Running, Part 2

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”
- Vince Lombardi

Went to the Rhino 'cross workout again last night. While it was definitely better than last week, there's still lots of room for improvement. Here's what I noticed:

1. Most of our races last night were two laps w/ no barriers, two laps w/ barriers, one lap w/ no barriers. Over the first two laps, I felt pretty strong, and I built up a gap on the guys I usually race near. Running through the barriers on laps 3 and 4 pushed me too far over the redline though, and I had to slow down on the bike, this allowed the same guys to come back on me. So, pretty much like I said yesterday, I need to work on running so I can recover a little faster.

2. Riding in the drops is awesome! I still have good control of the bike, I can brake really hard, I can still shift, and my hands don't get so beat up. I just need to work to continue to get more comfortable with it.

3. In general, my bike handling is improved, but I'm very inconsistent in high-speed corners (especially if they might be a little loose). Pretty much the same problem I have on the mountain bike.

4. We did a total of 4 races last night. In the first two races, the guys I usually race near had built decent gaps on me (see note 1). By races 3 and 4 though, I was able to stay even or build gaps on them. This is encouraging to me, since it means my aerobic base is solid, and I need to work the anaerobic engine. Considering where I am in my training plan (beginning of Build 1), that's really as it should be.


This promises to be a tough month of training. The 'cross workouts Tuesday night are hard. Then I'm up early on Wednesday morning for a Strength workout. Long ride is Wednesday night (on the mountain bike this week). Thursday is cruise intervals (generally also on the mountain bike, but I'll do them on the road tomorrow). Strength workout Friday. Sprint workout Saturday. Races on most Sundays this month, plus hockey every Sunday night. This is either going to make me very strong or sick.

Note: Ran Kenda Kross Supreme tires at 50psi, probably too high.

Running for 'Cross

“If you want to become the best runner you can be, start now. Don’t spend the rest of your life wondering if you can do it.”
- Priscilla Welch (won 1987 NYC marathon at age 42)

I've been running a little to get ready for 'cross. My right IT band is still bothering me after a while, but it seems to be improving. I've seen some discussion online about whether working on running is really helpful for 'cross. People who make the argument that it isn't cite that the total amount of running time per lap is usually really short, so improvements in running don't translate into noticeably faster lap times. My theory is that it does help; if you've been doing your (running) sprint training, when you have to run in a race, it doesn't push you as far over the red line. So ,you recover more quickly on the bike and can begin to pedal harder sooner. The ability to recover quickly and pedal hard should, I think, translate into noticeably faster lap times.

I'm now into the second half of my season, where the focus has shifted from mountain biking to cyclocross. I have a mountain bike race this weekend, then I'm switching to the skinny tires. I'm starting a new training block today, so I've been reviewing the notes I made about my goals, strengths and weaknesses from the beginning of the year.

My goal for 'cross season is to race well enough in the C category that I feel ready to move up to the B's for next season. That means being on or near the podium pretty consistently. Based on 'cross practice last week, that may be a tall order, but it's still too early to tell.

My perceived 'cross weaknesses from the beginning of the year were time trialing and technical riding. I'm not sure that "time trialing" is the best way to put it, but I'm talking about that more-or-less steady, but hard, pace where you spend most of a 'cross race. For me, working on time trialing still largely involves improving the force I can apply to the pedals. The technical riding point is interesting because, while I still need a lot of work on this for mountain biking, my technical riding seemed to be a strength compared to some of the other Rhinos at the 'cross workout last week. Most of the 'cross racers in the club come from a road background rather than a mountain bike background though.

New Toy

The cell phone plan Sarah and I were on recently expired, so we took the opportunity to get new (free) phones when we signed up for the new plan. I decided that I wanted a camera phone this time around, hopefully to make it easier to add a few more pictures to the blog. So far, this is the best I've come up with...

I didn't want to sign up for a data plan for my phone, so I was originally a little worried about how I'd get pictures to my PC. The solution was to get a phone with a micro SD card, that way I can save pictures to the card, then read the card on the PC. No problem so far... except the card is a little hard to pull out of the phone.

