First Race in 18 Months? Ouch. June 21, 2011
Posted by Celia in Racing.2 comments
After spectating at Round 1 of the Bike Otago XC Winter Series last month with no Cadence-related meltdowns, I wondered whether it was possible to work around Cadence and enter Round 2. Well, guess there was only one way to find out, and that was to give it a go!
Cadence woke at 5am on the morning of the race, so after giving her a feed, Scotty kindly took over babycaring duties to allow me a couple more precious hours of sleep. At 8:30 I was feeling relatively more human so I asked Scotty to give my bike a last-minute check and load it up on the car. I got changed into my (slightly tighter fitting) riding kit, located various accessories in amongst the boxes they were still in from our house move a couple of weekends ago, and by 10am, we were ready to head out to Wakari Creek. A rather tired Cadence fell asleep in the car on the way there, so at least the baby was not of concern at that particular point in time!
I was pleasantly surprised to see so many people at the Wakari Creek carpark, all ready to race. It’s good to see a good turn-out for a local event, especially in winter! I opted for the easiest of the three grades on offer – 1.5 laps of the course for Rec grade. Given I can count the number of times I’ve been for rides this year on two hands, I figured that it would be enough riding for me, thank you very much!
After race briefing, we began with a warm-up ride on the road to the start line. By the time I got there, I was right at the back of the group, which suited me fine given how tired I was already feeling from the ride to the start! “5, 4, 3, Go!” said Greg, and it was on.
Having not done much riding up Wakari Creek since the tracks had been extended, I wasn’t quite sure where we were going, but followed the crowd. Looking ahead, I groaned slightly as I saw that we were heading up on a slight incline. Yes, it was very slight.. but still an incline, and my legs weren’t liking it! I told myself earlier that I wasn’t out to race as such, just to participate. But when I noticed I had two young boys right behind me, I was determined to not let them get past me!
After the slight rise, there was a wider flat section before entering the singletrack descent. My new Santa Cruz Superlight worked a treat and was just as responsive and fun to ride as my old one (with the added bonus of being 3 lbs lighter, although the same cannot be said about the rider!). The track then veered into a new section (well, to me anyway), which was flowy in places and pedally but not too bad in others. Before Cadence, I’d normally just put the bike in a bigger gear and stomp that around, but my legs didn’t have the strength so ended up changing down a few and spinning instead. I passed the start/finish line at the end of my start (half) lap around 15 minutes in. Time for lap 2!
Usually, I would treat the first lap of a race as a warm-up and as I warmed up, I would get stronger and faster. However, I guess this only works when one has been riding fairly regularly because by the time I had “warmed up”, I was already tired! As a result, the second lap was taken at a fairly conservative pace. Looking back down the track as it snaked its way up to the top, I could see the boys dropping a little bit further behind me, but I didn’t want to drop the pace too much and be passed by them! The rest of the lap was nothing to write home about, but I was enjoying being out on the bike, although I found myself wondering what Cadence was up to and whether she was OK without me (yes, sad I know, but when you spend almost every moment with a wee babe who relies on you for food, it’s hard to put her out of your mind).
I was fading quite a bit on the second lap and ended up drinking most of my bottle – a feat unheard of before for me! In fact, I think I drank more in this wee race than I did in the whole of Karapoti (50km) in 2008. As I crossed the line at 39 minutes, I stumbled off the bike and sat on the ground muttering something along the lines of “childbirth was easier than that!”. OK perhaps a bit of an exaggeration in hindsight, but I was feeling pretty damn shattered for the little riding I had done! Never was I more grateful to be passed a hot-dog by Greg. Nom nom nom!
Upon reflection, I wasn’t too sure what I expected from my first race in 18 months (my last race was Round 2 of the South Island XC Cup series in January 2010). It was a bit of a reality check for how much fitness and strength I’d lost, but also was good to see that I still enjoyed the competitive aspects of it. Entering the Recreation grade was a good call as it feels like I’m back to the drawing board and at the level I was when I started riding in 2003. Although I suppose my technical skills have improved slightly since then! I think that finding time to get in some more regular riding will be the key to getting more enjoyment out of racing. But despite how tired and slow I felt, it was good to be out there again. Bring on Round 3 next month!
How to Combine Bikes and Babies #2 May 22, 2011
Posted by Celia in General, Riding.3 comments
While pregnant with Cadence, we purchased a second-hand Chariot Cheetah bike trailer on Trade Me. It was our intention to take her out on rides – out and about in town, on sealed cycle ways, and when she gets a bit older, on gravel and more bumpier terrain.
