7 Months Down

It's been an incredibly long time since I blogged last. My schedule is partly to blame, between what became of training in the later part of the school year, on top of studying and finals and working. Then real work started mid-May and here I am in August finally finding a day off to blog. I haven't ridden today, so this blog won't be much about riding.

Definitely feeling pretty sluggish or maybe even discouraged, I haven't been getting the training I because of 40-50 hour work weeks and not a whole lot of commitment on my part. Work hours aren't so much the main problem, it's the substance of the work. Lifeguarding all day is a great way to get in or stay in shape, but by the time I get home, I already feel like having a beer or calling it a night without putting in the time in the saddle.

Another problem is distance: distance between work and home, and distance between home and mates. The way I was thinking at the end of the school year was that I could ride my bike to work and save a ton of money on gas. But as it turns out, 22 miles one way made me think twice: if I'm not at work for the 8 am shift, I'm there for the shift that ends at 7 or 8 at night. And then there's team mates. I can't stand riding in my girlfriends garage every night, and riding solo has got me down.

So far, since January 1st, I have missed a single day of riding. July 11th was the one day that I didn't plan out my day and turned a 8 hour work day into a 16 hour day in San Clemente. Which is okay in the grand scheme of things, but I was really looking forward to a year of riding with no missed days. I think the fact that I did miss that day has been another reason that I've been slacking on my riding.

I'm hoping that today's post will help me light the fire under my butt to really start training, not in the hope to be ready for a race soon since I have an open race calender, but in the hope that I can feel pumped about working out and so that when Fall semester comes at the end of the month, I'll be ready to train with my mates as hard as I can to get ready for the next collegiate season.

March So Far

Finding it hard to set aside time to keep track of my miles on this website, but I'm just glad to be getting on the saddle just as consistently as the previous months. So it's been almost 10 days since the last time I wrote, so some numbers are called for.

March 7: 10.18 miles
March 8: 17.39 miles
March 9: 24.31 miles
March 10: 11.42 miles
March 11: 4.33 miles
March 12: 15 miles ( USC Fight On! Duathlon)
March 13: 18.00 miles
March 14: 10.23 miles
March 15: 21.07 miles

March 7-15 total: 131.93 miles
March 1-6 total: 119.58 miles
March so far: 251.51 miles

Feeling pretty good about the mileage, kinda thought it would be a little higher than 250, but satisfied so far.

3/1-3/6 Break Down

The past couple days have been a blast, a couple days of minimum riding with a couple decent rides. Just a break down of the miles so far:

March 1st: 4.95 miles
March 2nd: 80.16 miles
March 3rd: 6.51 miles
March 4th: 12.46 miles
March 5th: 2 miles
March 6th: 13.5 miles

So far that makes 119.58 miles, which is fairly decent for a 6 day period, but only half of my rides were over 7 miles... So hopefully I'll get a couple more rides in the double digits, even if they're rides that I do later in the day/ evening.

To start, I can't believe I got away with not blogging yesterday. I mean, today is the first day of March, which means that since January 1st, I have been on my bike every single day. For two months. Two. Months. I can't believe it! Looking back on the past month, I haven't been keeping the best track of my mileage. I've been thinking that I've been feeling really strong and pretty confident on the road, and I'm thinking about putting some miles into some crits and actually keeping track of my miles.

So for the month of March, I'm going to stick to using my Garmin everyday while I ride. Also, I want to stick to actually writing everyday, if only to write about how I felt while on the bike that day and to keep a running total of the month, no matter how long or how short the ride is.

March 1st: 4.59 miles, 15 minutes, 294 calories burned, average hr 139.
Since I was riding at night, I stuck to Becca's neighborhood, which is nice because it's well lit and is relatively flat. The problem is that the loop is about 1.57 miles, which gets annoying after a couple laps. To be honest, I got pulled off the road by the Moore's, since I forgot to scrounge through my car for my tail light. Until then, I felt pretty good, just getting enough speed to feel smooth (max: 26mph, avg 18mph). I'm not feeling too bad is that my ride was short, considering tomorrow is going to be a whole bunch of riding.

