Seven More Weeks (yet another blog)

ChrisG

Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
So future teammates Kirt, ChrisG, and Maurice met me at CR today. Arch Enemy JimG (Team Bulldog) joined along as well as team-less Matt, who has apparently registered for the board but doesn't post and doesn't really read. So feel free to make fun of him, won't see it :)
I've gotta interrupt The Mad Blogger here to thank him and the rest of the crew for my maiden voyage at CR today. Riding conditions were top-notch, as was the company. Well worth the trip. Now I've gotta get back there and start learning the place better. Good stuff, all around.:D
 

ArmyOfNone

Well-Known Member
Now I've gotta get back there and start learning the place better. Good stuff, all around.:D

You have someone waiting for you next time you are ready to come up :D its been to long my friend!

Norm, did you guys hit the blue trail? I am just tryin to see if i know what you did based on your squiggly lined map thing.
 
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Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
You have someone waiting for you next time you are ready to come up :D its been to long my friend!

Norm, did you guys hit the blue trail? I am just tryin to see if i know what you did based on your squiggly lined map thing.

Nice sig!

Yeah we hit all the colored trails. Chris and company went out for the last blue loop while I waited for a few people to show up.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This morning I took the air sleeve off the rear shock and put the dust seal back in place. I fixed the shifting problem that was due to a renegade cable guide for the derailleur cable under the bottom bracket that was adding just enough tension to throw off shifting. And I adjusted the front fork setting. Oh I also changed a flat on the rear.

So I took the bike on some local trails to see how it felt. Some bmx jumps at the end of the street, then a trail in the Millington Gorge, down a dirt road and into a Green Acres park that the boy scouts have cut a bunch of trails into. Then back over the hill to some old useless trails at the other end of the street and back to the dirt jump area at the end. Between the dirt jumps and the boy scout trails I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm having more fun riding a bike right now than ever before in my life. Rock on!

GPS data:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3846347

The tiny upper left blob of red is the jump trails. The left hook is the gorge. And the lower right is the boy scout trails. Between the jumps and the boy scout trails it's a really good place to test out your suspension and bike handling. The scout trails are very rooty and there are a few logs down. Plus it's on a hill so it's not all just flat and boring. The upper right blob is the useless set of trails I won't be bothering with again. But I did find an example of state of the art graffiti. Image attached.
 
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ArmyOfNone

Well-Known Member
I was having those same thoughts today as well. I really enjoyed the ride today. Being on the SS is fun. So simple with nothing to worry about but pedaling. woohoo for bike riding!
 

BiknBen

Well-Known Member
...I like interval training...well sometimes. I should do it more. Id rather climb stupid hills than do intervals.

We are all doing interval training whenever we go for a ride. Each time you jump on the gas to clean a tough climb is an interval. Once you get to the top, you ease off and continue down the trail. Intervals training is the same think but harder and with more structure.

The theory behind intervals is to train your body to go harder than you are used to. You can't simply decide to go faster. You must teach the body to do it and mind to withstand it.

Intervals give your body small doses of a faster pace. Over time, your body and mind adapts. As small improvements are made, you increase the number of intervals or the length and intensity of each one. Greater fitness and a tougher mental outlook follows.

Yeah they hurt...like hell sometimes! When you begin to see the improvements, you will want more and more. They become addictive. Next thing you know, you are killing your buddies and moving up in race categories.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
We are all doing interval training whenever we go for a ride. Each time you jump on the gas to clean a tough climb is an interval. Once you get to the top, you ease off and continue down the trail. Intervals training is the same think but harder and with more structure.

Group rides with stronger people are interval workouts that are less mentally taxing.

Today I did some L5 stuff. 4x5:5. Blah. Didn't have much zip at all and couldn't put any mustard into the end to really finish it off like I try to do. I think the weekend took too much out of me and I wasn't recovered. Legs screamed on the subway steps on the way to work today. Probably in a bit bigger of a hole right now than I thought.

