Belly Breathing

With "Racing Weight" and manorexia being all the January rage, we'll take the bait and make a last-minute change of the parcours in that direction. Sort of. Everyone is claiming to be obese. Even if they're not, really. Some even go so far as to post staged "before" pictures on their blogs. This involves the opposite of the normal solobreak suck your fucking gut in for all you're worth pose, and instead filling up your belly with air, sticking it out as far as possible (huh-huh) for the camera. Then a few weeks later, I suspect, the "extra for Schindler's List" Z-card modeling comps get published, complete with protruding ribcage and alien freckles (Sorry, no time this morning to photoshop Thom's head onto a pic of Rasmussen, but please feel free to steal this idea and publish). Look, here's what I mean (I know this post is pretty rough; it's short and entertaining week remember?)


Exhibit A. When he's not rolling around in dogshit, hotshot 29er mountain bike racer/Ice Weasels co-promoter Thom P employs the belly breathing technique while obscenely posing for animal crackers with his PhotoBooth. Thom should know better, these pics are never a good idea. Damn I miss Zoo's blog...


Thom is not alone here. Here that famous cyclist attempts to fool the early season competition by using the belly breathing technique. He may want us to believe "The Shack" is EJ's Rib Shack in Brockton, but the ripped calves are a dead giveaway here.


Even solobreak gets in on the act from time to time. Eat up kids, your brains need the fuel. Thanks for reading

Fun with English

In keeping with the short and entertaining theme (and I'm not just referring to Chabot and Ringer here), let's do a little word association thing. One of the things that confuses non-native English speakers is how the same word can mean completely different things. What you think of when you hear certain words may indicate something about you. Today's word is shell

What does the word "shell" make you think of?

Home for a crusteacean? Daisy sniffer.

Thing that holds a bottom bracket? Bike Weenie.

Command line interpreter program? Computer geek.

verb - lay waste to fellow competitors? Solobreak reader. Congrats and thanks for reading.

Short and Entertaining

We'll start with this. OK, I found this on HCWDB, but it's legit, you can find it on Gillette's site as well. They have a clip for back hair too. See, I promised to not be so boring. Thanks for reading.

Like a Chinese Motorcycle

That's a Marro-ism for falling apart really bad. Normally I would shun using a reference to quality based purely on country of origin, but with pieces of shit like this coming on shore every day to make cycling even more dangerous than it already is, I'm going with it. So see how bad I look below in my "last mile" picture from Derry in 2008? Well this year was about 100x worse. Or at least it felt that way. I was beating myself up even more post-race (while drinking beers with zencycle in the Pinkerton Academy parking lot, being treated to a free titty show from some chick who decided her sportsbra was just too clammy for the drive home and had to go), but now after analyzing my splits and Polar data, I don't feel quite as bad about it.

I went into this race with a solid, conservative plan. The past few years I've learned my lesson about going out too hard in running races. I've even tried to train the way I want to race, with a slight negative split for the latter half of a run. But Derry is 16 miles, and the only time I've ever run that far before was the last time I did this race. And it is hilly. Very hilly. None of the climbs are that long or that high, in fact my altimeter only recorded 350 meters of climbing. But most of them are steep, and in running this presents a problem whether you're (or more accurately I'm) going up or down.

Going back to the last post, I referred to the 2 seconds/mile/pound thing. I don't remember if I've ever brought this up before, but the idea is that all else being equal, adding a pound to your body will slow you down by 2 seconds/mile. And I'm about 4 pounds heavier than when I ran this in 2008. At that time I was deep in a calorie counting/food logging adventure in a quest to see just how lean I could get. Now that I know the answer and how to get there I'm a bit less concerned with what I weigh in January, and it shows on the scale. So for the purposes of figuring out a race plan, I took the 6:57 average pace I ran this race at in 2008 (in the snow, which had to be slower than this year's dry conditions), and added 8 seconds/ mile to it, which of course is 7:05. That would be the pace I would attempt to maintain for the first half of the race, and after that I'd see how I felt.

My secondary pacing strategy was based on heart rate. In my running LT test last April, we came up with 149 bpm. The last time I ran this race I averaged 158 bpm, really high for me on a two hour effort. So I hoped to stay at around 150 for the first half of the race too. What I forgot was how hilly this course is, and how the distribution of the profile's bumps would affect pacing. Another small factor was my decision to pack a few small flasks of liquids in my pockets, probably another pound at least, so there goes another 2 seconds/mile.

That is not the end of my excuses. I lined up around 100 runners back from the front in order to save me from myself, forcing a slow pace off the start. The first mile is mostly uphill. When I got to the sign it was at 7:43. I sort of panicked. Now that was dumb, because if I was going for a 7:05ish pace, and starting in traffic, uphill, I should have only been looking for a 7:30 or so anyway. Despite my HR already being 146 or so, I went a little faster. Mile two had some downhill but it went in 6:12 despite me never pushing. The only explanation is the mile one guy was in the wrong spot, lengthening the first mile and shortening the second. But all this did was put doubts in my mind, and to be safe I kept running with the group I was near. My HR was in the 150-155 range, and I had to slow on the rises to keep it from going higher. But I felt pretty decent. The third mile was mostly downhill and it was 6:19. Now I was getting worried about going too hard, so I backed off a bit. The race has a timing mat at five miles, and I would be more confident it it's placement than some of these signs. Mile four was 6:34, but my HR was still creeping up. Mile five included a significant hill, and it took 7:18, for a five mile split of 34:09. This was only 13 seconds quicker than running in mashed potato snow in 2008, but so much for my plan...