Long Time no Blog

So it's been quite a while since my last blog. After looking, it's been 2 weeks. Luckily for me, I've been slacking on writing and not on cycling.

I've still managed to get in the saddle every day the past two weeks after my race at UCI. Since then I've raced again, placing fairly well for the race being a duathlon, and I've had a few hard rides, and that's actually what I have to look forward to.

Because I haven't really kept a day to day writing habit, I've lost some of the words I wanted to put down. My first is fairly upsetting: I heard about yet another local cycling fatality, and that's always terribly upsetting to hear. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Britel family, even if I wasn't lucky enough to meet Amine, I was still upset to hear of his passing.

On a lighter side, I've been pretty happy with my past riding days, I've felt fairly strong with plenty of endurance. I'm hoping I don't eat those words on Wednesday when I go for my first century ride. Hopefully during that multi-hour ride I'll be able to find more to write about.

Race Day!

I mean, RACE DAY!!! Oh wow I had a blast today at UCI Zot Trot!! I don't know how to even start talking about it, but there will definitely be plenty of shout outs to this blog.

Before I get going on the race, I will say that I've still been spending plenty of time on the bike, even though I haven't been writing about it everyday: Saturday just a little test riding during/after my tune up at Irvine Bikes by Ethan Yotter, Friday was a freezing but successful bike ride at El Dorado, Thursday was a quick spin indoors, and Wednesday was a SOLID solo ride at El Dorado(and I mean SOLID because not even the wind was able to slow me down). Now, onto the race this morning!

Just had a moment because I couldn't say "early morning wake up" since 5am is now the rule rather than the exception. Spent a lot of that time sitting around waiting for Mom, considering I only got dressed and had a couple of bites of food to eat. Finally got rolling in the truck by about 5:30, grabbed Becca and headed out for UCI's campus. Got into the lot just before sunrise, chatted with team mates and did a few last minute check ups on the bike and shoes. Got to see plenty of smiling faces in transition, might as well shout out all of them now: Nelson Prieto, Veronica Gonzalez, Cheyenne Hayes, Kari Szentesi, Yeshua Farfan, Ben De La Torre, Mark Vishnnevsky, Wes Andreason, Robbie Grant, George Rivas, Ethan Machado, Torry Mendoza, Carleigh Smith, Sean Sommerville, Mark Donovan and his wife, and some competitors like Miles Sonnenfeld, Sean Davis, and Sean Butler. Also, wanted to mention Alex Freitas for making the ride down from Long Beach to join us for a little post race banter.

So to get started: Set up the bike next to Robbie, started unpacking a few things, towel for the feet, flats, glasses, hat, got the other shoes stuck on the pedals, did one last look over the bike, set the helmet in my aerobars, packed up all the loose stuff, grabbed my goggles. Walked Becca and Mom to a corner to set up with a camera, found a bathroom, and hopped in the pool for a warm up. The pool felt a lot like a jacuzzi, but felt good with a little 150 warm up (time got short). Pushed from that wall as #11 and took off!

Felt pretty good through the swim, caught two competitors in front of me, hopped out of the pool and took off for transition. Of course the transition was a ways away from the pool, but once I got there, grabbed the bike, helmet, shades, and took off. Initially, felt a little cold, which I thought was great, got the feet in, and started pounding up the first hill. The bike course went well, felt decent on the turns(could have felt a little more comfortable with the speed), and the U-turns were a pain, but had a lot of fun cranking through the course. Turned in after the 4th lap, still feeling strong and grabbed the flats.

First problem: not adjusting my laces last night. Had to spend a little more time in transition than I initially wanted, but got going pretty quick. Felt sluggish the first mile or so, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the fact that after that, I felt GREAT. Not FAST, but GREAT, which is an okay trade off. I think with a couple bricks and a little more running I should be set for the next few races. The run course was way more forgiving than last year, and was actually fun to run. Still waiting on a final race time, but felt pretty darn good, and like I said, T2 and the run probably were the only places I really could have improved by a whole lot. Of course I'll continue my riding to keep getting stronger and hopefully drop more time from it.

