Justin

Rollers vs. Trainers

I always forget how hard the beginning of a new school year is.  Imagine being a supervisor and getting 1,000 new employees every September.  Then you come to realize that all 1,000 of those new hire's are going through significant body and hormone changes.  Finally, you find out that none of them can be fired and you are stuck with them for the entire year regardless of their behavior.  Needless to say, life has been a bit chaotic, I apologize for my absence from the blog.  A recent response to my last post inspired the latest entry. 

 

Here’s a response to a question I received from Eric:

I'm curious about your training. Do you use a trainer or rollers ? Any opinion? Thx. I started at 252 and am now down to 210 after 1 year. Move, sweat and eat less !!!  Good luck !

 

Thanks for the question Eric and congratulations on the weight loss!  I own both a set of rollers and a trainer.  For those that don’t know the difference, here you go.  A trainer is a contraption that you fasten your bike to.  Basically, it helps convert your bike into the type of exercise bike you would find at a gym.  Some have variable resistance, others don’t.  The key here is that is keeps the bike stationary.  Rollers, on the other hand, are significantly different.  Think of them as a treadmill for your bike, however, instead of a belt your running on, the wheels roll on a set of rollers.  Riding them can be a bit precarious.  Falling off of the rollers is not uncommon.  In fact, coming off of the rollers is almost guaranteed when you are first learning.  So rollers require a bit more concentration than a trainer does.  Here’s my take on using them.  If I have a prescribed workout that includes a large number of intervals or some max efforts I will use the trainer.  I find that the rollers require so much of my attention that I lose focus on the intervals.  Also, I am just too unstable on all out sprints or max efforts to get the full benefit on rollers.  I do use the rollers on recovery days or days when I have long intervals at threshold.  The rollers help you work on your balance, require you to quiet your upper body, and smooth out your spin.  If I had to choose between the two, I would choose a trainer.

 

How Not to Start Your First Cross Race of the Season

Cyclocross!  To most this particular discipline of the cycling world brings thoughts of bitter cold, piercing rain, and bottomless mud.  Well, we like to do things a bit differently here in Southern California.  Try blistering temps in the high 90’s, beating sunshine, and dusty trails.  Since the temps are typically low and the races are fairly short, getting a good warm up is crucial.  I was sweating just getting my kit on.  I set out on the course.  It had some very technical sections and was long by cross course standards.  By the middle of my first warm up lap I thought of veering off course and riding into the nearby lake.  After the lap they closed the course down for the Junior’s race so I decided to ride around the parking lot a bit and then find some shade to sit down in an hydrate.

 

As my race approached I headed over to the staging area so that I could get a decent starting position (it’s a first come first served kind of thing).  They were running late so my 10:15 race didn’t start lining up until more like 10:45.  That means that since I had staged early, I had been standing in the same spot for 45 minutes before my start.  The legs were tight at this point.  Finally they called nearly 60 of us (cross is building in popularity here in SoCal) up to the line and I got a sweet spot on the inside of the front row.  Perfect!  Countdown, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, GO! And go I did.  The first straight is about 100 yards of pavement.  We were all pinning it.  I maintained my spot right up to the first turn.  It was a left-hand 90 degree turn followed by a quick right hander.  Some of my teammates, believing this would be an exciting vantage point for the start of the race, lined up in the corner.  Brakes squealed, teammates yelled, elbows bumped, and into the turn I go.  Outstanding, I made it through the hairpin unscathed.  Now for the right hander, uh oh, I’m going a bit too fast, I’m getting pushed to the outside of the turn, am I the only one that sees that 55 gallon trashcan?  Am I going to hit that wannabe steal drum?  Who puts a gigantic steel trashcan on a turn like this anyway?  What are the odds that my teammates walked away, having seen the first turn and become disinterested, aren’t seeing this? Alright, I hit the can, not the end of the world.  But now the stake holding caution tape that is marking the course is in my way.  Grab it and get it out of the way, still alright.  Seriously?  The caution tape is now wrapped around my brake lever!  Rip it off.  Finally, having lost about 30 spots, I’m on my way.  Since I have to find the silver lining, I was able to make it through all of that without taking a foot off the pedal.  It could have been much worse.  The picture you see below was taken by one of my teammates who, by the way, had not walked away and did in fact see the whole incident.  If you look closely you can see the death grip I am applying to the right brake lever as the inevitable becomes apparent.

