Crappy week so far. After the "race", I took a week or so to recover. 12 miles at significantly below race pace is pretty taxing afer all.
For some reason I just can NOT get into the groove of the diet. There is a magic point I have found where doing good feels good. It has been a while, but when I get into the training groove, there are days where I start to get a little charge out of eating right. In the past it is because when I compare notes with Jeff Orr, the diet becomes yet another way to measure penis size. When we are both going full steam, team meetings at the bike shop go like this...
"You know what I had for lunch today? A piece of turkey and a string cheese."
"Oh yeah, well I had a fistful of almonds and eight cups of raw spinach."
"I haven't had a carb for two and a half weeks."
"I'm on a juice cleanse."
I suspect that we are both lying usually. Jeff tends to follow up his descriptions of what he ate with "Nom, nom, nom.." sounds.
Despite the competitive glory, when I'm doing well, I get home from work and try to extend a day of good eating. If I get a little hungry I actually feel compelled to workout to kill the pangs. It doesn't always work, and I occasionally binge, but I am quick to correct.
Today was an excellent example of my lousy commitment level lately. I was called out to work late last night, got home at 1 am then had to be at a meeting in Salt Lake at 7am. Now I had been to spin class yesterday morning, and had packed a good lunch for two days in a row. Should have done well. I woke up a little late and had to scramble to be on time. Skipped my usual "good" breakfast of Greek yogurt and a protein shake. Then I get to the meeting and they had doughnuts. I should say, I had doughnuts. Three of them. They were damn good. Doughnut one seemed okay. I figure about 400 calories. That's okay, I can make that work. Protein shake and yogurt is only slightly less than that. The meeting drags on. Forever. Miserable soul crushing meeting. Walking out and passed the doughnuts again. Hell yes I'll have another. It's going to be a long day and I'm planning to ride tonight. Got stuck waiting for somebody at the office. Aww screw it, I'll just have another. Not sure why. It just looked so damn good.
Lunch came and I figured I'd just give up. Went to Wendy's. You can have a medium combo meal and not have it be terrible. When your lack of impulse control kicks in and you add a delicious Spicy Chicken Go Wrap you end up with regrets.
Got home and the weather was beautiful. Met Jeff for an easy spin. Base miles. That's a thing right? We did a little exploring of the Murdock canal trail. Which made me wonder, why the hell would they do that thing in half mile segments divided by one mile segments.? Start at one end and work your way to the other, how hard is that? As it was, we rode to the end of the pavement turned around. Made our way to the next section on surface streets. Half mile, pavement ends. Stupid. Ended up in Lehi and started riding around the north end of town where I grew up. Doug Kolan thinks Lehi sucks but who cares what he thinks. Rode northwesterly and soon dropped down into Christofferson Creek. Just as I did, I remembered what is on the other side of Christofferson Creek. Killer's Hill. Not long, but STEEP. I don't know how it is now, but in the 80's there were a lot of arms broken on that hill by stupid kids with skateboards and low intelligence. There was a time in my life that I was afraid to ride my Huffy BMX down Killer's and wouldn't consider trying to pedal up it.
We made it. Jeff beat me. He is sandbagging lately by doing Crossfit with a private coach several nights a week. I think he's lost twenty pounds. I think I found it.(That is one of my Dad's favorite jokes). Took about a five mile detour to avoid any other steep hills on the way home.
Came home and made at least one other stupid food decision. Doubled up on leftover Tater-Tot Casserole. It ends up that Franks's is a far superior condiment for casseroles than Cholula is. That's what these tests are for.
Hopefully offset the self-defeating choices I made earlier in the day by riding. Even slow.
Tomorrow it will be back to Spin class, maybe a ride in the evening, and then a sweaty throng of people Friday night. Flogging Molly's in town bitches!!!
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
"Racing"
After much hemming and hawing I decided to travel to St George last weekend to attend the Red Rock Rampage mountain bike race. I originally had no intention of racing. My reasoning was that the point of racing was to see who was faster than you and that was a foregone conclusion.
The twist was that I was crashing at the infamous Team Revolution Flop House.
