Actually, I am already seeing them.  A good judge of things is my commute to work.  Last year, I was doing it in an average of roughly 40ish minutes.  This year, I am regularly below 40 pushing 35 and em even below 40 on recovery days.  That shows me there is a VAST improvement over last fall.  Seems like the coaches at Precision Endurance are doing their job.

Today’s ride, since Kelly and I are now a 1 car family, had me combine the commute and workout all in one.  I actually prefer to do it that way.  When I combine the 2, I can leave as early as I want for work to get it done, then get home at a normal time.  In previous years, I would rush home from work, walk the dog, get out on the bike to do a solid workout and then finally be done around 9:30 before I could even eat supper.  Today, even with me with working until 6, I should have most of that done by 7:30.  What an upgrade.

This morning had me riding at my tempo pace.  The goal is to try and keep the heart rate in zone 3 and just let it roll.  With tempo and heart rate, I usually do some things a little different and use perceived effort.  In my mind, it works a bit better.  I have been riding long enough o properly judge my efforts and know how to keep them roughly the same.  With heart rate, there are SO many variables, from wind, fatigue, weather, blah blah blah.  This is where the effective-ness of a power meter would come in.  You can pinpoint with super accuracy of where you need to be.  Sadly, I am on a waiting list for one, and don’t see it getting in stock soon.  Ohh well..

Either way, I got out for about an hour and a half of tempo riding and averaged over 20.5 mph for the workout plus warm up.  Not to shabby.  I will certainly take that effort for the first week of April.  I can only go up from here.

Heart rate from this morning’s workout

This past weekend, mother nature thought she was going to be cruel and try to stick around a bit longer.  While at lower elevation it wasn’t a big deal, but at high elevations, it has been playing havoc with things.

Because of the snow, on Saturday I went out for a hike.  Not realizing that the trail got dumped on, I actually left my snowshoes at home.  That is about the first time in 3 years I didn’t carry them around.  And wouldn’t ya know it, I actually needed them.

I hiked for some time, not concerned about the snow, but after wading through waist deep snow for about 25 minutes, I decided it wasn’t worth it and turned around.

I wasn’t going to let the snow defeat me, so back at it I went on Sunday, but this time with snow shoes.  Hiking through it was a breeze, except for the occasional deep parts where I would sink more.  I got pretty high on the Moats, but after a while of just bushwhacking, I was completely stuck with no visible trail, so I bagged the hike and headed home.  Still got a little over 3 hours in and tha’ts a good day in my book.

Yesterday’s turn around point from waist deep snow

Anyone see a trail in there?

Nope, no trail there either..

Monday was an off day and last night was supposed to be a nice little recovery ride.  With temps in the 50s during the day, I aired WAY down the Pugsley tires and went out to see what the shape of the trails were in from melt.  They sucked.  I managed to get less than an hour in, some of that riding on the road, and some of that pushing my bike.  Yes, it was that bad out there, I was forced to push my 35lb snow bike through the snow.  It looks like spring might be here.

This morning was a casual commute to work on the fixed gear to meet up with a co-worker to put in a solid hour of work on the skinny tire bikes.  We did about an hour or so and it was quite a nice morning to ride outside.  It wasn’t too hot, and wasn’t too cold.

Riding behind the train.  Not much of a train, but the first time in about 5 months that I rode with and behind someone.  I’ll take any draft I can get.

Tonight is another casual commute via the fixie home…It certainly is a good time to be out riding…

After doing the cross racing this year, I checked out a bunch of team kits and checked out their site.  One of the cooler sites I stumbled on and check out quite frequently, is the Embrocation Cycling Journal site.  There are some pretty interesting articles on there, as well as some killer printed mags you can get your hands on.  I have already bought some of them, and they are quite the good reads.

Anyway, all of this ramblings let me to the point of this.  Pot holes suck.  Both while riding and while in the cars.  If you feel the same about pot holes, especially while riding in the early spring months, check out what Frances Morrison from Embrocation has to say about them.  It gave me a little chuckle…..

While the mid-Atlantic states have been getting pounded pretty hard with snow, here in New Hampshire, it has been a balmy 40 or so and I have been taking advantage of it.  I’ve been out on the Pugsley a couple times, but that really hasn’t been much fun.  With all the warmth, I just end up riding through the slush.  Then on the weekends, been out on the roadie, putting in the time and mileage required for some 24 hour races..

Other than that, I have been working on figuring out my race schedule.  Every time I think I have it figured out, I change my mind and think something different.  I think I have it figured out now though.

