Quick Plug for my Sponsor and for Polar.

Well, I have to say thank you to The Bicycle Place for their help on getting my Polar CS200 CAD computer repaired/replaced. Several weeks back my Polar CS200 was not working properly and I couldn't start or reset the computer properly. I believe that one of the buttons on it was broken. I brought it back to The Bicycle Place in Silver Spring, on Grubb Road and they contacted Polar and sent it back for me. Yesterday I received a call from the shop and they told me that they had received a replacement for me. I asked them how much it cost and they said it was under warranty! On Polar's website they recommended a $75 repair cost to include with return. I have to say that Polar definitely stands behind their products and thank The Bicycle Place for helping on my behalf.
I have it mounted back on my bike after I cleaned the bike from my wet ride yesterday. I really have to say that I did miss having the ability to see what my heart rate is while I ride and to be able to track my on going statistics online. I only wonder what a power meter would be able to do for me. Well, not if I have to spend over 1,000 bucks for one. Anyway, I'd recommend that anyone who is looking for a decent cyclocomputer with HR to take a look at the Polar CS200 CAD (for cadence) or 400 or 600.
My old Cateye Wireless computer still worked great in a pinch, however I did miss the HR monitor and the Cadence monitor. (interesting new device by Cateye which makes Cadence and speed wireless and it can be mounted on the rear so that you can use your bike on the trainer:

If you're in the market for a new bike, accessories, service or just want to chat, go by The Bycycle Place or join the 8:30am Sunday ride. Ask for Mike, the owner, Pepper, a great mechanic, or ask for Greg who works up front. They are all good people.

It must be an addiction...

Stop! I did it again! I got wrangled into riding in the rain again! Why do I do that? It must be an addiction.  Stupididty.

It happened again. An email came out pointing to http/www.wunderground.com.  They remarked about how it wasn't raining and it looked okay.  Another said that they would be there.  And another.  I didn't respond knowing that I would be part of the problem if I did and it rained.   I walked outside and low and behold, I saw raindrops on the sidewalk.   I walked around looking for additional drops, however nothing really showed up.  So I got out my bike and started to ride to the daily spot.  Right after I mounted the bike, I felt moisture.  Was it a raindrop? or not? Well, several yards on the road, I felt another one and then another one.  It was very sporadic and light, so I continued on.  The road was damp, however, not enough to make a real mess.  I got to the meeting place and swore that I would turn around if it rained harder.  It didn't start till we were now on our way towards Seven Locks Road and Bradley Blvd.  I thought hard about turning around and calling it a day, however no one else spoke up and everyone continued to ride, so I stayed quiet and tagged along in back or sometimes leading in the front so I would stay out of the spray.   Well it turned miserable as usual, cold, wet and gritty. My thumbs were now frozen and were stinging from the frostbite.  Working harder did not work as I didn't feel like I was getting any warmer.  So I just kept up and rode.  I got back home, stripped off my wet clothes and threw them into the wash, sprayed down the bike (Not cleaning it yet as the wife would go nuts if I brought the bike inside) and took a shower.  OUCH!  My ankles, knees were all red from the cold and the warmish water didn't help.  Hot water was definitely out of the question.  The red parts were now itching.   I'm now trying to warm up.  Hopefully soon I feel back to normal.   

Bottom line, I don't seem to be able to learn from my mistakes.  It's just too easy to get talked into riding on a day like today. Of course it never starts with any rain.  Reminder to myself.  If it's wet on the ground don't go!  Of course, I thought it was Wednesday today, so I thought it was the hill day, so I was much more eager to ride today.  

Anyway here's quote from one of my esteemed colleagues:

We don't take any performance enhancement substances.
 
We get strong cuz we train hard.
We train in all weather conditions.
We train all year round.
We don't take vacations because this would ruin our fitnes.
You'll never hear us say "it's too cold", or "its too wet" or "there's snow on the ground".
We train because we can.
_______________________
Of course when I get an email from them complaining after a ride, you have to laugh. 
 
By the way:
I ride (notice how I don't say train) when ever I can,
I do it so I can try to keep up with everyone.
I race, cause I like to win.
I take vacations for fun and because my wife and kids like to.
I get fit if I have the time to ride.
And like to have the option to complain about the wet or cold conditions or the fact that the "hammers" just pummel me into oblivion on some rides or when I'm not feeling good.

Cycling must be an addiction.
Keep warm and dry.

You ask for it, you got it.