Mile six was about 3/4 mile of steep downhill followed by 1/4 mile of steep climb and it took 6:44. The next two miles were fairly flat, or at least contained near equal up and down, and I maintained this pace, feeling pretty good about myself when I registered a halfway split of 54:23. If I could negative split this thing, then I'd nearly make my big, big, big dream stretch goal of 1:48. Well NOT.GONNA.HAPPEN. Of course I knew there were hills in the latter half. But I had no idea of just how DerryDoomsdayed I was about to become.

My hip suddenly started to hurt. Weird, I mean really suddenly, on a flat part of the course. Then not long after, Zencycle came driving by to heckle me. I was trying to focus, so I told him to go get some beer and meet me at the finish. Mile nine my pace slipped back to 7:03. And mile ten is the one with the steep hill... 7:29. My ten mile split was 1:08:55, meaning I'd only lost about 40 seconds for the miles 5-10 compared to 1-5, not bad considering the hills. Maybe I should not beat myself up too badly, as it appears I ran a decent race up until that point. But this would be the end of the good news.

From about 10.5 to mile twelve is all uphill. I guess this is "Warner Hill." I did not remember this. In fact, after seeing my crappy split for mile ten, I told myself to just hang on and keep a steady pace until mile twelve, then start going for it. What a fucking pipe dream that turned out to be! Mile eleven's 7:34 was eclipsed in suckitude by mile twelve's 7:43. I wasn't looking at the overall time but any hopes of beating 2008 were probably G-O-N-E already. Smarter, more experienced runners were beginning to come up from behind and pass me. The group I was with had splintered, with only one guy still visible just ahead, and even he was pulling away.

All hope was not lost. Mile thirteen must have had some downhill, and I put in a 7:18. The bottoms of my feet were hurting bad though. I'm a 25 miles/week tenderfoot, and all this downhilling was taking a toll. The race has a half-mary split mat that I tripped at 1:32:17. Not really horrible, and the rest of the way is almost all downhill, so I did not give up, and mile fourteen was another 7:18. Enter Chinese motorcycle. That was all I had. I was wrecked. When I got to the busy road where the cones are, runners were bearing down on me from behind. People with horrible running form, who were clearly a mess, were streaking by me. I can only imagine what I looked like. Mile fifteen took 7:42, and it was all downhill. At this point I did not give two shits about anything, and made a decision to start my cooldown NOW. After all, this was supposed to be training, and I wasn't going to run a single step after crossing the line. So I stroked it the rest of the way. Final mile, 7:47, official finish time 1:54:18, good for 68th place overall, 65/426 males, 18/139 age group.

I was pretty pissy, but zencycle had his dog with him and you can only be so pissy in the company of a friendly dog. Plus the race provided chile, pizza, and brownies, three things that always make me happy. After pulling myself together, we got a chance to chat with Mary the Ironmatron for a few minutes. She still had a lot of energy, and a weird accent, much different than the voice I've always put to her writing. But we made a pact to schedule some blogger pizza and beer sometime not too far off. Me and zen then went and knocked back a few old school style in the school parking lot.

So three-plus-something minutes, or 190 seconds slower than last time. 190/16 is 12 seconds a mile. Figuring my two seconds/mile/pound penalty, with four on me and one in my pockets for the liquids I did not drink much of until I started getting desperate near the end accounts for almost all of that. The rest I'll attribute to losing a minute in the final two miles with a blown engine. I should not be too unhappy, and I won't be so long as my hip does not turn out to be f'd. I will have to show more respect for race distances that are well beyond what I've trained for though. I probably should have bagged out on this one, but because it fills up I had to pre-register and for me that generally means no turning back. This had to be pretty boring, so congrats for making it this far. This week maybe I'll try to come up with stuff that is short and entertaining. Thanks for reading.

DoomsDerry

You know, I don't bag out on races too often, and I'm not going to bag out on tomorrow. But I'm not feeling too confident about this one either. Not sure what shoes to run in. I tried some Brooks Cascadias a month ago and they felt pretty good, but then my right hip started acting up in a way it never has before. Normally I run in Sauconys but I'd worn out all my Grid Excursions. I had a pair of Grid Sinisters in the box so on the last Cal trip I tried those. My hip seemed better and I like the shoes, but they're pretty minimalist for a trainer/distance shoe. Not much more to them than my Fastwitch 3s. The last long run was mostly on concrete sidewalks and now my left foot (with the history of issues) is acting up a bit. I got some Excursions at the outlet Thursday night, but they're a half size bigger than what I normally buy. I tried them the other day and they seemed ok with winter running socks but I can't feel great about them after just one short run. It's going to be a game day parking lot decision I'm afraid.

