The training mode is full-on now. I’m past the first two weeks of shock and awe and now I’m fully into the groove. I have to say – I’m really enjoying training again. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Apart from the structure and the challenging work-outs is the mental boost I get from training.

I just feel good. I feel good about myself. I feel good about where I am and where I’m going. Definitely my confidence was lagging before I started training again (perhaps this was the reason why I was not convinced I wanted to race again..) – but now that I’m just wrapping up week three of training, I have landed in a happy place.

It is amazing how vital it is to simply feel good about yourself.

These feelings trickle down into every aspect of my life. I seem to appreciate what I have in my life more and I recognize that none of this can be taken for granted. I count myself lucky that I’m able to recognize this. As my yoga teacher always says “Start your day with an attitude of gratitude”. So very true.

I realized that at first glance, this blog appears to be written by a person who is consumed with riding and blogging – it seems as though there not much else going on… Well, I thought that I’d take a break from telling you about my escapades in the basement riding the trainer or out stumbling around in the snow on my snowshoes – today I’m going to let you in on all the other stuff I do and that interests me. (Hold on tight – you never know what you’re going to learn here…)

Job?

Yes, I do have a job. I work as a technical writer for a local Ottawa software company. I work with very cool and smart people. My job is both challenging and rewarding. I also appreciate that it rates fairly low on the stressometer (just made this word up). I like going to work. I only work at this place four days a week. On the fifth day I flex my writing muscles and write a range of content for a bunch of freelance clients – professional blogs, article summaries, whitepapers, etc. This writing keeps me learning and thinking – it also gives me a chance to have my fingers in a lot of different industries and interests.

Books?

I like to read. Problem is, I’m a slow reader. Always have been and always will be. It seems to take me an inordinate amount of time to read a book. But I’m okay with this. I read books on my Kindle. I heart my Kindle. Currently I’m reading Canada by Richard Ford – a top-notch read. I recently finished 419 by Will Ferguson – another great read. Some of my favourite authors include: Angie Abdou, Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett. I’m not a fan of mystery – though I did become extremely addicted to Gone Girl – this was fantastic. Occasionally I read memoirs and non-fiction – one such book that I think is most excellent is Wild by Cheryl Strayed and I’m  just about to download Sugar Salt Fat by Michael Moss.

Magazines?

Truth be told, I used to be a magazine whore. I bought every magazine under the sun. So many magazines that I didn’t have time to read my books and eventually the magazine pile just became too big. But then when I took a break from full-time work to focus on riding my bike, I learned an important lesson – magazines are expensive. So I stopped buying them. Instead I would go to the big box book store and read them for free (deal!). But now that I have some disposable income again, I like to purchase a magazine or 17… No really, I have cut back a lot and often will choose to keep my $9 and read the magazine for free… But if I were to loosen the purse strings and spend, you’d likely find magazines like Outside, Peloton, Singletrack, The New Yorker, Ryerson Review of Journalism, and a new-to-me magazine Cyclist in my hot little hands. In fact, I bought Cyclist yesterday and I did so for one very specific article – a profile of Marianne Vos (my fave cyclist).

TV?

We don’t have traditional television here. We have a nice fancy flat panel tv (thanks mom and dad) but if you turn it on it doesn’t do much. We watch tv thanks to Netflix and some acquiring of programs. The rotation include House of Cards (love Kevin Spacey), Homeland (yes, it jumped the shark but so what), The Amazing Race, anything TopChef, anything MasterChef (though the New Zealand hosts are a bit lame), Modern Family, and a smattering of food-related documentaries. I do most of my tv watching while riding the trainer. So I expect in the coming weeks, this digital consumption will grind to a halt – and I’m okay with this. I don’t miss conventional tv – in fact I’m glad we got rid of our 200 channels. I find I’m less compelled to buy things since I don’t have advertisements shoved down my throat, I’m not in touch with popular culture and I’m okay with this, and I don’t find myself sitting in one spot staring at the black screen in the corner for hours on end. (Though I do admit that when we travel to races and stay in hotels, I quickly become a Food Network zombie and Marc is left to fend for himself.)

Radio?

