Seventy Minutes

NOTHING says Spring like waking up to a couple of inches of snow and 28 degrees Fahrenheit! I make it a point to get into the gym early so I can bogart a bike for a nice long pretend "ride."

So I put it on fat burn and seventy minutes. If the great outdoors is going to reenact The Thing then I'm going to throw a mini-hissy, drive to the gym and pretend ride for seventy minutes. Meanwhile intoIt is sending me all this info on what a great time he's having humping all these mountains on the Blue Ridge Parkway and having a wonderful time.

Naturally I'm jealous.

Still, real Spring is coming along with real bike rides and the turning of real pedals.

Be Well!

A Question of Style

This has nothing to do with this post but I like the pic

I'm cranky, let's be 'transparent' about that and it might have colored today's spin class.

The TOSRVs were um 'motivating' me all yesterday afternoon to attend today's spin class and I enjoyed last weeks with Bill and figured, "Why not?"

So, I was a tad apprehensive when Bill wasn't there but instead this other trainer, a female who I've never taken a class from. She's already got the McDonald's headset on which isn't a good sign in my book, it means the music's gonna be loud at 5:45am.

Thank God hangOver showed up! I had managed to get to the room ahead of the TOSRVs and picked a bike in the back row surrounded by people I didn't know. The TOSRVs were making noises about wanting to be next to me so that they can get use to me when we do real road bike work together. I saw right through that, and I'm shy believe it or not. I will be doing real riding with the TOSRVs and anyone else who will have me this summer but I'm not gonna even TRY to match those two in a spin class.

I can't recall if I mentioned hangOver or not but she was in the spin class I took last week. hangOver is a twenty something chick with a high ponytail that bobs like a samurai topknot who looks like she was up waaaayyyy too late the night before. Twenty somethings can do that, it takes me about a week to recover from one all-nighter - sigh. Anyway, last week she set up in front of me and I was able to match cadence with her which was pretty cool to see in the mirror and helped me get through the class.

She sets up in front of me again due to one of two reasons, it was one of the few remaining bikes or she's fallen in love with me a little. Probably the latter.

So the class is starting and the music is the kind I'd associate with a Rave if I had ever been to a Rave, this techno-funk crap (for lack of a better word) that Kingsley occasionally dials in in the morning at the gym. I'm certain it's fine at 2am when you're stoned out of your mind on extacy and other than possibly hangOver none of the rest of us were. In short this music does not work for me at 5:45am.

So the instructor has us at a fairly high cadence and is gabbing about drinking water and listening to the beat of the music while cranking up the resistance on the bike and keeping your cadence. Or something like that and I'm following along but hangOver isn't helping since she's clearly dogging it on the cadence thing and this music is at about 9,000bpms and the instructor has taken waaayyyyy to much speed for this hour of the morning and is churning the pedals so fast her legs are a blur.

What beat? I mean I'm a middle aged white guy and I can't find anyone to match beats with so I'm genetically stuck and that's what the instructor wants us to do (find the beat and hold it) until she completely loses her mind and has us start doing these things called 'jumps.'

A jump consists of the following. You're sitting like you would normally on a bike (position one). You then go to standing like a tour rider climbing a monster hill (position two). Next, still climbing, you go to the front of the handlebars which feels a lot like when I'm on the hoods of a real bike (position three). Finally you remain in position three except you bend way over like you're sprinting full speed for the finish line (position four).

The instructor begins calling out "one" (hold for five beats); "two" (hold for five beats); "three" (hold for five beats); "four" (hold for five beats). Then you go through it at four beats, three beats, two beats, one beat. We do this for (I think) eighty counts.

Well some did. I bailed after the second count (four beats). hangOver is totally digging this jump thing and maybe a few others but I couldn't get past the 'why' of it. What benefit is this providing in making me a better bike rider? If I was looking for this sort of stuff I'd probably be in the aerobics class down the hall. All I know is I would never perform this maneuver on a bike, and if I did one of my biking brethren would probably shoot me to put me out of my misery ("He clearly went mad, I had to kill him!")

