First Two Beers

So I thought it would be great to start with my favorite beer of all, well, I shouldn't say that because it actually isn't my favorite, but it is my favorite "drink anywhere, go with anything, comfort beer" and that would be Guinness, in the Draught form, although I'm quite fond of the Extra Stout as well. Unfortunately, believe it or not, I didn't have any Guinness on hand this weekend so I made do with the remainder of the Lakefront Brewery Variety Pack that I had left over from last week. I had 3 beers left and I had two of them this weekend, the first was the Cherry Lager and the second was the Klisch Pilsner (also a Lager for those that don't know). The Cherry Lager was from Lakefront's seasonal line of beers and their Klisch Pilsner is from their regular line of Lagers. The 3rd and only remaining beer of the variety pack was the Fuel Cafe Coffee Flavored Stout but given that the weather was fairly warm and humid this weekend, that just didn't seem as appealing as the two Lager beers. Neither bottle had a brewery description so I can't compare my opinion to what they set out upon making, but I'm guessing I'd be close to what they would have described on their bottle.
I started with the Cherry Lager, and upon pouring it was rosy in color and had a pinkish hue to the thin head, a good start to what I was hoping would be a refreshing beer on a fairly warm and humid September day. The smell was reminiscent of a Door Peninsula Winery's Peninsula Red wine, with a slight cherry aroma, but definitely not overpowering. The first sip was definitely refreshing with a hint of cherry and a bit of a malty finish, and unfortunately a little bit of a cherry throat lozenge taste as well but that wore off within a few seconds of each sip. I downed it fairly quickly and that was probably due more to the fact that I had just ridden 3 hours on a warm Saturday afternoon than due to it's irresistible taste, my insatiable thirst was more to blame for that. All in all it was a good beer, more or less a beer for someone who likes wine or fruity drinks than someone who likes a good biting beer with a strong finish and character. It was a 2 mug (out of 5) beer for me and I'm being generous because it's not typical of the beers I like, but would appeal to the general populous I think, so it gets a full 2 mugs.
The second beer I had was the Klisch Pilsner, a very refreshing golden lager that was perfect for quenching my thirst and unlike the Cherry Lager, didn't have me looking for some water after finishing the glass. The Klisch had a good looking hazy, golden color and a nice head upon pouring, getting me excited enough to stop halfway through my pour to take a sip. It was a good decision on my part to be hasty in my pour as it had a very smooth malt finish, as it should, and a slightly hoppy but very pleasant bitterness to it, and there was no doubt that this was the better of the two beers. Some people, especially those used to the typical Budweiser or Miller products would consider this a hoppy beer, but my taste buds tell me that this is a slightly hoppy beer in my book, and my book is full of very bitter beers teaming with hops just the way I like it. So, for the general populous this may be just right of middle in terms of how hoppy they would like a beer, but for me it was just right of the beginning end of the spectrum. A great beer on a warm, humid day, it deserves 3 mugs for it's smooth finish and pleasant hop flavor. As a last bit of advice, serve both of these beers quite cold to enjoy them to their fullest. Check out the Lakefront Brewery line of beers here. Also, thanks to my friend Dave I now have a great variety pack to share with you in the coming weeks as well, a veritable cornucopia of world beers that I'm looking forward to drinking very soon. Thanks Dave!

Reviews are Coming

Tonight I will post a review of two Lakefront Brewery beers, the Cherry Lager and the Kilsch Pilsner, two beers that were perfect for drinking this weekend even though I was a little under the weather. I can't let a little illness get in the way of my beer, I think the alcohol helps kill the germs from the inside. So, check back again tonight for the review, this darn place that actually helps me pay the bills is keeping me busy today, go figure.

Just Ridin'

I took a little hiatus, got some things in order, and have been back on the bike for a few weeks now, well, maybe only 3 weeks, but that's a few I guess. I've been doing little rides here and there of about an hour and a half, with my long being about two and a half hours. This weekend I'm going to enjoy the weather and do a ride out to Burlington and back to visit the parents, which will obviously be my longest ride since about the last weekend of April, possibly even before that. Right now I'm just enjoying being on the bike, I'm not doing anything resembling a "training" ride and probably won't anytime soon, at least not until I decide my offseason training begins and then when I can't spend a lot of hours riding outside I'll "train" on the trainer/rollers. It's nice just being able to ride and not worry about average speed, HR, etc., I actually enjoy riding that way for now, eventually I'll want to go fast cause as Ricky Bobby said, "if you ain't first, you're last", so I don't want to be last which means that I need to eventually get the speed back. Yes, that means I'll race again next year, but nothing like I did last year or the year before, it will probably be more like this year except without having to quit because of work and all that shite. I won't be riding for a team next year either, I'll just be chillin' by myself, and doing whatever I can, I guess I didn't want to make any team look bad when I'm off the back again like this year. That's not really the reason but it's a good one for now, so that's what I'm telling whomever asks. It'll be a pretty stress free year of riding and racing in '09, exactly how I need it, just a few races like I said and I'm sure I'll pick one big race to concentrate on, the State RR perhaps? If the venue hasn't been lost for '09 it sure would be nice to win on my home stomping grounds, I used to be able to do 12-15 repeats up the Johnson Rd. climb in my big ring with my eyes closed and no-hands, sure would be nice to get back to that point. Anyways, like I said, who knows if I'll want to ride enough to get back to that point, it's freakin' September of '08 yet....and I'm fat and out of shape compared to what I was earlier this year. Lots of work to do and plenty of riding ahead.
As part of my new blog I'll also be sharing my other big interest with you as well, not every day, but at least once a week, maybe twice a week, heck, maybe even more. I'm a beer snob, a big-time beer snob. For those that don't know me, beer is one of my vices, I love it, a lot! It doesn't help in the training but as my blog title says, it's a reward for a good ride and life is not just about training and racing, it's about enjoying everything else around you, and usually I'm around some good beer. I'll share my thoughts with you on what I'm drinking each week, I'm guessing you'll enjoy that part of my blog more than the stories about riding, but that's fine by me.

Recovery Coming Along Well

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was under the weather late last week and over the weekend but my recovery is coming along nicely and I felt better Monday and felt a lot better last night. I have not done any interval or speed work in a week and only rode shorter recovery rides over the weekend, nothing hard at all, although I did hike Devil's Lake all day Sunday. Last night the weather was great so I figured I'd make the best of it and stay out until sunset and push it a little bit to open up the legs to see how I was feeling after a week off of any hard efforts. I rode out to Muskego and did some sets of hill sprints up the finishing hill of this weekend's race course, only 2 sets of 6 sprints with recovery only being the time that it took me to turn around and start the sprint again. I was dying after about the 3rd sprint of the 2nd set and threw up on the 4th sprint but that was due to the residual mucous that I still have from being sick and I kind of gagged on it when I was trying to breathe, yeah, it's gross, but that's what happened. I finished out the 5th and 6th sprint and headed out of the park towards Big Bend and did a loop out there and then made my way to one of my favorite hills, Tans Dr. and decided to test my fitness there by doing one climb to see where I'm at compared to my PR. I figured that since I haven't done much of anything for a week that I'd be pretty slow and figured on throwing up again but surprisingly I broke my PR by 7 seconds! Now, could I have even gone up the hill a second time, maybe not, I hit HR numbers I haven't hit in a long time, 194 was my max up the hill, my chest physically hurt after that. I think I was just exceeding my limit to prove that I still had some fitness, but I know I couldn't have done 6 repeats up the hill like I did last week. That's the problem with a little layoff, for the most part you can still feel great for one hard day of riding or one really hard effort, but try to ride hard for 3 days in a row or try repeated hard efforts up a hill, that's when you'll realize that you've lost something. So yeah, I was good yesterday, today I'll probably feel it though when I try to ramp it up again, all cylinders might not be firing tonight but I'll try again anyways. It's raining right now but it's supposed to be better later, so no doubt I'll be able to get outside and enjoy the 60 degree temps. Like I said I'm going to try another harder effort tonight but if I notice that I'm not feeling it or my body is not responding then I'll just do an easy ride and do a hard ride tomorrow. Friday will obviously be an easier day ahead of Saturday's races.

