where the magic happens

Thankfully it doesn't happen in the basement often for me but Saturday I found myself with very little time and in need of a bit of intensity to sharpen the legs for Sunday's road crit. Instead of getting kitted and layerd up to do a sub 1-hr road ride I headed to the basement, popped the 2001 Paris Roubaix in the VCR (remember those?) and a CTS climbing DVD into the laptop and hit the pain machine in the basement. If you've ever done a CTS video workout before you know that you can get a good sweat on but they are easily the most boring vids ever! You're forced to listen to Chris ramble on in a monotone voice the entire time you're trying to do a 20 minute interval. Not for me, hense the PR video supplement. Put the two together and you have a tolerable 50 minute (so I quit a bit early, whatcha gonna do about it???) workout.

Sunday saw Mike and I head down to Scarborough to an industrial park wonderland to do the first in an eight week series of training crits put on by a local bike shop. They are a great workout where you can get one hour of race pace effort in and you get to hone your group riding skills. There is nothing quite as fun or scary as being dead center of a 40 person pack literally rubbing shoulders, hands, legs etc as you try to not cause a monumental pile up.

Both Mike and I went in with low expectations for the finish but wanted to get good workouts and try our hand at a break or two. Mike and I tried both tried on several occasions to break from the field only to be realed in in short order. Next time we may try to plan a two person attack that has a better chance of sticking. In the end, nobody crashed, I hit my highest heart rate I've seen in three years (on an attack off the front) and I finished mid-pack in the final sprint. check, check and check.