Problem Solved?

I went to see the doctor (also licensed chiro) today about my knee and turns out I had a completely twisted hip that was pulling my left leg up and back causing an on-the-bike leg length discrepancy of 1/2 inch. I got adjusted and that took care of the leg length issue and straighted out my hips. What was happening was that my left hip was being pulled back and up so the top of my left leg was being pointed outward from the hip to the knee. In my pedaling motion I was trying to keep my foot straight so the bottom of my leg from knee to foot was pointing in. Obviously when part of your leg is going one way and the other part is going the other way there is going to be an issue. Basically my leg was being twisted by my asymmetrical hips. So with that supposedly being solved as I walked out of the doctor's office this afternoon I couldn't wait to get on the bike tonight. I took out the wedges that I had built up under the left cleat to compensate for my short left leg and started to ride away. I rode for 2hrs 45 minutes and was virtually pain free, it was really great to finally be able to ride the bike again without constantly thinking about the knee pain. Now I have to see how long this will last, the doctor said the adjustment should be permanent but I may have to go back eventually. He said it may have been caused by any sort of trauma or just the way I've been sitting in a cubicle for the last 10 years. I did have a good crash last year on the bike, slipped on some ice this winter, but that's about it for trauma so not sure quite what did it. I'm happy either way for right now. Well, I'm keeping it short, gotta get some sleep. Until next time.......

Still Feeling Good

So after Saturday night's ride I put some FlexAll cream on the knee and took a couple of ibuprofen and everything felt great when I woke up on Sunday morning and I was ready to ride again. I did some errands and cleaned up a bit around the house and then got on the bike in the evening after dinner. I stretched quite a bit and then jumped on the trainer for 3 hours, a little less than I wanted to do but it was already pretty late by the time I finished so I wasn't disappointed to skip the last 30 minutes. I put some more FlexAll on the knee and again took some more ibuprofen and all was good. I kept a fairly high cadence again and kept the gearing pretty easy so I didn't really stress the knees too much at all. I feel really good this morning and can't wait to test out the knees again tomorrow as today is a rest day on the bike. I will still be doing some stretching and light weight work tonight in the fitness center concentrating mainly on stretching out the hamstrings and doing some weight work with the hips and I'll also be doing some ab work. The rest of the week will be spent on the trainer as we got dumped on this weekend with about 10 inches of snow so the trainer schedule looks like this: Tues. - 2.5hrs, Wed. - 2hrs, Thurs. - 2.5hrs, Frid. - 1hr, and then I'll decide what the weekend holds after I get a better idea of what the weather is going to do. I'll also be doing weights on Wednesday and Friday in addition to tonight's workout.
Other than that the racing season is coming up pretty quickly, only a month from Thursday will be the first race and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not really worried too much about how the first race is going to play out, everybody will probably be in about the same form and I'm sure most of us will just use it to see where we are at compared to everyone else. Considering that the first race is only a month away I'm disappointed that I still haven't been able to get on my new bike yet but I still have a couple things left to buy before I can put it together. I'm going to need a new rear derailleur and also brakes for the new rig so I have to start looking on eBay to find them otherwise I'll have to go to Ben's Cycle to order some if nothing pops up. I can't wait to get the new bike on the road, it would be nice to ride it at least a couple of times before the first race! Well, that's it for now, until next time......

