long work days

Date: Wenesday, February 25^th, 2009

Workout: 45 minutes at 138-160 (scheduled to do 1.15)

My legs felt: tired. Same with my brain.

Food: don’t remember

Sleep: fine

What I learned today: After working 9am to 8:30pm, I was totally fried. After hopping on the bike to give the workout a shot, I knew it was going to be difficult. My legs were a bit tired, but my brain was totally out of it. After half an hour of trying I spun for 15 minutes, did my core workout and went right to bed. The blankets closed over me in tandem with my eyes.

Thursday, February 26^th, 2009

REST DAY! It was a day to hydrate and eat. And boy did I eat.

"When you are the anvil, sit...

and when you are the hammer, strike."

The origin of this phrase is unknown to me, but I was originally told this by Robert Visina, a retired domestic pro who was wrenching at my last shop while he was going back to school. It's pretty simple to understand, but some people think they need to be heroes even when they don't have it.

Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Ride time: 50 minutes at 145.
100 situps, some pilates core work, and stretching the legs. particulary the hips.

Not a bad day at all. Legs felt fine, lungs felt fine, body felt maybe a bit dehydrated. Oh, and I bought a car. It's a 2006 Toyota Matrix with 50k miles on it. This is the bicycle privateer's race vehicle if I've ever seen one.

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009.
ride time: 2hr15 @ 155 BPM.
stretching, snacking, stretching.

Today I was the hammer. At 1hr 30 I was ready to go with the break. At 1hr 55 I was ready for my leadout. Now, I know I'm not supposed to get my HR up high at this point in the season, but I had it in me to thrown down a killer attack. So I saved it for race day.

Hammer Heed Perpetuem and a chocolate Powerbar were on the menu. The Hammer Heed is a winner, the Powerbar... not so much. The energy was good, but I almost puked from the flavor. It was just way too rich for this stomach.

Speaking of this stomach, today reminded me of a ride on which I was the anvil. Tuscon, 2006, with the U of M cycling team. I had a smoothie on our way out of town and it did not sit well. I was pulling on what I later learned to be a false flat, abolutely destroying myself when the smoothie decided it had had enough of me.

Smoothie on the road, maybe a little bit on Mikey, maybe a bit on Billy. Coach said to shut up, sit in and don't be a hero if you're feelin like shit. So I did, and I started to feel better. Then a bee flew into my mouth going back into town and stung me under the tongue. Screech pulled out the stinger and the adrenaline carried me back into town and I even won a line sprint.

What does one do when he or she pulls up to the start line and feels like the anvil?

kind of a bad day

So I live in my parents basement. This is nice because I don't pay rent or for food. This is shitty because when I'm trying to just ride and watch the TOC they asks a million questions and when I gasp out the answer, they say "what?"

Ride time: 1 hour (was supposed to be 1:15 but I gave up when they wouldn't stop asking me what was going on, who was where, how's Lance, who's Levi? who's this Schleck guy? oh, George Hincapie is really good, isn't he on Lance's team? why is he beating Lance?) @ 159 BPM.

At one hour my HR wouldn't stay in one place no matter what I did. This morning my sinuses were a little stuffed up, so when my HR was being wonky I called it a day.

Anyway, it was a good finish in today's stage of the ATOC. After tomorrow (rest day) it's back to the pain cave so I can ride, uninterrupted.

ITT thoughts

Friday, February 20th 2009:
ride time: 2 hours at 145 BPM plus a cadence workout.
100 sit-ups (all at once!) and nice stretching.
food: wheaties, milk, PBJ sammitch, coffee, banana, clementine, Clif Shot Recovery in Best Flavor Ever.

Legs felt fine; hammered out 2 hours and still felt good. Watching Levi destroy the TT helped, as did watching one of my TT favorites, Dave Zabriskie.

mustache + "DZ Nutz" chamois cream + argyle team kit + way fast = Awexome.

I wonder what would have happened had Cancellara been present.

recovery days, ATOC

Thursday, February 19th, 2009
REST DAY!

TOUR DAY CALIFORNIA:

All I can say is Boonen looked "le pissed." Also, please note the Cavendish "suck it" victory salute.

Armstrong on Cavendish; "kid's fast."


I know I'll never be that fast, but I would not mind being half that fast.

pain cave

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Ride time: 1 hour at 145bpm (I was scheduled to ride 1:15 but was late for work. I rode to work and back twice today, so I guess it isn't as bad?)

100 sit-ups, stretching.

food:bagel, cream cheese, coffee, a veggie wrap, and some Clif Shot recovery right after my ride. I got a good night of sleep last night, despite having to get up earlier than normal.

