Holiday blues...

Well, I have to say this holiday is sucking big time for riding. Last Thursday was the last day I rode. It was to say a decently fast ride. My teammate Rayman unfortunately flatted again and caught up with us close to the end of the ride. Flatting sucks.
Friday was an off day and I was doing the things to get ready for the Christmas holiday celebrations. It was a good day off as I was again recovering from the night of celebrations again.
Friday and Saturday were spent with the in-laws celebrating an early Christmas as they had to depart for the actual celebration the grandparents. I can't really remember what I did these past several days as it was pretty much of a blur with parties and dinners celebrations. Oh yeah, my daughter had a birthday party at a skating rink which also got in the way of my riding. Then we had some friends over on Sunday. So....no riding the whole weekend. Monday, was of course Christmas eve and I had to run a few errands and make sure everything was ready for Christmas, wrapping and selecting presents for everyone. Christmas came and went as usual with a long day of opening presents and playing with the children and feasts. The day after Christmas, was again, filled with visits from my parents and celebration of my daughter's actual birthday. I had an open invitation to go out to ride with the noon riders, but of course I didn't go because of the commitment of being with my family. Luckily for me it rained...hehe. So the other riders bagged out as well.

Well, over this past week I caught a cold because of some snot nose kid running around in front of me and touching me, while I was watching my kids' hockey game last weekend. Geez... parents should get a clue that their kids are sick and keep them away from others. Control your kids!! They let them run wild and disturbed the hell out of many of us who were trying to enjoy our children's game. Now, I have this sinus and chest cold where I'm just hocking up greenish phlegm. I can't sleep at night because I'm coughing all of the time. I take tons of NyQuil, however, it typically doesn't work for long and sometimes it doesn't work quickly enough. The good thing is that I don't have a big headache nor do I have a bad sore throat. It came as a minor sore throat but that went away quickly. The chest congestion and cough are the worst and it's been about 3 days of that.
Tomorrow, I leave for the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, then to Park City, UT to do some skiing. Hopefully, my cold won't get worse with the flying I do. Unfortunately, my children also have this cold and are either on the same time schedule or a day later, so they are also suffering.
So far, this holiday has sucked for riding, I haven't received any cycling gifts, my heart rate monitor/speedometer broke, and I am sick.
I hope the next week is better. I won't be on a bike, however, skiing should be fun as I haven't been out West for sometime. The partying this year has been almost too much and my body is suffering with all of the alcohol consumption. Well, the good thing is that it is early in the season and I still have lots of time to train. The biggest challenge will be to get back on the bike and not hurt or be dropped by everyone. My previous winters have always been totally off of the bike and it's always hard getting back into shape in the spring.
So I look forward to the new year! Happy 2008 everyone!
Here's to a happy, healthy, prosperous and full of cycling 2008!

Ripping your legs off in the off season.

