One of my favorite winter activities started today. The airwaves are abuzz with our impending doom. Yes, Death Storm 2010 The Revenge of Global Warming! is here.
The excitement of the weatherfolk is palpable, though not visible THANK GOD! They're tossing out the usual, "Well most of us will be dead and society will have collapsed by 6PM tomorrow" spiel. Soon the cub reporters will be standing next to a freeway calmly telling us how to drive in it and if you don't have a snow shovel you're gonna probably have to kill poor Mrs Johnson down the street if you want one.
I'm watching this prelude to the fall of the Republic (any minute now, mmhmm, just you wait, it's gonna happen, you'll wish you would have listened when you're trying to shovel your driveway with a soup spoon and a spatula) with sweat pouring down my face while plodding along on the upright bicycle for fifty minutes. My second LSD run, it's as trippy as I can get it right now. I think the true LSD experience is measured in hours and for that to happen I have to get rid of this pesky snow, get the temperature up some, like the fifties and get on the stupid bike, the real one. I'd go topless if it was fifty (apologies for the mental image) ::wistful sigh::
My thoughts of becoming the future Timothy Leary of biking are once again conflicted and I turn away from the oncoming slaughter and begin reflecting on last nights reading. Next to my bed are something like seven books on cycling and one on that crackhead Agassi. I have yet to hit the meth years for poor Andre but I'll get back to him in a bit, right now my head's in a different space.
I picked up Training Techniques for Cyclists by Bicycling Magazine figuring it was going to be filled with a bunch of airhead crap like their magazine is. Look, you can't review a $6,000 Madone in a paragraph, I'm sorry and surprised I'm still bitter about that, but when you plop down in the sauna you expect a certain amount of detail while sweating.
So I'm pondering their latest wisdom about LSD.
You've probably read somewhere that you burn more fat with low-intensity exercise. While it's true that at low intensities fat provides a higher percentage of fuel, it's also true that you lose weight by burning calories. And you'll burn more calories by riding harder.
For example, cycling for 1 hour at a heart rate of 120 bpm may burn 350 calories. Of these, about half (175) will be fat. Conversely, if you pedal harder and get your heart rate up to 160 bpm, you might burn as much as 1,000 calories during that same hour-long ride. At this intensity, only about one-fifth (200) calories will be from fat (still 25 more than at the lower intensity), but the calorie deficit created is much, much higher, meaning you're at that much further along the path to losing weight (for each pound lost, you'll need to burn 3,500 calories).
This is doubly significant because of the way your body restocks calories. Studies show that when you exercise at low intensities and burn a higher percentage of fat calories, your body replenishes these first. So, you end up right back where you started. If you're trying to lose weight, it's best to ride at the highest level that's sustainable and won't disrupt your training program...
Oh for crying out loud! What if I drink olive oil huh? HUH?!
I swear to God on High I will go insane! He goes on to tell you that if you're riding enough to become competitive and being a bike racer don't worry about it, you'll lose weight. He also states not to over train and to obey the 80/20 rule where the 80 is at a lower (below Anabolic Threshold) rate when I figure out where that is but also to avoid what I mentally call zone three where you're working pretty hard but not really improving but (I assume) jacking up your 'calorie deficit' like congress is the budget.
I have no intention of becoming a competitive bicyclist. I just want to go on really long bike rides during the weekend, do a century without dying, and enjoy the experience. I also want to lose ten more lousy pounds doing these activities without having to think about it too much.
It doesn't matter, we're all going to die in the death storm anyway.
Drive safe!
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