Guacamole and Intervals

Well, I did it. I pulled the trigger on a new mountain bike. I bought an Air 9 Carbon frame and plan on building it up with Sram X.O. This bike is going to be sweet. Probably around 23 pounds and uber stiff. I hope that all the parts arrive before my first race. I know the frame isn't supposed to be in stock until April 15th. Not sure when all the components will be available. I should be getting the seatpost and stem later this week and I'll be using my wheelset that I built earlier this year. It's going to be a sweet ride, I can hardly wait.

I'm hoping with the new mountain bike I'll find it in my schedule somehow to do a few more mountain bike races. I looked into the Lock 4 Challenge and Legend of Stank races which will take place while I'm still in town. I'll let my first few off-road tri's tell me whether I'm ready and up for that or not. The only mountain bike races I've ever done were with the Colorado cycling club and the last race I did got me back in the hospital for ACL reconstruction number two.

Anyway, I did my first interval run of the season today. I was going to run outside, but the rain started coming down. So, I went back to sewing a Niner patch on my gym/travel bag while I waited to see if it would subside. The rain only got harder and I was tired of waiting, so I went back to the treadmill in the office. After clearing the dust and surplus groceries off it, I began my workout. The last interval I tried to do 10 mph at 5% grade. I didn't quite make it through the whole thing you could say. After showering and relaxing a bit, I dipped into some homemade guacamole for a nice snack. The lime chips and lime juice in the dip made me really want some Corona and for summer to be here. Back to the water and the weights in the morning.

Bricking It

After a long day of doing inventory at the store today, I finally got around to a workout. I figured I wouldn't be done with inventory until after 6 which wouldn't leave me enough time to ride. I figured I would just do a run after work and then get ready for the week. (I have a research paper due this Wednesday and a yoga paper to write. I haven't started either, but thankfully after this my year is pretty much done. All I will have to do is show up to class and things should take care of themselves.) But since it was such a nice day and I saw so many people out working out on my drive home, I decided I would do a brick workout. A brick is a common workout done by triathletes which involves a bike ride immediately followed by a run. This helps train the leg muscles and gets them accustomed to running off  the bike like you would in the race. So I rode my tri bike around the neighborhood for about 30 minutes. The handling is already feeling better and it still feels super fast when I'm down in the aero position. I did a little speed work that topped me out at 36 mph and averaged 20.3 for the 10.6 miles. I then hopped off and put on my Merrell Trail Gloves. I went for another mile run in them around the block. I guess I am getting better because they didn't hurt my calves as much. Some parts of the run felt really slow and hard, but I guess that was because I had been flying around the streets at 25 mph. The mile ended up being a 6:27 mile. That feels pretty good to be running that fast off the bike this early. It also puts my weekly training time at 9.5 hours. That's a pretty good amount for this early in the season and what I'm training for, so I'm proud and happy with that. Looking forward to the races in May and hopefully a sweet, new carbon bike to be racing on.

Several New Things This Week

Well it's been long over due, but this has been a busy week. Back to school full time, working 45 hours, and training for the past 10 days straight, it's been tough. Getting back in the water on Wednesday was rough. Having been out of the water for two full weeks was very apparent. I warmed back up to it and managed to swim 2100 yards. I also tried out some new goggles I picked up from Outdoors Inc. I tried the new Speedo Air Seal Tri and the Vanquisher. The Vanquisher was awesome as always and didn't fog at all. The tri goggles were nice with their wide viewing range, but seemed to fog a little quicker than I would have liked. All in all, it was a good day that rounded out with a weight lift, spin class, yoga, and another mile in the Merrell Barefoot Trail Gloves.

