suntan at christmas and goals

I am so grateful to live in FL, this is the time of the year when it really makes living through July, August, and September worth it. I did a couple of commutes to work last week and checked to make sure all the new bits stayed on the commuter bike. I was sorry we are off for the next couple of weeks from the Computrainer class, but I have filled in the time.

I had hoped to ride across town for Christmas day with the family but it was pouring as I was just ready to leave so I gave up and drove. I was able to make up for it by riding almost 5 hours on Saturday and 2.5 yesterday. Great company, nice easy pace, no set route, just "which way do you want to turn?" and enjoy. I did put on my power meter on Saturday and was disappointed with the results but I also was not pushing and not doing real intervals. I usually do not care to ride by the numbers unless I am doing a structured interval workout.

So, I guess that means I am going to have to go do some hill repeats and work on that! And that is not easy to do down here. I do live in the middle of the state, near Clermont where we can find hills that are not overpasses, but Sugarloaf is still only 500' above sea level!

I also resolved to institute some more discipline BEFORE New Years so I was up and doing stretching this morning. I will do a Core workout when I get home tonight and work on getting semi prepared! The new brevet season starts here Jan 10 with a 200k and the Sebring event is Feb 14. There are 3 events- a 12 hour, 24 hour drafting, and a 24 hour non-drafting RAAM qualifier. I had hoped to do the RAAM qualifier but I know I am not physically ready and I don't want to set myself up to fail. I will however see if I can reach one of my goals which is 200 miles in 12 hours. 2 6 hour centuries are not bad- you just can't stop! Do 17.5 miles per hour and I can bank about 5 minutes an hour or something. Whatever, 200 miles in 12 hours. That is the goal! Let you know on Feb 15th. Happy New Year.

Ah life, why do we say it gets in the way when all we have is life? Is it because it is nicer than saying my family gets in the way? Or because they might fire you if you say my job gets in the way? OK, I digress and that is my good story for such a long gap in posts.

I went out of town for almost two weeks, between leaving for work, then a personal trip out to San Diego over the weekend, then back to South Florida for more work on the project and then home. I felt like the George Carlin routine about stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac So, I packed for two weeks, left some stuff at work so I could go across country for the weekend, then come back and get reunited with my stuff!

I did Graeme's first Cyclo-Spin in my hotel. Kind of sucked as the bandwidth was really low. An hour workout turned into 1 hour 45 minutes! But, it was awesome and I got my workout in. Things were really busy and crazy and I finally got back to town and got into a makeup class for my Computrainer class last Friday morning.

It was a cool class because instead of watching the screen and keeping your watts on track, it was a blind test where you had to ride for 20 minutes at what you thought was 65% of max, then 20 minutes at 75% of max, and then 10 minutes at 95% of max. I was under all 3 times but not by much. Several other folks went over 75% on the first test. There were two women and 4 men in that class. Both of us females were almost spot on in all 3 while the men tended to go too hard. Our coach said women are often better at this than men. Not sure why the gender tendency but I told him in the beginning I thought I would be good at that test. I have ridden all my life until about 18 months ago not using anything other than a cycling computer with distance, time, etc. I never even used a heart rate monitor. I can tell you if I my heart rate is up there- because I can't talk to you! Anyway, it was fun and different.

Last weekend was more cross training (yard sale and reverse ditch digging) so I finally got to put fenders and a rack on my commuter bike late Sunday night. Whew, that single speed got a lot heavier! I commuted to work on Monday and was pleased I kept up the same general average mph to work even with a heavier bike. I had another Computrainer class last night and had a blast pushing hard on some intervals. Hip flexors are telling me today that it worked! And I finally brought my ball chair into work so I can have people wonder what the heck that is. http://www.isokineticsinc.com/category/ex_ball_chairs

Hopefully there is a nice long ride in our beautiful Florida weather coming up this weekend.

My muscles are very confused

Little bit of catching up. My second Computrainer class was great and my hip flexors complained for two days! That is when I know it is good! I rode over to the family Thanksgiving across town on Thursday. A very nice hour and a half ride and because I was going straight east for the most part I had a fabulous tail wind the whole way- woohoo! For those who try to balance family and training this was one of those occasions that can serve everyone. If you are planning a family outing you can either ride out to meet them or drive out with bike in tow and ride back. I understand about limited time and it is fun to find creative ways to serve everyone.

I had a much longer to do list over the days following Thanksgiving than time to accomplish them all. I was able to go out on Saturday and take a couple of our young dogs in the buggy behind the bike. We have two 6 month olds who are distemper survivors. They both still have lasting neurological damage with muscle twitches in their hind quarters but are able to still run and get around just fine. My special girl Paddy was first but it did not take long down the trail before she was whining and just seemed not to have a good time. I turned around and took Kody out. He was quiet and looking around and we were out for an hour total. I hope to take him out again so he can get exposed to different things.

Sunday was another cross training day. That means I dug a 150' long trench to run new power lines and conduit out to our gate opener. Yikes, unaccustomed activity. As an infomercial I was watching for a fitness product called it- muscle confusion. Just as Graeme says, you can't keep doing the same thing over and over. So, if I need to dig again in a week or two, I am more ready. But I hope not.