Last year,I did a whole year of endurance races.  That took a LOT of time to train for.  It always seemed like if I wasn’t eating, sleeping or working, I was on the bike.  And some of the time, I was doing my eating on the bike.  Yes, I love to ride my bike, but I also want to spend my time doing other things as well.  So this year, in hopes of having a better cyclocross season, I am dropping some of the endurance races, now only doing 2 24 hour races, adding some shorter XC races and signing up for something completely different.

I have always been a roadie and feel that I am pretty strong when it comes to certain things.  That, along with the short time span of suffering involved in cross racing, has me believe that it is time to get out the road bike, get me some snazzy shoe covers, a cool aero helmet and do some time trialling.  This year, I am going to be doing the Maine Time Trial series.  It has 13 races, a final and should be just the right amount of torture and pain needed to whip me into shape for cross season.  At least that is the plan, so let’s hope it works out that way..and no, I most likely won’t be getting an aero helmet….or will I??

First, we had off of work on Friday.  It was a nice treat to have a 3 day weekend.  Kelly had off on the same day, so we took advantage of it, walked a dog a bunch, did some shopping and just hung out with each other.  We don’t get to do that all that often, so it is nice when it gets to happen.

Saturday, it was time to get down to business.  One of the first races I will be looking at this year, is Crank the Kanc.  I am very familiar with the ride, as I have done it many times, but I wanted to get a baseline of what to expect.  I set a pretty lofty goal for myself from looking at past years times, so I wanted to know what exactly needed to be done.

I was expecting about a 4 hour ride from my house, and it ended up being 4 hours 1 minute.  Sometimes I impress myself with how close I can come to guessing this stuff.  Guess that is some experience talking there.  However, I knew from the very first pedal stroke that it was going to be a long tiring day in the saddle.  I don’t know why I had heavy legs, but I did.

Elevation profile from my house to the top of the Kanc and back.

View from the top of the Kanc

You can see the road that was just ridden up.

On Sunday, I was lucky enough to have the day off with Kelly again, so more walking the dog and just spending time together.  Sure, I didn’t get to ride, but sometimes its not always about the bike….especially in the 2nd week of February.  I have plenty of time in the year to blow her off for a ride.  And as we get closer to those times, she will understand it is what needs to be done.

Kelly playing photographer..

On tap tonight, some lactic threshold testing.  30 minutes of all out effort.  Nothing like some pain and huge amounts of suffering on a Monday night….

Last night, nothing too exciting.  I’m in the process of getting my body built up and prepped for the next upcoming weeks.  So, it was just a simple, hour long ride, keeping my heart rate in zone 2.  Nothing to difficult, nothing to fancy.

I got up early, early for me anyway, at around 6:30 this morning and went right back down to the rollers.  I thought I had something planned tonight, but it turns out I don’t, but either way, I still rode this morning.  The task, to build up muscle endurance and work on the fast twitch muscle fibers, so a couple reps of spin ups was the task.  Over the span of a minute, work my way up to the max cadence, without bouncing, and hold it for a minute.  Pretty good stuff that should pay off later in the year.  The more impressive thing was my max cadence for the workout, which was 177.  Yes, I accomplished spinning myself up to 177 rpm on my rollers at about 7:50 this morning.  I am kinda proud of that.?

This morning’s cadence profile

Saturday, turned out to be a pretty normal Saturday. Got up, ate some food, did some things around the house and got out on the bike.  I only did a little over 2 hours as it was pretty darn cold out, hovering around 20-25 degrees at the warmest.  Plus the wind was blowing pretty good, so that doesn’t help.  Either way, I put on my 14 pounds of clothing and went out for a ride.  Once I was out, it really wasn’t all that bad.  I took some back roads that don’t have much traffic and went down to Silver Lake.  Its a nice 15ish mile ride, a little bit of steep climbing, but just the right amount of riding for this time of the year.

Silver Lake looking south.

Looking east across the lake.

Winter heaven for fishermen in the wind.

Sunday, well, Sunday was Sunday.  Usually, once or so a month, a bunch o f us head out to the Red Fox Pub for their breakfast buffet.  8 bucks for a bunch of good food??  Yea, I can’t pass that up.

That will get you fueled up the right way

After the frenzy was over, we just came back to the house and relaxed all day.  Kelly and I rarely have any days off together, so it was nice just to hang out with her.  Plus, the superbowl was on, but I think we really only watched 10 minutes of it.  It was on, but why watch that when there is real good stuff on tv?  Plus, you can watch all the commercials online anyway.