Hah! Well, I asked for it yesterday and I got what I wanted today. Our noon time ride was a low intensity ride. Nice! For once I was not out of breath, screaming in pain because of the build up of lactic acid, or blown up. Ray, Randy and I went out for a nice and easy ride. Well, sort of. Randy accused me of not knowing what easy is. It was a good day to just spin. However, I never really did get warm. My fingers usually get warmed up half way through the ride. Today, my toes and fingers were freezing. I even picked up the pace to try to put some more exertion in my workout. That didn't work too much as I was only doing about 23.5 miles an hour on the flats.

The weekend comes again, so no riding because of the kid's hockey games. This time some of them are out of town like in Frederick or Hagerstown.
I'll see what the ride is like on Monday.

Does Hammering Every Day Really Help You?

As I have not really had a regimented training schedule,  I have not really noticed what effects of overtraining can do to you.   I know that for me, during the season if I ride about 4 times a week when I'm fit, I can perform relatively well in the races.  The 4 times a week tend to be a mix of fast intervals at Hains Point, one hill ride day (typically Wednesday) and possibly one day on the weekend on a group ride.  All in all I'm training at my lactate threashold (80-95% of my maximum heartrate).  What I'm missing in all of my training is the long endurance rides over 40 miles.  I get plenty of rides which are about 25 miles long.  

So my question to all of the other riders I continue to ride with is, Does hammering every day actually improve your racing?  I think I know the answer, however the guys I ride with are constantly hammering.  Do you guys ever get tired?  I've noticed that some times riders are hitting a peak during one week and cannot keep up the constant tempo.  There are some riders who just come out once a week or twice a week and they just destroy the rest of us, however they are extrememly capable hill climbers and have some really strong endurance.  So, I'm wondering whether it is better to mix up different group rides more often, or whether to hammer on some days and take it easy on others?  I thought that my vacation/rest period would provide me some good performance afterwards, however that didn't happen.  It actually got worse, though, I think it's finally coming back now as I've dialed in my seat positioning.  

Well, yesterday's hill ride was actually a good one for me. There was no Simon or Ad and Jay met us at the middle of climbing out of Great Falls Park.  It was at a tempo which I could hang on to and not blow up.  This tempo is much better for my training in my opinion,  I'm not dropped , so my training is at a constant instead going to an anareobic state then blowing up and  having a long recovery period  in which I  meet up with the others at another point only to do it again.  Jay, went on his own pace while the others decided to stay about 30 yards back.  My prediction is that Jay will  do very well in the CAT4 Road races this year.  He'll probably have enough points with the circuit and crits cat up quickly.   That is unless for some reason he burns out too quickly. 

One last comment...It's nice when someone in a car yells a nice comment to you.  Yesterday, a guy in a fancy Mercedes yelled something about riding like you're in the Tour.  So I waved and he waved back.   For once it's not someone who is driving and screaming at you to get out of the way and that bikes are not to be ridden on the roads.   You can sometimes tell about the intellect and culture of the drivers by what they are driving and how they drive. 

See you out there, hammering away. 

Mechanicals.

I hate having mechanicals.  It seems that this year everything is breaking.  Today my speed sensor for my Cateye Wireless decided to loosen up and wreak havoc in my riding as it was bouncing against the spokes.  I just kept thinking how it would wrap itself into my wheel causing the spokes to break or causing a lockup and crash.  I was up front and didn't want to take anyone else down so eased up and rode as straight as possible to avoid any disaster from happening. I pulled over a little while later and unscrewed the sensor off of the mount.  The bad part was that I was feeling pretty good today and wanted to test my fitness in comparison to the other riders. 

I'm hoping that my Polar CS200 gets repaired soon, so I can take the Cateye back off as I don't have any statistics I can log it and recognize how I'm doing while I'm riding.  The Cateye only gives me speed/distance readings. I hope that this is my last incident for the year.  Of course it's better now than later on in the season. 

The cold weather has also been playing havoc on my fingers.  My skin on my thumbs are cracking and bleeding.  It feels worse when I ride and my fingers are cold.  The good thing is that my hands warmed up quickly today, my toes on the other hand were pretty cold.  Well, I'm really looking forward to the racing season this year. 

Never talk me into riding on wet days.

Why do I get coerced into riding on days like today?? It was wet, cold and sometimes dangerous as I just wondered when someone in a car would do something stupid and crash into us. You know the days when it's still snowy on the shoulders, or the plow hasn't cleared all of the lanes, I'm just waiting for something bad to happen.

