I really should have been posting stuff each day - but wow! What a fantastic experience this had turned out to be. I'll try and summarize and not bore you too much.
My first day there was ITT day - 14.5miles on the Larry H. Miller Speedway. I got there plenty early and watched some fast cars (and a few slower ones) zip around the track. It was open day, which meant anybody that wanted to race their car there could. I'll do another post about the fun I had touring the Larry H. Miller museum (some amazing cars!!) later.
The first team I saw coming in was the Rock Racing truck. It's pretty hard to miss! Fortunately for me, Ray, the driver, was willing to give me a peak inside the rig. A black leather sofa rests in the slide-out and a shower/bathroom at the back. The layout was comfortable, and the air conditioning cranked up!
As the BMC team van pulled up I was hanging with a couple of other photogs and noticed that a bike seemed a little askew - we ran up, waved them down, and just managed to save a bike from hitting the pavement. Soon Garmin/Slipstream and Ouch/Maxxis pulled in - and then it was everybody arriving at once.
I went down along the front side of the track, and as I was walking along almost got bowled over by a rider running for the track with his bike... it was Dave Zabriskie! I snapped a couple of quick shots as he hopped the barrier to take a warm-up lap.
The highlight of the day for me was the opportunity to be on the back of a motorcycle following Dave Zabriskie around the Time Trial course. WoW! The man is fast (and yet only managed 4th place!) I got some fantastic shots of him - again, I'll try and get those posted later.
I was able to interview a couple of the racers - and will post those as seperate posts when I get everything organized. I've got to get a couple of articles prepared and ready for our local newspaper (the reason why I got the press pass to begin with!) and then I'll also try and get some stuff ready for bikejournal.com
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Legacy 1/2 Marathon
This was a new experience for me, as I've never run a half marathon before. I've run the distance twice before - once was at Ricks during my first year of wrestling try-outs. They called it the "locker run" - finish 13 miles in under 2.5 hours and you get a locker. I don't remember my time, but I missed first place by not taking the short-cut at the finish. The last time I ran the distance was about a year ago when I was running 5-10km 5 times/week. I started out on a 10k run and ended up doing 28km. Wasn't fast, but boy did it hurt!
I have not been running regularly, as I've been more focused on biking. I ran 12km on Thurs and 6km on Friday - and that's the only running I'd done in 3 weeks! I really did not know what to expect, but really wanted to break 2 hours.
Paul Clarke gave me a massage on Friday, and then came up to the start early and gave me a foot massage Saturday morning. That was GREAT!
I was under the impression that the course was pretty flat - a gentle incline out, and a gentle decline back. So, I figured that we'd head from the JR. High down 5th onto the bypass, and then out to Aetna - WRONG - keep following the road out to the border!! That's not a gentle incline!!
I started off a little quick and was grateful to have my wife's Garmin on so that I could monitor my pace. Brought it back down to a 9 min/mile pace. That's what I'd need to average to break 2 hours. When I realized that we were heading straight through the intersection instead of turning to Aetna I was really wondering if I'd be able to break 2 hours, this is a hilly route!
I kept my pace, averaged exactly 9 min/ mile for the first half. HR average was 164, peaking at 176. I made the turn and kicked it up a notch. I started passing people on the hills, and then recovering a bit on the way down. I caught up to Chico, passed him on a downhill, he passed me back on the flat, then I passed him again on the next climb. Gradually continued to real people in. I averaged 8:04 min/mile for the second half to finish the race in 1:51:43! Shattered 2 hours. My average HR on the way back was 174 peaking at 188 (last half mile I sprinted trying to catch one more person before the finish, but couldn't quite do it - missed her by about 10 yards.)
It was great to see Melanie waiting for me at the finish! Total feet climbing was just shy of 1600 - I think that's a pretty hilly course! 900 on the way out, 700 on the way back.
Now to get the weight to continue to come off!
I have not been running regularly, as I've been more focused on biking. I ran 12km on Thurs and 6km on Friday - and that's the only running I'd done in 3 weeks! I really did not know what to expect, but really wanted to break 2 hours.
Paul Clarke gave me a massage on Friday, and then came up to the start early and gave me a foot massage Saturday morning. That was GREAT!
I was under the impression that the course was pretty flat - a gentle incline out, and a gentle decline back. So, I figured that we'd head from the JR. High down 5th onto the bypass, and then out to Aetna - WRONG - keep following the road out to the border!! That's not a gentle incline!!
I started off a little quick and was grateful to have my wife's Garmin on so that I could monitor my pace. Brought it back down to a 9 min/mile pace. That's what I'd need to average to break 2 hours. When I realized that we were heading straight through the intersection instead of turning to Aetna I was really wondering if I'd be able to break 2 hours, this is a hilly route!
I kept my pace, averaged exactly 9 min/ mile for the first half. HR average was 164, peaking at 176. I made the turn and kicked it up a notch. I started passing people on the hills, and then recovering a bit on the way down. I caught up to Chico, passed him on a downhill, he passed me back on the flat, then I passed him again on the next climb. Gradually continued to real people in. I averaged 8:04 min/mile for the second half to finish the race in 1:51:43! Shattered 2 hours. My average HR on the way back was 174 peaking at 188 (last half mile I sprinted trying to catch one more person before the finish, but couldn't quite do it - missed her by about 10 yards.)
It was great to see Melanie waiting for me at the finish! Total feet climbing was just shy of 1600 - I think that's a pretty hilly course! 900 on the way out, 700 on the way back.
Now to get the weight to continue to come off!
Racing in Saskatoon
First chance I've had to post this here, so sorry for the delay.
Bikes On Broadway, Saskatoon Saskatchewan. 3 stages, ITT, RR, Crit. 8 hours of driving to get there.
Stage one ITT
I didn't get a chance to do more than just drive the course before hand, so I didn't really know what the course had in store. It looked pretty flat. John and I got there with plenty of time for a good warm up. The course was a point to point course, on closed - to partially closed roads (no having to watch for cars - YEAAH!) Short - only 8.2km. Only one real turn, and that was just 1km into the race - what APPEARED in the car to be a sweeping right-hand. My target it to break 12 minutes, as that has won this in years past.
I had a bit of a rough start - too tall of a gear, but I quickly got on top of it and then laid out on the bars and went hard. Before I knew it the Right hand turn was coming - I had figured I'd be able to just lean it and stay in the aero-bars, but as I drew close to the approach I realized that this was alot tighter corner at speed than I had planned on. I barely made the corner. 2km in I caught my 30 second man. 5km in I caught my 1 minute man. Ahead I could see my 90 second and 2 minute man. I hammered hard to try and catch them. (nothing better than a rabbit to chase!) I missed catching them at the line by about 20meters,
Results: 8.2km Time 11:39, Aver HR 175, Max HR 179. Turned out to be good enough for 2nd place - just missing first by 2 seconds.
Stage 2 RR
I got NO sleep. Didn't fall asleep until 2am, and then got up every hour on the hour until time to get up at 7:30am A little over an hours drive to get to the course. This course will be 60km, an out-and-back. On the drive out it looked like it was pretty hilly, not long, not steep, but lots of them. Should prove interesting.
The race didn't start good for me - 10 seconds before the beginning of the neutral start, I realize that my front tire is going flat. I drop back to the wheel car, change, and was able to get back on before the neutral zone ended. Sheesh! Unfortunately, that now put me at the back of the pack, not where I wanted to be.
