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..

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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…

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I went to the Doctor on Friday for annual physical, and while i Was there, told him to poke around on the arm to see what he thinks. After a little of the “ok, do this, lift that, push on this” type stuff, and a little movement tests, he feels like it is a rotator cuff that has gone bad.

My options: rest it for a week then either do some solid physical therapy or head right to the orthopedic surgeon and see what he has to say. He feels that if I get myself all hopped up on some cortisone shots, I could make the rest of the racing with it the way it is..

So, that was on Friday. I did a nice, easy mtb ride on Friday night and all went well. No major pains, I was able to ride and things went well. Then I took the rest of the weekend off. I tried to go for a road ride on Saturday night, but 1.5 miles in, I slashed a tired pretty badly, used a zip lock baggy to patch the hole in the tire and limped home. I figured with all that nonsense, no need to head back out. Obviously, I wasn’t “supposed” to be out riding.

Then this morning. With things feeling good and a 12 hour race coming up quick, I felt it was time to start pushing the pedals, so I commuted to work. After about 15 minutes, the shoulder really would hurt when resting my weight on my arms, so pretty much all the time on a road bike. I would take my arm off and ride 1 armed for a couple minutes, then ride 2 armed until the pain was there again.

So that is where I am at….a bunch of pain every time I ride and now, sitting at my desk, worse pain than I has before. Plus, I just sneezed and I almost cried. So with that in mind, I will be calling the ortho surgeon and see what he has to say. And for my legs…..I hate to say this out loud, but it looks like it will be trainerville (shudders) to keep the legs going….ugh.

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Usually, I am a side sleeper, or somehow twisted around, but with a bum wing, it has forced me to sleep either 100% flat on my back or 100% flat on my stomach. Not a fan of either. So, even though I am falling asleep on my back or stomach, I must be rolling around like a mad man while in deep slumber, cause it hurts like hell when I wake up. Through out the day, it mellows down, but flairs up from time to time depending on what I am doing.

I was going to head over to the hospital yesterday to get it checked out, but I have a doctor’s appointment for Friday, so I decided to just suck it up and deal with it till then. My thought “no need to spend 2 co-pays at the doctor if I can just get away with one”. I don’t need to stuff the Dr.’s pocket with any more money….

That’s where I am at. Not able to do much, including ride. But, it has been pretty crappy weather, mostly raining, so I am really not missing out on that much. I thought about digging out my trainer, but uttering those words just doesn’t sound right. I figure after this weekend, I should, keeping my fingers crossed, be good to go, depending on what the dr says….If he says no go, then its trainerville…. YAY!!!! because I have 1 more 12 hour race to go and then…..BAM, cross season…..

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Sure, I still want to post to this blog, but there have been times I have been busy, VERY busy.

First and foremost, training. That always takes first priority when I have free time. Things have been going just ok on that side. I had a SUPER strong April. I believe that had to do with only having 1 car in the family, and it was much easier for me to commute by bike than it is for the Misses…So, I racked up a ton of miles and killer training time.

Then May came and things dwindled down a little. I went and did 2 races, one hill climb and one time trial and feel things were progressing as well as they needed to be for this time of the year. With both races, it was pretty much an all out effort for about an hours worth of time. Something that will matter later come cyclocross season, but doesn’t do much for the endurance season. Then, a few injuries came about. A pretty torn up ankle (that I am still having problems with) and also a mysterious leg pain. The Dr thought it had something to do with some exploding veins pooling in muscle compartments and such.

Now June is here and I feel like I am a tad behind where I need to be. It is really hard to tell though due to the duration of my events. It is hard to go out and test run a 24 hour race.. BUT, with Pat’s Peak 24 hour race coming up, that is something that I might be able to do.

I did the Pat’s Peak race last year, and it was a tough one, mostly because of my single speed. It pretty much went up the ski slope, down, across, then up and down again. I think with gears, I would be all set. The nice part about this race is I can do a 6, 12 or 24 hour event…not sure which one I will pick. Only about 3 weeks till race time, so I better get to figuring it out..

The other thing that has kept me busy has been the formation of my coaching/nutritional supply company, Precision Endurance. Currently, I am still working on all the logistics of everything (insurance, logos, graphics, websites, blah blah blah), but it is keeping me busy. Hopefully, things should be up and fully running my mid July..

Thats about all. Hopefully with this post, I can get myself out of the funk of not updating and things can get rolling again. Later this week,I travel to Seattle to check out some new FSA products….so hopefully I should have some pictures of new and good things to come…

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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

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But, there are reasons….yea, yea, yea, excuses, excuses, I know.

Since the last post, work has had our open house, we had some of the busiest weeks for the past several years (good to see the bike industry is doing well), I have been training and I have been working on a little coaching adventure.  More on that later.

The riding has been pretty consistent.  Weather has done its best to keep me off the bike, after all, it is March in New England, but over all, things have been pretty good.  I use the commute to work as a good base line fitness test and I am certainly on par with where I was last year and where I need to be.  So, I guess no complaints about that.

Then this morning, not having to be to work until 10, I decided to try and sneak a quick workout in.

Yea, I know, the desk is a little cluttered…but that wasn’t the biggest problem.  It was the fact I was, AGAIN, inside on the trainer…..I thought this stuff was over.

Back to the coaching.  After some conversations and such, I have decided that with my new cycling certifications, I decided to open up my own coaching company, Precision Endurance.  Sure, there isn’t anything going on yet with it, but I just bought the domain on Friday, filed the official government paperwork on Saturday, so now just trying to do the “creative” thing, which I am no good at, to make the logo, slogans, websites, and all the things that go along with it.  That, and I got myself all kinds of paperwork to get a personal trainer certification, and a few other odds and ends to help out, including a lead on a coaching internship.  Do I see us being the next Training Bible Coaching outfit? No, but hopefully some good things can come of this….Heck, I already have a couple clients signed up..  And no, Precision Endurance won’t just be doing cycling, we will be doing ALL SORTS of disciplines: running, swimming, cycling, triathlons, you name it, we can help with it.  If anyone is looking for such a thing, let me know and we can work something out for you….all plans will be at least semi-custom as I don’t think “cookie cutter” plans will do the job you are looking for..

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for success..

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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…

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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??

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My plan for the evening was get the rollers rolling for an easy 10 minutes as a nice warm up.  Then, 30 minutes, all out effort.  10 minutes in, reset the heart rate monitor at 10 minutes as I can toss out the wandering heart rate and then cool down for the last couple of minutes.  I am really not a huge fan of doing this type of stuff.  I don’t like sitting there and pushing as hard as possible for 30 minutes, keeping myself right on the brink of almost throwing up the entire time.. It is never a great day when I see this test on the schedule.

Over the 20 minutes of my all out recorded effort, I managed to have an average heart rate of 175.  What should the number be??  Well, that all depends on the individual athlete.  The higher the number relative to their max heart rate the better.  The higher the number, the longer the athlete can ride and clear lactic acid at higher heart rates.  With this number, I can now set up all of my heart rate zones for the upcoming training weeks.

My max heart rate, from what I have observed in the past couple of months is 194.  So, I can ride pretty damn close to my max and still be able to clear out lactic acid from the legs.  The one thing that is a good value to see is that over the past year, my LT has gone from 155 to 175.  That’s a pretty good jump and will help out with my training this year.  That also shows me that all the work I did last year with my coach has really paid off…

Gee, can you tell when the test started and ended??

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