This was/is supposed to be just a training run/race anyway. I went back and looked at my 2008 data. From the photo there is not as much snow on the ground as I remembered. The times seemed to be about as fast as every other year too. I was a few pounds lighter then, so if the two seconds/mile/pound thing is correct, and I believe it is, then I'm going to be down by 8 seconds/mile right there. And in 2008 I was running better, as well as having the benefit of racing the Raynham 15k a week prior. So I guess I'm winging it here. I'll try not to be too slow, but I'm not going out fast either. Last time I somehow managed to keep my heart rate 2 bpm below threshold the entire race. That's 158 bpm for nearly two hours. I never do that. The thought of pushing that hard for that long is one of the things wigging me out right now. I had been thinking that with clear roads I'd just be cruising along here and knocking 3 minutes off my 2008 time without even trying. Now I'm realizing that maybe I made a somewhat special effort back then and I'll be lucky to finish within five minutes of that.

Of course, mostly this is a test to see if something on my body falls apart. If I can get through this without issue then I'll really be psyched for Paddy Kelly, Foxboro, and then maybe a half in March. Brimming with confidence here, I know. Thanks for reading.

Blogroll Cleanup?

I don't link to anyone and everyone. Call me old-fashioned, but I still cling to the notion that "surfing" the web is good. Simply using "push" technologies to "subscribe" to content is akin to using a GPS to navigate - you won't learn nearly as much as you would if you were willing to roam and explore. I've never asked anyone to link to me either, or taken it personally if they did not. Reciprocating may be blogworld courtesy I guess, but I don't consider it important. Hell, some people don't link to anyone. So how do I choose who to link to? Well I don't really have a system, but maybe I should. Generally the list is like bookmarks for me. If I link to it, I probably read it, or at least check it every day or two. But certainly my blog reading isn't this limited. Most of it is within two clicks or so though. Luckily a few of those I do link to maintain much larger blog rolls, so I just use theirs.

Every now and then I add or subtract a link. In general, if you piss me off enough or do something I view as grossly disrespectful to me or others then you're gone. This is simply taking some responsibility for what is published here. Same reason I moderate the comments. But like I said earlier, it doesn't work both ways; while I hold some respect for everyone I link to, just because I don't link to you doesn't indicate lack of respect or anything else.

So what is all this about? Oh yeah, my system. You see, normally if you don't update your blog for say, a month or so, I pull your link. People abandon blogs for a number of reasons, and if it's not important enough to you to maintain then it's not important enough for me to link to. But this winter, almost half of my blogroll is going un-updated. If I enforce my rule, half of them will be gone. And that's not the end of it. There are two other rules I am considering. Remember what I said about pissig me off? Well hello, it is not 1999 anymore, so stop making your links open in a new tab/window. I mean please, have some self-confidence, ditch the lingering abandonment issues you've been carrying since Mom left you in the Workout World nursery when you were nine. That's not the worst of it though. I know some of you like to express your artistic side with a photo in your blog header. Sweet. But does it have to take up the entire screen? Am I really supposed to scroll just to see if you wrote a post about the deuce you dropped this morning?

If I enforce those two rules, that means I shit-can another few and I'll be left linking to about four blogs. One of which will be Gewilli. At least the sun is shining. Thanks for reading.

Socal CX Fever 3 - Dam Cross Race Report

Divide and conquer. That's my strategy for dealing with this winter. Ten days in Socal after Thanksgiving, and then Bend landed me at home just in time for the holidays. That kept my mind off the cold for a bit, but then in the darkest days of early January, a week straight of daily highs in the teens took their toll. A quick check of accuweather for 93010 showed lots of smiling suns and 60s and 70s. While I have a very low pain threshold when it comes to airline travel, my last several trips have gone unusually smooth. It may only take one flight from hell to trigger the "never again" response, but a bike planted out there already, a cheap ticket, a cross race, and a long weekend sealed the deal this time.

Besides that, I wanted to be sure to get in some running to prepare for Derry this weekend. So Thursday started off with a 9 mile out and back run on the Ventura/Ojai bike path. In shorts and a tank top. It was around 75. Then I picked up the bike, rode for an hour and a half on the flats to Point Mugu, then went to get a massage. Authentic Mexican and a few Bohemias for dinner. Friday another road ride. I have a set of wheels with 700x38 Specialized Nimbus road tires on them out there. The ride is plush but they roll decent enough. I didn't want to get too carried away, so I drove up to Newbury Park and well, parked. My route led over the little climb and across Hidden Valley/Lake Sherwood, then climbed Westlake Boulevard. My 38x27 low gear combined with the "January Effect" on my waistline made this harder than it should have been. From there I dive-bombed Muholland all the way to the coast, refilling the bottles with water at Leo Carillo Beach before heading back the way I came. My goal was to make it all the way up Muholland without using the 27, and staying seated as much as possible. This climb is not too severe, ascending around 1600 feet in 7.5 miles for an average grade of around 4%. It does dip down in a few spots though, and the last two miles is somewhat steeper. This little soire gave me 36 minutes at threshold, almost all in the 24 and seated. Perfect. Now I get to descend Westlake. Sorry, but I really wish I had a helmet cam for this one. This is my favorite descent.
Total for the day was just over 3 hours and around 4500 feet of climbing.