I worked my way up, and finally got up to the front 5-6. Slooooow. Suddenly an attack goes off from the outside. nobody responds. That surprises me. Usually in Alberta it's impossible for an attack to get away cause nobody will let 'em go. I quickly learn why - after opening a gap of 50-60meters, the rider sits up. This pattern soon emerges - young guys go hard for 20 seconds - if a couple of guys go with him NOBODY pulls through, and they sit up and no chasing has to be done. The funniest one was the guy who attacked with a tailwind on a downhill. Before he sat up the peleton had swallowed him up just coasting!
The turn-around was pretty dicey - narrow, packed in tight. I almost had to unclip. Oh well. The turnaround was SUPPOSED to be neutral 50 yards either side - yeah right. However, the previous pattern re-asserted itself and within 1km we were all back together again. Things started to get a little dicey as some of the weaker riders got tired, but not tired enough to get dropped. I went to the front and decided to do a little pacemaking to see if we could spit a few off the back and make it safer for everybody.
Up front I go - nice little headwind to fight, but I'm feeling pretty good. I pull hard for a couple of minutes and ramp the speed up to 40km/hr. I flick my elbow to signal I'm done - nobody comes through. I flick again, nothing. I turn-around and nod my head - nothing.
Enough of this, I think, I'm not doing all this if nobody else is gonna come up here. So I slow down. Nobody comes around. I slow down some more. Still nothing. Fine, I'll really slow down and move to the far right of the road (wind is coming from the left, so I'm eliminating any draft.) Nothing. Johnny is sitting about 10 wheels back just laughing his head off. He could see what I was trying to do, and as I had moved to the left, the line just snaked around behind me and nobody moved. I slowed down to 21km/hr and still nobody would come around. I did the "move to the left" move twice and the same thing happened both times. Finally someone came around. I was ready to stop and see if everybody would unclip or what! Come on guys, this is supposed to be a race!
With 5km to people finally start to pick the pace up. I'm in the top 3, but feeling like I'd like to drop back a spot or two - the 3 guys I'm watching are all behind me, and I hate having to play swivel neck to see when they're going. Speeds finally get up to the 45km/hr + range and people start getting spit out the back. Sheesh! Why wouldn't anybody do this earlier??!!
At 1.5km to go the guy who beat me in the TT goes. He opens a huge gap by coming around the inside - right as I rode into a box. First thought that goes through my head is "hey, nice move, if you can hold that, it's a winner!" Oh, BTW, the guy who came up and boxed me? Mr. one-leg. Yup, that's right, this guys got one leg and he is HAMMERING!
Two guys go off my left to answer the attack - teamates, and they're working together. I try to grab their wheel but just miss it. We've got the first attacker - last 90 degree corner coming up and then it's a straight shot for 300m to the finish. I start to turn and have got the wheel I want for the sprint - I could get this one! Suddenly Mr. One Leg flashes through on my inside and pushes me outside - off the wheel I want and I have to break to stay inside the yellow - scrubbing even a little bit of speed kills my sprint. I manage to sprint for 5th, but because it's a sprint finish the only thing I lose is the bonus time for top 3 - and they are all far enough back that I'm still 2nd over-all.
Stage 3 Crit
Another sleepless night. The crit is over some pretty ugly pavement. My first crit of the year, and I really haven't had a chance to get my crit bike outside. I did a quick tune-up after the RR, but...
The crit is pretty short, just 25min +3
Got a decent warm-up in, but my legs don't seem to be feeling too snappy.
Off we go. There will be 2 primes - one for a 5 second bonus, and one for coffee.
I didn't have a great starting position, but quickly moved up into the top 6. #179, winner of ITT and currently in 1st GC takes a flyer early and I end up being the one to chase him down. I do, then I sit up. Another attack goes off the front, and I wait. Finally someone else chases it down. This goes on and on, but I'm having the most fun I've ever had in a crit! This is the first time I'm animating. I attack, I counter-attack, I chase. Sure, my legs don't seem to have alot of snap, but they're good enough so far!
The course is 2 blocks long by one block wide - the two stretches of one block have broken pavement and potholes everywhere. Picking your line in the corners is extremely important. We're taking these corners way faster than I'd have guessed we could. Diving in, hammering out. It's really FUN!
First Prime bell - 5 second bonus. I lock on to #179, no way I'm letting him get that one. Second last corner before the line and #175 comes flying around me - I let him go.... he keeps going and makes a concerted attack. Oh no! I want that 5 seconds. We turn the corner and head for the line. I lunge... NOT ENOUGH! #175 gets it, and drops back. I follow him back.
The coffee prime comes up, and nobody goes hard for it, though we do push the pace enough to split things up a bit.
Just a few more minutes left to go and I'm starting to plan how I can finally add a victory to my palmares. I know I've gotta get some recovery in, so I slip into 3 wheel and sit. Finally, 3 laps to go.
I'm second wheel, and don't want to be there. So I ease up a bit and force 2more to come around me - there's 6 of us. 2 laps. We're keeping the pressure up, and I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna be able to pull this off, my HR is way down and I'm feeling good. Last lap.
We take the first corner fast and tight - sprint into the second one - everything is playing out nicely. Coming into the 3rd corner I'm getting ready to make my move and I hit a pothole I hadn't seen - I hit it so hard that my handlebars turn forward on me - I'm sure I'm going over the handlebars and ease up on the pedals (though I don't grap the breaks - probably because they're turned so far forward that I couldn't possibly reach them. But, it's enough to open a 10 foot gap to the #5 guy coming into the 4th corner. I sprint hard, but carefully and manage to nip him at the line for 5th. The dirty rotten #175 that got the 5 second prime also got the win and picked up another 15 seconds - enough for him to win and push me down to 3rd on GC. So, it's my first podium finish for cat 5.
Bikes On Broadway, Saskatoon Saskatchewan. 3 stages, ITT, RR, Crit. 8 hours of driving to get there.
Stage one ITT
I didn't get a chance to do more than just drive the course before hand, so I didn't really know what the course had in store. It looked pretty flat. John and I got there with plenty of time for a good warm up. The course was a point to point course, on closed - to partially closed roads (no having to watch for cars - YEAAH!) Short - only 8.2km. Only one real turn, and that was just 1km into the race - what APPEARED in the car to be a sweeping right-hand. My target it to break 12 minutes, as that has won this in years past.
I had a bit of a rough start - too tall of a gear, but I quickly got on top of it and then laid out on the bars and went hard. Before I knew it the Right hand turn was coming - I had figured I'd be able to just lean it and stay in the aero-bars, but as I drew close to the approach I realized that this was alot tighter corner at speed than I had planned on. I barely made the corner. 2km in I caught my 30 second man. 5km in I caught my 1 minute man. Ahead I could see my 90 second and 2 minute man. I hammered hard to try and catch them. (nothing better than a rabbit to chase!) I missed catching them at the line by about 20meters,
Results: 8.2km Time 11:39, Aver HR 175, Max HR 179. Turned out to be good enough for 2nd place - just missing first by 2 seconds.
Stage 2 RR
I got NO sleep. Didn't fall asleep until 2am, and then got up every hour on the hour until time to get up at 7:30am A little over an hours drive to get to the course. This course will be 60km, an out-and-back. On the drive out it looked like it was pretty hilly, not long, not steep, but lots of them. Should prove interesting.
The race didn't start good for me - 10 seconds before the beginning of the neutral start, I realize that my front tire is going flat. I drop back to the wheel car, change, and was able to get back on before the neutral zone ended. Sheesh! Unfortunately, that now put me at the back of the pack, not where I wanted to be.