So I live in the basement; My bedroom is there. I train in the 2nd basement, and I play nerdy video games online in the basement. Lance trains in his basement; in a dark room with lots of speakers to make it noisy and scary and God knows why. I quit watching videos during my training rides and started just listening to music in the basement. I watch the time less and less, and now when I get to my target HR I just ride and listen to music in the basement. It's much more meditative and mentally easier. Conversely, I have to watch my HR more closely, because my imagination gets into picturing race courses I'll be riding this year, and it makes my HR jump significantly. Gehling called the basement the pain cave, which is occasionally accurate.

Living in the basement is improving my crazy to weight ratio (Gehling has a good rage to weight ratio). We were talking ratios the other day, like the oft-discussed strength:weight, and I came up with one that's actually useful: gear-inch range to body mass index. More useful ratios to come.

Does anybody use The Stick? I have in the past and am thinking of getting one.

a party, rest days, and back at it.

Saturday February 14th:
I was supposed to ride 2 hours at 138-160, but instead visited my grandfather in Antigo, WI for his 85th birthday party. It was totally worth it and I had a blast. I saw a cousin who I haven't seen in three years or so, and my grandfather is one of my favorite people in the world.

Sunday was a scheduled rest day. Oh, unless your name was Fabian Cancellara, then it was GO TIME!

Monday I had a LONG day at work, but the 45 minutes at 138-160 BPM felt good. I stretched and did 100 sit-ups. Something is happening with my stomach that has never happened before: it's looking toned.

Tuesday, Fabruary 17th:
2 hours at 145 avg. and a high-cadence workout.
My legs felt good, my head was in it, and I stayed hydrated.

Food: french toast, American fries (yeah, I know, I know), coffee, Penne Rose with Feta, Oatmeal squares, chocolate soy milk. Tons of water.



I had a health screening for my insurance today and didn't realize they were going to draw blood. For those of you who wonder about blood donation and cycling: read this article. Now if I could find out if my planned tatto will give me any problems.



Regarding ATOC stage 3: WTF happened with Cav and Gorgeous George? For as good of a job as Cervelo did of leading out Thor, High-Road did an equally poor job.



I'm ordering Avid Matchmakers for my Procaliber. If it were possible, I'd get a G2 SID WC with pop-lock. If one exists, I know where to look.

professional-caliber bikes for professional-caliber riders

Friday, February 13, 2009.
Ride time: 2 hours (scheduled 1.5 on the trainer, BUT I RODE OUTSIDE) at 150 BPM.
100 sit-ups (I can almost do all 100 in one go) and stretching.

It was chilly, and I wore gloves that were too light, but it felt great to get out on the Procaliber. I dig it. This bike is fast and I am already learning a lot about suspension tuning.

I found that riding outdoors was way easier than riding the trainer. I guess that momentum plays into that. Maintaining 150 BPM for two hours wasn't very hard when I was actually going somewhere.

Other than riding, I've been feeling pretty good. Mentally, I've had a few really hard days in the last few weeks, but I've been sleeping better and on a more regular schedule. I started wearing running shoes at work instead of flat Vans slip-ons and my hamstrings feel better after a day of walking around.

Tomorrow it's off to The Bear's house (my grandfather) for his 86th birthday. WOOT! Antigo, here I come.

a recovery week is a hard week for the brain

So riding this week wasn't too intense:
Monday: 45 minutes at 150 BPM and 100 sit-ups with stretching
Tuesday: 1 hour at 150 bpm and stretching.
Wednesday: REST DAY! I had a beer.
Thursday: Rest day! no beer, but video games and a haircut.

But I've been thinking seriously about a few things:
1. Conditions don't matter.
-For a long time I've let the weather set my mentality for a race, which is bad. World Cup DH racer Sam Hill taught me that course conditions don't matter. He got 2nd in Champery after half of the field ran the course on dry conditions and he raced it in a downpour.
If he can kill it when he's on worse conditions than others, I have no excuse for my performance when we're all on the same course conditions. Granted, I don't respond well to cold weather, but I have some ideas for working on that. Longer, slower warmups and better clothing layers.

Also, I need to play to my strengths. I enjoy training on the MTB more than on the road, so I'm going to up the percentage of my training I do offroad. The rigid Superfly was fun, but I'd feel pretty beaten up after two laps. I've gotten my handling back to where it once was, so I'm switching to a Gary Fisher Procaliber. The suspension will help me descend and I'll get better traction on climbs, which is where I am hoping to kill it this year.

no sweat

Saturday, February 7th
ride time: 1 hr 15 @ 145 bpm
stretching.

I'm not riding with plain water ever again. The difference between it and accelerade or something similar is too great to ignore.

On sleep: I've been sleeping much better thanks to both the obvious effects of, and the white noise of a humidifier. I've also started reading a bit before bed and I think it helps my mind calm down a bit. And calming down is something I don't do much.

not easy, just less hard

Thursday was a rest day, and I needed it. I threw my legs up and played video games all day. I ate lots of healthy tasty food, and drank a ton of water and massaged my sore legs.