I had an interesting ride experience this afternoon. I was ready to tackle a 3 hour ride at Stony Creek. I had just about finished my first lap (about 30 minutes) when I noticed my rear tire was feeling really soft. I stopped and gave it a squeeze... it had obviously lost most of its air. Fortunately, I was only about half a mile away from my car (I had decided not to bring my mini-pump with me, of course). Once I got back to the car and took the tire off, I found the culprit. The plastic rim strip had slid over, leaving the relatively sharp edge of the spoke hole exposed. The rim strip didn't want to be budged, so I called it a day rather than trying to fix it (and end up on the other side of the lake with a flat). Dirt Rag just ran an article about rim strips last month... I remember reading it thinking that I never had trouble with mine.

Night on Bald Mountain

“Nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else.”

- George Halas

I had a really bad day at work yesterday; I may get frustrated frequently, but it usually passes pretty quickly and isn't a big deal. Yesterday I was just really angry. I had planned to go ride at Stony after work, since I'm racing there next weekend, but I wasn't very excited about it, which didn't help my mood.

As the day was winding down, I decided to ride at Bald Mountain instead. I rode Bald Mountain a bunch last year, but I hadn't been there at all this year. The trail is much less technical than Stony, but, if you ride hard, you can definitely still get a good workout there.

It turned out that the trails at Bald Mountain were in great shape; sometimes they take a while to dry out after the rain. I didn't see anyone else there on a bike, and just two small groups of hikers. After about 15 minutes of riding, my work stress was basically gone. (This is, incidently, a big advantage of mountain biking over road biking. I can ride on the road for hours and still be thinking about work, but when I ride the mountain bike, I have to focus on the trail, so everything else gets pushed aside.) I felt really good both from a fitness standpoint and a technical standpoint.

I think I'm getting more comfortable letting the tires slide a little, which I think is a key for me to go faster. I'm not talking about big, trail-ripping sliding here, just the little drift that happens when you're near the limit. Someone watching from the side probably wouldn't even see it.

Cross Practice

“Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp, or are you going to be strong today?’”

- Peter Maher

Last night I went to my first Rhino cyclocross practice of the year. The club has been doing 'cross practices since the beginning of August, but this is the first one I've been able to go to. It was a tough ride (it was very hot when we started), but I rode a little better than I expected.

A few things I noticed:

- I had trouble going over the low-speed barriers, I was dropping my bike down too soon (on top of the barrier). The faster barriers were OK.

- This year is the year to get rid of the stutter step on the remount!

- I need to work on riding in the drops more. Braking is noticeably better in this position. My hands would appreciate the variety in position.

- I felt pretty good on the technical parts of the course; I thought I was noticeably faster than most of the guys (and girls) riding around me in the techy stuff. I think the backyard MTB stuff helps with 'cross even more than it helps with mountain biking!

- My tires are way overbuilt in comparison to what most people are running.

This is what I've got on the bike right now.

I'm considering switching to something more like this.

Training Week

“Don't do anything in practice that you wouldn't do in the game.”

- George Halas

Last week ended up being a pretty good training week, despite the bad weather. I got in all of my scheduled rides and workouts, and by the end of the week, I felt pretty good on the bike.

This week, I'm going to the Rhino's Tuesday night cyclocross workout, so that will be a pretty good test to see where I stand. My guess is that it won't go so well, but my first cross race is still 4 weeks off, so that's OK.

At the 'cross workout, we usually do several short "races", each is maybe 6 laps of a fairly short course. I figure that two laps on our training courses equals one lap on a real 'cross course. Most people, myself included, don't really treat these workouts like real races though.

I think these workouts are very effective, but I also think I can get more out of them. My plan for this year is to treat these like real races. So, what's critical in a 'cross race? The first thing is the start. Since the race is so short, it's important to get up front early and push hard; coming from behind just doesn't seem to work that well. To that end, I want to start each training race like I would a real race... really drop the hammer at the beginning. I'll try to hold that high pace for the first lap; maybe try to build up to two laps by the end of the year. The second thing I want to work on is to quickly get back up to my cruising speed after I have to slow down to clear barriers, for a corner, etc. It's going to mean that these training races hurt more, but it should also make them more effective.

Hot Hot Hot!

