Love on Two Wheels

For anyone who has ever learned how to ride a bike, there is a certain amount of nostalgia when you remember the first time you stayed up under your own power.  That moment when you were in control of a speed much faster than you could get while simply running.  I remember the little blue banana seat bike my dad had adjusted so it could fit my 4 year old frame.  I rode non-stop for weeks after that experience and I've had a bike ever since.  When I was eleven I started a paper route and rode my bike every day of the week delivering papers for the next five years.  This picture is not me, but it could have been.

After I got my driver's license my dad bought me a Vespa 150.  I could get 77 miles per gallon on that hog.  It allowed me to go back and forth from school, work and soccer practice feeling the wind on my face.  I remember taking my girlfriend (now wife) on some wild rides on the freeway.  This is where I learned about drafting.  We got up to 75 mph once while drafting behind an 18-wheeler.  Not smart, but definitely exhilirating. 

I went on my 2-year church mission to Riverside, California.  In my mission you were more likely to have a car than not.  I was lucky, I was only in a car for 3 months.  The other 21 months I was on a bike in perpetually warm Southern California.  I loved it. 

Now I ride my road bike for fun.  I love crossing the finish line of an event with my family there.  This you-tube video posted by someone else, actually shows me crossing the finish line with my family on the side holding up signs and cheering. 

It's quite romantic really; the thought of riding off into the sunset.  No one ever talks about driving off into the sunset.

 

Vive le Velo!

Lance’s Best Defense: The Te’o Effect

The recent headlines that have stolen the countries attention have been Manti Te’o and the girlfriend that may have only ever existed in his head.  There have been stories from teammates, press releases from Notre Dame, an NFL player’s public testimony that she actually exists and an alleged friend of the fictionally deceased girl being interviewed on ESPN.  This interview took place over the phone I might add.  Wasn’t that Te’o’s big mistake, trusting the voice of a person he’d never seen?  ESPN should know better. 

With all of the sadness and disappointment coming from this story at numerous levels, there is one person who has likely welcomed this flurry of headlines coming out of the sports world like a warm invisibility cloak.  Lance Armstrong.  The fact that everyone in the free world knew Lance was guilty months, if not years before he hit Oprah’s couch made his story much less compelling.  The Te’o story isn’t just a sports story but one that has crossed over to the tabloids.  This has provided Lance with a bit of a smoke screen as he makes an admission that has been over a decade in the making.  On the other hand, had Te’o’s story never happened the only thing the sports world would have had to offer mainstream news would have been the NFL playoffs headlined by Ray Lewis’ impending retirement.  Lance’s story would have dwarfed that.  If Lance’s admission had been unexpected and hit the papers at the same time the Te’o story did this may be a much better scenario for Manti and the University.  The press would have found Lance’s story much more newsworthy. 

If Lance’s story would have come out by itself he would have had reporters rifling through his trash and camping out at his house to get a paparazzi style photo of him in a ball cap.  Although he is getting his share of attention, there is a lot of money being spent right now on forensic technologists in an effort to locate the source of the avatar Manti was “dating”.  Everyone knew Lance was doping, there’s no mystery there.  There are no more needles in his trash and no more EPO in his fridge.  Te’o’s girlfriend is a much more interesting train wreck to watch.  The Lance locomotive crashed a long time ago and has begun to rust over.  Te’o’s wreck still has metal pieces flying through the air and smoke billowing from the engine.  If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that Lance may have constructed the entire Te’o story as some elaborate distraction to take the sting out of his admission but Lance wouldn't do that would he?

Lance has a lifetime ban from competitive sports that could be lowered if he helps investigators.  Should Lance be allowed to compete again?

Do you care a little too much?

I read a story about cycling last week that was pretty sad.  It revolves around the New York Gran Fono that took place in May of 2012.  Fondo's are basically a cycling festival including bike races, vendors, a bike Expo etc.  The NY Gran Fondo this past summer had more intrigue than usual thanks to a racer named David Anthony.  In the article at THIS LINK you can read that he popped for EPO while at the event.  Just to be clear, this guy was not a Pro cyclist with millions in endorsements on the line if he failed.  He was simply a Cat 3 racer.  If you read my last post, you realize that being a Cat 3 racer might be cool for a weekend warrior but it is certainly not going to get you on the landing page of VeloNews.com unless of course you fail a drug test during a Cat 3 race.  This guy has a real job and decided to take drugs in order to beat other fully employed husbands and fathers at a weekend group ride.

Hematocrit is the percentage of your blood that is made up of red blood cells.  They are the little servants that dutifully deliver oxygen, four molecules at a time, to your demanding muscles.  The more you have, the better your endurance.  Adult men typically register hematocrit levels that range between 40-45%.  Amgen which is the largest biotech company in the world created Erythropoetin (EPO) in the early 90's primarily to help cancer patients who were going through chemotharapy.  It is a wonder drug really.  Chemotherapy wreaks havoc on your red blood cell count that results in the significant drop in energy experienced by patients after treatment.  EPO is administered to increase the body's production of red blood cells to give patients their energy back.  As is the case with most revolutionary discoveries, they end up being used in unintended ways.  Cyclists began to realize it's potential for sustained endurance/power when climbing hills particularly during extended stage races.  As a bit of irony, Amgen is the primary sponsor of the Tour of California.  That's kind of like having a commercial break half-way through your AA meeting and hearing, "The second half of this AA meeting is being brought to you by Budweiser, the King of Beers.  Drink responsibly"  It's a place Amgen shouldn't be.  As a bit of trivia, I interned at Amgen while I was in MBA school.  Fantastic, and very successful company; poor marketing department.

