Ward D

Last week, municipal elections took place across Alberta. I was involved in one campaign and was very interested in two others. Late last week, the official results were released so, of course, I had to map the results to see how my three candidates did. In this post, I'll look at the race in which I was involved: the race for EPSB councillor for Ward D.

When I say I was involved in this campaign, I should say I only provided some suggestions for where to campaign. I don't actually live in Ward D and I was dealing with the declining health of my dad so didn't have time to actually be out on the campaign trail. I also prefer being hidden away running numbers than actually dealing with people.

This campaign was interesting in that my candidate initially saw herself as the progressive choice and wanted to target voters likely to vote NDP. Then, her competition was announced and it was the former leader of the Alberta NDP. Still, I made recommendations of where to campaign based on voter turnout and the number of possible votes in an area. I also had suggestions about where to remind people that the competition was a former NDP leader. On election night, the results were disappointing.

Officially, my candidate captured 39% of the vote. The map above shows that my candidate lost in every polling station except two and one of those was one vote to none. I had been hopeful of a win since my candidate says she had the large majority of signs on private property and her competition just seemed to be resting on his laurels. It appears my suggestions about where to canvass didn't have much impact as my candidate lost the polling stations around her home where she's active in her children's schools and in the community. I'm not sure where the competition lives but, if you cannot win your own neighbourhood, there doesn't seem to be much hope. I had hoped there would be a competition for signs on private property and I could analyze those data to update my suggestions on where to canvass but with the two candidates running different strategies about placing signs on private property, the analysis seemed useless.

I am only consoled but the turnout results from the mayoral race which I use as an approximation to the turnout for this race. It's difficult to compare the municipal, provincial, and federal election results due to the different boundaries but the turnout is roughly the same for the latest election at all three levels. The consistent turnout means I gave my candidate some good advice about where to canvass. My advice about where to canvass based the federal NDP numbers and my candidate's previous run for an elected Senate nomination didn't seem to help as there doesn't appear to be any relationship between those results and the municipal election results.

My next post will look at the race for city councillor in my own Ward.

Big Bang Beginner Biathlon Blast

A friend in my cycling club organized a biathlon race today. He and another friend I ride with both race biathlon in the winter and smaller sports like to put on events like this to try and attract members. I know I did a few similar events when I used to speed skate. I've always wanted to try biathlon so, even though I hadn't been on my skate skis in a few years and my only experience shooting a gun was hunting juice boxes with a shotgun up north, I was keen to enter. Despite the cold and the mid-March blizzard, it was fun to give biathlon a try.

After some gun safety, a few practice shots, and an explanation of the rules of biathlon, I was in the second heat of 5 km races using the .22 rifles. The biathlon club has one very nice left-handed rifle which I got to use since I'm left-eyed. It was nice to always have the same rifle but it meant a little delay when another left-handed person was in the range when I arrived. Luckily for me, I beat the other racer the first two times but her better shooting put her in front of me on the third time through the range. I really started to fade before the last time through the range so she had left by the time I showed up.

Each lap was about 1 km but the punishment for each missed shot was a lap around the 100 m penalty loop. I thought I hit a lot more targets than I got credit for and I ended up extending my race by 13 penalty loops. My GPS actually recorded that I did 6.5 km for my 5 km race.

I should have asked one of my friends to try my skis today as I've always been convinced they are slow. Maybe the skis are slow or else I have poor skate-skiing or waxing technique. The course was also a little slow due to all the new snow but it was the same for everyone and I wasn't catching or passing anyone.

In the end, I had a lot of fun and I'd be willing to get out and do it again. I think I'll need to figure out how to be a better skier before I become an actual member of the club and race all winter though.

Going the distance

I logged quite a bit of distance on my GPS in 2012. I had good intentions of doing a lot more riding with my club but family commitments and general laziness limited those rides. I started off well with a group ride on 31 March but I didn't keep it going. I finished with just one group ride over 100 km but also had one of 96 km and 99.94 km. I wish I had had a lot more that long or longer. In 2013, I really want to do a few Grand Fondos with Rich.

Commuting was my main mode of riding this year. There was little snow early in 2012 so I was able to cover over 500 km in the first two months. That's not bad for a commute of just 8 km each way. I was able to stay ahead of last year's pace for commuting and even kept things going during the very snowy November and December. I don't care about the cold but it's the snow and ice and really slow me down.

