The second day we got up at 5:30am to get fuel in the tank before leaving for an hour drive to ride the "6 gap" loop. I rode 55 miles with Damon Peterson but the rest of the group rode about 80 with a couple of more massive climbs that my legs were just not ready for...did I mention yet that I was the weakest climber of the group? I have been on a bike for the majority of my life and training fairly hard for almost two years but these guys are animals....Highlights of day 2.... If you are not a cyclist and get bored watching the downhill, forward to the last minute and listen to my commentary. The downhill was about 15 minutes total and I hit almost 50 mph.
(I do know that some of the text in the video says text, I just did not want to take the time to fix it as I want to get to the day 3 mountain bike footage!)
On Thursday I loaded up the car, went to work for a half a day, picked up Skip, then Reed, then was on the road again, this time to Georgia. There were eight sick, demented, crazy, insane people who love to ride bicycles that met at a cabin near Jasper, GA. We arrived at a reasonable hour but stayed up till about two am talking about "bike stuff". The last two crazies rolled in about 4 am.
We woke up Friday and was planning on an easy 50 mile ride to get our legs acclimated. (easy 50 mile ride in the mountains in GA, yeah right). 49 miles, 4,900 feet of climbing and 45.5 miles per hour max...yes, 45.5, since I have already shown my wife....You get to see 45.5mph as seen from the handle bars of my bike via my new gopro hero camera....wow, yes, wow...
This is day 1 of 4 so my video editing skills should get better over the next few days...bear with me..
After this ride I was really wondering how I would hold up for the whole trip as this kind of climbing is a real shock to your system. Also, I was trying to not fall too far behind on the climbs which helps red line the heart rate just a little more....
Great People, Great Day, Great Ride!!! Once we returned to the cabin, Anthony and others fixed spaghetti with meatballs as big as your head. It was a great meal to end a great day. We then proceeded to speak of all things related to biking until everyone went to sleep. Day #2 was scheduled to be feet on the ground at 5:30am for breakfast, then 6 Gap!
Well, I figured out that I am not a very consistent blogger, however, I have some good stuff to catch up on.
Christmas 2011
The entry deadline for the LT100 Lottery was January 31 and the "winners' will be announced Feb 15 or 16. Supposedly, they have about 12,000 entries for 1,700 spots. The first number may be a little inflated but you get the point. I, however, should have nothing to worry about as I have 60 volunteer hours from last year and the race director Shannon assures me this will get me in.
Who Knows but its the Cardinals
Mrs. Paschal and Darla
Just did this one to make her mad
WOW, were they in high school?
Training has been going good although it is a little hard to stay motivated and keep pushing in the middle of winter. Last weekend was my 16th anniversary with my beautiful wife Darla. She is a tremendous supporter of the accomplishment of this insane goal, without her support this would definitely not be possible for me. So, I organized a weekend getaway to the middle of nowhere cabin to get her "away" for the weekend. I also invited our friends the Paschals and told Brad to bring his MTN bike as we would try to ride....well as luck would have it, we were very close to the Berryman Trail in MO and got to ride it everyday of the trip (Well, one of us rode everyday).
The second day I felt the need to record a little video before going out for a ride, I am really excited, enjoy.
Then there was the video after, little better mood and Brad feels the wrath.....
Just a few select pictures from the weekend of riding the Berryman. Also, the girls had a nice relaxing time at the cabin, my wife was happy even though a lot of MTN biking was had on her getaway weekend.
Brad figuring out where we are...
View from the living room (Superfly!!)
The riding was very wet, on Sunday, I rode and averaged about 8 miles an hour with a lot of mud, wet leaves, and water. I also had to stop a lot to wipe off the glasses. This speed in these conditions, I was pleased with as during the Berryman Epic in October in perfect conditions I was riding slower (cramping). I am starting to feel really good on the bike and more powerful. The long grinder climbs on the Berryman were no problem this weekend, I never even thought about dismounting and my heart rate stayed in the 150's on most of the climbing (that's good). My weakness on climbing is still the steep grade (well isn't everyones?) which pegs my heart rate and zaps my power. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the LT100 has a lot of that type of climbing.....if it were easy.....I also leave for Georgia next week to spend 5 days in the mountains climbing with some boys from Edwardsville including Gibbs my coach. I am kinda looking forward to that but thinking it is going to really push my limits as all the guys going seem to be cyclists....(if you know what I mean). I rode with a couple of these guys two weekends ago on a "Easy" no drop ride with a lot of wind. We averaged about 20 mph and I was hanging on for dear life at points with most of the guys talking while riding like, "hey, hows the kids?" and I am saying, "gasp, gasp, I,,,,, cant,,,,talk,,,,,,,gasp, ,,,,,right,,,,,,gasp,gasp,,,,,,now" Evidently, Gibbs thinks I can hang, at least for a while. This trip should help my climbing skills!