For some reason, the off season is no longer the off season...
I finished putting on my new tire from yesterday's weird blowout, just in time for the 12:30 noon ride. A few people had emailed saying they would not be coming. James emailed saying he would be doing some tempo workout. What "tempo" meant to him was probably different to me. Again, my training vocabulary is limited... So what I thought tempo was, a medium speed ride. Now that I got home and looked it up on the internet: Tempo target defined by Polar HR is when you're at 70-80% of max hr and is good for improving cardiovascular fitness. Another website: http://www.endurancefactor.com/article-zone.htm noted that it was 90% of your Lactate Threshold. I think James was focusing on the second.
I had done an early morning leg workout of squats, leg press, leg extensions and leg curls with a little bit of stomach and back workouts too. I'm beginning to think these aren't going to help me because I'm probably not doing the right thing as I need to build endurance and not really strength. Strength, I believe I have already. Remember, I'm a sprinter, so I can power the pedals and gears pretty hard. It's up the long hills that I have a problem with as well as keeping up with the break away and doing my share of the work. I'll have to re-evaluate my weight training program (it's not that structured yet).
Anyway, thinking that this would be a regular paced noon ride, it started out at a quick pace with James leading the way. Well it stayed that way and soon the usual suspects (Ad, Paul and Steve) started picking up the pace. We were also joined by Adrian and his brother Shawn and the rest of their contingent. By Kentsdale Drive, the pace up the hill was decently fast. I even took a pull for a bit, thought I quickly tired. Ad, Paul, Steve, James all blew by me and I started to scramble for the last bit of draft I could muster. Shawn and Adrian were there as well so I knew if I fell back I would still have some help. Well it continued hard, I seemed to hover around 175-180 beats/s on my HR monitor. I think that's definitely in the range of my lactic acid threshold. I really don't know where my max HR is. During a sprint I think I can get it to max somewhere around 204 b/m. I've seen it higher, but it's probably a fluke. Anyway, we continued hard through Potomac and back down MacArthur then down on Clara Barton Parkway. I couldn't believe it, there was James, Ad and Paul pushing the pace. I was struggling to do my work pulling through and a few times I just couldn't muster the power to do so. Anyway, I was pretty much toast at the end of Clara Barton. Ever since the last rainy ride and I screwed my seat height, I haven't felt that I've been in the proper form anymore. I don't know whether it is the weight training I've started or the positioning on the bike or because I've caught a cold or simply too much partying. It could be a combination of all of them, however I got my legs ripped apart today by the usual riders and it wasn't even a hill ride day either.
Either way, I guess it's good to feel depleted sometimes. One thing is for sure, James is an animal, plus as I wrote before, he's one of the guys who still rides the 32/36 spoke wheels with a Cromoly frame and no carbon on that bike. He's proof that you can still race with the older stuff and not the fancy tricked out bikes.

Monday's ride and riding frugally.

Well, I was going to write about things to do to keep racing/riding inexpensively, however after my shortened ride today, I am finding that I have to go out to The Bicycle Place to buy a new tire and chain. During the noon ride, I ran over something which slashed my sidewall of my brand new Michelin Pro Race 2 tire which I had just put on a couple of days ago. Well, that's what I get for removing a perfectly worn, all most 2 year old tire, with barely enough rubber to cover the internal thread casing . It always seems to me that when you change something that's when the problems start. Well, C'est la Vie. Today's ride started off briskly then George told me that someone was chasing us to try to join us. I realized it was my teammate Ray and waited up for him so I could pull him back to the group. Unfortunately, I think he was pretty much burned up chasing us for a while already as he was on my back wheel till we got to the mid point in the climb up Kentsdale, where he apparently dropped off. It was a very windy and cold day. I didn't notice till I was about all of the way up the hill and decided that I couldn't wait for him as everyone else was still moving at a good pace through the neighborhood and I didn't want to be left behind. Unfortunately on Persimmon Tree, I was following one of the other riders and rode over something which blew my tire and I pulled over to the side to repair it. I knew it was a bad blowout as when it blew it blew up with a loud bang and it immediately went flat. Ray came riding up to me about a minute later and watched me change my inner tube. I hate working with brand new tires. They are a bitch to seat properly as they are so tight. I finally got it repaired and we went hammering back to see if we could meet the group on MacArthur. We did and rode back with a few attacks along the way. It was a short ride and I barely got my heart rate up. Oh well, that's what I get for flatting . It seems like when you flat once you flat often. The little flat bug keeps coming after you. Chalk up another reason not to ride on wet days. Flats happen often. This last week there must have been about 4 to 5 guys who each had flats on the rides. I was lucky enough that before I started one day, I had found that I had a flat already and not during the ride like today.

A couple of tips for keeping cycling inexpensive:

