End of the Season Training

2 weeks until Iceman; the last race of the season. I have been getting in some good rides lately to get reasy for the race. Another good week of riding coming up, then a nice taper will hopefully get me into the race shape I need. Last Sunday, I put in a good 52 mile ride from my house and 3 loops of ILRA. The weather turned out to be decent, as I only wore arm and knee warmers. I have noticed lately that once te sun goes down(if it ever comes out) it gets much colder. Monday was another nasty day, and Tuesday showed some good hopes of an all day rain/mist/wet-fest. I decided to jump on the trainer and get in some good intervals with the Carmichael DVD's. Wednesday finally turned into a nice day with temps in the low 60's. I did a 60 mile road ride through ILRA and Kensington. I put in 5 loops of the hills in the park, then rode back over to ILRA and headed home via Kensington Rd to hit the last hill. My legs were a little sore at first, but seemed to feel better as time went on. Thursday was yet another damp day and I took it as rest. Frida was going to be another 60+ mile road ride, but after my knee had a little pain in it, I called it a day and rode home for a weak 22 miles. I just need to keep up on my knee exercises and I'll be fine! Saturday was going to be a dirt road ride on the fixie in the morning before work, but guess what? Rain!!! I went to work from 1-3, but ended up filling in for another game, so I didn't leave until 4:15. I got home and that yellow ball in the sky was peeking through. I came home and immediately got dressed. I grabbed the SS and headed out. I did dirt roads with 2 loops of Kensington Park hill loops, and a ride up the Kensington Hill standing up the whole time. There were a few good leg burning hills with the 44-16 gearing. By the tie I got back at 6:50, the sun had been swept away, and the temp had dropped. I mapped out my ride HERE and had just over 40 miles with about 2000 feet of climbing.

My Yeti is down right now. I was going to change the disc brake rotor when I noticed that the rear hub bearings were rough. With over 2200 miles on them, I figured I should probably grease them since I hadn't done that since winter. I took the axle and bearings out, cleaned them, re-greases verything, slid the axle in, and threaded everything back on. I had the cone at perfect tension, and was trying to tightend the end nut against it. Well, the end nut was turning the entire axle and not tightening against the cone. So I took it off, and found out that the axle is stripped, or has some bad threads about a centimeter in. I tried to take the cone off, but it got stuck and would not come off at all once it got to the bad spot. Luckily, it was far enough out that I could take the nut and cone off from the freehub side and slide the axle out. Now I just need to order a new axle and put the wheel back together before Iceman. I have 2 weeks, hopefully I can get a few rides on it before the race.