“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

- Vince Lombardi

I had a tough ride last night. It was about 90F, humid, and I'm still not in good mountain biking shape (my co-workers laugh when I tell them I'm out of shape, but I guess it's all relative). I went over to Stony after work to ride the trails; I realized that this was my first trail ride since the Stony Marathon race in July! As I expected, I wasn't too sharp and was a little more gassed in some sections than normal. While I was generally rusty, my bike handling felt really good in a few spots; I think this was where some of my backyard drills made an impact. I definitely need to keep that up.

So, I only rode for about an hour on the trails, and I was really starting to get tired. I decided that I should probably get off the trails before I crashed into something, but I also decided that I needed to ride for the 1.5 hours I had planned. So, I sucked it up and got out on the road surrounding the lake. I thought about turning around or cutting out the nature trail spur about half a dozen times, but I did the whole thing. I had also forgotten about how slow a mountain bike feels on the road... lots of rolling resistance, bad aerodynamics, the gearing isn't right, you name it!

Anyway, my total ride time was 1:31. It felt like a pretty big accomplishment, even though this is a standard (or even short) ride length for me.

The Real World

“It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.”
- Muhammad Ali

Yesterday was mainly sucked away by my responsibilities to the real world. I needed to get new tires for my car (I probably should have done it months ago), so I stopped at the shop on the way home from work. Typically, since I go for higher performance tires, the tire shop needs to order what I want; so I expected to skate in and out in just a few minutes. It turned out that they did have some suitable tires for me in stock, so I waited around while they put them on. Since last night also looked to be the only non-rainy night we might have for a while, I also mowed the lawn (as did almost all of my neighbors). It took quite a bit longer than usual since the grass was so long.

By the time I finished all that, it was about 8:30pm and starting to get dark. So I put on my running shoes and went for a quick jog. It went OK, but I was a bit tired to start with and the right IT band flared up a little near the end. I want to do a few more short, easy runs over the next couple weeks before I transition to hill sprint work for cyclocross.

The Rainy Season

It's apparently the rainy season in Michigan right now. It rained almost the entire day today and yesterday. My grass needed it, but since it was last mowed before I left for Germany, now it's long enough that Suzie is getting lost out there!

I had a cycling first for me tonight on the trainer. I was getting near the end of the No Slackers Spinervals DVD, and I threw up a little. I told Sarah after the ride; for some reason, she thought it was gross... whatever. I'm pretty pleased with myself though. I suppose, in reality, it had more to do with me being a bit out-of-shape rather than going super hard.

I was looking at my race schedule a bit tonight; I'm looking forward to being able to focus on riding a little more than I've been able to for the past month. It looks like I've only got one mountain bike race left for the season (!) unless I feel really good this week and decide to race on Saturday; we'll see how this week goes. After that, I start the cyclocross season. The Rhinos started 'cross practice two weeks ago. I'm not planning to go tomorrow night (if it's a dry night, the lawn will be calling), but I'll start going next week.

Home Again

I got back from Germany yesterday; it was a pretty tiring trip and I'm glad to be back home. I got a little running in one morning and did some strength work another day, but it was generally an inactive trip. We just started work too early and finished too late most days for me to want to do too much.

Anyway, as promised, here are some pictures from the Alaska trip.

Home, For Now

I'm back home from Alaska now. Sorry that the blogging took a nosedive before I left (and since I've been back). I had some very busy days right before the trip, lots of work and a little birthday celebration.

I'll make a separate post about it, but the trip to Alaska was great. Here's a teaser...

I stayed reasonably active on the trip, but I still feel slow and out of shape now. I got home very early Saturday morning. I didn't ride Saturday; I took care of some housework instead. I put in about 1:45 on the bike Sunday; it felt OK, but not great. No riding last night either, but I should be able to get a good ride in tonight.

At the end of this week, I'm heading to West Virginia. I'm tempted to bring a bike, but I don't know if I'll really have much opportunity to ride. I should probably do it... Next Monday I'm heading off to Germany for the week (hopefully it's only one week), and I'm expecting that it will be an unpleasant trip.

I was planning to race again on the 25th, but, with all my traveling, I won't have much solid riding in between now and then. I'll make a decision about it at the end of this week once I see how it goes.