Now I am in the middle of a long road trip for business, then fly to San Diego for a conference, then back to work out of town next week. This is really putting a dent in training schedule as there is no schedule. I expect the rest of today and the next two days to go from 7 am to 11pm. Not much time off in there. I will get up early tomorrow and hope that wifi in the hotel fitness room is working for Graeme's spin class. Should be interesting, but I am committed now in continuing to move forward. This morning I got up and had time for some stretching and the first On the Go 15 minute circuit. Perfect for a hotel room.

Things will be busy but I will attempt to keep up posting and updates as I travel across the country.

Stretches, Pink, and Turkey

Well, riding continues to be at a minimum but all is well. I am doing some stretching everyday and using the At the Desk Energizer workout. This weekend was busy with chores at home. I had hoped to get out yesterday with one of our dogs in the buggy on the back of the bike, but alas, I ran out of time.

I did have a very nice time last evening with our Bobbies Holiday party (www.luvbobbies.com). It is nice to try to recognize everyone not in lycra! I am sometimes not so successful, then I just envision them in a helmet and it usually comes to me! I am looking forward to my next CompuTrainer session tomorrow so I will give another update soon. In the meantime, safe riding and enjoy the holidays. I plan to ride across town to the family gathering so I will assuage my eating guilt that way! What creative ways does anyone else have to work off those turkey pounds?

Get out of my head!!!

Tuesday I went for my first Computrainer class and I was pleased. For a baseline we did a 40 minute time trial. I have done one test on a computrainer and have my own Power Tap so I was not too overwhelmed by the info. There were 8 of us in class, 4 gents and 4 ladies. We warmed up and were off. I thought I started out a little too hard and was at 170 watts by 10 minutes. I gradually improved that to 175 watts at 30 minutes. The coach was really encouraging at my trend upward and said "You can get another 10 watts by the end". Here comes the part I would like to end- the voice in my head responded with "Yeah right, I will be happy with 5 more".

Negative self talk. I am working on a lot of self improvement but these nasty little gremlins pop up out of nowhere. Now, I would like to point out that at about 25 minutes or so I had started to feel pretty good, like I had really warmed up and was ready. But I still got that crap in my head. I did dig deep and worked hard to keep my watts as high as I could. The coach was great and I just concentrated on my wattage and doing what I could. I finished with 184 watts average for the 40 minutes and was very happy.

OK, for some of you guys out there that is nothing and don't even think of looking at the pros (Taylor Phinney just recorded a peak wattage of over 2000 watts in wind tunnel testing but he comes from gifted parents on both sides!). In fact two guys were over 200 watts average in this class. And I am competitive as most of us are- and I came in third! Which meant I did beat 2 of the gents. OK, OK, not really important, but what does matter is that I feel relatively untrained right now but this wattage is higher than the first time I ever did testing. So, I fully expect that my wattage will go up higher than it did before!

I am going to have to juggle my schedule for this in the next few weeks but I will let you know how things go.

Just the tailwind

OK, I almost joined the ranks of the rest of the country by commuting this morning at 42 degrees! So, I overdressed and was sweating on the way to work. And everytime I think I am doing really well and having a great ride, I realized it was just the tailwind ;-). Until tonight when I turn around to go directly into the north wind. Life is like that isn't it?

Rain makes every ride epic

OK, sorry, life has gotten in the way as I was out of town for over a week. Here is an update from Saturday 11/2.

Awesome ride yesterday- I got up stinking early to meet a group riding up to do a Century. OK, I was not going to do the century but wound up with almost that by riding to and from the event. It was a perfect morning, cool but not chilly, slight winds from the north, and a great looking large group of ladies all in pink (www.luvbobbies.com). We rode up to Sanford and joined the Boys and Girls ride. Great time with some new roads and old ones. My now significantly smaller group peeled off and headed back to home and cars. A few miles down the road it opened up and rained. Of course, this is Florida so it was not too cold, just enough to get good and wet and soak the shoes and the bike (no I was not on the brevet bike with fenders!). There is nothing like riding in the rain to make it feel like it was an adventure.

A couple of days later I left for a personal development seminar and was out of town for over a week. I rode to work on the day we left to eliminate dealing with 2 cars - I just love that, win/win all the way around, I got to ride and saved the logistics of otherwise having a car there or someone to drive me to work. The seminar had some really long days- the first was from 7:30am at registration until past midnight. I was able to fit in a morning of the Fix the back strength and stretch as well as a quick 8 minute power routine one morning.

One of the speakers was a woman named Valerie Waugaman probably best known as Siren on American Gladiators. She was really awesome, had great info, took us through a short exercise routine as well that left my legs sore the next day (unaccustomed movements!), and best of all, had suggestions for "the world is your gym". Along the lines of Graeme's workouts that do not require lots of equipment or machines. She just used simple suggestions for use at the airport or at the grocery store, or standing in line. It was great.

So, I am finally back in town, having to forgo another local century (The Horrible Hundred) with catch up at home and with the family. However, I plan on commuting this week to work and on Tuesday I start my new 6 week program of power training with Vision Quest Coaching at LBS David's World Cycle. It should be tough but great. Updates should be more regular, but I have to go fix a faucet right now!