The last thing I want to talk about is my team mates. I've got to say, we've got a solid crew. Everyone was out there looking out for each other and everyone was exited to have friends out there at the race. Also, Cheyenne took a spill on one of the downhills with another cyclist, but like a BADASS, she got back on her bike (after being cleared) and finished the race. A final thought is that I'm really happy to have such a great crew to work with. Hopefully more blogging and definitely more riding soon!

One Week

Just starting to think that my first race is only a week away. I can definitely feel a little nervous, a little worried, but plenty of excited. Had a pretty good ride today, headed out to the UCI Zot Trot bike course with plenty of friends and team mates. Felt pretty good on the downhills, a little slow on the turns, but I think the race is going to be very fun.

Yesterday was pretty calm, just a small group ride for about thirty miles. Not really too much to say, just a fun ride along the coast. Actually looking forward to a little spin tomorrow. My thinking is to not really slow down the training this week, maybe relax a bit Friday and Saturday, maybe a little Thursday. Just looking to get back in the saddle tomorrow.

8 Days Away

As the title refers to, my collegiate season starts in 8 days. It's crazy to think how quick it came up and I'm surprised at how relaxed about it I am. I just got out of the water after just a grand of swimming, but if the race was this Sunday instead of next Sunday, I think I would have pretty similar results. My swimming has been on the back burner for a while, but that will change this coming week. I would definitely like to have run a bunch more, but I've surprised myself. I feel pretty strong for the most of my runs, better than I've ever felt, and I'm looking to start upping the distance in my running to get ready for the Oceanside Rohto 70.3.

What I'm really looking forward to is the cycling course at UCI. Now I've been complaining to just about everyone that will listen to me about cycling, but with the amount of time I've spent in the saddle I feel like UCI is going to be a good race for me. It would be nice to see if UCI has splits this year, they definitely didn't last year, especially to see how I match up against my teammates. What I'm looking for is not so much if they destroyed me or I them on the bike, but I want to compare. I've always thought of myself as average when it comes to comparing my cycling to the likes of Yeshua Farfan, Ben de La Torre, Joel Fitzpatrick, and Dustin Clow (not to mention a couple of our current and past females like Kari Szentesi, Gena Mckeown, and Michelle Voelker).

Feeling pretty good after the teams solid El Dorado ride this morning, despite the fantastically freezing 41 degree temperature. Looking forward to a couple solid rides this weekend, probably will end up riding the UCI course one more time before the big day. Hopefully I'll be able to write a little more consistently.

31 Down. 334 To Go.

So today is January 31st, and after riding tonight, I've ridden 31 days in a row. It actually feels really awesome to be able to continue this, and it's nice to know that I have been able to maintain it for a month straight. So far I guess I've done alright, but I feel like I could be riding better. That's probably just a thought stuck in my head after today, but I felt like I had to write it.

Over the past few bike rides in the street, I've felt pretty damn good. I've been feeling solid on uphills, a little more confident on the downhills (still need more work though), and I've surprised myself on some flats with some solid riding. I think I'll have better things to say by the end of February, but for the first month of 2011 I think it's been a good month.

My thought that I could be better probably just comes from today's spin. I got on my bike in the garage thinking I would get a good ride in, I had some music ready to go, and I felt good as soon as I started pedaling. I started to have problems with my stomach and eventually I had to slow to a stop. Afterward, I've attributed it to eating and riding too close together, kinda  like swimming too soon. It was really upsetting to have to stop in the middle of the ride, especially when I was feeling good and ready to get some work done.

Work tomorrow early in the morning, a few classes, a rush to work in Lake Forest, and then hopefully a solid spin in the garage. Definitely going to get out on the street Wednesday or Thursday, and it's high time for a good cleaning of the bike. With one month behind me and a new one coming tomorrow, I'm excited to keep this resolution up and doubly excited to race in just a couple weeks!

Cold Kinda

I love California. It's one of the last days of January, and the past few days have been at least in the 70's during the day.Where else can you enjoy such awesome weather in the middle of winter? The caveat is that these early mornings and late nights have been fantastically freezing! Tonight, for the bare minimum of time on the bike, and Thursday were both on the trainer, which isn't too bad, although it gets a little lonely.

