Recovery Phase: 2

I was off by two days with my training, anticipating to get back on the bike by the 29th  I was rolling again by the 31st. The surgery went well, I still have stitches in my mouth (they’re made of Gore-Tex) and those will be taken out on the 8th. Then no more surgery until June-ish which will be nice because that will be after collegiate nationals. I am ecstatic to get back on my bike again, today was super wet, windy and gross. I could not have been happier. I am definitely slow, my HR was all over the place until it finally settled down after nearly an hour. I kept my cadence high and just cruised along in the rain for an hour and forty-five minutes. The whole time I was riding my face was throbbing, not hurting but it was that “tingly” feeling after you get bumped in the nose, right underneath my nose and where my front teeth should be. I could feel the blood pumping through this new area, it took some getting used to. I can’t begin to explain what a high I am on right now after riding my bike. I live for this, and each day I get closer to racing the more excited I get. I sure hope this season is gong to yield good results. If I stick to my training plan and take care of myself, I am confident that I will reach my goals with the potential to surpass them. The internet we usually steal at my apartment is not up so from the café; until next time. Cheers

Recovery

It’s December 27th, I’m laying on the couch aching to ride my bike. Surgery went well, they did another bone graph to make the area stronger and put in two very large screws right below my nose which they will eventually attach two teeth to and then I’ll be done, I’ve only got one more surgery to go. This recovery portion has been brutal, I’m not allowed to get my blood pressure up so nearly all activity is out, I’m not able to lift heavy things or strain myself because it may cause unwanted bleeding which would mess things up. I’ve been eating well, which is good, staying away from a lot of those tempting winter sweets. I have decided to try out this gluten free diet once I get back on the bike, after reading a few studies about it, I am fairly convinced that it will be good for me. At the very least I will be cutting back from eating a lot of processed foods so overall, I will be eating better. Side note: I really need to work on my core, it’s quite disgusting. As soon as I can train again, I will be working daily on my core to get things back into a more appropriate state. The days here have been pretty slow going, I wake up late, stay inside, surf a lot of internet, watch a movie or two, eat, then go to bed. Quite a lot of excitement in this life. This has been your update of my training log, until next time, cheers.

p.s.

I really want to race.

Portland Training

Hello again, thanks for tuning in. Here’s an update about my weekend training and upcoming plans. Saturday, I did a lovely jaunt up Wolf Creek with a teammate of mine, I stayed in zones 1-3 pretty well, and things went fairly smoothly, no incidents this time (that was a good 4.5 hour ride). After riding, I scrambled my things together and headed up to Portland to see Tyler Farrar speak at River City Bicycles (really cool shop by the way, lot’s of toys).  I scored some free water bottles, got his autograph and learned a little about what its like in the pro peloton, race radios, upcoming rival teams, etc. He was a pretty cool guy and shared some interesting information with us. One thing Tyler talked about was during the major tours (i.e. all spring and summer) the team was on a gluten free diet proposed by Christian Vande Velde. This is more so of an attempt at seriously minimizing gluten as opposed to going “cold turkey.” The thought process behind this diet as I understand it, is to reduce the amount of inflammatory foods in your diet which can inhibit your performance. I’m still reading up on this diet and am seriously considering it during race season. After looking at my pantry currently, the change wouldn’t be that difficult, changing out my pasta for rice, swapping crackers for rice cakes & crackers, etc. I’ll update more about my decision for this diet soon. Being that my dad is allergic to wheat, and growing up with all these foods in the house, the transition to these new foods doesn’t seem that challenging as I already have a liking for these “bland” foods.

Sunday’s training ride was going to be my second Team Oregon ride, I was extremely excited because there were going to be some of my old teammates there and I would also meet some new people as well. It started at 9:00 from the base of the West Hills in Portland. I wrote out directions the night before, prepared my recovery drink and energy bar (I’m experimenting with Luna bars, they’re great so far) I got extremely lost and arrived at my destination 2 minutes before the ride left, whew! We began immediately to do some serious climbing into the West Hills, my legs were feeling alright but after doing Wolf Creek the day before I was a little nervous. 4.25 hours later and thousands of feet elevation gain (I don’t have exact numbers because my computer decided to hate me today), my legs were starting to feel tired, my HR was relatively low for the amount of work I was doing and it felt really good to have the support of the Team O riders around me. It was such a great ride, Portland from on top of a high ridge is beautiful, we did a little time on the flats around Hilsboro which was also gorgeous. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and can’t wait to move up to Portland to be more connected to this team and the riding. I am very glad on my decision to race for Team Oregon this upcoming season, everyone is so supportive, the team is well organized and the rider experience/ knowledge base is huge.