 

The rest of my race went well.  I found a group I was able to hang with and we traded positions throughout the race.  There were a few that would pass me in the long grass sections but I was able to pass them in the more technical sections.  I finished mid-pack, bent over the bars, after the 40 minute suffer fest.  I had three basic goals for this first race: don’t get lapped, don’t finish dead last, don’t throw up.  All accomplished (although I came very close to throwing up several times).  Cross racing hurts!

I just found a video of the 35+ 3/4 race.  It's pretty cool to watch and get a feel for what the course was like.  I do want to point out that I find it interesting that this guy chose to point the camera backwards thus assuming all of the action will be happening behind him (and a lot of it did, good for him).  If I were going to try to film the action I would have to attach the camera to the front of my bike 5 minutes into the future.  Also, the guy in the light blue shirt standing next to the tree at exactly 6 minutes 3 seconds in is me!

The End of Summer

Well, the summer's over... and I'm still fat. Sure I'm less robust than I once was but I'm nowhere near where I need to be yet. Cyclocross season is right around the corner and it's time to ramp up the training. One success this summer is that I built up a decent base. There a quite a few miles in my legs and they're ready for the intense intervals I have planned. My team's cross practice started last week. The cold I have right now was just beginning so I couldn't go too hard but it was good to get back on the cross bike. I'm a teacher so a back to school cold is to be expected I just didn't expect it before school even started. Once I'm feeling better I will restart my morning regime of hitting the elliptical trainer. Since cross involves hopping off the bike and running I will be mixing in some hill running intervals as well. I haven't been able to do any weight training or core work since my mountain bike crash but I think my ribs are finally back to 100% so I will be mixing that in as well. More details on my planned intervals next time.

Ego Intervals

So I'm riding a beach loop the other day. Basically, it is a 60 mile ride down one river trail to the Pacific Coast Highway and then back up another river trail to home. It is flat (great for a fat guy like me) and the river trail portions give you long stretches of car free riding. I was about 8 miles in going about 20 miles per hour when I caught up to this guy. He was any average guy, riding an old beat up beach cruiser, carrying a big tennis bag, just riding along. There are people coming on the other side of the trail so I pull up behind this guy to wait for them to pass. I think he senses me there so he picks up the pace a bit. We're going about 18 mph at this point. We pass the group that was coming so I ease over to pass him. I pull up next to him expecting he will maintain his pace so I can go ahead and get on with my ride. I get back up to 20 mph. He stays with me. I push a little harder. He stays with me. I look over and say good morning, no response. I push harder, he's still there. This continues for a bit. Once I notice that this is starting to hurt a bit I look down at my PowerTap. We are now going about 28 mph. It has been 10 minutes and this guy is hammering! I look over to find an expression of steely determination on his face. Down the trail a bit I can see another group approaching. Decision time. Do I relent, ease up, and slide in behind this guy? My legs and lungs are telling me yes, my ego says no. I choose option #2: I put my head down and rip off a near sprint. I'm pushing hard now, going about 34 mph. I hold this pace for as long as I can. I don't look back, not because my supreme confidence in my sheer power makes me certain he is not there but because I'm afraid he might just be. After about 5 minutes I get the courage to ease up and look back. Thanks to the cycling gods, he is gone! So I call this new workout "Ego Intervals." All they require are a knack for underestimation. First, find some guy (or gal) out exercising (riding a bike, running, swimming, speed skating, you get the idea). Second, underestimate this person because they either look much less fit than you, are using equipment that is old and cost a fraction of what you are using, or preferably both. Third you must underestimate this person’s innate sense of competition. Finally, you must also underestimate your own need to win (whether it's been dormant for years or comes out to play every day, it will show its face). With all of these in place I defy you to not eagerly engage in a set of ego intervals.