Thursday I was finally able to get on my new tri bike. The Slice is great. It is very aero and very fast. The handling is different, but that is to be expected when going back to an aero position after 8 months of regular road riding. The cranks are stiff as expected and the wheels roll very fast. My faith in Shimano was also restored. The Ultegra grouppo and Dura-Ace shifters were super crisp and fast shifting. It worked great. Down in the aero bars it was automatically 24 to 28 mph. It just took off in the aero position. I topped out at 34 mph which is also about the time I was fiddling with my computer and smacked into a pot hole. Surprisingly, the Cosmic's were still pretty true. The base bars came as alloy, even though it was advertised as carbon. That stinks, but it's still  light weight. Complete bike with speedplay pedals weighs 19.3 pounds. I wonder how fast I can do a 40K in now? I wonder how fast I could have done Ironman Louisville if I had had this bike? Maybe I could have gone 5 hours instead of 5:21? After all, I did it on a road bike with heavier wheels that weren't aero and the complete bike weighed more too. Makes me wonder. But that's in the past and my day will come. I will put it and myself to the test in the next Ironman.

The Merrell Trail gloves are continuing to be awesome while being terrible at the same time. I am really excited about the changes coming in my stride and the possibility of racing Xterra's in these. The big toe box is great for my wider foot and the soles feel great and do a great of job of helping me with a mid-foot strike. However, they are still killing my legs. I have yet to do any more than a mile in them, and when I do a mile it's all I can do to keep proper form throughout the full mile. It kills my calves. I figured by now I would have adjusted and grown stronger, but no big advances. Granted it's only been a week and a half, but I expected more by now. Hopefully it will come soon and I can put some more serious miles into them. The miles I am doing now are fast though. The mile I did after work yesterday was a 6:37. Not bad for one week of running.

However, the most exciting new thing in my life is the Niner Air 9Carbon. I recently took the Outdoors Inc. demo bike out for a spin. I first did a night ride with co-worker Kenny on it Thursday night. The bike is fast and super light. It keeps it's line around corners and tight single track very well. Being so light helps the handling and maneuvering on the trail too. It's so easy to pick up over logs and to correct a line if a mistake is made. It speeds down the single track so well it was almost unfair to be riding with the guys on 26" full suspension bikes. I did crash once, I chalk it up to the dark and unfamiliarity of the trail. The bars swung around and smacked the top tube because I have it slammed. The bars took a good size chip out of the paint as it scrapped across. We had to undo the bars from the stem to rotate them so we could move the bars back to their proper place without scratching it any more. I was freaking out about it, but have come to terms with it. Like Kenny said, it's a demo bike. It needed to have its first scratch and why not me doing an awesome superman crash on the white trail of the wolf river bottoms. I took the bike out again this morning for a ride before work. I took the same trail system and put up some times that were quicker than I think I have ever done. I did the blue, white, yellow from Lowe's to Walnut Grove in under 15 minutes! Granted that doesn't mean anything to you unless you know the trail system, but I think I usually do that stretch in about 20 minutes. The bike feels great and as I have shown, it can take a beating. The crash and impact shows that the carbon is tough and won't break in a rough crash. That being said, if I had one, I would wrap something protective around the top tube to prevent that from happening again. These rides have pretty much convinced me that I need to get this bike. I truly believe that I will be faster and better on the trails if I am riding this bike. That's what I want and what I need if I really want to win races and win another regional championship.

Hard Work and Long Days

I thought doing 3 sets of 30 reps of 180 pounds of calf raises was good enough. I've been doing that twice a week since the end of January and felt like I was increasing my strength. But, nothing could have prepared me for running in the Merrell Barefoot Trail Gloves. It was very hard to finish the one full mile I did in them on Friday morning. I'm glad I only did .6 of a mile Thursday after I first got them. Saturday morning when I got up it was hard to walk. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do my whole bike ride I had planned or not. Luckily, I don't use too much of my calfs in my pedal stroke. The ride went well and I was happy with the time and miles I got in the saddle. The rest of the day was a struggle. My calfs were sore the whole day. I wore my calf skins to work despite the weird comments and glances I got from customers and co-workers. But mostly I was occupied with my new tri bike that arrived Friday morning. I just got my Cannondale Slice 3 Ultegra. It sure is a beautiful bike. It was originally back ordered for a while but once my order went through, they got it shipped out a lot quicker. I was stoked to start building it up. I didn't get too far with the other work I had to get done, but enough to get a good idea of how it was going to look. So on Saturday I set out to fit it to my body with help from my co-worker Matt McCulley. He helped me dial in the seat height, bar height, and saddle position. After that was set I could start running housing and cables that would fit nice and snug. That used up about the whole day.