The past month has been an exciting time for us – we’ve discovered that our 100 sq. metre house, while compact and easy to heat, was rapidly getting cluttered up with baby-related stuff. So much in fact, that if Cadence was lying on the floor in the lounge surrounded by a few toys, it was almost impossible to lie down next to her. So we started house-hunting with the intention of buying something towards the end of the year. That was until we found “our dream home”. 3 bedrooms plus an office, a big lounge, deck with views overlooking the city, large kitchen, internal access garage, and located in a suburb that we’ve always aspired towards. Within a month, we had bought this place and sold our current place. As people kept commenting, no, we did not muck around!
So how do the two above paragraphs link together? Well, when I pictured us using the trailer, it was with us living in our old place on a valley floor with nice flat access into town. Our new place however, is up Signal Hill (yes – location of awesome downhill, and some lesser-ridden XC, tracks). This however, means a big climb to get home. It appeared that the use of the trailer was now going to be somewhat limited.
As Cadence now has good head control and is 6 months old, we thought it was time to try her out in the trailer. We attached the trailer to my Superlight, strapped her in, and rolled gently along to Chingford Park, conveniently located practically next door to our current place. (As an aside, we’re really going to miss the park, as Scotty’s Ode to Chingford attests.) As Scotty rode alongside keeping an eye on her, it seemed that she was quite comfortable in there (or as Scotty put it: “yeahnah, she’s chilled as”). As we headed home, it looked like she was about to fall asleep in there. So I thought ”hmmm, well while it’s a nice day, I may as well carry on and ride as she sleeps”.
Scotty waved us off as Cadence and I headed down the road. The original plan was to head along the flat following the cycling routes towards the city and back, but as we approached the intersection that leads up the hill to our new house, I changed my plan and headed up the hill.
A quick glance over my shoulder and I saw that Cadence was now fast asleep. So the aim was to keep steadily moving so that she didn’t wake up from sudden changes in velocity. Up, up, up. Spinny, spinny, spin. A few steep pinches where I was on the nose of the saddle and really feeling the extra 7.5kg of baby + the weight of the trailer. A few (OK, a LOT of) strange glances from passers by who looked at me like I was insane for riding a bike with a bike trailer in tow up the hill. A few moments where I wish I had brought a drink bottle along as the heat of the sun got to me. But finally, we made it outside our new house. I stopped and paused to enjoy the view of the city, to catch my breath, and to look back to check on Cadence (who had just awoken). I felt a real sense of achievement that I had made it up the hill in my current unfit state, towing a baby at that!
Slowly back down the hill we went, with me making sure that I was taking the smoothest lines possible, and Cadence happily playing with her toys in the back. As we approached home, I reflected upon the fact that I had just climbed the exact same hill that I had struggled to climb on my first group ride with the R&R Sport Monday night womens group, led by Sara Macdonald (now Richardson). Although I hadn’t done much riding over the past 6 months, I must have some residual fitness left over from the years of riding beforehand. It gave me hope that maybe with some more riding, I can one day get back to where I was before riding-wise. Sure, I won’t have the time to train as intensively as I once did, and to be honest, my priorities are family first bikes second now, but it made me think that perhaps I won’t have to give up racing after all.
In any case, at least I now know that living up a hill is no longer an excuse for not using the bike trailer..
Looking knackered after arriving home from my ride.
Cadence chilling in her trailer
Altitude graph of today’s ride (courtesy of http://nz.mapometer.com/en/) for those who are interested!
From the Sidelines May 17, 2011
Posted by Celia in General.3 comments
I accidentally clicked on the link to this website as I was browsing through my bookmarks the other day, and was surprised to see that the last post was dated 17th January. Has it really been that long??
So what has been going on the past few months? Well, not much riding apparently! I can remember a couple of rides – one down in Balclutha as Scotty’s parents looked after Cadence for a couple of hours, and another in Naseby the day before the 12 hour race when Scotty looked after Cadence as I headed out for a lap of the course. Sadly, my latest ride was down to the dairy and back, of which the ride home (only about 500m or so!) left me slightly out of breath! Oh dear. It seems I’ll have a lot of catching up to do fitness-wise!
But I haven’t been completely absent from the mountainbiking scene. Rather, Cadence and I have done a fair bit of spectating from the sidelines. When Nationals was down here in February, Cadence and I headed out to watch the cross-country and it was good seeing the regular riders on the XC circuit out and about on my home tracks. Astonishingly, was that quite a few of the pro-elite guys and girls actually knew who I was! It was nice to feel that sense of community again. We also headed out to watch the downhill the next day, and last month, we went to Naseby for the 12 hour race where Cadence and I hung out for a couple of hours, again catching up with people. And last weekend, we went and watched the first of the Bike Otago Cross Country Series, with Cadence rugged up warm and in the front-pack.