I worked my way up, and finally got up to the front 5-6. Slooooow. Suddenly an attack goes off from the outside. nobody responds. That surprises me. Usually in Alberta it's impossible for an attack to get away cause nobody will let 'em go. I quickly learn why - after opening a gap of 50-60meters, the rider sits up. This pattern soon emerges - young guys go hard for 20 seconds - if a couple of guys go with him NOBODY pulls through, and they sit up and no chasing has to be done. The funniest one was the guy who attacked with a tailwind on a downhill. Before he sat up the peleton had swallowed him up just coasting!
The turn-around was pretty dicey - narrow, packed in tight. I almost had to unclip. Oh well. The turnaround was SUPPOSED to be neutral 50 yards either side - yeah right. However, the previous pattern re-asserted itself and within 1km we were all back together again. Things started to get a little dicey as some of the weaker riders got tired, but not tired enough to get dropped. I went to the front and decided to do a little pacemaking to see if we could spit a few off the back and make it safer for everybody.
Up front I go - nice little headwind to fight, but I'm feeling pretty good. I pull hard for a couple of minutes and ramp the speed up to 40km/hr. I flick my elbow to signal I'm done - nobody comes through. I flick again, nothing. I turn-around and nod my head - nothing.
Enough of this, I think, I'm not doing all this if nobody else is gonna come up here. So I slow down. Nobody comes around. I slow down some more. Still nothing. Fine, I'll really slow down and move to the far right of the road (wind is coming from the left, so I'm eliminating any draft.) Nothing. Johnny is sitting about 10 wheels back just laughing his head off. He could see what I was trying to do, and as I had moved to the left, the line just snaked around behind me and nobody moved. I slowed down to 21km/hr and still nobody would come around. I did the "move to the left" move twice and the same thing happened both times. Finally someone came around. I was ready to stop and see if everybody would unclip or what! Come on guys, this is supposed to be a race!
With 5km to people finally start to pick the pace up. I'm in the top 3, but feeling like I'd like to drop back a spot or two - the 3 guys I'm watching are all behind me, and I hate having to play swivel neck to see when they're going. Speeds finally get up to the 45km/hr + range and people start getting spit out the back. Sheesh! Why wouldn't anybody do this earlier??!!
At 1.5km to go the guy who beat me in the TT goes. He opens a huge gap by coming around the inside - right as I rode into a box. First thought that goes through my head is "hey, nice move, if you can hold that, it's a winner!" Oh, BTW, the guy who came up and boxed me? Mr. one-leg. Yup, that's right, this guys got one leg and he is HAMMERING!
Two guys go off my left to answer the attack - teamates, and they're working together. I try to grab their wheel but just miss it. We've got the first attacker - last 90 degree corner coming up and then it's a straight shot for 300m to the finish. I start to turn and have got the wheel I want for the sprint - I could get this one! Suddenly Mr. One Leg flashes through on my inside and pushes me outside - off the wheel I want and I have to break to stay inside the yellow - scrubbing even a little bit of speed kills my sprint. I manage to sprint for 5th, but because it's a sprint finish the only thing I lose is the bonus time for top 3 - and they are all far enough back that I'm still 2nd over-all.
Stage 3 Crit
Another sleepless night. The crit is over some pretty ugly pavement. My first crit of the year, and I really haven't had a chance to get my crit bike outside. I did a quick tune-up after the RR, but...
The crit is pretty short, just 25min +3
Got a decent warm-up in, but my legs don't seem to be feeling too snappy.
Off we go. There will be 2 primes - one for a 5 second bonus, and one for coffee.
I didn't have a great starting position, but quickly moved up into the top 6. #179, winner of ITT and currently in 1st GC takes a flyer early and I end up being the one to chase him down. I do, then I sit up. Another attack goes off the front, and I wait. Finally someone else chases it down. This goes on and on, but I'm having the most fun I've ever had in a crit! This is the first time I'm animating. I attack, I counter-attack, I chase. Sure, my legs don't seem to have alot of snap, but they're good enough so far!
The course is 2 blocks long by one block wide - the two stretches of one block have broken pavement and potholes everywhere. Picking your line in the corners is extremely important. We're taking these corners way faster than I'd have guessed we could. Diving in, hammering out. It's really FUN!
First Prime bell - 5 second bonus. I lock on to #179, no way I'm letting him get that one. Second last corner before the line and #175 comes flying around me - I let him go.... he keeps going and makes a concerted attack. Oh no! I want that 5 seconds. We turn the corner and head for the line. I lunge... NOT ENOUGH! #175 gets it, and drops back. I follow him back.
The coffee prime comes up, and nobody goes hard for it, though we do push the pace enough to split things up a bit.
Just a few more minutes left to go and I'm starting to plan how I can finally add a victory to my palmares. I know I've gotta get some recovery in, so I slip into 3 wheel and sit. Finally, 3 laps to go.
I'm second wheel, and don't want to be there. So I ease up a bit and force 2more to come around me - there's 6 of us. 2 laps. We're keeping the pressure up, and I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna be able to pull this off, my HR is way down and I'm feeling good. Last lap.
We take the first corner fast and tight - sprint into the second one - everything is playing out nicely. Coming into the 3rd corner I'm getting ready to make my move and I hit a pothole I hadn't seen - I hit it so hard that my handlebars turn forward on me - I'm sure I'm going over the handlebars and ease up on the pedals (though I don't grap the breaks - probably because they're turned so far forward that I couldn't possibly reach them. But, it's enough to open a 10 foot gap to the #5 guy coming into the 4th corner. I sprint hard, but carefully and manage to nip him at the line for 5th. The dirty rotten #175 that got the 5 second prime also got the win and picked up another 15 seconds - enough for him to win and push me down to 3rd on GC. So, it's my first podium finish for cat 5.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Catching Up & Tailwinds
Wow, been a couple of weeks since my last post.
Roy - your Canadian buddies are doing pretty good! Johnny & I went for a great tailwinds ride yesterday - more on that later.
This last week was tough weight-wise. At weigh in time I was up 1 pound. I suspect that it was a water-issue, as it was about an hour after our tailwinds ride ended, and I'd been rehydrating and replenishing. It was also 7pm instead of 7am for weigh-in. So, I'm not going to get too uptight from it. It does have me on alert, though.
On to the fun stuff - yesterday was Johnny's birthday, so the two of us headed out for a tailwinds century. The wind started out pretty tame, but built up to about a 45km/hr blow - unfortunately, it was from the northwest, so there was never a full-on tailwind. Our route was basically East, then south, so we tried to keep the wind at our back as much as possible. John's wife, Sheri, was our chaffeur for the trip.
We chatted, we hammered, we spun and basically had a fantastic time. Our finishing time was 3:52:50 with an average speed of 41.9km/hr. Not my fastest century, but the fastest and farthest I've gone in awhile! Really felt good to push the legs for a little longer time. The legs have recovered nicely, no stiffness or anything like that. I did notice a bit of neck pain and lower back discomfort at the end of the ride. Just goes to show again that I'm in bad need of strengthening the core more.
My bike performed well - not seat post issues and everything seems to be tuned pretty good. I'm interested in getting a power-fit at some point to see if there's some tweaking that can be done to improve my power output. I'm also really needing a new set of wheels. While my Rovals are really aero and fast, they're also very spongy. I need something stiffer. I'd also really like to try out some tubeless, but there's not alot of used ones out there and new ones are over $1,000 USD. (The ones I'd want are $1400 USD)
I was really impressed this last week with Bicycling magazine. I'd all but given up on it, as it seemed like such a "nothing in there" rag. They've really upped their game and I might even consider a subscription now. Great articles. The most recent one I liked dealt with diet - and had an interesting blip in there from Joe Friel. He got me thinking and I've since started to do some more research on the whole idea of blood acidity levels. You can find the basics of his thoughts at Big surprise - it largely boils down to more fruits and veggies, and less grains and stuff.
