Mountain Biking in February?!

We decided to do our long ride outdoors on Saturday because it was so nice (+5) -- but because of the amount of gravel on the roads we didn't want to risk flats, so we took our mountain bikes.

It was a beautiful day and we had a blast as we rode from our home to Bragg Creek and back. A total of 75kms in 4 hours. We are pretty impressed that our legs were in that kinda condition in February. It's much easier on our road bikes, but I guess that's why it's called 'training!'

These graphs show our route and our heart rate vs. elevation.

Calgary probably has another good lump of snow to come in the next few weeks. But here's hoping the weather stays dry and warm, so the road rides can become more frequent!

Happy Birthday Brother Boyd!

Happy Birthday to you.

Happy Birthday to you.

Happy Birthday dear Grant.

Happy Birthday to you!

Hope you enjoy your day with HG and the boys!

Meow!

Adam and Roxcie are in England for a holiday...so we are cat-sitting, Chief!

Katie loves going to visit, play and feed him and Chief loves to try and get Scott to touch him! Keep trying Chief-fer...you may be wearing Scott down and then we can get a kitty too!

Hey Chief – I know the camera puts on 10lbs, but maybe it's time you stopped snacking on mice between meals!

Chester Lake

We went snowshoeing to Chester Lake with a group of friends today. An absolutely stunning day of weather and great fun with friends!



There were tons of people out enjoying the trails, so we got someone to take our photo. Here's Mark, Alicia, Jen, Katie and Scott (and Taz the dog!)



As you can see by the sign, there is tons of snow -- the sign is typically at eye height! The trail was fairly packed in most places, but if you took off the snowshoes, you were up to your waist very quickly.




Chester Lake is a great climb. Total elevation of 1200 feet, but the work was worth the views!





It's Family Day Weekend in Alberta - so we still have another day to sleep in ; )

1000 KMS!

This week we reached a significant training milestone: 1000kms on our bike trainers!
We've been building distance since we started our program in November and we're happy to reach this point in the program. As our rides are now all in the 2hr range, the kms will continue to grow more quickly.

A quick comparision between Katie & Scott's graphs and you'll see that we have very similiar cadence and average HR. It's a lot of calories to burn and a lot of time in the bike saddle -- but it's also been lots of fun (most days!)

Thanks for sharing the journey with us!

Hills

Tonight's workout is called hills -- need I say more?

For those of you tracking the details - here's the breakdown & our graphs.


5 min warm-up
5 min (30 second standing / 30 second sitting)


14 Repetitions of the following:
4 min in HR Zone 3 (70-80% Max HR)
1 min in HR Zone 4 Standing (80-90% Max HR)
2 min of recovery spin


5 min cool down

Total: 1:53 minute workout. Average Distance 55kms.


The nice thing is we are starting to see progress -- the last few reps aren't as nasty as they were a few weeks ago and we're doing more reps.


Katie's Workout Graph:






Scott's Workout Graph:


Until next time - keep spinning!

Make You Laugh!

For many people, the Super Bowl isn't about the actual game as much as it is about the launch of TV Commericals. Sadly, in Canada we don't get to see many of the cutting-edge advertisments unless you've watched the the game on satelittle or something.

Thankfully the Internet has come to the rescue -- you can watch them all via the net.

To save you time - we've selected the two best ads: E*TRADE Financial ' Big Game Trading Baby I & II'

If this doesn't brighten your day - you may need to up your meds!

Enjoy!

https://us.etrade.com/e/t/jumppage/viewjumppage?PageName=etrade_super_tv_ads&SC=01517657002F780F000DAF9F&sourceCode=01517657002F780F000DAF9F

Super Bowl - Best Seats In the House...

We had the best seats in the house to watch Super Bowl this year! Where else can you bike an average of 35km/hour, have full access to water bottles, sport beans and power bars?!

Yup, we rode for 2 hours of the Super Bowl tonight - Katie had some impressive cadence and knocked off 75kms total distance - while I pulled up the rear with a 65kms total. We were targeting heart rate zone 2 for the workout (60-70% of max) and it just goes to show how different gear selections can help log that extra distance over this duration.

Here's Katie's graph:

Congrats to the NY Giants and all their fans in NJ who never stopped believing ; )

New Tricks @ Snowboard Park!

We were on the slopes again this afternoon - turned out to be a beautiful day and warm at only -5. So we made the most of it with a half-day pass @ COP to try out some new gear and some new moves. Katie got some new goggles - that just happen to match her board, bindings, boots and helmet (you'd think she was a poser, but she has the moves to back it all up!) She was looking sweet on the slopes!

After a few runs to get my legs, Katie thought it was time I attempted the 360 turn...and while it may not look like I meant to do it, I definately did and I'm very proud of it! Check out the video.

And not to be out done, Katie played around in the snowboard park. She's not brave enough to try the half pipe yet...but she did do a great job at a few jumps and a rail slide - you get the idea from video!

We hope the weather stays nice and we'll be out again a few more times before Spring Break when we have a wicked trip planned - Big Sky Montana!

¿Cómo se dice…?

I know most of you at some time have referred to me (or one of my engineering counterparts) as a Nerd. Contrary to what you might think, I actually do take this a compliment! With that said I am proud to announce I am now officially a "Super Nerd"!!!

For those of you who aren't aware, I started my Spanish classes on Monday night. You would think that an endeavor such as this (non-technical and even cultural!) would move me away from the nerd end of the spectrum. But in true engineer fashion I have found a way to slip farther down the continuum into the realm of Super Nerd.

Using my FAVORITE computer program Excel, I have generated a way to help me learn the vocabulary necessary to be successful in my Spanish class (a little trivia for you…every engineers' favorite computer program is Excel – oohhh the math that can be done for you in Excel!). I have used a simple formula to look at a list of Spanish words (and their corresponding translation in English) and randomly output one value (and its corresponding translation) to a cell where I can test myself on the chosen word. Simply pressing F9 on my keyboard causes another randomly selected word to be displayed in the cell. This setup allows me to test both my Spanish-to-English translation as well as the reverse.

Once I think I know the words I am trying to learn all I need to do is change the font colour of either the English or Spanish form of the word to white. This hides the translated word from view.

To see if my translation of the word was correct all I need to do is highlight the column…and ta-da…

Hopefully using the program will be as fun as making it!

¡Hasta luego!