Random Goal

I added another goal today to my spreadsheet of short-term and long-term goals. Based on the direction of where my team is heading and the potential that I think we have in 2008 and 2009 (as long as we stay together) I have added the Masters' Elite National Championships in 2009 as a long term goal. I know that I won't be quite ready in 2008 to do them but if I progress at the rate that I am and keep up the training that I have been doing so far for 2008, then I will definitely be competing in the Elite RR, TT, and Crit. I think a lot of people will be surprised with the power and cohesiveness of our team this year, and we can bring out probably 4-5 of us in 2009 that will be able to work together to get the strongest guy to the front of those races and hopefully get a placing. The RR would be my priority, TT second and Crit third. It's on the list of goals, I'm sure most of my team will share in that goal and be willing to go along, and of course we'll kick some butt. If they don't go along, then I'll just kick their butt instead. Just making a quick random post...until next time......

Riding..Riding..And More Riding

I leave for Florida on Sunday for a whole week, returning on the 9th of December. Unfortunately it's not for pleasure as I'll be going out there for business and will not have an opportunity to ride my bike at all for the whole week. I'm staying at an extended stay hotel which is more of an apartment type complex so there is no workout center either. I will have a few opportunities to work out though, it is Florida so it will be sunny and warm so I'll be doing some jogging for as long as my knees can handle it. The hotel does have two amenities that I can use, one is a basketball court and that can be a good workout if I play some Hustle with a few co-workers, and they also have a pool so I can do some laps in that as well. Of course I'll also do my stretching and ab work to keep myself limber so that won't change. One problem will be that all the food is free and there is a lot of eating while we are down there, so I will need to temper my appetite as much as possible, I'm sure I won't do to good in that area though.
So anyways, I am really cranking out the time on the bike this week ahead of the lack of riding next week. I rode last night for 75 minutes on my normal rest day, in addition to doing weights. I rode this morning for 45 minutes on the trainer and will ride again tonight for 90 minutes. I'll do the same tomorrow with rides in the morning and evening, and you guessed it, I will ride in the morning and evening on Thursday as well. Friday night I have plans so I'll do weights and then it will be a normal rest day on the bike. Saturday I'm hoping for 4-4.5 hours outside and then my flight out on Sunday is in the afternoon so I should have time to squeeze in 3-3.5 hours outside on Sunday. I'll definitely have a good amount of time in the saddle ahead of leaving, potentially 15 hours this week, so I won't feel all that bad as long as I maintain some activity next week. Well, that's it for now, I'll update before I leave Sunday, until next time.........

Keeping It Short...

Well, I'm keeping my post short, not my riding though. It was a little chilly today, the wind was whipping around pretty good but I still got out and got in a 3.5 hour ride outside, and I was actually pretty comfortable with all 3 of my layers on. I've been on a roll lately with really, good long rides on the weekends and I wanted to keep that trend going, so even though I wanted to stay warm inside today I just said, "to hell with it, I can handle a little cold weather". I'm glad I went out, just like last weekend when the weather was even a little worse with the rain. Tomorrow I'll be going out for 4 hours to Delafield and then off to my dad's for a belated Thanksgiving dinner. Tonight I'm getting ready to leave right now to go out to eat and drink an obscene amount of beer with my friend Jason so that's why I'm keeping this short. Well, that's it for now, more tomorrow, until next time.......

First Snowfall?

Well, I guess I can't really call it a snowfall since we probably got 1/800th of an inch but when I went out for my ride on Sunday morning there was snow on the grass on almost every road I was on until it started to get closer to noon and then it was gone for the most part. I did get up early Sunday expecting to have better weather than Saturday but after about 45-50 minutes of my ride it started to drizzle on me again, even though I could see sun ahead of me. I think the black cloud was following me from Saturday. Anyways, I got in a 3 hour ride before the Packer game and I felt really good, the weather really wasn't that bad and today I still haven't gotten sick even though most of my riding this weekend was in some sort of inclement weather. Things are really going well with the bike fit, I think I solved my issues last week and so far my knees are feeling good and I feel balanced on the bike.

