Or is it the story of the rest? For that matter, is it a rest week, or just an easy week? So far I have worked out every day except Monday, and gone to "work" every day (which has been neither restful nor easy). Perhaps a politically correct sounding "Reduced Training Load Week" portrays the distinction of this week from all the others best. You be the judge.
Today also marks the final day of March, the first quarter of the year. With New England experiencing a rare spring (typically we go straight from winter into summer within a 4 hour period), April arrives on the heels of some pretty darn hospitable training weather, making it hard to believe that we still have over four more weeks before the real fun arrives in May. I have made peace with daylight savings time too, as the sun is rising early enough that the clock change won't unduly cramp my morning style.
Many topics beg for blogging today. We have year over year training comparisons, oscillations of instantaneous velocity of bicycles on steep climbs and the implications this has on choosing rims, why I love Big Blue Hill, how to survive end of the month poverty by cleaning out your cupboard, and a host of other topics. And beg they shall, because today I need to get to work early to give the man a little extra in his time of need. A short, easy run looks like it will be the only workout on the agenda this morning. This must commence shortly, but first let me attempt to produce something here. Should I divide and conquer, or try to roll all this up and tie it together? Hmmmmm.
Yesterday afternoon marked my first 2006 ascents of Big Blue Hill. At least one of you is now saying "WTF? you are on an easy week!" While this is true, Monday and Tuesday were off the bike, and Wednesday held only an hour spin for the enjoyment of the favorable weather. Big Blue is my power meter. Timing myself on this climb has provided me with an accurate gauge of my cycling fitness for the past 20 years. Having noted a strong correlation between the number of times I climbed the hill and the quality of the race results I produced in the following weeks, it is safe to say the hill has not only gauged my fitness, but had a marked impact on it as well.
There are a number of other reasons I love this hill. Cars are not permitted, except for an occasional service vehicle heading up to the weather observatory at the summit. Nostalgia is another, as even as an 11 year old my friend and I would ride over from Stoughton, walk our bikes up (even with gears, I never rode back then), and bomb down the serpentine asphalt strip dreaming of being Kenny Roberts. When I got back into cycling as an adult, one of the first races I heard about was the Dedham Stage Race. This was 1986, and that year the queen stage did 100 miles worth of laps around "the short loop" (save that story for another post) and finished with a climb to the top of Big Blue. I headed over to spectate from the steepest part of the narrow climb; here I saw my first bike race, including some participants who are now my teammates.
Days like yesterday are what the hill is really all about to me. In the summer, lots of mountain bikers, walkers, and casual hikers use the road and surrounding trails. In the winter, the ski area trucks rumble up and down, and the road is covered with dirt and ice, not so useful for road bikes. Occasionally though, on days like yesterday, on a ride near dusk, I will find the entire area completely deserted. All mine. This was a surprise on such a pleasant day, even at 5:45 pm. The coolest part was the trees and vegetation are still quite thin, yet the road has no leaves or sand on it like it might in the fall. The twisting of the road normally conceals from view what lies ahead, but yesterday there were sight lines I had never before experienced. This enhanced the joy of the ride up, as you could look ahead at the switchbacks like Hampsten on the Stelvio, but it really made the ride down cool, as for once I could let go of the brakes and not fear a ranger coming around the next turn in a Chevy Blazer.
So what was I doing up here anyway? As noted before, I needed a test of my fitness. I figured one or two climbs at 80% wasn't going to cause any muscle damage. Besides, I have my 38x27. This season I have almost 70 hours on the bike, and 19 running. Contrast that to last year's 60 and 5 hours respectively, and one might not expect a dramatic improvement in form. I guess I have been taking better care of myself this year, as I feel awesome, and wanted to find out if it is all in my head or what. Knowing daylight was so short, Thursday morning I spun on the trainer for 15 minutes before loading up my stuff in the car. At 5:25, I made an Office Space early exit and got to Blue Hill and on the bike within 20 minutes. There was precious little daylight, and the insane traffic on 138 restricted my warm up to a few laps of the museum parking lot. I rolled up the hill the first time trying to stay under control and not have too much lactic acid build up in my stone-cold muscles. I felt fine though, even cruising up the steep parts I held my HR to an unheard of on this climb 150 bpm. Without a sprint, I reached the weather station in a respectable 5:56. Hmmmm, maybe I am fit.
Last year on March 31, me and a few mates took some time off from work and rode "The Three Days of da 'Pan." This was a 3 day festival in commemoration of the Driedaagse van De Panne professional race in Belgium, which takes place at this same point on the calendar. For the uninitiated, the Blue Hills lies in Milton, right next to the Mattapan section of the shitty of Borston, so part of our 3 days training was to swing through the 'Pan each day for some homey sprints on Blue Hill Ave. In 2005, which did not turn out to be my worst season ever, my times that day on Big Blue were a not so stellar 6:53 and 6:42. Now this was on my flexi-flyer 'cross bike with fenders, but the wheel/tire combo was not much different than what I used this year (Open 4's and 25/28 Contis). This year I was on my new bike though, but last year I had company to provide a little friendly incentive.
My original intentions were just one test ascent, but since this was done without warmup, and the hill was so enticingly deserted, I headed down and rolled around the parking lot for a few more laps, then made a slightly more focused effort to see where I stood. Certainly not full gas, but probably 90%, starting out on the fairly steep lower slopes standing in the 38x19. I sat through the "flat spot" in this same gear, noting a decent pace at the first time check. From there to the switchback marks a critical area, as for a few hundred meters the grade steepens quite a bit, but you have to stay seated on this part to do a good time. I went to the 21 cog, but kept it rolling well. I stood through the switchback, sat for a few strokes, then stood over the first of the walls next to the guardrail. Where it levels out a bit, I went to the 24, and sat all the way past the ski slope. A second time check revealed a damn good pace. This was an easy week though, so there would be no sprint. I stayed in the 24, standing over the last hump, but keeping up a decent cadence. Yes, there was clearly some speed oscillaition with each pedal stroke at this juncture, but this represents a rare and isolated set of conditions. Rolling through a few upshifts over the final stretch, I stopped the clock at 5:19, just 31 seconds off my all-time record, and this on a 90% effort during an easy week in March. Yowza.
After circling the tiny weather station lot for a few laps of cooldown, donning my vest, I flew down that mofo faster than any time in the recent past. Way cool. It was now dark, so if there were any cars coming up they would have had their lights on. A few more laps of the lot at the bottom for cooldown and it was on to home, where I spun the trainer for another 15 minutes to shake out the legs before dining on Annie's mac and cheese with peas, white beans, spinach, and salsa thrown in there (because this was ALL I had). I think I covered it all. Please excuse any typos or incomplete thoughts. No revisions right now. 6:40, time to run.
since 2006
Friday, March 31, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Shorter of Breath, and One Day Closer to Death
The title constitutes the wrong way to view a rest day. This week I am feeling the healing, the way I believe you should view your rest weeks too. There has not been much training to write about, although last night I did run some laps on a high school track, mostly working on form. The prescribed workout consisted of accelerating then deccelerating every 100 meters for 14 laps so as to be able to continuously concentrate on a good stride without ever going too hard for too long. This seemed to work, as the effort did not feel challenging at all. The workout ended up being a 7:40/mile pace with an average HR of 138 bpm.
This morning my plan was to go out on the MTB for a very easy spin around the park to loosen up. However, a quick check of the conditions from the nearest airport (well, the nearest one to report the weather anyway) showed 23 degrees F and "freezing fog," whatever that is. Outside my windows I observe no such thing, as the sun is shining quite brightly. This may account for the reported "real feel" of 36 degrees, but with the forecast highs up at nearly 60, putting off the ride until lunchtime seems like the obvious choice. This is a rest week after all.
Resting requires practice just like any other aspect of training. The body does not get stronger during hard workouts. If you don't believe me, try doing hard workouts for 14 days straight and tell me how strong you feel on the 15th day. We get stronger on our rest days, when the recuperation, healing, and overcompensation effects are realized. This process is just as trainable as any other, and with practice your body can get better at it. Without practice this works just like anything else: sure your body can do it, but probably won't accomplish the task with a high level of efficiency.
One of the things I like about the Polar HRM is the training diary software that comes with it. The product is MS Windows only, but the latest version is pretty stable and the interface is OK. The product can make bar graphs of your training time by heart rate zone, although it does not seem to be able to make these as stacked bar graphs that break out the time by type of workout (running, cycling, etc). Still, it is easy enough to toggle which sports are included in the compilation, so this information is available with only a few extra clicks.
The calendar feature also provides a nice, quick snapshot of what you have been doing. Each workout is color coded, such as orange for running or green for cycling, and if you do one of each on a given day then that box will appear in a gradient of the two colors. Weekly totals are displayed in the rightmost column on the edge of the calendar. Using this, if I track and download every workout (or enter them manually, estimating HR), my training diary is essentially taken care of for me. The cool thing is that at a glance, I can see how many "white days," (ie no workout) are on there. When the whole month looks green and orange, I know I have been consistently working out, even if it was only for a half an hour a day. Monday was only the 8th "white day" in the past two months, so even though my training hours totals remain modest, I can quickly see that some R&R is deserved.
Monday I wanted to train. The familiar uneasiness that comes each day until a workout gets completed was there. I wasn't cooked, I had energy, and I wasn't sore. But I'm not stupid either. Having been through this so many times in the past, I kept my energy in check and did not give in to temptation. By the evening, I was sprawled out on the couch feeling lifeless. Oh yes, there was fatigue. The body just needed to remember how to rest. The past two nights I have slept like a baby, and felt very relaxed. I can feel my muscles reparing themselves, my connective tissue healing up and readying itself for the workouts to come, and my energy stores restocking. Really, I can.