On the home front, I'm getting stressed about my freakin' basement wall because it has some nice horizontal cracks and step cracks in it that are ever-expanding and I'm thinking one of these days I'm going to be sitting in my recliner enjoying a Guinness and it's all going to come tumbling down on me. I've been keeping an eye on them the last few weeks and they are getting bigger so I finally made the call today to have someone come take a look, they can't get out until the 21st, I was hoping like tomorrow would be nice! Oh well, I have two weeks now to sit and watch them get bigger, wish me luck. If the bill comes to the 3 or 4 grand that I've heard it will cost to put up the steel beams, then I might be selling my bike to pay for it, anyone want a CAAD8 with all Campy Carbon Record and carbon wheels? Final cost dependent upon my bill from the contractor of course....I'm kidding, I'm not selling my bike, well, maybe..... until next time..........

Family Fun

Yesterday was a great day with the family at Devil's Lake State Park where we hiked around the entire lake, up and down the bluffs on both sides of the lake. We were there for most of the day and the weather was great, mid 60s and sunny, a little windy, but it felt good as it kept me from sweating too much. It was Melissa's b-day so it was nice to have all of us, including the dog, up there and together. I've been under the weather since about Thursday of last week and haven't really felt like doing much of anything but it was nice to get out in the fresh air and today I'm feeling a little better and hopefully will be 100% in the next couple of days. A lot of my co-workers have been sick in the past week and I figured since I am healthier than almost all of them, that I'd be immune to their sickness, turns out I wasn't but I didn't get it nearly as bad as a few of them so I have that going for me. I did ride for a couple of hours over the weekend, basically a couple of recovery rides, nothing too long. Today I'll be getting out after work because it's a beautiful day and I'll do about 35-40 miles at a fairly easy pace just to make sure I don't stress the immune system too much as I recover, and I'll probably do the same tomorrow just to make sure I'm back to normal before I push it too hard. Wednesday and Thursday will be hard days and Friday will be an easy spin ahead of Saturday's races. I plan on doing 2 races Saturday, the Masters 3/4 and the Masters 1/2/3, one is in the morning, the other in the afternoon, so there is plenty of time to recover. I don't care if I get dropped in both of them, I just need to get the race time in so that I can make a decent showing at least in Iowa in a couple of weeks. The Masters 3/4 shouldn't be bad, looks like the same guys I raced last year for the most part. Other than that, the weather looks like it might be improving gradually to the point where we might actually see 60 degrees on a regular basis. Wouldn't that be nice?? Congrats to all my teammates that did the Baraboo RR this weekend as well in nasty conditions, it's a tough race without the cold and rain, so hats off to them for their effort. We had a couple of 2nd place finishes and 5 other top 15 placings as well, great job by all. Until next time.......

Pack Fodder....Or Less

So right now the racing is not going so good, there's no other way to look at it, I'm just not at the level I need to be in order to stay competitive, or even finish the damn races. Saturday was another bad race, stayed in for about 28 minutes and then once we hit the hill I got popped out the back, I did another lap and then quit as I was way off the back, 31 minutes total. I'm not doing anything to help the team so far this year, I don't even feel like I'm part of the race, I'm basically just hanging on for as long as I can and then quitting when I can't hang on anymore, that's make 2 DNFs out of 3 races, not a good record. Sooo, what do I do about that? Well, mentally I'm still trying to stay the course and I keep training every day but eventually this may start to wear on me a bit. I have two options right now, one is to start doing the Master's 3/4 races, which is probably the best choice, or stop racing for a few weeks and just spend the weekends doing some hard training instead of traveling around to race my bike for 30 minutes, which also sounds good to me. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, the Baraboo RR looms on Saturday and that course is not suited for me at all, so that will probably get skipped either way in favor of training. I'm supposed to go camping with the family Friday thru Sunday at Devil's Lake State Park in Baraboo, so I'll be up there either way, although the weather doesn't look good right now, so that may get cancelled too if it rains. Basically right now I'm just going to ride my bike and figure it all out as it comes, I have no clue what this weekend will hold much less the rest of the year. My motivation is definitely not as high as last year, so that has something to do with it, I just have too many interests right now with the house stuff and the yard, and that makes it difficult to take all the free time I have after work on the weekdays and spend it all on biking. Well, that's it for now, nothing much else to say.

More Suffering Ahead

This past weekend held two disparate races for me, a pretty decent race on Saturday where I didn't feel all that bad and got in a breakaway, and a bad race on Sunday where I got shot out the back after 21 minutes of a 60 minute race. The main difference between the two? A punchy little hill on Sunday that had the HR in the ozone layer, and the lack of any ability to recover after the hill. Admittedly I haven't done much hill training yet this year as I've been a bit miffed at my weight, which is 10lbs heavier than last year, so I've kinda been avoiding hills. I've been doing mainly Steady State intervals, but I think the realization has kind of settled in that I need to get off my ass, drop the weight, and start doing some hill work. I'll get dropped in any race that has even the smallest bumps in it if I don't start doing something to remedy what is now my major weakness. Having said that, I'm pretty worried about Whitnall on Saturday as the course has a nice little double-step hill and a smaller gradual hill that will probably have me in trouble shortly after the start. Sunday's data from my Garmin was all I needed to see to make me realize that I'll probably be in the same situation Saturday as well. Basically I started off o.k. with my HR in the mid to upper 170s, but then up the hill it went to around 186, then as we went around the course it would start to recover and get in the 170s again, but then it was time to hit the hill and it was right back up to 186 again. So I never really recovered enough after the hill because the speed was so fast that every time I hit the hill the batteries were getting drained more and more each time. Finally I went up the hill and had an acid leak that exploded my legs and I was done. I'm hoping that something similar doesn't happen Saturday as I have been practicing a bit on the Whitnall course and in 3 weeks of doing intervals around the course I dropped my lap times 24 seconds per lap from week one to week 3 last week. I was averaging lap times that were equivalent to my M4/5 race last year, and doing it solo for 12 minutes at a time with only a 7 minute rest between each set for a total of 36 minutes of intervals. One day I did a constant 40 minutes to see if I could maintain the speed of the M4/5 race by myself for the entire duration, and it was close but I couldn't quite do it for 40 minutes straight. Maybe mentally I'll feel better on Saturday since I've done the course 7 times in the last 3 weeks and will do it 1 more time this week. Other than that, today I'll be doing the course, tomorrow will be hill repeats (yes, I'm doing them again) and Thursday will be a normal ride. Friday will be an easy ride with some sprints to open up the legs for Saturday.
It's also that time of the year for yard work to get done so I've been doing some work around the yard as well and will have to squeeze that in at some point this week too. Most likely I'll be stuck out in the dark doing some things after my rides or I'll have to do as I did this morning when I got out and fertilized before work. I'm also looking forward to some camping already as we are heading off to Devil's Lake for 2 nights next week on Friday and Saturday, coming home Sunday. I have the Baraboo race Saturday, maybe, as the hills will kill me, so we figured it was a good reason to camp since the campground is just outside of Baraboo. Sunday, May 4th, is also my wife's b-day so it will be nice to celebrate it with a hike around the bluffs at the park. Well, that's it for now, I wanna give a shout out to Jason, let's get together and drink some beers soon, it's been way too long. But not too many beers, I gotta get up those dang hills. Until next time...........

Decent Race

I'll provide a more detailed race report tomorrow as I'm getting ready for some sleep right now, I'm pretty wiped. I did the Menomonee Park race today and it was pretty fast, a bit over 26mph average for the race and I was part of a breakaway of 5 guys that stayed away for 3 or 4 laps, I was too dizzy to count. Ultimately we got caught with 2 and a half laps to go, and I tried one more little attack before coasting in the last lap off the back of the pack. It was a lot of hard work but since the course was flat and not much wind I was able to hang and obviously even get off the front for a while. I guess today's race, and the accompanying great weather, was the spark that I needed to get me back in the racing mood. Now, tomorrow is another story as the GDVC course is a little more difficult and I'm not sure how I'll feel after today's effort. I've done everything I can to recover tonight as far as food and hydration so let's see if I can handle a bunch of times up that punchy little hill. A picture below of me in the break -

Breakaway

[click to enlarge]

Looking For The Spark

Although I've continued to train and have had to overcome a lot of distractions and hurdles of late, I'm still looking for something to really get me going and to get me in the racing mood. I just haven't found it yet and I'm hoping that something will come along to get me in the mindset to know that I've done enough training and that my form is good enough to hang with the rest of the bunch. Right now I know I'm not where I was last year at this time, I just feel like I haven't done anything that has given me the speed I need. I've done longer distance stuff, hill repeats and started Steady State intervals a couple of weeks ago but I just don't feel FAST at all. I feel sluggish up hills, I can't turn over big gears, and I haven't even attempted a sprint yet all year, the speed factor just doesn't feel like it's there. I was set on racing this weekend but now I just don't know if I will, it'd almost be a waste of money getting shot out the back right away.
There are alot of reasons why I'm just not feeling it, I wont' delve in to most of them. Here's one though as an example - tonight for instance, I had a really good day of training yesterday, I wanted to continue that tonight but shortly after I started my ride I was standing up and then sat down and I heard a crack, sure enough my seatpost broke. Most of tonight was then spent trying to find another seatpost that fit, then getting the height right again, and it was 9:45 by the time I got it all together. So no ride tonight. That's just the way things have been going this year, it's seems I can only run off one good week of training before something happens, like getting sick, having to go out of town on business, rain and snow on the weekends, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, I've thought multiple times of late about putting this racing season on hold, but I just can't do it quite yet. As mentally down as I am right now, for some reason I keep trudging along. Maybe I'll get that spark I need in the next couple of weeks, only time will tell really, who knows, I guess I'll know when it comes and hopefully I get that FAST feeling back again......