Yesterday is the ride I want to pay more attention to. In the hope of riding with the CSULB Triathlon team and to get to 8am class on time, I left home at 0dark00, a.k.a. 5am to reach El Dorado Park early enough to get some good riding in. Rolling at 6am didn't seem to be all that bad an idea, until I remembered to check the thermometer in my car: 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Um brrr. Not only that, but the iPhone app for weather felt fine to tell me there was a 4 degree drop due to wind chill. Luckily, I'd thought it would be "a little cold", so I had some warm gear. Definite new rule: always keep the full fingered gloves in the truck.

Had a decent little warm up with Ethan Machado in the park, just trying to defrost our fingertips. When everything was said and done, repeats of 2 laps at hard tempo 1 lap recover, we finished about 18 miles. I'm always stoked to have someone to ride with, guaranteed I would be unhappy at best if I were cycling in such cold, at such an early morning by myself. A picture to come from the morning, just before the sun was up, capturing the moon in a good light.

Looking forward to riding  through UCI tomorrow in the hope of understanding the new course and hopefully delivering a solid performance in a couple weeks. More to come after tomorrow's ride.

Group Ride, FINALLY!

So I haven't blogged in the past few days because though I've enjoyed my riding on my indoor trainer, sometimes it's straight up BORING! Thank God for teammates today, though, finally breaking the monotony of cycling indoors. Had a nice little run this early afternoon with a group of the guys from the CSULB Triathlon team, got going pretty quick, at least by my standards, and had enough people to head out for a little ride.

Firstly, I'm incredibly jealous of at least 4 guys on the team, with their brand new Felt B16's, which I got to hop on one for a couple minutes. Definitely jealous, but hopefully somewhere down the road I can find the cash for something along those lines. Headed out down PCH for Huntington Beach. Loved the breeze and gusts, definitely missed them while confined indoors.

We decided to push it heading back through Bolsa Chica, and I'm sad to say that Dustin, one of our ex-teammates who was able to come out for a ride, dropped his chain for a good minute. I was looking forward to racing him back through the wind, but it sounded like I held him off pretty well. Finished the ride with a little In N Out, probably not the best idea but definitely the best tasting one.

Kinda hoping to get back on the road tomorrow rather than cooped up in a garage, but if not, maybe I'll have some big epiphany to write about. Really hoping for one of those considering I haven't really had one for a week or so. Just feeling satisfied that by Tuesday I will have completed a month of cycling every day of 2011.

Snow Day

Didn't really have too much time on the bike today, having gone to Snow Summit this morning. After work and buying a new computer, I finally found a few minutes to get on the bike. Spun for a bit, using only one leg at a time, trying to see where in my stroke I'm lacking. Going to be putting that new found knowledge to work soon. Back tomorrow after a meeting in Long Beach.

Chicken

No, not just chicken, the white meat that I enjoyed for dinner tonight, but really chicken as in the Back to the Future "What's-wrong-McFly-chicken?" type of chicken. I've been avoiding blogging the past couple days because I've convinced myself I-don't-have-enough-to-blog-about. Well today I finally sat my butt down, waited for my laundry and wrote a blog.

Wednesday ride: To further the theme, I played chicken with myself today. I kept trying to make excuses for putting of today's ride. I didn't ride with the team this morning because "i was too tired after giving blood yesterday". Which looking back on in some 18 hours later, is a really crap excuse after committing to going. Finally got my butt in the saddle at Becca's house for a 20 minute spin, trying to focus on a little technique, just holding solid aero and trying to keep my stroke consistent without bouncing. Not too long on the trainer, but tripping sweat by the end of it.

Tuesday ride: Felt like seeing a change of scenery, so I travelled down to San Clemente State Beach, socialized with a couple of the permanent lifeguards down there, had myself a good run with plenty of push ups and sit ups in the sand. The water felt glorious, probably a good 59 degrees. Ran back up to the truck, and heading out for 21 miles, passing through Trestles, San O', the power plant, rode through Trails, and did a little riding on Camp Pendleton's turf. Felt pretty strong, and loved the view of the ocean for most of the ride.