Useless GPS data:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3861130

Really putzed along between reps today so my average is laughingly low. I don't know if today was totally useless but I don't really think it's going to do me much good because I probably didn't hit these at a high enough level. Damn dark out, and getting cold fast.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
As an addendum, if you click on the GPS link then click on the chart details you get a better idea of how the intervals go. The swamp is pancake flat so those purple speed bumps should really be relatively "building like" in that they go up, flatten, then drop down.

Look how awful my pacing is for the first interval. I ramped up way too fast then had trouble holding on. The second interval is about as perfect as I personally can get, nice and consistent. Third one was like the first, just not as inconsistent and I didn't fade at the end. The last one is a hair slower but quite consistent until the end when I was apparently able to finish off with a bang.

I would compare it to last week but that wasn't on flat terrain. I'm torn on doing this in the swamp versus the neighborhoods of Basking Ridge. The swamp is flat and gives me these charts which make comparison "interesting". But it's colder in the swamp and it's just flat and straight. It was neat in between, just me tooling along at 5 mph, so dead silent. Heard an owl off maybe 20 feet in the trees. In the neighborhood there are turns and ups/downs to keep it more interesting mentally. But I don't have a good 5 minute loop so each of the loops last week was slightly different.

I know it's all moot anyway since I'll be on the Trainer of Doom before long.
 

BiknBen

Well-Known Member
if you click on the GPS link then click on the chart details you get a better idea of how the intervals go.

I checked out the chart. Here's what I see. The warm up is really short. Most coaches would recommend 20-30 minutes with a few short bursts to wake up the muscles. The first interval is erratic which is normal. The second one looks nice and consistent. The third is consistent but slower than the previous one. The last one is noticeably slower although you picked it up at the end.

I could comment further but need more info. What aspect of your riding are you trying to improve? Where did you get this 4x5:5 workout?
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Holy crap! Fantastic! Actual user comments! Thanks for the feedback!

I checked out the chart. Here's what I see. The warm up is really short.

Yes...yes...I know. I hang my head in shame. W/U and C/D are a weak spot for me, for sure. I do have some bursts in there but the W/U was 13 minutes long. I know I should be doing more but the whole 5:07 am start, and dark and cold and [insert excuse here] makes me just want to get the ball rolling.

I could comment further but need more info. What aspect of your riding are you trying to improve? Where did you get this 4x5:5 workout?

Even though I don't have a power meter, I use the Coggan/PM lingo. I'm targeting L5 which some call VO2max:
http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/power411/levels.asp

In the chart it's tagged as 3-8 minute duration. I go with 5 because Coggan has said he believes 5 minutes is the optimal period for intervals of that level. I go with a 1:1 work:rest because I don't think I'm advanced enough to handle less rest than that. The 4 reps is just a number. At this stage of the season I really should be able to pull off 6 for a total work time of 30 minutes. But when I did blocks of these earlier in the year, I don't think I held a high enough power for long enough so I don't think it really did what I hoped it would. So I sort of stepped back and "started over" with 20 total minutes of work.

In the grand scheme, I'm on week 2 of a 4 week (I guess 5 now) ramp where I would do 20 total minutes, then 25 in weeks 3/4. I could throw in 6 reps in week 5 to see how it goes. At this stage, without an actual A target event, I'm just sort of seeing what effect various stresses have on performance. The intention was to do a 4 week build then 2 week traditional taper (50%, then 25%) then hit the target event. I may try that with Ringwood as a target just to see how it goes.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
One snooze, then out of bed at 4:54. On the road at 5:10 or so:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3868774

Warmup, then start, right turn, right turn, u-turn. Rest, repeat.

After yesterday I decided to scale it back a hair today. Felt pretty good, feel pretty good now as I sit here at work. Didn't set the world on fire but it was a decent threshold workout all in all. Nothing really of note. Just sorta there.

It's getting darker and darker. I have my lights on for the whole ride these days. Dodged a fox that ran out in front of me, which is always neat no matter how many times you see them out in the swamp. Yesterday it was a frog and a dead racoon, with an owl hooting off to the side. Today a fox and more cars that you'd expect at 5:XX in the morning, and of course 43,008 deer.