It's Been Awhile.......

.....but I'm still here, just been busy working, doing house things, and yes, riding my bike. The last few weeks have been good on the bike, I'm probably back to where I was before I got sick, but I should be way past that of course, so that is where this week's training will really help. I'd say I'm at 75% which is probably a little under where I am normally at this time of year, but after being off the bike for so long to start March I'll take it. I did 7 days on the bike last week, 2 days as recovery days so I'm definitely allowing for some rest, and I've had a good start to this week thus far. My training weeks go from Monday to Sunday, and Monday is normally a rest day, but I went out and did 3 hours yesterday since this is my "training camp" week while I'm on vacation. Yesterday was nothing fancy, just an endurance pace ride but it was nice to be outside. Today will be a split day because the rain is coming and is supposed to be here about noon so I'm leaving the house in about 20 minutes to hit the road for 3 hours and will then do another 1.5 - 2 hours on the trainer this afternoon or early evening. Today is Steady State intervals, which aren't exactly fun but they are a longer effort than PowerIntervals so not quite as intense. Tomorrow is supposed to be the only nice weather day of the week, meaning above 50 degrees and maybe some sunshine. The schedule calls for 4.5 hours out in Lake Geneva, with 2 loops around the lake and then hill repeats on a few select hills that are fairly long and steep as well. Should be a long day of thrashing myself and I'm sure there will be some near-puke experiences in there as well. Thursday is iffy as far as the weather, but right now the plan calls for another 4 hours with no real efforts so that I can recover from my repeats on Wednesday. Friday will be a shorter day, 2 to 2.5 hours but I will again be doing Steady State intervals so it'll be a tough day, but thankfully the suffering won't last too long. Saturday is another day that the weather will dictate what I'm going to do as right now they are calling for snow showers! I thought we were done with that, but that's the way this year has been going. If I can get outside then I'm looking at the Doc ride possibly and if I can't get my butt out of bed that early I'll be doing 3 - 3.5 hours solo later in the day. Sunday will be my last day of vacation and my toughest ride, again they are calling for some rain/snow mix, but I might just do my ride regardless of the weather. The plan is to ride from New Berlin to Burlington, over to Alpine Valley, do some repeats up the steep climbs and then head back to New Berlin, about 5 - 5.5 hours of fun. That will end my training camp with anywhere from 25 to 28 hours on the bike. Luckily for me next week happens to be the 4th week of my training cycle, so it's a regeneration week, that means only about 11-13 hours on the schedule so the week after that I should be fresh and ready to rock.
As far as racing goes, my first race now is tentatively on the 19th, I've decided that it's probably best to get a race under my belt before our big team race the following week so that I don't have a poor showing for the team in our own race.
Other than that, in addition to biking on my vacation I'm doing some major house stuff as well. Yesterday I built a shelving unit in my pantry, complete with under-shelf lighting and cubby holes for all my waterbottles, Clif products, energy drinks, etc., it will definitely help keep me more organized instead of having everything just stacked on top of each other. Today after my first ride I'll be running errands around town and then will also be finishing up the last of the window trim in Xavier's room. Hopefully I'll have time to get out the new solid wood pantry door as well and get the first coat of primer on that so that I can get it painted and installed this week yet. I hate installing new doors, all that shimming is a pain in the *ss, especially with our crooked house, I swear nothing is straight or at a 90 degree angle in this house. Oh well, it'll be about a 3 hour project, but well worth the aesthetic value and the investment. That's it for now, off to ride before it starts raining, until next time................

Getting Back On Track

Well, I think I'm FINALLY over the little bug that has kept me sick and fatigued for the better part of 3 weeks. I finally stopped coughing on a regular basis earlier this week, maybe Tuesday, and don't feel the junk rattling around in my chest anymore. I managed to ride about 3 times in the two weeks prior to this week while I was sick, and have ridden 4 times already this week but I can tell I lost quite a bit of fitness and that will probably take a month to get back. The 4 rides this week were an hour and a half to 2 hours long and were basically just to get my legs under me again and get some riding in. This weekend I'll continue that with a long ride tomorrow as the forecast looks decent and then hopefully if the rain holds out Sunday I'll get another long ride in. Basically I'll just ride at endurance pace and just try to get in some miles that I missed out on in the last few weeks to build up the endurance again. I'm on vacation now the week of the 7th so that will be my big week and will hopefully get me to about 80% of where I was before I got sick. After my vacation week I should be able to get back to hammering again as I'll have 3 weeks of good riding in the legs and will hopefully feel like a racer again instead of a rec rider. So anyways, as I said, tomorrow will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-75 miles as the plan is to ride out to Burlington and back, I think my typical route is about 72 miles with a pit stop at my mom's to refill the bottles and grab a quick soda or something. Sunday will be weather dependent but hopefully I can get out for a 60-65 mile ride and together with Saturday's ride I'll feel pretty good about the weekend of riding. I have my fingers crossed but it looks like our warmup is finally coming as the forecast doesn't have any snow in it, although it looks like the rain will be here, and the temps are steady in the mid to upper 40s, whoohoo! I'm glad now that I cancelled my vacation this week as it wouldn't have been the greatest week to try to ride, I was a little disappointed with having to come in after planning to have the week off, but it's gone quick and I have no complaints. Well, that's it for now, until next time..........

Nothing To Report..

Not much to report about training.....just this, it's getting a little freakin' repetitive......

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE THURSDAY NIGHT. SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS THURSDAY AND THURSDAY NIGHT WILL LIKELY EXCEED 6 INCHES ACROSS MUCH OF SOUTHERN WISCONSIN. LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE NEAR THE LAKE DUE TO LAKE ENHANCEMENT.

I will ride my bike outside tonight and tomorrow night though, should be able to get in 90 minutes before sunset. At least I'm not in my basement riding the trainer.

Break Out the SnowShoes

Now the weather guys are calling for 10-15 inches of snow today, supposedly we are supposed to get 1-2 inches per hour throughout the day, whoohoo. Yeah right. This lends some credo to my argument a couple of posts ago that the Wisconsin cycling season shouldn't start until the end of April or beginning of May and go later in the year. I seriously think that the Evergreen race in a couple weeks has a chance to be cancelled because the course will probably be flooded, not that I'm doing it but just saying for the guys that plan on doing it. A May start is looking more realistic for me every day as of right now.
Well, after being off the bike for 13 days due to being sick and traveling I finally got back on the bike on Wednesday night, only for 50 minutes but at least I rode. My HR was sky high and even though I was going slow I was sweating like crazy mostly due to the fact that my body is still hanging on to a bit of my cold. Last night I rode for 90 minutes and my HR was still sky high even though I wasn't working all that hard. I'm guessing it will take me at least 2 weeks to get back to where I was 2 weeks ago, and then another month to get to where I want to be before I race, maybe more. I'm still hacking up a lot of junk from my chest but I'm thinking I'll finally be over this by early next week, hopefully anyways. Well, I'm off next week and the plan was to ride alot but I don't know what will happen now, the forecast looks like crap, but the plan is to ride as much as I can in spite of this snow and the forecasted rain. I'm hoping to get in at least 20 hours minimum and that will help me regain some of my lost fitness. Hopefully the week of the 31st will be nice and I can follow up my long week with some good rides that week. Well, that's it for now, not much else to say, I'll get a good workout tonight shoveling my driveway, so I have that to look forward to, until next time..........