The Summer of Justin!

School's finally over and summer has officially begun. You may have seen the classic Seinfeld episode where George had been laid off at his job with the Yankees. As part of his severance package he received a few months of pay, enough to get him through what he declared to be, "The Summer of George."  As reprehensible as the majority of things this guy did were, this idea has some merit. So I hereby declare this "The Summer of Justin!"  I am starting it by sitting on my backyard patio having a glass of wine with my wife watching the kids play in the inflatable pool and devising my plan of attack. My approach will be three-pronged: 1. Enjoy time with my family (we will be hitting Disneyland, the waterpark, the zoo, museums, etc.) 2. Ride my bikes as often as possible (I have received clearance for early morning rides during the week and will be doing the club rides on Saturdays and hopefully a ride squeezed in sometime on Sundays) 3. Focus on weight loss (this equation is simple, move more and eat less). So there it is, the summer of Justin in three simple steps.  I also plan on updating this blog more often so check back soon!  Thanks for reading.

You can also track me on twitter!

Intervals

Life works in intervals for me.  For those that don’t know what an interval is as far as cycling is concerned, it is basically a routine in which you combine periods of easy efforts with periods of hard efforts.  The point to them is to push yourself harder than you can maintain for a long effort on these shorter intervals in order to increase your top speed a bit.  I have a hard time with a long steady effort.  I can go really hard for short bursts.  I’m pretty adept at bearing down and honing my focus for minutes (when it comes to an interval on my bike) or weeks (when it comes to intervals in my life).  On the bike I can do multiple hard intervals and recover pretty quickly in between them.  In life, however, it takes me awhile to recover from my hard efforts and I have a hard time getting the next interval started.  One of the most important things I have learned so far in all of the reading I have done since I got my PowerTap is that your training should be set up as a set of intervals.  From your daily training (where you may do 5 – 5 minute hard intervals with 5 minutes of easy spinning in between) to your entire training schedule (where you may plan 5 week cycles where you do 4 hard weeks and then 1 easy week) you need the periods of rest for your body to recover and heal itself from pushing it so far.  That may be why I enjoy teaching, by the way.  We get 10 months of intense work with 2 months to recover.  Unfortunately, this current “rest” period has gone on too long.  Maybe it is the fact that this is the most hectic time of year for me.  Things are wrapping up at school and the kids are getting restless, the club I run has two field trips and a banquet in the span of two weeks, and my job teaching classes online runs at a steady pace with constant deadlines.  Again, I am still doing my best to maintain at least a part of my training schedule.  I am still getting up early 3 to 4 days during the work week to get on the elliptical trainer or run and I am getting in at least 3 good rides a week.  But I am having a hard time getting the diet back on track.  On the bright side, I know I will end this interval soon, I’m just hoping that starting the next “life interval” doesn’t hurt as bad as some of the intervals I do on the bike.

Today’s weigh-in = 247.5

Saturday's Club Ride:  2:11, 34 miles, 60 min. 287 Watts or 2.64 Watts/Kg, 5 min. 385 Watts or 3.53 Watts/Kg, 5 sec. 890 Watts or 8.18 Watts/Kg

My bike is in!

My bike is in!  My bike is in!  I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past couple of weeks.  My ribs continue to ache from my mountain bike crash.  If you’ve never injured your ribs, don’t!  (Wow, three exclamation points in 5 sentences!  Look, there’s another!)  I hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in three weeks.  I could only sleep in one position fairly pain free and every time I turned in bed a jolt of pain shot through me startling me awake.  This would happen about 5 to 6 times a night, every night.  Training has been tough.  I still got up early to get on the elliptical trainer but couldn’t really go too hard as every deep breathe would hurt.  I’ve been on the bike a few times but that is an exercise in my ability to withstand pain rather than any real training.  Worst of all, my weight has crept back up a bit.  Needless to say, I needed a pick-me-up.  Well, I got a call from the guys at Banning’s last week that did just that.  After a month and a half wait, my Salsa Chili Con Crosso frame had finally arrived.