This morning my plan was to go out on the MTB for a very easy spin around the park to loosen up. However, a quick check of the conditions from the nearest airport (well, the nearest one to report the weather anyway) showed 23 degrees F and "freezing fog," whatever that is. Outside my windows I observe no such thing, as the sun is shining quite brightly. This may account for the reported "real feel" of 36 degrees, but with the forecast highs up at nearly 60, putting off the ride until lunchtime seems like the obvious choice. This is a rest week after all.
Resting requires practice just like any other aspect of training. The body does not get stronger during hard workouts. If you don't believe me, try doing hard workouts for 14 days straight and tell me how strong you feel on the 15th day. We get stronger on our rest days, when the recuperation, healing, and overcompensation effects are realized. This process is just as trainable as any other, and with practice your body can get better at it. Without practice this works just like anything else: sure your body can do it, but probably won't accomplish the task with a high level of efficiency.
One of the things I like about the Polar HRM is the training diary software that comes with it. The product is MS Windows only, but the latest version is pretty stable and the interface is OK. The product can make bar graphs of your training time by heart rate zone, although it does not seem to be able to make these as stacked bar graphs that break out the time by type of workout (running, cycling, etc). Still, it is easy enough to toggle which sports are included in the compilation, so this information is available with only a few extra clicks.
The calendar feature also provides a nice, quick snapshot of what you have been doing. Each workout is color coded, such as orange for running or green for cycling, and if you do one of each on a given day then that box will appear in a gradient of the two colors. Weekly totals are displayed in the rightmost column on the edge of the calendar. Using this, if I track and download every workout (or enter them manually, estimating HR), my training diary is essentially taken care of for me. The cool thing is that at a glance, I can see how many "white days," (ie no workout) are on there. When the whole month looks green and orange, I know I have been consistently working out, even if it was only for a half an hour a day. Monday was only the 8th "white day" in the past two months, so even though my training hours totals remain modest, I can quickly see that some R&R is deserved.
Monday I wanted to train. The familiar uneasiness that comes each day until a workout gets completed was there. I wasn't cooked, I had energy, and I wasn't sore. But I'm not stupid either. Having been through this so many times in the past, I kept my energy in check and did not give in to temptation. By the evening, I was sprawled out on the couch feeling lifeless. Oh yes, there was fatigue. The body just needed to remember how to rest. The past two nights I have slept like a baby, and felt very relaxed. I can feel my muscles reparing themselves, my connective tissue healing up and readying itself for the workouts to come, and my energy stores restocking. Really, I can.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Quarterly Report Preview
Well, we are twelve weeks into 2006. Yes, thirteen weeks makes a real quarter, but my brain is pretty mushy today, so I don't have anything philosophical or stimulating to write. Training has gone pretty well, no complaints, no injuries. This past weekend was the first to feature back to back 3 hour rides, wrapping up the biggest week (duration-wise) this year. I will defer boring you with full training stats until week 13 is over, even though this week is planned as a "rest" week, and thus will not affect the overall totals too much.
Having had only two weeks this year with training durations over 10 hours, why would I even need a rest week? Good question, and one for which I have a good answer. Anyone who acts as their own coach needs consider this: What is my capacity to train? Even if you hire a coach, this question still needs to be answered. Think about capacity. How do we measure it? The easy way would be to take the hours in the week, subtract the time needed for essential activities, and come up with some number of hours available for training. In this case, the easy way is not a very good way. A better approach would be to steal a lesson from Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) and use something called the bottleneck principle. If you've never heard of this, search google for theory of constraintsor take two hours and read The Goal.
Consider all the limiters to effective training besides time. Physical limiters, such as injuries, whether merely potential, or already realized, present the firmest of limiters to effective training. Keyword here is effective. Sure, you can push yourself to and past the point of injury, but what does that accomplish? Happiness can be another limiter. Reaching an athletic goal probably doesn't mean too much if in the process you bring misery to yourself and everyone around you. Conflicting goals, such as career or education goals need to be considered as well. Training primarily consists of adaptive athletic stress placed upon your body, but this amounts to only a portion of the total stress your beleagured being must endure, so how much you can bear without compromising your ultimate goal of being a happy, smiling human being must be taken into consideration when building your training plan.
Lucky for me, I have been doing this long enough to have a pretty good idea of where my functional limits are, and thus I set my athletic goals accordingly. Reading triathlete blogs such as AJV's, with stories of 19 hour weeks while working a full-time job, I marvel at how much people are willing to go through in the pursuit of sporting accomplishment. This guy (whom I don't know) is in his late twenties, which puts him pretty much in his prime, so he can probably handle it. When I was that age, my focus was also on doing as much as possible to succeed in the nobody gives a shit about this sport except the participants world of USCF regional racing. My job at the time wasn't too demanding, and 13-15 hour weeks on the bike were fairly common. Nineteen hours though, not me, not unless I was on vacation, and even then it only happened a handful of times.
There are a few guys in their mid forties who compete with us now that put in these kinds of grueling training hours. Some of them do quite well in races, but I wonder if they might not do even better if they stopped pretending to be Cat 1's going pro, and instead tailored their schedules to more closely fit the specific demands of Master's racing. Or maybe I am just jealous. Anyhow, detailing how I have been meeting my modest goals and on track to keep doing so will have to wait for another day. Maybe I am aiming low. Who knows? As I said at the top, my brain is a bit mushy today.
Having had only two weeks this year with training durations over 10 hours, why would I even need a rest week? Good question, and one for which I have a good answer. Anyone who acts as their own coach needs consider this: What is my capacity to train? Even if you hire a coach, this question still needs to be answered. Think about capacity. How do we measure it? The easy way would be to take the hours in the week, subtract the time needed for essential activities, and come up with some number of hours available for training. In this case, the easy way is not a very good way. A better approach would be to steal a lesson from Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) and use something called the bottleneck principle. If you've never heard of this, search google for theory of constraintsor take two hours and read The Goal.
Consider all the limiters to effective training besides time. Physical limiters, such as injuries, whether merely potential, or already realized, present the firmest of limiters to effective training. Keyword here is effective. Sure, you can push yourself to and past the point of injury, but what does that accomplish? Happiness can be another limiter. Reaching an athletic goal probably doesn't mean too much if in the process you bring misery to yourself and everyone around you. Conflicting goals, such as career or education goals need to be considered as well. Training primarily consists of adaptive athletic stress placed upon your body, but this amounts to only a portion of the total stress your beleagured being must endure, so how much you can bear without compromising your ultimate goal of being a happy, smiling human being must be taken into consideration when building your training plan.
Lucky for me, I have been doing this long enough to have a pretty good idea of where my functional limits are, and thus I set my athletic goals accordingly. Reading triathlete blogs such as AJV's, with stories of 19 hour weeks while working a full-time job, I marvel at how much people are willing to go through in the pursuit of sporting accomplishment. This guy (whom I don't know) is in his late twenties, which puts him pretty much in his prime, so he can probably handle it. When I was that age, my focus was also on doing as much as possible to succeed in the nobody gives a shit about this sport except the participants world of USCF regional racing. My job at the time wasn't too demanding, and 13-15 hour weeks on the bike were fairly common. Nineteen hours though, not me, not unless I was on vacation, and even then it only happened a handful of times.
There are a few guys in their mid forties who compete with us now that put in these kinds of grueling training hours. Some of them do quite well in races, but I wonder if they might not do even better if they stopped pretending to be Cat 1's going pro, and instead tailored their schedules to more closely fit the specific demands of Master's racing. Or maybe I am just jealous. Anyhow, detailing how I have been meeting my modest goals and on track to keep doing so will have to wait for another day. Maybe I am aiming low. Who knows? As I said at the top, my brain is a bit mushy today.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Random Quotes
I'm too lazy to write this morning, so here you go. These were chosen because they popped into my head. BTW Ge, I had a dream about a big-ass skunk last night. Why the hell do you suppose that happened?
"I hardly think this is the kind of riding that can teach you correct pedaling technique."
-Greg LeMond, on fixed gears
"There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America.”
— William Jefferson Clinton
"Bitch set me up"
-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry
"It ain't no contribution, to rely on the institution, to validate your chosen art, and to sanction your boredom, and let you play out your part."
- Jim Caroll
"I hardly think this is the kind of riding that can teach you correct pedaling technique."
-Greg LeMond, on fixed gears
"There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America.”
— William Jefferson Clinton
"Bitch set me up"
-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry
"It ain't no contribution, to rely on the institution, to validate your chosen art, and to sanction your boredom, and let you play out your part."
- Jim Caroll
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Simple
Today marks the second successful day of "train first, blog later." Well, not really, as yesterday I never got around to blogging, despite it being my telecommuting day. The reason being, after my longest ever 8.25 mile morning run, kept at an astonishingly consistent +/- 5 bpm average HR of 137, blogging still waited for me to complete some sort of ride. Due to work, the ride didn't happen until very late in the day, and the blog, well, never happened. The ride was, however, worth writing about, but not for the usual reasons. You see, telecommuting day is also known as laundry day, because after all, ergo breaks away from the screen have to happen anyway, and going down to the basement to put in a load (huh-huh) kills two birds with one stone.
During yesterday's numerous trips down to the dryer, the overflow of the lint bucket could no longer be ignored. In order to dump it, I had to move my 90% assembled 1986 Specialized Allez SE road bike out of the way. Looking it over, pulling stray chunks of lint out of the Ge-Willi approved 13-18 six speed straight block freewheel, taking this bike back out for a ride became the goal of the day.
Rescuing the beast from the lower dungeon, I brought it upstairs to assess the situation. Not a single original component was mounted to the frame, but I had made it rideable a few years back, and only pilfered a few items off in the meantime. The tires held air, I fitted some Look pedals, found a brand-new 26.8 XC Pro seatpost and decent Turbo saddle in the parts bin, and once again we were complete.
