Not Much Going On......

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

Not Much Going On......

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

Slippin' and Slidin' and Hurtin'

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

Under The Weather...Riding Anyways

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

Cold Is Not Fun....

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

Blogger

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

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

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

Dare I Say It?

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

My Pal Erik Bruekink

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

Sweating Buckets....Inside

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

Time To Hibernate

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


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

I Love The Trainer

I'm kidding.....I hate the trainer but it appears I will be on it for at least the next two weeks straight due to work and the weather so I'm convincing myself that I love it. During the week I work until 5:00 so obviously riding outdoors won't work and this weekend the temps are only supposed to hit single digits and maybe the teens for highs. That means that I'll be riding indoors this week, this weekend, next week, and then the first chance I get to ride outdoors would be next weekend, the 10th and 11th. Hopefully the weather will be nice that weekend as I'm sure I'll have major cabin fever and will have to ride no matter what the conditions are outside. So anyways, this week will be trainer rides consisting of 2.25 hrs tonight, 1.75 hrs tomorrow with Muscle Tension intervals, 2.25 hrs on Thursday with 40 minutes of Tempo and then a 1 hr recovery ride on Friday. Saturday is supposed to be 3.75 hrs outdoors but if I have to move it indoors I'll probably lower it to 3 or 3.25 just to save some of my sanity as I'll have to do it again on Sunday, which will probably only be 3-3.25 hrs as well. I did my weight work yesterday and felt great doing that and so far today my legs are ready to go for tonight's ride. Starting tonight I'm going to try to incorporate some more stretching on a daily basis before and after my rides and also will try to do some ab work on a daily basis which I normally avoid. I'm pretty flexible but I've been doing some reading and found some cycling-specific stretches that I'd like to try out so that's why I'm going to add more stretching to my normal routine. I still have knee issues occassionally and will try out these new stretches to see if they help alleviate some of the pain. Other than that, I'm happy to report that I have not yet gotten sick from my venture out in to the snow on Saturday, I was holding out hope that I didn't kill myself too much and weaken the immune system and it seems that I'm still 100% healthy. I've been taking Zinc and drinking lots of Green Tea since then so maybe that helped. Let's see, what else..... my weight is staying steady, still at 183 as of this morning but I can tell I've defined my muscles a bit more so I'm guessing I've lost some fat but replaced the weight with a bit more muscle. I think I can still lose about 8-9 more pounds to be at racing weight for this year which I hope will be 174-175, but we'll see, I'd be happy with 177. Well, that's it for now, until next time.......

Snow Be Damned....I Rode Anyways!

So I had a choice to make today to either test my mental toughness with 3.5 hours on the trainer or test my physical toughness by heading out on a 20 degree morning that called for snow and winds of 10 to 20 mph. So what do you think I chose? Riding outside of course!! I hate the trainer, I consider it a necessary evil and today I just thought that I'd rather fight the snow and wind than the boredom of the trainer. So I got up at 6:30, ate some pancakes with Blueberries and after letting that digest for a little bit I got all my gear together. Layer by layer I put it all on until I was sweating buckets inside the house, which meant I'd be perfect outside. I put on 3 tops plus a jacket, arm warmers, tights, leg warmers, shorts, two pairs of socks with TT booties over the shoes and neoprene winter booties over those. I also took my Camelback to keep the water warm, I hate it when my water bottles turn to slush. I headed out from New Berlin towards Mukwonago and then over to Waukesha and Big Bend before finally heading home. The first and really the only body parts to freeze during the ride were my toes in spite of the 2 pairs of socks and 2 pairs of booties. My face got a bit wind-burned but it really didn't feel all that cold. I didn't see any other bikers during the ride but saw quite a few runners, hmmmm, maybe they are hardier than bikers, at least I was out there representing us. Sooo, anyways, the grand total for today's ride was 4 hours and 1 minute, yes I was crazy enough to ride for 4 hours today in this crap!! I'm really glad now that I'm home to think that I completed my 2nd 4 hour ride already this year, like I said previously my first one didn't come until July I think last year. That's why I said 4 hours and 1 minute previously, I had to make sure I went over that 4 hour mark. All in all, I have to say that the cold definitely made the ride more difficult, I could tell that it sapped my muscle strength quite a bit as my body was trying to keep itself warm. I'm happy I did it though and now I have the rest of the day to do what I want, no worries about having to ride the trainer later. Suckers! Just kidding...seriously. Anyways, I got some great pictures when I got back of my bike because of course when snow hits metal and starts to melt in these temps it freezes pretty quickly. I also sweated right through to my jacket and by the time I got back it was frozen solid in the front, I had to pull it over my head and it actually stood on it's own. Well, tomorrow might be too cold and snowy, 16 for a high and I'm sure I'll have to test my mental toughness tomorrow instead. Until next time....