Ain’t she purty?  John did an outstanding job of building her up and Banning was able to do a short fit session with me after the club ride on Saturday to get me up and running (or is that spinning?).  If you’re in the Orange County area and looking for an outstanding shop, these guys know their stuff.  With a brand new cross bike, cross season is going to be fun.  Which brings me to this:

It was easy to convince my wife that I needed a second bike when I only had one.  It was a bit more difficult to convince her I needed three when I only had two (but it was a $50 beater chained to a post in Portland so it didn’t take too much selling on my part).  I knew she loved me when she allowed me to buy a fourth when I only had three.  The question: how in the world will I convince her I need a fifth?  Now, I know that both cyclists and non-cyclists alike read this blog.  The cyclists know you can never have too many bikes (which is an indisputable fact).  The non-cyclists ask, why do you need more than one bike anyway?  So let’s address the arguments against having multiple bikes.  First, “you’ve only got one butt, why do you need two bikes?”  Easy to rebut.  These are probably the same people that look at the bicycle saddle and comment on how small it is and refuse to ride with you.  “Surely one of those tiny saddles was never intended to accommodate a whole butt,” they say.  So, the more butt you have, the more bikes you need.  I have a big butt!  Next issue, they are so expensive.  How can you spend more money on a bike than you did on your first car?  I like to use an argument that involves a probable alternative in this case.  I could take up golf.  Let’s see.  A round of golf costs anywhere from $30 to $70 (on the courses I would probably play).  So we’ll average that out to about $50 a round.  Since I ride my bike 3 to 6 days a week I’ll assume that I’d play golf no less than twice a week (a conservative estimate).  Now, take $50 times twice a week times 52 weeks and you come out to about $5,200 ($5,300 on a leap year).  That does not include the clubs, the balls, the beers (I mean, how could you golf sober?  Which is part of my standing argument about why golf is more of a game than a sport, how can it be a sport if you are better at it drunk than sober, but I digress), the wagering, the plaid outfits, the funny hats.  We’ll just round that up to $10,000 (remember, if it’s 5 or more you round up).  You can clearly see that golf is far more expensive than cycling.  Furthermore, I’d ride in a cart instead of walk the course so the drastic impact it would have on my health would surely increase the cost of my healthcare and burden society as a whole (see, I’m looking out for everyone here, isn’t that nice?) and decrease my total number of wage-earning years.  Last argument, where are we going to put all of those bikes?  My response, “the garage is mine!  You can have the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the closet, the garden, heck, I’d even be willing to give back the little sliver of medicine cabinet I’ve carved out for myself, but the garage?  That is not open for discussion.” 

Saturday's weigh-in = 250

Saturday's Club Ride:  1:56, 31 miles, 60 min. 256 Watts or 2.35 Watts/Kg, 5 min. 415 Watts or 3.81 Watts/Kg, 5 sec. 1152 Watts or 10.58 Watts/Kg