When the clock struck 5, I donned my Look-compatible Northwaves (unlike my Speedplayed Rocket 7's, roomy enough for thick wool socks) and headed out on the road. Man, this bike feels funny. Despite being a full 58 cm c-to-c, it felt small. The seat was too far forward and the stem seemed short. I guess the old crit style 74 degree seat tube angle meant I should have positioned the seat slam-back on the post. Maybe it was the tiny hoods of the non-STI aero levers, but the Cinelli 66-44 bars felt downright dainty, although the cleanliness of the lack of shifter wires was very nice.
I held the ride to only 30 minutes because the seat just wasn't right. This morning I pushed it back almost 2 cm, moved it up a bit, and headed back out at 6 am. The bike still felt wierd, but cool, very lively. It has a 39 on it, but still I only used the 2 largest cogs for 90% of my hour and a half aerobic ride. The drivetrain was smooth and quiet; it was reminiscent of a track bike. Downtube shifters aren't even that much of a hindrance when you don't have too many gears to choose from anyway.
The paint on this bike still looks new. I like it. The scale said 22.7 pounds with clinchers and one bottle cage. If I ride a Cannibal Cup TT this year, I know which bike I am going to ride.
During yesterday's numerous trips down to the dryer, the overflow of the lint bucket could no longer be ignored. In order to dump it, I had to move my 90% assembled 1986 Specialized Allez SE road bike out of the way. Looking it over, pulling stray chunks of lint out of the Ge-Willi approved 13-18 six speed straight block freewheel, taking this bike back out for a ride became the goal of the day.
Rescuing the beast from the lower dungeon, I brought it upstairs to assess the situation. Not a single original component was mounted to the frame, but I had made it rideable a few years back, and only pilfered a few items off in the meantime. The tires held air, I fitted some Look pedals, found a brand-new 26.8 XC Pro seatpost and decent Turbo saddle in the parts bin, and once again we were complete.
When the clock struck 5, I donned my Look-compatible Northwaves (unlike my Speedplayed Rocket 7's, roomy enough for thick wool socks) and headed out on the road. Man, this bike feels funny. Despite being a full 58 cm c-to-c, it felt small. The seat was too far forward and the stem seemed short. I guess the old crit style 74 degree seat tube angle meant I should have positioned the seat slam-back on the post. Maybe it was the tiny hoods of the non-STI aero levers, but the Cinelli 66-44 bars felt downright dainty, although the cleanliness of the lack of shifter wires was very nice.
I held the ride to only 30 minutes because the seat just wasn't right. This morning I pushed it back almost 2 cm, moved it up a bit, and headed back out at 6 am. The bike still felt wierd, but cool, very lively. It has a 39 on it, but still I only used the 2 largest cogs for 90% of my hour and a half aerobic ride. The drivetrain was smooth and quiet; it was reminiscent of a track bike. Downtube shifters aren't even that much of a hindrance when you don't have too many gears to choose from anyway.
The paint on this bike still looks new. I like it. The scale said 22.7 pounds with clinchers and one bottle cage. If I ride a Cannibal Cup TT this year, I know which bike I am going to ride.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Today's entry brought to you by...
... The executive decision I just made to ride the trainer. In the coming months, adoption of a "train first, blog later" policy will be mandated. Today will mark one of the last exceptions to this rule (and if you believe that...). This morning, I have enough time to go out on the mountain bike. If I rush, I could probably get in almost an hour and a half and still get back home in time to peel off the layered clothing, thaw and stretch a bit, and get off to work without undo stress. But I hate shaving while my skin is still numb from the cold, I hate having a pile of dirty clothes from just one little ride, and I am a tired of the shivering on my rides. The trainer hasn't gotten much use lately, just some short spins to loosen up. Today I can get on there and do a real workout, maybe some short, hard intervals to complement the longer LT efforts from the weekend. This is supposed to be a hard week for me.
Sticking to the trainer will also allow me time to properly stretch when I am done. Tonight is massage night, so in order to be a good doo-bee and take care of myself like the nice therapist says I should, stretching is imperative. Last night I booked it out of work as the sun sank. I drove to Canton High, finding they have a nearly new rubberized 400m running track. The lights were still on, as it looked like lacrosse practice or something had just wound down and the maggots were still hanging around the field house before going out hazing skinny freshmen or laying in the road or whatever high school lacrosse thugs do when they are not playing lacrosse. I don't know anything about doing track workouts, so I just TT'd for a few laps, then did some 200 meter efforts interspersed with easy running. The lights went out after a while, but having a prepped and clear surface to run on made the situation fine. It was cold when I got done though, I stretched a bit, but then drove home where eating was my first priority. So I have to stretch today. Nice warm trainer muscles will make that task easier. So decision made, I am staying in. Mountain biking over the frozen tundra can wait until a bit later in the week.
More on gearing. Or is it moron gearing? The past weekend reminded me of something on Doug J's site where he suggests people avoid putting low gears on their bikes for fear of using them. When one is truly suffering, the temptation to use any means available to ease the pain can overwhelm even the strongest resolve. Doug makes his point in specific reference to hillclimb races like Ascutney or Mt. Washington. Having never done Mt. W, I can only refer to my two ascents of Ascutney for personal observation. In case you don't know, Ascutney is as steep or steeper than the Mt Washington auto road, but only half as long, not at elevation, well paved, and without the weather that makes the more famous mountain more famous. Ascutney does, however, have a particularly unrelenting grade. Then first two miles have no pitch change at all, just a constant 12%. After that, there are a few meters here and there where it levels out a bit, but that is it.
For my first effort up Ascutney, in 2004, I wasn't all that fit. My road bike had a 41 tooth small ring, so I fitted a 12-32 rear cluster and figured I would be fine. Surely I had a 39 ring laying around somewhere, but I didn't want to get my hands dirty for such an insignificant change. Long story short, my average cadence for the third mile ended up at 54 rpm, with a low point of 39. I had maintained 67 rpm for the first mile, but to say I died a thousand deaths over the remaining distance would not be overstating my suffering. Much.
In 2005, vowing to learn from my mistake, I returned to this peak on my 'cross bike, fitted with a 26T granny-sporting triple crankset, and a 12-27 on the back. I figured the 26x21 and maybe 26x24 would still be much more gear than the prior year, and turning these at an efficient rate of 70 rpm or so would bring me to the line in my target time. The 26x27 would be there "just in case." You already know how this story ends. I did most of the race in the 26x27. My HR was still pegged, and I took a few minutes off my 2004 time, but I probably would have gone faster had this gearing option not been available. I did not have cadence recording on this bike, but my recollection is that I settled in to survival cadence and stayed there. I probably died a mere hundred or so deaths on this ride.
Out on "normal" roads, doing "normal" training, what are the chances of something similar happening? I have a story, but I am out of time. Matta ashita (again, tommorow).
Sticking to the trainer will also allow me time to properly stretch when I am done. Tonight is massage night, so in order to be a good doo-bee and take care of myself like the nice therapist says I should, stretching is imperative. Last night I booked it out of work as the sun sank. I drove to Canton High, finding they have a nearly new rubberized 400m running track. The lights were still on, as it looked like lacrosse practice or something had just wound down and the maggots were still hanging around the field house before going out hazing skinny freshmen or laying in the road or whatever high school lacrosse thugs do when they are not playing lacrosse. I don't know anything about doing track workouts, so I just TT'd for a few laps, then did some 200 meter efforts interspersed with easy running. The lights went out after a while, but having a prepped and clear surface to run on made the situation fine. It was cold when I got done though, I stretched a bit, but then drove home where eating was my first priority. So I have to stretch today. Nice warm trainer muscles will make that task easier. So decision made, I am staying in. Mountain biking over the frozen tundra can wait until a bit later in the week.
More on gearing. Or is it moron gearing? The past weekend reminded me of something on Doug J's site where he suggests people avoid putting low gears on their bikes for fear of using them. When one is truly suffering, the temptation to use any means available to ease the pain can overwhelm even the strongest resolve. Doug makes his point in specific reference to hillclimb races like Ascutney or Mt. Washington. Having never done Mt. W, I can only refer to my two ascents of Ascutney for personal observation. In case you don't know, Ascutney is as steep or steeper than the Mt Washington auto road, but only half as long, not at elevation, well paved, and without the weather that makes the more famous mountain more famous. Ascutney does, however, have a particularly unrelenting grade. Then first two miles have no pitch change at all, just a constant 12%. After that, there are a few meters here and there where it levels out a bit, but that is it.
For my first effort up Ascutney, in 2004, I wasn't all that fit. My road bike had a 41 tooth small ring, so I fitted a 12-32 rear cluster and figured I would be fine. Surely I had a 39 ring laying around somewhere, but I didn't want to get my hands dirty for such an insignificant change. Long story short, my average cadence for the third mile ended up at 54 rpm, with a low point of 39. I had maintained 67 rpm for the first mile, but to say I died a thousand deaths over the remaining distance would not be overstating my suffering. Much.
In 2005, vowing to learn from my mistake, I returned to this peak on my 'cross bike, fitted with a 26T granny-sporting triple crankset, and a 12-27 on the back. I figured the 26x21 and maybe 26x24 would still be much more gear than the prior year, and turning these at an efficient rate of 70 rpm or so would bring me to the line in my target time. The 26x27 would be there "just in case." You already know how this story ends. I did most of the race in the 26x27. My HR was still pegged, and I took a few minutes off my 2004 time, but I probably would have gone faster had this gearing option not been available. I did not have cadence recording on this bike, but my recollection is that I settled in to survival cadence and stayed there. I probably died a mere hundred or so deaths on this ride.
Out on "normal" roads, doing "normal" training, what are the chances of something similar happening? I have a story, but I am out of time. Matta ashita (again, tommorow).
