Alp D'Malden 2012

This will probably be the only time in my life you hear me complaining about the amount of climbing I just did in WINDSOR. Yes, you heard me- Windsor. How is this possible you may ask? Well every year, the organizers of the Malden XC series like to hold a race called Alp D'Malden. It's named after the legendary Tour de France climb, Alp D'Huez, and the race honours this climb by having the same overall vertical gain. This is accomplished by 50 loops of a 1km circuit. So 50 times you climb to the highest point in Windsor, bomb down the gravel/dirt descent, and repeat.

My good friend Andrew and I tackled this race as a tag-team. Before you make fun of me for cutting my workload in half and being a big sissy, hear me out. This allowed us to race 2 laps as hard as we could, get a quick breather, and do another 2 laps full out. This essentially turned this endurance race into brutal interval training at race pace. I'm happy to announce that after reviewing the data of my newly acquired Garmin, my lap splits did not get much slower as the night wore on, in fact some of my fastest laps were towards the end of the race. Unfortunately, both Andrew and myself are too cheap/stupid to invest in lights for our bikes, and since I already went off course 3 times on the descent when it was still light out, we both wimped out and didn't finish the race due to darkness. This won't ever happen again, as I am buying a light as I type this.

It was a good workout, now time for some training before Turkey Cross next weekend, hosted by Kevin and Andrew from my very own Team CHCH. If you're reading this and are a cyclist, there is no excuse for not being there next weekend. Prizes, cash, cross racing.. It's going to be a good time!