As far as this week goes, tomorrow I'll be riding for 90 minutes on the trainer, I'll be skipping weights on Wednesday since I'm off work but weather permitting I'll ride outside for about 3 hours while I'm home, then Thursday will be iffy, it all depends on how I feel at night whether I ride or not. Friday I'll do weights and then ride the trainer for only 60 minutes to most likely make up for Thursday. Saturday and Sunday will be my normal 3 to 4 hour ride each day, it appears it will be in the upper 30s and as long as it doesn't snow or rain, that's good enough for me to get outside. Well, it's late, time for bed....until next time.......



The first snowfall of the year....it was gone in like 3 hours....

Through the Looking Glass(es)

I've got to say that today's weather was crap, a little breezy, cold, and it basically drizzled all day.....perfect weather for a ride outdoors. I really didn't feel like staying inside today so I got all dressed up with all my cold weather gear and threw on the clear rain jacket and headed out for what I had planned as a 4 hour ride. After about 2 hours I was pretty wet on the bottom half of my body, my feet were soaked and cold and I was ready to head home. Problem was that I wasn't any where near home but I took a few shortcuts and made it back home in 90 minutes, basically cutting off 30 minutes of my ride and getting back to the warmth of home as quick as possible. I did a route through Whitnall Park out towards the Sports Complex in Franklin, then through Franklin towards Waukesha and then I took my short cut through Waukesha to make my way back home. It was 3.5 hours of cold, wet riding but I tried to make the most of it, knowing that 3.5 hours on the road was better than 3 hours+ on the trainer. It's rides like today that you really have to do stuff to motivate yourself to keep going, because it's so easy just to make the excuse that it's really crappy out and you don't need to be doing this today, there will be better weather tomorrow or some other lame excuse. Well, I didn't figure that making excuses would help me be any better come Spring so I was glad that I got out and rode. A saying that I like to go by quite often on the bike and in life is this...."your effort is a portrait of yourself".....so I said that to myself quite a few times today on my ride to keep me out there. I also used a little bit of imagination and as I was riding through the rain and cold I tried to picture myself somewhere in Europe riding a classic or something in miserable conditions.....I took a picture of it for everyone to see......

This is what I really saw through the glasses

This is what I imagined I was seeing for a little motivation

Anyways, I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring, it all depends on the weather when I wake up I guess. If the roads are still nasty and it's cold then I'll just ride the trainer during the Packer game, otherwise I will try to get out for 3 hours before the game. Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer than today, but they also said it was supposed to stop raining this morning, it's 10:30 now and I think it's STILL raining. Well, that's it for now, until next time......

Pictures....

So here are the pictures per my previous post.....Notice that in the first picture you can't see daylight between my left leg and the bike. The laser line is on the outside of my knee and the outside of my hip at the top of the pic. The second picture is after the adjustments, there is now daylight between my leg and the bike and the laser line tracks straight through my leg......these are still pics from my movie editing program....I'll get the movies out hopefully tomorrow afternoon when I get back from my ride.

Using Something Called "A Laser"