Monday's ride: Just a little solo ride from Becca's house to Jamboree. Nothing too special, just felt like pedalling on mostly flat roads. Feeling like I want to hold a better average mph, hoping to prove to myself I can hold like 22mph as an average by doing 22 or 44 miles in an hour or two. Something to keep looking at, probably will take a little work to get there. Just hoping for fast rides.

Sunday's ride: Today was kind of a joke. To be fair, I woke up with the urge to throw up, and I've been blaming that on the meal I had the night before, which despite the puke I definitely do not regrett. On top of that, I went airsofting today and it just so happens I was lucky and unlucky in the same second. Now, I wear mouth and eye protection, just your normal shooting range glasses and flag football mouth guard, but some how as I advanced from a shrub to another, one of my "enemies" shot a BB round and it happened to pass both my upper and lower teeth, lucky, and struck my in the uvula(the punching bag in the back of your throat), unlucky. Which of course caused me to immediately and violently throw up. So later Sunday, I managed to hop on the trainer and stick it through 15 minutes. Wasn't too please with the amount of time or effort, but for the day that I had and for the recovery I needed from Saturday's hill repeats, I'll take it.

Tomorrow brings Snow Summit with Becca and Courtney, hopefully I'll find time to ride without sitting on the trainer. If I have to be stuck indoors, then I'll just have to put in a solid hour and look forward to a nice long ride on Friday.

Up, Down, Up, Down, Hill Repeats, yay

Today went on some hill repeats with ex team mate Dustin Clow up Newport Coast Drive on the western side of the street. I have to say, did not feel as strong as I thought I'd been feeling on hills. Even after taking it easy yesterday, I was surprised to be dragged along by Dustin. The scenery was absolutely amazing, especially atop Vista Park Road, and feeling a bit more comfortable with 40 mph downhills after today, but will definitely incorporate both sides of that street in the very near future.

Today: no title

A cool 21.25 miles today, glad to get out for a bit. Felt like exploring, so headed down Barranca rather than Alton, looking for some big numbers tomorrow, going to start by taking the same route out but going to head towards Newport on Jamboree and figure out a way home. Legs feeling a little tired, but the definite pain is coming from the saddle. Not looking forward to dropping cash on a new saddle, but that might have to happen soon in the future. Looking forward to a run in the morning with Becca and then an adventurous bike ride in the early afternoon!

100%! Finally!

Today definitely marks the last of my "recovery" days. After being legitimately sick for one day and trying just rest up the past two days, I know that tomorrow is going to be a great ride, getting away from the distances like today and yesterday, and stepping it up. Today I just felt like climbing a Bake Parkway a couple times and cruise down, try to get my head into a little speed control.

I don't know how it's happened, but since going up to the WCCTC training camp this past fall, I have not considered myself confident enough in downhill speed control. I thought I was pretty comfortable on my wheels, but I think some of the hills up there got under my skin. Since then, I've been trying to work on getting my mind around it and get more comfortable with downhill speed.

I guess my real probably is just knowing more hills to bomb down. It's never the downhill that bothers me. It's the fact that this awesome hill I'm going down at 40, 45, maybe 45+ mph is a great hill, and I don't know that there happens to be a 90 degree turn coming up in about 400 feet.

So here's to finding more hills, getting used to their layout, understanding which hills break harder than others, and getting comfortable enough on them. Weather forecast looks great for tomorrows ride!

Little to Say

Today and tomorrow are combined posts considering there's not much to write about for either of them. The fact is I got sick Saturday and could feel it coming on that night. Sunday morning found me congestive, achy, cold, and annoyed. I've been fortunate to not have gotten sick for about a year now, but of course it happens not even two weeks into my goal of riding, not to mention right in the middle of my break from school. Luckily, I was able to squeeze some time in the saddle the past two days. Yesterday (Sunday) I was able to cruise around campus a little bit, despite the cold I still really enjoyed rolling around in the near dark, and then today I was able to hop on for a  little longer.