Monday, March 20, 2006
Winter in America
Nobody wants to hear more bitching about the weather. Winter ends tommorow, but apparently nobody told New Hampshire. Due to the frigid conditions, my three day mini-camp lacked the time on the bike I had hoped for. Luckily, this was not a total loss, as the intensity required to keep warm on yesterday's ride made up for the lack of duration. With the temps never rising above 25F, we did a loop out to and around Newfound Lake (BTW, still completely frozen), battling arctic headwinds, snow squalls, "ice on road" signs, and later on, "falling ice" signs. The seasoned triathletes in the audience may know this route from the now-defunct Granite Ledges Olympic distance tri. Things are pretty quiet around there this time of year, so this course made for some great riding once we got on the side of the lake that was sheltered by the cliffs.
Turning south onto route 3A, we absolutely motored back to Bristol with a nice tailwind. Of course, I spent a bit too long on the front, and KL was kind enough to cruise away and leave me behind on one long grade. We regrouped briefly on the shallow descent into town, but then when we turned onto the roller coaster Old Bristol Road back to New Hampton, she powered ahead on the initial ascent (about 100 meters in just over a kilometer), and I was never able to close the gap. She soloed back into the Sand Hill Estate about 40 seconds up. I was totally spent. You know you are lucky when you can go on a ride with your girlfriend and have over half the time spent at or above LT.
Turning south onto route 3A, we absolutely motored back to Bristol with a nice tailwind. Of course, I spent a bit too long on the front, and KL was kind enough to cruise away and leave me behind on one long grade. We regrouped briefly on the shallow descent into town, but then when we turned onto the roller coaster Old Bristol Road back to New Hampton, she powered ahead on the initial ascent (about 100 meters in just over a kilometer), and I was never able to close the gap. She soloed back into the Sand Hill Estate about 40 seconds up. I was totally spent. You know you are lucky when you can go on a ride with your girlfriend and have over half the time spent at or above LT.
Friday, March 17, 2006
I am a 2nd grader
There were several arithmetic errors in the original version of yesterday's post. I miscalculated my speed up Big Blue for the elapsed time of 6:40. I stopped at 3600 (seconds in an hour)/400 seconds elapsed time and thus came up with 9 kph, but I needed to multiply by 1.4 to get the actual speed of 12.6 kph. (my ass-backwards calculation were telling me I could do this climb 9 times in one hour). So of course this threw off my power number (it should have been higher) and my cadence number (also higher). Oops.
I Dreamed I was an Eskimo
Today's entry comes from the sprawling KL Northeast Training Facility, conveniently located just off the I93 breakdown lane in New Hampton, NH, just south of the Arctic Circle. Well, technically the road lies at least 150 feet away, the woods block the view of the highway, and in fact our latitude is closer to San Diego's than Stockholm's. You would never know it today. This may turn out to be a vacation day squandered. The sun shines brightly, but the howls of the winds send a foreboding message to those who think the road season is here. So instead of spending 3 hours alone out on the deserted roads, I am sitting here hanging out with Feldman, content to not be solving some hospital's database crisis of the day.
I had some ideas for non-diary style entries, but my brain seems a bit mushy right now, and the challenge of condensing my rambling views into a few coherent paragraphs might be too much like work. What the hell, though it is already past noon, so if I am going to ride it can wait until the schoolmistress comes home. Misery loves company.
Gearing. This is a simple subject, yet so many riders just don't seem to get it. This is 3rd grade arithmetic. Maybe what, 5th grade, if you want to include calculating the diameter of your wheel? We are not even dealing with big numbers here.
What gears do you want on your bike? When I started racing, the 39 tooth chainring had not yet been popularized. Everyone had a 42, save for a few tourists who had 40's. In the back, 6-speed freewheels (cassettes were also not yet common) were de riguer. You were a cream puff if you had anything bigger than a 23 back there, with most racers running either a 21 or even a straight block 13-18. There were a few nuts with 12-17s. There were some reasons for this. With only 6 cogs, if you wanted a 23 the sequence had to go 13-15-17-19-21-23, with a 2-tooth gap between each gear. Going back to our grade school math book, we can see that while the shift from a 23 to a 21 is only 9.5%, the shift from the 15 to the 13 is a whopping 15.3%. That translates to a similar drop in cadence, and thus we caveman riders would forego the climbing gear in order to squeeze a 14 cog in between there, as this was the lesser of two evils.
Climbing with a 42 on the front and a 21 on the back is no big deal for a fit rider. At least for an exceptionally fit rider it isn't. However, today we are not faced with the same compromises as we were in the past. With 9 and even 10 cog clusters available for the rear, it would seem having anything other than optimal gearing would be foolish. So, is your gearing optimal, or are you a fool? Or maybe your personal idea of optimal encompasses something other than a gear for every situation.
Gearing is one area where comparing a bike to a motor vehicle makes some sense. Let us start with our engine. Just like a mechanical source of power, our legs have a "powerband" or range of cadence where we operate efficiently. Like an electric motor, we can operate all the way down to zero rpms, so we do not need any sort of clutch. We do, however, have some limit on the amount of torque we can produce to get the machinery rolling, so we need a gear low enough that we can turn the cranks from a dead stop. Luckily this is not a big deal. More important is the ability to ride slowly, as slow as we will travel up the steepest hill we plan to encounter, while still keeping our "motor" in our "powerband." So what is our powerband? Think about how slow of a cadence you can handle while under load. Is it 60 rpm, 50 rpm, 30 rpm? Again, just like a mechanical motor, we may be able to run down to 30 rpm without "stalling," but 55 rpm or so is probably the lower limit of where most of us are operating in an efficient manner. On the flip side, how fast can you spin without bouncing around like a wild person? Also somewhat like a mechanical engine, we may be able to produce a high cadence for a short period of time, but cannot sustain it without "blowing up." Track riders like Jonas Carney notwithstanding, the upper limit for most of us for sustained riding might be around 110 rpm, which is conveniently double that of our established lower limit. So let's say our engine has a powerband of 55-110 rpm.
Now, what is our speed going to be? Myself, I am quite adept at the "roadstand" (this is like a trackstand, except the left foot is forward and the front wheel is also turned left, doesn't work out too well on the track... I just made up the term, but anyway the bike is not moving), but optimal gearing will allow us to maintain our minimum cadence of 55 rpm at the slowest speed we are likely to encounter. If we go back to our heroic 42x21 low gear, with 700C wheels, 55 rpm works out to 14 kph. While this may be no problem whatsoever on a flat road, we are most likely encountering our lowest speeds on a steep grade. The steepest sustained grade I regularly find myself on is a 400 meter stretch of the Great Blue Hill access road that tips skyward at a rate of 13%. For a tub of linguine like me to propel myself up this at 14 kph would require 453 watts to be sustained for the 1 minute 42 seconds it would take to cover the 400 meters at this speed. In fact, I have done this countless times, just not in the past 10 years or so. Furthermore, while 55 rpms may be possible, this is a lot less painful with an easier gear and another 10 or so rpms.
The much bigger issue is what about the days when I don't have 450 watts to spare? What if I encounter a 13% grade in the middle of an 80 mile ride? What if it goes on for more than 400 meters? And why the hell would I limit myself to a 42x21 anyway? Back in 1915, my dear grandmother did not brave the U-boats and the icy Atlantic so that I could lug a huge gear up the cols at a leg-breakingly slow cadence. No doubt she wanted a better life for her descendents, one complete with microwave pancakes, no-wrinkle Levis, and most importantly, 10 speed cassettes.
Despite the sounds of your snoring, continue I must. My new bike, with its belittled 38-52 chainrings and 12-27 10 speed, represents my attempt to optimize my gearing for my current situation. Rewind to Big Blue. While the top pitch is 13%, the entire road climbs 130 meters over a distance of 1400 meters, an average of 9%. My all-time record for the climb is 4:48. This computes to a VAM of an impressive 1625 m/hour, an average speed of 17.5 kph, and an average power of 400+ watts. These days 5:10 to 6:40 is more like it, with the lower figure an all-out assault at peak form, and the higher number more realistic for doing a couple of repeats. So let's use that one. 6:40 for 1.4k works out to 12.6 kph. Never mind that I might go quite a bit slower for a few seconds on the steep parts. In my low gear of 38x27, at 12.6 kph my cadence is a mere 70 rpms. This is hardly undergeared, yet even this pedestrian pace will require me to cough up an average power output of 288 watts, which is a similar wattage, and nearly double pedal force of riding 32 kph at 90 rpm on flat ground. Even on a lesser hill, say a 6% rise, if using this gear and maintaining a comfortable 75 rpm, 200+ watts will be required.
OK, today's temps appear to have topped out at 27 degrees F. Having justified my use of the 38x27, I must defer further ramblings on the desirability of chainring overlap, why 53x12 is too big for most of you clowns, and why 42 chainrings are better than 39's for another day. Time to get cold.
I had some ideas for non-diary style entries, but my brain seems a bit mushy right now, and the challenge of condensing my rambling views into a few coherent paragraphs might be too much like work. What the hell, though it is already past noon, so if I am going to ride it can wait until the schoolmistress comes home. Misery loves company.
Gearing. This is a simple subject, yet so many riders just don't seem to get it. This is 3rd grade arithmetic. Maybe what, 5th grade, if you want to include calculating the diameter of your wheel? We are not even dealing with big numbers here.
What gears do you want on your bike? When I started racing, the 39 tooth chainring had not yet been popularized. Everyone had a 42, save for a few tourists who had 40's. In the back, 6-speed freewheels (cassettes were also not yet common) were de riguer. You were a cream puff if you had anything bigger than a 23 back there, with most racers running either a 21 or even a straight block 13-18. There were a few nuts with 12-17s. There were some reasons for this. With only 6 cogs, if you wanted a 23 the sequence had to go 13-15-17-19-21-23, with a 2-tooth gap between each gear. Going back to our grade school math book, we can see that while the shift from a 23 to a 21 is only 9.5%, the shift from the 15 to the 13 is a whopping 15.3%. That translates to a similar drop in cadence, and thus we caveman riders would forego the climbing gear in order to squeeze a 14 cog in between there, as this was the lesser of two evils.
