On the Long and...Short of Things
@jShort - I don't know if there are rights or wrongs in the long versus short discussion. What I do know is the HIT training works better for what they refer to as "seasoned" cyclists so newcomers should decidedly not take that approach. @UtahJoe nails it in many ways. The reality is that more hours = less mass = faster bike riding. For me personally I have more problems controlling what I eat when I do hard work. I also just feel better when I do more volume. I get stronger. Things are usually better. It's hard to say that putting in a lot of hours doesn't work for you because you've never tried it. But there is something to be said about the mental aspect and if you don't want to mentally ride 14 hours a week, it's going to become a burden which won't be fun. Then where are you left?
Do you even have 12 hours available to train per week? If not, the question is moot. I do believe that a higher volume, more patterned routine would work just dandy for you but it's not really something easy to pull off with young kids.
But back to the point, I'm not sure it's more ways to do the same thing so much as different people respond differently.
Image: Random picture from Louisville where we got coffee. @seanrunnette bought me a bag of coffee from here and it was fantastic.
On Minnesota
I like to do things and blog on these trips but man, both times I've gone to Minnesota I ended up with almost zero free time. I am ashamed to admit this but my hotel was ~4 blocks from the Mary Tyler Moore statue and I didn't even go see it. The demo ended at 4:15 but of course the guys wanted to go get a drink and instead of doing my own thing, which I almost always do, I went along with it. I did my usual unsweetened iced tea but I blew 2.5 hours there talking about nothing instead of going to find some espresso. In the end, my boss and I bolted for some Chinese food and we landed a total win for dinner. Then we grabbed a hot cup of tea next door before heading back to the hotel and calling it a night. So at least we got a little time to hang out and discuss various next possible career options a little, while eating some excellent food.
But really this trip was a bit of a fail. Having to wake up at 3:45 the next day does put a damper on things though. In all I think I left home at 6am Tuesday and was back at 10am Wednesday.
Image: A beef & broccoli meal I made for dinner one night. @Dominique loved this recipe.
On the New Role
I end up writing a ton of stuff every day, which is effectively taking away from my mojo to do this blog right now. I'm also getting blistered from 9 angles every day and we're trying to dig our way out of this landslide of company disinterest. One of my coworkers makes fun of me because I'm so direct on these calls with the dev team. He quoted me the other day as saying, "So...how do we make these meetings more efficient?"
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like we all get paid a lot of money to do work. So when I see people not doing work it irritates me. Though I admit that it's exponentially worse when it has an adverse effect on what I'm trying to get done.
Image: A setup picture spot at the Escher Exhibition. Did you get your tickets?
On Arizona & Riding Outside
Just rented 2 bikes for Sunday, so to the question @stb222 asks, yeah, I'll be riding outside soon enough. We are both going out Saturday morning and D will leave Tuesday late night and I will fly back Thursday morning. I'm looking forward to a few days of warm weather and we'll hit up South Mountain on Sunday morning. Forecast is a high of 72 degrees so it looks like a great day.
I know that's not what you were asking and to that point, I did think about CR the other day then someone made some dire comment about how bad it was. So I tossed that for the time being but I do see people riding there again, including @pooriggy today. On some note I do need to get my XC bike operating again so I only have the big fat bike. I mean it's a bike so whatever. But I do need to start thinking about this. But for what I am trying to do and my time constraints, I have no choice but to ride inside. I am simply in a vortex of insanity some days. And disappearing for any length of time is not an option. So being inside where I can keep some tabs on email/etc is a necessity if I am going to ride between 10-4.
As for the rest of Arizona, I'm not sure what else is going on. My boss and his family are going to be there and we're going to end up hanging out with them a bunch. When he heard I was going with D he decided to go too and bring the family. So it'll be a good weekend-and-more.
Image: From the hotel where we were doing demo prep on Tuesday morning. How cool is it that there is a ski jump on that hill? This is skiing in Minnesota, apparently.
