Friday Swim and Bike

Friday Swim & Bike
A few of us showed up with wetsuits today. It’s been a long time since I had that on. I forgot how easy it is to swim in it. I feel like a cork floating on oil in that thing. I only kept it on for about 20 minutes of so, not much more than the warm up. It was great to be swimming past all the fast swimmers who didn’t have one on. I don’t often get to see people drop back behind me in the water!

I did the breast stroke for a couple of lengths of the pool. The wet suit holds me so high in the water that when I do that frog kick thing, my feet were out of the water. Funny, but not too helpful for propulsion!

We did the 400 meter time trial. Simon was behind me. I knew he was enjoying the draft. He softly, accidentally I’m sure, touched my feet. That’s the signal for ‘let me pass’. I don’t think he was very happy when I stopped at the wall and then drafted off him for a couple of laps. It sure was a lot easier swim though with him a few feet in front of me! My time was 8:34. I don’t know what last years’ time was, but I’m sure this was a good bit quicker.


The weather report for Saturday was calling for rain again. I didn’t want to play out last weekend’s ride again, so I went out and did my 160k ride after I got home from swimming. Karen Bonham picked me up at about 9:15 and we headed out and up to Lake Simcoe. We had guessed that we both biked at about the same speed. We were wrong! I average about 26 – 27 kph, I think she’s more like 30 – 32. I got to practice drafting a bit on the bike today too.

We cycled up to the Lake and then back to Aurora. Karen had something to do in the afternoon. We split off at St. Johns and Bayview. I carried on over to Dufferin, down to King City and dropped in on a friend for 10 minutes. I left and went over to Jane, north to Hwy 9 and into Holland Marsh. I circled the march around Bradford and came back out of Dufferin again, back over the Bathurst to Mulock, over to Bayview, down to Wellington and home. When I got to the house I was short by 5.5 k, so I headed out again to Bathurst and Kennedy, circled a bit in the neighborhood and ended up at 160.3 in 6:20. I’d been averaging 27+ kph riding with Karen, but the hills slowed me down, (plus I guess I was pretty tired) so that my ending average speed was 25.3. Average wattage was 142 with a 78 cadence. By those numbers I guess I should has gone one gear lighter for most of the day.