Filled with passive aggressive rage I sit back and either spin or climb while tossing in the occasional sprint but if there are 'jumps' I'm off the reservation. The jumping goes on forever or twenty minutes maybe.

During the course the instructor is either cajoling us ("come on!") or telling us to drink more water between 'hills.' A hill in spin parlance is increasingly dialing up the resistance while pedaling. She then begins yakking about this monster hill we're about to climb and up we go.

I'm amused and 'out of the class' just hammering through it and pondering her 'style' which is markedly different than Bill's. I can't fault her, I'm just not into it. So what? Then she gets to the grand finale which is some sort of cadence work out. A series of very fast paced techno 'songs' come on and we're suppose to crank up the resistance while keeping the beat.

Honestly, I'm not sure what drummer she's listening to, but her legs are a whirring blender of destruction. If she's on beat she's on beat at about 12 to 60 times the actual beat of the song. I'm occasionally catching the beat of the song (I think) and trying to work with it since once again hangOver bailed and her count is the inverse of the instructors, her legs moving at the speed of slow.

I focus on this knot on the wood floor and just bang it out.

The cool down was good.

So I think it's fair to say that this lady's course was not my cup of tea but that doesn't mean she's in anyway shape or form a poor instructor. I'll leave you with some heart charts, the first from Bill's class last week and the second from today's. I could have probably gotten my HR up higher in today's class if I had done all the jumps, but I didn't now did I?

Bill's Class

Today's Class

Rationing and the New Trainer

I'm slowly forming a very uninformed opinion on the new trainer who's holding down the fort while Bubbles is discovering exactly what parenthood means. First, for those of you wondering, yes, she's hot. Second she's qualified given her little demo of running on the BOSU balls before ABS/HEAT today.

I tried it and made two steps before going all wobbly and hopping off the infernal devices. New Trainer smiled at me saying, "It helps with the core." By the way, that's not the new trainer, that's an instructional pic on how to run on BOSU balls.

It's always about the core ::rolls eyes:: but tireTosser got me thinking while I sat in the locker room, "What if you're rotten to the core?"

I have no time for his Kōan nonsense at the moment! I'm a busy man.

New Trainer is gonna need a name, thing is I can't give her one yet because I haven't hung with her enough to get a read. I'm afraid to take one of her classes (scoping out the HEAT class this morning, it didn't look pleasant) and she tends to hang in the office eating breakfast and what not when I'm about. Once I asked her if she was hiding from us gym rats. She laughed and said, "Yes."

I kinda doubt that, she gives off this paradoxical shy/ass kicking vibe, so I'm toying with mightyMouse as a name.

MarathonMan sent me the following pic off the treadmill:

Nice work, overloading a treadmill is no small feat! And perhaps it's this awesome effort or ObamaCare, probably ObamaCare that caused Diablo to begin rationing time on the treadmills.

Effective immediately, we ask that all treadmill users limit their total treadmill time to 30 minutes. This policy will apply only when other members are awaiting the use of a treadmill.

So there you have it. Rationing. Now I freely admit that I don't have the full story on this but that's never stopped me before. Personally I'm agnostic on this treadmill thing, not so much on ObamaCare and the way it's been 'enacted' into law.

Whatev. I'll save that rant for a future date, at least I don't have Hitler's problems at the moment. Here's the link for my facebook pals.

Nothings Gonna Change My World...

except for congress of course ::glares at congress::



For those of you on facebook here's the URL to the above daily dose of zen.

“Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.” - Calvin & Hobbes

Um, yeah. What Calvin said. IronMan is putting me through the paces on the weights. He appears to me in some sort of motivated mood and wants to share it with me and goodMood, whom IronMan is lobbying to be renamed to miniHercules I think. After coming off one machine IronMan grabs me by the elbow leading me to another one for more torture. He finished me off with a rack run. Then he went to work and messed his knee up. I hope he gets better soon!

