Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Lots of stairs for meetings on distant floors and then getting Mrs packed to go home and me packed to go south. And the race bike (Smokie) gets a road trip.

Day 2 free weights, push-ups, abs

Some photos from the recumbent show.
A couple of Fatties. Even the colour was close. The Azub had no suspension and rolled over curbs quite nicely.

The ICE was suspended and the curbs didn't feel much different, but steering was much better

Cruz speed trike was pretty cool

Tilts AND can be fitted to your 2 wheeler

But really, two wheels is more aero

Then again a low three is pretty stable

And something keeps drawing me back to this, but I didn't realize just how massive it was until Leslie took this photo. This bike weighs the same as the Full Fat

and the most fun might have been the hand cycle - also the most challenging with steering and pedaling integrated, but shifting and brakes down low

C • Recumbent Mecca 3

Day 1 free weights

It was supposed to be the last dry day for a week - rain came early so indoor workout.

Day 3 resistance bands and push ups

Connective tissue needs a bit more work in a hotel.

Runny type test number 2

The hotel gym had weights and medicine balls, but no bench and very little floor space with the giant cardio gear stuffed in there. So I gave myself half and hour on an elliptical.

It was set for miles, so I started out with a target pace of 4.5, which seemed fairly natural for not being in a hurry. It took a while for it to pick up my heart rate and when it did it was showing 105-110. It didn't feel like that to me. My heart monitor was showing mid 150s. I tried to ignore that and pay attention to the pace which kept creeping up to 5.

At about the time I was considering if I should check with my doctor about the very different heart rate readings the machine caught up to my Garmin. That took 14 minutes. At 15, I decided to try to settle the pace down to 4. This felt really slow, a fast walk really, but also was easily sustainable.

So one more data point in my time versus distance walking/running/hiking experiment.

Recumbent tests. Haven't sorted through the photos Mrs. took of me trying new stuff, but the highlights were:
- ICE Full Fat is boss. Really nice engineering. Handled much better than the other fatties (there are getting to be quite a few options). Managed my unsanctioned curb test like nothing happened. It has a huge footprint though.
- I'm really warming up to the internal over/under drive on the front. I'll run some numbers to see how it might suit one of my bikes in the Rockies.
- I've pretty much decided internal rear hubs aren't for me. I've tried three now and even the Rohloff doesn't shift as smoothly under power as I want it to. I really like the idea especially for a winter bike, but I'll stick with a derailleur and needing to do regular cleaning up
- I think I'm finally over the R84 that I lusted after for years. It is quite nice in real life (first time I've actually been on one), but 'Bent's Kodiak may have ruined me for blocky carbon
- I'm more impressed with Hase engineering every time I visit them. They've addressed my complaint with ground clearance for the mid position of the rear hub by building a linear shifter. Very cool and pretty smooth. The suspension for their Kross has changed a bit since I rode a prototype and strikes me as much more serviceable now. This is probably the trike with the best chance of handling single track, though it might still be too wide for the tight stuff
- finished up with a Greenspeed hand trike that was great fun. A bit tricky for tight cornering, or braking into a corner, but it is tempting to have one just because. I did really notice how slow most recumbent riders are while riding this - I didn't expect to have to maneuver by so many people

A few quick laps before heading to Cincinnati to see if there are any recumbents that want to go home with Mrs.

Day 2 free weights and push ups

28C, still air and clear blue skies for the first day of autumn.

Perfect day for a ride. The only problem is it is getting hard to burn the 1200calories that qualify for a bonus apple dumpling with fresh cinnamon ice cream.

I wasn't feeling the bike ride with commuters today, perhaps peripherally influenced by Flight and 'Bent both crashing last week.

Soooo...I thought I would try a bit of a run during the wash cycle. I set a half hour limit on a little 200m circuit. I ran the heart up to the high 160s then walked it back to the 140s. That was about 4:1 for the first 2 km when I decided to do a walk lap and noticed my walk pace was about the same as the average with run-walk so I shifted the balance to trying to pick a run pace that didn't ramp the heart up so quickly. No luck at that, but it might go better starting out differently.

I would need different compression to do this with any frequency. And maybe some gait coaching before I have bad habits to break. Hiking would probably work better for me.

Day 1 free weights

Day 3 soloflex

River walk with Mrs. before heading south.

There was a group of 6 Amish girls charging up one of the bigger Pennsylvania hills today (probably about 200m over about 5km) with billowing dresses magically not getting caught in any part of their old school cruisers. They were about 2/3 up when I went by and seemed to be having a grand time. I suspect on modern bikes they would destroy many time trial teams - with or without spandex.

I think Flight would love getting that bunch trained up on the track...and get ladies night back.

