Makin' Some Pie

My Dad came to town this last weekend and so we fired up the pizza oven. My dad loves makin a pizza about as much as me. It threatened to storm all day and did rain off and on in the morning. But held off for us to make pizza and hang out in the yard. this is the second time we've used it this summer. I am hoping to press it into use more and more as the summer continues.

Ride notes from the weekend:

I rode on sat only 25 miles or so and not really pressing. Then on sunday rode with a friend that is slower and so rode about 35 but really slow. as bad as this sounds it was hard to wait for them. I wanted to let out the rains and run so bad. my goodness all the kind people who've been held up by me.

I may try to go out over the next couple days and hit it harder to even up after a more mellow weekend.

In other notes you'll notice that ragbrai is 19 days away! I am getting really excited and nervous. the team/club is taking 40 this year vs. the 16 that went last year. So the tone of the thing will be different for sure. 

Fyi: home made wood fire pizza... nothing else like it....   everyone should have a clay dome in their yard.

Summer Buzz

I am feeling stronger and stronger on the bike. It's so hard to tell if your really getting stronger or are you just in a good mood and it seems that way. Am I getting faster or do I just have a summer buzz? As I've mentioned in recent entries I seem to be recovering well from longer days on the bike. I was telling a team mate the other day i feel like I am about to graduate from the beginning group to the medium group. I certainly hope that's true.

I went out with a team mate for climbing this morning we did about an hour of hill intervals. total ride time was a hair under 3 hours. We were climbing in flat threshold and climbing threshold. no max efforts today.. Woohoo!

I am going out with larger group this evening for a couple hours. It will be nice to get some peloton time in after grinding away on hills this morning.

Hopefully i can start a local tt series to put down some real numbers... we'll find out if we're any faster or not.

Coolest tv commercial ever

So this is my favorite tv commercial of all time. it came out a few years ago but I remembered it the other day so I thought I'd up it up for fun.  

Sony Bravia

Sunday ride

just a quick ride note.  Rode 53.71 today at an average speed of 19.6 we had 8 from the team ride to i sat in most of the time to try not to get droped. I burned 2300 calories. One of the guys rode a double century yesterday and then showed up for the team ride today... wow. 

For all you non cycling insiders a century or  100 miles is sort of a touch stone. it's something to accomplish, riding a century. From a caloric expenditure point of view it is roughly equivalent to running a marathon. So this guy essentially did a double marathon, then came to a team ride the next day. Once again.... wow.

Seat hight... who knew

I went for a ride with the team today. I adjusted my seat up about 5mm. After being fit for the new frame the seat felt a little low to me but "their the experts, right" so I figured I ride it on their settings for a while. I moved it to a more historic norm and what do ya know, the knee was great today. I did watch my cadence pretty close, but all was good today! 

Ride notes

35.98 miles 

1:59.22

18.09 mph ave

1691 calories

HUH OH,,, my knee hurts

I've been having mild knee pain for about a month. today I was on a ride with a team mate and it really  increased. hmmmmm. knee pain is defiantly something I am told to watch out for. I've been instructed to do some stretching and then ice it. So i'll go do that. 

There are full team rides scheduled for tomorrow and sunday. These rides tend to be really fast and very sprintish. I'll have to sit on the back for a while and see how the knee is feeling before getting into it with the guys.

Ride notes:

43.17 miles

Time: 2:23

Ave : 18.11

Nature Valley Grand Prix

As mentioned in the previous entry, I went to watch the Nature Valley Grand Prix in stillwater Minnesota this last weekend. 

It was a great experience It was the first professional race I had watched in person. Let me start off by saying I'm not sure these beings are the same species as me. The speed of it was so far beyond anything I am accustom to, both shocking and inspiring. Granted these are actual human being doing this, not aliens or robots. 

The star of the day hands down goes to Kristen Armstrong (no relation to lance). She won the day and the series that day. she was off the front from the second lap on and the gap grew throughout the race. by the final lap she was alone in front by 3/4 of a lap. really amazing. There is a tough climb in the coarse as you can see in the video. She was so consistent climbing, her last lap looked exactly like her first. No change in cadence while climbing same speed, she was a machine chewing up the road. 

I wish I were just enough faster to feel confident to race again soon. But I'm not quite there, patience grasshopper.

Ride Notes:

I rode today with two from the team. we did 39.79 in 2:11. so a hair over 18 mph average speed.

I continue to feel stronger after bran. I really think putting in some long efforts has been working well for me. I continue to recover better and better from hard efforts.

I think recovery is as much a mental process at a physical one. As a hard effort like a hill abates you have continue to apply pressure continue to work even after a max effort.you have to resist the temptation to coast over the top. Dialing the effort back just a bit then wait, wait, wait, for recovery to come. Training your mind to be patient and that relief is coming all the while you body is screaming for relief now!, takes some learning. I have so far to go in this area but am beginning to build some skill.

Back from bran

I am back from the bike ride across Nebraska. I went down there to ride with some relatives. I rode three days with them in rural Nebraska. I was very surprised at how remote and western it was. I had always thought of it as a midwest state but it is defiantly more western. Huge open expanses of rolling cattle land dotted with tiny towns that serve as the rail connection and grain elevator. Throughout the region we met incredibly kind and generous people who saw us  as lost children or perhaps mental patients. 