I took Precious (the name of my bike) out for a 12 mile ride. I was all geared up and ready to 'push it' when my son chimed in that he wanted to go too, it would be a new distance record for him. For one nanosecond, further blackening my soul, I thought about how my workout got reduced to just puttering around at 10mph. Then that was gone and I told him to hop on his bike and we headed out.

It was a nice evening and this was the third time I had used cleats. I still suck at getting my foot back into the pedal and kind of blow at uncleating too. I was explaining to my son that it was just a matter of time before I forgot to uncleat and fall over. He laughs saying he hopes to be there when it happens.

We pedal along a bike path at an easy cadence yakking and enjoying the evening. My son announces that his knee is starting to hurt and I glance over and see he's wayyyyy too low on his seat, his knees coming up above his hips for crying out loud! This kinda panics me since I've read so much about proper sizing so I slam on the breaks before realizing I hadn't cleated out. I'm frantically trying to get my left foot free, doomed. I fall over onto my son who manages to keep me upright long enough that I can get my stupid shoe free. Phew!

I raise his seat, raise it again, and again. Jeeze when did he get so tall?!

We continue on our way and eventually get back home, a new distance record for my son. Ya know what? Riding with your kid beats a serious workout anytime! I soooo hope we get to do that again, I really enjoyed it.

I then did a spin class with instructor Bill which was a great workout.

What I'm discovering as I write this up that it's boring, I need to blog more or not do some sort of weird retrospective... pick a topic and roll with it. It's just I'm sorely distracted at the moment with a lot on my mind.

I went in to the Trek Store paying some dude $150 for a "pro fitting." Long story short, I don't think it's worth it - at least in my case. I made a serious mistake of not logging enough hours on the bike before heading in. I was impressed with how close the free (well free after you shell out coin for the bike) fitting was.

My dad turned 80 and we went down and visited him and mom. That was great.

Eighty Candles

Finally this Sunday, after getting home from dad's birthday the weather was nice enough that I simply HAD to take the bike out. I took it out on a known 18 miler and had nothing but technical problems, not with the bike but with the bike's Garmin 305. It kept turning off and that was a drag so I couldn't adequately log it.

Why is it we never notice a tailwind? We sure do notice the headwinds, but not the tailwinds. Going out I battled a pretty good headwind, hating it. Heading back I had a minor tailwind and had made up my mind to savor it, enjoy it, be grateful for it. I must apply that wisdom to my life at large. When things are going well show gratitude.

I managed to hit and hold 20 - 25mph on the ride back at times. I loved that! I felt like a tour rider for maybe a minute or two when I was in the 25mph zone. There was a time last year when 25mph would terrify me, now it feels right. I want MORE!

This bike is going to take some getting use to. You'd think you just get on it and go but there are nuances. I noticed when I was pedaling correctly that I could go faster and it felt easier - go figure. I also can play with the gears much more on this bike than on my 520. With these SRAM shifters it's a lot easier to shift than with the bar ends.

I got home and checked out my bike computer.

• avg cadence 73
• avg HR 136
• avg MPH 14.5

Not awful for my first ride. I can't wait for the next one!

As always, my thighs burn for you!

Be well

First 2010 Commute

My daughter took her bike out for a spin yesterday (Wednesday), going to the local ice cream shop and catching me completely flat footed. I pumped up her tires and raised her seat although I'm 98% certain she's outgrown the bike. I still need to oil her chain and make sure of other preparations on the bike. This makes me realize that I must get my commuter ready. I want to try and ride it in tomorrow. One of the things this means is changing out the bike computer battery and pressing all the byzantine buttons for time, odometer and wheel size (so I know when I'm maxing out at 13.6 mph).