Tire test.

I don't usually deliberately go out in the rain, but I have a pair of Race Kings that have been waiting for a month and I will be away the next two weekends. I used the no tools tire change technique and it works quite well on these 26x2.2. I did leave the tire levers in the repair kit for now though.

Light rain to start with a beautiful swath of pink between the cloud layers as the sun came up, but never actually showed its face. The rain stopped at about 30 minutes and I took the rain hacker off at 40 minutes. That lasted about half an hour and I put the jacket back on 10 minutes later when it started to get heavier and the wind came up. At that point I decided to loop back. All that was accessible that I hadn't tried was a dense bit of wood with a lot of tree trunks to traverse. That would have been a commitment of another hour so....I wimped out.

Tire impression:
- wet payment: nice roll with good grip and surprisingly not too big a rooster tail
- hard pack: very good, positive grip, good on a lean
- wet single track: really nice on the wet soil, small roots, golden rod bent over onto the trail (an ATV has made a pass and smashed the weed to cover about 100m of trail)
- pine straw: no slippage even though it was quite wet
- packed wet sand, kind of like the beach as the tide goes out: very good on this. I expected to slip around a bit on it in the little terrain park across the railway tracks but didn't. Very positive steering and catching the grip rolling the little whoops
- gravel, 1-2cm: no problem but none of it was more than a couple stones deep
- light gravel/corse sand, 2-3mm, kind of like what you would put on the driveway to get better grip in the winter: this is where the old tires failed first. The new tires handled it nicely with good grip at speed. I made a pint of going through some of the channels that were filled 2-4cm deep and had no issues

Don't know about mud or log crawling.

Day 2 free weights, push-ups, abs

I found an interesting option for carrying all the stuff I'd like to take to the beach.

Part two of things people do to get a bit of exercise when their schedule doesn't want to cooperate. Parked at a craft brewery and walk/jogged to a trade show. No sidewalk, but a decent shoulder. Past an outlet mall and an amusement park. Close to 6 km.

Left the office about 15 minutes early and spent all of rush 'hour' on the bike. 30C light wind and no car incidents made for a good ride. Shadows were getting pretty long by the time I got back so the trainer isn't far away for weekday evenings.

No flats for quite a while on the new rubber so I've stopped carrying a spare spare in my pocket.

Very heavy traffic this afternoon - about 3x normal volume. Never a good day to take the bike out when a crash closes the interstate next door.

Day 1 free weights
I realized this morning that the set in this workout I most look forward to is:
Curl with an outward twist (quarter turn), extra weight on the outside end, standing on one leg.

Beat the rain.

Today I was scheduled to ride 80km south to meet a guitar buddy doing the Civil War Century. He and his riding club decided to stay in New Jersey rather than coming to Gettysburg and ride in the pouring rain. I decided to try and get in the distance to Gettysburg before the rain started.

Looking out the window as the sun came up, the sky was clear and I was on the road right at sunrise. The edge of the cloud was clearly visible to the west and it gobbled up the sun by the 10km point. Just me and the cool damp air. Even though I handily beat the rain, the outside of my jacket was soaked by the time the ride was over. 33C and humid yesterday and 13C this morning will do that.

I did the time trial route, but just trying to maintain a nice steady pace. 4 straight sub 11 intervals outbound sticking in the low 160s. Easy turn around through town and solid sub 11s on the open road coming back. All the churches in Mechanicsburg had sales out in spite of the forecast so it was pretty slow navigating through that traffic, but they were all well behaved so it was really a relaxing cool down. I added a little hill loop to the end to get the full 50km and punched over the 6% at well over 20km/hr to check how tired the legs were.

Great ride. I did notice that all the time on the road with the Greenspeed has the legs spinning pretty nicely. I'm comfortably cruising open flat road in the low 30km/hr with 4 or 5 gears to spare. Heart is quickly dropping from 160 to 145 just slowing down for a red light.

Food experiment: Mamma Chia mango coconut. A bit lumpy but easy to drink and fairly tasty. Pocket Fuel type format, but much more liquid and not nearly as packed with energy.

C • Solid ride! 2

Waiting for a 2 pm meeting delaying my normal bike ride without traffic.

Day 3 resistance bands, push-ups, abs
Bike was on the agenda, but over 2 inches of rain today just tapering off

Day 2 free weights, push-ups, abs

37C in the heart of the commuters. They don't quote humidex here, but it was hot enough that I finished a water bottle before I usually start drinking. I cut the ride short by a 7km loop after the second paramedic stopped traffic. I imagined they were picking up victims of heat and decided not to push it - my second water bottle was empty anyway.

