Thursday, February 26, 2009

Warm, rain, cold, add wind, repeat

This is looking north on Bean Blossom rd in Morgan Monroe State Forest on the flat just before the climb starts. Traces of snow, but traces of sun.

Tuesday was cold, but looked nice out, so I went out. It was 25 when I left and 32 when I got back, so it was pretty miserable temp wise. The high was in the 40's, but I missed all of that action. I went out to MMSF and did 2x up Bean Blossom, full bore. I felt slow and was making excuses for this on the way back (heavy clothing, cold air, temp variance [cold as shit outside, but burning up under three heavy layers due to effort]), but when I got home downloaded my info, it turns out I dropped ~7seconds off of my previous best up BB on the first interval and was almost identical to my previous best on the second time up. It was windy as all hell coming back in though, so I needed to do something to keep my mind occupied since my Ipod battery had long since died. So making excuses for naught it was.
Yesterday was another nice day outside, high ~60 and kinda sunny, but per sticking to the routine, I lifted in the morning and rode rollers at night.
Today I rode trainer and had another really good workout. I felt really strong. I hope this all transfers over to outside riding like it should.
Josh and I have a pretty firm plan for going to Knoxville now. When we return it will put us about 2 weeks out form the Hillsboro-Roubaix race, so hopefully that works out as 'peak.'
This weekend is looking cold again and the finale' of the Bloomington Underground CX is scheduled, so if it's too cold for road, then this should be a good alternative. The series was held way later than usual this year, so it has started to conflict w/ road riding season. But if it's piss cold, it'll be a good time to go do this.
Plus the North American Handmade Bike Show is this weekend and me and some people from work are going up to it tomorrow. While handmade bikes aren't my jam per se, it will still be really cool to see all of this in person.
Which reminds me: I need to charge my camera batt's!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Cold, but we got out...

It was getting soft by the time we were headed in, so there were some muddy spots.

But it was still snowy.
A crew and I went over to BCSP to ride MTB's yesterday. It was in the high 20's and wet on the roads, basically a trainer day if you're going to ride a road bike. So myself and 6 others rode MTB. I forgot my shoe cover booty things, but RS had some duct tape in his car, so I taped over the vents and really wasn't too bad off. We had two rooky-ish riders (rooky to MTB that is), so we split up right away w/ me Issac Neff, Mike Sherer and Fred Rose riding off the front, but waiting at trail junctures to regroup. Mike, Issac and I were trying to time the arrival of our group to the car(s) to be about the same as the other group, but one of the other group had a flat which took them a while to get fixed and they ended up being about 45min later than anticipated. What that boiled down to is I got in just under 1.5hrs, and I could have stayed out longer. I wanted to get in 2+hrs, but whatever. My week ended up a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but it'll be okay.
When I got home I needed to get the mud off of my bike. Plus I need to re-adjust my brakes, as they don't operate too well in sub freezing temps. But as soon as I opened to garage door, of the ends of the big springs on the side broke, so I had to go to the hardware store to get an "s" hook to fix it. The patch job seems to be holding.
I got my bike hosed off, but still need to work on the brakes. Probably do that tonight.
Roolers today and looks like tomorrow will be a trainer day, but Thurs is looking like it's outside-able ride-able!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Instant classic...

http://magliarosa.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/diabo-moderno/
Go to this link.
Dig the series of pics from the Tour of California of the US version of the famous "devil." Clearly Armstrong wanted none of this hooligan, as he tossed him into the snow on the side of the road. Guilty conscience???
Hilarious! And I must say, that guy has some balls.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Seriously

