The last MTB winter training ride

Sunday was my last chance to get out and put some mountain bike miles in ahead of my first race of the year this coming weekend so I headed back up to that old faithful of training grounds at Kelso Park to put in two hard laps of a pre-planned circuit. It felt good and I was especially pleased with the fact I was able to maintain a consistent average speed between the two laps.

Who knows how ready I am for the race itself. My training ride was about as long as the race is likely to be but I've done little in the way of distance road miles this spring so we'll see whether that does catch me out as the race goes on. General fitness is decent and I'm going into this race about 22lbs lighter than my last race at the end of last season so that should be a huge benefit. I'm pretty sure I won't win, I'm not sure I won't be at the tail of the field, but I should get round it better than I did that last race.

I want to try get one more spin in on the road ahead of the weekend but we'll see how the weather holds up. On my walk to the bus yesterday morning it was snowing! An hour north of Toronto -- not far from where the weekends race is -- there was a foot of snow. That's expected to melt, but I hope the temperatures rise quite a bit as well.

Post-ride weigh-in: 196.2 lbs

Below is a look at the ride: