Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Quick ride along the river before heading to the city. Beautiful morning with clear sky and 15C to start. I took a route that made the commuters mostly invisible.

Started north to see how the construction was progressing and noticed someone had blazed a trail around the fence closing the main trail. I thought I would scout it and it reconnected pretty quickly, but was a bit tight. At the other end of the blockage they had skirted right past a private property sign and ran along the railway tracks. This seemed ill advised, especially knowing there would be at least two more Go trains. If my special mapping is close, it would be about 2 km before the tracks made it back to the trail.

Near home I tried a barely there side trail which quickly became bog. That was a bit surprising because the ground was fairly high relative to the river. I did a quick retreat at the first mosquito swarm.

Little pre ride test with Mrs.
Step 1: check the clip-unclip on the BikeE mounted on the trainer (she has been riding it with street shoes)
Step 2: check the clip-unclip on her mountain bike
Step 3: ride
Step 4: declared good for the Cider Ride

But a warning might be in order: if someone comes up to you all kitted up and says "I'm ready when you are", they might find it a bit insulting if you just grab your shoes and helmet and head out. It might not matter if you're riding a recumbent and don't really need padded shorts and can't use jersey pockets.

Then again, by skipping the getting ready rituals, you might go out with compression on your right leg. No harm done, but if anybody here ever sees me riding without compression: call me on it because it would be a bad habit to start. I think I'll stuff some old ones in cubby holes of each car as a hedge.

Beautiful afternoon for a ride. Next stop might be the local jazz festival.

Day 2 free weights and pushups

35C and a bit sticky, but better than I was expecting. It took 3:30 for my Garmin to find a satellite so the distance is a bit short.

The story of the day was drivers in a hurry, or maybe just blind.

Scary moment number 1: riding at a good clip down a bit of road the is usually uneventful. A car about half way into the intersection on the other side of the road decided to floor it less than a bike length from me. Not enough room for me to brake. No chance of accelerating past him. I was already at the edge of the road expecting him to turn wide into my lane - but he was going straight. I cussed at the top of my lungs and he jammed on his brakes. Missed him by about half the width of my shoe.

Scary moment number 2: another bit of road that is normally uneventful. An old guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth was looking straight at me when he decided to jank the wheel hard left to turn his 7m long car across the front of me. This was surprising enough that I cursed again, but in the end not all that close - missed me by half a wheel.

Scary moment number 3: this was an intersection that is known to have people making questionable moves. Today it was a women who decided to make a right on a red light into my lane. I just shook my head in wonder and headed home...and counted how much longer I might be making these commuter traffic rides.

Moral: make sure you have good brakes and know how to use them.

C • Scary Moments 3

Day 1 free weights

The weather changed enough that I could have gone out on the bike, but I was feeling border line exhausted by 2 pm, so stayed in and made a point of doing all reps with the full range of motion.

Last day of the Tour so it seemed appropriate to wear a yellow jersey on the yellow X5 and take a parade lap along the river.

The were a surprising number of men out doing solo runs this morning. Usually the women outnumber them by 3-4 to 1. Today there were more men than women. I don't recall ever seeing that before.

C • Male Runners 1

Day 3 soloflex
Right shoulder not happy with 3rd set of dips today - not surprising because it felt like I was crushing it trying to sleep last night.

Mrs. wanted to do a bit of work and I didn't feel like getting bike kit on, so I went off on a little tromp about. I realized within a couple hundred meters that I didn't have compression on my right leg, but opted to not go back to put it on - which is pretty much getting redressed.
So...made a pact to keep it under 45 minutes so as not to get the surface veins popping out. It took me most of 5 months to get them tucked back inside my leg and I really didn't want to start that again.
No harm done.

A bit is better than none. Followed by a 7 1/2 hr commute and a half hour walk to dinner with Mrs.

Day 2 free weights and push ups

30C, clear sky and turbulent wind.

I don't usually go to the PA country loop after work, but thought I would give it a try while school was out. Traffic was much lighter than I remembered it, but the cross wind was strong enough that I had to take and extra 30-40cm of road to avoid getting blown into the ditch. This isn't ideal on a very narrow twisty road so I'll have to take the wind into account in the future.

Nice ride regardless, but I did note that the pro4s aren't as good in a strong cross wind as my previous tires were.

Day 1 free weights
accidentally did a few exercises from the wrong workout so went a bit overtime getting back on track

Day 3 resistance bands and push ups

Mrs. shade walk. After spending all day in a lawn chair at a pig roast, she needed to stretch out her hips. Stopped for a light breakfast after a bit more than an hour, then headed home. 30C by 10 am.

