Saturday, I went on a wicked road ride with Dave Jetz, Carrie Tuck, and their buddy Dave northwest area of Calgary. Thankfully, they pulled a lot of the 160 km with the strong headwinds home. My intention for the Giver8er was long slow distance training so no problem with the back to back workouts.
Giver8er Enduro
I jokingly said I was planning to negative split each lap as my plan was a training distance ride. So I started as slow as I could... though with a pavement start the roadie in me kicked in and the front fork lock-out went on. Thankful the field bottle-necked going into the trailhead so it was a reasonable follow-the-leader pace through the single-track. With a power climb course it is hard to go slow as enough speed is needed to get up and over a few sections.
Not pre-riding the course, I did my best to follow the rider in front. I had to let a few riders by in the technical sections. The latter half of the course was my favourite with long open roadie sections, short intense climbs that I could motor up stand climbing.
Lap after lap, I got more confident to blaze down the short fast bumpy descents full-on with the Garmin clocking my fastest speed at 49.3 kph! I was having fun, especially when I could take my time in the techy sections. First lap was nerve-racking for me with riders following close behind me.
My lap times were fairly consistent around 40 min including a quick bite at the pit. With the final few laps, I crumbled a little only tacking on a couple min per lap. At that point, my muscles were just tired from the pounding of the rough trail and, oh, maybe riding a hard tail(!). Ended up with 11 laps after 7 1/2 hours, 106 km with 10,300' elevation gain! Pretty awesome training! The cumulative short little climbs make it quite an effort for the 9.6-km loop let alone 106 km!
Fuelled with a Camelbak full of Vega Sport drink. Prepped a bunch of awesome drinks for the pit... fresh coconut water, fresh watermelon juice, my bee pollen/chlorella/Vega mix, a few shots of Acerola cherry/mushroom powder mix. The chopped up bananas and orange slices were awesome. Nibbled on bits of Manna sprouted bread, dates, and raw bars. Energy was great. I was amazed how quickly all my fresh drinks disappeared considering it was only 12C on average with the sun coming out briefly towards the final hours.
With rain happening earlier in the week, the trails were in their best condition, just tacky enough and not dusty. Just perfect conditions overall for an enduro race with an awesome temperature AND great trails!
Thanks to Tim and the Deadgoats for a great event.
Bonus was the surprise entry into the Bow80 race for the top solo riders, so thanks to Bow Cycle!
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