I wonder how many extra km I could have had since I don't wait around to get satellites at the start of a commute and I turn my GPS off a certain distance from home. I roughly estimate I have around 400 commute files so I'm 40 km short for every 100 m I didn't record on each commute. My total commuting distance was 3045 km, up about 250 km from 2011. I only had 646 km of training on my bike, up 370 km from 2011. My racing distance was almost exactly the same: 98 km in 2012 and 97 km in 2011. There was a huge difference in how I did that distance as I did fewer cyclocross races this year but one was an endurance event. A normal cyclocross race is a little over 10 km for me but I did 37 km at the endurance event. I also did some recreational riding which means pulling my girls around in the bike trailer.

In the end, I recorded 3855 km on my GPS. I classified 3836 km as cycling, 10 km as cross country skiing, 8 km as hiking, and 1 km as skating. I spent over 177 hours riding my bike. I could match my 2012 cycling distance by jumping on my bike and going to San Diego.

My goals for 2013 are to do a little more of everything. 3000 km of commuting is pretty good but exceeding 1000 km of riding with my club should easily be doable. Grand Fondos average around 150 km so a few of those would help and they'd break my current single ride maximum of 130 km. I'm considering doing the 31 km Birkie if I get a lot more skiing in and, if I can make my speed skates more comfortable, I should be able to beat the single kilometre I did in 2012. I also hope to motivate my friends to do a backpacking trip or two so I could even have a better year hiking.

Puncheur Cross

The Puncheur Cross took place on Sunday and was my worst outing of the season so far. The course was a long one taking place in the mountain bike skills park in Devon. I liked the section on the river bank and the run up the stairs but it was not your typical cyclocross course. There were some short, steep, awkward climbs and quite a bit of bumpy, wood chip trails. I ended up crashing in the sand pit early on my first lap. My rear shifter got clogged with sand and I wasn't able to get out of my lowest gear. Racing on a course I didn't enjoy and stuck in my lowest gear meant I dropped out after just one lap.

I covered 2.6 km in 11:34 with an average speed of 13.5 km/h and a maximum of 24.6 km/h. My average heart rate was 147 bpm with a maximum of 158 bpm. I crashed before my heart rate had really ramped up and I coasted from there.

In even worse news, I lost my head-to-head season series to Rich, 2-0. I think I could have beaten him at this race, especially since he fell, was run over by the race leader and had his rear wheel knocked loose. That's definitely what I call getting lapped in dramatic fashion.

Lion's Den Cross

I was back out on the 'cross bike today at United Cycle's Lion's Den Cross. The weather was completely different to my last race as it snowed early in the morning. My new wheels had arrived earlier in the week and I was watching the weather as I thought about which tires I would use on them. A Facebook posting claiming that the hill would be taken out if it was wet made me decide on my Michelin Mud 2s. Well, the Mud 2 isn't a true mud tire and the hill was left in the course, despite how wet it was.

The Sport race was actually the second one as they decided to schedule the Experts first. When my race started, the Experts had cleared the racing line but there was still snow on the course. The sun came out before my race started and all the snow would be gone by the end. The mud would definitely not be dried by the end.

This year's race was run in the opposite direction of the previous few years. This meant the spiral came early in the lap and I had to climb the steep side of the hill. On the first lap, the spiral backed the field up quite a bit as the switch from a right turn to left was quite tight this year. For the hill, I was glad for the spikes in my shoes so I could run up. On my third lap, I tried to climb it on my bike but I couldn't recover from a rear wheel slip about 3/4 of the way up. For the descents, I ran down the first little bit and mounted my bike on a little flat area. Most riders around me did the same thing. The whole way down was very, very slippery. The whole course was quite slippery and I lost count of the number of little slips and skids I had. Luckily, I didn't have any crashes.

I completed five laps in 42:21 for 10.1 km. The course was quite twisty and it seems my GPS might have missed about 400 m. I had an average speed of just 14.3 km/h with a maximum of 28.1 km/h. My average speed definitely took a hit from all the running up and down hills. I had an average heart rate of 152 bpm and a maximum of 187 bpm. The average is actually a little low as my GPS didn't record correctly for the first lap. My last four laps averaged 164 bpm each lap. I think I rode a little too relaxed and could definitely have had a higher heart rate. I sat behind one or two slower riders for much of the first lap and gave riders a lot of room to lap me on my last lap so I was giving up time in both of those situations. The only person I was really racing dropped out early on the third lap with a mechanical problem so I was on my own for most of my race.

