Took Campy out on her first real mountain bike ride. I never took her because I always thought her stride was too short. She’s not super tall and was always just concerned. So for her ride, we just took it easy, but still managed about 7 miles…can’t complain about that.

I’d say she looks pretty happy.

Share/Bookmark

With all that swirling around in my mind, the only thing I could do was get down to work.  On December 1, I have officially started the season.  It had been about 3.5 months since I have had any structured workout or any type of serious riding, so I knew it was going to be a lot of effort to get back to where I was.

The plan was simple, ride at my endurance pace for about a week, just to get the legs used to pedaling the bike again, then on Wednesday of last week, I began with my first round of testing, my functional power threshold.

Hrm, not exactly what I was expecting

I have to say, with not riding for almost 4 months, I was pretty disappointed with the results.  It had been much lower than I would have expected.  But, without doing any biking for 4 months, what did I expect?  I guess the only thing to do, is start working hard, to get that fitness back and more.

Fortunately, I have a bunch of vacation days that I need to take before the end of the year or I lose them, so it looks like I get to ride outside for the next 2 weeks.  Let’s hope that the weather will cooperate with me a bit so I don’t freeze..

Share/Bookmark

I’m not too sure how much I am going to like only being allowed to use one hand. When I had my hand in a cast before, it was fine, I could still use it to do things. But now, I won’t be able to move my left arm much at all. I have already changed around my desk so everything is all one handed / right handed operation, so I guess I’m about as ready as I can get.

Let’s hope tomorrow goes smoothly, and I am able to get back on the bike ASAP outside…. Because riding the trainer for the next several weeks is going to kill me.

As I just reread the post it made me laugh. I’m not concerned at all about the pain, or the fact they will be shaving bone bits in my arm or that ligaments will be anchored back to each other, but my major concern is riding the bike outside. I’m not sure if my priorities are way off or right on track…

Share/Bookmark

The last I spoke of it, I was out spankin’ the competition at the 12 Hours of Bradbury. Since then, I took some time off, time to heal. I thought, if I don’t use it to do anything, it should speed up the recovery time. After about a month, I tried getting out and pedaling, and it just wasn’t going to happen. My arm kept giving out, making me almost fall off the bike. I knew something more had to be done.

With that in mind, I went back to the doc’s office and this time, we scheduled up an an MRI. It was time to figure out just what was going on with it.

MRI, check. X-Rays, check. Now, let’s take a look and see what we have here.

The results came back with what we suspected. A SLAP tear in my left labrum.

The first doc I went through was kinda “wishy washy” about what to do. Should I just let it go, should I get surgery to repair it, she wasn’t sure. I had to find someone else with a more definitive thought process. I can’t live like this the rest of my life.  I’m not even talking about riding a bike, it hurts just putting on my shirt in the morning.

After talking it over with some friends, I made up my mind. I was going to head to the same spot recommended by someone who had roughly the same (his was a bit worse) injury.

Yesterday was the day of the initial appointment and his thoughts were 100% concise. Let’s go in there and fix the problem. No ifs, ands or buts about it. He thought the MRI might not have shown all the problems, but once he was in there poking around, he would be able to really see what was going on and fix it right up. November 12, next Friday is the day its all going down. I have about 1 week to use my left arm as much as I can before I am in a sling for what we think will be about 6 weeks.

So now my mind process is this. I am going to get as many miles on the road bike outside as possible. I figure I need to get back in gear and if my arm is going to hurt pedaling, it might as well be outside instead of staring at my basement floor while on the trainer. Late next week, I will do my lactate threshold testing so I know where my power ranges are at for this time of year and right after surgery, it is all trainer time.

I’m really excited about a solid month of trainer riding, can’t ya tell…

Share/Bookmark

I have to say that I was very nervous about this race. Not really about the race itself, but how my shoulder would hold up. I heard TONS about the race course and just how rooty it was, and it did not disappoint.

I got there a day early and did my normal pre-ride of the course. Nothing too tricky, but it certainly was rooty. The one nice thing was the lack of elevation gain on the course. I think total, for the 7.5 miles, it was less than 450 feet of total climbing. I will take that any day of the week.

The race started at 8am, which is a little different than the races I am used to, but not a big deal. They staggered the start times, as the course was about 95% single track, so there wasn’t going to be much time to pass. My wave went off about a minute or so after the solo riders. When the horn went off, a quick lap around the campground and I was 3rd into the woods. Not bad. Within minutes, we were running into the back of the single speed group, so there were bikes all over the place…on your left, on your right, through the middle. It was a mess and people passing all over the place.

The key to this race was pacing. Since the first part of the lap was a little bit more technical, and had most of the elevation gain, the key was to keep the throttle turned back a bit, so during the second half, you could really ratchet it up and fly through the second part. And that is what I did.

As I was racing a 2 man team, the planning was a little different than normal. I going go a bit harder than normal, as I knew I would have some time to recover back at camp and get some solid foods into me.

Pretty much the day went without any issue. Nothing major to talk about. My partner and I took turns riding laps to keep the legs fresh while Kelly kept an eye on the leader board. Through out the day, the lap times were close, with us in first most of the time, but mid afternoon saw us playing second fiddle and not liking it. But with experience and more then 9 different 12/24 hour races under our belts, we knew that if we stuck to our plan, rode consistently, we would be able to pull it out. With that plan, and the fact that the other team started to slow down at the end, we regained the lead with a few hours to go. Once we were back on top, Kelly kept using the whip and kept us riding strong.

On my last lap, Kelly told me I needed to turn a 59 minute lap to win. My previous laps were in that same area, so I knew I had to ride as hard as I could to keep the lead. Of course, she was lying to me, but I was too busy concentrating on what I needed to do that I believed her. After the race, I checked it out and I needed to pull an hour thirty to keep the lead. Fortunately, I was under the 59 minute mark and we got the top spot of the podium.

Over all, quite a good race. We stuck to the plan, stayed the course and game home after a quick trip to the top box on the podium. There ain’t nothing wrong with that……Plus, I didn’t notice my shoulder for most of the day, so that is a positive thing..

Sorry about all the lousy photos, but that is the best we could do with the cell phone we had.  Our regular camera battery died on the drive down.  DOH!!

Share/Bookmark

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

Share/Bookmark

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…

Share/Bookmark

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…..

Share/Bookmark

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??

Share/Bookmark

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….

Share/Bookmark