Love the radio. Love CBC. Love NPR. As a kid I hated CBC radio – I felt it was boring and just for “grown-ups”. Well, I guess I’m a grown-up now since I really like to have CBC radio on all day when I’m home. When Marc was in Belgium, I found myself talking back to the CBC radio hosts and guests – yes even Murphy the cat raised his eyebrows when this happened. Due to my affinity for the radio, I also find myself listening to a lot of podcasts. Some people listen to music when they ride – not me, I’m all over talk radio and talk podcasts. Even for interval work-outs I listen to podcasts. If you looked at one of my ride playlists you’d find stuff like: CBC Radio’s Q, CBC Radio’s DNTO, NPR’s Fresh Air, the ClifCast, NPR’s All Songs Considered, CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter, and anything else that gets my brain churning.

Food?

I like to eat. I like to learn about food. I like to try new recipes (in fact I try to cook one new recipe a week). I eat a primarily vegan diet – this transition has happened over the last few years. This happened mostly due to my health concerns and trying to figure out how to keep myself in an ulcerative colitis remission. I’ve also found that since I’ve become sick, I just can’t handle digesting as much meat as I could in the past. I try to eat a mostly gluten-free diet and I’m most definitely dairy-free (added some in due to the recent dance with gout but the side effects of the dairy were unpleasant). I do eat meat once-a-week – this is on advice of my doctor and his concerns for my B12 levels. Along this journey of changing my diet I’ve read a lot of books and learned a lot about how valuable it is to achieve an alkaline state. Some books that have taught me a lot are Brendan Brazier’s books, Scott Jurek’s book, Natasha Kyssa’s book The Simply Raw Living Foods Detox Manual, and the book Becoming Vegan. So what do I eat? Fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and some grains – this means I drink smoothies, make super salads for lunch, make amazing veggie soups, stews and other meals, and for dessert I might have fruit, a date ball thingy, or chocolate. This might sound boring but it isn’t. Thanks to some awesome cookbooks and food sites, I eat awesome food. I just made my own rice milk – thanks to a recipe posted by cyclo-cross superstar Mo Bruno Roy on her site The Vegan Delicious and yesterday I also made my own sunflower seed butter (so darn good).

What Else?

Hmm, I’m not sure what else there is to know. Life is good. And I try to keep things simple. We don’t go to fancy restaurants (though we do like to eat out – big fans of anything Asian, the odd Shwarma Palace visit, and a hearty burger (veggie for me) from The Works). I like to hang out at coffee shops – drinking a decaf latte and reading or chatting with friends. Weekends are pretty chilled out – training, reading, groceries, cooking for the week and hanging out with friends. We have a cat – he is old (18) and he is our pride and joy – Murphy is just a big ball of love. So that’s really about it.

Now you know a lot about me. I hope I haven’t scared you off from returning to this site…

Wow, I really had no idea how much I missed (craved?) structured and challenging training. Last week was a blur of charging my Garmin 500, testing out my wireless Powertap and lots of fast and hard pedaling. By Wednesday of last week, I’d put the pesky sore throat and gout behind me and I was ready to get to the training that my new coach (Tucker Olander) of FasCat Coaching had mapped out for me.

The training started gently with some spin-ups to get my legs used to moving again and then things got a bit hairy… Thursday was a teaser with an hour long steady ride and then Friday things got a big ugly. I soon remembered the thrill of all-out one minute intervals – there was a lot of panting, blurry numbers, and a few shouts of “good grief”. After this early morning ride, I think my first words to Marc were “I died a bit this morning”. I managed to ride this high of exertion and satisfaction of a good work-out done all day – guess its true about those endorphins. On paper Saturday didn’t look too menacing – well I’ve been wrong before and I was wrong again. Sweet spot – not so sweet – especially when repeated a few times. Again though, I felt darn good and satisfied after doing this work-out. Sunday I got outside for a long time – three hours on the skate skis. I put this ski session in the “epic” slot – never before have I skied for that long or far alone and never have I set out at 6:30 a.m.  – the Gatineau Park was eerily quiet at that time. I didn’t see a soul until around 7:45 – I did see some rather large paw prints though..

It has been so very long since I’ve really trained – almost a year. So to get through these first work-outs is a big deal for me. These first few days of training have reminded me of how much I love to ride and race. I’ve rediscovered that part of my soul that pushes me to be see what I can do. I forgot how “hard” hard really is. Boy oh boy did I ever miss that feeling.