As I'm writing, I feel like I'm at about 90%, which has me excited considering yesterday around 11 I wanted nothing more than to sit in front of the tv all day and have my girlfriend pamper me. So even though today's 25 minute ride wasn't anything to shout about, I was able to ride, like I wanted to, and I've been able to rest up. Tomorrow is looking good for a ride day, good weather and hopefully I'll be back to 100%. However, even if I am back to 100%, just might take it easy, looking for about 18-20 miles tomorrow.

Looking forward to getting back in gear and looking forward to writing about it tomorrow!

A Two Day Recap

Today marks a week since the start of my blogging and cycling adventure! It's hard to believe how many miles I've already logged: Last Saturday was 15.4 miles, Sunday was 23.1, Monday was a decent spin workout on the indoor trainer, Tuesday was 27 miles, Wednesday was 14 miles, Thursday was 29 miles, yesterday was 32.2, and today ended at 34.25. Whoa. For other cyclists, 174.95 miles might seem like a decent number, to me though, that seems enormous. I just spoke with Becca and her mom, and my thoughts before calculating the total was that I might have hit 120. Never in the few years that I've been riding, have I clocked as many hours on the bike. I'm pretty happy with just shy of 175, but what really gets me thinking is the 53 weeks left in this year.

I want to start off by thanking a few people: Ethan Yotter and the guys at Bike Religion in Newport. Ethan gets a shout out for the ride suggestion he made for my Friday ride, which I welcome plenty of other people suggest rides for me to do. I believe Ethan called it "Tour de OC", which I immediately felt was a misnomer. Despite that fact, I couldn't believe the ride I took.  I took a very simple route, just following El Toro road into Santiago Canyon, following it to Jamboree, hopping onto Irvine Blvd before heading home. Here, a picture of Irvine Lake, hopefully shares a little bit of the view I had while on my ride.

The first 10 miles we definitely the hardest for me, not feeling too strong trying to spin up some of the leading rolling hills into the canyon.  While climbing the first major uphill, I looked at my heart rate monitor and my single thought was "these next 20 miles are going to kill me". It was the first legitimate downhill that made my mentality do a 180. I've always loved the feeling of adrenaline being pumped through my body, which probably explains the addiction to things like cycling, airsofting, and roller coasters. That first downhill really woke me up, not that I wasn't paying attention earlier in the ride, but I was suddenly more aware, focused only on the next 50 meters in front of me.

Other than a close call with a human sized pothole, the rest of the ride went smoothly, and for that I thank Ethan again. And onward to today's ride, which I would like to thank Yeshua Farfan and the rest of the crew (John, George, and Justin) at Bike Religion. Today's morning ride was a blast, not because we killed the asphalt, but because we stuck together through Newport and Laguna until Yeshua and I turned around on the outskirts of Dana Point. To be honest, heading back was fun, but tough to keep up with Yesh. After convincing Yesh to bail so he could get a few more miles in, I continued until I reached Bike Religion.

I guess I'd like to finish today's post by stating that I look forward to a leisurely spin tomorrow in the garage as a recovery and to start cranking more miles in this coming week. I know I'm limited on followers right now, but, in the event that someone reads this that is a cyclist, I'm looking for new exciting and  challenging rides, and I hope to get some more group riding together. Until next time, thanks to those of you that have read my blog for the past week.

Practice Practice Practice

Today's ride will have to be written about tomorrow, there's plenty I want to write about, but work is in a few hours in Long Beach, so I'll at least insert the pictures in this post and then write about it tomorrow when I have some free time.

Robbie Grant, Kari Szentesi, and George Rivas.

Ben De La Torre

Leidy Vazquez

Yeshua Farfan working at Bike Religion

I'd like to start by saying that yesterdays bike ride was a blast. No matter who the company is, I love making it out for a group ride. Seven of us from the CSULB Triathlon Club team were able to head out for a ride down PCH, and luckily the weather was just about perfect for us. A bit of cloud cover kept the air chilly, but the roads were dry, clear, and mostly empty. Yesterdays ride took a little longer than expected; while riding from Long Beach to Jamboree was the goal, we had to cut it short in Newport to stop by Bike Religion.

Like the title suggests, I want this post to talk about practicing. Everyone that participates in triathlon at any level, like the collegiate athletes on our team and in our conference, the professionals, or the full time middle aged athletes have to find some way to balance the rest of their lives and their training. What tends to happen, at least in my case and in the case of some people I talk to about training, is that while training is very important to us, it sometimes takes the back burner way too easily.

