Friday, November 17, 2006

Saddle Time


Did some more weights early this morning at the gym. The body is starting to get used to pushing iron, therefore, I am not nearly as sore as I was earlier in the week. After the gym, I headed over to d-town Brighton to check out the new bike shop in town. It is called Ride Botique and it is really nice. It has a nice vibe and atmosphere to it. Chad, the owner, is stocking high end stuff from Seven, Guru, Bianchi, Felt, C-dale, and he is also a Zipp dealer. He has a fully built Seven Ti/Carbon 29er on the floor that is his. Pretty cool looking stuff.


This afternoon I took the SS out for a 2:20 venture. Just spinning a high cadence and keeping the HR in zone 2 for the most part. My goal today seemed to go the whole time without bonking. It worked, but by the time I got home, I really felt like I needed some sugar. Toast with Jam worked pretty good for that! This ride taught me about winter riding on the road and rail trail...carry an mp3 player when riding solo. That straight and flat rail trail becomes very monotonous.

A nice staircase I found to ride off of the rail trail-it lead to paved singletrack into a neighborhood. Narrow asphalt winding around trees?



Off to do some skating at the ice rink tonight, and tommorrow afternoon after my ride. I am thinking of riding around and eventually riding over to the new Milford trail and putting in some miles there!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Riding for Fun

I got out of bed and my body was STIFF and SORE. That's what happens when you lift weights after 9 months of riding and no gym work. My plan was to go out to Highland and do a night ride, and that is exactly what I did. It was an awesome ride. We headed out backwards on the A loop, then hooked up with D and rode it backwards until the road. We cut out on the road and turned in on the horse trail (shhhh) to get to the B/C intersection. Rode B backwards and that was a rush. I don't know what got into me, but I was zipping through the corners and cruzing right up the hills. Maybe it was the fact that B suits my 36-16 gearing much better. I succesfully finished the trail with no crashes and no bured out lights. Along with the helmet mounted HID, I strapped on a halogen on the bars for some better depth perception for the drops. Fun ride.

Today after going to a natural science museum at the U of M fo BIO lab, I headed back over to the gym. Once I got pushing the weights, it didn't hurt too bad. I am doing 25-30 reps of each exercise at least 3 times. MTBing doesn't work the upper body terribley much because I am only pushing 50-75lbs on the row and lat pulldown! A day off of riding for me, but I'll be back on it tommorrow.

While looking around today, I went to the LJ 100 site and found some cool info. Rick is thinking about changing up the course and going backwards next year. It'll be fun, but that hill coming down to the parking lot will suck going up. Good news is that it will only have to be done 4 times. I also found a few pictures of me during the race under the photos section on pg. 10/11. I would post them but pics are hard to get up here with dialup.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

A Week Off

To start the off season off right, I too the past week off from riding. My last ride was Monday at ILRA when I rode the fixie off road for the first time. What a blast! It was much easier than expected and I still managed a 55 minute lap.

It was hard not to ride on the nice 65 degree day, but I have a plan, and it says recovery. I barely rode beofre Iceman, so it is almost like a 2 week recovery with a race thrown in the mix. This will all end tommorrow when I hit the gym for the first time since last March. I am planning on hitting weights 3 times a week and starting some base training in December. I am actually try to focus on a training plan this year and see how it works instead of just riding like I normally do! For the next few weeks, I am just going to have fun doing night rides and other easy social rides in the cold and snow.

I did not sit on the couch all week though. I got in some ice skating (work-hockey referee) on Wed, Thurs, Fri, and 3 hrs today. It is good cross training and keeping the legs moving. I also started Pilates back up again. It didn't hurt too bad after the first 2 minute warmup. Maybe a little snow in December will help me get some cross training in with cross country skiing.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

1:55

Not my best race, but I still ended up 4th in Expert 15-18. Start line was 29 degrees and I was dressed for it. I started 5 or so rows back and made up some spots early on through the grass and moving side to side for a while. I was feeling good, hammering it out and the legs didn't even burn at all. I was in third place about 8 miles in and then a little later, I was riding with Mike Anderson(who got 2nd) for a while. We could see the lead group ahead of us, and were working on pulling them in. I got caught in a few sand pits throughout the race and cost me some time getting off and running through them. It is amazing how much harder the sand is to ride through when there have not been 1000 races packing it down and making a line for you. About mile 14 we were riding through a long stretch of deep sand with more on the sides. Mike was in front and slid to the side and corrected, but I did the same thing plus more and ended up putting a knee down. Then I had to yank a branch out of my wheel and try to get going. I jumped on and my chain had fallen into the largest gear (11T). I tried to pedal but it went clunk, clunck, clunk. I got back off and ran throught the sand until I could get moving again. I never saw Mike after that, but I guess he caught the 3rd place rider in the last few miles. Right after that point, it got colder and started snowing. The colder air started to burn my asthmatic lungs from my chest cold and killed me. My legs never hurt though. The first 16 miles of the race I averaged 172bpm, but the last 12 I only averaged 164. I would go hard, no burning legs and not get my HR over 169. I felt like I could not get going fast on theflats like I had been. The last few miles I pushed as hard as I could go and said screw the lungs and just got up the last couple climbs. After the race, I coughed my lungs up for a half an hour and througout the evening. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed them so hard at the end, but I can just try to get healthier this week. I finished a little faster than last year and there was an extra mile or more added of singletrack,so there is progress, but not as much as I have shown before. In the Boyne race, I beat my time by 21 minutes compared to the year before. Not what I was looking for, but there is always next year!

For now, I am just planning on cooling it off and letting the body recover before I start hitting the gym hard in a couple of weeks. I am looking at having some enjoyable group nightrides in the next month or so and have some fun casually riding. Come December, I will start some Base training on the fixie!!!

Looking back at the season, I accomlished quite a lot, more than I thought.
-3rd at Yankee TT-my first expert race
-2nd at Fort Custer(starting with the wrong group, not chasing anyone and losing by 1 minute)
-1st 12 Hours of Boyne Solo-my first endurance race...quit at 10:45 with 11 laps
-3rd Hanson Hills-learning to let the body recover after a endurance race no matter how good you feel the next day, and do not go hammer out 2 lpas of PLRA after the endurnace race=bad
-12th Overall Lumberjack 100-I battled the heat and did much better then expected with a time of 8:32:10
-2nd Boyne Marathon-cutting out 14 miles killed the marathon part and truned it into a XC, but I still managed 2nd
-Riding the WAM 300 with my dad-it was a great time and some nice roads to ride on with hundreds of other cyclists
-2nd Addison Oaks-got attacked on the last hill and couldn't counter fast enough, it was a fun 1 vs 1 race
-1st Boyne-good course and some fast racing. I had a good day and some good training before hand.
-4th Iceman
Not bad for 2nd year racing and only 3rd year riding MTBs. Next year I am looking for more competition and people to race against. The 15-18 class is usually faster than the expert other expert classes, but with minimal people.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

A True Iceman?


After last years Niceman, I think we are going to have an Iceman this year. A few inches of snow maybe? I am the first group to go off at 9:30 am, so we might have some fresh powder to ride on. Thank God for semi-slick tires!!! It should be a fun event with the expo, race, and all other festivities! Hopefully I can get over this cold quick and be able to let it all out:-)
-Keep the Rubber side DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!