1. Stock up on tires when you can get them cheaply, this also applies for Gels, powerbars, etc.
2. Change your chain often. I do it about every few months or about 1,500 miles. This way you won't have to buy a new cassette every time you ride your chain to oblivion. Cassettes are a lot more expensive than chains.
3. If you cross train or have other sports which you can use the clothing for cycling that will keep expenses down. I use many of my ski stuff like cross country/spring gloves for riding as well. Base under clothing is something you can always swap.
4. Buy used (I know this doesn't help my sponsor.... however it's a way I've found out I could keep my wishes coming true) I've picked up my bike for 1/4 of the price of new. I also picked up some carbon tubulars for dirt cheap. Many of your fellow riders/racers are simply tired of their older equipment and will be willing to part with it cheaply. There are also many weekend warriors who have the bucks and continue to want the newest toys or simply quit because it's hurts after they ride because they don't ride consistently.
5. Get with a team who is sponsored by a bike shop and provides additional discounts.
6. Learn how to perform many of the basic services of maintaining a bike. (Cleaning, changing chains, lubing, changing brake and shifting cables, and more) You'll have to invest in some tools in the beginning however you should be able to continue to use them for years to come.
7. Pre-register for your races (if you follow a schedule and are dedicated to race) and join a team so you don't pay for the unattached fees. If you are like I was this past year, then don't pre-register and register race day. Many times if you pre register way ahead of time and it's going to be a miserable day with rain, you won't get refunded if you decide not to go. I avoided a few races because of the rain and luckily I didn't pre-register.
8. Make sure you glide your fingers over your tires(clean the debris) when you feel that you may have ridden over some glass or sand/dirt/debris.
9. Buy quality tires/tubes which you've had good experience with. I tried some really thin tubes a while ago and found that I always had problems with tire pinches or punctures. The thin lighter tubes were also more expensive. I recommend the Michelin Pro Race 2 tires for clinchers and the Continental Competition tubulars (the latter, I'm still trying to figure out whether they are worth it or not). I only buy them on the internet when I see a good deal as I can't find a local shop who stocks them .
10. eBay is great when looking for specific deals.
11. You don't need all of the fancy stuff to win. Some of the strongest riders still ride with 32/36 spoke wheels and steel/cromoly frames. Yeah it would be nice to have a separate time trial bike, however that will easily set you back another $5K-$10K.

Rainy or wet road days suck.

I've said this many times before. Rainy days or wet roads days suck! I have to be constantly reminded why I hate riding on wet roads. Luckily for me yesterday and today I didn't ride because of other family commitments.

Here are good reasons why not to ride when it's wet:

1. I hate cleaning the bike afterwards. You have to take the seat post out to drain the water which has collected in the seat tube/downtube and bottom bracket area. You have to take out the stem from the headset and drain that too. If you don't you will find out that you will have nasty grime inside the tubes/headset. One big negative on removing everything is that you have to put it back at the same location as before otherwise you risk screwing your positioning. I did that a couple of weeks ago and my body feels like it's out of shape as my seat position was too high, so I used muscles I wasn't used to using. Bad move! Back on to cleaning. I have to break my chain and soak the chain in a cleaning solution, I also have to take apart the cassette and soak those too. Water also gets into the rims of my clincher wheels, so I have to unseat the tire and dry the innards of the wheels and tires.
   Other cleaning stuff...wipe down all parts on the bike and clean the rear derailleurs pulleys. All of this takes time an I typically have to do it in the basement. Of course I get the usual complaints from my wife about bringing the bike inside of the house and the smells of the cleaners.
   
2. Riding in the rain is dangerous. I've crashed a couple of times in the rain on training rides typically because I break too hard and the front wheel slides out on a turn. I'm usually going too fast.
3. On cold days... it just makes it feel so much colder and makes you feel miserable.
   
4. There's nothing like the stink of waterlogged shoes which don't dry quickly enough.
   
5. Training on these days, you just don't get the same workout as the effort usually is not as high.
   
6. Road grit gets splashed on you from the rider in front. I hate getting that gritty feeling in your teeth. Even worse... if you wear contacts like I do, that grit can really irritate your eyes and make you feel like you've put sand in your eyes.

Of course if you don't ride on those days, you lose a day of riding, unless you have a trainer or rollers or have a gym to do spinning workouts.

See you out there on a dry day! I feel a bit bloated from the last couple of days of heavy partying and no riding.

Next topic: Trying to keep riding and racing inexpensive.

Finally a blog about what not to do.

Well, I finally broke down and am starting a blog. What you will find here are prime examples of how not to train as you will find out that everything gets in the way of a serious training program. Bicycle racing is one of those sports you need to be dedicated at to succeed. Training, diet habits, sleeping, resting are all things I do wrong so don't follow me. The only thing going for me is my genetic make-up.

