Back in Business

Still waiting for the new baby... should be any day now.

I seem to have nursed my knee back to health quickly, although I'll still take it kind of easy for a while. Mostly I rested, stretched and iced. I got back on the bike last night for a relatively short spin and everything felt pretty good. I didn't have any discomfort later in the night or this morning, so that's a good sign. The weather is supposed to get nice this week; I told Sarah that if it gets over 70F, I'm going to go ride outside.

There was a nice article at Cyclocross Magazine recently. Sort of nicely sums up why we race and train.

My Dad raced Barry-Roubaix this weekend. (Picture here.) Unfortunately, he had a crash just a few miles in and ended up breaking his arm. He didn't know it, so he finished the race! Riding for 20-some miles on gravel roads with a broken arm sounds pretty rough to me... Anyway, so he's in a cast up past his elbow now. So, he'll still be in a cast for the inevitable pictures when my son is born; I'm looking forward to telling that story. ("See your grandpa's cast? He broke his arm in a bike race.")

Hill Ball

Still nursing a sore knee today. I had thought about riding a bit today, but I decided against it. Lots of stretching and icing today.

I was a little bummed about not being able to ride, especially since some of my peers are racing at Waterford and Barry-Roubaix today. It's been a sunny day, so I decided to get outside and play "hill ball" (I just invented it today). Hill ball goes like this: take a medicine ball and chuck it up a hill for a couple minutes, rest, and repeat. I decided to throw it up the hill so I didn't have to chase after it (easy on the knee that way). Although, as it turned out, catching a 12lb medicine ball rolling at full speed wasn't always so easy. Anyway, it was fun, hard, nice to get outside, and I felt better afterward.

Maybe if this whole bike-racing thing doesn't work out, I can take up throwing stuff... probably not...

Knees, Karma

So, I did something last weekend to aggravate my knee. I'm hoping it was some new off-the-bike movements I was working on. I'm going to stop doing them, and we'll see what happens. I've been pretty careful about ramping things up on the bike this year, so I'll be disappointed if I hurt myself doing something off it.

I've been practicing my Gene drills pretty diligently. I'm getting excited to ride out on the trails and see how much I've improved. Tonight, I got a little bound up in my switchback drill; because I ended up leaned over so much, my foot closest to the ground came out of the pedal, and then I was able to pop my other foot out and run out of the crash. I started thinking about how great I was and everything,, and then I finished my practice.

So, I picked up my cones to go back in, hopped back on my bike (with the front tire in the soft grass), clipped one foot in, and went nowhere... then I tipped over in slow-motion. Nice. Karma strikes back... at least I fell in the grass instead of the driveway.

Sushi Rice Bars

I rode the trainer for two hours today, which is pretty close to my limit for trainer time. The weather was cold and crappy today, so I wasn't at all tempted to go out. I'm still healthy, so the plan to not ride outside until the baby is born is working so far...

I watched the movie Pro while I was riding. It had been a while since I'd watched it; still one of my favorites. I get something different out of it every time.

I also made a batch of sushi rice bars today. I started making these last year, just to get a little more variety into the food I eat when I'm out riding, and they've always been pretty good. I think this batch is my best one yet though. They're also considerably less expensive than commercial energy bars, although probably not as calorie-dense.

(A full pan. It tastes better than it looks...)

The recipe can be found here. I've always made them with prosciutto rather than bacon. I found that it helps to cut the prosciutto up into really small pieces; you need a sharp knife for this. Also, it seems to help to put the prosciutto in with the eggs before they're quite done cooking.

(A bar, unwrapped. They stay together pretty well.)

The only downside to these bars is that you can't expect them to keep as well as a commercial energy bar. If you take a couple out with you on a Summer day, you need to eat them all, or throw away what you don't eat, because they won't be good later. Also, they don't last more than a couple weeks in the fridge (Sarah would no doubt claim they shouldn't last that long either!). I'm freezing half of them this time, so we'll see how that works out.

(Wrapped up and ready to go!)

Water Heater

So, in place of my regularly scheduled workout tonight, I got to clean up a basement full of water. As a special bonus, I get to take an icy-cold shower tomorrow morning... sweet.

(The enemy...)

New Bars

So, I mentioned that I bought a few new things for my mountain bike. One of them was a set of 26" wide riser bars.




I'd cut down my old flat bars to about 21". I've ridden on a setup like that for years. (Why? I'm not completely sure... I think I read somewhere once that your handlebars should be as wide as your shoulders. Besides, lots of XC racers use bars like this.) When Gene saw my setup, he was like, "Dude, your bars are so narrow. How can you ride like that?"