The plan was through Mechanicsburg to warm up. Time trial to Carlsyle. Easy turn around through town while fuelling up. Time trail back to Mechanicsburg, then cool down to the apartment.

Checked 'Bent and Bash progress which seemed stalled, but seems to have just been a posting delay. Weather said 10% chance of rain. Radar showed rain to the north, but you'd think if it was pushing my way the weather forecasters would update their probabilities.

All kitted up and I thought I heard thunder, but maybe it was a bouncing truck so I went out anyway. Almost immediately heard thunder off to the north, but I was going SW so should be going away from it. Light rain at 7km, but not really enough to raise the oil out of the road. Hit 10km and upped the pace keeping the heart well in the 160s. Big rain started at 14km - some of the drops big enough that they gave a bit of an ouch on the arms so I eased a bit. That 5km interval showed an average heart rate of 168, max 175 but I didn't really feel I was at my limit. I think I could have maintained it for the 10km I had planned, but it was wet enough that I eased off a bit - next 5km at 162 average.

I thought of looping back early, but I was already soaked so did the loop through town and saw a group of young girls on their scooters happily going to dance class in the rain, so good thing I didn't wimp out. The stones in town were very slippery - definitely not good to make a tight turn around on. When I did make the turn around I heard thunder right off my shoulder, so once I got through every red light in town I settled into a brisk pace back - not aggressive, just brisk.

Rain eased off with about 9km to go so I did a riding in the drops test and managed with no difficulty for 800m before needing to sit up for a red light. I should be able to ride the drops for a kilometre (huge for me) so might try a kilo one day. Rain started again after 3-4km and as I rounded the corner to the finish, the thunder started up again.

Satisfying ride though.

Calf started to show signs on swelling at 772cal today, so consistent with yesterday. I still love riding this bike on clear road though.

Today was dedicated to finishing climbs. Not a lot of total elevation but Picked a route that let me pick up the near by 6-12% grades.

Last ride I noticed an easing off when the end was near and clearly doable. I. Was hyped about getting up the steep beginning at 6% and backed of the power on the 2%. Speed dropped a fair bit, but the big penalty was I hadn't previously noticed that it kicks back up to 6% for the last 70m or so and with momentum gone it killed the speed. So today I ran all the hills making a pint of maintaining the power until I was over the crest. I finished with the hill that prompted this exercise and crested at 27.1km/hr. And heart rate was only 161 so finishing didn't ramp it beyond what the main part of the hill had.

Only 26C today but very muggy. Wind came and went from the SE so gear changes in turns were not normal. Would have stayed out longer, but need to get back for a shower before Mrs. movie date.

Leg note: calf started feeling a bit engorged at 800 cal versus the 1,500 or so on the trike. A bit of that might be attributable to not wearing the socks I've graded for bike rides - just wore work grade. The difference is the bike ones are a bit less snug behind the knee. Most of the difference is likely the pinch point in the pelvis even riding on the hoods of a race bike. I'll collect a few more data points on the road bike.

Day 2 free weights and push-ups

A bit late getting out because the live Tour feed didn't get recorded (for reasons unknown), so I watch the last bit of the 2-4 replay. This meant traffic was pretty heavy which slowed the pace in the town sections a fair bit.

I stuffed a repaired tube and extra air in my jersey pocket because I've become flat paranoid on the road bike in PA. Didn't need them. Early in the ride I felt pretty stron so went to shift to the big chain ring and was already on it. Stayed on the big ring throughout, including the 6% climbs - which seem quite inconsequential after the Rockies. The 40km/hr wind tried to push me around some, but also seemed to be just a nuisance after the fierce wind heading towards Edmonton on AB16. Or maybe it's just Flight's periodic references to Rule #5. Regardless, it was a very satisfying, even if a bit short.

Equipment test: a few rides now on the Michelin Pro4 I replaced the SWorks Turbos with. They have a pretty good grip. They aren't as in your face 'I got this and am not budging off the line' as the Turbos, but I never felt like they lost grip at all. If I was racing, I might put a set of Turbos on for the huge confidence they instill in corner speed, knowing I'd be swapping them out before the rubber got to thin.

C • Pro 4s 4

The sun before the storm.

Hot and muggy at 30+C with a storm sporting dime sized hail coming in at 30mph. I rushed out in the sun to get a bit of a ride in.

This was the first ride using only one contact lens and it was interesting to see how much protection I had been taking for granted: the combination of sweat and allergens made the eye sting to the point of being nearly useless. I'll give it a few tries to get used to the environment before plotting a new strategy.