Monday is a rest day, so I may go climb with a friend of mine here in Portland, Tuesday I go in for surgery and then it’s about a week off the bike, hopefully I won’t lose too much fitness so I can get back into it again. Well, until next time.

Cheers.

Close Call

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated this but as I wait for my laundry to finish I suppose I should catch up. Training has been going fairly well these past few weeks. For the most part, I’ve been staying on track with my workout plan, yes, I have been missing a day or two here and there but overall, my fitness is still climbing and I’m adequately rested. On Monday I went snow camping with a friend of mine for three days around Sahalie falls, surprisingly I got a good workout hiking around for that time so I didn’t lose much fitness there. It was a lot of hard work hiking through the snow, and now my calves and hamstrings are tight, so I’ve been stretching them out frequently. Saturday (today) I am going to head up to Portland to see Tyler Farrar which I’m super excited about, I’m also going to make it to a Team O ride which is way overdue. Tuesday the 22nd, I’m having surgery, getting my two front teeth implanted (yay!), this should be fun. I’m anticipating it will put me a week off the bike which shouldn’t take me too far off track but we’ll see. I’m hoping to get back on the bike the 27th or 28th for a few days before the new year.

Now that you’re officially caught up with what’s been happening in my world of training/life I am now going to tell you about my experience riding today. I’m fighting off the beginnings of a cold so I decided to take it easy today although I was doing some hills, I headed out for three hours and after about an hour and fifteen minutes I started to feel pretty crappy to I decided to call it a day. I was soft pedaling down the road, more than ready to be back in my warm bed with a hot cup of tea and lemon but first I had to climb over 30th street, down the backside and 1.25 miles down the bike path to my apartment. I proceed to climb (very slowly) 30th street hill, reach the summit and begin my descent. I am now going to try to paint a mental picture of the back side of this hill in case you are not familiar with it. The hill itself is very steep and from the top to about one quarter of the way down there is no bike lane. This section of road is very curvy and potentially dangerous for those of us on bikes, after about 500 meters of road the bike lane begins and continues on down the rest of the street. This road is a common road to find cyclists on and what happens is, we take the entire lane on the downhill for about 500m until the bike lane begins, then we scoot over and remain in our own lane. So, I begin my descent of 30th street hill when this older woman in a blue prius decides to pass me on the corner, she doesn’t do it quickly, no, she uses the front of her car to slowly push me toward the curb as she pulls directly in front of me and then applies her breaks because shes going too fast on the corner. I came within inches of her car and the curb at 35mph. I begin to yell and shake my fist at her as we proceed down the hill, I get into my big ring and sprint alongside her car as she completely ignores me. Luckily she is caught at a red light when I approach right up next to her and explain to her (inbetween exasperated breaths) that what she did was unacceptable and how dangerous that was, I also explained to her the apparent fact that she is in a steel box while I am on my bike. She closes her window in the middle of my explanation and drives off. I proceed toward the sidewalk where I pull out my cell phone and call 911, give her license plate number to the dispatch woman (who was extremely nice and wanted to make sure I was absolutely ok)  and filed a report for reckless driving against the woman.   Needless to say that signified the end of my ride as I was and still am really shaken up. It truly amazes me that some people can be so inconsiderate and ignorant of others on the road, especially cyclists. I am always a considerate cyclist, I stop at all stop signs and lights, always wear my helmet and have lights on the front and back, I signal which direction I’m going and make it very aware that I am on the road too. On top of all that, it’s christmas time, people are supposed to be nice to each other, I just don’t get it. This is definitely not the first encounter I’ve had with a motorist, every time it baffles me at how….moronic…. people are. I hope an officer payed her a visit and suggested she re-reads her drivers manual. Until next time.

Cheers.

Oops!

Hmmm, so this past week was supposed to be easy (8.5 hours) it actually ended up being zero hours on the bike because I forgot to pack bibs when I went to Portland for the break. I did get in some climbing but that was minimal at best. Instead I ate a lot of really good  food and relaxed. This was definitely not a part of my training plan but we’ll see if there are any repercussions further down the road. I was pretty tired after finishing a 16.5 hour week on the bike, so maybe a full week off is going to do me some good. Now it’s back on the bike to pick up where I left off, I enter into Base 2 this week, I need to do a 5 mile TT to get a baseline fitness mark. 12.5 hours on the bike won’t be that bad…. I hope… Until next time.

Cheers.

Long Day At The Office

Whew! What a weekend it has been, let me fill you in on all the happenings.