Ahhh, let's see, where to start.....the quality of training this week has been shoddy at best, not quite up to what I had been doing the past couple of weeks after work on the trainer. It's not because my motivation has waned, far from it, I am amped right now to keep up my time on the bike and put in as many miles as I can. It's been shoddy for a couple reasons, one is that Wednesday night I had to work until 8:30 so by the time I got home and ate it was too late to ride. The other reason has been the issue I've had for a while with my biomechanics and how that makes me feel on the bike (unbalanced), and how it affects my knees (pain!), so the trainer rides that I did on Tuesday and last night were less than ideal. I spent a lot of time getting on and off the trainer as I was riding to fiddle with my seat, change my cleat position, I even tried extra padding on one side of the seat to even out my sit bones. I've known the problem....my left leg has a tendency to pull in, from the hip to the knee, which causes me to rub the leather completely off the left side of my seat, it also puts a lot of strain on the right arm as I'm constantly pushing against my body to the left to counteract that. Every ride seems to end with my right tricep and forearm just as sore as my legs. It's also caused considerable left knee pain in the past and makes me feel like I'm sitting crooked on the bike. So, I spent some time at the Bike Doctor getting fitted early this year and he did add some shims under my left shoe to try to counteract some of that supponation and it did seem to help. He raised my seat a bit, and pushed my seat forward as well. Things seemed a little bit better but I still never felt 100% this year, not even 90% for the most part. I realized last night there is one very important thing that the Bike Doctor never checked or asked me about, and I will get to that later. Sooo, this week after jumping on the trainer on Tuesday and feeling completely cockeyed I was fed up and decided to work on my position all week no matter what it took. I started on Tuesday with raising my seat a bit and pushing it back to the position that I always had set for in the past, which was really far back and stretched out. That didn't help the part about feeling unbalanced but it gave me a starting point back to the position that I always used to ride with, so that is where I ended up after Tuesday evening's ride. Last night I went all out and got out my laser level, the video camera and more shims for my cleats. I used the laser level on a vertical plane to see how my leg was tracking and I recorded that as I rode. It turns out my right leg was tracking almost dead straight, the laser line went through the center of my shoe, and the line was centered all the way up to my hip. It showed what I already knew about my right leg, nothing was wrong there. My left leg on the other hand, was all messed up. The laser line started at the center of my shoe but by the time it got to my hip, the line was almost on the outside of my leg because my upper leg tracked way in towards the seat. I already knew that as well, but I didn't realize how much it tracked in so my goal was to get my leg tracking out so that the line was right down the middle, the same as my right leg. After assessing the video and doing some visual assessment of how my legs naturally hang when I lift myself off the ground, I came up with a couple of solutions. The first problem is that when my left leg is hanging naturally it pulls itself in and up, causing my left toe to point in and my leg to be pulled towards my right leg. When my right leg hangs naturally it points dead straight and my toes are straight ahead, as I would expect.

Cause/Solution #1 - Hamstrings and groin muscles in my left leg were way to tight and were basically pulling my leg in and not allowing it to hang naturally and track naturally on the bike. I stretch pretty regularly and have always noticed that it takes a lot more work to stretch out my left leg and when I feel uncomfortable stretching it I just back off. Last night after my assessments I stretched it past the point of being comfortable, really cranking on the hamstrings especially and my glutes and hip flexors. I was in pain but after I got done I could tell that my hammie was really stretched out, not like my normal stretch. Sure enough I sat on my seat and let my legs hang and this time my left leg hung almost straight ahead. I could feel the muscles tightening up again so I know that it is going to have to be a regular practice to stretch my left leg 3-4 times a day. Now, to what I mentioned earlier about the Bike Doctor....I was never asked once in my fitting about my flexibility or if I stretch regularly and how that could come in to play with my bike fit. I think he saw that there was a problem but instead of finding the cause of the problem or asking about it, he just tried to remedy what he saw with positional changes. I'm not trying to say anything negative, but if there were some mention of the possibility of tight muscles or how I stretch or about my flexibility at the time, in addition to the positional changes, then maybe that would have helped him in the fitting.

Cause/Solution #2 - Shimming the left cleat. During my fitting it was also noted that I have a supponation problem with my left foot so shims were installed under the cleat to help with that. Basically the shims are wedge shaped so that you can have the thicker end on one side of the cleat to deal with pronation or supponation. After stretching I looked at some more things and realized that my foot was also leaning in a bit to the right on a horizontal plane towards the crank and that although I had some shims under the cleat already, I realized I just needed a few more to solve that issue.
After a good stretch and the installation of the shims I turned on the lasers again and started the camera up to record how my leg was tracking after the adjustments. I sat on the bike and clipped in and didn't even need to look down to know that my left leg was straighter now, I was actually sitting straight on the bike I didn't automatically start tilting like I did before, and I didn't feel that pressure of my right arm pushing me back to the left. So I started pedaling and recorded a minute or so of video. I got off and hooked up the camera to the big TV and watched the results, sure enough the laser was now straight down the middle of my leg, an amazing difference. I didn't need to watch the video to know I was already sitting straight on the seat again, but the video definitely confirmed that. I got my wife away from her Nursing studies to take a look and after watching the before and after videos she couldn't believe it either. She has been saying for quite a while that I had to see a physical therapist and that my body was just plain messed up. I think she was surprised to see that I figured this out on my own and she was pretty impressed by my laser setup as well. So, tonight I will ride some more on the trainer to just confirm that I'm good and then tomorrow I'll be getting outside as normal. Now that I rambled forever, here is a quick preview of what I'm doing this weekend. Tonight, one hour on the trainer and weights, Saturday will be a 4.5 hour ride outside, Sunday will be 3 hours outside and a hiking trip to Minooka Park in Waukesha. O.k., that's it for now, but tonight I'm transferring the video to the PC at home and I'll be posting short segments of the before and after videos with lasers and all for your viewing enjoyment so that you don't have to take my word for it, you can see for yourself! Until next time......