Day 1 free weights

The big bike and the Greenspeed were lobbying for attention this morning, but a couple of acoustic guitars won out. There wasn't room for a guitar with the bikes and 3 weeks worth of kit while travelling.

Early ride on the puny hills of the moraine in honour of Flight's hill climb this morning. I designated the stretch along Kennedy Road to be the climb so took and extra gear half way up the first hill and just punched it up the 12% hill. It felt pretty good and I managed a sub 11 interval.

II took the rest of the ride at a moderate pace, but fast enough to get me back with a bit of a buffer to change before an eye appointment. Turns out it was cool enough not to have to change.

I probably should have taken the cross bike out after cleaning 7500km of road grime off of it, but the mountain bike kept staring at me so I went out to see if the road trail is open yet - it isn't and probably won't be before winter.

Mostly cruised along the river. A little scoot through the bit of single track behind the house. It isn't getting much use so is only about as wide as a car tire in many places. Pine trees and weeds scuff up the arms a bit. It was quite warm by the end of the ride so I came in when my one water bottle was dry, after just long enough to stretch out my 10 hour week a bit longer.

I'm probably going to have to get an Albion Hills pass for next year to get a bit more variety on the mountain bike.

Day 3 soloflex

Canmore-Jasper leg response.

I don't really consider this an injury, but logging it as such is probably the easiest way for me to find it again to track such things.

I felt my legs responded to the ride very well. The muscles never really hurt, though by the end of day 3 they did indicate that they had been used. But in the last 20+ years, strength hasn't really been the issue, though other things may be constraining leg strength - more on that later.

The issue has been blood flow. I wore prescription compression on both legs throughout. These are fitted 5-10mm smaller than the circumference of my leg. They make riding more than recreationally for short distance possible.

They do not, however, result in blood flow that is completely normal. At about 3 hours into a ride, I can feel my calves start to swell. Over the course of these rides I started to think a better measure of the effort threshold might be in order. In particular the combination of climbing, speed, etc might best be reflected in calories burned - in my case this appears to be approaching 1500. About 400 calories later, the swelling starts to become noticeable in the upper leg, often accompanied by the beginning of some knee pain. It is worth noting that for riding, I choose compression that is slightly looser around the knee to avoid pinching the connective tissue behind the knee - this can become fairly painful if I don't grade the socks correctly.

On this ride I did NOT stop part way and elevate my legs. This might give me a bit more range. I have done so in the few past long rides I have taken, generally by pausing at home for breakfast. I also did this during the trainer simulations of this ride. When pausing, it is usually about 60% of the way into the ride, trying to break before that 1500 calorie marker. I'll do some A-B testing of this strategy over the winter.

The problem that I don't have a solution for is that at some point in a long ride, my skin and the compression start to disagree which results in the skin tearing along the glue line. In the past I've accepted this as part of the cost of doing business (a handful of times, spread out in time), but in a multi day event, it became challenging to select a new place to glue the compression. I moved the glue point down a bit each day - below the tear point from the previous day. Where the problem develops is if the glue is on the meaty part of the muscle, the muscle flex causes it to lose grip fairly quickly - which happened each day while traveling home.

The creams many people use for saddle sores aren't really viable because if under the glue they compromise adhesion and if above the glue line they don't have any affect on the constant pulling. I might try some vertical adhesion, or some other pattern to distribute the stresses - without compromising the carefully graduated compression.

Somewhat related, for future reference and comparison, the discolouration at the lower end of the compressed area (compression starts at my toes and runs to the top of my legs).


Not shown, but saved with the above is the vein development beyond the reach of the compression. Currently at the top of the leg is a rippled vein about the size of a roll of quarters - maybe a bit longer. There were many smaller in diameter on my right leg until I started adding compression to my 'good' leg for seemingly harmless activities like driving (I previously used calf sleeves).

C • Interesting 10

C • Glue etc 2

A gym! Tiny, but enough for my Day 2 with free weights and

100 push ups first try in the third quarter. Followed up with 2 sets of 50 before some fresh fruit for breakfast - nice free breakfast bar in the free hotel for the last night on the road.

No gym here, just a couple of tread mills. Pity. A few weights would help loosen up my shoulders.

Motion detector lights in Flight's bike room went out while I was doing them so I must have been holding for long enough.

C • Hahah 1

Canmore-Jasper gear report.

Even with the bouncing over the Texas gates, the bike stayed solid with no issues. At the end I started to notice a bit of creaking in the drivetrain on some climbs. I'll take a look when I get it home and get it cleaned up, lubed and check all the connections.