Getting It Done

Well, I've been away for a couple of days but it was a good break to actually get things done around the house and to re-assess some of my program. The last few days have been pretty busy and yesterday was actually a really good day for me as I accomplished a lot on the house and also managed to get in a long ride. Since Wednesday evening I've managed to clear up some of the nagging things around the house and still stick to my program for the most part. There are still quite a few things to do around the house but those will get done over time and I'm willing to put some of the things off for a while just so I have a good balance of house time and biking. Just to give a history, we bought our house in New Berlin two years ago this month and although it's a very nice house at a bit over $200,000 we still needed to put a lot of work in to it because the previous owners neglected quite a few things and did a half-ass job on the few things that they did upgrade. So I've been re-doing the kitchen for a while now and will basically re-do the family room, living room, bedrooms and the garage. Obviously I'm not going to re-build all those rooms but basically upgrade the carpeting with slate or better carpeting, re-paint the walls, add more insulation, re-do the baseboard molding....those kinds of things. We've already put in all new windows in every room, and new exterior doors and storm doors. So as you can see, it's a lot of work and that's the reason I've been stressing out a bit. We'll be here a while though so I've decided not too worry too much about it any more.
Anyways, in spite of all that I've managed to get some weight work done and get in some bike practice. Thursday evening I went to the fitness center after work and did a lot of stretching for my knees and hamstrings and did high rep/low weight sets on the weight machines. After I got home I rode on the trainer in an easy gear for 1 hour 45 minutes at an easy pace just to take it easy on the knees. Friday evening I did the same stretching and weight work routine and then went out to dinner with some friends. Yesterday wasn't really a good day to ride outside so I hit the trainer in the evening for a 3 hour 30 minute ride. Yeah I know, so much for taking it easy right? Well I actually rode an easy gear again just to keep the knees feeling good and really had no problems at all. The point of the ride was just to get some good hours in the saddle and I did just that so I'm happy. Today I'm planning the same thing, 3.5 hours on the trainer this evening after a trip to Home Depot to get some supplies. I'll take it easy again and hopefully have another relatively pain-free ride. Tomorrow is a rest day on the bike but I will do my stretching and weights again and then will hit the bike again Tuesday. Well, in spite of the weather, my motivation is still right up there, I just have to maybe take it easy with the big gears for a week or two and then I'll get back in to the heavier workouts. I'm going to the doc on Tuesday to have some structural stuff checked like leg-length discrepancy and pelvis asymmetry so maybe he'll find something.
I've got to get going here pretty quickly though, my other teamates are putting me to shame with a nice 80mile + ride this past week out by Alpine Valley and Lake Geneva. Look out for Team Wheaton this year! Well, time to brave this snow and get to Home Depot, until next time........

Is It Worth It?

Sometimes I don't think that all the money, pain, and time I invest in cycling is worth it, not when it seems like it creates strains in other areas of my life. Right now I'm at a point where I'd almost just rather quit than to try and juggle all the time and needs of cycling around my family life. I also have really bad knees, especially the left one, that give me constant pain that is becoming more difficult to deal with and I'm not sure I want to deal with that anymore. I have been really motivated to ride this year and really want to race but a lot of other things aren't getting done because of the time I have to, or want to spend riding. My wife is in nursing school right now and between working part time, classes, studying, and clinicals which start in two weeks, she is really not available to help out as much as she used to. I have to take up a lot of the slack at home and taking our son to his activities and making dinner and all that good stuff. It's difficult to take care of that stuff and then have to ride at 8:00 at night until 10:00 or 10:30 and then get to bed at a reasonable time.
Basically it's just a matter of not enough hours in the day and the fact that I've made cycling a priority and neglected other things. I'm sure I can fix the knee issue eventually so I'm not too worried about that, although last night was difficult to ride. I did manage 2 hours on the trainer but my left knee was hurting pretty bad, I rode just to spite the pain, and was pretty much pissed off the whole time I rode because I can't get rid of it. It's all starting to wear on me a bit and I've got some decisions to make. I'm not sure I'm going to bike the rest of the week, I just need to catch up on a few things around the house, maybe I'll re-evaluate things next week and see where to go from there. Until next time.............