This is a pic of my downstairs ("workout room") TV yesterday morning.
I'm no Tour de France historian or anything, but stage 17 in 2006 (Floyd Landis' comeback stage after his epic implosion on stage 16) has to be the greatest stage ever. Drugs or no drugs, all that B.S. aside, this is the greatest stage ever. During the stage (5 time Tour winner) Bernard Hinault even comes into the press box and tells Paul and Phil he's never seen anything like it.
I have the full length DVD of the 2006 tour, and I haven't finished watching stage 17 yet; it's going to be a three session-er. But I watched the meat of it yesterday (Thursday) while doing "TT" intervals on the road bike. I have to say, I felt great this session; it felt easy (which probably means I should have geared down, but...) I used the same gearing I use for the same workout on the TT bike, and it just felt effortless.
Then today was a lift a.m. and I'll ride p.m. My left knee started feeling a little tweek halfway through the final set of lunges I was doing, so I stopped at 5 reps rather than going to 10. Squats didn't bother it at all, so maybe it was just a small tweeker that worked itself out.
This weekend is looking like royal crapper weather wise. Low temps. Highs in low 20's. Oh well,I guess I can finish off that tour stage. And watch the final stage of the Tour of California.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Could be worse...

It could be cold AND rainy like it is for these poor pro guys in California. Rather it's just cold here.
I got out Tuesday regardless. It was in the mid 20's, but 1) I knew Thursday (my other long ride weekday) was 99% forecasted to be on trainer and 2) I really have been itching to ride my TT bike outside. So I went out. My plan was to ride out SR 446 and do some intervals; kind of whatever the terrain dictated, as I normally do ints on Bottom Rd. My plan was to go out, do as many 7-10min hard efforts w/ ~2-5min rests as I could do in 1 hour, then turn around and do the same back in. At 52min I was at a good turn around place and feeling really worked, so I turned @ 52min. Turns out I was battling the headwind out because it took just 43min to get back in. I didn't really realize it at the time; I just thought the gear/rolling terrain were to blame for the effort. So my planned ~2hr ride turned out to be just over 1:30. Oh well, I pushed some big gear and was actually a little sore from it. Good stuff.
Then today I lifted in the a.m. and spun on the rollers p.m. Plus my parents were in town for a real estate seminar for my Dad and they and Lindsay and I went to lunch. It was a good time and a nice break from the 1 apple, 1 carrot, 1 PBJ and 1 yogurt that dominates my weekly noon-time menu. Damn I'm boring. And probably lacking in protein.
As I mentioned, tomorrow is looking like a trainer day. No precipt expected, just sub-to-low 20's. I want to do some sustained hard effort workouts on the road bike anyway. I've done pretty much all short (sprint) effort workouts on road bike and all sustained (tt-ish) efforts on TT bike on trainer. I feel like I'll benefit from doing the longer efforts in the road position, so that's the plan for tomorrow.
A few race schedules are being posted (finally) so I'd like to get a schedule nailed down as well. It looks like there may be fewer races to do this year compared to years past. Bad economy I guess. Promoters are less willing than before to front the ca$h to put on a race fearing no one will show. This totally sucks for the racers, but I guess that's how it goes.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Bonkers!

From Wikipedia...
"In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, hitting the wall or the bonk describes the condition when an athlete suddenly loses energy and becomes fatigued, the result of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles becoming depleted."

So for the final day of my rest week, I ventured out w/ a large group of Cat I/II's for what turned out to be ~60miles. At one point the dude calling the ride had proposed ~80miles, which sounded bad to me as 1) I had not mentally prepared for 80 miles and 2)I didn't bring enough food things for 80miles. A road was washed out making that trek impassable, so it was brought back to reality via roads I know and a more manageable route (paragon-MMSF-down Bean Blossom-north shore-45-south shore-robinson-in).
I rode really well throughout, mixing it up and doing my time on the front, but @ 2hrs27min (about halfway across Robinson rd), I "hit the wall;" hard. A mixture of cold, hard early season riding and a totally inadequate previous night's dinner contributed, but it was probably the worst I've ever bonked. I was having thoughts of not making it home around Fire Station Hill, which is ~5miles from home. I've had only one "I Don't Know If I'll Make It Home" bonk before (that I can remember) and it was many years ago.
I did make it home. I drank my recovery drink, put on my Skins wear, ate a two egg sammy (doubling my typical egg/bread ratio) and laid around most the rest of the day.
Luckily the Tour of California was on Vs., so had something interesting to stare at. Not so luckily, the weather in CA was so bad they couldn't bring a live feed from the course, so it was no action shots of the finish line about an hour before the race actually got there and people talking about Lance Armstrong for a hour. Whatever, it beats True Life and made on MTV! (and they did finally get video feed for the last hour or so)
Today I rode outside for ~45min. This is my first outside Monday recovery ride of the year! I normally wouldn't drink recovery after a ride like today's, but I could feel that I am not fully recovered from yesterday, so I did. I think the weather is supposed to degrade throughout the week, but at least I'm getting out with semi regularity!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Happy Holiday!