Climbing with a 42 on the front and a 21 on the back is no big deal for a fit rider. At least for an exceptionally fit rider it isn't. However, today we are not faced with the same compromises as we were in the past. With 9 and even 10 cog clusters available for the rear, it would seem having anything other than optimal gearing would be foolish. So, is your gearing optimal, or are you a fool? Or maybe your personal idea of optimal encompasses something other than a gear for every situation.
Gearing is one area where comparing a bike to a motor vehicle makes some sense. Let us start with our engine. Just like a mechanical source of power, our legs have a "powerband" or range of cadence where we operate efficiently. Like an electric motor, we can operate all the way down to zero rpms, so we do not need any sort of clutch. We do, however, have some limit on the amount of torque we can produce to get the machinery rolling, so we need a gear low enough that we can turn the cranks from a dead stop. Luckily this is not a big deal. More important is the ability to ride slowly, as slow as we will travel up the steepest hill we plan to encounter, while still keeping our "motor" in our "powerband." So what is our powerband? Think about how slow of a cadence you can handle while under load. Is it 60 rpm, 50 rpm, 30 rpm? Again, just like a mechanical motor, we may be able to run down to 30 rpm without "stalling," but 55 rpm or so is probably the lower limit of where most of us are operating in an efficient manner. On the flip side, how fast can you spin without bouncing around like a wild person? Also somewhat like a mechanical engine, we may be able to produce a high cadence for a short period of time, but cannot sustain it without "blowing up." Track riders like Jonas Carney notwithstanding, the upper limit for most of us for sustained riding might be around 110 rpm, which is conveniently double that of our established lower limit. So let's say our engine has a powerband of 55-110 rpm.
Now, what is our speed going to be? Myself, I am quite adept at the "roadstand" (this is like a trackstand, except the left foot is forward and the front wheel is also turned left, doesn't work out too well on the track... I just made up the term, but anyway the bike is not moving), but optimal gearing will allow us to maintain our minimum cadence of 55 rpm at the slowest speed we are likely to encounter. If we go back to our heroic 42x21 low gear, with 700C wheels, 55 rpm works out to 14 kph. While this may be no problem whatsoever on a flat road, we are most likely encountering our lowest speeds on a steep grade. The steepest sustained grade I regularly find myself on is a 400 meter stretch of the Great Blue Hill access road that tips skyward at a rate of 13%. For a tub of linguine like me to propel myself up this at 14 kph would require 453 watts to be sustained for the 1 minute 42 seconds it would take to cover the 400 meters at this speed. In fact, I have done this countless times, just not in the past 10 years or so. Furthermore, while 55 rpms may be possible, this is a lot less painful with an easier gear and another 10 or so rpms.
The much bigger issue is what about the days when I don't have 450 watts to spare? What if I encounter a 13% grade in the middle of an 80 mile ride? What if it goes on for more than 400 meters? And why the hell would I limit myself to a 42x21 anyway? Back in 1915, my dear grandmother did not brave the U-boats and the icy Atlantic so that I could lug a huge gear up the cols at a leg-breakingly slow cadence. No doubt she wanted a better life for her descendents, one complete with microwave pancakes, no-wrinkle Levis, and most importantly, 10 speed cassettes.
Despite the sounds of your snoring, continue I must. My new bike, with its belittled 38-52 chainrings and 12-27 10 speed, represents my attempt to optimize my gearing for my current situation. Rewind to Big Blue. While the top pitch is 13%, the entire road climbs 130 meters over a distance of 1400 meters, an average of 9%. My all-time record for the climb is 4:48. This computes to a VAM of an impressive 1625 m/hour, an average speed of 17.5 kph, and an average power of 400+ watts. These days 5:10 to 6:40 is more like it, with the lower figure an all-out assault at peak form, and the higher number more realistic for doing a couple of repeats. So let's use that one. 6:40 for 1.4k works out to 12.6 kph. Never mind that I might go quite a bit slower for a few seconds on the steep parts. In my low gear of 38x27, at 12.6 kph my cadence is a mere 70 rpms. This is hardly undergeared, yet even this pedestrian pace will require me to cough up an average power output of 288 watts, which is a similar wattage, and nearly double pedal force of riding 32 kph at 90 rpm on flat ground. Even on a lesser hill, say a 6% rise, if using this gear and maintaining a comfortable 75 rpm, 200+ watts will be required.
OK, today's temps appear to have topped out at 27 degrees F. Having justified my use of the 38x27, I must defer further ramblings on the desirability of chainring overlap, why 53x12 is too big for most of you clowns, and why 42 chainrings are better than 39's for another day. Time to get cold.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Learning to Crawl
Running is such a basic movement, you would think after 44 years I might have it down pat. Nothing could be further from the truth. Honing a perfectly round, smooth, and powerful pedal stroke always made sense to me. Be an electric motor, not a piston engine. Luckily, my awareness of good pedaling's importance existed since my earliest forays into serious cycling. For me, bad technique was never habitualized. Running though -- you would think the running motion would come naturally. Wrong. I never gave it much thought, and even less effort, and the results showed. I never knew how to run, but that is slowly changing. This winter I made great strides (hah!) toward a faster, more efficient technique, through practice and the help of the fleet-footed KL.
Making it out the door Thursday morning at 6:35, there was no specific plan for the run. My first thought was to use all the time I had to go on an extended loop. A few steps down the road, a mild connective tissue soreness on the outside of my left knee convinced me something gentler might be a better idea. Fresh off of reading a Friel piece on how improving your economy was just as good as improving your power, I decided to focus on good form, doing my best to keep up a decent pace without pushing. Sticking to my usual 6.5-7k loop through the sheep pasture and around the Clock Farm, I directed my focus onto maintaining a smooth, rhythymic gait, steady breathing, and swift forward progress without excessive effort. It worked, but this efficient style was far from second nature.
The end result was completion of the loop in 33:25, roughly 35 seconds less than a typical "easy" day, 1:25 more than a "fast" day. On this run, while failing to keep the HR in zone 2, my effort was nonetheless at least 10 beats lower than normal for this pace on this loop. It took quite a bit of concentration, but considering the tiny amount of time I have put into running relative to cycling, I should not expect miracles.
Training and efficiency present a bit of a contradiction, although certainly an avoidable one. Attempting to measure a training session by anything other than the ultimate goal of the activity being trained might reward inefficiency. If I run with a goal of pushing my HR up to a certain level, achieving this by waving my arms over my head while bouncing down the trail in a side-to-side motion, what have I accomplished? Along the same lines, if I do a 20 minute time trial interval with a goal of 300 watts average output, but I get there by coming off the aerobars, standing up every two minutes to keep the gear rolling, have I made myself any faster? Working on my sprint, is it enough to get my 12 seconds watts up to 1300? Wouldn't it be more important to measure my speed, acceleration, and timing? Of course it would.
Maximum output AND maximum efficiency together will produce the maximum result. As G recently stated, spinning is useless if the gear is too small to produce high speed. So let your training stress your body in every way possible, adapting it to every conceivable racing situation, but keep your mind on pulling it all together efficiently. This is the essence of good form. Was that a lot of words to state the obvious or what?
Making it out the door Thursday morning at 6:35, there was no specific plan for the run. My first thought was to use all the time I had to go on an extended loop. A few steps down the road, a mild connective tissue soreness on the outside of my left knee convinced me something gentler might be a better idea. Fresh off of reading a Friel piece on how improving your economy was just as good as improving your power, I decided to focus on good form, doing my best to keep up a decent pace without pushing. Sticking to my usual 6.5-7k loop through the sheep pasture and around the Clock Farm, I directed my focus onto maintaining a smooth, rhythymic gait, steady breathing, and swift forward progress without excessive effort. It worked, but this efficient style was far from second nature.
The end result was completion of the loop in 33:25, roughly 35 seconds less than a typical "easy" day, 1:25 more than a "fast" day. On this run, while failing to keep the HR in zone 2, my effort was nonetheless at least 10 beats lower than normal for this pace on this loop. It took quite a bit of concentration, but considering the tiny amount of time I have put into running relative to cycling, I should not expect miracles.
Training and efficiency present a bit of a contradiction, although certainly an avoidable one. Attempting to measure a training session by anything other than the ultimate goal of the activity being trained might reward inefficiency. If I run with a goal of pushing my HR up to a certain level, achieving this by waving my arms over my head while bouncing down the trail in a side-to-side motion, what have I accomplished? Along the same lines, if I do a 20 minute time trial interval with a goal of 300 watts average output, but I get there by coming off the aerobars, standing up every two minutes to keep the gear rolling, have I made myself any faster? Working on my sprint, is it enough to get my 12 seconds watts up to 1300? Wouldn't it be more important to measure my speed, acceleration, and timing? Of course it would.
Maximum output AND maximum efficiency together will produce the maximum result. As G recently stated, spinning is useless if the gear is too small to produce high speed. So let your training stress your body in every way possible, adapting it to every conceivable racing situation, but keep your mind on pulling it all together efficiently. This is the essence of good form. Was that a lot of words to state the obvious or what?
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Miles of Smiles
Happiness and a cheerful attitude contribute more to your health and well being than any gadget, training regimen, or supplement. The abundant sunshine of the past few months, and in particular this morning, impacts my spirits in a more positive way than the relative lack of snowfall ever could. If the temperature never dipped below 50, but a persistent cloud cover cast a pall over the landscape, the favorable training conditions would never be advantaged like they would on the dawn of a sunny new, crisp and clear day. Today is looking good.