@jShort - I don't know if there are rights or wrongs in the long versus short discussion. What I do know is the HIT training works better for what they refer to as "seasoned" cyclists so newcomers should decidedly not take that approach. @UtahJoe nails it in many ways. The reality is that more hours = less mass = faster bike riding. For me personally I have more problems controlling what I eat when I do hard work. I also just feel better when I do more volume. I get stronger. Things are usually better. It's hard to say that putting in a lot of hours doesn't work for you because you've never tried it. But there is something to be said about the mental aspect and if you don't want to mentally ride 14 hours a week, it's going to become a burden which won't be fun. Then where are you left?
Do you even have 12 hours available to train per week? If not, the question is moot. I do believe that a higher volume, more patterned routine would work just dandy for you but it's not really something easy to pull off with young kids.
But back to the point, I'm not sure it's more ways to do the same thing so much as different people respond differently.
Image: Random picture from Louisville where we got coffee. @seanrunnette bought me a bag of coffee from here and it was fantastic.
On Minnesota
I like to do things and blog on these trips but man, both times I've gone to Minnesota I ended up with almost zero free time. I am ashamed to admit this but my hotel was ~4 blocks from the Mary Tyler Moore statue and I didn't even go see it. The demo ended at 4:15 but of course the guys wanted to go get a drink and instead of doing my own thing, which I almost always do, I went along with it. I did my usual unsweetened iced tea but I blew 2.5 hours there talking about nothing instead of going to find some espresso. In the end, my boss and I bolted for some Chinese food and we landed a total win for dinner. Then we grabbed a hot cup of tea next door before heading back to the hotel and calling it a night. So at least we got a little time to hang out and discuss various next possible career options a little, while eating some excellent food.
But really this trip was a bit of a fail. Having to wake up at 3:45 the next day does put a damper on things though. In all I think I left home at 6am Tuesday and was back at 10am Wednesday.
Image: A beef & broccoli meal I made for dinner one night. @Dominique loved this recipe.
On the New Role
I end up writing a ton of stuff every day, which is effectively taking away from my mojo to do this blog right now. I'm also getting blistered from 9 angles every day and we're trying to dig our way out of this landslide of company disinterest. One of my coworkers makes fun of me because I'm so direct on these calls with the dev team. He quoted me the other day as saying, "So...how do we make these meetings more efficient?"
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like we all get paid a lot of money to do work. So when I see people not doing work it irritates me. Though I admit that it's exponentially worse when it has an adverse effect on what I'm trying to get done.
Image: A setup picture spot at the Escher Exhibition. Did you get your tickets?
On Arizona & Riding Outside
Just rented 2 bikes for Sunday, so to the question @stb222 asks, yeah, I'll be riding outside soon enough. We are both going out Saturday morning and D will leave Tuesday late night and I will fly back Thursday morning. I'm looking forward to a few days of warm weather and we'll hit up South Mountain on Sunday morning. Forecast is a high of 72 degrees so it looks like a great day.
I know that's not what you were asking and to that point, I did think about CR the other day then someone made some dire comment about how bad it was. So I tossed that for the time being but I do see people riding there again, including @pooriggy today. On some note I do need to get my XC bike operating again so I only have the big fat bike. I mean it's a bike so whatever. But I do need to start thinking about this. But for what I am trying to do and my time constraints, I have no choice but to ride inside. I am simply in a vortex of insanity some days. And disappearing for any length of time is not an option. So being inside where I can keep some tabs on email/etc is a necessity if I am going to ride between 10-4.
As for the rest of Arizona, I'm not sure what else is going on. My boss and his family are going to be there and we're going to end up hanging out with them a bunch. When he heard I was going with D he decided to go too and bring the family. So it'll be a good weekend-and-more.
Image: From the hotel where we were doing demo prep on Tuesday morning. How cool is it that there is a ski jump on that hill? This is skiing in Minnesota, apparently.