Off tomorrow, some sort of pre-race ride Saturday, Chain Stretcher Sunday. Go team!
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This morning I slept in, which means about 6:45. Had a coffee & bagel then I was going to do some of the local off-road junk again just as a pre-race day ride and to play with the fork settings a little bit. But it was one of those days you just never get going. So I sat and did my best impression of a paper weight, without sitting on any paper.

I think the world is catching up to me - waking up early to ride before work, going to sleep late because my daughter needs less sleep than any child her age should, greatly reducing calories in an effort to look more like Angelina Jolie, and of course the riding. Really never felt very good all morning. Hopefully tomorrow is better but it is what it is.

I did eventually get on the bike for 40 minutes:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3915399

Tried to soften the compression a bit but I just don't like the fork that way at all. I'm almost locked into where I can put that fork with the settings. Felt fine on the dirt jumps but the boy scout trails was way too much chatter with the compression softer. I have to have the rebound mostly undamped for it to feel plush enough. It's not a problem other than the mental block of the click/clunk of the shock rebounding so hard.

Overall the bike felt good. It took me a while to warm up so if I feel like this tomorrow I'm going to need a good long warmup, something I really have no clue how to do. Once I got going I felt good but I feel like my battery life is really short right now, that any warmup will just suck extra energy out of me that I can't spare. Not sure I have 2.5 hours in the tank for tomorrow. I'll try not to think about it. Drink lots of water.
 
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Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
So the Chain Stretcher yesterday:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3915400

Yeah that's 2 hours and 55 minutes of me trying to "race". Felt fair to not-so-good on the first lap and it all fell apart on the second lap. A combination of lack of sleep, a long year, trying to lose weight, and the heat added up. I think I would have been ok the whole race had I kept the water intake up. But I didn't, and I wasn't. My legs weren't happy by the end.

I'm still sore today so I feel like I gave it a lot of effort. I think Sean is right that the L6 stuff is more important than I thought. Passing people just sucks so much out of you. On a course like this it may be the case that L6 is actually more important for a mid-lower pack guy like me, since I'm constantly battling for position. I continue to learn.

During the second lap I wondered if that was it on the season, 2 more weeks instead of 7. Today I'm not forgetting the pain of lap 2 but I'm also not quite ready to throw in the towel. I don't know how to warm up and I don't know how to start a race. It seems like my body performs exceptionally bad on race day. I'm always faster when I don't race. Sean said you would be surprised how much faster you go in races but for me it's 100% the opposite. I seem to have no ability to throw it in higher gear for these things. I'm thinking that for the JH race I may just let go completely from the door and if I blow much earlier oh well, that's life. There's no way I'm going to get better if I do little more than try and keep the Bell Curve in sight.
 
J

Jeff

Guest
Gosh, I've got to start riding with some folks. Although I like the freedom of being alone, it's much easier to push yourself when you've got others along.

Did two fairly diesel rides alone this weekend. First was on saturday. Left my house at about 11am and rode to waterloo looking for TM folks. Ended up not finding any and riding the trails branching off near the day camp. After too many mosquito bites, I decided to find my way around the backside of cranberry lake and stopped for a bite to eat at a relative's on the lake. Then I took north shore up to 206, and 206 to kita and rode through there, eventually coming out at good(something-or-other) road near the airport. Crossed that and kept on the sussex trail and rode a lot of the single track up through there, eventually coming out somewhere boondocky that I'd never been. Stopped for a glass of water at a little pub up there and began the trek back, trying to go in the direction that I thought sparta-stanhope road was in. Ended up going through andover and past long pond school. Here it gets blurry for a bit, but I somehow caught the rail road bed and rode that back to cranberry, then through continental drive in ITC and up to budd lake, netcong, and home.