It’s my own fault

So I signed up for my first 24-hour race a couple of weeks ago.  For those that don’t know, a 24-hour race is where you have anywhere from one person on up to 8 person teams complete laps in relay fashion on a mountain bike course from noon on a Saturday through noon on a Sunday.  For the solo racers (people that are literally riding for all 24 hours by themselves), it is a masochistic exercise of mind over body.  For the five-person teams, it is more of a reason to get together with friends, ride bikes, and camp.  Don’t get me wrong, getting up at 3 AM to put on a wet and cold helmet, hop on a bike for the third time, and try to navigate a course with a headlamp that was difficult enough to ride in daylight, is no walk in the park.  But, facing a challenge with a few like-minded guys (think a bit off) is kind of fun.  The team with the most completed laps wins.  I set the ball in motion by asking my Velocity teammates if anyone was interested in joining a 5-man team for the race.  Joe, a friend of mine from the team, picked up the ball and filled the team fairly quickly (thanks Joe!).  We decided that it would probably be a good idea to go out and get a lap in on the course before the day of the race.  So Dave, Joe, and I set out on Sunday to drive up to the race course for some pre-race recon.  It was a beautiful day for a ride.  The course starts with a nice little 15 minute climb with plenty of rocks thrown in to make it challenging.  After that is an amazing single track descent with dips, whoops, jumps, banks that was basically like riding on a roller coaster you could steer.  Then, more climbing.  At this point I start having problems with my bike.  Specifically, in the middle of a technical uphill my bike would shift from the granny gear up to the middle ring (this makes it virtually impossible to keep pedaling so I have to stop and walk).  At the top of the climb I diagnose the problem.  My front derailleur cable is getting caught up on my stem when I turn too far to the right.  Now, a smart man would have figured out a way to keep this from happening for the rest of the ride (seeing as how having a cable catch on your stem could prevent you from steering, not a good thing when you are hauling down a rocky descent).  But, in the words of Forrest Gump, I am not a smart man.  About 6 miles into the 9 mile loop comes a fairly technical little descent.  As you may have guessed, I got up to speed, tried to turn, cable got stuck, bike went left, body went right.  I was barely able to stand up and lean against something then Joe came by.  He saw the distorted look of anguish on my face and when Dave came by said, “yeah, I think we should stop.”  I was able to finish the last three miles thanks to the fact that it was mostly flat but boy did it hurt.  On the drive home the pain got progressively worse.  I made it to the doctor the next day.  After two hours in the doctors office the x-rays tell me that there is nothing broken but my ribs tell me that coughing, laughing, standing, sitting, laying, breathing, etc., hurts like hell (I was going to go Lance on everyone and post a picture of the x-ray but the doc never brought them in the room).  Thank god for a doctor with a willingness to prescribe Vicodin.  I got on my road bike hooked up to the trainer today without much pain but on the trainer the upper body doesn’t have to do much.  With all of the twisting and turning required when riding a mountain bike on a technical course there’s little chance I’ll be able ride in the race this weekend. 

Saturday's weigh-in = 242.5

Saturday's Club Ride:  2:52, 51 miles, 60 min. 288 Watts or 2.64 Watts/Kg, 5 min. 354 Watts or 3.26 Watts/Kg, 5 sec. 1,438 Watts or 13.21 Watts/Kg

Something New

Life can get monotonous at times, especially for cyclists.  It’s so easy for us to get locked into riding the same rides over and over again.  There is a sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with learning the minute details of the roads we typically ride.  During the week I ride up Turnbull Canyon on Wednesday’s, I do a mountain bike ride or two each week on one of two local loops.  On Saturday’s I do the club ride.  I ride endless hours (I refuse to call them miles since I’m not going anywhere) on the trainer.  I’m lucky, my club has many rides that they rotate through but even so, you get used to that set of rides and it starts to become redundant.  There’s one ride, for example, where we make a right turn out of a neighborhood and right in the middle of that right turn is a huge, wheel eating, hole.  It’s been there for years.  It’s comical that we all start to point it out far before ever seeing the hole just to prove that we’ve done the ride enough to know it’s there.  It all becomes kind of like listening to your favorite song over and over again.  You love the song but after a while you’d like to hear something different.  It’s nice to go out and explore once in a while.  Well I had the opportunity this week to try something new.  My wife and I got away for a couple of days to the Temecula Valley for some wine tasting.  We’ve taken this trip a few times but this is the first time I took my bike along.  I’ve driven around the valley a number of times but you forget how different the experience is on two wheels.  You have time to take in views, you have time to savor the sights, you have time to breathe in the aromas.  There was something new around every turn.  I had no schedule.  There were no attackers to chase or slackers to drop.  It didn’t matter if I made a wrong turn.  I haven’t felt the feeling of truly being lost in a long time.  It’s freeing to be in the middle of nowhere with only your bike and no cell phone reception, not sure if you’ve missed the next turn on your route slip, trying to decide if you should double back or just keep on going (I chose to keep on going by the way, the turn I thought I’d missed was only about 200 yards ahead of where I stopped to contemplate turning around).  It was an amazing ride!  