Today is Thursday (I casually note this since I'm not sure I'll post today) and I elected to sleep in today. I'm in motivational trouble so we'll (meaning me) just have to see how/if I get out of it. I must atone tomorrow in the gym, I plan on doing this by riding my bike in, doing 20 mins on the stair climber, 20 mins on the elliptical, MAYBE 20 mins on the bike (intervals), some ABS, some dynamic stretching, and a little puking. I hope I do it or most of it anyway. It will require being up at 4am though.

Friday, at 4:45am I'm on the road after spending a fair amount of time last night with my son getting everything ready (oiling chains, changing batteries on various computers, pumping the tires, packing panniers) - THANKS SON! So I'm finally on the road doing something which was commuting to work.

It was quiet, the temp was fine, legs felt great, it was fantastic and I loved it! It took about 15 minutes.

So I get to the gym and decide to live the vision.

• 20min Elliptical AvgHR 130 (64% MaxHR)
• 20min StairClimber AvgHR 145 (71% MaxHR) - Max HR for the day of 172.
• 20min Upright Bike AvgHR 151 (74% MaxHR)

This was followed by doing these dynamic stretches Diablo showed me (they involve a resistance band and look sorta like this:

But when I do them it's more like this, but not as flexible:

I followed those up with a leisurely cool down gait on the treadmill for ten minutes. During that time, while staggering on, drinking a G2, I felt the pleased presence of MegaGiraffe or endorphins, maybe both. As I wrap up today's entry I can tell you that my muscles, having gotten over their shock at this assault are phoning in their displeasure. That should make for a wonderful ride home.

My daughter ::waves at daughter:: sent me the following two videos. The first would be a riot to try in the gym, the second at IronMan's house since I figure he's the only one who has the know how on how to build it. JRock sent me an article on fiber which I plan to discuss on Monday.



Have a great weekend!

Lies of the WeatherBug!

I confess to being a TAD bitter at the prospect of having to wait a WEEK to pay some chick named 'MiMi' a dollar and a half ($150) for three hours of her quality time, but since I'm the veritable definition of patience I'm afraid that's what I must do. Apparently MiMi is a popular gal, so get in line cowboy.

You'll have to wait right along with me for the full MiMi report.

I'm riding some upright gym bike for an hour on Monday. Honestly, I don't know why, it just feels right. Of course the last time something felt right I had a kid but that's neither here nor there. I am so utterly without direction in the gym right now that I'm probably some twelfth level zen master. Still it would be unwise to seek wisdom from Zen Master Bill, case in point:

IronMan glances down at me from another upright bike, "So what did you do this weekend?"

My mind goes totally blank. I have no idea what I did this weekend. I can remember bits and pieces like hanging with the beautiful people at the home and garden show, but not much else.

Geoff and Mary Alice (back left) of Ace of Cakes sign my daughter's autograph book, she was thrilled!

I'm sure I did something...

Whatever. I think in someways those are the best weekends, they flow by in a comfortable daze until Monday starts banging on the door like that weird ponytail dude lecturing me that I have to do something (like give him money and sign a petition) about the mining in West Virginia, wrecking it for everyone.

I know I was trying to figure out how to summon megaGiraffe, my totem, but not having any luck. I hope he visits me in a dream soon saying something profound like, "Do more squats," or "Don't trust the WeatherBug's lies."

And as shocking as this may sound the WeatherBug does lie! It told me Tuesday's low would be 44 degrees prompting me to pump up the tires on my commuter and lay panniers all over the bed in some feeble attempt at recalling how to pack them for work. As I pondered the various combination of forty pounds of things that needed to be crammed into the panniers just to make Bill functional for eight hours at work I was starting to feel pretty full of myself. I began imagining the envious stares of fellow coworkers as I causally dropped into the conversation that I biked in today, I proudly mentioned what I was doing to my family. My wife promptly sank my dreams like the Brits did the Bismarck. She was boring on and on about since it was already 34 degrees on Monday evening there was no way it would be 44 degrees by Tuesday morning.

