Misadventures and Cold Fingers in Candyland

Norm said:
I'm interested at how you, or anyone, would play it, given the same circumstances.
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Well you didn't mention your life circumstances. You just said you didn't want to rest because you didn't feel like it.

During this time of year, when things are very vague, I would be willing to add more load. As the season progresses, you become more focused. That would NOT be the time to let the mind wander.
 
So moving on, yesterday back in the city, today at home, and on the road bike:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22344027

No Lake shoes, no moose mitts, and I got to ride The Magic Bike today! Good stuff, even if I am still going slow. I was a little slow going this morning so it was probably better than I didn't end up riding 3 hours anyway. Just under 5 for the week and I should get some good saddle time in this weekend.

In theory hoping for another 11 hour week this week, then whatever I can put together next week. Next Saturday night I become single dad, and my riding will be a total crap-shoot at that point.
 
Fill the kid's coat with hand warmers and pick up one of these :D

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What a wonderful day for a ride:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22494777

5 hours and change, just under 78 miles. I combined the RV road loop with my Califon loop and the short swamp loop. This is a really good route, though the swamp at the end was nothing more than filler. I'll need to work in some more roads out in the RV-Califon area so I don't have to tool around the swamp when I get close to home. Could have climbed up and over the Bernardsville hills but didn't feel like going that way today.

Felt really fantastic for the first hour and pretty good after that. Between hours 3 and 4 my butt hurt. Not sure what that's all about but I may have been going a hair harder than a pure base ride. Felt good, ate 5 different bars of some sort, and drank a meager 2 bottles of water. Could have used more but didn't kill myself with only 2.

This brings me to just under 10 hours for the week, and I wanted to get to at least 11. With the weather report looking like crapola tomorrow I'm going to get out and top off the week to 11 then call it a week. Maybe then go get some pancakes or something. Hoping to roll another 5-ish on Monday as I've got the day off so tomorrow is family time.

The 5 bars totaled 880 calories, which is a fairly low 175 calories per hour. All in all I felt good though, so it must be enough for the effort level. The 5 bars:

1. Clif - White Chocolate Macadamia. 1 of the best Clif bars IMO. 250 calories.
2. Chex Mix Turtle bar. Super sweet but I love it on the bike. 130 calories.
3. Clif Mojo - Mountain Man Mix. I'm liking the Clif Mojo bars better than straight up Clif bars, but the selection is limited. They also work much better in the cold. Clif bars turn to rocks below 32 degrees. 180 calories.
4. Luna - forget which kind. Yes, I like Luna bars. They're awesome. 180 calories.
5. Multi-Grain blueberry. These such for non-bike eating as they have almost no substance and do nothing to fill you up. So I bring them for long rides and usually eat them last.
 
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Dammit. I step it up today and ride 4hr 18min and Norm has to again 1 up me. :D Nice work, nice ride.
 
Norm said:
3. Clif Mojo - Mountain Man Mix. I'm liking the Clif Mojo bars better than straight up Clif bars, but the selection is limited. They also work much better in the cold. Clif bars turn to rocks below 32 degrees. 180 calories.
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I am finding this to be the case too. I like the one that i chocolate and peanuts. On my ride the other nice it was hard to bite into but just snapped of and was chewable pretty quickly. I find these ones to "crumby" in the summer and I choked on a couple because of it.
 
stb222 said:
I am finding this to be the case too. I like the one that i chocolate and peanuts. On my ride the other nice it was hard to bite into but just snapped of and was chewable pretty quickly. I find these ones to "crumby" in the summer and I choked on a couple because of it.
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Another vote for mojos over regular clif bars. My stomach simply takes them better. The regular clifs give me a strange indigestion/heartburn feeling about 50% of the time I eat them.
 
Rounded out the week with a recovery ride:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22552035

Slow and...well, slow was on the menu for today. This rounds out my week coming in at almost exactly 11 hours again. So for those of you scoring at home, my Early Base phase looks like this:

Week 1: 9:21
Week 2: 10:57
Week 3: 11:01
Week 4: 11:05

Since it made sense to extend it (due to my wife being in Taiwan soon) and make it a 5 week "on" cycle followed by the rest week next week, I flattened out the middle to 11 hours each and this coming week will look to get 12+.

My total hours are currently +3.33 above what I have penciled in. So I'm not out of the park by much. This week may bump that up, but the rest week is on a week when I'm supposed to have 12.5 so I will likely even out at that point.

I have an extra week in between the base phase and starting the advanced phase (intervals and such) and will probably use that up by extending the base phase a week, since I am now 2 weeks out of "sync" with the original plan. I can get the other week back by either shortening the mid or late base to just 2 weeks, or to cut one of the advanced cycles from 3 to 2 weeks.

The advanced stuff can be done in 2-on-1-off blocks or 3-on-1-off, so you can always adjust easier then. It probably makes sense to cut the advanced by a week and make sure I get the full base cycle, since it seems to have worked so well for me last year.