For my friends that read this that don’t ride a bike very often I encourage you to get out once this week and ride (or walk) around your neighborhood.  I think you’d be surprised by the things you’ll notice that just fly by you as your driving in your car.

I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about the PowerTap.  One of the guys in my club, one of the fittest guy’s I know, asked me the other day if I thought it was useful.  He was my personal trainer for a while and I learned more about how to properly exercise from him in two months than I did in all of my years as a wrestler.  I’ve read a couple of books, done the research online, experimented with it and have come to this conclusion.  If you are the type of person that wants to quantify, calculate, analyze, and improve your performance you need to have a power meter in your arsenal.  Yes, perceived exertion, heart rate, and average speed give you a picture into how your body is reacting to the stresses you are placing on it but these are only measures of the effect the amount of work you are doing is having on your body.  Only a power meter can give you a look at the actual work you are doing.  A good analogy I read was that training without power was like baking without knowing what temperature the oven was set to.  You could observe the effects that the temperature was having on what you were cooking but you never really know if you are under or overcooking it.  The same applies to training with power.  Just because the last interval you did felt hard, are you really addressing your needs or attaining the goals you’ve set for yourself?  How hot is hot enough?  How hard is hard enough?  The power meter helps you answer this question.  Is it the end-all, be-all training device?  No.  But are you getting a truly accurate picture of your performance and progress without it?  I don’t think you are.  Now, I’m just in the infancy of designing my training program and I will be able to give you a better idea of how it has impacted my training once I’ve had more time to work with the PowerTap but it seems like if you want all of the information possible regarding your performance, a power meter (working together with a heart rate monitor and your own perceived exertion) is pretty hard to beat.

And they call themselves movie buffs...

Yahoo’s list of the 100 movies to see before you die was recently released and I have noticed some glaring omissions.  Now, I understand why Godfather III didn’t make the list (George Hamilton in a mob movie, seriously?!?!) but come on.  How can you generate such a list and include only one movie that involves the finest means of transportation ever invented.  American Flyers, an obvious choice but I think those that compiled the list are still bitter about having to sit through what seemed like 15 hours of watching Kevin Costner pretend to be a fish in Waterworld and a postman in, well, The Postman.  So we’ll forgive them that transgression.  How about Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure?  A loner, nay, a rebel, perhaps both, on a quest to retrieve his one prized possession, his bicycle.  How about A Sunday In Hell (or, En Forårsdag i Helvede, if you’re Danish)?  It’s foreign, it’s a documentary, it’s got a guy named the Cannibal (Merckx, the greatest cyclist of all time of course, Lance who?), a shoe-in for this list, right?  Not so much.  Quicksilver then… yeah, you’re probably right.  This was an awful movie made solely so that someone could connect Kevin Bacon and the entire cast of Apocalypse Now via Laurence Fishburne in a game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (try it, it’s fun).  Alright, alright, I get it.  Not everyone loves bikes as much as I do.  But there is one gem.  What did they have against Breaking Away?  A touching story about a small town kid on the cusp of adulthood trying to find his place in the world.  He speaks with a phony Italian accent and dreams of racing his bike with the famed Cinzano squad only to have his dreams crushed when they visit town.  In the end he finds that being true to yourself and where you come from is the only way to make your mark on the world (that is until he starts speaking French at the end of the movie).  One surprise, The Bicycle Thief.  A man supports his family using his bicycle, until it’s stolen and then tries to find it.  Kind of like Pee-Wee’s deal only far more depressing (but this is a foreign film, so I don’t count it as a concession to the elegance of the bicycle as much as a way for the artsy guys that made this list to prove they’ve seen movies made by a Italians).

Today's weigh-in = 243.0  (a bit stagnant here, I had a bit of a cold and didn’t really train much this past week)

Today's Club Ride:  2:48, 49 miles, 60 min. 280 Watts or 2.57 Watts/Kg, 5 min. 424 Watts or 3.89 Watts/Kg, 5 sec. 1,286 Watts or 11.81 Watts/Kg (I’m switching over to reporting these numbers because I think they are a more accurate indicator of performance than just averages)