As with the swimmers I coach, some of them are discovering how easy it can be to fall out of the flow of practice. Granted it's a little easier for some of them to get to practice because their parents force them to go, but it holds true with swimming as much as it does for triathlon: once you fall out of your training habits for too many days, it's hard to start back up. If my kids, or myself as an example, are practicing five nights a week, and all of a sudden sickness keeps them away for a week, it tends to take at least a week or a week and a half of training to get back in the swing of things.

I guess the point that I'm trying to make through all my rambling is that what I want to see from myself, my team mates, and the kids I train is consistency. Since I've started this blog, I've been very consistent in my riding. For the first week of 2011 my kids have been consistent in their training. My hope is that my team mates have been consistent in their training, and that my kids and I can maintain our consistency.

Hopefully today's second post will contain more organized thoughts. Looking forward to a interesting bike ride this afternoon.

Recovery Ride

Recovery Ride (1/5/2011)

Since the start of what I thought would be a great resolution this year of getting out and doing something I love, I’ve had a few concerned friends about the long run of my goal. I think today is a good day to write about this because it needs to get addressed sooner or later, and since today’s ride was one of recover, it seems appropriate. The main concern as always is preventing injury. Since my goal is to ride every day this year, it follows that I have no days for true “recovery”.  Before I press on with recovery, I want to address the other issue that’s been brought up: burn out.

Because of swimming my whole life, I’ve seen plenty of friends go through burn out. During my senior year of high school, I experienced it as well for about 2.5 months. Some friends felt that swimming had become too monotonous, some had injuries to deal with and never really got back into the flow of things, and some had just been swimming since age 5 and had had enough. In my experience, I had a little bit of a falling out with swimming, I had been busting my butt working for my Eagle Scout rank in Boy Scouts, and I just didn’t have the time to train. In light of how little training I was doing, my times suffered, and because of that, I began to feel burnt out.

Now I hope I don’t eat my words later on in the year, but I just don’t see that happening to me with this year of cycling. Granted I’m at school full time, trying to balance two jobs, a girlfriend, a social life, and two other sports, every time I strap into my shoes and head out for a ride is like my first ride all over again. Sure nowadays I’m mostly out to train, kill myself on some uphills, bomb some downhills, and compete as much as I can against my team mates, but every time I ride I think the same thing: “today’s a beautiful day for a ride, I can’t believe that this play thing is providing me with a work out, gosh it’s beautiful out why don’t I appreciate this while I’m driving in my car, and I should do this every day”. So far the only way I foresee burn out in my future is if there’s some God awful rain storm that keeps me indoors for over a week and a half.

Back to RECOVERY! In capitals, because yes, I understand how important it is to my training. I understand the mechanics, I understand what I’m putting my body through, and for the umpteenth time, I know I need rest. I know that The chances of injury go up the longer and harder I ride.

 The thing is, I got this crazy idea in my head to take up a challenge. I’ve been so hit and miss on being consistent on works ever since I left a truly structured team, why not? I’m driven, I love the sport since my first road bike was given to me as a gift by my girlfriend, I see myself doing this for as long as possible, and I’m competitive. I want to compete against myself as much as I want to compete against my team mates. If that means I compete against myself on my trainer or on the road, so be it.  I want to ride every day, and because of that, I’m going to ride every day.

Back to today’s ride. My goal is to put in miles, and today did that at the lowest possible rate. I think the hardest thing about today’s ride was that I wouldn’t let myself push… myself. Normally I like to catch everyone’s wheel on the street, but since today was a recovery ride, I had to literally force myself to take the ride slow. Half way through I stopped in at Irvine Bikes, definitely one of if not my favorite bike shops around for a quick check up on the bike. After hanging out for a bit, cruised back home before some refueling at Corner Bakery.  Looking forward to riding with a few of the CSULB Triathlon crew tomorrow morning and writing about it later.

