Biker Chick...

I have two glorious bike outings since being back from Penticton - YAY! I swear, pounding your legs like we did can really be a boost!

I went out last Thursday with my buddy Andrew to Ghost Lake and back. Yes, the same Ghost Lake that will be featured in the Ironman Calgary 70.3 race. He had run 20 k the day before, and I was supposed to do an easy ride, so we figured that would be a great place to go. From here it was 40 km on relatively flat road. I should mention it's pretty hard to find a flat course in this neck of the woods!

The ride out felt good even with the headwind. I tried to keep my cadence up and didn't worry so much about speed. My legs seemed ok and I only really felt some fatigue when I had to go up an incline.

I noticed something when I was out riding though...the power you can get from the upstroke on the pedal. Hmmm... I am pretty sure I've noticed this in the past, and I am sure I've been told about it, but for some reason I hadn't put in practice. I tried it out as we were riding and boy could I ever feel a little power boost! It took a bit out of my legs though so I figured I'd just do it once in a while on this ride, then keep practicing another time. This was supposed to be an easy ride to help my legs recover...

I had never been to Ghost Lake so we stopped to take a gander at wear the swim start would be. Actually, that's a good question...where are they going to start the swim? Obviously they will have it all figured out, but the only place we could see at this point was from the boat launch or a swim start from in front of the launch. The other areas are rocky and have steep cliffs. I'll have to check out the website to see if it says anything.

It's a gorgeous area though and I think everyone will like the location. The ride back to where you turn up Grand Valley Road is pretty good too. It'll be a decent warm up section.

We had the wind behind us as we rode back to town so it only took 35 minutes, versus the 1:05 it took us to get out there. I was having a blast!

My second ride of the week was today and it was AWESOME! I am running out of my Infinit (powder nutrition) so used the fact that I had two bottles to determine how far I went. The program called for 2-4 hours, o decided I'd do a 2.5 hour ride and I should have sufficient fueling.

Because I was going to do a shorter ride, I set the intention of making this one really count and pushing my 'normal' a bit. That meant really pushing up the hills and feeling the burn of my leg muscles the entire time.

The weather was brilliant and a perfect riding day temperature. Apparantly Mother Nature, the gorgeous gal she is, heard my intention of going harder, so turned up the wind a notch. Not only that, but she made sure to switch the direction of the wind so that 80% of my ride was done in a headwind!

This time I kept reminding myself to focus on the upstroke of my pedaling as much as I could, and to power up the hills as well. I can say with confidence that my legs felt the burn!

I went from my house up Horse Creek Rd first. Normally I go up Grand Valley first, but Leslie was mentioning its a bit harder to go up Horse Creek as there are more rollers then a couple steep climbs, while the other way has just the two steep climbs. I wanted the harder workout, so I reversed my route.

When I got up to the Twp 280, I did a bit of an out and back to the east in order to get some extra time in.

I was totally stoked to have really motored up the two hills on Grand Valley too. The one I didn't even go into my small ring. I had good speed from the descent so pushed really hard to make it up before I had to gear down. Thankfully that section was shorter.

The ride back to the house and up the bonus hill was great too. I was a bit nervous by some of the wind gusts when I was riding on the highway, but I managed to stay upright, which is always a good thing when your riding!

All in all I did 60 km in about 2:24. I'm happy with that time because I know I was fighting the wind most of the way and I worked hard. My legs and arse are totally feeling it now. Must go stretch more.

Before I go though, I thought I'd share some photos from last night where I was a 'biker chick'. The kind where you'd think my purple metallic Harley Davidson was parked outside. Friends were having a Cancervive fundraiser in town last night and the theme was 70's & 80's costume party. I should mention that I LOVE costume party's so was happy to dress up. Also, I happen to have kept some key pieces of clothing from that time, so thought it would be fun to drag them out.

I thought of doing the punk rock look, as I was a we punk rocker in my day, but I figured it would take too long to grow out the mohawk, so instead I would rely on the rocker/biker chick look that I also sported in my youth. The photos below illustrate my look. All the clothes are mine and authentic 1980s gear - hmmm, wonder if I should mention that?? I even found my bus pass from 1989 in the pocket of my leather jacket! Too funny. Too bad you can't see my moccasins or the rings on each finger - my own personal brass knuckle look...

Oh, I was told to not smile in the one photo so my I would look as tough as my jacket...Fear not though, I'm still the peace, love and granola girl I always was!! Holy hannah, it took so long to get the makeup off!! I still had lotion in my eyes when I went on the ride today from the amount I had to use to get it off!

I made sure to top off the evening with a double Jack Daniels on the rocks, to pay homage to the look. Mmmmm, sweet nectar of the gods.

Peace out my lovely friends.!