The second Canada Cup of the yr took place this week 100 km east of Quebec city in the beautiful Charlevoix region of Quebec. The race itself we will talk about later.
The past week was spent with my buddy Simon at his parents place in Malbie which is another 60 km east of the race course. There house is situated up on a hillside overlooking the mighty St Laurence seaway. The quiet country setting and the wood stove in the basement made for a pretty stellar place to spend the week resting and training.
In between bike rides and plates of food we managed a two day road trip up to Saguenay which is another great spot out here. The highlight of the trip was a bike ride along a river full of waterfalls and on the way back home we found a patch of fiddleheads. Being on a recovery ride we opted to stop and fill our pockets with the small vegetables which are the furled frons of young fern plants. These we would later put into our pre-race salads as they are full of antioxidants, Omega 3 &6 fats, Iron and Fibre. Apparantly they are also toxic if you don’t know how to cook them. We made sure to google the recipe before trying.
Back at Malbie Friday night we were joined by Alberta cycling legend Roddi Lega and his wife Katherine. Roddi kept us entertained with old Canada cup stories which helped keep Simons and my mind off the pms’ing weather outside as it pissed for 2 days straight.
Sunday we awoke to a Canada Cup course which looked like a pig stye full of a half foot of sloppy cow dung. The race was a gongshow with the 4.6 km laps taking over 22 minutes a lap for the winner Matt Hadley to complete. We were racing a duathlon as we ran up the uphills and spent the donwhills sliding around aimlessly running into bushes and endoing in bottomless mudholes. Every lap the lines would change as the course got mangled by the 100’s or racers on course. The conditions fell into the “epic” category for sure.
I managed a decent first lap but then the back began to seize up and by the third lap I was again doing more yoga moves in the forest then bike riding. I had seen a chiropractor during the week to get things re-alined but something isn’t working back there at the moment. Probably a lingering injury from the crash in Arizona which will need to be taken care of before any more ripping is done.
After the race we headed back to Simons place to refuel the tanks then it was off to the casino in downton Malbaie for the evening. We opted for the Russian Roulet table. I’ve been 0-3 on this game in my lifetime but things turned around and I walked out of the joint $16 richer at the end of the night. Super stoked to have created the start of a winning streak.
Today I was to fly back to Vancouver but there were some flight delays and now Air Canada is paying for meals and a Hotel in downtown Montreal tonight. Not the original plan but I can’t really complain about an all inclusive stay in Montreal and a chance for a recovery ride around the city tommorow. This seems to be part 2 of the winning streak. 16$ last night, $200 montreal credit tonight, tommorow????