Gabor Csonka's Blog

There we go again. At the airport waiting for the flight to Saskatoon. But there was some progress since my last post. We were able o finish the renovation of the old house and now it is on the market for sale. I also started commuting from our new place which is about 5km longer and has 2 additional climbs in every ride to work and back. In winter conditions it takes me 2.5 hours a day to commute. Almost like a training.

Watching the winter Olympics…It is fun, some really awesome performance..and some misses. I just learned about the surreal original goal of the Own The Podium program. It was meant to make Canada a winter Olympics domination nation IN 5 YEARS!!! Whoever thought that was possible is pretty naive. If you want Canada dominate… start with the 5 year olds and be patient.  Keep pumping money into our current elite athletes and keep doing it for about 15 20 years. Also need lot more money to children programs and races. Clubs like Foothills Nordic do a fantastic job with kids but these clubs and their events need help from the government. Couch potatoes might not like it we need to give our kids more tax-money to bee succesful and healty in the future.

Most of our athletes did great though. It is not their fault that some sets unrealistic expectations for them and the media makes a big deal out of it …

My flight is boarding… gotta go.

Sitting at the airport and waiting for the delayed flight to beautiful Saskatoon might be enough down time for me to catch up on blogging. Here is a post for about the last four months…

• Planned to complete the commuter training plan, but I had no time to work on it. I will have to disable the link for another year. Sorry.
• Got lot more stuff to worry about at work, now 80% of our company reports to me for a while. Good and bad.
• Decided to buy another house on one cold December evening. There we go:

• Renovated the old house fro 3 weeks. Fixing walls, painting, putting down carpet, fixing and painting windows, lots of fun.
• Moved into the new one, now we are Royal Oak residents.
• I have not trained at all again… some commute but that is about it. The guys will kick my ass again this spring.

I have been sick for over two weeks now with bad cold. Unfortunately I had to pass on a great weekend of CX racing in Calgary. Hopefully I can race on the next two races in Calgary.

And if you have not noticed winter riding is here…

Just read about Mitch Comardo onVelonews. I was expecting to read his name in a way more uplifting context – not in a doping related article. He is one of those super fast XC guys riding their single speeds. Unfortunately the level of his coolness dropped significantly after taking the stuff… Dopers suck, sorry Mitch.

I picked up a set of Racing Ralph 700×35 on Friday at Hardcore. They are expensive but their 2.4 big brother run really well on my mountain bike all season. Mounted the tires with Stan’s on Saturday morning and headed off to IKEA to get some furniture for my daughter. By the time we got home and started re-organizing the house for the new stuff I knew I will not be able to pre-ride the course. Considering this is a night CX race and my first CX race in many years I felt a bit uneasy. Anyways, got to the sign on booth 30 minutes before 9pm only to learn that I have to pay $10 to get a new number plate. I have not raced on the road once this year so I have no idea where my old number is. So I got a new number, and lined up in the last row of the elite field. The field was huge, lots of good racers. Started as dead last and slowly tried to make my way up. It was quite a challenge to race a course in the dark without pre-riding it but being at the back I had no pressure to go too fast, so I enjoyed it a lot.   By the end of the 1st lap I felt like my rear tire is leaking. Stan’s was just put in few hours ago and did not trust it fully yet. I was sure that my tire is loosing pressure by the minute, so I road every corner like small child.  Made it to the finish without being lapped which is not too bad for my on an elite CX race. The next day when I checked the result they listed me as “did not start”, hopefully they will fix that soon.

I have never participated on a race where I was thinking about my survival and not my result… until today.

2009 Bow80 single speed podium

The forecast said it will rain until about 9am and we will enjoy the +7C temperature. Everyone dressed accordingly.

I was around top 5 on the top of the Sulflur Springs trail, then Jeff Nielsen, Dallas Morris and Jon Nutbrown stormed by me on the downhill. Maybe next year I should be riding some trails to get better on the downhills. Commuting does not seem to be technical enough…

Tried to stay with Jeff on the gravel road but he was gone by food station  #1.

I made it to the bottom of the Jumping pond climb around 1.5 hours and made a very good decision to keep my rain jacket on.  I was sitting 8th overall on Jumping pound ridge  when the rain started to turn into snow.  It become a snow storm during my Cox Hill decent and I could no longer feel my fingers and toes.  I could barely break with my fingers those I did not feel any more. The temperature must have been way into the negative zone. I was hoping that once I get down the long descent the snow will turn rain again and it will get warmer. Naive. The snow storm only got stronger and the temperature lower on Tom Snow trail. Still about 2 hours from finish with no more checkpoints to bail out from the race.  I started shivering like never before while I was pedaling my bike as fast as my cramping legs could. No help, shivering continues. This time I was riding  in about 2inches of fresh snow, while I could barely keep my eyes open from the beating of the snowflakes in the wind.  I started to panic a bit. If I get a flat or any mechanical my frozen hands would not be able to do anything, I would be stuck. I could not even get my Clif bar out from my back packet without stopping. Finally I decided to stop and eat everything I got and give it 100% to make to the finish.

While making trough the snow and standing water I constantly sweared at the weather forecast and begged the Sun to come out. If a fairy had come and asked me whether I want to win the overall title of this race or have the Sun shining…. I would have picked the Sun without hesitation.

Finally the Sun came out as I was nearing the finish line. when I crossed it there were only spectators, no racers. It was not because I won, rather because the guys finished were all sitting in the Emergency trailer . As I entered the trailer there were Cory, Craig and  Brian shivering and covered in blankets.

Only the top 50 racers were allowed to continue after the last checkpoint as the storm seemed to strengthen. Luckily at the end of the day everyone was  accounted for and no-one was seriously hurt other then some frozen toes and fingers and some mild hypothermia.

Congrats to Cory Wallace and Alana Heise for taking the overall titles and everyone who dared to start this race.

I won the single speed category and I believe I finished 7th overall. A race to remember without a doubt.

Sometimes I think I am way faster than I really am. I am no time-trialist nor a climber but somehow I believed I can crank up the 5.4km long 7 switchbacks at Norquay around 14 minutes. Nope. I cannot. Not even close.

I rode my 42×16 on the Kona Major One with road tires. The bike and gearing was perfect for this course.

The race Sunday felt really weird. I felt like I could continue for 10-15 more kms uphill, but somehow I could not get any faster. It was like my body had reached it’s race pace at 150bpm and was not willing to go any higher. I wish I had an HRM on me, I bet my HR was way lower than usual.

With 15:02, I placed 3rd in Masters A and would have been dead last in Cat 1/2 Open category. At least it helps me figure out my goals for next year.  I like to be competitive in Cat 1/2 Open which means breaking 14 minutes. Congrats to Cody for his win and 13:04 time. No one broke 13 minutes in this century yet. I bet Cody will next year.

Sunday is the Bow80. Could be the toughest MTB race I have ever raced.

Thanks to Usain Bolt entertainment returned to Track&Field

on the other hand 9.93 will not even get you on the podium any more….