C • Ugh 1

Lazy start to a travel day

Day 1 free weights

Legs versus the hills.

The climbing Friday was bad enough that I felt compelled to make sure I hadn't forgotten how. I has a theory about the cause, but best to test it out just in case it was really just an excuse. The plan was to head out to Kennedy road which has some nice repeatable elevation.

Fog was quite heavy first thing so I waited until close to 7:30 to go out and even then ran full lights. Once I got past the lower spots between me and the 404 it was clear sailing.

The first tests were the outbound hills totalling about 100m in about the distance we went Friday. No problem, even on the two climbs that lights conspired to have me do from a dead stop. Then the turn on to Kennedy and the wall of doom. I did pop into the granny gear near the top and crested at about 7km/hr, which is pretty close to the balance threshold on two wheel. Heart rate peaked at about 170.

Then the repeats: 7% in one direction, 10% in the other. Not terribly long, but I don't think anything we did Friday came close to it in steepness or length. I stayed for a bit over an hour, leaving in time to get home before Mrs. called a search party at 10. Turns out she changed the threshold and called at 9:45 to make sure I wasn't dead in a ditch - I was on the path right behind the house looping home.

Back to the hill repeats. Aside from fresh legs, there were a few other things contributing to a better result:
- I know my bike really well. The shift points are automatic and I know exactly how each shift is going to impact the effort.
- my bike has no tipping point, so there is no speed to bail out on, which is a psychological advantage
- the heart monitor tells me the truth about when I am at my limit. I think Friday I was bailing in the high 150s and I didn't really need to. Without the monitor, I can't really distinguish between 160 and 173. If I'd seen 162, for example, I would have just said 'I got this' and carried on. An unforced error since I had the strap with me, but didn't bother putting it on for a short test ride
- I start initial stroke at just before 12 o'clock on the Greenspeed. I noticed myself setting it exactly the same spot at each stop. I was setting the stroke probably about 20 degrees too low on 'Bent's bikes and not getting the right push. It's a bit different with each geometry, but one of those things I tend to take for granted.
- I noticed that I periodically hitch up my butt to free up a bit of blood flow on the top of my left leg. I have no idea if it releases as little as a couple of tablespoons, or as much as 100ml, but the impact is very noticeable in that I get a burst of energy that lasts maybe 20-40 seconds. This is very deliberate on my road bike because it is essential, but I'd never really noticed it on my recumbents. Clearly it is something learned through repeated use and familiarity
- my peak heart rate actually dropped a bit in later climbs. I think familiarity let's you spend your energy more efficiently as you get used to how the hill flows. Not surprising, but it was interesting to see the heart rate profile shift over the course of an hour, when you would expect to be starting to tire.

Enough blah-blah.
Very nice ride. By starting late a couple of bike clubs were ahead of me today. A few cyclists met me during my repeats. It was a amusing to watch them look back to see if they were dropping me on the climb - generally not until they crested. I thought one guy was going to do a few repeats with me because he stopped and watched me. Turns out he just wanted a second look at how has the trike descended. A pair of Ferraris caught me on my last climb: a late model and one approaching 50 years old. They thought the trike was brilliant.

I could easily go out for another hour or more, versus Friday not being sure it was a good idea to drive home right away.

C • Interesting 4

Legs took a beating yesterday for not doing much. I did plan the right compression for the amount of standing that is required if you actually want to see anything at a concert you payed good money for these days. Maybe I should go to less popular acts.

Lots of walking getting in and out. Public transit is definitely not up to the needs of people on the edges of the GTA (pardon the political commentary).

I'm going to have to cut back on stairs, at least when wearing travel compression. Developed an ouchy bruise about 15 cm long on the inner right thigh.
That does settle the question of whether I should ride over to see 'Bent or drive though.

Day 3 soloflex
It turns out waiting for a carpenter is a good way to catch up on a few things.

Round numbers. Lots of little test runs on 'Bent new ride while it was getting tuned up, followed by a short woods loop with a couple of bike swaps. I had a few steering errors with the long wheel bases on these one offs, but they would be easy to get used to. I'd venture 20-100 hrs to really get a handle on steering input versus body input. That would probably be more than enough time to learn this little bit of the forest as well.

Perfect way to spend a few hours of a free Friday.
And a visit with Bash and 'Bent is always good.

C • Thanks! 6

4 secure doors on each lap these days - makes for a lot of badging in

Day 2 free weights and push ups

35C so I took the 29er single speed out for an easy ride. I was a bit surprised how low the heart rate stayed, even on the two longer climbs which make up most of the elevation on this route.

No traffic events and humidity wasn't too bad so it was a nice ride, even if it barely burned enough calories to warrant having dinner.