Kananas-Kicked

Kananaskiker weekend – the first of many race weekends in Canmore this year:

For those who are following along, I’ve been riding but It’s 2 weeks since the time since I last touched a road bike. There are many positives to this, and I am finding an inverse correlation between time spent on a mountain bike and the size & frequency of trees hit while riding off-road. We’re down to about ~one per ride now, and the speed of impact is increasing – not so good when impact hits, but improvements in speed are very good when Rod E. Legga is chasing you down Nordic Centre trails at race pace.

There was obviously lots of effort put in by the Kananaskiker organizers for this one so it was a shame not to see more people out to support what is essentially a “local” race by Calgary standards. Those that did were treated to almost every classic Canmore Nordic Centre trail that has ever been used in an XC race. I haven’t ridden some of those trails in 5-10 years (No Homers, T2) but still found their features seared into the back of my memory. The old trails get gnarlier every year, but on a full-suspension bike with 2.25” or 29” tires even the Center’s scariest old trails are rideable faster than before.

Unfortunately the downside of less road hours and less hours in general is that my endurance is seriously lacking – I’ve got all the punch in the world for the first ~1.5 hours, which is exactly how long “Fast Shawn” came to party for this weekend. Unlucky for me, there was another hour left in the XC race and 40 minutes of racing on Sunday during which “Shawn needs a nap” and “Shawn loses 4 spots on the hill climb-and misses the podium” came out to play. Not to worry because there is lots of time to work on that. So far I am enjoying the unconventional races on offer this year – next up Nationals test race AND the 5-hour Organ Grinder back in Canmore next weekend…