The Blah's of Winter

It's February in Wisconsin and that means the weather can be crappy or it could be good enough to ride, and in most cases it is both in a single day. Well, this week it appears that it will be nice through Thursday with temps of 38 and 39 degrees for Wednesday and Thursday and sun both days. That doesn't help me at all as I'm confined to a cubicle those days and of course when the weekend comes it is going to be crappy....at least that's what they are saying now. It appears the weather is going to take a turn for the worst on Friday and be a snow/rain mix from Friday until next Wednesday. I really wanted to get to Devil's Lake this weekend but I think now I'm going to tentatively plan to stick around here instead and hope that the weather breaks at some point on Saturday long enough to ride for 4 or 5 hours. I'm not willing to drive 3 hours round trip just to get in some big hills when it could be raining the whole time. If need be, I'll just have to hit the trainer Saturday and then do some work around the house. We'll see what happens though, the weather here changes every other day, I might get lucky, but I think either way I'm sticking around here now.
Anyways, yesterday was a good day of training and it was the last day of my regeneration week and I'm feeling good and ready to rock for the next 3 weeks with some heavy riding. Yesterday I went to CrankDaddy's Bike Shop to ride the Computrainers with my friend Dave and once I stopped being pissed about all the freeway construction we actually had a pretty good ride. Rode for about 90 minutes there and then I came home and rode for about another 40 minutes on the trainer at night just to clean out the legs. We picked a course on the Computrainer with a good size hill and I tried to go up it at a fairly quick pace and the cooldown after that wasn't the greatest. I figured I'd ride a little extra at night just to get the blood flowing and clean out the junk in the legs. They feel great today so it was probably a good idea. Tonight is weights and I'll be upping my weight I think another 10lbs and will still stick to my 4 sets at 7-9 reps. Tomorrow is 2.5 hours on the trainer, Wed. is 2 hours, Thurs. is 2.25 hours, and Friday is a 1 hour recovery ride. Like I said earlier, I'm hoping to do 4.5 to 5 hours on Saturday and 3.5 to 3.75 hours on Sunday.
So on another note, how about that Tour of California prologue yesterday? Pretty cool how Jason Donald almost stuck it to the big boys, it looks like Levi is in great shape though and will be tough to beat. I think the deciding stage will be the TT, maybe one of the true TT guys like Zabriskie or Cancellara will come to the front, should be fun to see.
Basically the next week will be watching the ToC, riding the bike and working on the house. The last few weekends I haven't done as much as I should be in getting my kitchen complete. All the big stuff is done, it's the little stuff that I've been neglecting like finishing the molding, the backsplash, and finishing up some electrical stuff. I've either been busy or just too tired after work, but I really need to get it done before Spring as once the weather gets better I'll be outside biking all the time!
Until next time..........

Not Much Going On......

It's been a pretty slow week for the most part as it's been a regeneration week and my riding has been on schedule but of course the volume has been pretty low. I'm feeling pretty good overall but have had some fit issues again on the bike, not sure what is going on again but I'm having a bit of pain in my left knee and don't really feel balanced on the bike. I'm going to see a structural specialist next week to get my back cracked and have my symmetry checked and all that good stuff. I know I have a leg length discrepancy and I have some hip drop so I hope to get those remedied.
As far as riding goes I did 2.5 hours on the trainer today while watching The Departed, which was a really good movie so it was easy to ride and it made the time go by quickly. Tomorrow I'll be doing 2 hours on the Computrainer at CrankDaddys and then Monday is a rest day. I'm starting 3 weeks of a good training block on Tuesday and then I'll get a break when I go to Florida for work the week of the 7th I believe. Well, it's time to go to bed, not much going on now, it's a pretty slow time of year as I'm just riding and waiting for racing to start. Until next time.............

Not Much Going On......

