TT Cross Training Thread

“sun Temp: 95F-88F
ROAD CYCLING (Rio Grande past central at 5:30 pm). 20.50 miles. Time: 1:30:00 (4:23/mile).
Foundation (Max 126 HR)
Weight: 187 Avg. HR: 128 Max HR: 148 Shoes: Cannondale R800 (2679.2 miles)
NOTES: ride time was 2hr, workout time more like 1:30, had a goathead puncture, even with Armadillos it did me in. Seemed like my Slime was going to seal it, but never really quite did. Pumped up tire 4 times in the last half of the ride. Blustery wind from distant T-storms, headwind on outbound, slight tail on return. No road runner but a hawk and a kestrel, lizard running between my tires.”

“UPlover - you ever ride the Kal-Haven trail? I know it's a little north of you but 34 miles out and back looks like a nice little Lake MI shore bike/camp outing.”

“that sounds like a nice time to do some low intensity, fun and nice riding and sight seeing on a bike.”

“Yeah Pathman it does. It's fun to train but it's supposed to be fun. Some of us have a warped sense of pleasure, eh? :-D”

“I'm only supposed to do some active recovery on my bike today. Just 30 min. :(”

“sun and clouds wind Temp: 88F
ROAD CYCLING (Rio Grande-Alameda to Rio Bravo, Retour at 2:00 pm). 27.60 miles. Time: 1:50:00 (3:59/mile).
Foundation.
Avg. HR: 120 Max HR: 148 Cannondale R800 (206.8 miles)
NOTES: great ride, Stomps took me from 10 to 25 or 30 mph in 15 seconds. Nice day, except wind from distant storms. Saw roadrunner with freshly caught lizard. Drive home with full arch, double rainbow in distance, sandias in background.”

“I saw a double rainbow yesterday at around the same time! Whoa

Rest day here. If that means house and lawn work, caring for my horse, grocery shopping.....I caught up on sleep after 30 hours without. Between work and racing all night it's amazing how much sleep you need to recover. Muscles are fine no stiffness/soreness. Just feel like sleeping all day. I'm fighting it cause it could cause chaos with sleep the rest of the week. Can't afford that.”

“So you survived the night riding!”

“Yeah, but about 60% of the singletrack was more like "running with bikes" :-( We don't do a lot of that technical stuff in most races. I need to work even harder on my skills.”

“saw your trip report, will read later this afternoon. hike with bike eh.”

“saw this on the local area running clubs website, thought a lot of you guys could probably relate.

May 12
Jim Copeland returns.

Getting Through It

I raced a half ironman last weekend. Had a good race but at about 5 miles into the run I felt so bad I was reduced to walking. I recovered and ran the remaining 7 or 8 miles but it got me to thinking about other times.......

Often, the most difficult part of a race is some ill-defined midpoint. You haven’t gone far enough to be really tired but you aren’t fresh and you have sooooo far to go. In an ironman it is usually around 90 miles on the bike. You have been out there for five or six hours and haven’t even started the marathon. It seems insurmountable and it’s easy to feel like you should just quit. From what I’ve seen in 50 mile runs it is around 35 miles. In a 10K, miles 3 and 4 get pretty hard. There can be a crushing feeling of inadequacy and doubt.

There are two ways to go. The easy way out is to give it up. You know there is no way you are going to have a good race and you were just stupid for even starting this thing.

So you slow down and, what do you know, you were right. It was a horrible race.

The other way is harder at the moment but much more satisfying at the end of the day. The key is recognizing that mid-race depression for what it is – it’s all in your mind. Recognize that and you can be ready for it and if you are ready, sometimes it doesn’t even happen.

Now expand this. If it happens in a race, it happens in training too. I have had some training rides where I was ready to cry in the middle because I was so far from home and was so tired and nobody even cared and they weren’t tired anyway. It’s the same mental thing. Go a step farther. It’s still two months till the marathon and you have been running lots and lots of miles and you’re not getting any faster and you’re tired all the time and.....what’s the use. Might as well back off.

If you don’t back off at mile 3 or 35 or month 4 in your schedule, then that’s where discovery starts. You’ll find that you didn’t have to back off at all. You’ll discover that just because you are tired doesn’t mean you have to slow down. You will become a different person and you’ll like it. Until you have been there, you can’t imagine what it’s like to race 100% or have the ‘never get tired’ feeling of completed training.

