Sunday, July 09, 2006

Saturday’s work-out &c., July 8/06

Coach Steve wrote: “Cycle 90" total with 4 x 10" tempo effort at 95-100rpm (4" easy spin RI)”. My plan was to get out very early (like around 6:30), but though I was up at 4:50 I didn’t manage it until about 7:45. Still, that’s pretty early; I was done just after 9:30, and got to see most of the day’s stage of the Tour de France. (Let’s face it: the individual time trial is probably the least telegenic event in road cycling, aside from a rider’s catching his two-minute man.)

Anyway, I took an out-and-back, the first third or so of which is pretty much my invariable: Fulton and Pape avenues, O’Connor Drive, St Clair Avenue, Kingston Road. People sometimes wonder why I always go east when I ride from home. Easy: I live east of downtown Toronto; if I go west I have to fight with more frequent traffic signals, thicker traffic on narrower cross-sections. Much easier to head east to suburban arterials with free-flowing traffic and wide curb lanes.

Anyway, for the last time, I think, I used the latter two thirds or so of the out leg that I long ago borrowed from the AdverMap series of bike maps: from Kingston Road, south on Ravine Road (i.e., Bellamy Road with a nicer name), continue on Bellehaven Crescent, east (more or less) on Hill Crescent, south on Bethune Boulevard (which descends the remnant of the Lake Iroquois shorebluff), east on Catalina Drive, north on Prince Phillip Boulevard, and east on Guildwood Parkway. Instead of turning north at Morningside Avenue, where Guildwood (thus named) ends, I continued on Greyabbey Trail until my 45th minute ticked off.

Guildwood Parkway’s ok, sort of, but everything from Ravine Road to Prince Phillip Boulevard, inclusive, are the frequent stop signs (which I cannot bring myself to ignore); at the foot of Bethune’s steep hill is a stop sign! And Guildwood has a pretty poor surface at the curb, where, of course, one usually rides.

(A side note: if often amuses me the things named after Norman Bethune, presumably the namesake of Bethune Boulevard. He’s something of a Canadian hero for his work with the sick and wounded in the Spanish Civil War and then in China; his hard-core Communism and, worse, his support for Mao’s brutal suppression of dissent, are conveniently forgotten. In any event, Bethune Boulevard in Scarborough is the site of large, expensive homes, presumably not occupied by supporters of Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tsetung Thought.)

On my return I decided I would not skedaddle through the residential streets listed above; my original plan was just to follow Guildwood Parkway to Kingston Road. But the only signalized intersection on Guildwood is at Livingston Road, and I thought, hey, doesn’t Livingston intersect with Kingston Road? I turned north.

I wasn’t exactly wrong, but I was functionally. Livingston is a north-south road that I’ll guess at one time intersected Kingston Road normally. Now it only connects on the north side of Kingston. The massive fly-over of Kingston Road over the Canadian National Railways’ Kingston Subdivision (a 3-track line), and Guildwood Station, has caused Livingston to the south to be come just an entrance to Guildwood Station’s parking lots. Without a map, I just followed the only road I could, Westlake, to Galloway Road, and there connected to Kingston Road.

I did do the tempo efforts prescribed by Coach Steve. As Thursday, I guessed at the cadence. I basically did high-cadence hard bits, separated by very-low-resistance spinning. It seemed to work.

Anyway, my side trip got me home after 99 min of cycling, 24.4 miles, at an average of 14.7 mi/h, and a maximum of 30.9 mi/h. (On that route I usually hit the maximum descending St Clair from Victoria Park avenue.)

The rest of the day seemed to be nothing but rest. I made what I now consider a big mistake as soon as I got home: I had my day’s second cup of coffee. That meant that after I’d had lunch and felt like a nap I couldn’t really go down for more than a few minutes. I spent over two hours in bed, alternately dozing and reading, kind of a waste of time; I’d’ve rather had a good solid 30 to 60 minutes’ sleep, then had my coffee.

Fortunately I had a very good night’s sleep.

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