Justin

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)

Racing, Bikes, & Training

I’ll start with the exciting news.  Two words, Cyclocross Nationals.  If you are remotely interested in cycling and haven’t been to a ‘cross race you owe it to yourself to make it to one as a spectator, or better yet, a racer.  I got the green light from my beautiful, caring, understanding, wise, and loving wife to go to Cyclocross Nationals this year in Bend, Oregon.  Take your average cross race with the normal amount of rowdiness, bell clanging, yelling, drinking, and cross-dressing (yes, this happens at cross races) and then think what would happen if you took only the most fervent of the partakers from across the country and brought them all together for one irreverent weekend.  One of the guys from the team has booked a couple of cottages at McMenamin’s Old St. Francis School.  Cross nationals are in December so there is still plenty of time for you to get a bike, get fit, and get a room.  The other part of the exciting news is that I have another bike on order.  The bike I raced cross on last year wasn’t really designed to be a cross bike.  It was a single speed commuter that I put gears on and it was a tank, weighing in at over 30lbs.  I went over to Banning’s and picked out a new Salsa Chili Con Crosso frame.  They will be building it up with some extra parts I had and I’m hoping to have it soon! 

 

I think Jeff (one of the other Power2People bloggers) gave me his cold through the internet somehow.  I rode on Saturday and felt pretty good but it has been all downhill from there.  I have been training pretty hard for the last couple of months so I think I will take this cold as an opportunity for a recovery week.  Now, you would think if I was considering a “recovery” week that I have a general training plan laid out.  Go hard this day, go easy the next, rest day… you get the idea.  Well, you’d be greatly mistaken.  Before I even got the PowerTap in the mail I had done my homework.  I read all of the information I could find online, read a book on training with power, and even took notes on the vital information.  Here’s the problem.  I’m on information overload.  I think I have a good estimate of my Functional Threshold (280 watts, which is the amount of power you can put out for an extended period of time.  I just have no idea how to set up a “training plan.”  How do I determine how many days I should be going hard?  How often should I be doing sprint intervals?  How about tempo intervals?  How do I work my Saturday club ride into this training?  So far I have been trying to have a large volume of training (about an hour and a half of cardio a day Mon-Thur, 3 hour club ride on Sat, and a 1 to 2 hour ride or a 30-40 min. run on Sun) without paying much attention to the intensity of these efforts.  I will continue with the elliptical in the mornings and will probably be working some running into the routine but would like a more specific idea of what I should be doing when I’m on the trainer in the evenings.  Any ideas?

So this is it

So this is it.  I’ve been here before.  My weight on January 5^th was 269.5 lbs., my weight yesterday was 240.6 lbs.  When I started this process at the beginning of the year I treated it like a street fight.  I would literally beat my body up working out.  I would beat back the temptations of food.  I’ve lost about 29 pounds so far.  This is where it typically all goes wrong.  I find some sort of excuse to back it off.  I get injured or get complacent.  I start to give myself a “break” (meaning, I get to eat everything in sight) to congratulate myself for all of the progress.  This time I have continued the workouts but I have also ramped up the eating.  It becomes a matter of, “I’ll do that tomorrow.”  I’ll start the diet again tomorrow.  In the past, tomorrow had always stayed tomorrow.  I’d beat myself up about overeating.  I’d tell myself things like, “well, I’ve already eaten too much today so I may as well keep eating.”  And thus the upward spiral begins.  What’s funny is, I knew that I would be writing this entry at some point.  I knew that I would lose momentum.  I even thought about putting off this post for a few days so I could eat with reckless abandon for a few more days.  So now is the time to make the hard choice.  Part of me wants to throw in the towel, that’s the easy way out.  This time, however, instead of backing off I’ll redouble my efforts.  It’s time to get back into the fight.

 

Just another sign of the depth of my addiction to food: I was searching for something in Google.  As you start typing, it makes suggestions based on your past entries.  I typed the letter J and Jack-in-the-box popped up

That Guy

That guy.  I’m sure there are a million different applications of the term but in any athletic endeavor there is always “that guy.”  Let me tell you about him.  You don’t feel very strong that day.  Maybe you haven’t been riding lately, you might be getting a cold or getting over one, or maybe you stumbled from bar to bar last night. When you show up for the club ride you scan the crowd looking for him.  You’re praying he’s there.  He may be a different guy each week.  There may be a few of these guys at the ride, especially if there is more than one group riding that day.  He’s Mr. OTB.  That stands for “off the back.”  He is the one that everyone waits for at the top of climbs since he’s so slow.  He’s the one that barely hangs on when the strong riders push the pace a bit.  He’s the one you’re happy to see because, when you do spot him in the group, you know you won’t be the last guy in that day.  You know, even though your legs feel like overcooked pasta, that you can still beat “that guy” so you won’t have to ride alone.  Well, I am typically that guy.  So much so that it’s not even hidden from me.  I kind of stand out since I weighed 270 pounds and was wearing a ridiculous lycra outfit (there should be a weight limit on those things).  You would think that people would just be relieved I’m there and not have to point out my inadequacies.  But I have actually had people tell me that they were happy to see me because they weren’t feeling great and they would have someone to stay with on the ride.  The truth sucks!  All of this was true until last Saturday’s ride.  I felt strong, stronger than I’ve ever felt on a ride.  When we got to the climb I put my head down and motored.  For the first part of the climb I was hanging with guys that typically hammer me.  Halfway through the climb I was able to pick the pace up a bit.  For the first time I was catching guys and not being caught.  I was thriving and not just surviving.  Hopefully I’m turning a corner and I won’t be “that guy” anymore.  I’ll just be one of the guys on the ride.

Today's weigh-in = 243.6  (or 17.4 stones if you're so inclined)

Today's Club Ride:  2:53, 50 miles, Avg. Power 245 Watts, Max Pwr. 1,231 Watts, Avg. HR 155 bpm, Avg. W/Kg 2.16