Banff Bike Fest

Saturday was the Banff Bike Fest. I was there to compete in the time trial and criterium.

I've been a little tired recently because I haven't been sleeping well with Julie tossing and turning in our bed at night. I also haven't been training as much as possible due to all the rain in Calgary.

My start time for the time trial was 8:14 and, with the hour and a half drive to Banff, this meant packing the family into the car really early in the morning. I did arrive in Banff with enough time for register and get a little warm-up in before going to the start line. I felt okay off the start but I became aware that it wasn't going to be a good day shortly into my ride. My maximum heart rate is about 185 bpm and I can normally do a time trial with my heart rate over 170 bpm the entire way. I can see from my GPS record that I only hit 170 bpm once during my race and my legs felt heavy and tired at just over 150 bpm. The first half of the course has quite a bit of climbing which isn't my strength, especially since I'm still so far overweight. Still, it was a very scenic course running from Banff and going around the Lake Minnewanka road. There were even some big horn sheep on the road around the halfway point.



Things went a little worse but as expected during the criterium. Once again, I couldn't push my heart rate up very high and I struggled. Even with the motivation of trying to hang onto the pack, my heart rate peaked at just 168 bpm. The main pack could do about 55 second laps but alone I could only do 1:05 or 1:10. The course was barely over 600 m so getting lapped wasn't going to take long. I was off the back in a hurry and lapped after only seven laps.

Up next will be the Stampede time trial and road race in Calgary. I hope the weather will co-operate and I'll be able to push a little harder during that one.