I have only seen a few clips from the Team CSC documentary Overcoming, but Jens Voight's "my problems are the smallest" positive attitude was a quick lesson for all of us. One of the cycling magazines had a Jens interview last spring, where the author was with Jens as the rider prepared for a training ride on a cold, rainy morning. "Good day! Others not motivated!" was the quote, as the smiling Voight put the situation in a positive light, focusing on the fact that he would be gaining fitness on his rivals by going out in the slop. This guy is awesome; I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of this movie. Others may be motivated by the sunshine today, but so am I, so the least I can do is be happy without the slop!
Training went well yesterday. Monday was a rest day. Tuesday morning, still feeling pretty lethargic, I headed out for an easy run. Taking the advice of those on a few of the triathlon blogs I have been perusing, I kept the pace and HR down as much as I could while maintaining form (ie not breaking into my "shuffle"). Probably covered almost 5 miles in 43 minutes and change. Last night I climbed on the trainer. I warmed up easy, then paced it up a bit, but my HR was not climbing, though I somehow knew, even without a power meter, I was producing enough work to see a bigger number. This is a typical observation when one is a little bit tired. Continuing for 45 minutes, my HR never got above zone 2 (130-141 for my aged body). Once again, last night brought a great night of sleep. This has been typical, and is probably one more reason why I feel so enthused today.
Lots of interesting comments on G's blog yesterday. More coming today. G, I ommitted Easton from my comment on companies big enough to properly engineer a good bicycle wheel. Not that being big is a requirement. Surely you can build your own wheel too, my point is just that I don't want to be doing the field testing for anyone's ultralight "Basement Manufacturing Company" project. Just because I have dental insurance doesn't mean I want to use it... OK, time to move. It is breezy out there, but looking good for an hour and a half on the MTB.
I have only seen a few clips from the Team CSC documentary Overcoming, but Jens Voight's "my problems are the smallest" positive attitude was a quick lesson for all of us. One of the cycling magazines had a Jens interview last spring, where the author was with Jens as the rider prepared for a training ride on a cold, rainy morning. "Good day! Others not motivated!" was the quote, as the smiling Voight put the situation in a positive light, focusing on the fact that he would be gaining fitness on his rivals by going out in the slop. This guy is awesome; I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of this movie. Others may be motivated by the sunshine today, but so am I, so the least I can do is be happy without the slop!
Training went well yesterday. Monday was a rest day. Tuesday morning, still feeling pretty lethargic, I headed out for an easy run. Taking the advice of those on a few of the triathlon blogs I have been perusing, I kept the pace and HR down as much as I could while maintaining form (ie not breaking into my "shuffle"). Probably covered almost 5 miles in 43 minutes and change. Last night I climbed on the trainer. I warmed up easy, then paced it up a bit, but my HR was not climbing, though I somehow knew, even without a power meter, I was producing enough work to see a bigger number. This is a typical observation when one is a little bit tired. Continuing for 45 minutes, my HR never got above zone 2 (130-141 for my aged body). Once again, last night brought a great night of sleep. This has been typical, and is probably one more reason why I feel so enthused today.
Lots of interesting comments on G's blog yesterday. More coming today. G, I ommitted Easton from my comment on companies big enough to properly engineer a good bicycle wheel. Not that being big is a requirement. Surely you can build your own wheel too, my point is just that I don't want to be doing the field testing for anyone's ultralight "Basement Manufacturing Company" project. Just because I have dental insurance doesn't mean I want to use it... OK, time to move. It is breezy out there, but looking good for an hour and a half on the MTB.
Monday, March 13, 2006
He said "Log"
Huh-huh. Wikipedia states that the term "blog" originates from breaking "weblog" into "we blog." Before today, I did not know this. My guess would have been blog= "bullshit log." What about the training log? Should it be the "tlog" or the "glog" or the "inglog?" This post is a bit premature, but this spring will mark the 20th anniversary of my training logs. The first entry, scribbled on the blank pages in the back of Tom Doughty's The Complete Book of Long-Distance and Competitive Cycling says "approx 150-200 miles on the season so far" and it was made on April 20, 1986. On this fateful Sunday morning, a 49 mile ride from my humble one-room apartment in Easton up to Newton and back had me rolling through Wells Ave at one point. Here I experienced the site of a bicycle race in person for the first time.
My earliest recollection of bike racing was the spotty TV coverage of the team pursuit at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. As a young impressionable lad of seven, the grainy black and white images of four cyclists tearing around the steep banks of the velodrome, each peeling off to the very top of the banking after taking their turn, letting the others come through, and smoothly rolling back down into place at the end of the line permanently impressed me, beginning my fascination with bicyles. However, despite somehow defying near-poverty and obtaining a real, Mafac and Simplex equipped LaPierre ten speed at the age of twelve, actually competition had eluded me until now. Several of life's teenage detours had something to do with that.
So here I was, a Sunday tourist on my gigantic, $169 Motobecane Nomade, resplendenty equipped with steel rims, velcro water bottle cage, and shifters mounted on the stem, observing the local bike racing scene up close and personal. The Doughty book was my only connection to "real" cycling. I knew no competitors, had never heard of Velo News, and only found out about Well's Ave through an activities listing in the Boston Globe. Keeping my distance, I rolled up the sidewalk, staying off the course. The pack whizzed by. The listing in the Globe wasn't kidding, helmets were required. Everyone also had the funny looking shoes I had seen in the book (this was pre-clipless pedals era, and old cycling shoes looked like ballet slippers). Those were two things I would need if I were going to come back here and fit in. Of course, one other thing would be required to avoid embarrassment: it was time to get serious about training, and that meant a training log. You will read more on this later in the year.
Why this entry this day? Well, two reasons. My best guess as to when my riding started that fateful year would be somewhere around this time in March. That would have allowed me to accumulate my estimated mileage by the time of the first entry. So this marks the unofficial 20th anniversary of my adult cycling career. Secondly, the Motobecane reference. Saturday was the maiden voyage of my spiffy new Motobecane Champion SL. A Motobecane in name only, this bikesdirect.com warehouse special is a generic Taiwanese aluminum racing bike, exactly the same as one sold under the Fuji brand, except for the decals.
My observation has been that nearly everyone entering the ranks of the 45+ group rewards themselves with a new steed. Most of these guys have grown kids, nearly paid up mortgages, and 401Ks that put mine to shame, so typically the weapon of choice is a Time carbon, Seven Ti, or similar pro-quality rocket ship on two wheels. My humble means will not allow any such aquisition, at least not while maintaining any sense of fiscal responsiblity, yet my twelve year old Slim Chance, despite its undeniable elegance, suprisingly light weight, and superior handling, just seemd like it might be holding me back. Simply stated, this beauty is a joy to ride, but a bit flexible for a rider of my stature to be racing on.
The Motobecane represented a bit of a gamble, albeit a fairly small one, as most of my competitors spend more on a set of wheels than I would lay out for this entire bike. It looked like it would fit, so I ordered it up. Thursday and Friday nights were assembly time. For now I mothballed the AC 420 wheels included in the deal, swapped the 11-23 for a 12-27, and switched out the compact 36-50 rings for 38-52. With cages, 32-hole Open 4s, and training tires the total weight rang up as 18.9 pounds. The Slim weighs 20.5 with my paired-spoke Ultegra race wheels. So far so good.
Without so much as a driveway shakedown, Saturday morning I trekked up to the E-man's house in Nashua to exploit the unseasonably nice weather with a long ride in the hills. Besides me and KL (also on here brand-new Team Issue Terry), most of the Trek/VW northeast team, EM and two of our other BOB Master's mates, as well as two of BOB's youngest made up our dirty dozen. For the first hour or so, we just rolled along in a ragged double line, no doubt building some serious negative goodwill with the southern NH motoring public. It was not pretty. Luckily, the group split up about halfway upon reaching more rural territory. The Trek/VW boys had ridden over from Hudson, so they turned back to avoid turning this into a 5 hour tour. The remaining six of us hit the hills around Mt Vernon and Wilton.
The bike felt great on the climbs, despite a slipping seatpost leading to an unusual saddle angle. There really was a difference from my old bike. I will spare you the bike review BS like "unreal responsiveness" and "really puts the power down." Still though, this bike felt faster up the hills. Going down, it might take some getting used to. I loved the Slim, and this bike sports near identical measurements, save for much less BB drop, so the BB height is about 1.5 cm higher.
Just like the Belgian classics, we have names for all the cols on our routes. This day we did "Roof of the World," a 4.71 km ascent of 210 meters. This only works out to 4.5% averages, but the climb seems much harder than that, as like all of New England, the ups come in pitches, and there are even a few dips where elevation is lost. I am happy to report that this went much better for me than is typical in March, and I was able to stay out of the deep red zone and steadily hold a nice tempo for the entire 15 minutes it took us to complete the climb. The new bike feels great.
Never an early season terror, I cannot help but be encouraged by my form so far. We ended up doing 3.5 hours, only about 93K, but the beginning of the ride was slow and the efforts in the middle were solid. Sunday KL and I were both tired so we just spun around my home area for 1:45. OK, this is a rest day, but I still gotta get to work. No proofing this morning. Congratulations if you made it all the way to here.
My earliest recollection of bike racing was the spotty TV coverage of the team pursuit at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. As a young impressionable lad of seven, the grainy black and white images of four cyclists tearing around the steep banks of the velodrome, each peeling off to the very top of the banking after taking their turn, letting the others come through, and smoothly rolling back down into place at the end of the line permanently impressed me, beginning my fascination with bicyles. However, despite somehow defying near-poverty and obtaining a real, Mafac and Simplex equipped LaPierre ten speed at the age of twelve, actually competition had eluded me until now. Several of life's teenage detours had something to do with that.