"But the WeatherBug tells me otherwise!"

Her piteous stare follows me into the bedroom where I sullenly packed the same old gym bag with the same ol' stuff. When I got up this morning and stared at the thermometer's 30 degrees I was glad (even though she'll be insufferable now) that I heeded her advice.

Soon I should be riding, maybe I'll feel a bit more chipper then...

Totem

So, you've been reading my blog (I tend to think of my readership as my army of invisible friends which is either cool or creepy, I'll let you decide which camp you want to be in) and I've decided to present you with a real world problem, one that gym rats are faced with every day they're in the gym! Ready?

You come staggering out of the shower after another mediocre workout. You've been enjoying the shower, the heat over your sore, stiffening muscles but alas all great things must come to an end. You turn the shower off, grab your faded, pink, ratty gym towel, dry off and head for the sinks glancing at the scale as you head over. You realize as you pass it that you feel nothing for the scale, n-o-t-h-i-n-g. It's over, you've dumped the scale. Whatever 'it' is, 'it' is no longer about weight.

You stand in front of the mirrors, pressing your towel into the counter so it doesn't fall down (one must preserve decorum in these situations) and look blearily for the deodorant. It looks pretty much like this:

You're not even thinking about it but it's a lot like the choice Neo was given in The Matrix, A LOT like it.

So if you're like me (and I pray you're not, but if you are) then you took the red pill, doused it liberally under both pits before noticing it is hairspray. What hairspray is doing in the men's locker room is something of a mystery but WHATEVER. You swear a blue streak and take your stiffening pits back to the showers before returning and carefully studying the problem...

getting it right this time!

JRock, always helpful, counts my calories in the breakfast line today. 485. I don't know what to do with that. Bubbles tells me I have to get 8g of fiber in (hence the two packets of raisin bran, plus I like raisin bran) and the skim milk and yogurt is because I read this stupid book that says calcium is good for you and studies indicated (show? probably not that definitive) that those who ingest it burn more belly fat. Plus I kinda like milk and osteoporosis is suppose be an issue with bicyclists (I'm not a bicyclist yet, but by the end of this summer I plan to be). But who's right in this? How does one keep calorie intake down and appease all these demi-gods, one of them being the calorie intake demi-god?

I don't think you can. It's too much math on a knife's edge. So for the time being I'm going to simply ignore it and live my life. I've decided to adopt MegaGiraffe as my totem and hope that he'll visit me in a dream and provide spiritual guidance or at least tell me which power-meter I might consider next year. Behold MegaGiraffe, he's no one's bitch - you can tell by the attitude, the poise. A being comfortable with his decisions. Yep, he's a totem worth having, if he'll have you.

I wonder what he'll sound like when he visits me in a vision? Probably Micheal Jackson, that would be disappointing. It'll be hard to take what he says seriously, ya know?

The Apostate Bill

Grey, desperation, deception, it will never end... winter. This is the winter of my discontent. It just goes on and on. How did I end up in this Ohio purgatory? To hear some, I should 'Blame Bush.' Yesssss he's the reason, the patsy, the perpetual fall guy. But it rings hollow in this case, no this everlasting winter is not his fault, it's Al Gore's if I'm gonna blame my lethargy, my indolence, and indifference on anyone other than myself then I pick Al Gore!

And still it doesn't matter, winter continues to wear me down unabated. Grey, boredom, sameness. I should knock over a bank just to liven things up a bit. I keep giving things up, fun things, addictive things, things that are bad for me, or so I'm told. Maybe they're not bad for me.

And what do I get in return? Sleepless nights and sore elbows and now this bump on my upper lip, you know that indentation under the nose, WikiAnsers tells me it's the philtrum, well that's more like swelling, not a bump really and now it's starting to get so big that it's looking kinda like a butt... under my nose.

