Training Log Archive: veinbuster

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.