Lights were the big experiment and my mobile charger kept them going, though it ran out of power during the charging cycle of the second night, so it let me travel with 7 full charges across 3 blinking tail lights. Most of the time I had two running - one on each side. I went to just 1 on the left side for the last couple of hours of day 3. The headlights didn't need a recharge, but I hadn't run them all the time. I used the gloworm just in town on day1, then while I was solo day 2. I ran the Exposure blinking while solo day 3 and added the gloworm as we approached Jasper. Shout out to 'Bent for directing me to the gloworm which is a great light with a long battery life.

Flight noted that the top flags looked like they might take off during some of the big descents. I might have to look for a better pole - like the one that got snapped of in a trail gate a couple of years ago. The difference between the two was that the current one (stock for the bike) only has about a 15mm joint, which is why it was able to shake off crossing a Texas gate.

A couple more gears on the bottom end might be useful for the long steep climbs. What I have works for climbs early in the day, but after about 4 hours something smaller might be better.

And I need to be able to carry twice as much water.

Walked around the lodge scoping out activities. Walked to the gym and noted that they had more good equipment than I had seen at first glance. Walked around town a bit. Had breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. Did a bit of bike patching until we ran out of tools.
Short 4ish hour drive to warm up for the 32 hr drive back east.

Glacier View to Jasper. Final day of the epic journey.
Full Garmin later, with a more detailed report.
278km in total according to my bike computer.
Short about 1500 calories plus my normal allowance, so some serious eating is in order. Then a eucalyptus sauna.

Now about the ride.
Not a great sleep last night. My stomach started complaining heavily about dinner at about 2:30am. I waited a bit later than I would have started to let it settle a bit, and for the temperature to get a bit higher than 2C. I still dressed for that, but when I got outside I shed a couple of garments and headed out without having eaten anything.

Did a couple of loops in the parking lot then headed out on the road, 5km downhill followed by a 10 minute climb to warm up the legs. Then a massive descent - 8% dropped 400 m pretty quick. I has to use quite a bit of brake because the road was pretty narrow and sight lines were poor. In fact, when I saw someone behind me, I felt I had to pull as close to the edge as I could and come to a dead stop do they could go by. I did follow behind an RV that was actually driving the 50 km/hr limit, but even a good 50m behind, the fumes weren't working for me so I braked enough for them to clear.

From there it was little up hills followed by slightly longer downhills for quite a long way. For the first 40km or so, the shoulder was a lot like a washboard, so a bit rough. I had good enough sight lines to ride on the road maybe 25% of the time.

After an hour I tried the last bit of bonk breaker I had. 15 minutes later, some drink. Another 15 minutes a gel. After 2 hours, I declared myself cured and started eating and drinking more normally. The road started to improve after 40km. The shoulders were mostly in decent shape and there was an extra lane on many of the hills. This proved most excellent when I got to a quick 100m elevation drop with a lane to myself to free wheel - sweet.

I was almost empty on water at 60km, which I had expected to be Flight's catch point having spotted me an hour on the start. I really wanted to bite into the Kate's Grizzly Bar, but knew it would need a water chaser. The catch was at about 67km, and we expected Mrs. to catch up soon so carried on a bit. Flight needed a stretch and I needed to fuel up, so we pulled off to get organized for the last 35km. Mrs arrived so we got more drinks and were good to go. The elevation chart I had poached seemed to start from where we had so it looked like 2 climbs of interest: one a couple km at 3-4% and one 3km at 5-6%. No worries, though I wasn't excited about the bigger one.

The theme of the day though, wasn't elevation. It was wind. It had started at about 27km, but came and went for a while. As the day progressed, it was more consistent. We lucked out though. When the bigger climb showed up right on schedule, I told Flight she would probaly beat me by 15-20 minutes, so should just take off at her own pace. The summit came after 800 m. We waited for the hammer to fall, but after 5km declared the chart incorrect and carried on for what should be the last 8km. The wind was getting persistent - maybe 25km/hr or so. Then Mrs advised us that the hotel wasn't where the directions said. We got new directions that would add 10km to the day.

Then the temperature started to plummet. A quick 7C. And the wind picked up, to about double what it had been. Seemed like a storm, so I set Flight free to get to the hotel and bring the car for me, especially if the last 4km was as questionable a road as Mrs thought. Made the right onto hwy 16 and the wind forced me to put the front on the tiny chainring. A gust blew the trike sideways - a first. Mrs came by at the last turn and the road looked worth skipping, so I loaded up and rode the last 4km. I declare a victory having ridden farther than the planned distance and beyond Jasper by a good bit.