For my former college roommate any Friday the 13th meant a day off of all classes, etc and he would watch all of the movies (9 I think at that time), which if I remember right, was ~13-15hrs worth. I would catch bits and pieces between my classes and such, then join him for entire episodes in the evening when I was done w/ the day. Good times...great movies.
So this week mostly off of training has gone well enough. I took Monday and Tuesday off, lifted Wed and today (Friday), and had a good ride yesterday. I rode Shilo rd and hit the hills really hard, then rode as good a tempo as I could the rest (w/ a heavy head wind). I don't feel as fresh as I had hoped to, but it'll come around.
Tomorrow is that start of the Tour of California. There's a great field lined up and my favorite for the overall, Floyd Landis, apparently crashed in training yesterday. The team said "he's fine, but required medical attention and is bruised up." Realistically one of the riders w/ a much stronger team, such as a Garmin/Slipstream or Astana, is more likely to win, but Floyd is a former winner of the race (2006) and insanely strong. I'd love to see him stick it to everyone. I guess we'll see.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

in the past 8 weeks I...


Here are few stats of my 8 week block which just ended:

I ran 29 sessions

I rode trainer 14 sessions

I rode rollers 31 sessions

I lifted weights 16 sessions

I rode outside 9 sessions

I trained for 76hrs,11mins.

That's just a hair short of my goal of 10hr/week, but only 4 hours. I'll take that.

I was really surprised to see that I rode outside 9 times (an average of 1+ times/week). It really didn't feel like it at all. I was also surprised to see I rode trainer only 14 times. It seemed like way more.

I'll take a few days off this week and get back at it full tilt next week, but w/ a slightly different schedule. I'm done running for this season (hence the picture of the shoes, which will be put away), so it's all bike and lift for another 6-8 weeks. I actually enjoyed running this season far more than I ever have before, but its benefits are indirect, so it's time for more cycling.
I know better than to think that I'm done w/ indoor training by any stretch, but hopefully we'll be able to get out a little more regularly.

Yesterday (Sunday) I rode the Bloomington Underground CX #4. W/ all the thawing snow, it was a muddy one; fun though. I rode well, and earned another 2nd. I don't really mind riding cross in muddy conditions, but the aftermath (cleaning) I could do w/out. Which reminds me, I got my cx bike tore down because I sold the frame. I have a 2009 Giant TCX frame to replace it already. A friend asked if I wanted to sell my frame and I said "not really," and she said "well, if you do I'd buy it." So I said "well, maybe I do want to sell it then." And so it was. The new frame is orange, which is probably my favorite color! I'll post up pics of it when I get it going. I'm not in a major hurry though, as I don't plan to race cross until November or so.
Plus yesterday Lindsay and I went to The Runcible Spoon to get a late breakfast. I totally gorged and it was awesome. I should have ridden more later in the day, but after riding CX and eating like an ox, I had to wash bikes and cut my hair, so I just didn't get back out. It was the lowest hour week of the past 8 weeks (7hr51min), but I'm not too worried.
I'm trying to get a training trip to Knoxville, TN planned out for mid March...more on that later.
Plus it looks like Lindsay and I are likely going to OK for her grandmother's 80th b-day in a couple weeks. That right there is more travel than I typically have in two years!