Well, part of the answer was that I couldn't ride well like that, which was the reason I was at his camp. So, on his advice, I got some wider bars. Actually, he recommended at least 27" wide, but it's pretty hard to find reasonably light bars that wide. As it is, going from 21 to 26 inches feels like a huge change... makes me feel like I should go huck off something... OK, not really.

The trails are still thawing, so I haven't been out on them yet, but I already notice a huge difference when I practice my figure-8 drill. I'm just much, much more confident leaning the bike over at speed. I think it comes down to how the bike responds to your inputs (the input being movement of the hands, not force at the hands). Basically, small movements at the hands translates into relatively small angle changes with wide bars, whereas with narrow bars, the angle change is bigger. So, reduced "twitchiness". That said, the wide bars also make me afraid for the health of my knuckles once I hit the trail and start squeezing between trees, so we'll see how that goes.

Riding, A Little

I've been riding the bike a little, still on the trainer. I ended up adding an extra day on the bike last week. I had a weird shoulder pain on Wednesday; my best guess is that I slept on it in a strange way and somehow tweaked it. It was very painful on Wednesday, but completely gone on Thursday. Anyway, since my scheduled strength workout had a decent amount of overhead lifting, I decided that I shouldn't do it, and I put in a pretty easy hour on the bike instead.

I rode some both days this weekend too. I'm starting to feel a little better on the bike, but respectability still seems far away. I'm pretty happy with the position tweaks I made over the Winter. I moved my saddle back a little, and I've been working on keeping my back straight. At first, I felt like I had to sit very upright to be comfortable in this position, but now, I actually find that it's more comfortable to be lower. It seems like my position is getting closer to one that I've admired in other people.

The big event this weekend was my daughter's second birthday party. It was fun, but kind of crazy to have 6 kids in the house. I made a sheep cake for her, so if this whole engineering thing doesn't work out... kidding. So far, I seem to have made it through without getting sick (nothing like a toddler's birthday party for making you sick!), so I feel like I have a good chance of avoiding getting sick before the new baby comes.

Good Bounces

I played hockey again last night and got some good bounces. I ended up with one goal and two assists. Not bad for only playing about every other week. I had gotten my skates sharpened, so that helped. I did a strength workout earlier in the day too, which also always seems to help, even though my legs felt pretty worked over by the time I was done skating.

Sarah got me a book about "The Zone" for Valentine's Day. It took me a while to get to it, but I finally finished it and tried to apply a few of the principles last night. The one that seemed most immediately applicable was trying to just focus on the next shift while sititng on the bench. I tried to just let go of whatever mistakes I might have made on the previous shift and tried to think about making the next shift my best one. I also tried to relax a bit more on the bench. It seemed to help.

One of the other suggestions that the book makes is to keep a dream journal. I find this idea more than a little strange, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. What I can say so far: it's surprising how much detail I can remember from my dreams later if I write them down as soon as I wake up (even if I didn't originally write down the detail), and the things I dream about (and write down) are not what I expected.

(That's so me, dude...)

I rode the trainer again on Saturday, even though it was beautiful outside. In my effort to stay healthy, I've decided to not ride outside until after the baby is born. It's hard to describe the way I feel on the bike right now. I actually feel reasonably strong in general, and not totally out of shape, but I still don't feel like I'm strong or fit on the bike. It's like there's a lot of raw physical ability that I just need to tap into. I'm not really concerned about it, it's only March, and I've just started riding, so things will come around.

Pain Management

In preparation for the coming baby, Sarah and I practiced some pain management techniques last night. She has been doing some practice on her own, but last night was the first time I tried it too. (We've been doing some other practice for labor positions together.) So, one of her books suggested holding an ice cube while you practice. After holding that ice cube for our first 1 minute "contraction", I decided that Sarah was way tougher than I was; I started checking my watch after 30 seconds! The subsequent ones weren't quite so bad.


We practiced three techniques: focused breathing, non-focused awareness, and "edges of pain". It was kind of interesting, they all sort of worked differently. The first two kind of make you not notice the pain as much (and after a little while, that ice cube really burned!). With the "edges of pain", you focus on the pain, how it actually feels, what the details are, etc. With that one, you certainly notice it, but you also realize that it's not actually as bad as you think it is. I can understand how having a variety of techniques might be nice.

It was also interesting that Sarah and I had different experiences with each technique. Some worked better for her than for me, and vice versa. We also tried a few variations on most of them, again, some working better than others.

