Rare Weekend

I skipped my normal Saturday long mileage session with the Team as I was feeling decidedly poor on Saturday morning. All the tell-tale signs were there from last weekend and I was feeling particularly worn out on Friday night. My body ached, had the bad headache and congestion in my lungs. I woke up on Saturday morning and just rolled over and stayed in bed. Having a Saturday free is a very rare occurence for me, especially one where I resolve to stay in and rest. Christine was out of town for the Long Beach 1/2-marathon with some of her friends. So... I did what anyone else in my position would do. I spent the day bundled in a blanket, slurping chicken noodle soup and watching Samurai movies.

I woke up on Sunday feeling much, much better and had to get out on my bike. I didn't want to push it too hard so I headed out with a goal of 30 miles on the day. It was a bit cool so I wore a couple of undershirts under my jersey and rode westward towards Fiesta Island which is about 7 miles away. I get there just in time to see the awards ceremony of the last Time Trials of the season there. I didn't even know that they were going on or I would have planned to arrive earlier to catch some of it.

I started riding around the island and at about 10-miles in, I bump into one of my C-Rider teammates Brian, getting some extra miles in. He had been stung by a bee during yesterday's ride and had to abandon the ride at 30 miles as he is allergic to them. We rode another 10 miles together which was nice and then split up to go our respective ways. I headed back inland on Friar's Road which is normally very trafficky, but was very light today. Everyone must have been watching football or something. I briefly consider tackling Texas Street to climb out of Mission Valley but then come to my senses. It's a brutal unforgiving grade and I don't want to push myself too hard today. I'm feeling good so I continue westward for another couple of miles and then make the climb out of the Valley on the more reasonable Fairmont Ave, then circle back and head home. Total for the day is 35 miles at an average pace of 14.6 mph.














October 12 Route

You're killing 'em

Today was the first TnT training session for the century bike ride in Tahoe. The cycle team consists of about 20-30 people of varying experience levels. Christine and I are pretty green, although I used to be a really consistent mountain bike rider about 10 years ago.

Training was at Fiesta Island, a small area on Mission Bay popular for cyclists. There are two paved loops around the island with one being slightly over 5-miles long that is perfect for training. After introductions and a few basic instructions we split into groups based on experience and fitness level.

Group A is for novice riders who don't currently exercise regularly.

Group B is split into three groups:
B1: Some bike experience but not completely comfortable, exercise a couple times a week.
B2: Bike experience, exercise regularly.
B3: Experienced riders who exercise regularly

C's: Very experience riders with great fitness. Have completed other endurance bike riding events.

I chose B2 because it seemed the best fit for me and after that, we finally got out on the road.

The lesson for the day consisted of learning about pace lines. I didn't realize it before, but cycling is a real team sport. Riders form a line of bikes and ride in a cooperative manner for the good of the group.

A few basic concepts:

1) Drafting: The lead rider creates a break in the wind providing less resistance for the riders following behind. Riders behind the pace leader expend only 70% of the energy that the leader does.

2) Signaling: The pace leader is responsible for the safety of the followers. The leader is the only one that can clearly see the obstacles in the road. It is their job to signal or call out road hazards such as glass, gravel, potholes, pedestrians. Usually, the leader calls out something along the lines of "glass-right", indicating the hazard and the direction. Often they will wave their hand in the direction of the hazard to make it very clear. When you are riding at a good clip, you don't have time to say much more than that.

3) The pace leader sets the pace (duh). When the leader tires, they will drop to the back of the entire pace line and the rider that was directly behind them, will become the new pace leader. As the pace leader drops back, the last rider in the line will indicate "I'm last rider" so that the former pace leader knows when to fall back into line without having to constantly look over their shoulder. They will then indicate that they are in the line "rider clear!" and the word will be passed up the line rider to rider until the new pace leader acknowledges it by raising their hand.

