Spinervals

Things have been crazy here recently, what with the end of the semester coming up and all that. With everything going on we didn't even get a chance to post about the first race of the season, the 6 Hour Grind on the Greenway. I'm going to assume that eventually Roadie Steve will mention it since he had a better race than I did. What I learned at the race is that I'm not in shape yet, I'm over weight by about 15 lbs and my legs gave out after only about three hours.

In response to this and the fact that my schedule is really crazy right now trying to finish up the school thing, apply for jobs, and somehow improve me fitness at the same time, I have been forced to do something that I have never been able to do before. I actually spent some time on a trainer.

This morning I got up early and did the Spinervals time saver workout... the one rated at 9.9. Wow was that a wake up call. It's only a 30 minute workout and I was dying. After a quick break though, my legs felt amazing on the ride to school. I'm thinking that I might be able to speed up my training schedule by pusing it with the 9.9 workout 3 days a week and probably do the 7.0 one the other 4 days, it should help me out significantly.

Tomorrow's looking like a Hyters Gap day.... it's going to be fun.

Flipping the Switch

It's been a long winter.

Cold, wet, occasionally icy, but one thing's for sure, it was not a great time to be on a bike.

There's just something about having to put on six layers of clothing just to get out the door that makes it less than desirable to head outside into an environment of 20 mph winds... that you are creating yourself.

My brilliant solution to this problem this winter was simply riding for fun and work. I road to school 5 days a week and I often spent my weekends on my mountain bike playing on the trails. I was never really working though, always just surviving. Rather than pushing my legs and lungs to their breaking point it was my fingers and toes that I was spending most of my time worrying about.

I knew that this was not a very effective way to be ready for the upcoming race season, so I tried, honestly I did, to work my core and even (gasp) my arms to try to avoid the cramping and general pain that endurance events caused there last year. Apparently my paltry nightly efforts did little in that regard either.

Monday when the weather got nice and I went out for a ride with Roadie Steve the weather was nice for the first time in a very long time. I set out on that ride and a switch in my head flipped on. Suddenly I was no longer riding a bike, I was training, heck I was almost racing. I was pushing, I was attacking, and was hurting and I was loving every minute of it.

I like to consider myself to be a cyclist, and I differentiate that from people that ride a bike. Riding a bike is fun, thousands of kids can tell you that, but riding a bike doesn't make you a cyclist. Cyclists don't ride bikes, they train on bikes. After a winter of playing around and riding my bikes I'm ready to be a cyclist again. I miss the burning sensation in your legs after a good effort, feeling your heart beating in your ears, and wondering if you'll be able to do it all again the next day.

I felt the switch flip on that ride on Monday. I'm attacking the hills on the way to school now. I've got grease on my hands from trying to fix the shifting on my road bike, after all once Steve's got his legs back I can't have misshifts and still beat him up Hyders, and I'm looking forward to my next suffer fest.

It's good to be a cyclist again.

What's cooler than being cool?

Last weekend I got in some good training rides. Saturday was nothing special, well except that it was scary how slow I was and how quickly I ran out of gas in my legs. Sunday was... well Sunday was great.

Everything went fine as I climbed up 58. I was actually distracted by the beautiful ice hanging from the rock, and the Stumpy was climbing faster and easier than I had ever gotten up that hill before in my life. I was thinking that this was going to be one of the greatest rides ever.

Then I turned onto FS90

It was wet as I turned onto the gravel, very wet. All of the easy speed I had going for me was suddenly out the window. After trudging along for a while under conditions that felt like I was riding with two flat tires I hit the first big turn. Suddenly the road wasn't wet any more, it was simple covered in a solid sheet of ice. For the rest of the climb every single turn was literally imposable to ride. On more than one occasion I almost went down walking.

At the top of the hill I was totally wiped out, and then I remembered that almost the entire descent was in the shade all the time. I thought the climb was bad, but the descent was hair-raising at best, and impassable at worst.

About half way down I ran into two other people dumb enough to also be coming down the mountain. We took about a 10 minute break for trying to keep out bikes upright, sometimes with success for upwards of 100 feet, and talked about riding, racing, and all the jazz.

When I finally got to the trail head I had a great ride. I was flying along the ridge, feeling my hands rattle on the bars. This was my first ride on that bike up on feathercamp ridge and it was really fast, but in several places I really missed the smoother ride of the Enduro. There was only one spot though where I felt any slower compared with feeling much faster on every single uphill incline.

All in all a good ride, an interesting ride, and a great weekend.