With that, I've also been looking at his training plans. I'm going to take a look and see what kind of coaching he's doing, and costs, etc. as well. I know I'll have to add a power meter of some kind to my training if I use him, as he requires that of all his athletes. Ideally, it looks like a Garmin 705 with a Powertap is the way to go. Don't know if I'll be able to afford that for awhile.
Anyway, I will continue with the weight loss struggle. I'm hoping to make a big break-through this week as I increase the intensity of my rides, and increase the distance of some of my runs.
Roy - your Canadian buddies are doing pretty good! Johnny & I went for a great tailwinds ride yesterday - more on that later.
This last week was tough weight-wise. At weigh in time I was up 1 pound. I suspect that it was a water-issue, as it was about an hour after our tailwinds ride ended, and I'd been rehydrating and replenishing. It was also 7pm instead of 7am for weigh-in. So, I'm not going to get too uptight from it. It does have me on alert, though.
On to the fun stuff - yesterday was Johnny's birthday, so the two of us headed out for a tailwinds century. The wind started out pretty tame, but built up to about a 45km/hr blow - unfortunately, it was from the northwest, so there was never a full-on tailwind. Our route was basically East, then south, so we tried to keep the wind at our back as much as possible. John's wife, Sheri, was our chaffeur for the trip.
We chatted, we hammered, we spun and basically had a fantastic time. Our finishing time was 3:52:50 with an average speed of 41.9km/hr. Not my fastest century, but the fastest and farthest I've gone in awhile! Really felt good to push the legs for a little longer time. The legs have recovered nicely, no stiffness or anything like that. I did notice a bit of neck pain and lower back discomfort at the end of the ride. Just goes to show again that I'm in bad need of strengthening the core more.
My bike performed well - not seat post issues and everything seems to be tuned pretty good. I'm interested in getting a power-fit at some point to see if there's some tweaking that can be done to improve my power output. I'm also really needing a new set of wheels. While my Rovals are really aero and fast, they're also very spongy. I need something stiffer. I'd also really like to try out some tubeless, but there's not alot of used ones out there and new ones are over $1,000 USD. (The ones I'd want are $1400 USD)
I was really impressed this last week with Bicycling magazine. I'd all but given up on it, as it seemed like such a "nothing in there" rag. They've really upped their game and I might even consider a subscription now. Great articles. The most recent one I liked dealt with diet - and had an interesting blip in there from Joe Friel. He got me thinking and I've since started to do some more research on the whole idea of blood acidity levels. You can find the basics of his thoughts at Big surprise - it largely boils down to more fruits and veggies, and less grains and stuff.
With that, I've also been looking at his training plans. I'm going to take a look and see what kind of coaching he's doing, and costs, etc. as well. I know I'll have to add a power meter of some kind to my training if I use him, as he requires that of all his athletes. Ideally, it looks like a Garmin 705 with a Powertap is the way to go. Don't know if I'll be able to afford that for awhile.
Anyway, I will continue with the weight loss struggle. I'm hoping to make a big break-through this week as I increase the intensity of my rides, and increase the distance of some of my runs.
Friday, April 03, 2009
More snow
Still doing all of my riding indoors on the computrainer - haven't been outside on the bike since March 22. YUCK! Snowed again last night. I'm really looking forward to being able to get outside again. In the meantime, I'm working hard.
I've found that running is really doing alot to help take the weight off, and I may change up my work-out schedule a little more next week to add more running (I've been trying to run 3x/week.) Longest run to date was this last Tuesday - I did 15km in 1:24. Even at that pace I won't be able to break 2 hours for a half marathon. However, the good news is I wasn't pushing it particularly hard, as my HR hovered right around the 152 mark. I'm sure as the weight continues to come off that my aver HR will continue to drop for that time. I do need to start doing more running intervals to get my comfortable pace up a little higher. 2 months until the 1/2 marathon, so still lots of time.
My watts/kg has definitely started improving on the bike. On 25 Feb it was at 2.6 - I'm currently at 2.98 That's a combination of raising my average wattage output from 231 to 245, and lowering my weight to 81.6kg. I'm still on track to hit my weight goal of 150lbs by Magrath triathlon, but I'm concerned about how the weight loss is going to come from the 160lb and on mark.
While I've been consistently losing 2 pnds / week, sometimes a little more - it hasn't been as easy as I expected it to be. I'm really having to focus and concentrate on it. That last 10 pnds is gonna be HARD!! But, for now I'll continue to mark off 2 pounds /week and try and get a pound ahead here and there. (I'm a little ahead of schedule right now.)
I've found that running is really doing alot to help take the weight off, and I may change up my work-out schedule a little more next week to add more running (I've been trying to run 3x/week.) Longest run to date was this last Tuesday - I did 15km in 1:24. Even at that pace I won't be able to break 2 hours for a half marathon. However, the good news is I wasn't pushing it particularly hard, as my HR hovered right around the 152 mark. I'm sure as the weight continues to come off that my aver HR will continue to drop for that time. I do need to start doing more running intervals to get my comfortable pace up a little higher. 2 months until the 1/2 marathon, so still lots of time.
My watts/kg has definitely started improving on the bike. On 25 Feb it was at 2.6 - I'm currently at 2.98 That's a combination of raising my average wattage output from 231 to 245, and lowering my weight to 81.6kg. I'm still on track to hit my weight goal of 150lbs by Magrath triathlon, but I'm concerned about how the weight loss is going to come from the 160lb and on mark.
While I've been consistently losing 2 pnds / week, sometimes a little more - it hasn't been as easy as I expected it to be. I'm really having to focus and concentrate on it. That last 10 pnds is gonna be HARD!! But, for now I'll continue to mark off 2 pounds /week and try and get a pound ahead here and there. (I'm a little ahead of schedule right now.)
Sunday, March 22, 2009
OUTSIDE!
Went for the first outdoor ride around here yesterday. It was BEAUTIFUL! 52km of sunshine and low winds. (Headwinds all the way, but only at 10km/hr, I could pretend that it wasn't there.) The temp was around 10C. This morning there's a fresh 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground. YUCK! It'll be another week before I'm able to get back outside for a ride!
I also did a little run - only 3km - just to make sure that I got some running time in. Weight loss did not do so well this last week. My body must be making some changes or something, 'cause my min goal was 184, and I only hit 184.36 - so we'll see what happens this next week. Hopefully it's a better week!
Today is the dreaded Sunday lag - so I'm going to be extra diligent on my eating today and hope that I can break this poor eating pattern.
I also did a little run - only 3km - just to make sure that I got some running time in. Weight loss did not do so well this last week. My body must be making some changes or something, 'cause my min goal was 184, and I only hit 184.36 - so we'll see what happens this next week. Hopefully it's a better week!
Today is the dreaded Sunday lag - so I'm going to be extra diligent on my eating today and hope that I can break this poor eating pattern.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Weekend troubles
The weekend continues to give me troubles. Not as bad this time, but my eating on Sunday was really bad. I followed it up with a not-great Monday. I did, however, get some swimming time in on Monday, and I really enjoyed drowning - I mean, swimming again! My weightt is up from Saturdays, but still coming down over-all. If I can just get rid of the Sunday "jump" I think I could have a really big weight loss week!
My family has been selected to participate in a study regarding the activity of Canadians. As part of that, they sent us pedometers for each of the kids. We've been doing it for 3 days now (we do it for one week.) Some of the patterns I've already seen developing from this have been very interesting.