 

Sunday I lost an hour of sleep but still managed to get up for my ride I had planned. It was forecasted to rain, but thankfully the weather changed over night and my ride fell right in place. I found my breaking point on that ride. I tried to do several 85% hill climbs in a 60 mile ride, my longest distance so far. The Gu Roctane helped give me about 12 extra miles of energy but I still fell about 8 miles short on energy. It would have helped if I had some thicker padded shorts or more of a padded saddle than the leather covered plastic I have. Somehow I still managed to average 19 mph. Anyways, it was too early in the season to try to pull that kind of workout. I did get to see a rafter (Thanks Brandon) of Turkeys though which was a pretty cool site. There were about 5 or 6 big males and a bunch of females meandering through a crop field out along a country road. It still doesn't change the fact that I bonked. And bonked hard. When I got home I wanted to just sit on the couch and watch TV the rest of the day, but I had to quickly eat, shower, and get to work. I made an awesome batch of scrambled eggs with turkey, pepper jack cheese, cheddar cheese, and home grown bell and banana peppers. It was great along with a big glass of chocolate milk. But then work only made the day more hectic. It was a crazy, busy Sunday that I had to man by myself. I once again failed to finish my bike, but did manage to sell two bikes, install new bars on a TT bike, re-cable and re-house a bike, and blow up a tube in my face. It destroyed my eyes. A guy came in with a flat tire. When I tried to inflate it the tube popped out the side because the tire wasn't seeding properly. I deflated and tried again. It looked good and I was checking it out while squating beside it and then BOOM. It exploded right in my face. I couldn't see or hear anything. I back away and just stood, or tried to. I collected myself as two onlookers asked if I was okay. As I took a step they assumed I was. I wasn't ready to speak yet. I was still dumbfounded and shocked from the explosion. I quickly grabbed a new tube and reinstalled it for this guy and sent him on his way. I then checked myself out in the mirror. My eyelids had been scraped as well as my nose. My right eyelid was bulging and blue. It was throbbing with pain. I finished the hectic day and was ready for a break. It's too bad I gave up drinking for lent because I could really use a tall glass of bourbon and a recliner after this day. I could also use a day off after the string of workouts I've put together, but tomorrow I go back to school and back to working out. At least I get to change it up. I'll get back in the water and back to lifting weights. I wanted to do my first ride on my TT bike on tuesday but since I didn't get to finish it, I guess I'll ride on my road bike and the new Slice will have to wait. 

 

 

 

 

Getting Back To Running

I took my first steps toward changing my stride today, but about that in a minute. First, my run this morning. I had not run since December 15 last year until this morning. It's been 7 weeks to the day since I had my screw removed from my tibia. I am now allowed to run again with the hopes that the hole left in my tibia has filled in enough that the stress from running will not cause a stress fracture to develop. So, before work this morning I got up and had some coffee with the dog and prepared for the cold morning. It's a lot easier to prepare for a 15 minute run in the cold than a 2 to 3 hour bike ride in the cold, wind plays a huge difference. Setting out for my run I didn't know what exactly to expect. Starting out I felt pretty labored and was thinking that I really do have a lot of work to do before my upcoming races in May. As the run went along I was starting to fall back into place and enjoy myself. I knew I was moving along pretty quick towards the end of the run but I didn't know how fast. I don't know how many miles I could sustain at that pace but I ended up doing a 2 mile run split 6:57 and 5:58! Dang! I know it's only two miles, but I am coming back from a long hiatus and an "injury." Negative splitting a workout is always a good thing but by a minute!? That's a lot. Like I said I don't know how long I could have held that, but my races this season only require 3 to 6.2 mile runs. I can wing that! Haha. I don't have to run a marathon at the end any more. If I keep this speed, I could be a real threat out there on the Xterra courses this season.