Other than the buffet and the relaxing, I kept myself busy by writing up some coaching plans.  Yep, I am now a certified level 3 USA Cycling coach, and it was time to put that knowledge to good use…

Hrm, what else can I do with this thing?

Last night, before my ride, I went to prep the bike and make sure all is working.  There is nothing worse than getting all dresses up in full winter gear, so stand in my basement to work on a bike, sweating, right before a ride.

So, tire pressure, check.  Hitting all the gears properly, check.  Rear hub seems a little sloppy.  Tighten the cones and such, check.  Lube the chain, check.  Put on new light mount and make sure light works, check.  Remember that the saddle height was a tad low, so raise the saddle….no check.  That is where the issue came in.  Apparently my brute strength broke the seat post collar bolt.

There is nothing like hearing that cracking sound.  Luckily, I have quite the stable of bikes to choose from, so I grabbed another collar and got ‘er running.

Once I was out, it was a nice night for riding.  Temps in the low 30s, sled trails all to my self, nuttin to complain about.  Total, I did about 2 hours, and the back was in good shape for all but about the last 10 minutes.  I expected that, so it wasn’t anything new or anything to be concerned about.  Pretty status quo riding.

Around the mountain I go.

Not sure if I will take out the Pugs again tonight or ride the trainer….probably the pugs as I really don’t want to do the trainer.  Plus, I have myself scheduled for some trainer time Monday or Tuesday of next week for some testing….so I need to stay away from it as much as I can until then..

Monday night was my triumphant return to biking, and not a moment too soon.  I was starting to get a little antsy and cranky, plus my legs were getting twitchy, because of my 10 day spell off the bike.  So to test the back and see how it felt, I just got on the trainer and did a quick hour of zone 2 pedaling.  Sure, it wasn’t the most fun, or maybe not the most productive workout, but it was needed to see how I felt.  And I felt.  No pain while on the bike and less than usual once I got back off.  Seems like I was good to go.

Last night was a horrible night back on the Pugs.  I got on, turned on all the lights and headed down to the train tracks to use the sled trails.  The trails were in great shape for riding because of the recent melt, rain and solid freeze.  I could have easily ridden a regular mountain bike with no issues.  About 10 minutes in, there was a bad patch of super soft snow.  It looked like a sled got dug in and tore everything up.  I braced myself and thought I would just float over it.  Well, it was significantly deeper and softer than I thought and my front wheel went straight down.  I went from 13 mph to laying on the ground in about 2 seconds.  When the dust settled and I finished giggling to myself, I picked up the bike, but my light was dangling.  Somewhere in the 2 flips I did, the handlebar mount hit something and broke.

I was not about to let that slow me down.  I got back on the bike, put the light in my hand and just held the light.  I got out about 20 more minutes and on a wicked downhill and went down hard on a slick spot of ice.  I would have been better prepared for the ice, bit I couldn’t see it.  Darn broken light bracket.  Another fall going 13 mph again.  Plus, I lost another water bottle in the crashes.

The land on the ground sent a shock up my spine and after laying there a bit, I decided it was not meant to be.  There was no way I was going to go out there and give it another shot with a busted light, so I limped my way home to save myself from falling again and really hurting myself.

That makes 3 out of 4 rides on the Pugsley bad news.  Let’s hope that ratio changes quickly..

With the 40 degree temps, also came the rain.  And boy did it rain.  Luckily, I live on the very top of a hill, so there is no concern, but those in the low lands, like Weston’s and Sherman Hill’s farms, not so lucky.

For those of you that know the area, these * were from yesterday morning:

Heading west on River Road right after Weston’s Farm.

Same location

These signs are normally about 4 feet tall.

Same spot

Looking South on the Saco.  Those pillars are usually 20 feet out of water.

More pillars

Looking east across the bridge toward Weston’s Farm.  Usually about 25 feet of space below the bridge before you get to water.

Weston’s Beach parking lot.

View from the bridge.

The one thing that the rain and warmth has done that really effects me, is it has ruined the snow.  Sure, I don’t wish there was any, but it is that awkward in between time, where the snow is too crappy to ski, bike, or snow shoe, but there is still snow on the ground, so no single track to be had.  Ohh well, what can ya do??

On a side note about the back, every day things are getting a little better.  Today, I took a quick spin around our warehouse, about 30 seconds worth of being on the bike and the back felt fine.  It was when I tried to get off the bike and stand up that I had the problem.  I am figuring that I will stay off the bike until the weekend and see how it goes then.  I can say, that without being able to do anything, ride, hike, run, ski, anything, I am pretty bored with my time.

* All photos used were taken by Derrek Schlottmann.