…SATURDAY…

UO team ride leaves from LifeCycle Bike Shop promptly at 9:00 am. I wake up at 8:35, throw on some clothes (which haven’t fully dried yet) shovel some oatmeal down my throat, grab some food and head out the door. I’m out for 4 hours today. Luckily it’s sunny and relatively warm with a small but noticeable breeze which would get annoying if you were going for a long bike ride (good thing I was). The UO team has some photo shoot for our calender that was taking place at the crit course which I didn’t care to indulge in the slightest, so I continued down the bike path toward the airport. I had the wind at my back and was cruising fairly comfortably at 24mph, my HR was low (somewhere in the 145-153 range) and I was feeling good. I knew that I would be battling this wind on my way home but decided to continue downwind anyway. I reached the big red STOP sign where I usually turn around at but I was going so fast that I had reached it ahead of schedule. I have never gone past this stop sign so I decided that with a day like today and the egregious amount of food in my pockets, today was the day. I headed onward (northbound) and cruised past several very beautiful farm houses, rode past horses, sheep and even some buffalo in the pasture. I was still going strong so I continued down this winding country road without a car in sight. By now I was about 15 miles off course and had never ridden this road before, it started to climb and I thought that if I could get over this ridge, the road would intersect with something I was maybe familiar with (I was in the vicinity of Hwy 38 and Territorial Hwy). I continued to climb, feeling pretty good when suddenly I hear an overly excited dog gallivanting toward me. Nearly nipping at my heals I shift down very quickly and while trying to get away from the hound, I’m screaming at it to go home. Eventually the dog decides I’m no longer any fun and turns around. Now that my HR is somewhere in the 280-300 zone I very slowly and arduously continue to climb the ridge. I arrive to what looks like the summit, only to see that what once was a lovely paved road suddenly stops and transforms into gravel. Well, time to turn around (damn, I know that dog is waiting for me). I head down the ridge and sure enough there was that dog again, nearly catching me this time as it was waiting on the side of the road. I almost unclipped and kicked it in the nose before it stopped and went home. As if that wasn’t enough I ride back the way I had come, only to find that lovely little breeze waiting to shut me down. I get my cadence up and prepare for a long day at the office. 2 hours into the headwind at a grueling 11mph, I was so drained by the time I got home I could barely make my recovery pasta. After a long shower and a whole lot more food, a friend came over and we watched some climbing and kayaking movies. Now off to bed, to do it all over again in the morning, only this time it’s hills…

….SUNDAY…

You know you’ve had a good ride when you can only speak in one word sentences because you’re so hungry, tired, wet, cold, miserable, dirty, smelly, wet, freezing, numb, hungry, drained, exhausted, oh did I mention hungry? 3.5 hours this time and lots of climbing to go with it, I totaled 4,250 ft in elevation gain, the descents were so long I got my machine up to 42 mph, while coasting. Chris Swan, a local pro racer came down from Portland to race on Saturday and do some coaching with the UO team on Sunday. We started bright and early at 9:00am from the shop and orientated ourselves to the crit course. Once there, we did some work on riding in a group, practicing a pace-line, and cornering. Chris’ coaching was great, the riders in the pack were much the latter. We decided to head out to the road and get some real riding in. Making our way up Lorane Hwy we headed toward Briggs hill, individually this takes you about 30 minutes to get there, and usually less if you’re in a group, today it took us over an hour due to 4 flat tires and people not being prepared with tubes, CO2, pump, levers, etc. (Being someone who tries to be prepared all the time, I found this extremely frustrating) Once we arrived at the first climb, our legs about the consistency of lead weights from standing around for so long waiting for the flat fix. After a good 45 minutes of pure suffering my legs were somewhat back to normal (still very heavy). We continued to ride back into Eugene, but I was going out longer and Chris was as well so the two of us branched off and climbed the back side of Fox Hollow, by now the weather was upon us and we were caught in an involuntary shower. Chris and I enjoyed good conversation as we headed up Fox Hollow, continued down the front side and realized that we still had another hour of riding to do so we decided to climb Dillard hill. Continuing the slow pace up to the summit, the rain held off. We descended, the rain held off. We turned around and climbed back up Dillard, the rain held off. We descended down the back side, here comes the rain. This time it wasn’t just wet, but it was like little ice rocks of pain, just thrashing any part of your body that was exposed (in this case it happened to be your face). We reached the bottom, and were both about as warm as a popsicle. Chris and I continued to ride back into town where we parted ways. I went home, showered, ate (about one cubic ton of pasta), and then Lauren and I walked around 5th St. Market and had coffee before we both went home to do homework. Another glorious day in the office, life is good.

Until next time, cheers.