C • Added ride details 3

Canmore to Jasper part 2 - along the Glacier Parkway.
Metrics from Garmin in a few days.

I expected to start today with 45km of climbing. Leaving the hotel, the first 5 km were a slow leg warmer up to about 2100m. As I was thinking that didn't suit the profile I expected to peak at something under 2200m, I started a quick descent. Suddenly I was at 1700m, we'll not that sudden because I had to us a lot of brake on this road. The shoulder was not that friendly, with big chunks out of it and frequent instances of 10-20cm wide seams between the road and the shoulder. I took the road when it looked clear behind me and slid right when cars approached. To get onto rather rough and sand/gravel shoulder I couldn't let the speed run much over 40km/hr most of the way down and there where a few big rights that I had to get ride the shoulder at a much lower speed because I didn't have enough visibility behind me to trust a driver site seeing.

Back to the elevation, after a short bit of thinking I was going to have to climb back up to 2100m, I realized the problem with having an elevation chart with no identifying information about where it starts. The big climb I expected to start with was clearly in the extra distance I drove yesterday. This was probably going to mean the monster climb (less elevation, but packed into a much shorter distance) was going to come after 4 hours of riding. After my legs had done quite a bit of work, and trapped a noticeable portion of my blood supply.

At about 70 km, the climbing started. The first 100m was spread over a few km, so not a bad warm up. Flight pointed out the Soul Crusher, but I couldn't really see what she was referencing yet. I watched the hill to the left and could only see some white things that were stationary, not any sign of the beast. She advised it would be ok to bail. The grade kicked up to 7-9% for a bit. Not sure the distance, but I think I was on it for 15 minutes or so. I told Flight to run up at her own pace, but she wanted to be able to send a rescue party if needed. Then I saw the Soul Crusher. My knees were feeling the effort already, so I told her the smart money was to go ahead and send the car back. I'd pick a safe place to wait.

Turned out to be a good thing, because aside from the grade (noted in Flight's log), the road was quite narrow with virtually no shoulder and quite a bit of traffic. Many of the vehicles with drivers more interested in the sites than the road. I would have had a long caravan of cranky cars, trucks, buses and RVs behind me. As it was, I had only had one driver who was annoyed with my being on the road. Versus about half a dozen who shot video as they went by - each of them had a little caravan behind them as they slowed to get a better look.

C • Adventure 3

Canmore to Lake Louise.
Day 1 of 3 with Flight.
I'll get actual metrics from my Garmin in a few days.

Started up the Legacy Trail to Banff. This is a great ride and one I would do before breakfast a couple of times a week if I lived in Canmore. Lots of roller blades and a few skiers. Even the good view of the highway didn't diminish the quality of the ride.

We missed the turn across the highway - apparently we were just supposed to know that right branch in the trail was Banff Ave (at least per Google). No harm done though because it was our short day.

Then came the first of 4 Texas Gate experiences. Flight said something I didn't catch so I pushed up to ask and bounced like crazy over the pipes that formed the road. It was bone crushing, and shook out my spare 750ml of water - which then disappeared into the bowels of the gate.
Second gate I opted t take slowly, but learned that the spacing is an exact match for my wheel base - and my scorcher slicks had no chance of digging me out of. flight helped me back out of the trap and I went with enough speed to rattle my bones a bit but not shake anything else off the bike.
Gate 3 I just shook ver at a modest pace.
Gate 4 was in traffic so I felt compelled to cross faster and shook off my flags. flight went to rescue them, but not before some women looked at her waiting to pick them up and then deliberately drove over them.

Then a nasty finishing climb to where the hotel wasn't. Lots of traffic. Lots of cars parked on the edge of the road. Twisty with poor site lines. And a motorcycle gang went by reminding me just how inefficient Harley engines are. I tasted their fumes for the next 10 minutes.

I put the trike in the car while we tried to find where the hotel actually was. 40+ km away. I drove with directions from someone I felt was trust worthy while Flight road. My legs wouldn't have been happy with the additional climb, or the unexpected distance. I was very short of fluid, having had maybe half of what was needed for the effort so far. And the glued embolic stockings were starting to shred my legs.

But, I declare The 1A from Banffish to Lake Louise a great ride. I would do it every couple of weeks if I lived in the area.

Mrs. trying her hour in the hills. Tougher than home but successful. So I bought Jelly donuts - for the uninitiated, these are not your average donut.

C • Did you take a photo? 2