Too Funny

All I can do is laugh, what else is there to do........


WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM LATE THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING.
A WINTER STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE FROM 4 TO 7 INCHES OF SNOW ACCUMULATION DURING THE DAY FRIDAY. THE HEAVIEST ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE NEAR THE ILLINOIS BORDER

Training in Turmoil

I'm finally back from my business trip to Florida and it's so great to be back to this sh*tty weather, I love 30s and rain. It's supposed to rain tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night and I think Wednesday it's supposed to finally clear up in the afternoon. This weekend the temps are supposed to top out at 36 on Saturday and Sunday, whoohoo. So it's been 10 days since I've been on the bike due to my sickness and obviously being in Florida for work, so I'm feeling pretty fatty right now and out of shape. I've got alot of work to do to say the least. I wanted to move my vacation from next week to the week of the 31st but my boss is out that week already so I'm stuck with next week. Early 10-day forecast shows temps of 40 on Monday and Tuesday and 40% and 60% chance of snow showers, whoopty-f*ckin do. I'll do what I can do to get out and ride as much as possible but I'll obviously be at the mercy of the weather, I'm not very excited about my week off now. Anyways, I'm still feeling a bit under the weather, coughing up chunky monkeys, nasty, yeah, but just keeping it real, that's what's happening. I'll be riding as much as I can this week, but nothing super hard in the early part of the week since I still have a lot of junk in my chest. No plan as of right now, I'll just be going with how I feel as the week goes by and then I'll decide on what I'm doing next week while I'm off depending on how much riding I get in this week. I've got a team ride and meeting on Saturday as well, so at least I'll get in one decent effort possibly on the team ride. Depending on the weather the next few weeks and how much outdoor riding I get in I'll be deciding on when I'll kick off my racing season, as of right now I'm thinking the Brown Deer race on the 19th but most likely I'm looking at Whitnall on the 26th. Well, that's it for now, until next time.......

Schedule Re-do

My schedule has been completely changed now due to my nagging sickness as I've basically pushed everything out a week and maybe two weeks. It's been 5 days since I've been on the bike, I leave tomorrow to go to Florida for work and that means it will be 9 days before I even have the chance to ride again when I get back Sunday evening. 9 days with no cycling, that sucks at this time of year. I was going to go to Blue Mounds the week of the 24th but I'm pushing that out now until the week of the 31st. Basically the plan is to get over this damn flu/cold bug while I'm out in Florida and come back healthy (hopefully) on Sunday. I'll start riding again Sunday evening and take the week to get my legs back under me and then kick it back up again a bit the week of the 24th. I'll take my vacation now the week of the 31st and most likely go to Blue Mounds. I'm definitely skipping the Sheboygan race on the 5th of April and will either start my season on the 13th or the 20th now. I won't be starting my Steady State intervals now until the 24th or 25th and I was supposed to be doing them last week already, so basically I'm just pushing everything off a bit. I don't really care if I miss a race or two, I'd rather get in some good quality training and feel confident going in to my first race. Well, that's it for now, gotta go pack for tomorrow and take some more meds and get to bed. Until next time.....

Clouded

This has not been a good weekend as I've been pretty much relegated to the bed and the couch, down for the count with a bad flu/cold bug. I got sick Thursday night and have been basically sleeping ever since, except for struggling though work on Friday. My mind is clouded with enough cold medicine to keep me just comatose enough to sleep steadily but not enough to kill me. I'm up now to drink some tea, figured I'd let everyone know how non-existent my training was this weekend.......well, back to bed, here is me and my dog, spending some quality time on the couch....

Tis The Season.....

.....For me to start being crabby. One thing I really don't like about the Wisconsin road cycling season is the fact that the races start so damn early in the year and end early. We start in this crappy weather in the first week of April and then everyone is pretty much done at the end of July, what the hell for? Isn't there two good months still yet to ride after that? For those that whine about Superweek being their last hoorah for the year, take a week, do a few recovery rides, and get your ass back on the bike. Seriously, the fact that we feel compelled to start so early has us on the roads in February in March when the weather is crap, the roads are crap, we get stuck riding the trainer inside, we go crazy trying to keep up with the next guy by riding outside when it's 20 degrees and we can't feel our toes, when we really don't have to. There is no reason we can't start at the end of April and go through the end of August or beginning of September, heck, even the end of September. That gives us almost an extra month to get outside, enjoy some better weather and better roads, and we can still get in a full season. I don't know, maybe it's the fact that the first race is 28 days away and we still have a foot of snow on the ground and I'm looking at the fact that it's only going to be in the 20s outside this weekend with more snow on the way, and I just don't feel like I'm ready yet. Sure would be nice to have that extra 3 or 4 weeks, I mean jeez, shouldn't we be able to say that we've ridden outside more than a few weeks before the first race? For those that are thinking, "what the hell, no one is forcing you to do this", well, if you know me, then you know that I'm competitive and I'm racing to do well for myself and represent the team the best I can. I'd hope that I'm prepared enough to do that but when we start racing after only 3 or 4 weeks of outdoor riding, it's tough to feel that way. Maybe at some point somebody will be smart enough to mandate that change, but I guess I have no choice but to live with it for now. At this point, I mayyy, and I say may, skip the first race on the 5th, but not sure yet. The second race is the 13th and I'd feel way better about that being my first race, it gives me more time outside to work on some things I need to work on, and I'd feel a lot more confident about being able to help the team after a couple extra weeks of training. Anyways, that's my 2nd rant of the day.....probably enough ranting for this week.....

What To Do.........

This has been a good week of training so far, unfortunately still on the trainer as the weather is obviously crap and we haven't hit DST yet, but after this weekend I'm guessing I'll be getting outside after work for at least half of my ride time during the evening. I leave for Florida though Wednesday morning so I'll only get to test the limits of daylight on Tuesday evening before I head out to sunny, warm Tampa. Once I get back though next Sunday I'm hoping most of my rides will be outside after work. Well, anyways, this week has been pretty good, Tempo work on Tuesday night and one-legged pedaling last night. Tonight is Steady State intervals and then tomorrow is a recovery ride day. I don't know what this weekend will bring, it's supposed to be mid-20s and chance of snow, maybe some SS riding on the MTB is in order, not sure yet. I'd like to get on the road but not sure the weather will cooperate. I wish I was going to Tucson with my teammates, sure would be nice to enjoy some of that great weather. Oh well, next year.
On another note, is Paris-Nice going to be worth watching this year, will the major teams even show up, what the hell is the beef between ASO and UCI, figure this crap out so that the riders can just get on with riding their bikes and not worry about being suspended and sued and all that other crap. I can't believe that with all the doping issues that happened last year that the two parties wouldn't make concessions to make this stuff happen this year without so many issues. It's turning people and more importantly corporations off of cycling, pretty soon they won't have to worry about who is doing their races because there won't be any teams. Well, that's my rant for the day.....
Not sure what the weekend will bring, but I'll tell ya all about it on Sunday I'm sure...until next time....