Saturday another run, only about six miles this time. Then we rode an out and back from Camarillo down the PCH to Neptune's Net. Sunday was race day after all. And I was already tired. Luckily the winter series races do not start early in the morning, and the venue was on the northern edge of LA, right over in the valley, less than an hour away by car. I raced the combined 35+, 45+, 55+ wave. We all started together, competing for the same prizes, but had separate number series and the races were scored by age group for the purposes of the 3-race Cross Fever series points. Confused? Good.

The course was in a park under the shadow of the gigantic Hansen Dam. I never did go up top, so honestly I have no idea of how big the lake on the other side is, or if it even had any water in it. The park was mostly grass, but very, very bumpy, and the course featured three sections of pavement as well. Laps were not very long, under six minutes for us. During warmup, I really felt like shit. Having not raced since Bend (which lasted all of 14 minutes for me), and with sparse outdoor riding since then, my adventures of the past three days had me tired out. So before our start I followed my Socal tradition of finishing my warmup by doing burpees and pushups next to the staging area. It helps if your competition believes you're some kind of nut...

I lined up second row. There were thirty starters total. Even in the land of hot rods and sunshine, the January CX thing is an iffy proposition. I took note of the three series leaders in the front row, particularly the 45+ guy. But I lined up behind some other dude. On the whistle, he didn't move. Seriously, this guy lined up front row and then rolled off like he didn't have a care in the world. You can see in the picture how this affected my start. No matter, as with the 35+ in there, some of these guys were damn fast. The start pavement was pretty long too, so I did snag a spot or two before the first little dirt chicane, which quickly led to the steep rideup in the first picture. Everyone said this would be a cluster if you weren't up front. The preferred line was on the left, but I'd wisely tested the right too, and chose this for the first lap. Good move. Two or three riders tangled and fell into the left line at the crest, with me being one of the last to sneak by cleanly on the right.

After that it did not take long for 45+ series leader Robert DeFerrante (PAA/ReMax) to come by. I jumped on his wheel and settled in. Like I said earlier, the grass sections of the course were super bumpy. Brent Prenzlow, the winner of both the 35+ and Elite races, chose a suspended mountain bike. This is not that unusual in Socal, as many of the competitors are sponsored mountain bike pros to begin with. But in this case he may have even felt it faster, or at least more comfortable for doing the double. One other MTB-mounted guy passed us too, but for the most part Robert and I locked into a stalemate. We each threw in a few digs, but there was no shaking him, and I was able to stay in contact when he led as well. Eventually we swept up another guy who wore a 35+ number. After two laps the cards still said 5 laps to go... Ouch.

I alternated between trying to put on pressure, and just sitting on. The three little climbs on the course were my friends, but Robert was always able to close back up on me in some of the bumpy turns. I was riding Griffos at around 30-32 psi but was right on the edge, losing grip and sliding a few times each lap. One of my digs got rid of the third guy, but every time I looked back DeFerrante was still right there. On the last lap I had him behind me, so I went a bit slower, figuring what the hell, he's faster than me on these sections so the slower I go the better. But I wasn't thinking far enough ahead, and he jumped me on a long off-camber straightaway. He chopped me a little bit as he cut back onto the preferred line, smacking my front wheel with his rear tire. The off camber led into a very loose, sketchy 180 onto pavement that had given me trouble. He sprinted away, and I did not really get on for a draft, but this part was tailwind anyway. I knew I could close up on the fast downhill leading toward the barriers, as Paul had advised me to ride a huge gear there as it was smoother than the rest of the course. I'd planned to attack from the front there, but so much for that. As it was, I got right on my rival's wheel going into the barriers, which required a pre-shift to your smallest gear and a very quick remount in order to get up the following hill smoothly. But of course I botched the clip in a bit.

I still managed to keep it close on the subsequent downhill, but the last corner onto the pavement was very tricky and a good place to end the season with a nasty slideout if you got too reckless, which I'm not. And honestly, I think DeFerrante was just plain faster than me. I did not give up but he pulled out several bike lengths and I did not close it, ending up 8th overall, 2nd 45+. It felt really good to race again though. In. The. Warm. So now it was finally over. The cross season that is. I did a long cooldown while snapping some pictures of Robin and the rest of the competitors in the womens' race. Then it started to rain! They said this was the first rain at a Socal CX race in 7 years. The elites even had muddy bikes at the end of their race.

Monday morning was a monsoon, but by the afternoon it blew out of there and I got in a beautiful sunset cruise across the plain again. Tuesday morning was OK too, so I ran an 11 miler with some hills before it started pouring again. Then that blew out too, but by then I thought it better to get packed up rather than try to sneak in another ride. Caught the red-eye home, once again rather painless. And now the days are longer, the skies brighter, the nights a bit warmer. Only six more weeks of winter? They are just making this too easy for me... Thanks for reading.

More Damming Evidence

From the Hansen Dam Cross Fever 3 race. Yes, I know, I still owe you a proper race report. All in due time my pretties, all in due time.


