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Today - July 2011

last Sat actually. stayed in bed late, enjoyed the cool morning in bed.
rode out late (10am), for a quick short river run with a little bit of headwind.
went around the parks nearby. lo and behold an Aloha festival at Komazawa koen. good food to chow on :) and good dancing, specially some Kiwis performing a haka on stage.
 
‎2 Days, 193km, 4041m altitude gain!

Brilliant ride with the Tyler Foundation Shine On Cycle Race... I mean challenge!
 
110kms up and back on the Tama River this afternoon. 650kms in the last two weeks. Managed to get the odm for the year over 3,500kms. Target of another 1,500 next month. It'd be nice if the weather improved a bit.
 
ahhhhh! I saw you two weeks ago on the right side of the Tamagawa near Fuchu Y's road. I was clocking up stream on the road..... noticed the wiggle team shirt and thought ....good marketing!
 
Ha. Yah, it is good marketing. I don't mind though. It was the cheapest jersey they had by far and seems to be good quality. There is a Japanese guy that I have passed along the Tama River a few times wearing the same jersey. Wiggle has helped me out with good service/low prices so I don't mind helping them a bit too (...and helping out some locals who are not aware). I was thinking of getting some Bianchi team kit to match my bike, or Lampre, but recently have passed several people dressed up like pros, and since I was faster than them it left me feeling a bit strange - costume party... I don't know. Not a big deal, but can't really put my finger on it. Looking forward to the next run of the TCC kit :)
 
Is it national no-indicator day or something...? Grrrr. Saw a guy watching TV on his sat nav screen as he drove as well.

Quick blitz around the parks of Tokyo this morning (Imp. Palace, Kasai Rinkai, Wakasu keihin koen). Off to Fuji Ten for MTB tomorrow.
 
Rollers

No time to ride today, so squeezed in an hour on the rollers in my boys' bedroom.

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Got out to Nagano this afternoon about 3:30 or so and got in a short 48km with about 870m of climbing. Tomorrow is the first big day, tackling Norikura Skyline!
 
One of the local bike shops came through yesterday with a lift to the hill climb so was able to attend. Course was 10K at 8%. Wasn`t able to ride the course beforehand, so on Wednesday tried a blind climb on a similar hill/gradient as practice. However, went off too fast, so today, decided to keep the pace down to begin with, especially as mapmyride said the second half was the steepest with many 200m stretches around 10-12%. However, they never came! So either mapmyride is off or my computer`s barometric altitude meter is faulty – it clocked the course at 725m, that`s 10% off. Basically, I was over-cautious as worried about blowing up after last week on what I thought was 14% but what must have been higher. As it turned out, only used my 34-28 for about ½ K at most so could have pushed cadence more – settled for around 80 instead of 85-90.

So saved energy for something that never happened and after crossing the line my stomach didn`t hurt compared to either last Sunday`s or Wednesday`s practice. Could have continued for another 2K so was bit annoyed that I hadn`t nailed it. Still had anaerobic capacity left and had limited the alactic energy bursts in anticipation of the steeper sections, so was a solid L4 effort, rather than a to the limit ride. But first hill climb race, so next time will try better and hopefully have a car so I can get to the hill and practice.

Anyway, managed to clock 43:48 (roughly what the online calculator predicted with my 265-270 watts) which was good enough for 69th (started 163) place (out of 245 entrants) and 14th (out of 66) in my age category. My original aim was to finish inside 45 mins, so managed that. Works out as a VAM of 1095 m, so quite pleased with that. Afterwards, climbed to top so reached 1500m.

Organisers need to work on organisational efficiency. Registration closed at 7:45, opening ceremony 8:00-8:20. Then ride down hill to start and wait in sun til 9:30`ish. So by time we started, temperature had climbed to over 30C! Also, hadn`t bothered with warm up, as would just be waiting for 30-45 mins and have cooled down again. Why the wait???
 
Organisers need to work on organisational efficiency. Registration closed at 7:45, opening ceremony 8:00-8:20. Then ride down hill to start and wait in sun til 9:30`ish. So by time we started, temperature had climbed to over 30C! Also, hadn`t bothered with warm up, as would just be waiting for 30-45 mins and have cooled down again. Why the wait???

Word of advice..... walk away from bitching about the organisational skills of the event. Not even worth worrying about. I've racedall over Japan and the world and its touch and go in every country and every event. :D
 
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