We all know that kids seem to have an easier time eating tons of food that's not great for them, but not putting weight on. (I've got twin boys that can pound back a gallon of ice cream and not put a single pound on.) - well, the pedometer is answering some of those questions already. My kids, so far, on an average day, without any "excercise" are taking 2, 3, and sometimes 4 times as many steps every day than I do. Add that up over a year and you're talking about a significant difference in activity levels. When the week is done I'll post the day by day numbers and you can see what I mean. The numbers do include excercise time, so when you see my numbers catch up to the kids, it's from going on a 10k run or something.
I'm seriously thinking of continuing this study for my family - the kids all seem to be getting a kick out of it, and the patterns that this information is already beginning to show could be life-changing.
We've gotta get out of our cars people! We live in a small town, we need to slow down and WALK a few more places rather than drive everywhere.
There's a lady that lives just around the corner from me that has lost aLOT of weight - and she's done it with a two-pronged attack. Of course, she's watching what she's eating, but she's WALKED everywhere. I rarely see her driving. I thought it was all a bunch of, well, you know. But, I now realize that something as simple as WALKING can make a very significant difference.
I'm not saying we need to never drive again - but we sure drive alot more than we need to. I'm going to talk to my family some more about this, but I really think we can cut back on the gas-bill, save some repairs to the vehicles, and get a little healthier while we're at it.
My family has been selected to participate in a study regarding the activity of Canadians. As part of that, they sent us pedometers for each of the kids. We've been doing it for 3 days now (we do it for one week.) Some of the patterns I've already seen developing from this have been very interesting.
We all know that kids seem to have an easier time eating tons of food that's not great for them, but not putting weight on. (I've got twin boys that can pound back a gallon of ice cream and not put a single pound on.) - well, the pedometer is answering some of those questions already. My kids, so far, on an average day, without any "excercise" are taking 2, 3, and sometimes 4 times as many steps every day than I do. Add that up over a year and you're talking about a significant difference in activity levels. When the week is done I'll post the day by day numbers and you can see what I mean. The numbers do include excercise time, so when you see my numbers catch up to the kids, it's from going on a 10k run or something.
I'm seriously thinking of continuing this study for my family - the kids all seem to be getting a kick out of it, and the patterns that this information is already beginning to show could be life-changing.
We've gotta get out of our cars people! We live in a small town, we need to slow down and WALK a few more places rather than drive everywhere.
There's a lady that lives just around the corner from me that has lost aLOT of weight - and she's done it with a two-pronged attack. Of course, she's watching what she's eating, but she's WALKED everywhere. I rarely see her driving. I thought it was all a bunch of, well, you know. But, I now realize that something as simple as WALKING can make a very significant difference.
I'm not saying we need to never drive again - but we sure drive alot more than we need to. I'm going to talk to my family some more about this, but I really think we can cut back on the gas-bill, save some repairs to the vehicles, and get a little healthier while we're at it.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Humbled
My little girl helped put things into perspective for me this week. In her school class her teacher has her write in a journal. Every month or two she sends all the journals home for the parents to read. One day, this was her entry:
"I like my parents because they help me. My mom is cool. My dad is old."
Keisha is always good for a laugh or two. Like today she had a friend over to play. We generally try to keep them pretty active when the kids have friends over, so when it was discovered that they were in the basement watching TV my wife went down to see if she could get them to do something a little more active.
"But we're playing!" Keisha cried.
Just exactly what were they playing?
"We're playing that we're supermodels - but we're just lazy supermodels so all we do is sit around and watch tv."
On to my work-outs - it's been tough. Wed I missed my bike time, as I had a full day of work/travel. (Which also made eating tough.) Today I was supposed to do a T-max interval and then some easy spinning, but my legs were tired, so I bagged the T-max and just did some high-cadence spinning for an hour.
Tomorrow I'm going to do a 10km run BEFORE I do any biking just to get a baseline of what kind of a 10k time I can turn in. That'll be somewhere around an hour of running, and then I'll spend two hours on the bike. Gonna be a hard day. I'm HOPING that after the run it'll be warm enough outside to be able to get outside for the bike! (snow is melted off the highways, so if it's not too cold it could be fun.)
"I like my parents because they help me. My mom is cool. My dad is old."
Keisha is always good for a laugh or two. Like today she had a friend over to play. We generally try to keep them pretty active when the kids have friends over, so when it was discovered that they were in the basement watching TV my wife went down to see if she could get them to do something a little more active.
"But we're playing!" Keisha cried.
Just exactly what were they playing?
"We're playing that we're supermodels - but we're just lazy supermodels so all we do is sit around and watch tv."
On to my work-outs - it's been tough. Wed I missed my bike time, as I had a full day of work/travel. (Which also made eating tough.) Today I was supposed to do a T-max interval and then some easy spinning, but my legs were tired, so I bagged the T-max and just did some high-cadence spinning for an hour.
Tomorrow I'm going to do a 10km run BEFORE I do any biking just to get a baseline of what kind of a 10k time I can turn in. That'll be somewhere around an hour of running, and then I'll spend two hours on the bike. Gonna be a hard day. I'm HOPING that after the run it'll be warm enough outside to be able to get outside for the bike! (snow is melted off the highways, so if it's not too cold it could be fun.)
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Saturday
My eating program continues to stay more or less on track. Yesterday was a bit of a step out - we went to the Rotary Dine and Dance last night, so it was a roast beef dinner. I thought I did pretty good by limiting my beef to just one slice and potatoes to just two spoonfuls. The rest was all salad and veggies. I splurged and allowed myself some of the ice cream with strawberries. My big weakness came latter in the evening while waiting for my kids to get home. I ended up eating a sandwhich and a couple of mugs of Hot Chocolate. Definitely not over-the-top like I would've done before, but not exactly "on program."
Today was my "long slow" day. So, I did a couple of hours on the computrainer - ended up a little over 67 km - and then went to the gymn and did an hour at a slow 5.5 pace. Good thing. It's been awhile since I've run much, and my knees were feeling a little sore. I may have to make sure and limit some of the running intervals for the first week or so and get some more running base miles in. Then I did some core excercises (amazing how little time those take!) and I'm done for the day. Just need to do some more stretching this afternoon.
The weight continues to come off right now. It's exciting to see it falling. I'm getting more and more optimistic that by May my weight will be down to a range that will make me competitive on the bike.
Today was my "long slow" day. So, I did a couple of hours on the computrainer - ended up a little over 67 km - and then went to the gymn and did an hour at a slow 5.5 pace. Good thing. It's been awhile since I've run much, and my knees were feeling a little sore. I may have to make sure and limit some of the running intervals for the first week or so and get some more running base miles in. Then I did some core excercises (amazing how little time those take!) and I'm done for the day. Just need to do some more stretching this afternoon.
The weight continues to come off right now. It's exciting to see it falling. I'm getting more and more optimistic that by May my weight will be down to a range that will make me competitive on the bike.
Friday, March 06, 2009
To The Pain!
I hurt. I hurt all over, but especially my legs.
Yesterday I did a nice recovery ride. Kept my HR down and just spun along. I didn't let myself get sucked into a race against the computer guy - I just drafted him and kept my HR under 135.
Then, last night, I met with Corey - a local personal trainer. He got me set up on a workout routine that would help me deal with a big weakness of mine - my core and upper-body.
This morning I did my first work-out. Ran for 1 mile (warm-up) - then did the work-out Corey gave me. That took about 40 minutes - parts of it I simply wasn't able to complete 'cause I'm just not strong enough yet. Then I did a 1 mile cool-down run. Head for home.