I made the decision after much research that my race weight for the LT100 should be 155. If you think about it, this is a very big factor for race day as you only have so much power in your legs and every extra pound takes some of that power away. I raced last years Silver Rush 50 in Leadville at 162 and made that weight pretty easy just cutting out sweets and eating "healthy"
Todd and I
However, 155 will be a bigger challenge. At the beginning of the year, my buddy Todd (PRiDE Fitness) and I started on the Caveman (Paleo) diet. This diet consists of what a Caveman could eat: nuts, eggs, meat, fruits and veges. The obvious hard part is lack of grains (carbs) and processed foods are out. On the long ride days (over two hours) I do take on carbs that Cavemen would not have had but Cavemen also didn't ride a bike for 6 hours at a time. I have to keep fuel in the tank to keep pedaling.
Since the beginning of the year I am down 9 pounds. I started at 174 and am at 165. I occasionally get light headed when I get up from sitting for a while but that is all I have really noticed, other than carb cravings which is just part of changing your lifestyle. I do have a cheat day over the weekend where ice cream is in order.....come on, I'm not completely crazy.
Andy
Today, my coach Andy Gibbs (AG Coaching) is coming over to my house to make sure my computrainer is set up correctly for my power tests today and tomorrow. He will also stay through today's test to make sure my effort is where it should be. These tests will then help set my training for the next period of training.
On a personal note, my son and I are going to the Murray State vs SIUE basketball game tonight. My wife has her Masters from Murray and undergrad from SIUE. Furthermore, Murray State is undefeated this year and ranked number 14 in the nation or so.....Should be a blowout but fun for us. ps. my dad is an usher at the stadium, he will be "in charge"
I have another goal besides the LT100 on August 11th. That is to post everyday until then.
Leaving the Simmons House Brrrr
Family weekend gametime
Last week was a big week of training but I had a fever for a day and a half which cut into my training time. By the weekend I was back on the bike. This past weekend was Simmons family weekend. That is where all of Bill and Carolyn's kids, their spouses, and kids go over to their house with bags packed and spend the weekend. The boys usually go shoot guns and the girls go shopping. BTW, ask any of the boys who won the skeet round with 17 out of 25.......This year the Simmons' got to see what a Computrainer looks like and sounds like.
Family Pullups
On Saturday we went to the circuit at PRiDE Fitness (in the snow) and then I rode later that night for 2 hours on the computrainer watching playoff football.....Tebow didnt do so well.....
Mississippi River in background
Sunday I rode for three hours and finished at my sons basketball game in Godfrey. It wasnt that cold but it sure was windy. However, you had to watch out for snow patches.
This week is a down week with only about 8 hours of workouts but Sat and Sun are power tests. Tonight was 1.5 hours on the trainer. It went pretty good, Hudson hung out with me and we talked through it and watched the top 40 FAILs on VH1 (kinda appropriate for a 10 year old) Hey, mom was at Tae Kwon Do with Madi.....
This past week my wife sent me out to buy my Christmas present (even though the Superfly 100 was my bday and Christmas gift) it is a GoPro Hero camera. This camera will allow me to take video of my rides this year to post on here and document my training from an onboard point of view.....very exciting. In February I have a trip scheduled to the Berryman trail (couples weekend) (yes we plan a couples weekend around where the trails are) and another one to Georgia with about 10 other guys to kick start the hard core training for the spring. They are staying for 6 days, I will go for 4. There will be some elevation change down in them there mountains and you will get to see some footage of the pain.....
Looking forward to daily posts to capture my moods......
Woke up at 5am to head to Edwardsville to pick up Andy Gibbs and Tim Rister for a trip to the Ozark Trail (Council Bluff) on Thursday morning. I got to Andy's right on time at 6am (miracle) and we picked Tim up around the corner a little later. There were several more guys there drinking coffee convincing themselves they were ready to go. One of those guys was Little Buddy and this was the 4th or 5th annual birthday ride in his honor (I just met him for the first time that morning). All the the gear was stowed and bikes loaded and we were off at 6:30 ish. We met two other guys at the trailhead at 9am. Everyone proceeded to change into their riding gear in the parking lot, thankfully it was a warm day....