Such A Tease

Well, Mother Nature was teasing us yesterday with some beautiful weather but now it's all crashing down on us again with temps back in the low 30s and snow. Looks like we'll only have temps in the high 20s this week, we are supposed to be averaging 39-40 degrees, but those kind of temps are nowhere in sight. This weekend is supposed to hit mid-30s maybe on Sunday, only 28 on Saturday but that's a long ways off, maybe it'll be better, who knows with our crazy weather. Anyways, this weekend was very good on the bike, although I got cut short yesterday by a 2 minute downpour which had me flying back to my start point only to taper to a sprinkle and then to nothing as I was trying to get out of my wet clothes. I could've gone back out but I was already getting chilled and had forgot my rain jacket so I was wet and cold. Let's start at the beginning I guess before I get too far......My intention this weekend was to ride 3.5 hours Saturday and then do 4.5 to 5 hours of hills on Sunday, what I like to call the Trifecta...Lake Geneva, Alpine Valley, Spring Prairie State RR course....lots of hills and very steep ones at that. Saturday I had some afternoon commitments so that was going to be my short day of the weekend and after letting the temps warm up to all of 27 or 28 I hit the road and went from New Berlin to Big Bend out to Waukesha and did a loop out there and then back, a tad over 3 hours and 30 minutes. I felt really good and although I was a bit cold, the lack of wind made the 28 degrees temps feel just fine once I got warmed up. Saturday evening I recovered with lots of food and water in anticipation of a long ride on Sunday morning. My plan was to drive out to my mom's in Burlington, leave on the bike from her house and ride to Lake Geneva, do a lap of the lake, then ride over to Alpine Valley, do a lap of the race course there, then ride over to Spring Prairie and do a couple laps of the race course there, lots of hills and lots of fun. The day started out well with a 10 a.m. departure and sunshine as I made my way to Lake Geneva but shortly after I got to Lake Geneva and was doing my loop there the clouds started rolling in. From Lake Geneva I made my way over to Alpine and it got cloudier still and I felt a few sprinkles falling but kept going on my loops anyways. I finally made it over to Spring Prairie and had gone up the big hill the first time and was starting my loop when it started raining really hard, I made a quick u-turn and was flying back to my mom's, only about 2 miles away and was almost there when the rain tapered to a sprinkle. I was chilled now and made it in to my mom's driveway and of course the rain stopped. I thought about going back out but was shivering and my clothes were wet so I thought the better of it, and changed in to some dry clothes. So yeah, it only rained about 5 minutes total but it was enough for me to get wet and divert my ride and mess up the plan. I did get ALOT of hill climbing in though and 3 hours 45 minutes of riding before I had to detour home. I looked at my data after the drive back to New Berlin and I had two hills that hit 19% and the Spring Prairie hill was not far behind at 16%, and I had about 3500 ft. of climbing. Most of the hills were short steep power climbs, so obviously that was alot of up and down for the duration of the ride, nothing too long. I did some recovery last night, basically just kept hydrated and laid around, nothing too exciting and I'm feeling good today, the legs aren't sore at all and I'm ready for another hard week of training before a 4 day layoff next week as I head to Florida for business. Some of the other team guys did a ride yesterday as well and I wish I could've joined them but I wanted to do some pretty specific stuff yesterday and doing the group ride would've been counterproductive to what I'm trying to accomplish. There will be plenty of opportunities to ride with them yet this Spring though. Well, that's it for now, until next time........hope you all enjoyed the one nice day yesterday!

New Hoops

Shutting It Down

Rode for an hour to warm up on the rollers and then moved to the trainer to do Tempo workouts.....couldn't get my heart rate above 155, I tried for 25-30 minutes, no luck. I'm smart enough to know that it means to shut it down, so that was it for tonight. Maybe time to give the body a rest, I'll see how it responds tomorrow morning but maybe a couple days of recovery rides are in order. That's all, until next time....

Rollin on Carbon Hoopdees This Year

Planned to post pics tonight of new wheels, but Blogger is broken, maybe tomorrow tonight it will be working.......

Yippy, More Snow!

The roads that were good enough to ride on this weekend are getting trashed again with more snow, let's hope the plow crews work double time to get that shite cleared off so I can ride outside again this weekend. Don't they know that I've got bike practice to do this weekend? The past few weeks of training have been going quite well, too much time indoors during the week because I really have no choice, but this past weekend was pretty decent as I did 5 hours outside on Saturday and 3.5 hours outside Sunday with Ben and Dave. 8.5 hours for the weekend is the high for me so far this year and, well, I guess it should be since we are getting closer to race season. I did a recap of Saturday's ride in another post, but I'll reiterate that it was a good ride, I felt really good up the hills and had no problem pushing on the flats. Sunday I felt good on the flats and felt good on the hills in the beginning but felt like shat on the hills in the last hour. I got dropped by the dynamic duo of Ben and Dave on one little power climb, and then followed that up with a flat tire about 10 minutes later. Maybe the flat tire was some sort of saving grace to allow my lactic acid filled legs to take a little break. I did have the distinction of having the hardest ride the day before so I knew I was in for a rough day as I wasn't fully recovered, but either way, Dave and Ben could kick my butt on one of my good days. I've been saying it all off-season, WE WILL HAVE A KICK ASS TEAM THIS YEAR! Dave and Ben will be super strong, Pete, Scott, Kevin, Gene, Paul, Chris and Chris, and myself will be a pretty formidable lineup. I know the guys I listed above will be training hard this off-season and I'm training as hard as I can, up to 15-18 hours per week now, so we may not win all the time or even half the time, but I think our team is worthy of a few wins this year for sure. Enough of the Wheaton soapbox, I've tooted that horn enough this year, but it is what it is, we bad (that means good). As for myself, I'm still working on one of my weaknesses from last year, hill climbing, and may not be one of the top 10 climbers this year in the 30+ 1/2/3 group but I will be improved over what I was last year for what it's worth. I might have to resign myself to the fact that I'm not 155 any more and maybe sprinting is my forte this year but I'm certainly going to try to improve my climbing the best I can, as the saying goes, "race your strengths, train your weaknesses" and that's what I'm going to do. Soooo, the plan for this week right now is calling for about 16.50 to 17.00 hours depending on what the weekend weather brings. If I can get outside both days then it will be 17 hours, and it will be quality work also, I'm not just riding to ride. If the weather is bad and I'm relegated to trainer time then it will be more like 15-16 hours for the week. The plan right now is for 2 to 2.5 hours nightly on the trainer during the week working on Tempo intervals and then this weekend will bring a ride out to Delafield on Saturday and then as of right now I'm planning on a Lake Geneva trip to do 4.5-5 hours around the lake and the surrounding hills. Repeats, repeats, repeats are on the agenda. Sunday's forecast is calling for 39 and 30% chance of rain, that means there's a 70% chance of no rain, whoohoo. Well, that's it for now, I'll have a surprise post tonight with some extra special pictures. Until next time......

Couldn't Resist A Little More

Today was one of those days where I didn't even want to get on the bike, it was colder than I wanted it to be for a long ride and it's always a chore to get all the layers on and try to balance being warm and on the other hand, being too warm and sweating too much. Well today was no problem with the sweating as it was about 27-28 degrees for my ride, although the workout that I went through today was definitely cause for sweat. After begrudgingly putting on the layers I headed out the door with the intention of doing 3.5 to 4 hours and doing tempo work and hill repeats. I warmed up fairly quickly and got going on the Tempo stuff for a bit until I got out to the loop where I was going to do the hill repeats. I did my repeats for a while and then figured I'd start another loop out towards Waukesha, something that would bring me back towards Muskego eventually. So I did that, rode through Muskego to Big Bend and back around the south side of Muskego and then back to New Berlin. So, after not wanting to get all dressed up and even take on the cold weather I ended up doing a 5 hour ride, and I paid for it at the end as I was wiped out from the Tempo work and the hill repeats and my toes were frozen solid by the end. I've attached my chart below of today's ride, you can see my HR is in the ozone layer for the first 4 hours of the ride as I did my Tempo work and hill repeats, and then my last hour is basically a nice flat pace and a cooldown, literally, as I was heading home right at sunset and the temps were dropping. I had a nice big dinner of spaghetti, some bread and recovery drink. I'm getting ready to prop the legs up a bit now and then I'll hit the bed in about an hour. Tomorrow I'll be going out to tiny Trevor to ride with the prez for about 3 hours. Should be a good ride, it'll be at least 6-7 degrees warmer than today so I have that going for me. Well, like I said, today was one of those days where you jump on the bike and are having such a good time that you don't want to stop. Hopefully I'll have many more of those this year as Team Wheaton and I are kicking butt on the rest of Wisco riders. Time for bed, until next time.........




[Click To Enlarge]

Sloppy and Sore

Well, it's snowing pretty good out right now and that's just adding to the sloppy mess that we got yesterday with the rain and sleet mix which then froze overnight. Yay for winter, um, just kidding, I hate it. Eventually it has to stop though right, and that means that I'll get back on the road hopefully sooner than later, I'm not minding the trainer at all these days but I sure would like some sunshine. Race season doesn't seem far away and I'm starting to believe that even in spite of the lack of road riding the last couple of weekends, that I will be ready to rock come April 5th. This weekend was a good weekend of training, and went as follows: Friday was weights after work and then I went home, ate dinner and jumped on the rollers and trainer for 2.5 hours, Saturday was 1hr 45 minutes of snowshoeing and then 3 on the trainer. I would have loved to have been on the road Saturday as it was sunny and 26 degrees but there was so much slop on the roads that I couldn't have even made it out of my subdivision. Sunday was the top ride with a nice workout of 4 hours on the trainer and I did Tempo work, Muscle Tension and Fast Pedals. I'm completely beat today but thankfully after 3 tough days of riding it's a rest day on the bike tonight. I will be doing weights tonight but I think I'll be taking it a little easier depending on how sore I am still at the end of the day. Today is all about recovery, making sure I drink a lot of water, replenishing the glycogen stores, and tonight I'll probably get to bed early too, I didn't get alot of sleep this weekend and I'm feeling it now. Looking at the weather forecast, it doesn't look like it will be a good weekend but it's hard to tell now. Forecast is for 30 degrees Saturday and Sunday and 40% chance of, you guessed it, more snow! whoohoo....bah. Well, that's it for now, until next time.