The only other things to mention was that the new wheels felt very nice. It's a bit difficult to compare them with my old ones after one race, especially since I also changed my tires and this was my first wet race of the year. Also, it was good Marg wasn't around. Today's barriers seemed really high and I've had a few talks over the years about barrier heights with Marg. I agree that those of us with short legs are unfairly punished on really high barriers.

Red Cross

Today's race was the Red Cross. It was nearly the same as yesterday's course but run in reverse. This direction actually flowed a little better and I enjoyed it more. I also ate a little better in the morning and was feeling good for the start of the race. The pack seemed smaller today and strung out fairly quickly so there wasn't as much chaos in the first few corners. That being said, one Redbike rider decided to dismount for the difficult downhill hairpin and, when two riders in front of me had difficulty with the corner, he still wanted to push past us all and I got a good whack from his bike as he carried it by me. It didn't gain him much of an advantage and he slowed considerably toward the end of his second lap at which point I was able to make an easy pass.

Unfortunately, the end of my second lap was also the end of my race. The tough little hills cause tightness in my back and I was also experiencing a lot of pain in my left hip and leg.

I completed just 5 km in 21 minutes for an average speed of 14.4 km/h and a maximum of 24.7 km/h. My two laps were consistent at 10:22 and 10:28 plus a little lead up at the beginning. I averaged just 165 bpm with a maximum of 178 bpm. That's a little low but the first lap usually appears low as it takes a minute or two to get my heart rate up on the start.

Jim Horner GP

Today was the Jim Horner cyclocross race. It was your typical Alberta 'cross race where the designer found a hill, in this case the termination of Mill Creek Ravine, and made the riders to go up and down as many times as possible. The designer was also in love with hairpin turns, some of which were situated on the sides of the hills to add extra toughness. While I'm normally better at short, sprinter's climbs than those typically around me during a race, I counted nine climbs of various lengths around the course. As you can see from my GPS data, it was a very stop/start kind of race for me due to the hairpins and climbs. My forearms were actually very sore in the afternoon due to all the hard braking which was required around the course.

I have to say I really didn't like the course during the pre-ride but, during the first two laps, I was able to make some of the first half of the course flow a little better so I enjoyed things a little more at that point. As usual, the first technical section became a gong show at the back of the pack as some riders ahead of me fell on one of the few open corners, which was also on a sidehill. Someone broke the tape at that point and a few riders went outside one pole, avoiding both the crashes and the lowest part of the corner. The crashes bunched a number of riders back up so the next two hairpins were also very slow. The only other bit of interest to my race was the longest steep climb on the course. It was on a narrow trail surrounded by high grass. On my first two laps, I was behind the same rider who dismounted and ran up. I feel I could have run up faster than him but I didn't feel like getting off the trail so I was actually able to catch my breath a little. I had no one in front of me on my third lap so I decided to ride the hill. I was able to do it but I almost stalled at the top. I'm considering either a smaller chainring up front or a larger cog on my cassette as these short, steep climbs seem very typical in my races and a slightly easier gear would help.

I ended up doing four laps, for 10.1 km, in 44:46. That put my average speed at one of my slowest for a cyclocross race at just 13.5 km/h with a maximum of 25.3 km/h. There was a little run-up to the start and then my lap times were 10:42, 10:55, 11:24, and 11:25. I really felt fatigued after my second lap and really wanted to be pulled because I was a lap down after just three laps but, at that point, I was still on the lead lap. I averaged 171 bpm with a maximum of 180 bpm so I was on the limit of my anaerobic threshold pretty much the whole race. All the short climbs mean there's never a choice of how to pace yourself through the race.

I have an equipment update. Once again, I really felt like my rear wheel has lots of internal friction. It seems that even my old commuter rolls better than my cyclocross bike. So, on the advice of a teammate, I was back on the Williams Cycling website and saw that they do have some alloy clincher 'cross wheels. I have a pair on order and I really hope they're here before the Lion's Den 'Cross on 20 Oct. At this point, I'm leaning towards switching my cassette over to the new wheels and continuing not to have a second set of wheels in the pit.