Friday was scheduled to be harder than Tuesday (and Tuesday didn't go well).
Ride time: 2 hours at 138-160bpm and a cadence exercise.
My legs felt better than they had on Tuesday, and I made it to about the 1hr 15 mark without feeling sore or tired. My joints felt better than they had previously. Then at the 1hr 30 mark I did 5 sets of 1-minute high-cadence spinups with 2 minutes of rest in between. After the first two I remembered that I can really ramp it up when I focus. My pedal stroke is not where it was last year at this time, but these workouts will help. After the last one my legs were pretty tired, so I spun it out the last 15 minutes.

100 sit-ups and some good stretching.

Immediately following my workout I had some Clif Shot recovery (french vanilla, which tastes delicious to me) while I was stretching and doing sit-ups. I also had accelerade in my bottles during the workout instead of just water, so I felt way better than on Tuesday.

It wasn't an easy workout, I was just smarter about it this time so it was less hard. The biggest difference this time was that there was no doubt in my mind that I could do it.

a less hard day

Ride time: 1hr 10 minutes (15 short of the scheduled ride time) @ 145 bpm.
Stretching, 100 sit-ups.
Legs felt tired, but not completely fried.
Food: oatmeal, coffee, PBJ on whole wheat, V8 and Clif Shot recovery drink. And LOTS of water.


My legs were pretty smoked from yesterday, I have to admit. I was able to warm up for ten minutes, do a short, high-cadence burst in my easiest gear and settle in for about an hour at 145 BPM.

It was hard to find a good cadence/gear combination that put me in the HR range I wanted. I was either just below 138, or at 155, which I couldn't sustain with legs like the ones I had today. At one hour ten, I called it quits. My legs were simply done.


A bit more about yesterday: I got home and went to bed at 10 sharp. I turned on a humidifier for some white noise and slept until 8 this morning and felt much better. My legs weren't nearly as sore as they had been yesterday, but I could tell right away this morning that there wasn't much in them.

Hard day

ride time: 2 hours @ 145 BPM.
stretching.
Food: chicken pesto sandwich, pasta salad, yogurt with oat squares, apple, V8, FRS chews, and tons of water. I drank a ton of it today.

Legs felt fine, until 1h30 when I started to feel like the ride was wearing me out. By 1h50 I was aching. I don't mean I was feeling the burn, but that I was aching. My joints ached, which was odd, so I just spun it out easily for the last ten minutes.

I don't think I'm getting a cold. Usually my sinuses are the first alarm, and they're fine right now. With a lot of stretching my aching went away. I guess I just haven't pushed that hard in a few months, so maybe I wasn't good at reading my body.

Perhaps it was that I was riding in the morning, which I am notoriously bad at. Waking up at 8:30 and riding from 10 to 12 was not fun. I think I need to get up and move my body a bit more before I try going hard. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I also dove into the workout with no warmup, which might have contributed.

On second thought: I've NEVER ridden for more than 1.5 hours on a trainer. ever. Maybe I just don't know what my body does in that situation. Oh, well, stretching helped and I learned some things:
don't ride within one hour of waking up. Always warm up. drink more while on the trainer, and eat more while on the trainer.

My training plan says that if I ride outside I should increase my ride time by 33%, so maybe this means that riding 2 hours on a trainer is like riding 2.666 hours outdoors, which is an okay ride, especially at a high pace. Also, I pedal the entire time I'm on the trainer, and the road usually has a few spots to just cruise.

Today was hard, but this season is about one thing: Hardening the fuck up.

It's on.

My training program started today, so from now on my posts will be a little more formulaic.

Ride time: 45 minutes @ 145 BPM
100 sit-ups and stretching.
Legs felt: good.
Food: Coffee, Sweet Potato, ravioli, wheat thins, Carrot and Mango juice, and lots of water. omelet with veggies.
Mind felt: good.
Sleep last night night: 7.5 hours. I slept fine, but waking up was rough. I felt tired for a few hours before I finally got going. Maybe I need to try to go back to 9 hours of sleep.

A weekend floating on water.

January 31st, and Feb 1st, 2009

This weekend was a break for me. My actual training program from Whale starts Monday the 2nd, so I took the opportunity to go with my family to an indoor water park in Wausau. It was a pretty good time, and I chased my nephew Elliot around a bunch and splashed in the lazy river. The water creates some serious resistance training, and I think swimming might be a fun cross-training method.

I did eat fairly well this weekend, though:
Caesar salad with grilled chicken, turkey sandwich (two of them) carrots, lettuce, tomato, cappuccino, ice cream, and TONS of water. Swimming really dehydrated me and I didn’t pick up on it right away.

In the car-search area, there are a few models I’d like to test-drive: the Toyota Yaris, VW Rabbit (or Golf, same difference), Subaru Forester, Honda Fit, or Saturn Astra. Can you sense the theme?