Though not a team member, I have imposed myself into Revolution's social circle on several occasions and dubbed myself an honorary member. Claiming honorary membership is like giving yourself a nickname. If you keep telling people they start to forget it was your idea.
USUALLY Revolution is really into racing. On the drive down I was expecting to be greeted by a houseful of people who were readying themselves for the season opener. As we rolled into town Friday night, Cobourn decided to head over to packet pickup before we went to the flop house. Like buying a house, having children, and getting married, I made a snap decision in the parking lot and registered for the race. Upon arrival at the flop house I found out that out of twenty some-odd people at the house about six were racing. Including me. I felt a little betrayed. Most of them offered reasons such as "It's March 1st, I'm not racing!" I quickly figured out that the race was secondary to the gathering at the flop house.
The Revo Flop House sounds like a dirtbag affair. On the contrary, it is a traveling circus, buffet, and broo-ha-ha. The group tracks down a vacation home to rent for the weekend and as near as I can tell the challenge is to upgrade from the previous year. I heard stories of the year they rented a former mortuary, then I was told that next year was going to be a mansion. This place was pretty close. Other than the odd floor plan the house was top notch. It included a theater room, covered patio with outdoor kitchen and firepit, saltwater pool with slide and enough beds for everyone with one fat guy on the couch.(Spoiler alert, I was the fat guy on the couch).
It sounds like a party, and it was slightly rowdy. But, when Doug Kolan heads upstairs because it's too loud and everybody else is in bed asleep by 10, party doesn't seem like an appropriate description.
On race day it was like a contest to see who could have the healthiest breakfast. This broke my cardinal rule of nothing new on race day. Between Bob's weird little potatoes and Lyna's powdery weird stuff sprinkled over fruit, everybody was off to a good start, even though most of them were not racing. The oddest part about this race is the 12 pm start time. I think the 24 hours of Moab is the only other race I have done that was a nooner. I spent the long morning procrastinating working on my bike but did manage to refresh the Stan's in the tires. Crossed my fingers that it would shift and brake all right and we headed to the race.
If you have never been to an Intermountain Cup Series race let me set the stage. A few hundred weekend warriors with some serious game faces. You would think that they were all racing to feed their children. The races are generally well done with good courses but I have never been able to get as wound up about them as most of the people there. It's not Cyclocross for God's sake. Calm down.
Lined up in the sport category with about a dozen other dudes. Since Cobourn finally got all his chin-whiskers we are now in the same age category. This makes it easier to crack wise about all the guys jumping up and down and doing stupid shit like pre-race stretches and getting "into the zone". A few familiar faces in the crowd. Most notably a dude who blocked me on facebook for publicly calling him out as a sandbagger lining up with the 40+ Sport crowd. He would go on to win by over two minutes. Douche.
Race starts, we roll out. The dirt road start to the course gave people a chance to sort. I quickly funneled to the back and then began to be caught by the leaders of categories that started behind us. I gave it a good effort on the first lap. Kept the pack in sight and even caught up to Cobourn who was fighting an undisclosed illness(syphillis) which had him hacking and coughing. Managed to keep up with him for rest of the first lap but when we came through the start/finish area and everybody else grabbed a gear and tried to pass people I looked up and shrugged my shoulders. I rolled through the second lap with even less resolve than the first and managed to get passed by at least two women. One of them could have been a man, but she was wearing a sports bra and reeked of a very feminine perfume so I will give her/him the benefit of the doubt.
I did manage to ward off the dreaded DFL in my category but just barely.
There was no surprise in this result. Rest assured if I am not updating this blog, I am not doing well in my quest to look good naked and become a faster cyclist. With a few hit or miss workouts and alternating days of doing well on the the diet with jumping off the wagon while it explodes and runs off a cliff I am merely breaking even. Hovering in the high 180's occasionally peeking back into the dread 190's. This weekend saw a slight dip in weight and perhaps sparked the fire to get riding more. Temperatures are warming and there is more daylight. Things could be worse.
Thanks to Team Revo for letting me crash their party this weekend. So far the best weekend of 2013. (it's been a slow year)
The twist was that I was crashing at the infamous Team Revolution Flop House.