Friday, February 06, 2009

I don't think it's the flu...



...but my road bike is SICK!
This is what it looks like w/ the Fulcrum Racing 0's. The picture isn't the best (taken in basement w/ flash), but you can get the idea.
Well, I am rapidly approaching the end of this 8 week training block. I am tired physically. I have been hitting it pretty hard on the trainer sessions, etc. and I'm feeling drained. I am going to take a few days off next week, but throw in a couple E-Z roller rides (or maybe even outside rides!?!) just to keep the blood moving. Other than that, next week is mostly off. I need the rest. But the extended forecasts are looking better, which is good because it hit me two days ago: I am officially tired of winter. I've been hearing from people for a while now, "I'm so over winter," etc, but it just hit me Tuesday or so. So 1) I need the rest coming next week and 2) I need the weather (!hopefully!) allowing me to get outside more frequently.
I'll post a few stats from the past 8 weeks after Sunday.
Side note: I was looking for something in a drawer and I found an old check book register thing. My college tuition (BSU) in what I'm guessing was 1998 and/or 1999 was $1,700/semester. I think it's probably well over double that now.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

A new record

This bike takes the record for the most expensive bike I've assembled. This distinction was previously held by a pair of Colnago C40's w/ Campy Record when we sold Colnago in Muncie.

Saturday a guy comes in carrying a Cannondale Super 6 frame and a Campy Super Record 11speed group. While the frame does very little to impress me, it is a sweet bike I must say. It has some serious Euro flare w/ the Team Liquigas paint job and the red Fulcrum Racing 0 wheels. It also has a MOST integrated bar/stem, which retails for $600 alone. So, while those Colnagos that held my record for so many years were ~$5,000, which was a ton in the early 2000's, (probably '01 or '02) this bike is up near $10,000!

I test rode it after building it. It rides nice. The one downfall of the whole situation is the dude bought EVERYTHING off eBay, so he has a $10,000 bike w/ no warranties.

While we're on new things, this is my new post-workout wardrobe. Skins compression wear. I'm hoping they'll help me recover better/faster and help w/ my glute/ITB problems.

Oh, and speaking of new again, we got ~2" of new snow today Yeah! I get to shovel more! My back is already jacked from all the shovelling I've done so far. Hopefully this will be about it.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Everyone's doing it...

This explains Phelp's 10,000 cal/day eating: he had some serious munchies. Though I don't remember seeing Funyuns in his regime, I'm sure they were there.
(publishers note: Phelps is a great champion and has apologized for this. He is young and is bound to make these kind of mistakes. Just like Jan Ullrich did w/ various party drugs as a young champion. The thinking, however, goes: if these people have no qualms against recreational drugs, which do nothing to further their situation, why should they a problem using performance enhancing drugs, which DO further their situation. And I'd bet $$ that Ullrich was just as juiced as anyone at the time).
Whatever, it's still funny.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Warm day, hot ride

There was some fire lit out on the road today for sure.
It was in the mid to upper 40's, but w/ all the snow we got, it was assumed that most of the usual routes would be, or have sections that were, impassible. So we ventured out to the end of SR 446 and back. A 52mile out-and-back. Our normal group was super sized via several other locals and some little 5ers for a total of 12 starters. We rolled out civil enough, it was hard on the front, but easy sitting in. The way back is when it got hard. 2.5+hr story short, it ended in a select group of Ren Jay, Fred and myself, but being shadowed by Ryan Shanahan. Note: when you're being trailed by RS (which isn't often) you WILL be caught and it WILL be hard to get on his wheel. Such was the end of the ride today.
I felt great though. It was great to get out w/ big group, mix it up and come out in the front group; great RR training and very encouraging.
The days previous were spent indoors, blah, blah. I am benefiting a ton from indoor training, but it's getting old. And it isn't going to end anytime too soon.
Anywho, I'm tired, so I'll keep it short.
I shovelled more snow when I got done riding, a little over an hours worth, so yeah, I'm tired.