Derailer Maintenance
There was a mile or so of gravel road to start before we dropped into the trail, then 300 feet or so into the trail, the guy in front of me hit a rock through a creek crossing and his tire blew with the sound of a 12 gauge shotgun. Thankfully, we were only a mile or so away from the parking lot and one of the guys had a spare tire and quickly took off to get it while the bike got prepped to accept a new tire. Unfortunately, this set the tone for the day. We had several mechanicals with Andy swinging into action everytime to get us back on the trail quickly. Andy is the head mechanic at the Cyclery and has outstanding "skills". Halfway through the ride the guy who blew out his tire, had his rear derailer hanger bust and the derailer wrap around up into his wheel (not good). Between all ten of us we had 4 or so derailer hangers in our bags but none fit his bike. One good thing, we found out my newly purchased (two days prior) derailer hanger doesn't fit my bike as well.
Great Views
We ended up riding for about 7 hours but didn't cover a whole lot of miles for that amount of time (36 miles) but we had a good time. There was a lot of time spent like you see on the here on the left in this pic.
Gibbs wind up radio for lunch tunes
Self portrait at the peak
Lunchtime
me and the superfly!
On the bright side, there was 4,200 feet of climbing on this loop and I was right in the mix on the long grinding climbs. A year ago I would have been way behind at the end of one of those kinds of climbs as well as spent....This year I was right there and felt good all day and still feel good today! Now, there were guys a lot faster than I, but they were not in race mode hammering. Great day, great ride, the ozark trail system is awesome.
Yesterday was my first ever LT (Lactate Threshold) test. Because my computrainer is still not functioning through the computer (cord to be delivered the 9th to solve the problem), I did the test while monitoring my heart rate. Here is what the test looked like:
20 minute warm up on the bike
5 minutes all out (avg heart rate 170) This according to the coach was just to "open up the lungs"
10 minutes recovery
20 minutes all out (avg heart rate 168)
20 minutes recovery
Obviously, the 20 minutes all out is the test.....Man, I have done a lot of training etc. but this was pretty tough. Although I do like it better than just riding for two hours on the trainer. It was different because when you are out riding and you peak your heartrate for a while you either shift gears to accommodate or dismount on a steep climb to let your heartrate recover, but with this, you just power through for 20 minutes. My LT number is 160. My coach analyzed my data from this test and told me this number. It is a little troubling to this engineer that I do not know how that was calculated.....yet. On a positive note (I guess) the coach had me estimated at 154 and I moved it up to 160.....good I think....
More to come on this when I know more.....I wonder if there is online classed for this?
I now have Training Peaks software somewhat set up. My coach has started entering my workouts into the program and I then upload my workout when I am done. My first four weeks are really just to get my body used to the routine and learn some of the techniques, weights, and such I will be doing over the next year or so. My first four weeks I am scheduled for about 7 hours of training per week. This doesnt sound like much, but in the winter with a couple of days off in between, I am already finding it a little bit of a struggle. This is mainly because I cannot go outside and ride for three hours, I have to do it on my "drainer" (to quote Tracy) or trainer.....more specifically my computrainer.
I am finding two things happen on every trainer ride:
1. I go numb. For those non-bikers I will stop there. For you bikers, yes, this is something I need to get fixed. I have been "fit" on my road bike and changed the saddle several times to no avail. But I will succeed.
2. At about 55 minutes my brain starts telling me to get off of the trainer. My body is not tired but my mind is BORED! And no it doesnt matter what is on t.v.....Maybe I should just watch Race Across The Sky everytime! OK, if you've never seen a mountain biking clip or wonder what I am talking about in this blog, please click on Race Across The Sky link in the previous sentence and watch the trailer for that movie. I had goose bumps the whole clip! I think I held my breath through the whole trailer the first time I watched it. (maybe that will help me the race at that altitude)
On a side note, my bike should be done (redone) at the powder coat shop tomorrow or thursday. I already have the sticker man (Mike) and the bike shop on notice, so the bike will be back together swiftly upon completion,,,,, I cannot wait! All the new componentry will be installed at that time.
As you can imagine, endurance mountain bike racing is not just about being fit on your bike. There is a tremendous amount of endurance needed for all of the muscles in your body not just your legs (Especially the triceps). My triceps are what blew out in the Firecracker 50 in 2009. So, last night I started with the weights.
Wow am I weak! Back in my college soccer days I was no stranger to the weight room. I couldnt hang with the likes of Tom Sontag but could hold my own.....that was many years ago my friends. I went through a series of exercises with very light weight and a lot of reps and YES I am sore today. Not as bad as it could be, I could still put on my deoderant myself. I did work in a lot of squat type stuff and man is my backside feeling it. All in all, I did 45 minutes of weights, I know this will improve over time as I do more, but I sure do HATE starting from being this weak. Makes me wish I had jumped on the P90X bandwagon with my buddy Jason.