Bump and Run 3

I volunteered this morning for Bump and Run race #3. This one was the longest of the series and went a little over 5 miles. Sarah finished in about an hour and a half. The top time was a little under an hour, but that guy crushed the whole field. Sarah did pretty well for someone who "doesn't like running."

I spent a lot of time waiting around at my station before and in the middle of the race. My diversions included a little running of my own (before the race started), juggling rocks and balancing on a log.

One of the things they gave away in our swag bags was a sample of a product called Power Blast. It's a powder you mix in with water and it makes an "energy drink". I tried it on my ride this afternoon, and I can't say I was too impressed. First, it was very sweet and almost felt like it added carbonation to the water; maybe I didn't use enough water, but I don't think so. I also felt like it made me edgy rather than giving me real energy. A look at the ingredients seems to explain this, there are only 4 calories (all labeled as "other carbohydrates") and the rest is vitamins, minerals and caffeine. Not necessarily bad, but it's not what I'm looking for in an energy drink.

I see Rasmussen is still in yellow. Hopefully Contador, Evans or somebody else can beat him before they get to Paris. The Tour doesn't need another controversial winner again this year.

Rasmussen

I normally don't put too much stock into these accusations of doping by former riders, etc, but this one about Michael Rasmussen sounds convincing to me. Pretty disappointing.

Fundamentals

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A nice quote I stumbled across recently. I'm usually pretty optimistic in the morning, especially if it's a nice summer day. I feel fortunate if that feeling doesn't get completely beaten out of me during the work day though. ;-)

The real point of this post is to talk about mountain biking fundamentals (really, the fundamentals apply to almost any type of cycling). I started by coming up with a list of what are probably "higher level" skills, these would include things like: climbing, cornering, riding over obstacles, etc. From this list, I boiled the skills down to three fundamentals:

1. Balance / Body Position

2. Pedaling

3. Braking

Of these three, Balance / Body Position is the most important. Basically every higher level skill is built off of good balance and correct body position.

So, I've been spending some time working on these fundamentals. I've dropped the saddle on my singlespeed and have been doing a bunch of different drills in my backyard. I haven't done too many sessions yet, and I haven't been out to the trail recently, so I can't say if this is really helping much, but it can't hurt and it's pretty fun. The most interesting thing I've found so far is that I actually can lift the rear wheel off the ground on a bike with flat pedals (leading eventually to a bunny hop). I'm just not very consistent with it yet.

Windy 100

Dad and I rode our first century yesterday. The big story before the ride looked to be the weather. The forecast called for wind (15-20mph) all day and thunderstorms in the afternoon. We got off to a pretty early start (although not quite as early as I wanted). It was pretty windy for most of the ride, but not as bad as I'd feared. The rain also generally stayed away.

We passed the scene of what appeared to be a car/bicycle accident very early in the ride. I looked for some news on that this morning, but I didn't find anything; hopefully everything was OK there. The ride was otherwise pretty uneventful. I was pretty achey in a number of spots by the time we were finished, but I'm feeling pretty good today.

Here are a couple of pictures. Me, waiting for Mom and Dad to arrive.

Dad, after the ride. He doesn't look too tired, does he?

REO Speedwagon

Any other bike geeks (or geeks in general) notice that Kona cyclocross rider Barry Wicks looks like the guy from REO Speedwagon?

Mr. Wicks...

REO Speedwagon dude...

The better question is, how did I know what the REO Speedwagon guy looked like? Here's your hint. The video is worth watching for it's 80's-ness... the comments are also pretty funny.

Weekend

This past weekend was kind of a blur. I was up and out the door for a run by 7am on Saturday; the run went OK, but my IT band flared up again at the end. I took a little break, then mowed the lawn, and then went on a bike ride. Saturday afternoon/evening, Sarah and I went to a wedding for one of her fellow skating coaches.