Same ole', Same ole'

Well, more snow and more trainer rides have been, and will be, on the schedule. We're supposed to get 1-3 inches today, not that bad, but what does it matter when we already have like 18-20 inches on the ground, none of it is melting any time soon. This week has been a pretty normal week, did weights on Monday and Wednesday, and trainer rides on Tuesday, Wednesday, this morning, and will ride again tonight, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday before my rest day on Monday. I've been using my Garmin Edge 305 for the last two weeks and I have to say that it has everything I need consolidated in to one device (well, except for a power meter). It's great to be able to download my entire workout in to the training software and check out my HR, cadence, speed, elevation, and it breaks everything down by HR zone and of course there are many more functions with the GPS that I won't get in to here. I used to have to take my HR monitor and my cyclocomputer and write down the totals for each workout and then I would put them manually in to Excel, now I just hook up a USB cable to the PC and it's all there in an instant. Way more convenient. So anyways, this week has been alot of Tempo work, some Muscle Tension stuff and tonight will be Fast Pedals and One-Legged Pedaling to work on biomechanics. This weekend I'll be doing lots of snowshoeing and I doubt that I'll be able to get on the road because of the snow, but we'll see, otherwise it's on the trainer for about 3-3.5 hours each on Saturday and Sunday. Racing starts 8 weeks from this week, that means a lot of intense training coming up in the next 7 weeks and then the 8th week will be somewhat of a taper week as my 7th week will be up to 24-26 hours on the bike and then I'll rest for a week and race on April 5th. Hopefully the weather is a little better than it was last year for the first race.....well, that's it for now, until next time..........

Fast and Faster

Yesterday was 3 hours on the rollers and trainer, just working on mechanics with Fast Pedals and then some muscular stuff with Muscle Tension intervals. I worked up a good sweat, got my HR up there and felt pretty good at the end of the day about my workout. The only problem now is after almost 13 hours this week with 3 more to go today, my arse is getting really sore, hopefully no saddle sores are going to crop up after today's ride, it seems imminent, not that you wanted to know but that's a part of getting back in to the longer durations again. Anyways, while working on my FastPedals which are normally in the 120-130rpm range I tried to really spin it out to see what I could get and got my RPMs almost as high as my HR. My goal is to be able to hit 200rpms at some point just for the fun of it, I got really close, maybe next time. Like I said, today is another 3 hours on the rollers/trainer and for the most part it will just be cleaning out my legs from my long ride Friday and my tough workout yesterday with some Tempo work for about 30-40 minutes and the rest at Endurance Pace. Here's a graph of my ride yesterday with the Fast Pedals starting near the end........

(Click to Enlarge)

Vacation Day

I had a vacation day from work today, so instead of sitting in a cubical all day I went out and enjoyed a nice day outside. What did I do on my vacation day, well, not much sitting around as I went out and did a 4 hour ride on the SS mtb, most of it at or near Tempo pace. The temps were not bad at all, 33 degrees, and that's warm compared to what we are going to get this weekend. I hadn't planned on going that long today, but what the heck, it was a fairly nice day and I had the time. My legs are sore now of course, but I had a great dinner of filet mignon and a big baked potato and relaxed the rest of the night watching movies with the family. I'm sure I'll be plenty recovered to do what I want to do tomorrow, which is snowshoe in the morning for about 90 minutes and then in the afternoon or evening I'll be hitting the rollers/trainer as we have to go out to Lake Geneva tomorrow to get our taxes done at 12:30 and then I'm going to visit my parents in Burlington. That'll pretty much take up the day so the indoors riding will be later in the day. I'm planning on 3 hours inside as I already will have done some snowshoeing so nothing as long as today is in order, I'll keep it shorter for sure. I think it's supposed to snow a bit as well and be windy so probably not a good day to be on the bike outside anyways. Sunday is supposed to be bitter cold so probably no snowshoeing but I will hit up the rollers/trainer again for another 3 hours, maybe 4 if I'm feeling rested up. Other than that, not much going on, I'm continuing to ramp up the hours every week and we are closing in on racing season. It seems not long ago that I created my Countdown spreadsheet which started at 180 days until race day, now I'm down to something like 55 days and time sure seems to be flying. I need more time for sure to get back up to speed so I welcome the time I have left before racing starts. Well, off to bed, until next time......

Ummmm, Riiight

In regards to my previous post.....This might actually stop me...they say any where from 9-20 inches depending on where you look. I'm thinking 9 is a good number, my fingers are crossed.....

A Little Sore But There's No Stoppin' Me

Sooo, a little sore? What does that mean, well the crash yesterday hurt more than I thought as I was experiencing pain in my right knee when I woke up Sunday morning. Overnight my knee had swollen up from the little wipeout I had on the slick roads Saturday afternoon and it was quite stiff and sore. I decided to hold off on cycling right away in the morning and let the knee get warmed up a bit and see if I could get the swelling down. I did some work around the house, finishing up some trim around a new bathroom door and staining some window trim and then decided to sit for a bit and ice my knee. After the knee was iced I thought it might be a good idea to maybe jump on the trainer for an hour to test it out and get the blood flowing through it to help recovery. So at about 11:00 I jumped on and it was quite sore at first but after about 15 minutes I was able to pedal with minimal amounts of pain and I finished the hour feeling pretty good about the knee. I took some more downtime and finished working on my projects and then had a great dinner of chicken soft tacos, refried beans, spanish rice, and taco dip. Most of the ingredients were fat free or low fat so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Anyways, after that I figured the knee was up to doing my regularly scheduled ride so I jumped on the rollers and figured I'd hammer out some Tempo workouts during the Super Bowl. 3 hours later I had done about 75 minutes of Tempo work and the rest was just endurance pace and I was sweating buckets. I think I felt really good because those beans kept giving me a turbo boost...um, yeah, anyways.....So 4 hours on the rollers/trainer yesterday and 2.5 hours on the SS Saturday along with 45 minutes of snowshoeing with the wife made for a good weekend. My knee is still a little sore this morning, it actually feels better on the bike than off of it, I'm sure it will be completely recovered in a day or two. Tonight will be weight work and an hour easy on the trainer just to help the legs recover and keep the knee loose. This week I'll be ramping up the bike time even more and will be doing a schedule of 15.50 hours for the week, maybe more if I can get my ass up in the morning for an hour spin before work to clean out the legs from the night before. So far the days look like this - tonight (1 hour RR) - Tuesday (2 hours, w/45 min Tempo) - Wednesday (1.75 hours) - Thursday (1.75 hours, w/45 min Tempo) - Friday (1 hour RR) - Saturday (4 hours, w/75 min Tempo) - Sunday (4 hours). If I have time I'll be doing an extra hour in the mornings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. So it could be up to 18.50 hours this week, but we'll see. Well, that's it for now, until next time......