All that you have to do is – get through it.”

“Rode about 10 yesterday pretty slow (had BowlderSon with me, although he actually rode quite well). Then ran almost the same course this morning in a hair under 75 minutes - faster than I expected!”

“Thanks for the article Roam. I know that feeling well.

It's cool that you ride with your son Bowlderman. Sounds trite but you must be really proud of him.”

“sun Temp: 85F
ROAD CYCLING (Rio Grande, Full Route+ at 3:00 pm). 34.40 miles. Time: 2:30:00 (4:21/mile).
Foundation.
Weight: 188 Avg. HR: 120 Max HR: 148 Shoes: Cannondale R800 (241.2 miles)
NOTES: Roadrunner day. Did full Rio Grande Route and had time leftover, crossed the ped/bike/horse bridge over the Rio. Great day, felt great. 1 liter of gatorade and 2-3 liters of water, haven't had any night cramps since. Baked low fat triscuits on bike, powerbar at car. Headwind heading out, (?10mph)tail back, did great keeping HR less than 126. Only when hit by gust or short hills, passing. Very few on the trail, finished at nice time. Great skies.


Week total:

Road Cycling: 129.5 miles, 5 days.
Avg. Pace: 4:12/mile

Mountain Cycling:
Time: 1 day, 30min”

“mistake there, it was 5 days road cycling, two days active recovery on mtn bike. Good week.”

“Hills are killing me. I'm not efficient. I have the strength and can definitely keep going but seem to spend soooo much energy. My next race will entail sections totalling 70 miles of hilly riding. :-(

Ride hillier sections of my bike path route 2 times a week. 1 easy ride putting long miles in. 1 day mountain biking area trails to gain skills.

Does that sound logical? That plus start looking at bikes that weigh less than 27 lbs. :-D

Way to go Pathman! Sounds like you have some beautiful areas to ride.”

“Cool article Roam, I can definitely relate!
Pathman - sounds like a good week!
dhutch - 70 miles of offroad hills???
I have problems with 70 miles of hills on my road bike!!
And Pathman's riding territory does sound a little better than the corn fields I get to ride thru...lol”

“Riding in NM is very good!”

“dhutch, no expert here, but you might want to consider doing intervals to train for the hills. What I am learning is that you want to stress the system enough to cause improvement during recovery, but not enough to cause injury from long term repetitive stress. My Ride for the Roses is in the Hill Country around Austin, that is particular question I have for my coach. I'll keep you posted.”

“UP - 70 miles of varied terrain. Road, dirt road (probably most of it), double and singletrack. You never know with these race organizer guys. The riding will be sandwiched somewhere between 20 miles of hiking/running/orienteering and around 15 miles of canoeing. Throw in some rappeling and ascending and you have a 30 hour adventure race. :-D Yahoooooo!

Race organizer = sadist

I picked up that Carmicheal training book yesterday. Although I won't have time to complete the training cycle (only have 4 weeks) I hope to gain some insight to the biomechanics stuff. Plus it looks to have some in depth and comprehensible information on utilizing my heretofore boxed HRM.”

“dhutch, there is another book Carmichael wrote with Lance, a cycling, but compressed into 7 weeks. My gist is that you can compress the ideas into a shorter period, but you don't reap the full benefit of the Foundation and Preparation periods, which he considers the base for more specialized training to reach peak.”

“Pathman, you are a wealth of knowledge. I think that's the book I just bought, The Lance Armstrong Performance Program. 7 weeks to the perfect ride. Haven't had a chance to get far into it. Better skip to the good parts. :-)

Interval training yes. I use it in running, but I'm probably to lax about it with cycling. Time to ramp it up.”

“I decided to add rowing to my workouts. So after my 6 mile run tonite I hoped on the rower and did a meager 1.54 miles. WOW what a difference in how I feel, I usually dont tire too much from running, the rowing wore me out!”