So starting out slow, I wanted to work my legs back into running. But it's hard to increase mileage by 10% coming from 0 miles. So where do I start? I figured I'd just lump a few short runs of a mile to 3 miles over the first few days before ramping up. An easy way to do this and I felt might be safer, is pulling two-a-days. So after I got home from work I went out for another run. Plan was to do another 1.5 to 2 miles. Amazingly though, my Merrell Trail Gloves were delivered by FedEx today. This works out perfectly. Coming off a big running break and slowly building miles back up and I get the opportunity to work on and change my stride for the better. So, I did the first .6 of a mile in the new Merrell Trail Gloves (pictured below) before swinging back by the house and switching back over to my Asics. Rounding out the run I still averaged 6:19 for 2.1 miles. It feels good. I could immediately feel how the new shoes changed my stride and proper running form just followed. There wasn't a huge effort on my part to change it with these 0mm heel to ball drop. They felt awesome and during the rest of the run, I could already feel my left calve tightening up and getting sore. I'm excited to do more work with these new shoes and am really hoping to do my races in them. At only 6 oz. they will make my feet very light and nimble as I'm dashing through the woods.

Riding in Rural East Tennessee

Taking a ride in rural East Tennessee is like taking a step back in time. It is a beautiful place to enjoy back country roads and a more simple time of life. It has beautiful fields of daffodils, rolling cow pastures, creeks running along both sides of the road and through people's yards, and good climbs. It was a nice 45 mile ride with a good number of climbs and some fast descents. I topped out at 43 mph, but I've hit 46 mph on this hill before. It was still fast enough to break away from all the cars behind me.

Before I said this was the stiffest frame I had ever written, but for some reason I have been feeling a little shaky on the handling. I don't know if I have lost some handling skills, the rear triangle is soft, or if this new super light seat post is flexing a lot. I think I might swap it out with my old one to experiment with that idea.

It's time to decide what I really want in life and what I'm going to focus on. I keep telling myself that I am now focusing on training or whatnot. But it's time to lay down some real goals and guidelines to follow. Set some limits and rules for myself to reach them. I need some more self-discipline. As I was riding in the car home from Knoxville this evening, I realized that lent starts tomorrow. I have been telling myself that I getting more serious with my training would require a cut back on the beers and earlier morning workouts. Those two can't go together very well for me. So, I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea for me to give up alcohol for lent. This will be able to serve more than one purpose and with more than one reason, I think I will have a greater chance of really sticking to it (esp. now that I wrote about it on here for all the public to see). I had some hard partying this past weekend in Knoxville with some new and old friends at a legendary thing UT students know as Boxing Weekend. So, those few nights will have to hold me over until Easter, or hopefully until after my first three big races in May. Best of luck to me. Oh and about to start running so look forward to a report on that to come.

I've included some pictures of the ride and the redneck nature of Appalachia.

No yellow line here

Trying to pull the engine out of the car with a tree

Old Run Down Barn

Fun Descent

Squeezing it All In

It's March now and that means only two more months until race season. It's sneaking up on me quite quickly. My swimming is coming along and biking should fall right in place. Running is up in the air. I haven't been able to run this year. I think the last time I ran was sometime in early December. I'm almost two months out from my screw removal surgery. I think I'll start running sometime next week. It's spring break and I usually use that time to springboard my training. I'll be in Knoxville so I'll get to ride some good hills and focus on bringing my running game back. I'm also thinking about getting a pair of Merrill trail gloves and trying out some "barefoot" trail running. I think it would be really awesome to do my Xterra races in the body gloves. As long as I stay consistent in my training that I've started so far then I should be okay by May. Gradually, I'll be adding more workouts and adding runs will really help me fill in gaps in the week.

Today I got a late start so after taking my 15 minute cycling midterm, I headed to the weight room to knock out my lifts before karate class. I increased weights on all but one set today. It feels good. Then after all my classes around 5:15 I headed back to the gym for my swim I missed this morning. Swimming at this time also lets me avoid the terrible traffic during the rush hour. I'm glad I stayed focused and didn't skip my workouts today. Keeping this up will make for a good season. Planning on a 6:45 morning ride tomorrow before work to make this my biggest training week so far.

Bring on the races.