Totally unrelated: I also finished building my mountain bike back up last night. I've got a bunch of new bits this year (bars, stem, brakes, chainrings, etc), it almost feels new! I rode it around a little bit in my driveway, practicing some of Gene's drills. It got me all fired up to really get out and ride! But, it will be awhile before the trails have thawed and dried out enough to ride on...

Base Building

Well, this week "officially" marks my return to the bike. I've done a few, relatively short (1 hour) easy trainer rides. It's kind of funny how crappy my legs feel after so much time off; I've only been riding about 1-2 times per week up until now.

I decided to stop going to the indoor training session at the shop after last week; they're going just a little too hard for me right now. I don't think my ego could tolerate riding easy when everyone else is going hard either. This time of year, I'm a little out-of-sync with most other racers. A lot of people will start racing later this month or in April, so they need to be thinking about going hard, but I'm not planning to race until May.

So, the first step is to just get the legs used to being on the bike again and prepare them for the harder work to come. I always think that I should try to maintain this level over the winter, but when the time actually comes, I'm happier staying off the bike (and off the trainer!). Once that's done, I want to focus on developing threshold power a bit more this year. It was something that I didn't do until late last year, and it ended up being a weakness in the races. Bike handling skills will also continue to be a big focus for the year.

This next month or so will be a good test of how deliberate I have become about my training. It was about this time last year when I effectively threw away three months of good training by riding too hard too soon, and with a too low saddle.

Weak Points

Grey Cook has a comment in his book that goes something like "Training is the time to work on your weaknesses, not your favorite movements." I've had my best successes and breakthroughs by stepping back and evaluating where my training program is weak, and then correcting it.

Lately, I think my weaknesses have nothing to do with training per se, but some of the rest of my lifestyle. One is that, for sure, I'm not sleeping enough. I'm getting away with it now because I'm not training very intensely or at a high volume, but once I start ramping up the training, I know it will become a problem. The new baby surely won't improve my sleep situation, but I can try to control some of the other factors.

The other weakness seems to be my diet/nutrition. I've been sticking with the Paleo Diet for Athletes plan, but I seem to have drifted away from some of the details that seem to make a difference. So, I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping track of what I'm eating and making sure it fits the plan; at least until I feel like my habits have been adjusted.

FMS - Passed!

I finally passed the simplified Functional Movement Screen today. It took me about two months of consistent work to pass all of the movements. I thought I'd quickly share my comments on them.

Deep Squat: Even at the beginning, I had no real problems with this movement. As a result, I've not done any of the breakdown exercises. Now, that I've done the exercises for most of the others, this one doesn't feel quite as solid as the other movements. So, I'll probably work on it at some point. Especially now that I look at the picture, I see that I could improve my shoulder mobility.

Hurdle Step: (I set up the picture without the tape "barrier" to step over.) This was another one that was pretty solid for me right off the bat. I just needed to work on keeping my back straight when I stepped forward.

In-line Lunge: Here's where I started to have trouble... the first few times I did this test, I thought that, surely, the description must have been written incorrectly. I just didn't see how you could do it and keep your hands behind the doorframe. I eventually realized that you could do it if you kept your back straight. Once I corrected that, I had to work a little more on doing the move without wobbling.

Straight-leg Raise: I couldn't pass this one the first time either. I had (wrongly) assumed this exercise was about hamstring flexibility. Really, it's mostly about getting your muscles to fire correctly. With just a little work, I was able to pass this one. (Note my state-of-the art craft room / movement testing training facility! It has a good doorway, what can I say?)

Seated Rotation: Working on passing this test took the longest for me. I think that it hit a number of points where I had trouble. First was hip mobility. You have to be reasonably comfortable in that cross-legged position, otherwise, the rest just isn't going to happen. The second part was mobility of the trunk. I'd never realized this was a weak point for me until I started working on it. This was also one of the few areas where I had pretty a significant left/right difference.

Anyway, this whole experience has been very positive for me. I definitely notice a difference in my flexibility and in my ability to control my movements. The best way I can describe it is that my athleticism is just better now. I haven't really been riding enough to see if it will make a difference on the bike, but I should find out soon enough.

Stupid Hockey

I don't think I've blogged about it before, but I've had a theory for a long time that if you don't do something for a while, the first time you do it again, it will be surprisingly good. However, the next few times you do it, it goes kind of badly, more like you'd expect considering the time off. I call that first time the "stupid" time. Stupid-running, stupid-playing (for my trumpet), etc. It's like your body is in shock over what it's doing, so it stupidly lets you do more than you should (or, you stupidly do more than you really should).

