fortunate timing of a recovery week

I had a low training load week, which was good. I had a high-workload week at my job. I was tired and busy. Although my sleep pattern has been steady, I've felt tired. Perhaps the quality of sleep I've been getting is low. The last few days I've tried stretching and relaxing for at least half an hour before bed. So far it's been helping.

I can't wait to get outside and ride. New music has helped on the trainer, but I think I need to bundle up and do some riding once the temp gets over 30.

the squirrels have gotten into my head

This update will be brief, and focused on clear evidence of how my fitness has been coming along.

Cardiac drift over a time of 1.5 hours has decreased drastically in the last few weeks. This means my base is where it should be.

Top-end, short-duration wattage has dropped, and mid-line, middle-time wattage has gone up. I'm a time trialist, not a sprinter, so this is also good news.

Flexibility has increased. I can, for the first time in my life, see abdominal muscles. This is hilarious, in some ways. Mostly because I'm not trying to get a six-pack, but a strong core. This is all due to greater time spent stretching and training my core.

Weight has been steady at 156, which is where I was at the low-point of last Summer. If I can, I'm going for 150, but that is a pretty low-priority goal.

I've added some more protein to my diet. Dr. Maria Stewart noticed my diet was lacking, which I missed.

I ordered my road bike last week, though it won't be here for a while, and I'm planning on doing my first spring rides on my CX bike. I also have a singlespeed 29er I'm excited to train on. I think it will help with braking efficiency and building some core strength.

my knees, a freeze, and poppin' wheelies

I put some Ultegra pedals on my CX bike for trainer use. Immediately my lateral right knee started freaking out. Brought the seat up 5mm and my knee really started tweaking. Dropped it back down and continued my workout. Saturday my knee felt sore, so I took the day off the bike. I'm going to take a look at the cleats today (Sunday) and perhaps reconsider the saddle fore-aft. Dang.

Riding outside when the temperature is below 30 degrees isn't an option for me; While living in the Mpls/StP. I developed some nice frostbite damage in my hands. I miss riding outside. Even just the commute to work would be nice, but numb hands and shooting pain after 15 minutes in the cold is a poor choice.

There's a nice new challenge at the shop: whoever commutes by bike the highest percentage of days worked between March 1st and September 30th gets $500 in store credit. I know Geo is the master of that, but I think I could give him a run for his money, as it were. I think it's time to pop a wheelie.

Oh, did I mention I now own a GF Rig?

Friday 2-11-10

Thursday, Feb. 11th

Breakfast: Wheaties, OJ, Americano

Lunch: Spaghetti, carrot, apple, plum

Dinner: Salad with feta, calamata olives, tomatoes, cucumber

Workout: 1 hour at tempo

Feelin good on the bike. Been doing more stretching and more core. Also, the diet is on track to drop some weight. Lighter dinners, no snacks after dinner.

Friday, Feb. 12th

Breakfast: cinnamon scone and black coffee. Water.

Lunch: spaghetti, pica de gallo, chips.

dinner: pretzels, spinach, Capital Island Wheat.

Workout: 1.5 hours zone 2. 2x 20-minute at zone 3.

I had a long, difficult day at work and pretty much buried myself in this workout. My legs are tired, and I went a little harder than I should have at some points. The legs were shot with about ten to go, so I cut it short and spun it out.

My focus wasn't there, but the ride really helped quiet my brain. I foresee a good nights sleep.

Tuesday 02/09

Breakfast: Oatmeal, coffee, OJ, apple.

Lunch: PBJ, carrots, broccoli, water.

Ride: 1 hr at tempo with 30 second accelerations every ten minutes.

stretching, crunches, some yoga thing that works my back and abs.

Weight: 160.

Sleep: Good. 8 to 9 hours, nightly.

Nutrition has been really good lately. Just gotta dial back the volume a bit and start losing the weight the right way. Previous weight loss was just water weight.

I really need to go ride somewhere warm.

Dietary habits of a fat fat fatty

I used to eat like shit.

Now I don't.

While I wasn't a literal fatty, I definitely wasn't fueling my body with the best gas to get me to the finish line. It took about two months of serious discipline to break the habit. Now I can safely say that I'm not a fat fat fatty. The test? Friday I had a cheeseburger from Culvers and felt slow and sick and gross for the rest of the evening. Saturday I had a huge salad with cottage cheese, spinach, carrots, broccoli, etc. It felt good. It felt normal. I believe this the establishment of a habit.

A normal day of food looks something like this:

On a medium-volume training day: For breakfast: oatmeal or wheaties AND apple, banana, or plum. If it's a long training day I'll have some scrambled eggs with cheese and toast.

For lunch: plain pasta of some sort and yogurt, and at least one entire fruit (oranges, lately) and two kinds of veggie, usually raw.

Dinner: a large salad with just a bit of protein. Maybe cottage cheese or legumes.

This is all still very strange to me.

More product plugs

Today I'd like to talk about why I use the products I use. My only sponsor (and an unofficial one at that) is my employer, Trek Bicycle Corporation.

Regardless, they do make amazingly well thought-out saddles: The Bontrager inForm. I ride a medium RXL on the road,and a large RL offroad. The lighter foam density on the RL is better for bumpy dirt rides. Now, this is a road-rated saddle, and has some fangs on the back, so it's not ideally suited for off-road use. However, there is a mountain bike version on the way that I've been testing for a few months, and it is the most comfortable MTB saddle I've ever ridden. Hands down.

For pedals, I ride Shimano XTR. They're not the lightest, but I can bash them on rocks all I want and they don't break. I actually chipped a football-sized rock while knocking it out of the ground and the pedal remained intact. I spent some time in the air, and then some in the brush, but the pedals were just fine. If the pedals were the unstoppable force, I would say the rock reconsidered its role as the immovable object.

My drivetrain consists of a Shimano XTR crank, cassette, and front derailleur, SRAM X.O shifters and rear derailleur, and SRAM PC-991 chain. Coincidentally, the Fisher Procaliber had my ideal drivetrain setup when I was shopping. This was before XX came out, and before Top Fuel 9.9s came stock with the compact 20-speed option.

I use Fox suspension because it's smooth, stiff, and light enough. I also like the tuning and Propedal features. My Procal has a 32 RLC up front, with an RP23 in back. Depending on the course I'll use the different propedal settings. Learn your suspension: it makes a difference.

I'm mentioned two contact points, but the remaining two are the two about which I am the most particular: the grips, and where the bike contacts the ground.

For grips: I love ESI chunkies. They're light, comfy, and fairly durable. And they have a lot of grip, which is good when the name of a product is a quality it is supposed to have.

And tires: tires are a talk for another day.