The holidays are coming up and the one thing I find common every year is that I am attending lots of parties and drinking and eating all kinds of stuff you probably have been told by your coaches or by your cycling buddies to stay away from. Let's see... Wednesday night I went out with an old colleague which I hadn't seen for a while and we had many beers and Grey Goose&Sodas. As you will find out... I have love for the good life. I ended up getting home at a decently early time about 10:30 and stayed up till about 11:30 watching TV with the wife. I drank a lot of water before bed. This is a definite recommended habit if you drink any alcohol as your body needs to rehydrate itself as alcohol will dehydrate it.

Thursday morning, I definitely felt the effects of the night before. I was running slower than usual and had that foggy feeling in the head. Thursday was a wet day.. so no training for me. I have some old cheap Performance Bicycles rollers (You know the magnetic ones, which make a god awful racket) in the basement. Thursday night, we went to a Christmas party in the neighborhood, drank several glasses of Cabernet, then went home.

Friday morning I felt fine. I was motivated by Nick's blog about his weight workout, so I decided to go to the gym and start up my strength training program. As I have no coach for training, I wanted to see what some others do. I haven't been in a gym since my college days since I've stepped into a gym. You know the only reason I went to a gym was... to chat with the really fit females at the gym and look good for them. In those days I was about 170 lbs and now I'm about 150 lbs. You let yourself go after you get married. Well, not really. I just readjusted where the weight went. I got into bicycle racing several years after college. I found out it matched my athletic abilities well. I was a competitive club skier as well and cross training by cycling was good.

I acquired my first racing bike (My first 10 speed (14 sp) ever! I was a virgin!) during that time, as I worked at part time ski shop and one of the ski vendor reps was also a rep for Miele Bikes. (a Italian Name but it was Canadian) . I don't think they make racing bikes anymore. I got a Bright Orange speckled Columbus SL tube frameset with Shimano 600 groupo. My buddy at the ski shop also raced so he advised me on the type of bike I got and fit the bike for me. It apparently was a great deal and I started riding to the shop and that started me into racing. Who knew it would stick? I placed very well in the CAT4 races right off (in those days there was no CAT 5 category). I even won a couple... One was after a late night drinking binge with buddies and when I was introduced to my future wife. I loved Greenbelt, Westgate and the Bowie training races. Ah... the days of trying to out sprint Dave Osborne (aka: Sandbagger), Ding Dong.... yep, I guess I'm still trying to do that and probably will for the rest of my racing years. Plus these days, we have other young bucks who we have to gun for.

Well enough of the past... I'm sore as crap from my first day of working out with weights. No not like Nick's heavier weights and more reps...I did my own workout of basically increasing my weight from 135 lbs to about 175lbs and for 10 sets for squats (1 to 1 1/2 min of between sets) Then I did a few sets of leg lifts for working out on my core. I moved on to the leg press. Again not as much weight as Nick but about 10 sets getting up to 220lbs. My legs were now swelled up and trembling. I could barely walk. On to the leg curl machine. I did that a few sets and left.
At noon, there was the usual suspects on Thrasher's ride. I emailed them earlier that I just did a bunch of weight work and probably wouldn't be riding hard. Well what do you know. They just took advantage of that and rode hard. I basically just tried to stay up with everyone and it was a good workout. I definitely felt out of power. A few attacked at the end of the ride and I just let them go and didn't really care. The ride loosened up my legs a bit and I started feeling really sore later that afternoon. In the evening my wife and I went over to some friends and had a couple of margaritas and a couple glasses of wine and Pizza.

Saturday... I got up about 8:30am.. pretty late :) because of my commitment to the family. So no early DC Velo ride or the N2 Ride. We were going to spend all morning decorating cookies for the Christmas tree. This was our first weekend day without a morning hockey game for the kids. The afternoon would be booked for Hockey. Then another party at night. No riding today.

Sunday...ugh... The party was too much fun, however I'm paying for it today. We had a morning booked full for hockey. I felt sorry for the kids playing hockey as it was raining and they play on an outdoor rink with no roof. They probably felt like I did a couple of weekends ago when it rained and I rode and was miserable and cold. I found out from my son, that his feet were cold and wet, however they were not cold because they were constantly hustling. The other team apparently didn't show because of the weather, so my son's team got a chance to have a really good practice and scrimmage. I need to take a nap, but my daughter has a birthday celebration I have to coordinate. Again no riding for me, however these last couple of days are good for recovery as my legs still hurt.