I found out last night that the same applies to hockey. The last time I played, things went surprisingly well (stupid-hockey), but things were rough last night. I didn't skate well, I didn't play the puck well, my legs felt like crap, you name it... For whatever reason, a lot of the other guys seemed to be struggling too, so I don't know what the deal was.

I'm getting so close to passing my FMS test. The movements are all getting so solid, but I still can't quite get the seated rotation far enough without my form breaking down a little. Looking back, I feel like the progress I've made over the past two months is pretty remarkable. Some of the tests that at first seemed impossible I can do easily now. (I wish I'd taken some before/after pictures.) My goal was to pass all of the tests by the end of this month; I still think that this is achievable. Even if I don't quite make it by my target date though, I feel like I'm close enough that I have very little concern about moving forward to add some strength and endurance.

Getting Low

We got a pretty decent amount of snow last night, so I decided to skip the indoor training ride and yoga at the shop. I did the same type of drills on my trainer at home and did yoga on my own afterward; definitely not quite the same.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I've been working on my position and posture on the bike. I mostly sat upright last night, but at the end, I tried a couple of lower positions. One with my hands on the drops and a bigger bend in my arms, and the other with my hands in the drops. I noticed two things: one is that my core muscles got tired pretty quickly in these positions. Like I said before, I think that these lower positions require some enhanced core strength. Two, it seemed like my thighs were bouncing off my stomach... not too comfortable.

While I was in these lower positions, I let myself bend at the waist a few times (essentially, my old posture), just to feel the difference. Bending at the waist pulled my stomach away from my legs enough that the bouncing went away; maybe that's why most people gravitate to that position?

(Reminder picture from Joe Friel's blog . You can see that the rider on the left still has some space between his leg and stomach.)

I think the bouncing issue could be resolved by some position tweaks. Raising the saddle would eventually fix it, but I don't really want to do that. My current saddle height has worked really well for my knee health. It seems like moving the saddle forward a bit might also help, but I'm not sure what negatives might be associated with that.

On the other hand, for the kind of racing I do, getting low and aero isn't too important unless it's windy. So, maybe I just won't do anything for awhile.

Connecting the Dots

I watched a really interesting video over the weekend on James Wilson's website. In it, he links up some of the Functional Movement stuff I've been working on to movements and skills on the bike. The best moment for me was when he was explaining how, when you're riding with level pedals, your feet are essentially in a short lunge position. As he's standing there with his feet like that, I'm thinking "of course", but I never made that connection until he said it.

Speaking of the lunge position, I've been working on some of the alternate jump rope positions in "Athletic Body in Balance". One of the new ones to me is a very short lunge stance. I can do it pretty easily with my left foot forward, but I have more trouble with my right foot forward. I have more trouble keeping my hips square with my right foot forward and also more trouble keeping my feet in line. Relative to the point above about the level pedal position, this is interesting, because I'm also much more comfortable riding with my left foot forward.

Getting Closer

I made good progress this week on the ol' FMS. If I wasn't grading myself hard, I could make an argument that I passed all of the tests on Sunday. But I am grading myself hard: I'm still just a little wobbly on the inline lunge and I have to strain quite a bit to pass the seated rotation, so I don't consider those as passing. Still, I'm getting very close now.

I rode my trainer on Saturday morning. Usually I like to get outside to do something on Saturdays (hike, ski, work on cutting up the tree that fell in my backyard, etc), but I decided it was just too cold! So, I hopped on the trainer for about 45 minutes instead. It was the first time I've ridden at home this year!

Sarah came down at some point and immediately asked if I was practicing sitting up taller (what we work on Tuesday nights). She said that the difference was obvious. I immediately settled into a pretty smooth spin at a (relatively) high cadence for my ride; I'll credit Tuesday nights for that. I did notice that my smoothness and body position started to get worse as I got tired. 45 minutes was really all I could handle; I'd forgotten how boring riding the trainer can be!

Kind of an interesting picture that Sarah took. My back is definitely straight, but this is a very upright position. I guess step 1 is achieving the position, and step 2 is working to bring the chest down without rounding the back. I think this takes a different kind of core strength...

I've also been working on tearing down, cleaning, and rebuilding my mountain bike. I used to be able to do it in an afternoon. Now, I'm having to do it a 20-30 minutes at a time. Cora was "helping" me this weekend. She kept picking up the smaller parts and saying "Little parts. I just love little parts!" Fortunately, nothing has been lost yet.

Yoga

I guess I haven't written about it, but I've been attending the yoga class after our Tuesday night training sessions at the shop. It's been interesting. I feel like I do OK in some of the positions, but others need a lot of work! It compliments my FMS work pretty nicely. The yoga gives me an alternate way to find and improve my tight spots.