Jump on the bike and did 4 T-max intervals. The last 2 of those were pretty sloppy. I couldn't do all 6. My calves were cramping a bit, and I was just plain TIRED!
Tomorrow is a "long, slow" day. I'll probably do 90 minutes on the bike and then maybe another hour running. Will make sure not to push it hard, but I think that running will really help get the weight off.
Eating has been good - I was surprised yesterday. Got to the end of the day and still had another carb and a half to eat, but had no appetite to eat anymore. Weight has started to come off again - hopefully this week will fire that up and help me stay on track for my weight loss goals (right now I'm about 1/2 pound ahead of my goals.)
I'll probably go for a light spin again later this afternoon just to loosen the legs up a little. Won't be a very long one, that's for sure!
Yesterday I did a nice recovery ride. Kept my HR down and just spun along. I didn't let myself get sucked into a race against the computer guy - I just drafted him and kept my HR under 135.
Then, last night, I met with Corey - a local personal trainer. He got me set up on a workout routine that would help me deal with a big weakness of mine - my core and upper-body.
This morning I did my first work-out. Ran for 1 mile (warm-up) - then did the work-out Corey gave me. That took about 40 minutes - parts of it I simply wasn't able to complete 'cause I'm just not strong enough yet. Then I did a 1 mile cool-down run. Head for home.
Jump on the bike and did 4 T-max intervals. The last 2 of those were pretty sloppy. I couldn't do all 6. My calves were cramping a bit, and I was just plain TIRED!
Tomorrow is a "long, slow" day. I'll probably do 90 minutes on the bike and then maybe another hour running. Will make sure not to push it hard, but I think that running will really help get the weight off.
Eating has been good - I was surprised yesterday. Got to the end of the day and still had another carb and a half to eat, but had no appetite to eat anymore. Weight has started to come off again - hopefully this week will fire that up and help me stay on track for my weight loss goals (right now I'm about 1/2 pound ahead of my goals.)
I'll probably go for a light spin again later this afternoon just to loosen the legs up a little. Won't be a very long one, that's for sure!
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Stick to the plan?
Today was supposed to be a recovery ride. So, to keep my competitive juices from pushing me harder than I'm supposed to, I set the little computer guy to 150 watts. I figured that'd keep my HR nice and low. And it worked - for awhile.
Okay, I'll admit it. I got bored. I was spinning along nicely at 130-150 watts and listening to last night's American Idol. (my way of not really wasting time watching it - I'm working out!) Maybe it was the American Idol. I don't know, but I was feeling a little bored so I decided to do a little sprint. Nothing really tough, just see how quickly I could open a gap on my 150 watt pace friend.
I didn't pound it hard - in fact I only put out about 325 watts for that 10 or 15 seconds (I was watching my HR a little, you know.) But suddenly there was this gap of 30 lengths. And my legs still weren't really warmed up, so I didn't want to push it hard, but it was so boring just spinning! So I kicked the pace up a little.
When I'm time trialing I tend to do some "mental math" games in my head - if I can hold this speed for 10 more minutes, how much will that shave off my over-all time? Stuff like that. I started doing that. Before I knew it I was holding 300 watts for 2 or 3 minutes intervals, and then only letting it drop to 225 or so for recovery. The gap started to widen on my 150watt man.
Then I said to myself, "self, what's the biggest gap you've ever had on watt-man?" Realizing that number was only about 1km - mostly 'cause I don't usually give myself such an easy target of 150 watts, but that didn't matter this morning. I decided to CRUSH 150watt man!
I laid it down. 30 minutes into the ride I realized that my legs really were a little tired from yesterday's effort, and I really could have used a recovery ride today - but it was too late. I was gonna crush 150watt-man.
2km, 3km, 2.88 (Even 150 watts is fast when going down 5.6% grades while I'm climbing 3.6% grades!), 3km, 4km, 5km... yup. 5km is what I beat him by! I ended up averaging 209 watts. No, not a monstrous number - but I also kept my Aver HR under 158 - though at the end I did hit 178 while generating 429 watts in my sprint for the line. (Hey, who knows, maybe somebody picks him up and gives him a ride to the line sprint?! Always go hard for line sprints!!)
On a completely unrelated note - I've begun to put together a list of people in the area who would be interested in riding so that we can get some group rides together. Should be a fun year on the bike!
On a sadder note - no weight loss today. I'm thinking I must be eating stuff that I'm not calculating, so I've gone back to a notebook and will record everything I eat - and when. This weight MUST leave this year!
Okay, I'll admit it. I got bored. I was spinning along nicely at 130-150 watts and listening to last night's American Idol. (my way of not really wasting time watching it - I'm working out!) Maybe it was the American Idol. I don't know, but I was feeling a little bored so I decided to do a little sprint. Nothing really tough, just see how quickly I could open a gap on my 150 watt pace friend.
I didn't pound it hard - in fact I only put out about 325 watts for that 10 or 15 seconds (I was watching my HR a little, you know.) But suddenly there was this gap of 30 lengths. And my legs still weren't really warmed up, so I didn't want to push it hard, but it was so boring just spinning! So I kicked the pace up a little.
When I'm time trialing I tend to do some "mental math" games in my head - if I can hold this speed for 10 more minutes, how much will that shave off my over-all time? Stuff like that. I started doing that. Before I knew it I was holding 300 watts for 2 or 3 minutes intervals, and then only letting it drop to 225 or so for recovery. The gap started to widen on my 150watt man.
Then I said to myself, "self, what's the biggest gap you've ever had on watt-man?" Realizing that number was only about 1km - mostly 'cause I don't usually give myself such an easy target of 150 watts, but that didn't matter this morning. I decided to CRUSH 150watt man!
I laid it down. 30 minutes into the ride I realized that my legs really were a little tired from yesterday's effort, and I really could have used a recovery ride today - but it was too late. I was gonna crush 150watt-man.
2km, 3km, 2.88 (Even 150 watts is fast when going down 5.6% grades while I'm climbing 3.6% grades!), 3km, 4km, 5km... yup. 5km is what I beat him by! I ended up averaging 209 watts. No, not a monstrous number - but I also kept my Aver HR under 158 - though at the end I did hit 178 while generating 429 watts in my sprint for the line. (Hey, who knows, maybe somebody picks him up and gives him a ride to the line sprint?! Always go hard for line sprints!!)
On a completely unrelated note - I've begun to put together a list of people in the area who would be interested in riding so that we can get some group rides together. Should be a fun year on the bike!
On a sadder note - no weight loss today. I'm thinking I must be eating stuff that I'm not calculating, so I've gone back to a notebook and will record everything I eat - and when. This weight MUST leave this year!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
2 FER!
I didn't get anything posted yesterday, so today is a 2 for one!
The weekend came back out to get me again - I never weighed yesterday, but I felt heavier. Yuck. Did really good on Saturday again, and then Sunday let things slide a bit.
Yeterday I did my first T-max interval session. I just used the one that John and I created last year. To be honest, I didn't find it that tough. Time to re-test and recreate it. Friday might be a good day for that.
For those who are not familiar with T-max, here's the story. T-max is defined as the maximum amount of time that you can hold your peak power output without succcumbing to exhaustion. (Get out the puke-buckets folks! This one's gonna hurt!)
To create the T-max interval:
1) Determine Your Peak Power Output. Using a power-measuring device from PowerTap, Polar, SRM or CompuTrainer, begin riding at 100 watts. Increase power by 30 watts every minute until you reach exhaustion. Laursen deemed test subjects fully exhausted when they could not keep their cadence above 60 rpm. You can use that benchmark, but let's be honest, you'll know when you're done. The number of watts you produce just before collapsing is your peak power output, or PPO.