Why? Why do I have a butt under my nose? I'm trying to be good, maybe that's the problem. Good people get butts under their noses right before they go bonkers cuz they bit off more than they could chew during lent. The idiots. I'm going to have to do something to bring this back under control, something so far over the line that people won't be able to actually tell if you're over the line or not because their minds just can't quite grasp it. That is if anything comes to me.

I don't know, I've been toying with the idea of becoming an apostate. The dictionary informs me it's, "a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle." In this case the belief of exercise or maybe the life style. Let's try that on:

I renounce exercise.

::shrug:: I mean really, so what? I've already renounced exercise and then found it again and now I'm going to renounce it again like Jennifer O'Neill goes through marriages? Boring.

It's obvious I'm deeply confused and once again the sole known cure is medicinal marijuana which is of course illegal in this state. So instead I must rely on 'reason' and 'logic' whatever they are.

Some of you might be wondering if I'm actually, um, bothering to exercise anymore.

Yeah, sorta. My heart's not in it though.

Today at the gym the wave of FNGs continued. This is a good thing but it kinda feels like a passing of the guard. ponyTail wasn't there, deerHunter a no show, IronMan takes Wednesday's off. It was me, goodMood, myPeg and a bunch of FNGs. I did thirty five minutes of 'fat burn' on the bike and thought about whatever while hammering out an average cadence of 101 and pretending I was actually riding a bike in the middle of nowhere cornfield USA. I hopped off the bike and blew off the crunches I told myself I was gonna do, heading for the showers.

My son sent me a pic awhile back that I think I even used in this blog once. I think it's going to be my kind of 'icon'? 'Avatar'? Symbol of some sort. It comforts me in it's unnaturalness. It's a pic of a proud and graceful giraffe that's let himself go a wittle bit and is trying to find his way back to his former glory... or not, he might be just fine where he's at. What do I know about giraffes?

Apathy Thy Name is Bill!

Note to self, getting up at 2:30am thinking you have had enough rest and trudging into the gym around 4am and working out for a bit PROBABLY isn't the best idea in the world.

That was yesterday.

Today I did my best to sleep in and got to around 4:30am after waking up like ninety times it seems like. Took my time getting into the gym and once I got there just... didn't... care.

Hmmmm, let's check the way back machine and see where my head was at one year ago today. All sunshine and roses I see. Eh, whatever. I think it's this head cold, stressful stuff I'm not ready to discuss and the fact that even when I try I can't drop a pound. I've been stuck at 205 forever and no I'm not going to do anything about it this time. I... just... don't... care!

I was gabbing with IronMan yesterday and he was asking if I weighed in of late. NOPE the scales are I are quits at least until I can get on the bike, the REAL bike not this fake exercise bike THING and see if the additional commuting might drive the weight down. Well IronMan tells me that I need to weigh in before starting the commuting business so that I see if there's any downward slide on the weight-o-rama.

Do I?

I'm not so sure. Look, here's where my grumpy head is at Tuesday, March 2 in the year of our Lord 2010. My left shoulder hurts, if I raise my elbow until it's horizontal with the shoulder I get a simply wonderful stabbing pain in said shoulder, both my elbows hurt which is just WEIRD and I'm tired. Like I want to take a nap right now tired and would have no problem doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm whining but all these books I'm reading about exercise are telling me to put down what I feel during a workout. Well there ya go, that's what I'm feeeeling at the moment.

So, what was my point? Oh yeah, do I need to log my weight before embarking on this commuting thing? Suppose my weight goes up, or down, or not at all, will any of that have an effect on my bike riding? I don't think so but that might be this awful head cold talking.

Most likely, as this graph of my typical daily ice cream consumption illustrates, as my calorie burn goes up so will my ice cream consumption. This is simple science and there's nothing I want to do about it.

So there you have it. I'm going to eat ice cream. Lent sucks (but not in that blasphemous way, so no one damn me OK?!). So I'm going to eat ice cream after Easter I guess and maybe, just maybe by then I'll CARE.