I rode 190 miles over the 3 days. The terrain was mostly rolling hills. the major defining element was the wind. Every day we had a stiff 20 to 30 mph wind out of the southwest. It is remarkable how wearing it is to be pummeled hour after hour by the constant wind. By the end of the day you are very tired not so much from the miles but from the exposure to sun and wind. 

I hope to have some pictures to accompany this entry soon so check back.

so for the last week I put on 277 miles. that's the most I've logged since ragbria last year. I must say tho I feel much better prepared for ragbrai this year than i did last.  i felt very strong on these longer days. I had little trouble sustaining long hard efforts and recovering quickly. It appears all the training is paying off!

On sunday I went to stillwater to see the nature valley grand prix. It is a professional bike race.  They did 5 stages here in minnesota. I saw the final stage on sunday. It was very inspiring. More on this and pictures in my next entry.

mendota loop

I went out for a 40 miler today. Warm and humid so nice to have real warm weather to ride in. I would much rather be a bit on the warm side than too cool. I rode with a team mate that is a fare bit faster than me so hanging on was tough. I was all over vo2 max on many occasions today. It was a hard ride but felt very strong even when at max.  I have been having a touch of knee pain on my left. I'll need to keep an eye on that. This is one area where you can get yourself in trouble. I may have to set aside my affection for low cadence climbing. At least until my knee starts to feel better. Very nice day on the bike. 

Ride notes

40 miles 

2:15

ave speed 17.87

calories 1982

e=mc2

So I went out for a quick 18 mile loop yesterday. The cervelo is definitely faster than my old bike. It's hard to say without precise calculations but I may have bent spacetime out there :)

A non-objective review of the RS

So I took the new ax out for a spin last night and it rode beautifully. It is light and nimble and very, very fast. But what really defines the bike are the subtleties. 

There is a layer of finely detailed feedback from the road and the state of the bike that is wholly new to me. The dampening qualities of the carbon filters out so much noise that the information you need appears load and clear because it's not lost in noise. This feedback makes the bike incredibly intuitive. You just think turn left and it does. It boarders on precognition. 

It is also amazingly stable. The track is so straight. This is a bike that knows how to hold a line. Even when pounding at the pedals the bike doesn't wobble back and forth, rather it shoots forward with each stroke. How can it have such stability and explosive power? 

It is clearly beyond anything I've ever ridden.

I will definitely have to bring my game up to be worthy of it.

The new ax is in.

Just a quick post before I take 'er for a madden voyage. A shot of the new ax... woohoo! 

ok I'm out.........

the first day of spring

Yesterday was the first day of spring. With the start of summer comes new chapters in the story.

I am no longer being coached be my cycling coach. I can not afford to have a personal trainer full time, all year. I am not a rich guy and I have to make my choices about what is a smart use of my money. So I'll need to push myself without an external motivator. 

Secondly my new bike is being built as I'm writing this. later today I'll go and get it fitted. and then go for a kick off ride!

I am concerned about maintaining training intensity. I can feel myself slipping and it's worrying. I've made so much progress but have so far yet to go. To tell the truth I am a bit sad. I wish I would have started this journey 25 years ago. It makes me sad to think of what i may have been able to accomplish if I had set my mind to it back then. Now all that opportunity is gone for me I am just too old to be able to achieve higher levels of performance. 

I'll try to keep an open mind about where this unknown journey is going. But I can tell I'm playing catch up big time.

I'll add ride note after the madden voyage.

A quick word on Stevie Ray Vaughan

I was watching tv last night and there was a clip of Stevie and I watched it.  I had forgotten what an amazing musician he was and what a shame he died so young.  Gifts that extraordinary are so rare it can be difficult to appreciate them in there time. So I've posted his rendition of voodoo child. Why that song? I think there are to beings who can play it properly jimi and stevie. Everyone else should just stay away from it.

 If played properly the guitar is a whaling voice, crying and tormented.  If played poorly it mechanical and lifeless. It separates gods that breath life from the mortals.

art and music this brilliant are like looking into the sun.

enjoy

New bike new goals

So the frame for my bike showed up saturday and I am wondering what the plan is for the new ax. I think my two stunning defeats this spring have left me a bit gun shy of another road race. It's a pretty big commitment and effort to attend one. And if poor results are a very good likelihood it doesn't seem to be a wise choice of limited time.

So what are my choices then?

1) set racing aside for a bit and concentrate on group rides and preparing for ragbrai. This feels like quitting to me and I'm not ready to give up yet.

2) the black dog road time trial series. Every two weeks they run a time trial in a southern suburb of minneapolis. So every other week you can go race your previous time and the other competitors. I think this is a good option for me. I would get some competition time and the roller coaster ride that comes with it and it's a good metric to gage my fitness and progress.

3) Stay in the batters box and keep swinging.  Keep going to road races and crits and take my lumps. Chalk it all up to learning.  the fun to pain ratio seem a tad steep for me.

I think what I'll do is... ride a bit on the new bike to get comfortable then start in on the black dog TT.  if I am doing well in my category consider another road race or perhaps my first crit.

I am going to start a new section to my entries on my training notes to keep a record for fun and review later.

Training Notes: June 1 2008

group ride three friends on the mendota route. one of the people was a relative beginner and so the pace was a bit slow. Also the beginner didn't drink nearly enough and was really fading toward the end.

37.14 miles. That's 59.77 k for all you nosey Aussies : )

max hr:178

av hr: 128

calories: 1693

 av speed 13.44