My longest ride by week looks like this:

Week 1: 3:33 (team ride from Ben's)
Week 2: 3:19 (team ride from Fred's)
Week 3: 4:00 (solo ride with moose mitts)
Week 4: 5:02 (yesterday's solo ride)

So while the total hours are not necessarily progressing in a step-wise fashion, the weekly "breakthrough" workout is. My big ride for this week is tomorrow, which isn't really ideal given that I did 5 hours yesterday. But this coming weekend isn't much of an option so I need to take what I can get.

So there you go. Now I'm going to watch some football and have a few beers and enjoy the fact that I tied up my week before the cold rain came to make it a chilly one.
 
Is there a certain nutritional advantage to eating Clif bars as opposed to real food like a sandwich + some sport drink? I realize it's much more convenient, but my stomach usually doesn't feel satisfied with just a Clif bar.
 
soundz said:
Is there a certain nutritional advantage to eating Clif bars as opposed to real food like a sandwich + some sport drink? I realize it's much more convenient, but my stomach usually doesn't feel satisfied with just a Clif bar.
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Exercise nutrition is highly personal. I put that in bold because I believe it's one of those adages that people say but don't really think is as true as it is. I know that some people will do 24 hour solo races with nothing but liquid calories. Personally, as soon as I started adding solid food to my long rides, things became so, so, so much easier. It really solved a the bike nutrition problem I had. I believe I have read that one top long distance rider likes bagels and lox.

Point is that you have to read any bike nutrition advice with a grain of salt because you really have no idea if it will work for you or not.

To answer your question, I don't think there's any advantage, at least at this pace. I'm going pretty slowly so I could probably eat just about anything and be happy with it. As I pick up the pace these bars will offer a better balance of nutrition (usually carb heavy) than some alternates. At this low intensity however, I don't think it much matters.

The issue with, say, peanut butter is that the fat is difficult to digest, so if it's heavy-handed with peanut butter then it may be an issue. If it's 2 slices of bread, reasonable with the PB, and heavy on the jelly, the nutritional profile is probably going to be fairly close to the Clif bar.
 
Taking advantage of the MLK holiday I rolled out from the house solo for a 4+ hour ride this morning:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22660285

More or less the same route as Saturday but with the old Can 'O Beans bike and I removed the loop around the swamp at the end. Decided not to shoot for an uber-long ride today, so 4+ hours was good. 4:15 and 63+ miles in all. Pushed a bit in spots to get myself a bit into Tempo but the majority was at endurance pace.

The Week

I did a mental calculation of the week and figured that I can ring up about 19 hours if I maximize things, and decided that was completely unnecessary if I do want to stay in line with what the book outlined for me. So I dialed back my 5-6 hour ambitions and decided to go for 4 today since I really just want to land in the 12-14 range this week. It really didn't seem to make a lot of sense to blow out half the week's total in the first day of the week, and just 2 days after a 5 hour ride. I'm trying to be smarter this year.

Nutrition

I've also been focusing on nutrition a bit more in the last 2 weeks. While I've been staying in a decent place in terms of calories consumed, I was eating too much junk (cookies, ice cream, chocolate) as part of my daily eating. I've been trying to cut that out as a regular staple and make it more of a treat with good success.

Additionally I'm trying to eat better immediately after the ride. Often times I eat a reasonable meal and will still be a good 2500 calories short for the day. Instead of eating a big meal, I snack all day and eventually end up consuming the entire 2500 calories because I get so hungry by the end of the day. With rides of this length, I need more substantial food and I've been having better success not being dead tired after these long rides. Today I had a piece of veggie lasagna after the ride then an hour later got a Panera bread bowl for lunch. We went to the zoo after that and I felt good, where I would ordinarily feel pretty rundown.

Less Weight

To that end, I finally got back into the 170s today (179) after quite a while in the 180-183 realm. Hopefully I can stick to this and slide slowly down the 170s as the year goes on. Last year I settled in at around 174-176 for most of the race season. So I'm really not that far off at this point. We'll see. I do like my chocolate and ice cream.

I also must be really falling into line with the training season since beer isn't appealing to me right now. I have a bunch of calories to burn tonight and a beer is mentally unappealing right now. Strange but true.
 
THATmanMANNY said:
Wow, if PI AmFib tech can't save you then nothing will. :rolleyes:
Which ones you got? Barriers full fingers?

Lets stop filling up these land fills with chemical warmers, eh?
http://www.hotsnapz.com/
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Dragging up and old post, but just FYI: The only reason they're called "chemical" warmers is because it's technically a chemical reaction(I think, I'm no scientist) that generates the heat. The ingredients are just finely ground minerals, and the packets are fairly safe for the environment as far as I know.
 
Norm said:
More or less the same route as Saturday but with the old Can 'O Beans bike and I removed the loop around the swamp at the end.
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I'm curious, is the bean bike more comfortable on long rides than the supa6?
on these long base rides i'd imagine ti or steel would be the optimum choice.
 
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