It's been a pretty slow week for the most part as it's been a regeneration week and my riding has been on schedule but of course the volume has been pretty low. I'm feeling pretty good overall but have had some fit issues again on the bike, not sure what is going on again but I'm having a bit of pain in my left knee and don't really feel balanced on the bike. I'm going to see a structural specialist next week to get my back cracked and have my symmetry checked and all that good stuff. I know I have a leg length discrepancy and I have some hip drop so I hope to get those remedied.
As far as riding goes I did 2.5 hours on the trainer today while watching The Departed, which was a really good movie so it was easy to ride and it made the time go by quickly. Tomorrow I'll be doing 2 hours on the Computrainer at CrankDaddys and then Monday is a rest day. I'm starting 3 weeks of a good training block on Tuesday and then I'll get a break when I go to Florida for work the week of the 7th I believe. Well, it's time to go to bed, not much going on now, it's a pretty slow time of year as I'm just riding and waiting for racing to start. Until next time.............

Slippin' and Slidin' and Hurtin'

I'm in a bit of pain today as I slipped yesterday in my company parking lot and wrenched by back when I was trying to catch myself from falling. I did manage to stay upright but when I stiffened every muscle in an attempt to keep from landing on my ass I caused a bit of pain in my lower back. It hurts most when I'm standing so it's a good thing I sit all day at work and I get to sit to ride a bike. I was able to ride bike yesterday as scheduled and luckily I didn't have to do any secondary exercise like fast pedaling or intervals. I've had a heating pad on it all day at work today and I'm going to try to lift weights tonight but we'll see how that goes, I might quit in pretty quick order if my back starts to spasm again. I'll be riding the bike tonight as well, and shouldn't have any problem with that but I'm a bit worried about the Muscle Tension intervals I'm supposed to be doing as I use my back muscles quite a bit for those. Again, I'll ride but the MT intervals may have to wait until tomorrow night. Tomorrow I have 30 minutes of Tempo scheduled so I'll probably move that to Friday and do my intervals tomorrow, we'll see how I feel I guess.
I've been keeping an eye on the weather and Saturday is supposed to be 28 with a chance of snow, so I'm keeping an eye on that and might be able to get outside on Saturday. Sunday I'm going to be inside no matter what as I'm going with my friend Dave to CrankDaddy's to ride the Computrainers, I'm really looking forward to that as I've never done the simulator before, should be fun. Next week the weather really takes a turn for the better with temps in the mid to upper 30s so I'll be looking forward to riding outside again if I don't get out Saturday. I'm hoping to do 4-5 hours on the 24th at Devil's Lake assuming that we don't get anymore snow to mess up the roads. I've got a nice route around Devil's Lake that has 4200ft. of climbing for 65 miles with two 600ft. climbs and two 300ft. climbs which is better than anything we'll find out here. I've got to start small before I start repeats up Blue Mounds next month so Devil's Lake is a good place to start in a week or so. Well, I've got to stretch to see if I can manage lifting weights otherwise I'm heading home to eat and ride the bike. Until next time.............

Under The Weather...Riding Anyways

So I rode Saturday outside for a couple of hours and then inside for 1.5 hours on the trainer immediately afterwards and I think riding outside got to me a little bit, because I'm a little under the weather. I started feeling a little crappy Saturday night and woke up Sunday morning with a very achy body, headache, and sore throat so I decided that as much as I wanted to hit Lake Geneva it was in my best interest to medicate and go back to bed. There is no sense in riding a day in February when it's freezing outside and then missing a week because I got even more sick. I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon and was feeling a bit better Sunday night but still went to bed early because I was still pretty wiped out. I had a scheduled vacation day today from work so I slept in a bit, got up and ate some breakfast, and then went back to bed until lunchtime. I started feeling better by then for the most part as the aches went away but the sore throat remained a little bit. I decided that since I didn't have anything in my sinuses or chest I should probably make up some of yesterday's ride by hitting the trainer. I was going to just start slow and then decide how far to go based on how I felt and as I was riding I started to feel pretty good so I rode for 3 hours this afternoon. I'm still an hour short of what I was scheduled for yesterday, but at this point I don't care, it's better to just recover from whatever little ailment I had yesterday and move on. This is another regeneration week for me so it's going to be any easy week anyways which will help me get back to 100%. Tomorrow is going to be 1.5 hours on the trainer, Wednesday is only an hour, Thursday is 1.75 hours, Friday is an hour, Saturday is 2.5 and Sunday is 2. That's the general program for the week, I'll update each day's specifics as the week goes by. After this week's rest week I've got a couple of big weeks scheduled and then the week of March 5th I have an involuntary rest as I have to go to Florida for 4 and a half days for work. Well, time to go sit in the recliner and rest up a bit, until next time.............

