Monday June 5, 2017 5:00 a.m.

Good morning,

I think I will judge this summer by how nice the weather was on my Saturday bike rides. This past Saturday was beautiful. As you can see from the photo, Joe and Laz and I (Joe and Laz are 3rd and 4th from the left) were joined by some friends for our long ride.

Hope, Phipper and Brian came out for the first 67 km of our 120 km ride.

That makes such a difference. To have people out to keep you company and to keep you from dwelling on the fact that you will be out on your bike for 5 hours is a sign of a good friend.

Like I said, it was a beautiful day on Saturday. For most of the ride the wind was light but the last 25 km was into a head wind and a slight up hill all the way back to our cars. The last handful of km’s are always hard but add a head wind and slight uphill for 25 km and you got yourself a grind.

I felt it was a real confidence builder for me. I am not concerned as much about the leg strength or fitness. My concern is getting use to sitting on that bike seat and the mental toughness to bike for 7-8 hours. I do not want to leave that to chance and up until Saturday I felt I was behind on my long ride mileage.

Saturday eased my mind. I had a great ride. Felt great, sitting on a bike seat for 5 hours didn’t bother me. Don’t get me wrong, it still feels uncomfortable, I was just able to block it out for the most part.

Overall, I was thrilled with my long ride. Now this Saturday coming up Joe and I head to Jasper to ride the 165 km Gran Fondo. That ride has some major climbs and will be the longest distance I have pedaled this year so it will be a good litmus test to see where I am really at. Because of the amount of climbing we will be doing, anything under 7.5 hours will be a good day.

The training this week had a nice twist to it. I swam in an outdoor pool! I don’t think I have ever swam lengths in an outdoor pool before. Not that I can recall. It was a nice change from the indoor pool. It was fantastic to be outside, the pool was at the right temp and it wasn’t busy at all. I am going to try to do my weekday swims in the outdoor pool for the rest of the training calendar.

All in all a good week of training. Looking forward to getting out to Jasper this weekend. The weather is not looking good for Saturday. This morning the forecast for Saturday is rain. If it rains, it will not be a pleasant day.

Due to the long bike on Saturday, I won’t do my long run on Friday. I will swim Friday morning before I head out. My runs this week will be light. Other than that, we roll on. 12 weeks to go.

Take care

Scott