4) Holding the Line: This is when the riders work in concert to use the overall line length and size to create a group affect. A driver of a car may not see a single rider, but they can't miss a line of 10 riders. The group of riders become the size of a semi and use their number to claim road real estate when navigating difficult stretches of roads or at critical turn-offs.

There is much more to it, but those are the basics.

I spent the majority of the time following along learning the system but finally got a chance to be the pace leader towards the end of the session. It was a lot of fun. I settled into a nice steady pace. After a good 10 minutes at this pace, Mentor DJ came up the to the front of the line, looked me over and said "oh, it's because you don't have bike computer". I thought that I might have been going to slow. "Nope, you're killing 'em." Apparently I was doing around a 15-17 mph pace when I was supposed to be doing a 12 mph pace. Whoops!

I'm going to try and move up to the next faster group this coming weekend and see how that goes. We ended up doing 25 miles. Not bad for a rookie.

Back to the Gym

Decided to forgo my weekly Thursday night DeAnza Cove walk. I've had some very mediocre training experiences there over the last month or so. It is too far away from my work so I don't have time to warm up and stretch properly as I get there so late. Went back to the gym today and did 35 minutes on the elliptical and lifted weights for another 1/2 hour. The cross training is good for me. I also noticed today that I have a little soreness in my groin, probably from Tuesday's sprint session so I'm glad I mixed it up today.

Today, I also wore some new running shorts that I bought on Saturday. They are thinner material and are cut a bit shorter than the shorts I usually wear. I didn't have a problem with them on Tuesday 5-miler but I noticed my thighs rubbing together a bit today while on the elliptical. Every little thing like this will be magnified 10-fold on the 18-miler on Saturday so I don't think I'm going to risk it. I've done long mileage in my usual type of shorts so I'm going to stick with them.

Friday's a rest day and time to carb up for Saturday's planned 18-mile walk.

Back on track...

After a long weekend away doing very little exercise and eating mucho rich food, including my first french fries in a year and a half, I'm hoping to get back on track this week.

Monday: Met up with the TnT regulars at Balboa Park for a nice 4-mile session. Tried to work on my form a bit. Kat, somehow talked me into doing some sit-ups after the walk session. Some little torture she calls "bug-crunchers". She took pity on me and we only did one set although she threatened more sets in the future. The session started at 6pm and I since I get out of work at 5:30pm, I don't usually get a chance to eat beforehand. After a big walk, a man hungers. Erika threw out the idea to get sushi. Kat had to be somewhere at 8:30 so we had an hour to find a place. We ended up going to Whole Foods and eating it there. I was a little dubious of eating sushi from a supermarket, even if it is from a health store but it was pretty good. I hadn't been in the store in a while and didn't realize that they actually cook in the store. Had a nice little picnic on one of the outside tables and then called it a night.

Tuesday: Rushed to the Lake Miramar TnT session. I got there a few minutes after 6pm and saw two teammates, including Mentor Kathy, at the meeting location. Parking was at a premium and it took me a few minutes of driving around to find a spot. In the meantime, my teammates took off without me! In fairness, they hadn't seen me. They had a decent head start and I decided to do a little speed walking to see if I could catch them. They were pretty quick, but I was able to see the distance closing slowly but surely. I caught up with them around the half-way point, 2.5 miles in, and was kinda proud of myself. The rest of the session we walked at a nice clip. Kathy has one of those hi-tech watches with a GPS in it that tell you how far you've traveled and what pace. We walked a total of 5 miles at a pace of 15.22 min/mile, my fastest yet. I got a late start so I was even faster than that! Burned a little over 600 calories.

Monday, Monday

Today I met up with the group at Balboa Park for a little hill work. The workout was a reasonable 4-mile jaunt and the weather was very nice. I was happy to climb a few hills after skipping my weekly hike. We walked around the perimeter of the park and did a little people watching. Lots of exercisers, dog walkers and a few lovie dovie hand holders. There was a guy sitting in a convertible playing the trumpet. Pretty cool. We had 8 walkers today. It's nice being part of the group and I can see a real bond developing as we continue to train together.