Rain + Not Enough Daylight = Trainer :(

Winter has definitely arrived, I officially know this when I don’t have enough daylight to ride my bike so I have to get on my trainer, in other words, “lame.” I cannot think of any other workout I would rather skip than ride my trainer. I even had all the amenities going for me, Daft Punk playing loudly, the 05′ Tour playing on the TV, a fan in my face and still I was bored out of my mind. On the bright side, I did get some good speed work in and my legs feel pretty good for the long weekend rides to come. Chris Swan is apparently coming down from Portland for the weekend to do some coaching with the UO team, it should be nice to see him again. I’m planning on doing a 3 hour ride on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday, I’ve got my “cruising speed” up to around 20mph which I’m fairly happy with. My HR is slowly dropping which is also a plus, I think it’s about time to re-check my HR zones, I have a feeling they are a bit off. I’m still burning through my grocery bill, my metabolism is on overdrive right now and its draining my wallet, maybe I can catch up on food during Thanksgiving. Anyhoo, there’s your update of training, I’ll post again after this weekend, until next time. Cheers.

Weekend Riding

It’s already Sunday, where did my weekend go?!? At least I got in two long rides, on Saturday I met up with the UO team group ride outside the bike shop, rode with them for an hour and a half, then continued on with another teammate of mine. The two of us headed out to do Brownsville, we made it up the big hill and turned around as we were going to be over on our time limit of 4 hours, we headed back down Mckenzie view, ate, drank, ate some more and talked about food and what our post-ride activities were going to include. I went home, ate some more food, showered and drained my legs. I was somewhat fatigued going into the ride this morning, headed out from the bike shop again. Bright and early 9:00 am start, we headed out to climb Dillard, Hamm and Lorane. I didn’t realize just how much my legs were going to hate me today. I began the climb feeling alright and things didn’t get any better than that for the rest of the ride. We were moving at a pretty good pace (avg spd 17.5 mph with 2417ft of climbing overall). My HR is slowly getting back to normal (hooray) I averaged 162 over 55 miles which I’m fairly pleased with. Overall, things are looking better in terms of fitness, now if only I can figure out how to bring down my grocery bills to a somewhat reasonable level then I’ll be set. There’s your brief update of this weekend, until next time, cheers.

Base Training 11/12

Today was fun, I decided to do some hills between classes and headed up Fox Hollow. The weather was finicky, the day couldn’t decide if it was going to be cheery or dreary, to play it safe I was prepared for both (at least somewhat). I headed out and after I reached the top of Fox Hollow (listening to David Bowie and Michael Jackson all the way up) the flood gates opened up and as I descended MacBeth, the rain was coming down sideways and in a few short minutes I was soaked. I stopped put on my sopping wet rain jacket (which turns out is not waterproof but water resistant, oops) and headed home. heart rate is still relatively high (avg 171), my fitness isn’t quite there yet, but I was climbing a lot 3,104 ft elevation gain.  Once home, did my usual recovery routine and headed off to class. Tonight, kayak roll session, time to work on my hand roll. Until next time, Cheers.

 

Base Training Has Begun

Base training is officially underway, today I went for an hour and a half ride, fairly easy, HR averaged 171. The day started out nice, I got up early, went to campus and studied for a make up midterm (which went awful). I swung by the bike shop and picked up a new pair of winter tires and went home. I got ready for my ride at an extremely leisurely pace, putting together a very nice, “cruising” playlist for my shuffle, put on my new tires, lubed my chain and put on a ton of clothes. The weather was in limbo between dreary and wet and bright and sunny. I thought I’d play it safe and put on a few extra layers, grabbed my tail lights and headed out. I had a lovely conversation with one of Eugene’s finest policemen as he was waiting at a stop light next to me, he wished me well and I was on my way to do the usual Crow/Lorane route. Pretty low traffic today and cars were more than pleasant to share the road with me which was odd, maybe some of them are starting to understand that we too belong on the road. Anyhoo, I was feeling pretty good at the end of my ride so I thought I would kick it up a little bit as I got closer to the Highway 126 intersection stoplight. After that little jaunt I didn’t realize how little I had to eat today so I enjoyed the pleasure of bonking on the bike path (seriously embarrassing, I know better than that). I pulled out a clif bar and a gel and continued on my way. I got my legs back up to speed (somewhere around 19/20 mph) and continued my way home. I was passed by a dude on a fixie, who was seriously cruising but couldn’t hold a straight line and didn’t look for cars as he ran through the crosswalks (I wish people had more common sense). I’ve got it stuck in my head that maybe I should start using the data on my expensive bike computer to more of it’s potential, so starting today I am gathering my ride data into an excel spreadsheet so I can monitor my progress. In other words the poor man’s version of “Training Peaks.”  Back at home in my new apartment, showered, ate a whole bunch more food and now I’m off to see a movie (Hmm, maybe I should do groceries too).

Until next time, cheers.