“dang birch I got tired just reading that....lol
I was all set to do some of that softball cross training tonight, but mother nature had other plans so I guess my legs get a break today :)”

“Temp: 70F
ROAD CYCLING (Home Tramway Rd, Paseo at 9:00 pm). Time: 1:15:00
Foundation.
Weight: 189 Max HR: 126 Shoes: Cannondale R800 (2741.2 miles)
NOTES: Dark ride. Early morning meeting, late work, dinner, family time, didn't get out till 900 pm. Very nice and cool. Stomps, overall the ride seemed very easy. Not much of a problem keeping HR down on climb to Tramway. North-south running roads in area make good places for the Stomps.

My CTS training schedule is now mapped all the way to my Century on Oct 17. Starting my second week, things seem to be going well.”

“Going well until tonight. I was scheduled for a 2.25 hour ride after work, instead I will be at work several more hours working up cancer cases. Ironic, eh. If I get out, it'll be in the dark again. :(

My Peloton Project Page, Lance Armstrong Foundation”

“It's such a bummer when work gets in the way. Happens waaay too often. But you have to support the habit, eh?”

“yep, cancer was on the offensive yesterday. Today is another day.

Live Strong”

“Wow. We are interviewing an olympic class cyclist for a position here. That could be interesting!”

“new training buddy?”

“more like coach! She's into pursuit/sprints.”

“"She's into pursuits"
BONUS for you!”

“LOL. I already work in a place full of women, some of whom did the Mt. Taylor Winter Quad as a relay. Run, bike, ski, snowshoe up and reverse down.”

“Thursday,
Aug 19, 2004
Temp: 66F
Road Cycling
Foundation
9:30 pm
24 miles
1:30:00 (3:45/mile) Weight: 188
Max HR:
126
Cannondale R800 (2765.2 miles)
night ride, sprinkles and cool at first, got chlled put on warmers and jacket, stopped raining got warm, took them off. Nice night. Cool! Riding N to S stepping up towards the foothills made a nice simulation of the Texas Hill Country. No road runners at night, but lots of cottontails and the smell of wet sagegrasses and chamisa.”

“18 miles/ 1 hour

Time for dinner and a glass of Reisling!”

“I had a "No workout" weekend. Spent lots of time with my horse.

My bike needs a major overhaul after 4 races dragging it through all sorts of stuff. Plus ...after as rough a week as I had, I just couldn't mentally or physically handle any more. For once I listened to my body and it "just said no". I even cancelled out on a kayak rescue class with my friends. :-(

Have you ever had days like that?”

“dhutch, you did the right thing. There are days when you just need to do nothing but relax. Of course taking care of Iggy isn't a piece of cake. So in a way you worked out riding and grooming him.”

“smart to listen to your body and take a break. You probably needed the mental break as much as anything else.

Now you can get back on your normal routine with a "fresh head".”

“Roam, sounds like lettuce.

I found that although I knew to listen to my body there was a guilty feeling that was hard to shake. Am I addicted to my workouts?

You're right Roam, my stress level has been over the top for too long and yes, Ewker, grooming and riding Iggy along with participating in a social barn clean up was some sort of work. So nice to be in our new stable!!”

“You probably are addicted to the wrok outs - they tend to become self perpetuating after you get into the routine.

Maybe we came up with a new fitness term.

"luttuce time" - the break you take to get a fresh head.”

“Not touching THAT one!!! lol”

“nothing like taking a break and getting a fresh head!!!”

“here is a article on some excerises you can do to improve those cross training activites

Excerises for various muscles”

“Heya hutchie, I have a bunch of friends that are body builders, weight lifters, etc....you know gym rats :) and they all say ya need to schedule a week off every 8-12 weeks not only to let your body physically recuperate but also for your mental well being :)
Ewker - thanks for the link I'm always looking for new exercises to add to my list :)”

“Thanks for enabling UP ;-D I feel better already. Shanedoggy and I went on our morning run and it felt great!”

“So yesterday while I was running, my daughter wanted to come with me. So, she rode her bike (shes 10) while I did my 3 miles.

It was kinda fun! - Towards the end she complained that I was going too slow. lol - she also commented that I sweated a LOT!”

“SO COOL!”

“1.5 hours of foundation miles, 2 sets of Powerstarts, 4 intervals each set, a meteor, sunrise and chasing cottontails. Can I take a nap now?”

“You may nap :-D”

“Here ya go, Michigan Paddlers:

http://www.freep.com/news/health/funfit24_20040824.htm”