2) Find Your T-Max. Rest for a day or two. Again using a power meter, ride at your PPO until you can no longer sustain that level of output. The amount of time you can hold your PPO is your T-Max. For most of us, that's between four and six minutes.
3) Calculate Your Ultimate Interval. Multiply your T-Max time by 0.6. This is the work phase of your interval. Double the work phase to set your recovery time between efforts.
That's it! So what I was doing wasn't exactly a full T-max - 'cause when we set it up I couldn't do it. I'm going to run the test again, and see where it puts me. Yesterday I did 6 intervals. Each interval was 2:30 long at 320 watts with a 5 minutes recovery in between (spinning at 125 watts.)
Friday will be the stage one of the test - warm up good (about 20 minutes) and then do the test. I'll keep a puke bucket close by so my wife doesn't have a mess to clean up.
Saturday will be recovery ride, Sunday completely off, and the Monday the second part of the test - riding at max PPO for as long as possible. Then I'll rebuild the program.
For the whole skinny on T-max intervals, you can read all about it at the Bicycling web site: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s-4-41-16493-1,00.html
Today I did a hard ITT on the imn_thirty course. I managaed to average 219 watts and finished the course in just over 52 minutes. Definitely improvement!
Food today, so far, has been excellent. More control over evening eating (Khan was late coming in last night and I stayed up with him and ended up eating a bit of crap-food.)
My weight had jumped up a couple of pounds since Saturday's weigh in. Must continue to work - this week I must be below 188 by Friday.
The weekend came back out to get me again - I never weighed yesterday, but I felt heavier. Yuck. Did really good on Saturday again, and then Sunday let things slide a bit.
Yeterday I did my first T-max interval session. I just used the one that John and I created last year. To be honest, I didn't find it that tough. Time to re-test and recreate it. Friday might be a good day for that.
For those who are not familiar with T-max, here's the story. T-max is defined as the maximum amount of time that you can hold your peak power output without succcumbing to exhaustion. (Get out the puke-buckets folks! This one's gonna hurt!)
To create the T-max interval:
1) Determine Your Peak Power Output. Using a power-measuring device from PowerTap, Polar, SRM or CompuTrainer, begin riding at 100 watts. Increase power by 30 watts every minute until you reach exhaustion. Laursen deemed test subjects fully exhausted when they could not keep their cadence above 60 rpm. You can use that benchmark, but let's be honest, you'll know when you're done. The number of watts you produce just before collapsing is your peak power output, or PPO.
2) Find Your T-Max. Rest for a day or two. Again using a power meter, ride at your PPO until you can no longer sustain that level of output. The amount of time you can hold your PPO is your T-Max. For most of us, that's between four and six minutes.
3) Calculate Your Ultimate Interval. Multiply your T-Max time by 0.6. This is the work phase of your interval. Double the work phase to set your recovery time between efforts.
That's it! So what I was doing wasn't exactly a full T-max - 'cause when we set it up I couldn't do it. I'm going to run the test again, and see where it puts me. Yesterday I did 6 intervals. Each interval was 2:30 long at 320 watts with a 5 minutes recovery in between (spinning at 125 watts.)
Friday will be the stage one of the test - warm up good (about 20 minutes) and then do the test. I'll keep a puke bucket close by so my wife doesn't have a mess to clean up.
Saturday will be recovery ride, Sunday completely off, and the Monday the second part of the test - riding at max PPO for as long as possible. Then I'll rebuild the program.
For the whole skinny on T-max intervals, you can read all about it at the Bicycling web site: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s-4-41-16493-1,00.html
Today I did a hard ITT on the imn_thirty course. I managaed to average 219 watts and finished the course in just over 52 minutes. Definitely improvement!
Food today, so far, has been excellent. More control over evening eating (Khan was late coming in last night and I stayed up with him and ended up eating a bit of crap-food.)
My weight had jumped up a couple of pounds since Saturday's weigh in. Must continue to work - this week I must be below 188 by Friday.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
An easy ride - no weight loss today
The title says it all! Did an easy 90 minutes on the computrainer this morning. Just spinning along - average wattage was only 135, so you can tell that I really wasn't doing much. Watched last night's "Numbers" and "Battlestar Galactica" while spinning. Man, that's a great way to not just sit there and waste time watching a show! (By fast-forwarding through the commercials each 1hr show only takes about 45 minutes to watch.)
My weight is up about half a pound from yesterday, but I'm guessing it's mostly water weight as I didn't eat badly yesterday, but I was thirsty all day so drank a ton.
I'm hoping my back will start to really feel better soon so that I can start throwing a few runs in every week.
My weight is up about half a pound from yesterday, but I'm guessing it's mostly water weight as I didn't eat badly yesterday, but I was thirsty all day so drank a ton.
I'm hoping my back will start to really feel better soon so that I can start throwing a few runs in every week.
Friday, February 27, 2009
40km
For the first time today, I did a forty km computrainer ride. I did the imn_forty. It's got about 161 meters of climbing in it, and I don't do any drafting (kind of defeats the purpose of the training ride.)
It took me 1:12 to complete it - gonna be alot of hard work between now and June to get that time down to hour! I was only able to average 190watts, and my HR averaged 168. My cadence was a little slower, too. That says to me that today wasn't a particularly strong day. HR high, but not able to push it (legs felt a little tired.) and wattage was down as was cadence.
I was originally planning on doing intervals, but I couldn't find the program that I'd written for it, so rather than waste time looking for it, I decided to do a 40km test as a baseline to see where I'm at.
My weight was down again today, and my diet this last week has been pretty good. The challenge will be to stay motivated as I exceed my 2 pounds/week goal and still not get carried away. I've lost the weight before - and in some cases done it very quickly. What I want to do is lose it steadily in the hopes that this time it will stay off. So far, so good.
Now, as bad as the ride felt this morning, I still had a watts/kg of 2.6.
I know that I've got to fit some upper-body /core work-outs into my schedule. Don't know exactly WHAT I'm going to do yet, but I know I've gotta get something put together!
It took me 1:12 to complete it - gonna be alot of hard work between now and June to get that time down to hour! I was only able to average 190watts, and my HR averaged 168. My cadence was a little slower, too. That says to me that today wasn't a particularly strong day. HR high, but not able to push it (legs felt a little tired.) and wattage was down as was cadence.
I was originally planning on doing intervals, but I couldn't find the program that I'd written for it, so rather than waste time looking for it, I decided to do a 40km test as a baseline to see where I'm at.
My weight was down again today, and my diet this last week has been pretty good. The challenge will be to stay motivated as I exceed my 2 pounds/week goal and still not get carried away. I've lost the weight before - and in some cases done it very quickly. What I want to do is lose it steadily in the hopes that this time it will stay off. So far, so good.
Now, as bad as the ride felt this morning, I still had a watts/kg of 2.6.
I know that I've got to fit some upper-body /core work-outs into my schedule. Don't know exactly WHAT I'm going to do yet, but I know I've gotta get something put together!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
20 Minutes of pain
Well, I did it. OUCH!
I started off with a good 18 minute warm-up, and then let my HR drop for a couple of minutes. Then it was time. After 5 minutes I was really wondering if I could hold this pace for another 15! As it turns out - I couldn't. I dropped off a fair bit over the next 5 minutes.
I ended up averaging 231 watts for the 20 minutes. At 86kg, that gives me a watts /kg of 2.67. That puts me as a middle of the pack cat 5 racer. Not what I'll need to be able to win. Interestingly - by hitting my weight goal, without increasing my wattage output, I can boost that to 3.07 - middle of the pack cat 4. That should be enough to win some races and get boosted up to cat 4. Hopefully I'll be able to increase my wattage output, as well.
