Sunday rides, or evening commutes if the wind, legs and schedule are all in agreement, I head north and west for the sole purpose of tackling that which I hate.  Hills.  Actually that’s not entirely true – I like downhills, just not so much the up portion.  I ride along the golf course in Panarama, looking south and feeling impressed with myself that I was down there a couple of minutes ago as I try desperately to control my heaving and panting.  I’ll climb up 14th street and Macewan Glen to Macewan Way to Macewan Park, Nose Hill.

I understand, they’re not big hills – not categorized climbs but they still break out the sweat in me.  Like getting fat, or losing weight one supposes, change is gradual.  You ride the same routes over and over and it all feels the same except on those rare days when the planets have aligned and one fairly flies effortlessly along.  I worried, a lot, that my new Ridley would humble me and point out my poor condition, my weak legs, my inefficient lungs.  I was convinced that I needed to toss the stock drivetrain in exchange for one designed for a fully-loaded touring bike lugging heavy loads up interminably steep hills.  Then something happened.

Despite all of those analysis tools, I didn’t note any improvement in my hill climbing.  Perhaps it was the realization that no matter how poor I felt, I was certain I wasn’t going to end up pushing.  Or the weight loss.  Conditioning.  All of the above.  Suddenly I was climbing the dreaded home hill 2 cogs higher, and I do mean suddenly.  One day I’m climbing in 4th, the next in 6th.  I headed out on the weekend thinking about my gearing conundrum  and decided I’d not drop below 5th in my usual grinding along 3rd or 4th selection.  I approached the hills determined – no trying, no maybe, just do or do.  No do not.

It worked!  I did.  I suffered, I wheezed and I lost a liter or two of water along the way, but I did it.  I could do it after all.  I headed for my old commuting nemesis – the Fox golf course climb.  It’s not steep, it’s just a long steady haul that seemed to defeat me daily.  I always rode it all but it seemed to go on forever.  The change in the pathway this spring meant I hadn’t ridden it once this season.  If I really was stronger, it would show here.  I rounded the final bend in anticipation, pedaling hard and waiting for the work to start.  In no time at all, it was over and gone.  I’d crushed it!  Turns out the ‘Cross bike gearing will be just fine.

Little changes, little adaptations, imperceptible growth.  I wonder how long I could have climbed in that gear?  How long has my perception held me from trying?  Talk about your limiting belief, right there, in the flesh.  I believe it was Henry Ford who said “whether you believe you can, or that you can’t, you are correct”.

What’s holding you back?