'Toona Season

July is over and with it the Tour de France. The end of the Tour always seems to signal the end of summer, even if there are still several weeks left to finish up the season. In these last few weeks of the year the team has two races that stand out from the rest of the season as major goals: Montreal-Quebec August 7 and the San Francisco Grand Prix September 4.

To get ready for the end of the season the team headed to Pennsylvania last week to compete in the 7 day Tour de 'Toona. This is one of the few stage races on the east coast over the summer and after a month of crits we needed something a little tougher to get the legs up to speed.

This race is definitely one of my favourites on the racing calendar with its courses through the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania. The first stage is a fast technical 5km prologue twisting through the downtown streets - definitely one of the best time trials I have done. From there the road stages were fast everyday, with a couple of stages starting out with 47km/hr averages for the first hour of racing.

Starting the race I had little in the way of expectations, not really knowing what my fitness was like. In the end I had a race that was better than I would have expected. On two stages, the 4th and 5th, I was 7th in the bunch finishes, and overall I ended up a respectable 13th. I wasn't the strongest on the climbs but I was able to hold my own and can't complain with the outcome.

I have to say a big thank you to Mom and Dad Miller for coming to the race with us and helping out immensely with the day to day running of the team. Their contributions made the trip a success and a heck of a lot more enjoyable. Thanks to both of you, we are all in your debt.

Fast racing in 'Toona will have been a perfect prep for Montreal-Quebec (it's totally flat) next weekend and riding the hills will have helped with the power. After Montreal-Quebec the focus will shift fully to preparing for San Fran, mainly towards building up enough strength and power to slog over the steep climbs. For that race I'll be putting on a tiny 39x28 and will still be pushing a low cadence climbing. In order to prep there will be many days spent doing hill repeats out on the bike and a bunch of crunches and curls done to get my wimpy upper body ready.

After last year's ride, which was decent but not as good as I would have liked, I'm keen to go back to San Fran and get a little bit of redemption. So it's time to pump up the mileage and see what I can do. One great thing about not racing a whole bunch at the start of the year because of school is that the motivation is still high come August - time to turn on the afterburners.