Cold Is Not Fun....

Well, maybe it's a little fun especially when you get to use a cyclocross bike and cruise through the snow on the Root River Parkway. Today I rode outside and it was pretty cold, but not uncomfortably cold as I bundled up quite well and managed to ride for 2 hours outside before heading home to ride another 1.5 hours on the trainer. Really the only reason that I came home was that my waterbottles froze after 20 minutes and I had no water, which is obviously important in spite of the fact that I wasn't sweating too much. I went from my house down to the Root River Parkway to find a snowed over trail so luckily I had my cyclocross bike and I just kept on going. I was not sliding too much as I kept my ass planted on the seat and the knobbies did the rest biting in to the snow quite well but I have to say my upper body got beat up a bit from all the ruts made by pedestrians. I rode on the Root River Parkway over to the Botanical Gardens and did a loop around that part of Whitnall Park and then made my way through some neighborhoods and back on to the trail eventually to head home. I got back to my house after 2 hours and my bottles were frozen solid, so I grabbed a new bottle, changed clothes and jumped on the trainer for another 1.5 hours just to warm up and get in a longer ride. So today's total was 3.5 hours which was 15 minutes short of my scheduled ride time but I'm just happy to be warm. Tomorrow it is supposed to be fairly cold in the morning and warm up to like 20 by noon and then a high of 27 by 3:00. There is a chance of flurries in the morning but that shouldn't stop me from heading out to Lake Geneva where hopefully I'll do 3 laps around the lake, for about a 4 hour ride. The cold affects my knees quite a bit and the hills are the bone-grinding steep kind so if my knees hurt after 2 laps I'll do some flat miles away from the lake to save whatever I have left so that I'm not limping like a baby by the end of the ride. I'm bringing my Camelback tomorrow to avoid the whole frozen waterbottle thing, so I'll have no problem in that regards, and I'll keep a couple of bottles wrapped up in the car as well for my last lap as the CB will probably be empty after the first couple of laps. Well, that's about it, time for some sleep, hopefully to rest up for a nice ride tomorrow. Until next time..........

Blogger

So I switched to the new Blogger version, I noticed that it had this morning's post showing as Thursday, but it is from Friday. When I refer to tomorrow in the previous post it means Saturday.......just an FYI

Ride Outside?........Just Maybe

So the weather guys are saying that Sunday could possibly hit 24 degrees and that means I'm riding outside for sure. I think I'm going to have to head out to Lake Geneva and if the weather holds I'll be doing 4 hours, 3 loops around the lake, about 75 miles. At least I have that to look forward to this weekend as it appears that Saturday is only going to be about 15-17 degrees, just not warm enough to ride outside for me, but we'll see, maybe I'll drink a bottle of JD and go out anyways. I can see that by the end of next week it appears that the temps are going to go up again to the upper 20s and low 30s so I'm excited about that. So anyways, last night was not quite the night I expected for training as it was my friend Jason's birthday and he is going to be gone this weekend so last night was the only night we could celebrate. I hate to say it but I skipped training last night and went out for dinner with him and his wife and my family. I missed riding the bike but friends take priority and it's nice to take a little break every now and then to spend time with them. I had a couple good size beers last night as well with dinner so that didn't help in the weight loss area, but I'll work that off this weekend as I will be riding a lot and have a lot of work to do around the house that will help burn some calories as well.
Now that I skipped last night's training, let's move on to the stuff that I won't be skipping out on, as far as I know anyways. Tonight is weight work with my friend Dave, and then I'll be doing a fairly easy one hour spin on the rollers. Tomorrow I'll be doing 3.75 hours most likely inside but if I can manage getting out at all tomorrow I'll certainly try, like I said it's going to be cold. I might be able to suck it up for and hour and a half or two hours outside and then move inside for the remainder but we'll see. Sunday it's going to be a little better and I will most certainly be riding outside, hopefully for about 4 hours barring any change in temps. So that's about it, can't wait for the opportunity to ride outside again after a couple of weeks indoors, and if I don't get outside you might see me get a little crazy by next week. I'll update again tomorrow with a post that hopefully says I got outside for at least a little bit otherwise I'll be posting some rant about the trainer again. Until next time......