All in all, I have no specific idea of how many miles it was, but I would imagine around 40-50 or so? I need a garmin. Friday and sunday I did similar rides. I think I may need to tone it down soon, or risk a total meltdown of my body and immune system (which feels on the verge of happening as we speak). Also hit a big personal goal this weekend of hitting 170 pounds (and staying). I've got it before, but it's generally been when my body was devoid of every piece of fuel and fluid. This time, I was still 170 the following evening. My next goal is to put some of the muscle back on that I lost over the last 2 months and get back to 180. Though I'm afraid that's going to involve more gym time and less bike time.

On a totally unrelated note, I just realized that I wasn't talking to anybody in particular with this, and was more just organizing my thoughts... so THAT'S what a blog is...
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Start your own blog, squatter :D

So I did a little active recovery tonight. First time Julia was on a bicycle. She started screaming 3 seconds after I put her in the seat but when I started rolling her around she smiled. Clipped her in, strapped the helmet on, and tooled around town for 45 minutes - absolutely shocked she lasted so long. Figured she would get sick of it after 10 minutes.

Since everyone knows how ugly I am by now I can post pictures of myself. Yes I have bike shorts on underneath. But I failed to wear gloves, a mistake I wont repeat. Bike is my old Trek full-rigid, too small. First picture is getting her used to the seat, second is the helmet, third is about to set sail, and forth is the maiden voyage.
 
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Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Beautiful norm, absolutely beautiful. How'd she like the ride?

Thanks Walter :D By the end she looked pretty tired, but she never complained. And she's not one to let small inconveniences go unheard, usually pretty loudly. So all in all a positive experience all around.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
After 2 days off (not counting the active recovery ride on Monday) I was back on the bike this morning. Normally I would have jumped back on Tuesday but my legs were sore in ways I've never experienced before. Link here:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3928938

This was a mixed bag of a ride. Since numbered lists are the rage these days (hi Ben) here goes:

1. I actually warmed up for 20 minutes today. I spun for about 5, then climbed a hill at medium-high effort for a few. Then spun out some more and dropped down the hill into the swamp. I turned around and sprinted back up the hill for 30-60 seconds. Did about 5 minutes of tempo, then a 2 minute hard climb, then finished it off with tempo.

2. I tried Ben's "race start" workout today, sort of. I put the bike in a medium high gear and clipped out. I sprinted for a minute then did tempo/threshold for another 4-5 minutes.

3. The first run was tough, and it made a few things clear. First I was reminded of Maurice's comment that most people train too easy. The second was that this effort was much more like a race pace and no, I had not been training this hard all summer. These are hard efforts.

4. At the end of the run I rested a bit and practiced my CX mounting and dismounting. Yes I realize how much of a reject I probably look like running and jumping on the bike at an intersection in the middle of the swamp in the pitch black. But this is my game and I'll play however I want. Dismounting is simple and it should be relatively easy to do this at speed in no time. Mounting seems to have a bit of a steeper learning curve. At the very least I didn't squash my wedding tackle on any of my attempts.

5. The second start was much "easier" than the first, leading me to believe that I was still warming up on that first run. By "easier" I mean the first 15 seconds were not like pedaling through sand, and mud, and muddy sand. After 15 seconds and for the rest of the run it was just as hard. I just had more "snap" on the second start.

6. Riding in the dark makes it hard to see every rock and pothole in the road, especially when noodling around between reps.

7. The final set was hard again, probably underscoring the fact I wasn't resting 20 minutes between efforts. But we work on limited time so I don't have all day to ride my bike.

8. I just kept going on the third set and ran out the "race". I kept the effort fairly high, probably on the border of threshold and tempo. I felt good doing this so I kept doing it. If we're not having some modicum of fun, it probably won't last. I kept a pace on the flats and tried to keep some speed on the hills and did a fairly good job with that, I think.

9. People have a mental block on the Base-10 number system so often times we will stretch to make any numbered list that is at least 7 items extend to 10. This isn't a knock on Ben's list mind you, I just find myself searching for a 10th point to make here.

10. On a workout like this your average speed is not really going to say much. But I will say that for me, on a ride that was 1:00+ in duration and includes 20 minutes of warmup and maybe another 5 minutes of dicking around in between, coming up just short of 17 (before my cooldown) is pretty good.
 
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