Average HR for the test was 174, and I maxed out at 186. I never felt like I was "sprinting" - so I could've probably pushed my max HR another few points higher, but I don't think I'd have been able to hold it long enough to have any impact on my average wattage. (Max wattage for the test was 471). Average Cadence was 92. Over-all, a good work-out.
So, the baseline has been laid down. I think I'll try and test myself once/month to see what kind of progress I'm making. Tomorrow will be a recovery ride for one hour - Friday will be a hard interval session - I'm thinking of trying the intervals that John and I built last year. That'll hurt, but I should see rapid growth doing those a couple of times / week. Saturday will be a long recovery ride.
The real challenge is going to continue to be the food intake. My weight has gotta fall.
I started off with a good 18 minute warm-up, and then let my HR drop for a couple of minutes. Then it was time. After 5 minutes I was really wondering if I could hold this pace for another 15! As it turns out - I couldn't. I dropped off a fair bit over the next 5 minutes.
I ended up averaging 231 watts for the 20 minutes. At 86kg, that gives me a watts /kg of 2.67. That puts me as a middle of the pack cat 5 racer. Not what I'll need to be able to win. Interestingly - by hitting my weight goal, without increasing my wattage output, I can boost that to 3.07 - middle of the pack cat 4. That should be enough to win some races and get boosted up to cat 4. Hopefully I'll be able to increase my wattage output, as well.
Average HR for the test was 174, and I maxed out at 186. I never felt like I was "sprinting" - so I could've probably pushed my max HR another few points higher, but I don't think I'd have been able to hold it long enough to have any impact on my average wattage. (Max wattage for the test was 471). Average Cadence was 92. Over-all, a good work-out.
So, the baseline has been laid down. I think I'll try and test myself once/month to see what kind of progress I'm making. Tomorrow will be a recovery ride for one hour - Friday will be a hard interval session - I'm thinking of trying the intervals that John and I built last year. That'll hurt, but I should see rapid growth doing those a couple of times / week. Saturday will be a long recovery ride.
The real challenge is going to continue to be the food intake. My weight has gotta fall.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
WATTS!
Well, in my workouts, I've gradually seen myself starting to get a little faster. Given that I've got some racing I want to do this year, I wanted to get a baseline of where my wattage output was going to need to be. Given my current wattage output, the fast way to get faster is going to be to get lighter.
The measurement to look for is watts/kg of body weight. Many top coaches have said that in order for a cyclist to win the Tour de France the magic number is 7. Seven watts/kg. While out looking for some more information on this, I came across a great article on it by Druber at True Sport.
Here's a link to the article Druber put up - it's got a great chart that gives some general information on what it takes. http://www.truesport.com/Bike/2007/articles/druber/druber15.html The chart shows that to be competitive at the Cat 5 level I need to be looking at generating 2.81 watts/kg
So where am I currently at? A measely 2.3 (upper end of "untrained") - but that's also for a one-hour effort, not a 20 minute one. I'm thinking that tomorrow, instead of doing my planned interval session, I'm going to do a nice little warm-up for 15-20 minutes, then do a flat-out 20 minute test to see where I'm at. This should fit in well, as today was a recovery ride. (I just rode for 1 hour with my HR around the 145 mark. I did let it climb a bit at the end.)
I also found a pdf book along with some computrainer files that I'm going to download. They're about $21.50 USD. Hopefully this will help in better developing my work-out program.
Diet is still my major issue. I seem to do well all week, but on weekends, specifically on Sundays, I do not do as well. I have managed to keep my 2 pounds/week pace going, but know it should be more like 3 or 4 and eventually this "easy" weight is going to be gone.
The measurement to look for is watts/kg of body weight. Many top coaches have said that in order for a cyclist to win the Tour de France the magic number is 7. Seven watts/kg. While out looking for some more information on this, I came across a great article on it by Druber at True Sport.
Here's a link to the article Druber put up - it's got a great chart that gives some general information on what it takes. http://www.truesport.com/Bike/2007/articles/druber/druber15.html The chart shows that to be competitive at the Cat 5 level I need to be looking at generating 2.81 watts/kg
So where am I currently at? A measely 2.3 (upper end of "untrained") - but that's also for a one-hour effort, not a 20 minute one. I'm thinking that tomorrow, instead of doing my planned interval session, I'm going to do a nice little warm-up for 15-20 minutes, then do a flat-out 20 minute test to see where I'm at. This should fit in well, as today was a recovery ride. (I just rode for 1 hour with my HR around the 145 mark. I did let it climb a bit at the end.)
I also found a pdf book along with some computrainer files that I'm going to download. They're about $21.50 USD. Hopefully this will help in better developing my work-out program.
Diet is still my major issue. I seem to do well all week, but on weekends, specifically on Sundays, I do not do as well. I have managed to keep my 2 pounds/week pace going, but know it should be more like 3 or 4 and eventually this "easy" weight is going to be gone.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Back on the bike - sort of
It's been so long since I've been riding. So, this last week I finally got my computrainer back up and running and started riding. I was shocked on Monday at how much it hurt to do just 30 minutes. Wow. Lost a lot.
Tuesday was more of the same, though I went a little faster and pushed a little harder - and went 35 minutes instead of 30.
Wed I took some heat from Johnny - he was going on about how I just wasn't cutting it. He was riding for an hour on the Canmore TT course at just shy of 200 watts and his HR at around 165. I rode for 40 minutes, averaged 180 watts and my HR was over 175 for a good chunk of the ride. I warned him to be careful, 'cause now I was gonna have to kick his butt!
Thurs was an easy spin for 45 min.
Fri was my first shot at the Canmore course - rode an hour at 204 watts and a HR of 166. Look out Johnny! I'm on my way.
Today I did 90 minutes, keeping my average HR at 150, average wattage was just 154. (I did do a little sprint where I kicked the wattage up to 700 watts and a HR of 185, but I kept that pretty short. Just trying to get some saddle time so that my butt can start handling longer rides again.
My weight continues to come off at a regular rate - nothing really fast. I'm now under 189. I'm trying to hold to 2lbs/week. So far that's doing good.
Tuesday was more of the same, though I went a little faster and pushed a little harder - and went 35 minutes instead of 30.
Wed I took some heat from Johnny - he was going on about how I just wasn't cutting it. He was riding for an hour on the Canmore TT course at just shy of 200 watts and his HR at around 165. I rode for 40 minutes, averaged 180 watts and my HR was over 175 for a good chunk of the ride. I warned him to be careful, 'cause now I was gonna have to kick his butt!
Thurs was an easy spin for 45 min.
Fri was my first shot at the Canmore course - rode an hour at 204 watts and a HR of 166. Look out Johnny! I'm on my way.
Today I did 90 minutes, keeping my average HR at 150, average wattage was just 154. (I did do a little sprint where I kicked the wattage up to 700 watts and a HR of 185, but I kept that pretty short. Just trying to get some saddle time so that my butt can start handling longer rides again.
My weight continues to come off at a regular rate - nothing really fast. I'm now under 189. I'm trying to hold to 2lbs/week. So far that's doing good.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Just checking in
Man, it's been along time since I've posted anything! Life has definitely been running fast for me, and I've been having a difficult time keeping up.
Just wanted to check in and say, yes, I'm alive, and I'll post more when I've actually got something worthwhile saying!
Just wanted to check in and say, yes, I'm alive, and I'll post more when I've actually got something worthwhile saying!
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