Today my training calendar reads “Completely Off”. I’ll take it. Because the fun starts all over again tomorrow. And for this I’m happy and thankful. While some of the work-outs may cause me to get a bit nervous and feel intimidated, I flashback to last April when I got sick again – when by July it was all I could do to cycle 22 km to work and then take a drive home with Marc at the end of the day – when in August I was trapped in a hospital staring out at the blue sky – when in September I raced in a local cyclo-cross race and reignited that feeling of excitement and competitiveness. So I’ll take the burning lungs, the aching legs, the early bedtimes, the once-a-week chocolate fix, the routines of training and recovery – so much better than the alternative.

I’ll leave you with this song by The Script called Hall of Fame – my new theme song for the 2013-2014 season.

I’m super stoked right now… I’m back to serious training again. I couldn’t be happier. In fact I’m downright excited and in case you missed it – stoked.

It has been a rough three years with ulcerative colitis flares and the vertebrae fracture – but these are all behind me and I’m ready to get back to some serious training and fun cyclo-cross racing. If I’ve learned anything over the past three years it is how much I love riding and racing my bike. I did think that I was done with serious racing but it was racing in the Eastern Ontario Cyclo-Cross Series this past year that highlighted how much I love competing and racing.

To get to the fitness and strength levels I need to race my cyclo-cross bike competitively I need help, guidance, coaching and expertise from people who pedal the talk. This is why I’m super excited to tell you that I’m now being coached by FasCat Coaching. I’m happy to be working with one of their new coaches (Tucker Olander) and all the conversations I’ve had with Tucker and FasCat Coaching founder and head coach Frank Overton have been outstanding. (This might sound like over-the-top gushing but I am really impressed.)

We’re getting started right away with my work-outs starting on Wednesday. So the off-season is officially over. I’m actually quite relieved to have structure back to my bike, running and skiing time. As you likely know I’ve been riding, skiing and running quite a bit – but I haven’t been doing so with focus or a plan. I need and crave this structure and focus.

I’ve got some good goals for the upcoming cyclo-cross season. Some big goals, some intermediary goals and some smaller goals. All goals that will have me on my bike riding, out on the trails running, riding my new 29er and generally just having fun.

One thing that really stuck with me from my conversation with Tucker on Friday was this: “Your goals are my goals”.

Can’t ask for much more.

Oh, and Tucker did say one more thing: “Your hard days will be really hard days”… this makes me a bit nervous but also extremely excited.

The title basically sums up the tail-end of this week…

Gout – the word doesn’t roll of the tongue very nicely and let me tell you – it is highly unpleasant. Downright painful would be the words for it. So painful I felt nauseous. Gout is essentially a build up of uric acid in the body which then turns to crystals in your joints (often the big toe). On Tuesday evening after a night that included a great run and some snow shovelling – I felt great and then around 9:00 my toe was very sore. Strange. (I chalked it up to being 40.) After a night that involved very little sleep and a very painful Wednesday which caused me to skip snowshoe running, I went to the doctor on Thursday morning. Verdict – gout. Typically people who experience a gout “flare” are those who have very rich diets full of red meat, alcohol and fatty foods – I don’t eat any of this. Sigh. Well, it also turns out that if you’re deficient in Vitamin C and/or dairy – you can experience a gout flare. So now I’m pounding back the Vitamin C and I had my first taste of uber-delicious Greek yogurt in four years. I’m also on some medicine that is working its magic. I managed to cram my cranky toe into my cycling shoes for two rides but I’ve now decided to give the toe the space it is demanding…

Sore throat – woke up Friday morning with the “hurts to swallow” feeling. Bigger sigh. I’m now pounding oil of oregano, sucking on honey lozenges and drinking warm almond milk/water and honey. I’ve also been resting.

Seems like the combination of gout and a sore throat are what it takes to get me to sit still. I am disappointed though because I was looking forward to a weekend packed with the Mad Trapper snowshoe race and some long skate ski sessions. Oh well, better now than in March or April.

Marc is taking extreme pity on me and has been making trips to the pharmacy for over-priced oil of oregano and putting up with my whining. I think I’m doing a pretty good job of my own “man flu”.

Congrats to everyone who went out and ran around in the woods and snow this morning at the ARK. Looking forward to reading the race reports and seeing the photos. Fingers crossed I’ll be out on Wednesday night for some snowshoe running with the XCZone crew.

Even more importantly – an early and hearty congratulations to Derrick and Natasha – have a fantastic day on Sunday.