Still frozen after a couple of minutes in the house

Sweat + cold = frozen jacket standing on it's own.

Want some of this?!....riding ninja style...nice windburn!

I Like Scotch...yum, yum, yum

So I've decided I'm going to start drinking heavily, starting today, like right now...at work. If Tuesday was the day from hell, well, yesterday was the day from f***ing hell! I got stuck at work yesterday until 8:00 and by the time I got home, then ate dinner it was way to late to bike and still get to bed at a reasonable time. I was supposed to do 2 hours yesterday and 1 hour today but I'll do 2.5 hours tonight on the trainer instead to make up for missing yesterday. I'm not even going to speculate now on what I'm doing tomorrow as it's supposed to be about 25 degrees and snow is supposed to start at about 2:00. I could get up early and ride before the snow starts but it will be about 15-20 degrees in the morning so that might be too cold. Most likely I'll be stuck riding the trainer for 3 hours+ but we'll see. Sunday is out for sure as the high temp is going to be 16 degrees and some snow. We got so spoiled in December that this weather is just disappointing even though it's the norm for out winters. Can you all start driving around a little more so this global warming thing speeds up a bit! Well, that's about all I have to say for now, back to work, hopefully today is a short day and I get out of here at 5:00. Until next time.........

Arctic Air Mass??

So I look at the WeatherChannel.com tonight and it says that we have a big Arctic Air Mass hovering over us, that can't be good right? It's definitely going to be cold though but nothing unusual for Wisconsin in January, 17 for a high tomorrow and 9 for low overnight, I guess that is a little cold but it's not like it's below zero or anything. Saturday is calling for a high of 24 and some sun, so I might actually get in a ride outside but I'll definitely have to pick a sheltered route, which might mean trying Lake Geneva again. As I've mentioned previously it is sheltered with lots of trees for a good windblock, so it makes for a good route on bad days. Anyways, it's only Wednesday and still a couple of days until then so I'll just wait and see.
Sooooo, after working late yesterday and riding until late last night I didn't get much rest before I was up for work again this morning and I was pretty wiped out for most of the day. I did make it through the workday though and then did my weight workout with my friend Dave and then came home for a big plate of spaghetti. After eating dinner I got a nice second wind and was raring to go on the trainer, which you'll probably never hear me say again as I hate the trainer. Anyways, I did my scheduled ride of 1.75 hours and did 6x5minute Muscle Tension Intervals and that felt really good, no pains and I felt pretty strong. Tomorrow I'll be doing 2 hours on the trainer and I'll be doing 30 minutes of Tempo work during that time as my secondary workout. Friday I'll be doing weights and just a short 1 hour recovery paced ride on the rollers. I prefer doing the recovery rides on the rollers because I'm just going at a nice easy pace and I get to actually move around a little bit and without the need to do any secondary workout I have no need for the trainer resistance. It's great for the handling skills as well, I like to do my no-hands riding and standing up on the rollers and doing things like taking my shirt off while riding or something to build the bike skills. Not that I'd have to do that during a race, but you never know......
Well, it's obviously late and unfortunately riding late and staying up too long is becoming a habit I need to break pretty quickly....hopefully starting tomorrow, until next time..............

Lonnnnngggg Day

Today was a day from hell. Up at 4:50 a.m and off to work a bit before 6:00 and then I had to work until 7:00p.m.. Yeah, that sucks. That's what happens when the boss is off and I get to do all the work. Tomorrow morning it's back to work at 6:30, hopefully I'll be out by 5:00. Anyways, I'm keeping it short tonight and will update more tomorrow, it's bed time. Monday my knee was feeling better for the most part, it didn't hurt to much to bend it, only when it was completely straight and when I put weight on it initially to get out of a chair or something. I didn't have much pain during my weight workout Monday evening and to keep the knee loose I actually came home after lifting weights and rode for an hour just to see how it would feel. It was a scheduled rest day but I'm glad I rode anyways, just for peace of mind with the knee basically. Knowing that it was pretty much o.k. to ride on, I stuck to my scheduled workout tonight and came home after work and just ate a sandwich so that I could squeeze in 2.25 hours on the trainer. I felt great the whole time and watched Saw III that came out today, if you love gore, it's a good movie to watch. If not, then for the love of God don't watch it! Well tomorrow is weights and 1.75 hours on the trainer with Muscle Tension Intervals, more on that for tomorrow's post. I'm getting sleepy as I'm typing.....until next time.......