On Sunday, I was up and out early again. This time, I rode my bike first. I attempted a run again and my IT band flared up within 6 or 7 minutes, so I stopped. I'll rest and stretch and ice today and try again tomorrow. After my aborted run, I ate a quick lunch and then Sarah and I met up with some friends to canoe for a couple hours. We had a pretty good time; we saw some interesting locals (many were short a few teeth) at a "swimmin' hole" along the river. After that, we went to visit Sean and Stacie and their new baby. Stacie made me a birthday cake, which was a nice surprise. July 8 is definitely the earliest I've celebrated my birthday in a long time, maybe ever.

The IT band thing is pretty disappointing. It probably means I won't have the opportunity to be ready for the trail race, but I guess it was a long shot anyway. I'm going to keep trying to resolve it though and we'll see what happens.

Running

I've been taking it easy, sort of, since the Marathon race last weekend. I've sort of decided not to do the 6 hour race at the end of the month. I actually basically made this decision shortly after hour 3 of the Marathon race, I was thinking "How could I ride twice this long?"

So, I'm doing a little riding to stay ready for the century ride I'm doing with my dad next weekend, but I'm planning to keep my riding to a minimum until I get back from Alaska. This should be a nice break and I'll be fired up to ride again in August. I've still got a lot of racing left to do this year.

Even though I'm not riding much, I'm not just sitting around. I've been doing some running instead. I'd really like to get my legs prepared to run the last race in the "Bump 'n Run" trail running series that my wife is doing. This one is going to be 5 miles, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get ready in time. I'll give it a shot though. My left knee, which is the one that has given me trouble the past couple years, has felt great during and after my runs. Unfortunately, I'm having some IT band issues with my right knee after about 15 minutes of running. I've been diligent about stopping once it starts hurting, stretching it, icing it, etc so hopefully it will clear up pretty soon.

Quick Picture

FarmerJohn has some pictures up from the Stony Marathon race. Here's the one of me. It's kind of interesting to look at the other pictures of the guys around me, you'll see that most of them have their heads tilted up just a little more than me. As I recall, I just about bit it after hopping over this little log on the first lap (I'm pretty sure that's where the picture is), I didn't land very square... I may have also cased it a little bit, I don't remember.

The picture of Brien getting over the log is also good. Notice how low his chest is, and how he's got his rear tire in the air already. I'm sure his bike didn't touch that log.

Singletrack Efficiency

Final results from the Marathon race are up. I finished 8th out 11 in my class, but the last guy DNF'd. It was interesting to look at the times from this year's race compared to last year. In general, this year's race was noticeably faster than last year's; this is a little surprising since the course should have been a little longer and a little slower with the addition of the new section in the Roller Coaster. I don't exactly remember what the weather was like last year, it might have been pretty hot last year, and maybe that was the difference.

Even in a race like this, my biggest weakness is still speed in the singletrack. I came up with a new way to think about it this morning, whether it's useful or not. I realized that what I'm after is not so much speed but efficiency. The seeds of this idea were planted in the Bloomer race. The singletrack there is tight and tends to follow a rolling profile, so I was able to stay on a wheel by outclimbing the racer who'd just opened a gap on the descent and the corner. (It may be that I'm at less of a disadvantage in tight singletrack where everyone has to slow down than I am in more open singletrack where I'm considerably slower than the faster guys.) This is obviously an inefficient way to stay on a wheel. I'd be better off using less energy to stay there by maintaining my momentum down the hill and through the corner; or, better yet, using the same energy level, but, having maintained my momentum, make the pass on the climb (easier said than done at Bloomer, but the principle is right).

I had plenty of time to think about this at the Marathon race, as I'd lose a position in the singletrack and then gain it back out on the two-track. I got to thinking about how every time I hit my brakes in the singletrack, it amounted to a bigger gap that I had to close on the two-track. Over the course of a 40-mile race, all of those extra brake touches really add up.

The other thing that occured to me before the race on Saturday was that I think most of the guys I race against have been riding their mountain bikes a lot longer than me. I keep a log of my races, and when I put the Marathon race in, I looked back at my first race, a MTB time trial, also at Stony Creek (end of July 2005). In that race, I averaged 10.2mph over 13 miles. Saturday, I averaged 11.5 mph over the 40 miles (the trails used in both races were basically the same). That's a pretty big difference. So, sometimes I just need to remember that getting faster takes time. It takes time to build fitness, and it takes time to build confidence in bike handling skills.