(picture of Moe protecting Irvine Bikes)

Share The Road

It's the last few minutes of 1/4/11, so I want to get in a quick few words about how today's ride went in. I managed to get in 27 miles from my house, circling around UCI, and heading home. The ride had plenty of ups, like feeling great the first 10 miles and getting to chat with a few triathlete friends along the way (thanks Yeshua, Kari, and Yousseff) and downs, like getting honked and screamed at by 15 different cars through UCI's campus and along University Drive. All in all, today was picture perfect conditions for cycling, or taking in the view with a cigar in hand like two UCI students were at the top of UCI's campus. Hoping for an equally beautiful day tomorrow.

Late Start

Today was a collection of speed bumps for me and cycling: waking up later than intended, discovering rain outside, eating a double wrapped burrito at Chipotle, having to head into work this afternoon. So when seven o'clock was getting closer, I started getting anxious about my resolution for this year. Of course, I knew what situation I backed myself into.

Oh yes, my bike stuck in place with my stationary. When comparing all the exercising I've done through my life, this is probably the most boring, even more than chasing the black line in a 25 yard pool. At least with the pool, I'm moving forward. On top of being stuck in place, I'm continually plagued with the thought of: how much longer do I need to spin before I'm satisfied with my workout?

Hopefully my solution today will help with the rainy days of the future: music, stop watch, and a game plan before I hop on. It took a few minutes to figure out what I wanted to do, but here's what I came up with on the fly. The first 3 minutes was just a little warm up, followed by:

5 minutes of finding my favorite gears,

4 times through of: 1 minute climb on the hubs, 2 minutes tempo on the aerobars, 2 minutes holding cadence in relaxed gear

and finally 1 minute climb on the hubs, 3 minutes tempo on the aerobars, and 1 minute sprint in the drops.

Finished with a 5 minute cool down. (38 minutes total)

If I take anything from today, it's that I really, really, really don't want to be stuck on the trainer if I can avoid it. With that in mind, tomorrow will certainly be a immensely better if the weather forecast holds true. Looking forward to another day of cycling.

A Rainy Afternoon

Today marked the second day of my new resolution, and so far it's gone off great. I can hear the rain falling outside right now and I'm just incredibly grateful I got myself out of bed this morning for a ride. Today was a chilly but comfortable for a solo ride through some of Lake Forest and Irvine. After leaving home, started off by thinking I just wanted to circle the Great Park (riding the border streets of Irvine Blvd, Sand Canyon, and coming back along Alton Parkway), but decided to put a few miles in Irvine and just heading to Culver before taking Alton most of the way home. Traffic seemed light the whole way other than Culver, and no real complaints. Snapped a nice picture of Saddleback while getting some water on the side of Alton. Altogether, for a solo 23.1 miles, it was quite a blast. Looking forward to riding tomorrow afternoon, with or without a group, and looking to continue my quest for a year long bike long.

A Ride a Day

Every New Years, many people make a resolution to either lose weight, get to the gym, or "get healthy". When asked what my New Years resolution was, I didn't have any solid ideas. I'm young enough that I can get away with eating whatever I want, throw in a couple workouts a week and break even. Like most people over the age of 18 that train for triathlon, balancing school, work, homework, work, social life, and training sometimes seems insurmountable. Over the past few months I've tried to keep myself accountable through different ways, with hit and miss success. So with the New Year, I've decided to keep track of my daily workouts online, and to finish the year with at least 365 rides, or a ride a day. Luckily for me, rain won't be a problem with the help of my indoor trainer. My hope is to keep track of every ride, daily, with at least keeping track of distance traveled or time spent on the trainer, the occasional heart rate, and who I can convince to tag along with me on my rides.

And with the first day of 2011 coming to a close, it's about time for what my ride was today. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get in on a giant group ride in Lake Forest or Long Beach, but was able to convince Todd Winkler to go for a quick ride to the Canyon. Up Lake Forest Drive and up Glen Ranch Road led us into Santiago Canyon, past Cook's Corner. Due to some light issues and dinner plans, we turned around before getting too deep in the Canyon. On the way back, Todd made a point of how quickly he could descend, but the uphills proved to be in my favor.

A quick 15.4 mile ride was plenty to start the new year, and tomorrow will be plenty more.