Anyway, the FMS tests didn't go much better this week than last week, but yoga seemed noticeably better this week. That's sort of how this whole flexibility/movement thing seems to have gone for me... a lot of fits and starts. Some weeks, it seems like I see very little improvement, but then the next week, I see big improvements. Anyway, I guess it's good as long as I continue to progress.

First Skate of 2010

Last night was my first skate of 2010, and, in fact, the first time I've played hockey in about 9 months! It actually went much better than I expected.

For sure, my hockey skills weren't great, and my skating wasn't great, and my "hockey fitness" wasn't great, but somehow, I actually felt somewhat decent. It's hard to put my finger on it, but I felt like I was able to make better athletic moves than I remember being able to before. Things like stopping faster, changing directions faster, reaching farther, leaning farther, etc. You know what I'm going to attribute these changes to...

I also did my weekly FMS test yesterday before hockey. I really wasn't expecting much, since I didn't make much improvement last week. I expected a slow slog toward passing my remaining tests, so I was pleasantly surprised to see big improvements in my weakest tests. I am very close to passing the inline lunge. The first couple times I did this test, I thought that there was surely an error in the test description in the book because I couldn't see how you could lean back enough to pass (actually, you stay upright... I was leaning forward before). Now, I don't have much problem keeping my upper body straight, but I'm still a little wobbly (wobbly = fail).

I also improved a lot on my worst test, the seated rotation. According to the book, this test will demonstrate how tightness in the body can severely reduce range of motion. For me, it seems to be tightness in the hips and low back that are the problem. Like I said, I didn't improve much on this movement last week, I needed about 3 inches more rotation to pass, which is about where I started. Last night though, I'd dropped it down to 1/2-3/4 of an inch!

Anyway, it was nice to see progress in the tests, but it was also nice to have some validation that it really influences sports performance. My expectation is that the changes may be more subtle on the bike, since riding doesn't require such a wide variety of movements, but maybe I'll be surprised again?

Patience

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."
- Leo Tolstoy

Patience is going to be the name of the game this year. Things will take as long as they take. Lack of patience is definitely part of the reason I got hurt early last year, and may have contributed to my flame-out during cross season. This year might have required some extra patience anyway. We've got a new baby coming in a few months, and I'm going to move up to Expert for mountain bike racing (sounds like a great combination!).

As I wrote earlier , I've been spending a lot of time working on my basic movement and flexibility. It's been pretty interesting to learn which parts of my body are reasonably flexible and which parts are definitely not. Progress in some areas has been pretty rapid, but other areas have been pretty slow. It's my goal to be able to pass all of the FMS tests by mid-February, but like I said, if it takes longer, it takes longer, and I'll keep working on it and maybe delay some other things.

Interesting aside, as part of working on this basic stuff, I've been keeping my posture in mind throughout the day. I went to the doctor's this week and they happened to measure my height; the physician's assistant was quite surprised to see that I had "grown" a quarter of an inch over the past year! I don't think she quite believed me when I said I'd been working on my posture.

One of my questions when I started working on this was if it would help me ride my bike better. After a month or so of doing this work, I definitely feel better; I feel like I move more freely (and, apparently, I'm also taller!). Last night, I got on my bike to practice trackstands, slow riding and basic body position in the garage. It was the first time I'd done this in quite a while, so I assumed I might be a little rusty. I was surprised to find that it actually went really well. It seemed like my range of motion on the bike was larger (and easier to access), so I was able to comfortably stay on the bike even when it was leaned to larger angles. Very interesting...

The last thing that had me thinking about patience was an article Joe Friel wrote about "aerobic de-coupling". Essentially, he says that you are aerobically fit when, on a ride of an appropriate length, your heart rate and power (or speed, on a flat / not windy course) are coupled together. If you're not fit, your HR will drift up for a constant power/speed, or, for constant HR, your power/speed will drift down. The idea is that you stay in the Base phase until you see the appropriate coupling... however long it takes.

Skiing at Independence Oaks

I took advantage of the snow we got this week and went skiing at Independence Oaks this morning. Since it was pretty cold today, I dressed warmly. As it turned out, I had on at least one too many layers. The sun was out, and with the heat generated from skiing, I was a little overdressed.

I ran into Tom Payn in the parking lot. Tom was one of my regular adversaries during the 'cross season; in particular, we had good battles at Munson and Lower Huron. So, we decided to ski together today. We also saw a few other bike racers out there.

Snow conditions ended up being just about perfect. I'm thinking I may go back again tomorrow. Might as well take advantage of the snow while we have it!