Combined 35+, 45+, 55+ start wave.


A race-long battle with the 45+ Cross Fever series leader developed.


The barriers led to a small hill, requiring a very quick remount and clip in.


Looking regal as always.


Photos by Kenneth Hill. Thanks for reading.

CX in January Beeotches!

Race report coming soon.

Progress

That's the view from the patient optimist in me. This is the seventh winter for me since I got back to regular year-round training in 2003. From 2003 to 2007 I can't say that I trained seriously; I just got back to my old routines, increased my mileage, raced more, and slowly, steadily got closer to the form that I left off with in the mid-nineties. The key to getting faster as you get older is to not be so fast when you're younger. I was in my forties and improving every year. On the bike, clearly I was not up to the level I was in my early thirties, but not that far off either. Running I was faster than I'd ever been, having never been consistent with that before.

A lot of the guys I trained with and raced against were some years older than me. These were guys who I could hang with on a training ride, or maybe even a break, but who for the most part had always been at a level above mine. Guys who won races every year, and some who were podium contenders at masters nationals (all disciplines). Always alert and observant, I noticed these dudes starting to lose a bit when they hit 53 or 54 or so. Seeing this, I figured I had several more years of improvement ahead of me. But I guess it's not so easy.

In 2008, in some ways I reached a high it fitness and athleticism. All my running PRs were from the winter of 07-08. On the bike I wasn't winning or anything, but I was competitive in the 45+ group and riding well on the longest training rides I'd ever completed, including D2R2 and the Vermont Six Gaps ride. I hadn't been getting injured, I was having fun, and living free from distraction. Life was good. In the fall of 2008 I was expecting more of the same, racing some cyclocross and running hard with an eye on another half marathon. That is when my foot started bothering me.

Today over on Friels' blog, in a talk about minimalist running footwear, Joe mentions a goal of "training injury-free and eventually racing faster." That's been my objective all along. I like training. More than my body does apparently. The past few years I really haven't had much to complain about, so I think I am getting smarter and thus staying more consistent. But I'm still not the most durable mofo out there.

Don't despair though, I think I've got it under control. In 2009 I trained a lot on the bike, increased the amount of general-purpose athletic functional training that I perform, and got back to running in the fall with little drama. But it also became clear this year that the low-hanging fruit had been picked, ripened, and eaten. I did not get faster than than in 2008. Just doing more of the same things is not going to cut it. Assessing the situation honestly, I felt my age this year, like I was on a decline despite piling on the miles. In order for me to continue to progress, even just to hold the line, my training needs to become more effective.

One of the big eye-openers was cross season. In September I raced the Bob Beal omnium and a few running races, but other than that I sort of rested. Then cross started and it was clearly harder than anything I'd done all year. My racing diet had been mostly weeknight time trials and road races, not easy stuff, but mostly longer sub-threshold and threshold efforts, not repeated red zone efforts. In cross races I'd go to the edge and be in big trouble thereafter. In October anyway. By November I started to get it back a little bit, that feeling of quick recovery after a deep, deep dig. Pushing harder when I was already near my limit, confident that I wasn't going to blow. It had been so long I'd almost forgotten what it was like. The light went on -- I had to train like this if I wanted to keep that ability for years to come.

So I'm making some adjustments. I'm still hoping to do an aggressive schedule of running races in the next few months - Derry, Paddy Kelly, Foxboro, then maybe the pub series and New Bedford. But last week my right hip started acting up. Actually it had been sore after runs for over a month, but this time it got bad during a run, forcing me to cut it short. That sucks, as I've already paid for Derry and really needed at least one more long run to prepare. My self-diagnosis is trochanteric bursitis, so I'm resting it, stretching, and hoping for a quick recovery. The first few days saw little improvement. I haven't run for eight days now, but did manage a three hour hilly snowshoe on Saturday with no ill effects. Actually I was running at the end of that in order to get out of the woods before dark.

I'm not exactly sure where this issue came from. I can't remember if it started before I changed from Saucony to Brooks trail runners back in mid-December or not, but I'm going to a different pair when I start up running again tomorrow. Derry is going to end up just being a training run now, rather than a pacing test for a possible return to the New Bedford half (or some other half). Kind of pisses me off, but if I get around this problem I'll soon forget about it. I've been enjoying running. But either way running is not going to help me that much in bike racing. Evaluating last season, and seeing no racing nor high-end training from January to April, I want to do both running races (for sustained high effort) and more intensity-focused bike training. In 2008 I started out working on my shorter efforts, as so many masters races end in sprints. Even doing several nights up at the Londonderry velodrome, I stuck with it, but got diverted back into long miles and climbing by D2R2 and other fun stuff. Last year I didn't go to the track once.

OK now I'm rambling. But I intend to train harder on the bike this winter, whether that means efforts on my trainer at home, computrainer sessions with others, or finding a January cross race somewhere and doing that... Those are not the only things I'm doing differently. No, I did not hire a "coach." Nor did I hire a "prepatore." It seems most riders I know confuse the two, or at least hire one when what they really need is the other, or they get someone to fill both roles who is really only qualified for one of them. But I digress. Being of limited means, that stuff ain't happening here. But I have consulted with a trainer, done some testing, done some research, and made some adjustments. Most of all I've grown more comfortable with my level of fitness and my ability to control it. I told you I was optimistic. That sounds like progress. OK, enough is enough, thanks for reading.