It’s amazing how even just standing on the sidelines can make you feel involved in the whole scene again. While it would be nice to make the transition for spectator to participant (I say “participant” instead of “racer”!), it will probably take some time. If I’ve learnt anything from this parenting gig, it’s that babies develop in their own time and move onto the next stage when they’re ready. So right now, Cadence is highly dependent on me for food and comfort. But with time, she will (hopefully) grow and become more independent (or at least, less dependent on me!). There’s no point in stressing over not being able to ride, or missing out on events and such. Next month, or year (or perhaps even the year after that), it will be a whole different story.
Cadence models the latest front-pack fashion – booties on her hands.
How to Combine Bikes and Babies #1 January 17, 2011
Posted by Celia in General.4 comments
(The title has a #1 in it in the hope that I’ll find other ways to include Cadence in with my riding..).
Today’s combination of bike and baby:
1. Put baby in car capsule
2. Load up car with BMX
3. Drive to BMX track
4. Relocate baby and capsule from car to the start gate shed (nice and sheltered)
5. Do laps of the BMX track, checking in on bubs at the start of each lap.
The outcome? One happy mum and one sleeping baby. Awesome.
My Other Christmas Present January 15, 2011
Posted by Celia in General.1 comment so far
About a week before Christmas, we received two large boxes in the mail. One contained my new Santa Cruz Superlight frame (as well as Scotty’s new Bullit frame), while the other contained the parts kit to build it up. A week or so later (turns out babies can be quite time and energy-consuming), the bike was built up, and on the second day of the new year, I headed out to Forrester Park/Bethunes Gully (location of the National XC Champs this year) for my first mountainbike ride since September.
It was great being able to ride without worrying about my heartrate. While pregnant, the guidelines were to keep your HR below 140 when exercising, so to not affect bubs too much. I have to admit I quite often ended up going up to 150-160 bpm though – I figured since my max HR was a bit higher than “normal”, then I’d be OK. It was also good not to worry about crashing too much, and I was riding with a bit more aggression and less hesitation. Finally, it was good to get away from Cadence for a little while. Being a full-time mum is great (well, mostly), but having a break every now and again to do something for myself is bliss.
Since that first ride, I’ve managed to head out for another three. I checked out the tracks out at Wakari Creek for my second ride, and rode out at Forrester/Bethunes again for my third and fourth. My legs and butt were quite sore after the first ride but after the others, they were a lot better. Guess it doesn’t take too long to get used to the bike again.
The bike itself is fantastic. A very similar setup to my old Superlight except the forks have 120 instead of 100mm travel, and the new bike is specced a bit higher so the whole bike is lighter (around 25 lbs instead of 28), although I’m negating it with the extra weight I’m now carrying!
So.. what are my goals? Good question. To get out on the bike more eventually would be nice, but that largely depends on how Cadence goes. By the end of the year, I’d like to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight (I’ve got 8kg to lose), and to maybe do a 3 or 6 hour solo MTB race. At the moment though, I’m just taking one day at a time as Cadence’s behaviour can be as unpredictable as the Wellington weather. In reality, I’ve got years to ride my bikes, but Cadence is only a baby once so I may as well enjoy this time while it lasts.
An Early Christmas Present! December 5, 2010
Posted by Celia in General.add a comment
Turns out bubs didn’t want to share a birthday with Christmas and decided to arrive a month early.
Cadence Alice Lane was born on the 24th November 2010 at 6:31pm. She weighed 6 lbs 14 oz (approx. 3.1 kg) at birth, and was born at 35 weeks 5 days gestation. After a lengthy 12 night stay in hospital for blood sugar level and jaundice issues, we finally made it home today.
Welcome to the world young Cadence! 
PS: My bike is still locked up at work from riding to work the day before Cadence’s birth! So looks like I made it all the way through my pregnancy on the bike!
PPS: I have started a new blog for Cadence-related updates so hopefully there won’t be too much cross-over between these two blogs! http://cadencealice.wordpress.com/
T Minus Seven Weeks! November 5, 2010
Posted by Celia in General.add a comment
Well, well, well. Look what we have here – a neglected blog. Probably time for a wee bit of an update.
Today is seven weeks exactly until bubs’ due date of the 24th December (yes, it also means it’s around 7 weeks to Christmas – time to get your shopping started if you haven’t already!). Bubs is doing well and getting bigger (as am I!). Here’s a photo of bubs’ legs from the 18 week scan – pretty awesome technology these days eh!
Looks like some mighty fine cycling legs if you ask me!