Disappointing Weekend

This weekend was pretty disappointing, actually probably more frustrating than disappointing but I wasn't happy either way. I was supposed to do weights on Friday after work but my boss was on vacation and I had to pick up a lot of the slack and just got hammered with requests at the end of the day and ended working late until 6:00. I was supposed to be home by 6:00 to pick up my son from his school activity but obviously that wasn't going to happen as I was still at work and hadn't even done weights yet. My wife ended up picking up my son, but she asked if I could just come home because no one had eaten dinner yet and if I did weights I wouldn't be home until 7:00 at the earliest. So anyways, I skipped weights and went home.
Saturday morning I was going to get out and do a 2.5 hour ride before my wife's grandparents 50th anniversary celebration but when I was outside cleaning up snow off the driveway I slipped on some ice and really tweaked my left knee. It bent under me and twisted in when I tried to catch my balance and hurt so much that I couldn't ride at all. I tried to test it after taking some ibuprofen and warming it up on the trainer but it just hurt too bad to pedal. I iced it, stretched quite a bit, and took ibuprofen throughout the rest of the afternoon and by the evening it was actually feeling pretty good. After the anniversary celebration we went out for a late dinner at about 8:00 with some friends and after a couple of beers with dinner there wasn't much pain at all. Today I used a hot pad on it in the morning to warm it up before jumping on the trainer in the afternoon and didn't have much problem pedaling at an easy pace but I didn't really try to push it at all. I rode on the trainer for 2.5 hours and by the time I got off the knee actually felt really good. I'll be doing weights tomorrow but I'm going to have to probably lighten the pounds a bit and maybe drop the reps if there is still any tenderness in the knee. Hopefully all will be good. Well, other than that, this is the last day of my Foundation Period in which I completed 16 weeks of just getting in some miles and doing some secondary exercises to prepare me for the Preparation Period which starts tomorrow. I am considerably stronger this year than I was last year at this time as I was only 1.5 months in to my comeback. My longest ride to this point last year was 1.5 hours and this year it is 4.25 hours so there is no question that my 2nd year back in to this should show better results in the first few races as I will be much better prepared. Well, it's late, time for bed, sorry for the lack of post for the last 3 days but it was a hectic weekend, until next time.............

OCD or Desire? A Little Of Both....

So as the clock ticks down, albeit very slowly, to my first race in April I can't help but feel that I'm not doing enough to be better than everyone else. I think part of the angst is that it's hard to come to work everyday and then only be limited to a couple of hours at the most on the trainer every night. Bike racers by nature I think have some underlying OCD, not in a manic way, but in a way that requires them to have a concrete training program, to watch what they eat, to get enough rest, to pay attention to their bike, etc.. Having never been a professional athlete in any other sport I can't say that we are worse than other athletes but from what I've seen we are pretty obsessive. I haven't been a part of any other sport where someone will buy a widget and then a week later they will buy a different widget because the new one is a whole 14 grams lighter than the other one. I know you are all smiling as you read this because you know it's true, it's what we do, we obsess over things more than is normal. I know I can't train like I used to, I have a job and family now but that underlying obsession has not changed over 10 years and I still WANT to train like I did back then. I tinker with my training program and my personal schedule almost every day, trying to make sure that I'm doing enough riding to be competitive and also enough with my family to accommodate their needs. Desire is the other part of being a racer....desire is what makes us ride in the first place, aside from the OCD that we develop once we START riding. I think desire is what makes me feel like I could be training more or that I'm falling behind even though I have no good reason to think that. I started riding again last year for those don't know and I did have some decent results; 4 top tens, a Silver in the State Crit, but I want to WIN this year and win a lot! Last year I knew I wasn't going to be good but this year with 16 months of riding under my belt I do expect to be good. I think part of my anxiety is that I just feel like I should be riding 3 hours a day now and 4-6 hours on the weekends and I can't do that. Almost everybody in my Master's category has the same issue as we all have jobs but I can't help but think that somehow they all are secretly training all day long and just telling me that they are working. That's my OCD talking...... :) So anyways, I have the desire to ride to win this year, it's just a matter of finding the time to train and to have faith that the training I'm doing is good enough, I guess I can't worry about what everyone else is doing. Although if anyone knows of a secret way to train, let me know......
Now to what I have been doing. This week is a regeneration week for me as next week I start my Preparation Period when I will be increasing my time on the bike and also I will be starting my Tempo workouts during this period. So the last few rides have been pretty easy, Tuesday I did my ride on the trainer for 1.5 hours and it was basically at endurance pace. Last night I did weights and then rode for 1 hour and did 4x5 minute Muscle Tension intervals. I love rest weeks, 1 hour seemed sooooo easy. Tonight I will be doing 1.75 hours on the trainer with a secondary exercise of Fast Pedals and tomorrow will be weights but a rest day on the bike. Saturday and Sunday will be rides of 2.5 and 2 hours respectively and that will end my Foundation Period. Well, that's it for now, until next time...........