Training Limiters

Or just limiters. Or limiter. This is about stubbornness, but first an aside. I've tried to become a better listener over the years. Some people tell me I'm a great listener and others tell me I don't listen at all. Both groups are probably correct. Listening is definitely a skill, which means it can be a strength or a weakness. It can be done well or done poorly by the same person at different times. Listening generally involves not talking. If you think you're smart and you're also a giving person then maybe you want to talk a lot because you feel a need to share your wisdom. Be careful with that. You know the whole thing about how waiting to talk is not listening, right? Worse still is filling in the pauses when you don't know what you're talking about. But that's not the only time to shut your mouth. In fact, getting over the fear that keeping quiet indicates some kind of ignorance is one of the keys to better listening. I used to work for a bunch of Japanese dudes and my boss was always annoyed that Americans couldn't handle pauses, never stopping conversation long enough to think.

So poor listening can be a limiter to something. I'm not sure what. This post isn't about that anyway. It just started out like this because I've been trying to listen, "keep my ear to the ground" as they say, to various athletes and wannabe athletes this winter. What's becoming increasingly apparent to me is that stubbornness is one of the most common athletic limiters. Athletes don't get better because they refuse to, one way or the other. Stubbornness has a couple of definitions, one good and one not so good. If you "stubbornly refuse to give up" then you're persistent and dedicated, traits that are supposed to be good. But if you act "unreasonably or perversely unyielding" in the face of a need to change, that can be bad.

Of course this isn't limited to athletics and training. Look around, watch and listen. Take note of when there exists an obvious need for something to happen, but it does not. How often is the obstacle stubbornness on someones part? Then also try to observe how when stubbornness is removed, stuff happens. I don't think that I need to elaborate too much. My audience is smart enough to figure this out on their own. Just in case you're suspicious, this isn't some kind of cryptic post with hidden meaning or agenda. You can stubbornly refuse to believe that if you like, or you can listen when I tell you it's just rambling bullshit that makes a bit of sense to me at this moment in time. Probably because I've been listening for a change. Thanks for reading.

2009 end of year post

Beginning with the blog scene. Not such a great year. Turnover in my blog roll is up. Frequency of postings from the hombes? Down. Of course FB and Twitter are to blame. So far I've avoided them, just like fast food. No drive-up window style blogging from here. Yeah I know, it's cheap, convenient, fast, easy, just like McDogfood. No wonder it's so popular. I don't put as much time and effort into writing this crap anymore either. It hasn't hurt the readership too much yet. One hundred distinct visitors is still a good day around here, and if I'm posting regularly that's about what I get Monday-Thursday. Fridays are dead, as are the weekends, except for Sunday nights.

The race scene. My unscientific observations are that things are OK in New England. Not great. The spring races did not seem to do as well attendance-wise as they did in the past few years. Of course there were exceptions. There were however, a lot of races to choose from. I know the feds keep track of "rider days" but we also know how weak they are with processing and publishing anything derived from the data they have at their disposal. The cx calendar was completely full too, some of this coming at the expense of the road. For the most part I think attendance numbers held up all year, right?

Health. Mine stayed pretty decent. Whatever the issue was with my foot last winter, it got better. I didn't get sick much, except for the bout with swine or whatever it was in July. Both my primary care doctor and my dentist (who I've seen for 40 years) retired. I need to get off my ass and find replacements, now that I think about it.

Racing. I thought I raced a lot this year. Counting it all up though, not so much: 7 running races, 13 weeknight TTs, 2 real TTs, 4 training crits, 4 real crits, 9 road and circuit races, and 15 cyclocross races. The running was light this year because my foot issue sidelined me in the spring. On the bike, the spring campaign was not horrible, although we did not get the whole team together at many races. Sometimes we were split up due to races being 40+ and 50+. Duano had lingering groin issues but the 50+ guys still managed to come up big and he and the others won a few races. In the 40+ and 45+ the Cronoman and Timmy as well as Billy C raced with me a few times and we did OK, but did not score any wins. I got 2nd at one of the Ninigrets. That was one highlight I guess, other than winning the TT at the Bob Beal, which was a good ride. At Jiminy Peak I had good form but executed poorly and got nothing. Sunapee was another bright spot, but Doug and three others were up the road and we never got organized to bring them back, but I ended up right on their heels while taking the field sprint for 5th. Cyclocross was fun, and the Cronoman raced well, winning some small races, and finishing the big Verge series 10th in the points. I only did six of the fourteen races in the series, but scored bottom feeder points in four of them to wind up in 31st. I also managed 24th in the socalcross series, with just two races. woot!