As for me and cycling, well I managed a (tiring) two hour MTB ride at Makara when I visited Welly towards the end of August (around 5 months pregnant). It was heaps of fun riding some new singletrack mixed in with the old stuff that I know so well. A shorter MTB ride in Dunedin a couple of weeks later and I decided my MTBing days were probably limited. 30 minutes in, my lower back was getting quite sore and I was getting rather tired and lightheaded so called it quits.
On the upside, I’m still commuting backwards and forwards to work on my awesome Giant Suede commuter bike – even on a miserable day like today (where it’s raining with a southerly blowing). I’m stoked that I’m still managing to get some cycling in, albeit at a more sedate pace than usual. It will be interesting to see how much longer I’ll be able to keep the cycle commute up!
With the realisation that my MTBs were just going to hang around in the bike shed getting old and dusty, I made a difficult decision a couple of weeks ago to sell up both my Nomad (as a complete bike), my Blur XC frame (which I never got around to posting photos of on this blog! ooops), plus a few parts off the Blur, then use the money to reinvest in a brand new bike to ride when I get back into MTBing next year. The new bike is now on order, and I can’t WAIT for it to arrive and for me to be able to ride it! So for 2011, I’ll be on a brand spanking new Santa Cruz Superlight, built up with Fox 120mm QR15 forks and the SPX XC kit. Cheers Stylie at Hyperformance Hardware!
Mmmmmm new 2011 Superlight paint jobs and decals look HOT!
So I suppose that’s enough of an update from me for now. Stay tuned in around Christmas time and hopefully we’ll have pictures of the new addition to our family to show! (I’m not sure if I mean bubs or the new bike here – hopefully both!)
Commuting in comfort July 25, 2010
Posted by Celia in Riding.2 comments
I’m almost at the halfway mark through this pregnancy thing, and things are beginning to get a wee bit uncomfortable when bending forward on the bike. Since I commute to work by bike, I’d been thinking of ways to keep me mobile.
A quick trip to R&R Sport this morning, and I found my answer:
It’s a 2011 Giant Suede city bike. Complete with bike rack, front and rear guards, kickstand, bell, a Nexus 7 speed hub, and a seat as wide as all my other bike seats combined. It is incredibly comfortable with its upright position, and I’m looking forward to riding it to work tomorrow! (I may or may not have hucked it off the curb a few times while riding it to the car after we bought it! Teehee fun!).
One Trial Learning July 7, 2010
Posted by Celia in General, Riding.1 comment so far
In Psychology, we sometimes talk about one-trial learning – where it only takes one experience for an organism to learn an association between stimulus and response, or between behaviour and it’s consequences. This is particularly true for aversive events – you only have to stick your hand in fire once to learn that it’s hot and you shouldn’t do that again (well, hopefully!).
Last year, I headed out on a ride on the Pineapple track, where I practically froze to death, and wrote a blog post entitled “lessons learnt“. These lessons being:
1. Check the weather forecast, track conditions, and pack a windproof jacket. Especially when heading up to where there’s frost/ice on the tracks at almost 700m above sea-level and the strong, gusty north-easterlies are super-chilly..
2. Don’t ride to the meeting point when it involves an hour of uphill.. especially after racing the day before.
3. Don’t offer to tail-end charlie when you’re only wearing a merino singlet and a “warm-up” jacket.. Brrrrrrrrrrr!! No chance to warm up and no chance to stop and put something warmer on.
4. Louis Garneau windtex gloves are NOT as good as one would think in such conditions. My fingers were thoroughly frozen..
5. Living in a valley called North East Valley is an absolute b*tch to ride home in when the northeasterly is blowing right through. I was riding home in my small chain-ring on the flat.
I’m happy to report that, in addition to all the rats, birds, gorillas, invertebrates (and various other animals) that have demonstrated one-trial learning in various psychology experiments, I too can learn successfully following just one trial!
Tonight’s Pineapple track ride was in stark contrast to last winter’s one. It helped the the weather conditions were calm (albeit cold). But I’m happy to say that I remembered all the points above:
1. I wore a windproof, waterproof jacket, paired with a merino Hot Toddy and a riding top.
2. I was kindly dropped off at the meeting point so I didn’t have to ride there.
3. I didn’t tail-end charlie (although hung around at the back and got plenty warm on the uphill with my lack of fitness!)
4. I wore two pairs of gloves – standard Fox ones paired with some Marmot windproof gloves over the top.
5. Thank goodness for the calm conditions – the ride home was a LOT more pleasant this time!
So all up, a far more enjoyable experience tonight! We had fantastic views of Mosgiel and Dunedin, had an interesting encounter with a possum, and a great time swooping through the singletrack in the trees. Cheers Sara for booking the track, and cheers to all the girls for their company on a great ride