Same Ole', Same Ole'

If you've been following my blog I'm sure you've noticed that it's pretty much been updated on Mondays and Fridays after I do my workouts for the week and then again after my weekend rides. I'll probably keep up that pattern for now unless something cool comes up during the week, because basically I do the same stuff every day and who wants to read about that day after day. As the season progresses I'll update a lot more, as once we get snow and I need to complain about not getting outside on the bike I'm sure I'll rant a lot more. I'll also have snowshoeing to talk about as I'll be trying that for the first time this year, assuming we even get snow. We did get it last year but it came in bursts and then went away, so we'll see what this year brings. My Turkey Day weight gain will also provide for some material as I always seem to gain about 3lbs on Thanksgiving and the few days following. Well, on to what I've been doing....
Friday I stuck around work and did my weight workout, nothing too heavy as I'm still in the low weight, high rep part of my program. I did have a bit of left knee pain though and I'll be lifting again tonight so we'll see if that's gone away or not. Right after my workout I went to meet the family at Charcoal Grill, but I didn't have one of their infamous Charcoal burgers, I had a New York Strip with yams and a salad, so nothing too fatty. We went back home and then played Guitar Hero III for about 90 minutes and then we all just relaxed after that. Saturday morning I woke up and did some yardwork right away in the morning and then mid-morning I took off for my ride out towards Mukwonago. I did that loop and then came back and did my Whitnall Park loop to finish off the ride. While going through the park I met up with Phil Cianciola and talked with him for about 5 minutes before going on my way to finish my loop and head back home. It was a great ride, the weather was decent, no complaints from me, as it is November and it could just as easily be snowing. After I got home I did a few more things around the house and then went to a movie with Melissa before heading to bed after a long day. I woke up Sunday morning to a little bit of drizzle and wet roads as I wanted to get in 3 hours before the Packer game. I decided to hold off on riding outside as it didn't make sense to me to ride in the drizzle and risk getting wet and sick. Well, about 20 minutes after I decided not to ride the drizzle had stopped and I could have still gone out and did my 3 hours outside before the game started, but I decided to just go back to bed, it was too early and I was tired. I slept for a bit more, got up, did some housework and decided that I'd ride on the trainer inside for the 3 hour duration of the Packer game. As the game started I jumped on the trainer and started to ride as the Pack started their whoopin' of the Vikings. I had just over an hour in when the Pack were up 10-0 and I could tell that the Vikings weren't going to do anything on offense so I figured what the heck, I'm going to get my outside ride in anyways, a Packer win is inevitable. So I quickly got dressed, bolted out the door and did my previously scheduled route, minus one short loop to make it a 2.5 hour ride. Add that to my hour inside already and I got in a nice 3.5 hours of riding yesterday to beat my previous few weekends of 7 hours. So I have to say, 7.5 hours this weekend was quite the accomplishment considering all the rest of the items I had to get done around the house, I got everything done and I feel good about where the yard is at and of course where my cycling fitness is at. My knee felt great all weekend on the bike after the tinges of pain while lifting on Friday, but of course today it is a little sore now as well. Keeping it loose on the bike actually makes it feel great, off the bike it stiffens up pretty quickly, but as long as I'm good on the bike, that's all that matters to me. I don't care if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of the time, it's all good. Anyways, this week will be more of the same, I'll be lifting tonight, Wednesday, and Friday. I'll be riding Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 90 minutes each day, all of them at Endurance pace, with One-Legged Pedaling thrown in on Tuesday and Thursday. I hope everyone got out on the bike this weekend, the snow is coming soon I'm sure so get in the riding while you can. I'll be riding when it snows anyways, but for those that stay inside all winter, get out now while the gettins' good. Until next time..........