So here I was, a Sunday tourist on my gigantic, $169 Motobecane Nomade, resplendenty equipped with steel rims, velcro water bottle cage, and shifters mounted on the stem, observing the local bike racing scene up close and personal. The Doughty book was my only connection to "real" cycling. I knew no competitors, had never heard of Velo News, and only found out about Well's Ave through an activities listing in the Boston Globe. Keeping my distance, I rolled up the sidewalk, staying off the course. The pack whizzed by. The listing in the Globe wasn't kidding, helmets were required. Everyone also had the funny looking shoes I had seen in the book (this was pre-clipless pedals era, and old cycling shoes looked like ballet slippers). Those were two things I would need if I were going to come back here and fit in. Of course, one other thing would be required to avoid embarrassment: it was time to get serious about training, and that meant a training log. You will read more on this later in the year.
Why this entry this day? Well, two reasons. My best guess as to when my riding started that fateful year would be somewhere around this time in March. That would have allowed me to accumulate my estimated mileage by the time of the first entry. So this marks the unofficial 20th anniversary of my adult cycling career. Secondly, the Motobecane reference. Saturday was the maiden voyage of my spiffy new Motobecane Champion SL. A Motobecane in name only, this bikesdirect.com warehouse special is a generic Taiwanese aluminum racing bike, exactly the same as one sold under the Fuji brand, except for the decals.
My observation has been that nearly everyone entering the ranks of the 45+ group rewards themselves with a new steed. Most of these guys have grown kids, nearly paid up mortgages, and 401Ks that put mine to shame, so typically the weapon of choice is a Time carbon, Seven Ti, or similar pro-quality rocket ship on two wheels. My humble means will not allow any such aquisition, at least not while maintaining any sense of fiscal responsiblity, yet my twelve year old Slim Chance, despite its undeniable elegance, suprisingly light weight, and superior handling, just seemd like it might be holding me back. Simply stated, this beauty is a joy to ride, but a bit flexible for a rider of my stature to be racing on.
The Motobecane represented a bit of a gamble, albeit a fairly small one, as most of my competitors spend more on a set of wheels than I would lay out for this entire bike. It looked like it would fit, so I ordered it up. Thursday and Friday nights were assembly time. For now I mothballed the AC 420 wheels included in the deal, swapped the 11-23 for a 12-27, and switched out the compact 36-50 rings for 38-52. With cages, 32-hole Open 4s, and training tires the total weight rang up as 18.9 pounds. The Slim weighs 20.5 with my paired-spoke Ultegra race wheels. So far so good.
Without so much as a driveway shakedown, Saturday morning I trekked up to the E-man's house in Nashua to exploit the unseasonably nice weather with a long ride in the hills. Besides me and KL (also on here brand-new Team Issue Terry), most of the Trek/VW northeast team, EM and two of our other BOB Master's mates, as well as two of BOB's youngest made up our dirty dozen. For the first hour or so, we just rolled along in a ragged double line, no doubt building some serious negative goodwill with the southern NH motoring public. It was not pretty. Luckily, the group split up about halfway upon reaching more rural territory. The Trek/VW boys had ridden over from Hudson, so they turned back to avoid turning this into a 5 hour tour. The remaining six of us hit the hills around Mt Vernon and Wilton.
The bike felt great on the climbs, despite a slipping seatpost leading to an unusual saddle angle. There really was a difference from my old bike. I will spare you the bike review BS like "unreal responsiveness" and "really puts the power down." Still though, this bike felt faster up the hills. Going down, it might take some getting used to. I loved the Slim, and this bike sports near identical measurements, save for much less BB drop, so the BB height is about 1.5 cm higher.
Just like the Belgian classics, we have names for all the cols on our routes. This day we did "Roof of the World," a 4.71 km ascent of 210 meters. This only works out to 4.5% averages, but the climb seems much harder than that, as like all of New England, the ups come in pitches, and there are even a few dips where elevation is lost. I am happy to report that this went much better for me than is typical in March, and I was able to stay out of the deep red zone and steadily hold a nice tempo for the entire 15 minutes it took us to complete the climb. The new bike feels great.
Never an early season terror, I cannot help but be encouraged by my form so far. We ended up doing 3.5 hours, only about 93K, but the beginning of the ride was slow and the efforts in the middle were solid. Sunday KL and I were both tired so we just spun around my home area for 1:45. OK, this is a rest day, but I still gotta get to work. No proofing this morning. Congratulations if you made it all the way to here.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Blogging: Literary Powermeter?
Coming up with something for the blog every day presents quite a challenge. Sure, I could just put the training data down. That gets it over with and leaves more time to actually train. Damn, though, I don't have a power meter; sensory descriptions and boring HR statistics pale in comparison to spiffy power graphs. With those, you could all clearly see my "soft pedal your way to the podium" approach to winter training. Without them, here I sit, envious of the bloggers who don't need such gimmicks to fill up a few paragraphs. You know the ones I mean, the ones who can make you think, chuckle, and get excited all at the same time. Real mental stimulation for the drones sitting in front of a stupid screen trying to look like they're working - that's the ticket.
So how do a buy this ticket? Maybe by going out on long rides, all alone, focusing on ones thoughts, not staring at the power meter, contemplating what is all around, processing it all within, looking from all sides, not concluding, instead considering -- then something worthy -- brainworthy, blogworthy, would flow from the neurons and make the journey to the fingertips to magnetization and eventually on to pixelation. Might this build a greater strength, a strength which cannot be measured with a load cell? Nah, watts and data are all that matter. What was I thinking?
This weekend looks like group rides, but that first long solo is just up the road.
I got in an hour and a half on the MTB yesterday morning. Did a bit of "real" mountain biking too, i.e. stuff you couldn't ride a 'cross bike on. Just a run today. Be good.
So how do a buy this ticket? Maybe by going out on long rides, all alone, focusing on ones thoughts, not staring at the power meter, contemplating what is all around, processing it all within, looking from all sides, not concluding, instead considering -- then something worthy -- brainworthy, blogworthy, would flow from the neurons and make the journey to the fingertips to magnetization and eventually on to pixelation. Might this build a greater strength, a strength which cannot be measured with a load cell? Nah, watts and data are all that matter. What was I thinking?
This weekend looks like group rides, but that first long solo is just up the road.
I got in an hour and a half on the MTB yesterday morning. Did a bit of "real" mountain biking too, i.e. stuff you couldn't ride a 'cross bike on. Just a run today. Be good.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Write Your Problems Down in Detail
Rough day at the home office - ran for 35 minutes early in the morning. My hamstrings seemed OK yesterday, but early in the run I could tell they weren't on a good day. This wasn't a problem, as I never intended to run hard. In fact, I may have benefitted from this little issue; for once I was able to do a steady run and keep my HR in zone 2 for almost the entire duration. Upon return to the homestead, I quickly jumped on the trainer to spin the legs out. My quads seemed sore, and I can't figure out why, but this wasn't a hard workout either, so 30 minutes at an average cadence of 97 was fine. A quick check of UPS tracking found both my packages unexpectedly out for delivery, so I would be telecommuting today after all, rather than trying to finagle a switch to tommorow.
With any luck, the pony express would arrive in the morning, nothing would blow up out in software land, and a fine little lunchtime ride would await. No such luck. Work brought a steady flow of phone calls and irritating issues, nothing serious, just enough to keep me occupied. No sign of the brown truck either. A good weather day was going to waste. Finally, mid afternoon, my delivery gets here, but by now it is too late to justify lunch, and trouble keeps phoning on a regular basis. What can you do? This is why we call it work. It doesn't stop. Luckily, we have an evening crew to attend to crisis' and we day slobs can pretty much go home at our appointed hour. The scant daylight was fading fast, but I said screw it and threw on some riding clothes and bolted out on the MTB at about 5:40. Nothing more than a few quick laps around the sheep pasture and surrounding trails, with a trip home on the street in the dark. It wasn't much, but I hate to work from home and still not get out. So all in all, I hustled quite a bit to get my hour and 38 minutes worth of workouts today.
With any luck, the pony express would arrive in the morning, nothing would blow up out in software land, and a fine little lunchtime ride would await. No such luck. Work brought a steady flow of phone calls and irritating issues, nothing serious, just enough to keep me occupied. No sign of the brown truck either. A good weather day was going to waste. Finally, mid afternoon, my delivery gets here, but by now it is too late to justify lunch, and trouble keeps phoning on a regular basis. What can you do? This is why we call it work. It doesn't stop. Luckily, we have an evening crew to attend to crisis' and we day slobs can pretty much go home at our appointed hour. The scant daylight was fading fast, but I said screw it and threw on some riding clothes and bolted out on the MTB at about 5:40. Nothing more than a few quick laps around the sheep pasture and surrounding trails, with a trip home on the street in the dark. It wasn't much, but I hate to work from home and still not get out. So all in all, I hustled quite a bit to get my hour and 38 minutes worth of workouts today.
Monday, March 6, 2006
To Run or not to Run
The dilemna of whether to continue running as cross-training or to ramp up time on the bike presents itself anually. Fully aware of the difficulties the early bike racing season will bring, and thus knowing once cannot be too prepared, putting off bike mileage creates a certain uneasiness. On the other hand, improvements in my running brought on by a steady stream of winter morning outings encourages me to continue, at least through a few spring running races.
Yesterday I ran a big-time PR at the Paddy Kelly 5 miler in DW Field Park, right next-door in beautiful Brockton. You may find this surprising, especially after my declaration of physical devastation one day prior, which, incidentally, was followed by a way past bedtime wait at the TF Green baggage claim. Despite Saturday's hard day's night, upon awakening Sunday I knew I wanted to run this race. Kerry was game too, and with the site just five minutes away, we went over and signed in.