Productive Day

Not a bad day I guess as I got in 45 minutes of snowshoeing with Melissa this morning as we were in a little bit of a time crunch so we couldn't go quite as long as I had hoped. It was still a good 45 minute workout and my average HR was 142 due to quite a few hills on the trails that we took that are only about a mile from our house. After the snowshoeing we grabbed some grub and I came home and rested up for a few minutes and then changed into all my winter gear so that I could hit the roads and trails with my SS mountain bike. I layered up quite a bit as it was snowing when I decided to head out and it wasn't really all that warm at 26 degrees, but definitely better then we've had of late. I rode down Sunnyslope to the New Berlin Rec trail and then took that to Waukesha where I spent some time going through the city and then I came out the west end near the Fox River. I took the Fox River Parkway trails and was cruising along when I hit a few snake turns that were slick with a little bit of snowcover and I took my first spill of the year. It was a slow spill at only about 15mph but the snow made it seem like a high speed crash as I slid for about 25 feet before I finally came to a stop. I checked over myself and my bike and after determining that I had nothing more than a minor knee scrape and a sore hand I was off and riding towards Big Bend. I went through Big Bend and then back to New Berlin for a total of 2.5 hours of riding. I was going to do 3.5 today but I figured that I did 45 minutes of fairly strenuous snowshoeing and was a little sore from my wipe out so I decided to just relax tonight and watch a movie with the family. My ride was pretty tough anyways as I pushed it for almost the entire 2.5 hours and at the end my average heart rate was 168 with a max of 190bpm. I spent an hour and 15 minutes split almost equally with my HR between 80-89% of max and 90-100% of max so it was almost like a TT the whole way. I can definitely feel it now as I had to push the one gear up the hills and I spun it out on the flats and descents as well so I used every muscle to the max. My legs are pretty darn sore now but I'm going to do it again tomorrow and then will take Monday to do an easy recovery ride to clean out the legs a bit. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly cloudy I guess but no snow and about 4 degrees warmer so that's a bonus. I plan on doing about the same routine, but this time I'll go out snowshoeing myself in the morning for about 1.5 hours and then hit the bike for another 2.5 hours, but this time I'll avoid the trails so that I don't have another wipeout. I can't afford to break a collarbone or something slipping out on the snow again, better to play it safe this early in the year. Well, off to bed to get some much needed rest, until next time.......

Still Truckin' Along

So I haven't had much to say lately because I haven't been doing much. Lifting, riding occassionally, and just waiting for nicer weather. After about 3 or 4 weeks now of not riding outside, I've got a major case of cabin fever and this weekend I'm going to give it a go on the SS regardless of all the snow on the road, with an outside ride most likely coming on Sunday. I got a new toy that I'm going to play with as well this weekend and I'll give a review after the weekend of riding is over. I'll also be snowshoeing a bit tomorrow, we sure as hell have enough snow for it. I'm gradually losing weight, so that is coming along well, I'll be at racing weight with no problem by the first race in April. The WCA schedule also came out today and along with Superweek and the Iowa Memorial Day races; my schedule looks pretty full with about 35 races for the year. Possibly the Masters Nationals in Kentucky as well, but that would be a bit of a stretch. Been riding on the trainer the last few days and will hit it up again tonight for about 90 minutes of easy riding to loosen up for the thrashing I'm going to give myself this weekend. My schedule calls for kicking up the intensity in the next few weeks so the hurting is going to be happening on a more regular basis as I progress towards April. Well, that's it for now, hope you all enjoy your weekend, hit those skis or the mtb, and maybe a beer or two....enjoy, until next time..........

Trying To Be Optimistic

So tonight it's snowing but I guess instead of using that as a reason to be upset that I won't get in a road ride tomorrow I'm trying to turn that around and think of it as a good reason to go snowshoeing. I'll go snowshoeing right away in the morning and then get back and warm up with some espresso before I either hit the mtb outside or hit the trainer. I hope to do at least 90 minutes of snowshoeing followed by at least 2.5-3 hours on the mtb if the weather permits otherwise I'll do 2.5 hours on the trainer. Either way I'll get in an all-around good workout and be happy with what I do regardless of the weather, at least that's the attitude I'm going to have anyways whether I'm happy with it or not. After getting in my exercise I'll be doing some work around the house and then I think the tentative plans are to hit up Delafield Brewhaus tomorrow night for some brew (obviously) and their sausage and peppers, mmmm, delicious. So that's it for now, more to follow tomorrow afternoon or Sunday morning. Until next time.......

This sucks

It's 5 degrees right now, supposed to be -10 tonight and a high of 9 tomorrow. Cycling is the furthest thing from my mind right now. Blah.

Whatever, dumb-ass playcalling.

Customize Your Ride

Quick info on the training tonight - 2 hours on the trainer, no frills ride, tomorrow is weight work and another 2 hour ride with Muscle Tension intervals.

I'm cutting it very short on time as it's getting late already and I need to get to bed so I didn't finish my first longer review on my new Avid SS brake setup but I'll publish that later this week. In the interest of time (my sleep time) you're getting the short review tonight of something that adds a little flair to your ride. After a while everyone in the pack starts to have the same look - same wheels, same frames, same tires, etc. so if you want to stand out a little bit and make a statement then you should visit PurelyCustom.com and check out their selection of pre-fabricated headset caps, handlebar plugs, stem spacers, bash guards, roof rack accessories and much more. If you don't like their expansive choices then you can make your own design or have your own text engraved on a headset cap. The prices are very reasonable and the work was done pretty quickly. I had a custom red headset cap made with the "Team Wheaton" text and I had it on my doorstep in about a week. I also ordered some handlebar plugs and an existing design from their selection for another headset cap. None of these parts are going to make you faster or lighter but they jazz up your ride a bit and set you apart from the crowd. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the custom Team Wheaton cap right now as it's still in the bag and will be put on in the Spring, but here is the other cap I have on and the handlebar plugs. Like I said, keeping this one short, check out purelycustom.com and maybe you'll find something you like, they have everything from beer mug logos to perrrrty little flowers, for those who like that sort of thing.

I'm No Bill Gates

This weekend didn't turn out exactly as planned as I had some family issues, namely money arguments that I'm sure most married couples have on occasion. I won't delve too much in to it but basically the gist of it is that cycling is tough for those that are even considered middle class if you want to have a good bike and keep necessary components on hand. Think about the things you need to have and replenish almost every year - Energy drink @ 20-30 bucks a jar that lasts about a month or maybe two, Energy bars and gels @ 20-25 dollars a box and again that's about a month or two supply, training tires at 20-30 dollars each that last about 3 months if you do 7000-8000 miles a year, so you need to buy two sets at least, racing tires at 50-75 dollars a piece that if you only use for racing can maybe last a season, but you always need a spare set, you need to replace your chain every year, I replace mine twice a year @ 45 dollars each, then you need bottles of chain lube, heavy grease, brake and shift cables stretch so you need to replace them every year or two, clothing is a big expense, race entry fees, traveling to races, especially the gas cost now a days. Last year I estimate that cycling cost me $1600 between team clothes, energy drinks, bars, and gels, tires, parts, entry fees, travel costs, tools and lubes, and a few other minor miscellaneous things. Those are just the things that I needed, not luxury items, in order to ride and race last year. Now, for me that $1600 was absolutely worth it for the entertainment value and that is probably no different than people who go out to concerts or the theater or other vacations. So anyways, I'm getting off course here a bit, but sometimes cycling can bring up money issues and lead to arguments and then it becomes time to prioritize things a bit, so instead of cycling on Saturday, that is what I did with my wife, cleared the air a bit so to speak. So basically in spite of the fact that my wife is working only part time as she is in her last year of nursing school and we are short on money, she really pushed me to keep up the biking and said we'll find a way to make it all work. I'm not sure how, but at least now I don't have to get another job, which was my plan, so that's a bonus. It's great to have her support in spite of our rough times so I'm very thankful for that. My blog is titled "My year as a bicycle racer" and certainly these kinds of things are a part of being a racer - money, family, time, priorities - so I had to include that in this posting.
Aside from that, after we figured out our money problems on Saturday, I did get in a ride on Sunday and I also did 2 hours on the trainer yesterday on my normal day off to make up for missing Saturday's ride. I did weights last night as well after work and I'm feeling better than I have in a long while on the bike. The weather looks like crap for the next few weekends, super cold and definitely not riding weather so it appears there will be a lot of trainer riding. Well, that's it for now, more to follow tonight when I do my weekly review of one of my cycling products. Until next time.....