Dare I Say It?

I rode the trainer today for 2.5 hours and felt great, I actually didn't mind riding it for some reason, what the hell is happening to me?! I think it's just because we got the practically 100%, set in stone WCA calendar today, and that got me a bit motivated to know that the first race is less than 60 days away. I got home, ate, and then after about 20 minutes jumped right on the trainer, ready to ride with not even a second thought of what I was going to watch on TV. Normally I pick out a movie but tonight I just winged it and watch some different shows and actually put on some music-on-demand channels to listen to some tunes. I did a decent warmup and then rode Tempo for 40 minutes, and then did a little more riding at normal pace before cooling down. The time went really quick and I felt really good. Tomorrow was supposed to be a ride of 1.75 hours with some weights but instead a couple of us have decided to go over to a teammate's house to do some LT testing and maximum absolute power testing on a CycleOps, I'm really looking forward to that. My numbers probably won't be that great but it's just going to be good to get some solid stats to relate to what I've been doing since I don't have anything at home or on my bike to measure power (watts). We can then use those measurements to track our progress as we do some more training in the next couple of months which is obviously a little more scientific versus just saying I "think" I'm stronger or not. Depending on how long it takes I'll probably come home and ride a bit more just to clean out the legs as our efforts will be pretty difficult and I'd hate to be sore and have dead legs the next day. Thursday is 2.25 hours on the trainer at Endurance Pace, no secondary workouts. So, it's late, have to get to bed, until next time.........

My Pal Erik Bruekink

So yesterday as I sat on my trainer for the 3rd hour I thought back to a question that Adrian Karsten or John Eustice asked Erik Bruekink during the 1990 Tour De Trump, "how do you deal with the boredom of riding for so long day after day?"....Erik's response was, "what das dat meeeean, bordum?" Well, I'll tell you Erik, it means riding on a trainer in your basement for 3+ hours in front of a TV screen but you aren't moving and you sweat like crazy and there is nothing to watch on a Sunday afternoon except old DVDs that you've already seen 20-30 times. That, my friend, is boredom.
I did manage to ride 3.25 hours on the trainer yesterday and unbelievably I did not die from boredom as I though was possible in my post on Friday. So my weekend total was 6.25 hours, not quite the 7 hours I had hoped but oh well, it was all I could do to stay sane. I hear the trick to putting up with the sanity of riding inside is to get a cool CompuTrainer. Well, they cost $1500, so minus the cash I have set aside for bike stuff this year, I only need another, um, $1500. Maybe next year I could put that in the family budget.
So anyways, tonight is weight work and a rest day on the bike. I'll go home, eat a good dinner after weights and then relax for the remainder of the night. I'm looking forward to going to bed tonight for the light show that my dog puts on in the dark. He usually sleeps on the bed at our feet and when the lights are out and he moves, the static electricity creates a really cool light show and of course freaks him out a little bit. He also gets up in the morning with his hair sticking straight up, threatening to shock anything that gets near him, it's pretty fun to run away from him as he unknowingly zaps me every time he gets next to me. Yeah, it's not that exciting but when it's this dry and cold, there isn't much else to get excited about right? Until next time.......