Held in the Westgate Lanes cocktail lounge, going through registration brought back so many memories. One of my earliest traumatic recollections is being trapped in this bowling alley's child care center with dozens of other screaming brats while my Mother bowled in an afternoon league over forty years ago. In the decades that followed, the hustling and deal-making that comprised my mispent youth included plenty of visits to the adjacent pool hall and dive bar. KL appeared bewildered by my unbridled amusement as I recounted my tales of Westgate adventures from days gone by. I couldn't help but laugh.
With good energy and, save for fatigued quads, loose legs, I was excited to line up. Knowing the course so well provided me with another advantage. The siren went off and after momentarily being boxed in, I settled in to a way too fast for me pace. KL was only a few seconds up the road, so I knew I was in way over my head, but figured I had to push sometime. The only real rise, Tower Hill, came early at the end of mile one. This race not only had a mile marker, but had a digital clock there too, which read 5:58 as I passed. Holy crap. My HR was 170, ten beats over LT, so I backed down just a bit and forged on. Mile two passed at 12:18, mile three at 18:35, and when I saw the clock at mile 4 read 25:00 I knew that one of my running goals, going under 32 for a 5 mile, was going to be met. Some dude out-legged me at the finish, but I went into the chute at 31:30! Wow.
The weather was decent and I am sure that most of my bike racing adversaries put in a good day of training. Knowing that if we went out it would be junk miles, we repelled the guilt and did not ride at all. So now I am torn. The pace I ran puts my most serious running goal, breaking forty minutes in a 10K, within reach. Should I go for it this spring? A suitable race looms over in Cohasset on April 3rd. Dangerously close to bike racing season yes, but I can pull it off, right? We will have to see. Time to get on the trainer...
Yesterday I ran a big-time PR at the Paddy Kelly 5 miler in DW Field Park, right next-door in beautiful Brockton. You may find this surprising, especially after my declaration of physical devastation one day prior, which, incidentally, was followed by a way past bedtime wait at the TF Green baggage claim. Despite Saturday's hard day's night, upon awakening Sunday I knew I wanted to run this race. Kerry was game too, and with the site just five minutes away, we went over and signed in.
Held in the Westgate Lanes cocktail lounge, going through registration brought back so many memories. One of my earliest traumatic recollections is being trapped in this bowling alley's child care center with dozens of other screaming brats while my Mother bowled in an afternoon league over forty years ago. In the decades that followed, the hustling and deal-making that comprised my mispent youth included plenty of visits to the adjacent pool hall and dive bar. KL appeared bewildered by my unbridled amusement as I recounted my tales of Westgate adventures from days gone by. I couldn't help but laugh.
With good energy and, save for fatigued quads, loose legs, I was excited to line up. Knowing the course so well provided me with another advantage. The siren went off and after momentarily being boxed in, I settled in to a way too fast for me pace. KL was only a few seconds up the road, so I knew I was in way over my head, but figured I had to push sometime. The only real rise, Tower Hill, came early at the end of mile one. This race not only had a mile marker, but had a digital clock there too, which read 5:58 as I passed. Holy crap. My HR was 170, ten beats over LT, so I backed down just a bit and forged on. Mile two passed at 12:18, mile three at 18:35, and when I saw the clock at mile 4 read 25:00 I knew that one of my running goals, going under 32 for a 5 mile, was going to be met. Some dude out-legged me at the finish, but I went into the chute at 31:30! Wow.
The weather was decent and I am sure that most of my bike racing adversaries put in a good day of training. Knowing that if we went out it would be junk miles, we repelled the guilt and did not ride at all. So now I am torn. The pace I ran puts my most serious running goal, breaking forty minutes in a 10K, within reach. Should I go for it this spring? A suitable race looms over in Cohasset on April 3rd. Dangerously close to bike racing season yes, but I can pull it off, right? We will have to see. Time to get on the trainer...
Saturday, March 4, 2006
Bring the jam...'cause I'm toast
Today's ride felt harder than it should have. Yesterday's intervals on the trainer must have been real -- they took their toll today. Thursday was a pretty easy spin on the trainer. Friday morning I was real close to skipping out completely, but after jumping on the indoor bike, the blood started to flow and I settled in for a short but intense session.
Nobody wants to hear more bitching about the cold. The winds of March shouldn't surprise anyone either. Today I had the luxury of waiting for the warmest part of the day before venturing out. KL's flight home was supposed to be arriving at 4:30, but she called in the morning with news of its cancellation, thus postponing her arrival until late tonight. After wasting much of the day, my ride started just after 2 pm. Yeah, it was chilly, and the wind made it hard to get comfortable, but it was OK. I was just tired. Going out easy was the plan, which I stuck to.
After an hour or so I opened up a bit on a short climb. A few minutes later, paying homage to Johnny Cash by doing the climb in front of MCI-Cedar Junction (aka Walpole State Prison), I was feeling pretty good. Another hour in the wind changed that. Toward the end I almost felt a cramp coming on. That just doesn't happen to me after only 2.5 hours. Finishing up just 5 minutes shy of 3 hours, I wasted no time in stretching and getting fed.
An easy week sounds pretty good right now.
Nobody wants to hear more bitching about the cold. The winds of March shouldn't surprise anyone either. Today I had the luxury of waiting for the warmest part of the day before venturing out. KL's flight home was supposed to be arriving at 4:30, but she called in the morning with news of its cancellation, thus postponing her arrival until late tonight. After wasting much of the day, my ride started just after 2 pm. Yeah, it was chilly, and the wind made it hard to get comfortable, but it was OK. I was just tired. Going out easy was the plan, which I stuck to.
After an hour or so I opened up a bit on a short climb. A few minutes later, paying homage to Johnny Cash by doing the climb in front of MCI-Cedar Junction (aka Walpole State Prison), I was feeling pretty good. Another hour in the wind changed that. Toward the end I almost felt a cramp coming on. That just doesn't happen to me after only 2.5 hours. Finishing up just 5 minutes shy of 3 hours, I wasted no time in stretching and getting fed.
An easy week sounds pretty good right now.
Friday, March 3, 2006
Why am I soft in the middle if the rest of my life is so hard?
Fitness is a journey, not a destination. We have to make it happen, and keep on making it happen, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. This month the scale and the mirror seem to have a difference of opinion regarding my fitness. The winter, shortened by a full season of cyclocross, did not manage to increase my mass quite so much as in years past. Give some credit to running as well. My weight is just 5 pounds or so higher than during my best period of fitness last summer, a time when I was racing fairly well. Why then, do my stomach and love handles look so much worse?
I guess it does not matter. March and April have always been difficult months for me. Riding in the winter is easy. Expectations are low, and you know it will be cold, so you just wear all your clothes; the risk of being overdressed in minimal. The spring is different. You have to anticipate the conditions and figure out how to dress. This isn't too big of a deal, but once in a while you are going to mess up and be miserable out on the bike.
Then there are the nice days. Everyone gets out, you do some good riding. The problem is, on the subsequent not-so-nice days, the temptation to say "screw it" and wait for tommorow is very strong. Getting oneself onto the trainer presents an even greater challenge after a week of sweet outdoor riding. Yet the pressure to stick to your training plan balloons during these months. Racing begins soon. Endurance, power, and speed all need specific attention; this is a critical time. The ups and downs of New England weather, along with the complete lack of holiday within these months are the curses of my spring. Thankfully we have the excitement of the new season to keep us moving along in our journey.
I guess it does not matter. March and April have always been difficult months for me. Riding in the winter is easy. Expectations are low, and you know it will be cold, so you just wear all your clothes; the risk of being overdressed in minimal. The spring is different. You have to anticipate the conditions and figure out how to dress. This isn't too big of a deal, but once in a while you are going to mess up and be miserable out on the bike.
Then there are the nice days. Everyone gets out, you do some good riding. The problem is, on the subsequent not-so-nice days, the temptation to say "screw it" and wait for tommorow is very strong. Getting oneself onto the trainer presents an even greater challenge after a week of sweet outdoor riding. Yet the pressure to stick to your training plan balloons during these months. Racing begins soon. Endurance, power, and speed all need specific attention; this is a critical time. The ups and downs of New England weather, along with the complete lack of holiday within these months are the curses of my spring. Thankfully we have the excitement of the new season to keep us moving along in our journey.
Thursday, March 2, 2006
So this is March
Still pretty friggin' cold. Yesterday was fine in the a.m. for running. We have a turn of the century park with a classic baseball field and cinder track a few blocks over. The track was still ice and snow covered on one side, so I did 200m sprints up the clean side and tiptoed over the snow to recover. Worked out well. Telecommuting was not as good. Got busy in the morning, and sadly I had to go in for a meeting in the afternoon, so although the day was clear and about 30 degrees by noon, there was no time for an outdoor lunch ride. Spinning on the trainer for 30 minutes was enough to flush the running out of my legs.
I went straight to my massage after work. This is what makes training all worth it. My hips were a mess, as usual, and she also explained how a tight tendon in my shin was the likely cause of my foot pain. All better now. Yes, with the money spent on a year of massages, I could get a power meter instead! No f%$#'n thanks.
This morning temps are in the high teens; an MTB spin would be possible, but I am not willing to undo all the benefits of my massage by pounding over the ruts and grinding away while my muscles turn to frozen stone just yet. Turning this into a mere training log was not my intention, but that's all I got. March 1 morning weight 176 lbs.
I went straight to my massage after work. This is what makes training all worth it. My hips were a mess, as usual, and she also explained how a tight tendon in my shin was the likely cause of my foot pain. All better now. Yes, with the money spent on a year of massages, I could get a power meter instead! No f%$#'n thanks.
This morning temps are in the high teens; an MTB spin would be possible, but I am not willing to undo all the benefits of my massage by pounding over the ruts and grinding away while my muscles turn to frozen stone just yet. Turning this into a mere training log was not my intention, but that's all I got. March 1 morning weight 176 lbs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)