The email blast went out today and people remarked that they would be coming out for the ride. I was going to pass, however everyone pretty much egged each other on. So, here I go, riding on the snowy sidewalk to avoid a car barreling down the road trying to avoid the snow and parked cars. The roads in my neighborhood were just slightly damp and I thought, good, it may be a fairly dry ride. Well into the ride, some areas had flowing water on the road about one to three inches deep. Much of the time I was trying to avoid the rooster-tail of the rider in front. In the beginning I stayed in front to so that I wouldn't have to deal with the spray, however you can only last so long up there. All I could think about was how salty the spray was as I was getting grit and salty water in my mouth. I think 3/4 of the way through the ride, my feet started to get the burning sensation. My feet were probably a bit wet and I think they were past being cold. Why, oh why do I continue to ride in the wet? Stupidity. I had to take apart the bike again to clean everything this evening. And, yep, my headset is starting to grind with the pressure soaked embedded dirt from the wet rides. I wonder what everyone else does after a wet ride?
I clean my chain, chain rings, cassette, drain the bike, take fork out, take the seat post out, clean and wipe down everything. Basically, I'm building the bike from scratch again. Sometimes I get water in the wheels too, so I'll have to take the tires off and allow the rims to dry. What a pain.

As far as my training went today, it was actually good. I was able to stay with the group and take some decent pulls. The pace started out relatively tame in the beginning then in the middle it cranked up. I also did a light leg and core workout this morning and I think my body is finally starting to get used to the weight workout as it didn't affect my riding later today. Last night we had my wife's high school reunion gathering at our house. Fortunately or unfortunately, because of the weather only 5 people showed up. We had a good time and I enjoyed several glasses of Cabernet. It also didn't affect my riding today, either.

The bad things today:
I had to clean the bike.
My toes were so cold after the ride as they were wet.
I can still taste the salt and feel the grit stuck in my teeth/gums.
My components are going to die sooner than later.

However, any day on the bike with friends is better than not riding at all or riding on the rollers.

Keep my old rule... don't ride in the wet. Don't coerce me into going either!

Oh, yes... update on Mark Sommers: I heard that he had a neck operation in which they took out a disk in his neck and fused a couple of vertebrae. I had a friend who had this operation years ago because he continue to have a pinched nerve in his neck which affected his ability to move his arm. I believe Mark had the same operation as he apparently had issues with mobility in his arm as well. The surgery is performed through the front of the neck bypassing your throat and then going to the vertebrae. A description is located here about the Anterior Cervical Fusion. Anyway, I hear the surgery was a success and hopefully Mark will be recovering quickly. Best wishes to Mark.

The weekend: Well, it's full of hockey games, children's birthday parties. And of course no rides.

Must be nice being young.

The Junior does it again. Nick Bax came out for the hill ride yesterday, so I knew it was going to be hammer time. What I didn't know is that Ad would be a shadow to Nick. What gives? How can a 50+ rider keep up with his nationally ranked son? Of course, I got dropped again.

Well, now that my racing age is in the mid-40's, I can now realize that I will probably no longer have the same athletic abilities as I did when I was in my teens or even in the twenties. The recovery times definitely are much longer and I have a lot more aches and pain these days.
I guess it's nice being young, thought if I were to do it all over again... I'd love to have my knowledge and experience with my youth. Wouldn't we all . :D

I spoke to Mike at the shop yesterday and the good thing is that we're not switching kit colors. So, no new investments in clothing, except to replace what needs to be trashed. I kind of like the red, black and white look. It's eye catching. This will hopefully leave me some extra cash this year to invest in other biking accessories like a power meter (see Nick's blog) or if I hear back from Polar about my broken CS200 CAD on whether I have to buy a new one or pay for the repair.

What else do I need?

1) Possibly new Shimano Shoes. (SH-R300 or SH-R210), I've always loved Shimano Shoes and their stiffness in the carbon sole. My SH-R210's are now 3 years old and are starting to show their wear.

2) New Bike!! This is a long shot. :(

3) Maybe this is the year I break down and try bibs...instead of shorts.

4) New helmet. My Giro Pneumo is getting a bit old and smelly. I was wondering about the smells I was experience and figured it was coming from the helmet. The best way to get rid of the smells?? Scrubbing it with sponge and spraying with LYSOL works wonders! I learned this from cleaning my son's hockey helmet and other items. By the way, if anyone knows where to get replacement pads for the Giro Pneumno, let me know.

5) New fluid trainer? I don't ride indoors much, as my rollers are too damn loud. (for the days like today... snowy or rainy.)

6) Oh, yeah, I need to buy some more tubulars (Conti Competitions-expensive things!!) and a some Michelin Pro Race2's clinchers and tubes.

We'll that's my wish list so far... too bad Christmas isn't coming up soon.