Turn Up The Heat

Well, the temps are gradually dropping, this morning I had to scrape my windshield for the first time this Fall, that's not a good sign. Supposedly it's supposed to get up to the mid to upper 40s today and be sunny for the most part so I guess that's not a bad day. Tomorrow will be about the same but Sunday is calling for 60% chance of rain, let's hope that holds off. I was going to take off of work this afternoon to get some stuff done around the house, but I don't want to have to come back to do weights, and I definitely want to get my weight work in today (shout out to Dave H.). So I'll tough it out here today and get my housework done tomorrow and Sunday. The plan tonight is to do weights after work, go home and eat a nice dinner with the family and then have a bit of a "family night". Usually that involves hanging out downstairs and playing pool, darts, board games and watching a movie, but tonight that will also include playing a little Guitar Hero III on the Wii.

I'll try to get to bed early but Friday nights always seem to be a late night so we'll see what happens. Either way I'll be up early on Saturday and out on the road for about 4 hours, probably towards Mukwonago tomorrow and then I'll add on my NB Rec Trail loop to make it an even 4 hours. After that I'll get home and mow the lawn, put plastic up on the sliding patio door, trim up the bushes one last time, burn some brush and by then it will probably be dark. I'll go in the garage after that and do some tune-up work on my Sears Garden tractor, and will probably put on the snow tires and the plow so that I don't have to do that when it's 20 degrees outside. Last year I had to shovel my driveway and it took almost an hour during a good snowstorm so this year I'll have it plowed in hopefully about 15 minutes or less. I'll save the strain on my back as well, maybe I'll shovel every once in a while for a bit of an arm workout......but probably not. Sunday I'll try to get out in the morning if the rain is holding off and I'll get in 3 hours if I can before the Packer game. If it's raining I'll sleep in and then ride indoors during the game, time on the trainer seems to pass quickly when watching football. After that I'll just rest up the remainder of the night and let the legs and body recover from a busy weekend.

If my calculations are correct there is only something like 150 days left until the first race, yikes, it's coming quick. Alright, that is plenty of time, but I'm sure it will go fast and I can't wait. Some guys on the team are still racing, Scoots and Eck are up doing Iceman this weekend, I can't imagine still racing in November, but Scoots has some races to make up after his end of year crashes and subsequent healing. Plus Eck says that Scoots still has some kick-ass form even after that layoff. The guy is a natural.......

Well, that's it for now, until next time..........

Pics From WCA Banquet

Keeping It Short

Well, I'm keeping it short tonight, I have to be up at 4:45 tomorrow morning to be in to work by 5:45 to do some work for an East Coast client so that means getting to bed in about 5 minutes.
I've been keeping busy riding this last week, and did another weekend of 4 hours and 3 hours on Saturday and Sunday. I'm definitely doing well getting in about 7 hours a weekend the last few weekends with the exception of last Saturday when I was hung over and then had the team banquet to get off to. That was the only day I missed a good long ride in the last few weekends. This coming weekend looks to be a little nasty at the moment, but hopefully that will change. 50s and a little chance of rain doesn't bug me too much, I'm hoping to still get outside so that I don't have to hit the trainer quite yet. I know it's November but I'm trying to avoid the trainer if at all possible. Other than that, I went to the WCA banquet on Saturday evening, had a good time talking with some teammates and drinking a couple of beers. I'll post a picture tomorrow of my 2nd place WCA Series trophy, I don't feel like doing it at the moment....yeah, it's lazy, I know. Anyways, that's about it for now, off to bed, until next time........

Stay Tuned....

Been pretty busy.....update coming later today....