Training. OK, this is what it is all about. Or is it? What I do probably doesn't fit the strict definition of "training," at least not by everyone's standard. This year especially, I guess I did a lot of just riding around. That is OK. Without mentioning any names, there are some members of my inner circle whom I suspect don't actually enjoy riding their bikes very much. They speak of it as "getting the work done" or may reason against going on an all-day ride in unfamiliar territory by saying "I don't need to do that." That's not me. I still really enjoy just riding my bike. I am however, a little bored with riding the same roads around my house, and like just about everyone, I get annoyed by intolerant motorists and the dangers of life on the shoulder of the roads. That's one of the main reasons I race. Races get me out to new and interesting areas of New England, and we get to ride in a semi-controlled environment for a change. Yeah it's come to that; I race because it's safer than just riding.

There's got to be more to it than that though, right? Aren't racers supposed to be high strung, type A, "uber-competitive" a-holes? I don't know. I enjoy competing. Winning is very satisfying, although I barely know the feeling. Coming in second still sucks. I'm not sure if it's the best form of losing or not. When you get beat fair and square by a competitor that you respect, and it comes with prize money, I guess it is! Sometimes it just feels like ordinary losing, only worse. Second place days are the longest rides home. So yeah, I like to compete. But I don't live for it. I don't set crazy goals. That's just one of the many reasons I don't have a coach. My main goals are to have fun, stay healthy, and keep being able to do this stuff for a long time. Which is the weird part about doing a "year end" post. It's normal to look at a year or a season as well, a season. People like to set goals for a season. To me that is a very short-term outlook. One year? It still amazes me that people accept that it takes four years to acquire an undergraduate degree but then think they can transform themselves as an athlete in just 10 months. Where is the patience and long-term view? Sign of the impatient times I guess. Just like fast-food communications like Twitter, what have you done for me this quarter "investment" strategies, and job-hopping career management. Wow, this is turning into an editorial rant.

So yeah, I'm thinking about "training" more this year. In 2009 I tallied about 444 hours on the bike, which is far more than the previous six years for which I have complete records. In addition to that, I ran for 58 hours total. Any other "aerobic" stuff I did was insignificant. I can't swim for shit, nor can I ski well enough to get a "workout" out of it. I have snowshoes, but only went once last year. Today I equaled that, and may get out a lot more this winter. I also go to the gym regularly, performing a variety of strength and flexibility stuff intended to keep me standing up straight and able to put my bike on a roof rack should the need arise. That's probably well over 100 hours/year, though I don't track it.

What was missing? For one thing, intensity last winter. Since 2006 or so I've relied on running races in the winter for chances to push myself into zones 4 and 5. With the foot injury I did not do that in 2009. My retrospective analysis shows that I spent five months straight, from 2008 Ice Weasels right up until the first Jonny Cake training race in April without doing a race of any kind. That probably hurt. Not that running will make you (or me) a better bike racer. It won't. It probably hurts in some ways. It will make you a better athlete though. In the local races, the serious masters are a strange bunch. Runners don't talk shit and there are no posers like in bike racing. You can't spend your way into the sport. Very few of these guys have blogs either. Not that there's a lot to blog about. But it's a very simple, very natural, basic, hard-assed way to compete. We run from here to there. It might be primitive compared to a bike race, but I like it. This year I want to do more of it. I'm hoping my body holds up. I resisted the "more is better" philosophy, and I think I've been patient, refraining from doing the whole "get the marathon off my life checklist" thing. For that I have patience and a multi-year outlook. Besides that, endurance is over-rated. Anyone (who can stay healthy) can put in the time and "just finish."

Speaking of that, on the bike, I have been doing longer stuff the past few years, primarily because of D2R2. Going under nine hours there this year was very satisfying, especially since I finished feeling much better and much fresher than the last two times I did it. I think I've got it down now and plan on going back. Using CX tires made the whole thing much more enjoyable. This year I went 6+ hours only two times other than that, and 5+ eight times. I rode my bike 240 days, and ran on 72. Only four weeks were 14+ hours total training, and two of those were vacation weeks.

I bought two new bikes, a power tap, some other wheels, several tubular tires, and a bunch of wool clothing this year, stimulating the economy in a big way, for me. The power tap: ehh, it is useful for some things, but they are still way overrated in my opinion. I think I used it about sixty times or so. In time trials it is good for pacing and I got better results because of that. For indoor training I think it's good, because riding indoors can be pretty miserable even if you aren't going too hard, so perception can be very skewed. And even though I can't sprint to save my life, for very short efforts such as sprint training, having a number put on your efforts is valuable. The in between stuff though, like two to five minute intervals, I don't know, I don't get much out of this thing. I don't need a digital meter to tell me when I'm sucking wind.

On that note, oh yeah, I went and got my VO2 max tested at the end of the year, as well as another lactate threshold test, this time using a bike and power measurement rather than a treadmill. The result? My VO2 max was 4.7 liter/min, which works out to 60ml/kg/min. Not exactly off the charts. More importantly, power production at this level was around 360 watts. It will be interesting to see how this compares to my summer values if I can go back in July. I can manage a CP5 of about 410 watts on Blue Hill, but the 360 we got in the VO2 max test is very close to what I can manage in a purely seated effort on the flats. My power at OBLA was around 275. Again, I'm curious how that will compare to the summer number, as I simply cannot gauge how fit or not fit I am at this time of year. I don't do so well at cross, but this testing would seem to indicate that I'm not a far off my summer fitness as I previously believed.