Another Crappy Weekend

Training has been going well the last few days, I did weights and 2 hours on the trainers/rollers on Wednesday and 1 hour 45 minutes last night on the rollers. Wednesday was one hour on the rollers to get warmed up and then I moved over to the trainer and did my hour of Muscle Tension intervals. Last night was just a regular paced ride on the rollers, nothing special. I watched the movie "3:10 To Yuma", pretty darn good as far as westerns go. Tonight I'll be doing weights here at work and then I'll do one hour on the rollers just to loosen up the legs after doing the weight work. Soooo, on to the weekend, and I have to say I really am not sure what I'm doing at this point but it looks like I'll be able to get outside. The forecast is calling for 30% chance of flurries and temps around 34, so almost a carbon copy of last Saturday's weather. The roads are wet today and I can't imagine they will dry out any time in the next 24 hours so it looks like it'll be another wet, muddy SS ride. I can't imagine the weather will hold me back from riding outside so if that's the case then I'll be doing 3.75 hours to 4 hours both days although Sunday looks to be the worse of the two days with a 60% chance of snow. Anyways, after riding the trainer this week I'm looking forward to get back outside and having as much fun as I did last weekend.
Tomorrow afternoon is the Packer playoff game and I'll be at my friend Jason's house for the festivities so I'm sure we'll consume vast quantities of beer and that will make for a rough ride on Sunday. I'll alternate beer and water probably, hahahaha, that was a good one hey? Either way, I'll probably be hungover but I'll be out there riding Sunday, I'm just lovin' the bike right now. My motivation is super high right now, I'm really itchin for time to fly by and get to that first race, only like 85 days away. Damn, that seems long. Other than that, my weight is dropping, I've cut out all the extra bad foods, the holidays are over so there are no temptations, I've upped the water intake, and the increased riding is burning those extra calories. My goal this year is to be at 173-174 for the races, that's about as low as I can go without losing power. So that leaves me with about 17lbs to lose, yeah, I got that fat in the offseason. Just like Der Kaiser though, I will lose the weight and be ready to race. That's it for now, back to work, I'll update Sunday with some pictures from Saturday's festivities, until next time..............

Something New

I will update my training log tomorrow morning as I've yet to ride tonight, I'll be doing a couple of hours in about 15 minutes, but for now I'm going to do something new - a product review. This is something that I've decided to add to my blog on a regular basis to spice things up a bit, because, well, porn would just be weird. So here is my first product review, nothing too exciting but they are my most recent purchase so that's where I'll start. I wasn't all that happy with the support of the standard Sidi insoles that came with my Ergo 2s that I purchased at this time last year but have kept them in the shoes just because it hasn't been a priority to look for insoles this year and I'd rather spend the money on something else. I got a gift card for x-mas this year and with all my components pretty much up to date I decided it was time for some new insoles. I went out and looked at a few different varieties last week and ended up getting the Sole Heat Moldable custom insoles. Here is the description off of their website:

SOLE Custom Footbeds are heat moldable, so they fit your unique foot perfectly. The generic insoles that are supplied with your footwear are designed to fit the lowest common denominator foot shape. They simply cannot offer the same level of arch support, control and comfort that heat moldable SOLE Custom Footbeds do.

Out of the package the insoles were very rigid from the heel to the arch support and the toe area was a flexible foam. The instructions said to heat the soles up to 200 degrees and then put them in your shoe and stand on them for 2 minutes. I wanted to make sure I'd feel the difference before and after, so before heating the Soles I put them in my cycling shoe to see how they would feel before they were "custom molded" to my foot. They were very supportive in the arch area as I expected but my right arch must be a little on the flat side because there was a bit of pain there from the arch support pushing upward on it. So, I had my baseline and was ready to heat and install the insoles. After letting them sit in the oven for approximately 5 minutes to reach the desired temp (as designated by the color-changing sticker on the sole) I was ready to put them in my shoes. I did feel the right arch give a little bit after a few minutes of standing in the shoes and it was noticeably more comfortable than my test before heating the insole. I took the insoles out after about 5 minutes and did notice the change in shape from before they were molded to my foot shape. Now, the big test was riding for an extended period of time with them and I did that this weekend, riding about 7 and a half hours between Saturday and Sunday. My first thought was that they were definitely more comfortable than my original Sidi insoles except that the right insole was a little tight in the toe box. The arch support was fantastic, the heel cup supported my heel quite a bit more than the Sidis and my foot as a whole was better aligned in the shoe. After the long rides of the weekend I'd have to say that for the price, $49.95, that these insoles were definitely worth the benefit of the comfort that they provided. I think we all would just tend to stick with whatever comes in our shoes because it's something most of us don't think about, but if you are having any trouble at all with foot comfort I would recommend the Sole insoles. The only change I did make to them is the aforementioned toe box issue with the right shoe. I must have a fatter right foot or something but I had to take a bench grinder and take off some of the padding on the base of the insole and then trim off a very small amount of the length of the insole. Other than that I had no problems. So, that's it for my first product review, I'll have at least one a week, if not more. I've included some pictures of the insoles below. Until next time.....

Sole Heat Moldable Footbeds

High arch support and great heel cup

Had to use the grinder to thin down the toe and heel areas a bit

Another Day In Paradise

Today was another fun day outside with the singlespeed and it was even more wet and muddy than yesterday, big time fun. Well, not really. I’ve had to wash down the bike twice now this weekend and I guess that was the least fun part of each of the rides, but the rest was all good. I did pretty much the same route I did yesterday but did quite a bit of it in reverse so that made it a little more exciting. Again, I chose it because it’s a route I knew wouldn’t kill my legs with the option of only one gear up the hills. I felt really good today and there were actually a few more cyclists out today than yesterday, which wasn’t hard to beat since I saw none yesterday. Oddly enough the 4 or 5 I saw were very casual rec cyclists, no one that was out for some obvious training which is very surprising, where are the rest of you racing types??? I know this guy was out this weekend, how about the rest of you? Anyways, all in all it was a good weekend of riding, 7hrs and 25 minutes total, about 35 minutes short of my goal but I also got in 1hr 10 minutes of snow shoeing as well this weekend so that easily makes up for it. I’m feeling good about where I am this time of year, but I can’t say for sure if I’m behind or ahead of where I was last year, I’m feeling strong though and confident with the training I’m doing so that’s all that matters. This week starts my Preparation Period so I’ll be incorporating more Muscle Tension work in to the rides, 3 days a week instead of 1 and I’ll also start some Tempo riding 1 day a week, increasing that to 3 days a week in about 3 weeks when I cut down on the muscle work. This period will also be the start of Steady State intervals and near the end of it will be lots of Climbing Repeats. So, that’s it for now, time for some much needed rest….I’ve attached some pictures of today’s ride, way muddier than yesterday, enjoy! Until next time…….

Sunday's Pics

This Is Definitely Different

And by "this", I mean riding a Singlespeed. Today was my first day out on the mostly complete buildup of the singlespeed 26" mtb. I have to say that my muscles definitely feel sore in places I haven't felt sore in a while. It's not much different than riding a road bike when you are on the flats, and my gearing of 42x18 was well suited to cruising along on the flat roads, but as soon as I got to a hill I was habitually trying to shift but there was nothing there so I stayed seated and just kept grinding it out. I tried to avoid going down roads where I knew there were really steep hills but I tried to search out the roads where I knew there were long, gradual climbs because those types of climbs are perfect to help work on building some muscle, and I'm pretty sure today's ride will help with that. Downhills are pretty fun too because although I could obviously just coast down them, I wanted to work on some leg speed as well, so I was spinning out the 42x18 as fast as I could on some of the hills, probably in the 130-140rpm range. The only unfortunate part about today's ride was the really wet, somewhat muddy roads and I came back with my feet soaked and most of my body was wet and mud-splattered. So, how long did I make my first SS ride? Well, I wanted to really go for a while on it just to take on all sorts of roads with it and I tried to find some trails to ride as well but there was too much snow on those so I went from New Berlin to Waukesha, around the west side of Waukesha and then back to Muskego and then back to New Berlin for a grand total of 3 hours, 45 minutes. I wanted to do 4 hours but I was bonking at the end and I took a shortcut home and I'm glad I did because I was spinning pretty slow at the end there and I got back right before sunset. So that's a good workout hey, well, that's not even all I did today! This morning before the ride I managed to get Melissa to go snowshoeing as well before the snow goes away with this impending rain and warm weather. We went and did some local cross-country trails for an hour and 10 minutes and worked up a good sweat doing that as well before I hit the bike. So the exercise total for today is a pretty nice 4 hours and 55 minutes worth of work and tonight I'll be eating a good dinner, having some hot green tea (and maybe a beer), and then hitting the bed early-ish, maybe 11:00 or so. Tomorrow is iffy as far as the weather right now, only a 40% chance of rain and a high about 44 degrees, definitely warm enough for a ride so hopefully the rain holds off. If it does I'm tempted to take out the road bike but we'll see, I really don't want to go through the crappy roads with it so it may be another day on the SS. If it rains then it'll be 4 hours on the trainer/rollers, kinda like last weekend, 2 hours or so on the rollers, then an hour of muscle work on the trainer and then another hour on the rollers. Let's hope it doesn't rain. Well, that's it for now, I've posted pics below of me after my ride. Until next time.......