Sweating Buckets....Inside

So it's been about as cold as they said it was going to be, right now it's -3 with a wind chill of -26 so needless to say I did not ride outside yesterday and will not be riding outside today. I had a pretty enjoyable day yesterday, I got quite a bit done around the house and rode on the trainer for 3 hours in the afternoon. It was a long 3 hours and that was about my limit for boredom as I hit 3 hours exactly and jumped right off, more than happy to be done for the day. I did a bit of Tempo work, about 40 minutes worth and the rest was basically at Endurance Pace. The rest of the evening was spent by the fireplace with a good book and a bottle of vino, I actually stayed up pretty late, until about 1:30 which is the longest I've stayed up in about 2 months. I got up a little later this morning, about 9:30, and had a nice breakfast of blueberry pancakes and a peppermint latte. I've got some logs going now in the fireplace and will start some housework shortly and then will probably ride later in the day, starting right before the Super Bowl. I'll ride during the game and will do another 3 hours today, hopefully it will be a close game and I won't think too much about the trainer. Today will be another short Tempo workout, 40 minutes again, and the rest will all be Endurance Pace.
In the next few weeks I'll be concentrating mainly on getting in some miles and doing some Tempo work and will also be increasing the weight on my lifting days starting tomorrow. The 10-day forecast looks pretty crappy with no temperatures even close to 20 degrees until at least next week Sunday, hopefully that will change as the week progresses otherwise it will be another weekend of riding inside.
On the team front, we should be getting our new team kits hopefully within the next month, which would be great especially if the weather doesn't change much. I've got a winter riding jacket and some winter bib shorts coming and they would definitely come in handy sooner than later. We are also having a team get-together on Friday, the 16th so if anyone from the team is reading this and thinking about skipping out, please go and catch up with some of the old guys and meet the new guys. This team is somewhat rare in that we haven't met as a team in any capacity since November of last year, on all my previous teams there was at least a bi-monthly meeting, if not monthly. I know it's a bit different with a team of mostly Masters racers because they all have jobs and families to attend to, but I don't think it's asking too much to meet once every, what, 3 months. When you join a team you make a commitment, and it's not like this team asks for a lot so hopefully everyone who doesn't have a previous commitment that night will show up....that's my two-cents. Well, time to get some stuff done around the house so I'm ready to ride later....until next time..............

Time To Hibernate

So the cold air mass is here that we've been hearing about all week and temps are going to dip to single digits for highs this weekend and -5 to -10 for lows overnight. Obviously for me that means that I won't be riding outside but will be staying inside all weekend. I'm trying to think if there is any reason at all to venture out of the house this weekend and I can't think of a single thing. Other than cycling I'm going to sit around in front of the TV and fireplace and just relax this weekend. I've got a book I've been wanting to read for the last few weeks and I think I'll just prop myself on the couch with the fire going and some beer and read for a few hours at a time. My wife won't mind because I'm sure she'll be right next to me studying for one of her nursing classes, and of course our needy dog will be between us as well.
Well, on to the biking stuff.....my riding has gone exactly as scheduled this week and I'm feeling great! Tuesday I did 2.25 hours on the trainer, Wednesday was weights and 1.75 hours on the trainer with 6x5min Muscle Tension intervals, Thursday was 2.25 hours on the trainer with 40 minutes of Tempo, and tonight will be weights and a 1 hour recovery ride. I feel great overall right now, no pains in my knees, no muscle soreness, and surprisingly I haven't been sick in a long time.....no colds, no flu, no sore throat, so I must be doing something right. Tomorrow I'll be doing 3.75 hours on the trainer (hopefully I can do that without dying of boredom) and then Sunday will be 3.25 hours on the trainer with 50 minutes of Tempo (if I'm not dead). I'm not looking forward to riding for 7 hours on the trainer this weekend but I've got plenty of movies and lots of bike races that are on the DVR, I should be good to go. Well, hope you all stay warm, until next time.....


Frodo can't wait to sit by the fireplace!!