Though not a team member, I have imposed myself into Revolution's social circle on several occasions and dubbed myself an honorary member. Claiming honorary membership is like giving yourself a nickname. If you keep telling people they start to forget it was your idea.
USUALLY Revolution is really into racing. On the drive down I was expecting to be greeted by a houseful of people who were readying themselves for the season opener. As we rolled into town Friday night, Cobourn decided to head over to packet pickup before we went to the flop house. Like buying a house, having children, and getting married, I made a snap decision in the parking lot and registered for the race. Upon arrival at the flop house I found out that out of twenty some-odd people at the house about six were racing. Including me. I felt a little betrayed. Most of them offered reasons such as "It's March 1st, I'm not racing!" I quickly figured out that the race was secondary to the gathering at the flop house.
The Revo Flop House sounds like a dirtbag affair. On the contrary, it is a traveling circus, buffet, and broo-ha-ha. The group tracks down a vacation home to rent for the weekend and as near as I can tell the challenge is to upgrade from the previous year. I heard stories of the year they rented a former mortuary, then I was told that next year was going to be a mansion. This place was pretty close. Other than the odd floor plan the house was top notch. It included a theater room, covered patio with outdoor kitchen and firepit, saltwater pool with slide and enough beds for everyone with one fat guy on the couch.(Spoiler alert, I was the fat guy on the couch).
It sounds like a party, and it was slightly rowdy. But, when Doug Kolan heads upstairs because it's too loud and everybody else is in bed asleep by 10, party doesn't seem like an appropriate description.
On race day it was like a contest to see who could have the healthiest breakfast. This broke my cardinal rule of nothing new on race day. Between Bob's weird little potatoes and Lyna's powdery weird stuff sprinkled over fruit, everybody was off to a good start, even though most of them were not racing. The oddest part about this race is the 12 pm start time. I think the 24 hours of Moab is the only other race I have done that was a nooner. I spent the long morning procrastinating working on my bike but did manage to refresh the Stan's in the tires. Crossed my fingers that it would shift and brake all right and we headed to the race.
If you have never been to an Intermountain Cup Series race let me set the stage. A few hundred weekend warriors with some serious game faces. You would think that they were all racing to feed their children. The races are generally well done with good courses but I have never been able to get as wound up about them as most of the people there. It's not Cyclocross for God's sake. Calm down.
Lined up in the sport category with about a dozen other dudes. Since Cobourn finally got all his chin-whiskers we are now in the same age category. This makes it easier to crack wise about all the guys jumping up and down and doing stupid shit like pre-race stretches and getting "into the zone". A few familiar faces in the crowd. Most notably a dude who blocked me on facebook for publicly calling him out as a sandbagger lining up with the 40+ Sport crowd. He would go on to win by over two minutes. Douche.
Race starts, we roll out. The dirt road start to the course gave people a chance to sort. I quickly funneled to the back and then began to be caught by the leaders of categories that started behind us. I gave it a good effort on the first lap. Kept the pack in sight and even caught up to Cobourn who was fighting an undisclosed illness(syphillis) which had him hacking and coughing. Managed to keep up with him for rest of the first lap but when we came through the start/finish area and everybody else grabbed a gear and tried to pass people I looked up and shrugged my shoulders. I rolled through the second lap with even less resolve than the first and managed to get passed by at least two women. One of them could have been a man, but she was wearing a sports bra and reeked of a very feminine perfume so I will give her/him the benefit of the doubt.
I did manage to ward off the dreaded DFL in my category but just barely.
There was no surprise in this result. Rest assured if I am not updating this blog, I am not doing well in my quest to look good naked and become a faster cyclist. With a few hit or miss workouts and alternating days of doing well on the the diet with jumping off the wagon while it explodes and runs off a cliff I am merely breaking even. Hovering in the high 180's occasionally peeking back into the dread 190's. This weekend saw a slight dip in weight and perhaps sparked the fire to get riding more. Temperatures are warming and there is more daylight. Things could be worse.
Thanks to Team Revo for letting me crash their party this weekend. So far the best weekend of 2013. (it's been a slow year)
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