3 Months To Go

3 months from today is the first race of the season in Madison and I'm itching to race now but will definitely benefit from the next 3 months of training before then. Yesterday I didn't quite get in the time I wanted on the trainer, as I wanted to do 4 hours but only finished 3 hours just due to time constraints around the house. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for the good of the family and forego the cycling, yesterday was one of those days and I'm sure it won't be the last one this year. So anyways, like I said, it was 3 hours of just Endurance Miles, no secondary workouts and all in all it felt really good but I was a little tired at the end because I think I'm just worn out in general. It didn't help that I had a wedding on Saturday night and consumed quite a bit of Jameson Irish Whiskey and was probably a bit dehydrated so some of it was my own fault that I was sluggish. Today I did weights after work and felt really strong doing that and actually contemplated cycling tonight just because I have quite a bit of energy right now. Unfortunately I still have some work to do around the house, namely some shoveling of the driveway and also cleaning the basement so that I have a nice work area for my bike stand. It's just stuff I have to get done so that I'm not worrying about it later. Tomorrow is going to be 1.75 hours on the trainer as I'm kind of dialing back my hours this week for a Regeneration week as I can tell I'm getting a little worn down. So basically I've cut 15 minutes to an hour off of all my rides this week, with the big cut being on Saturday when I'll only do 2.5 hours instead of what has been 3.5 to 4 hours. Next week starts my Preparation Period after resting a bit this week so my hours will go up over what I've done the last few weeks. Basically I'll keep doing Endurance rides but will introduce Tempo workouts as my secondary work during the rides and will increase the reps for the Muscle Tension workouts that I'm already doing. After a few weeks I'll then throw in Steady State Intervals as well as Power Intervals. So, basically just 5 days of shorter rides this week, but I will still be doing my secondary exercises such as Fast Pedals and Muscle Tension but will just do less of them. Well, that's enough of that boring stuff for today, until next time..........

Winter Is Back

Well, the weather here has returned to the normal Wisconsin winter that we've come to know and hate, er, I mean love. The forecast is calling for 2-4 inches of the white stuff overnight and another couple of inches tomorrow but right now there is only a trace of it on the ground and the roads are a bit wet so it's not too bad. I don't think I'll be hitting the road today though, as it's still pretty cold and probably wet enough to deter me from trying to slide around on the road bike. I'll set up the trainer today and watch some movies and football and down about 8 waterbottles as I need to recover some fluid that I lost from the wedding I was at last night. I'm scheduled for 3.5 hours today but I'm hoping that I can squeeze out 4 on the trainer as tomorrow starts a regeneration week and I'd like today to be a hard day. The last few days have been pretty good and yesterday I did manage to squeeze in a 3 hour ride before the wedding and felt really good. I'd like to get at least 7 hours in again this weekend to match last weekend's total but not sure if I'll feel good enough to get in 4 hours, especially after the drinks I had last night. I can tell I'm a bit dehydrated and probably need to drink quite a bit of water before I ride so I'll definitely be doing that this morning before hitting the trainer this afternoon. Other than that, tomorrow is a rest day on the bike and it also starts my regeneration week and the last week of my Foundation Period before I move on to the Preparation Period in 2 weeks. Well, have to keep it short today, gotta get some fluids in me and take care of some housework before I start riding. I'll update tomorrow, until next time.......