The other bad news is my use of fat as an energy source measured out as very minimal. Like, a %CHO hair above nil (I am so witty). One of the things I've changed in the past several years is to always be topped up with food when I ride. When I was younger and inexperienced, I would routinely ride with just plain water and a little food. And we rode hard then. After three hours or so I'd be cooked and slowing down, always attributing it to fatigue. Well duh, now I know better, and I've found that if you stay out of zone 5 and keep fueled up, you can ride forever. Well, I don't know if it was just this one test on this one day, but maybe I've trained myself to just use the food in my stomach and that's it. Again, next time will be interesting, and I'll try it with less fuel in my belly too.

That's a lot of words to say not much at all. So do I have goals for 2010? You know, other than running more, honestly I don't right now. This winter I want to keep working on being a better athlete and try to do well in some longer running races without sacrificing overall health or too much cycling performance. I don't think (right now anyway) that I will be as focused on the early season hilly road races. I want to get faster on the flats. I may be less focused on big hours and big miles, though I still want to do D2R2 and I'd also like to take more cycling vacations to ride in different areas, even if they're not too far away. I had fun racing cyclocross this year, and I think I got a lot out of the intensity of it. So I'll probably do that again, and might factor that in to my activities the rest of the year. Clear as muck? Thanks for reading.

First Race of 2010

Don't worry, I'll get some kind of 2009 year end summary up soon, along with a few other posts that some of you might find mildly interesting. But first things first, today is the first and I ran a race. This wasn't in my original plans for the weekend, as instead of racing I would have preferred another long run to get ready for Derry. The snow that fell locally kind of messed that up. Not that I couldn't have run; this was just a nuisance storm, and with the holiday the roads wouldn't have been so crowded, but it also would have been easy to bag out if I started to get wet and miserable. Besides, in reality Derry is just a training run anyway, with an oddball distance, difficult course, and unpredictable weather/road conditions. So why try to peak for it?

My choices for today were few, but with Bristol RI being on the south coast, my hopes were for less snow, more rain, maybe just wet roads. No such luck. It was a touch warmer and maybe a tiny bit less snow on the ground, but the issue was that the middle three miles of the five mile course run through Colt Park, which had not been plowed or salted at all. Oh well. I got there late too, only having time to pick up my number and then run for five minutes on the opening stretch of the course, which was a public road featuring clean pavement. Around 200 runners took the start, with a bunch from the Tuesday Night Turtles club, as well as a few college kids congregating at the front.

My plan was to make this a speed session, running as fast as possible on the clean pavement, and then just trying not to slip and fall on the rest of it. I think just about everyone else had the same idea, as the start was fast. At least I think it was, although I was right up there in the first five or six, so the pace couldn't have been too severe. After only a half mile, we're turning into the park and the surface turned to packed snow. Where the tire marks were was almost icy. In between was some packed but slightly soft snow offering a bit more traction. My feet were still slipping on every pushoff though. At this point I was still right behind TNTurtle Dave Schaad, who I expected to be the first master. Sometimes I can stay with him, but he almost always has beaten me in the past, and I know he's been running well lately. He groaned about the conditions but then opened it up on me, and another guy came around me too.

To my surprise, one section of the park had been salted or something, and we went back on wet pavement. My first mile split (which included about 1/4 mile of snow) was 6:11. Then we went up the hill back toward Rt 114 before u-turning over the snow covered median and running back the way we came. The road stayed clear to the rotary where we headed right along the water, and it was very slippery packed snow again. Mile two was 6:22. I couldn't tell how I was feeling, but my right quad was a bit tweaked, probably from all the slipping. Two more guys passed me. I tried to stay with them but I was struggling. My glasses got dark from the non-existent sun (don't ask me how), making it more difficult to see where there might be traction. Mile three took an eternity, coming up in 7:15, even though it was flat. Mile four was almost all snow, with one slippery corner. Two more runners caught me just as we turned back on to the clear road we ran in on (but further up toward the farm from where we'd left it). Immediately I was able to surge, and the marker came at a 7:05 split. Now it was flat and just wet pavement all the way back.

I still did not feel great, but I ditched the other two anyway. I was gaining a bit on the two who'd passed me earlier as well, but they were far ahead and there was no way I was going to make up the ground. Near the end a club marshall told me "you're in 14th, 200 yards to go, nobody near you." Once the clock appeared I thought I might be able to break 33 (yes, pathetic, but it was slippery!) so I kept pushing but the guy called out 33:01, with a 6:09 split for the final.

Already knowing my placing and time, I walked back to my vehicle, put on a hoodie, took a gulp of water and headed back out up 114. I stayed out for 43 minutes, so on the day I probably managed over ten miles, not the fifteen I'd planned on, but sufficient I guess. Two of the miles were good quality pacework, and all five in the race were still faster than I can make myself train. Not much for social aspect this time, as I never even went in to the race hq or even talked to anybody after the race. I know, running race reports are riveting... Thanks for reading.