Ottawa?

Where did the week go? It feels like just last night I got home from Tucson, and now I’m looking at the very limited number of days left until the next camp and getting even more excited. This past weekend was swept up in a whirlwind of ringette watching (my sister’s provincial championships) and some special occasions for the family. By the start of the week though it was full gas back training, in what has (knock on wood) been unreal weather for Ottawa in March. The mornings are still cold, but the sun warms things up a little above freezing by noon. Seeing as how I can’t wait until noon to ride this means I take off in what ends up being way too much clothing by the end of the ride. For instance, during yesterdays five hour slugfest I lost almost 5lbs. Five pounds!! In the winter no less. Between the beauty weather, Europe fast approaching and the just finished Olympics, motivation is easy to come by. The thing was that while down south this spring trip seemed pretty far away, but now that March has arrived it quickly dawned on me that the infamous Tour of Flanders is only a bit over a month away. Nonetheless I have confidence in the training and preparation I’ve done so far, backed up by good numbers yesterday in what was an important ride.

And how could I write without talking more about the Olympics. Maybe it’s my quickly advancing age, or maybe the fact that I got to meet/ride with a bunch of Olympians from the last Olympics, but the whole thing seemed more personal, and dare I say it more possible. Seeing that these athletes are just normal people and basically ride a bike the same way (with two legs) brought the thought of the Olympics down just slightly out of the stratosphere for me. Aside from that the performances of the athletes were hugely inspiring and made me extremely proud to be Canadian. Obviously the gold medal hockey final stands out as the most exciting moment for me, but there are two others that I will remember for a long time. The men’s 30k XC skiing pursuit stood out for the sheer brutality of the race. Those guys are animals and just pounded on each other for the whole 30k, the amount of suffering on display was almost painful to watch! The other was the performance/celebrations of Jon Montgomery, who I think should be a shoe in for the next Greatest Canadian title. The guy wins a gold, chugs beer, and auctions cars. What else do you need? On a final optimistic note, I thought it was so good to see the feds increase (!) the funding for the OTP program, not only for the fact that it’s more money, but I think they finally understand that Canadians really do care about sport.

I think it’s warmed up enough for me, gotta go ride….