New Website = New Blog

Thanks to our new sponsor, CanadaHomeHealth.com, Rob and I will have a website entirely dedicated to our participation at the TransRockies race. We have chosen to name it challengingIDEAS.org.

The name of the site is a bit of a play-on-words with dual meanings. The first is in reference to the challenge of competing in the TransRockies to raise awareness of the IDEAS society; the second, reflects our desire to challenge the prevalent ideas in society about people with intestinal diseases and to challenge the limitations that people with the illnesses feel they have because of their sickness or ostomies.

Please click on the link to redirect yourself there. It is a work in progress for the next day or two, but by the end of the week (July 27 or so) it should be full of good info.

HEAT WAVE

We've been experiencing a bit of a heat wave here in British Columbia. So today I decided to go for a good long ride around our waterfront - considering that I live on an island, it goes on just as long as I want it to. My mom lives on the drive, and her condo door was open when I rode past, so out comes the digicam and an impromtu photo shoot begins. Beautiful day, Beautiful ride.

Exciting new title sponsor announcement!

If you have been following along with our training, you'll know by now that our bid to win some support from a local contest was unsuccessful. But out of the unfortunate came a fantastic, and much more appropriate opportunity thanks to the great people at Norfolk Canada Home Health.

So from henceforth, Team IDEAS becomes Team CanadaHomeHealth.com/IDEAS. We have a great partnership with a fantastic company in Guelph, ON that believes in the mission of IDEAS and ostomyathlete.com.

Now we can concentrate on our training. Look for a new website soon that we will use to promote the mission of this race, post our daily race blog updates and pictures and connect you with all of the important people and organizations who have helped to make our participation in the TransRockies possible.

Still Training (today was North Shore in Van)

Rob and I had a good ride today: some really technical single track and some faster fire road sections.

I came over to Vancouver to take advantage of Christine's work-paid hotel - the Four Seasons, its REALLY nice - and to get some miles in with Rob. We work well together, have some laughs, and both get inspired by similar things, so I think we're positioned well to have a good race at TransRockies.

We got our team helmets yesterday too. They are Catlike Kompact Pros, and they are so light you can barely notice them on your heads. Really cool.

Another long ride on the North Shore tomorrow before Christine and I head home. We'll do a long ride on Thursday too to cap off a really productive week of high volume and intensity training.

New BIG week VOLUME and INTENSITY

Ok. So we are both back into our respective towns, and almost recovered from travelling. Here we go:

This week:
Today (Thursday) was 4 hours on th mountain bike, just trying to find the legs.
Friday is 5 hour ride, road or mountain, attack hard all up hills as 85% max maintained effort with 15 sec all out sprints up hill every 2 minutes (if hill is long, do more, if hill is short, do less)
Saturday is four hour mountain. Steady state uphill.
Sunday is five hour road, intensity for the first three hours, two hour recovery spin over last two hours of ride.
Monday is four hour mountain. Steady state uphill.
Tuesday and wednesday we'll ride together in Vancouver, trying to get 5-6 hours on both days of pure hill climbing.
Thursday is 2 hour super-slow recovery ride, high cadence to spin out the legs.

THANKS FOR VOTING: and back from camp

Thanks for voting; we'll know if your votes were enough on July 15th. Keep your fingers crossed!

Ever seen Zoolander? That pic is our rendition of Blue Steel and Magnum. Guess which is which.

Back to training: Rob gets in from Japan on the 12th. I rode today, not too long or too hard: legs felt slow after a week off. Though you can't call camp a week off. I did swim for twenty minutes upstream in the Bow river when we went rafting: does that count as training? Anyway, next two days are hectic and I have to travel more so training is still going to be down unfortunately, but big volume starts again on Thursday: we'll be doing another seven day circuit for at least 550k-600k - mix of on and off-road, but mostly off.

More to come soon...