In 1997, before there was a test for EPO, the International Cycling Union (UCI) placed a max hematocrit limit of 50 for anyone participating in sanctioned racing events.  Mr. Anthony reported his normal hematocrit to be in the "low 40's".  He said that his doping regiment resulted in him keeping his hematocrit at "52-53", a full 10 points higher than his walking around number.  This is nearly 25% more red blood cells than he naturally had. Apparently this wasn't just a "I only did it once and you caught me" situation.  They rarely are.  After being caught he admitted to a $1,000/month EPO habit in order to elevate his hematocrit to a more "competitive" level. 

I think the story hit me because it kind of feels like it could be me.  Before anyone goes making wild assumptions I want to be clear about what I've used as "performance enhancers".  My list includes Gatorade, Clif Bars, Cliff Shot Bloks and GU.  I understand the frailties of the human condition and know that being over 40 years old means that even with EPO I wouldn't be as good as I could have been when I was 27.  The similarities are that we are both over 40, both started cycling in 2009, both went headlong into training and loved it from day one.  That's where they end.  The differences are that I spent about $200 last year on my "performance enhancers" (mostly cliff bars and Bloks) while he spent thousands on illegal drugs and injected himself with live proteins to artificially increase his chance of winning.

Want to know how to increase your hematocrit legally?  Get enough sleep.  Go to bed an hour earlier during the training season and you'll give your body enough time to regenerate.  Rest will help you recover quicker as well.

Long story short, if anyone beats me in a race this summer, I want them tested.  ;-)  Lesson number two, get your priorities straight.  Unless you get paid to do it for a living (which I would love by the way) cycling shouldn't be in your top 5. 

What is Cat 5?

I looked over my posts and realized I've never explained what "Cat 5" actually means.  It's obviously a reference to cycling but that won't help most folks.  Cat 5 is a bike racing category with the US Cycling Federation.  It also happens to be the lowest level they have.  Everyone is required to start at Cat 5 to gain experience.  Historically, as in about 30 years ago, the USCF only had 5 categories; Pro and Categories 1-4.  Everyone use to start at Cat 4.  They noticed that some of the novices in the Cat 4 ranks were the cause of most of the wrecks that were taking place.  Most of these were due to a lack of racing experience so they added one more category, Cat 5.  It's basically the training wheels version of bike racing, hence the tongue-in-cheek title of my blog. 

The primary purpose of bike racing is to have fun but eventually folks become more competative and try to win.  If you do well enough you are allowed to "Cat up" or move up from one category to another category.  There is a very low bar to cat up from Cat 5 to Cat 4.  All I need to do is finish 10 sanctioned races.  In the meantime however, they expect you've gained valuable experience.  Hopefully I finish more than half of my first 10 upright. 

That's the only real easy promotion.  From then on your promotions are merit based.  At each race you accumulate points for your place in the field and for winning "Prime" laps (pronounced "preem").  These are typically every 5 laps or so which escalates fan interest and keeps the race pace up.  In higher category racing there are actually cash and other prizes provided by sponsors.  Winning obviously gives you the most points.  Once you accumulate enough points you can move from Cat 4 to Cat 3.  Once you get to Cat 3 the only real way to promote is to get results, meaning winning races or at least placing.  Cat 3 is also when cyclists form teams, train together and begin to strategize before and during races.  Cat 1 cyclists have team sponsors and get alot of their gear for free.  They put most all of their waking hours into two things, cycling and their job which is usually cycling friendly like working at a bike shop.  I would love to work in a bike shop but I would be worthless.  My job isn't built around my cycling, my cycling fills in the nooks and cranny's of my week and is about fourth or fifth down my life priority list.  Every once in a while I'll see online training schedules for "the time crunched cyclist" that list "only" 8-10 hours of training per week.  If I had 8-10 hours of training time I think that would be great but then I'd probably want 15-20.  I currently get about 4-6. 

I just need to get enough training to hang with the pack for 40 minutes and finish upright. 

So it begins

So it's been about a week since I started and I've done a few things.  I've done a few days worth of abs that resulted in severe pain particularly around the bottom of my rib cage.  This should go away as I get more used to the program.  I am using the Ab Ripper video that is a part of the P90X program.  If you haven't done this before, I dare you.  It's only about 16 minutes but if you can do all the reps without significant abdominal cramping I'll be very impressed.

I've also ridden my rollers three times for 30 minutes each.  My legs are much more open to pedalling than my abs are to crunches.  My abs protested for several days.  Rollers are a bit easier than riding on the road.  I've been around 23-24 mph this week.  When I'm in better shape this goes up to 26-27.  Feel free to subtract about 5 mph to estimate what it would be riding solo out on the road.  That said, roller speeds are very similar to what you should expect when riding in a group.  When you're riding with 30 people the air just moves right along with you.  Aerodynamics is wildly helpful.  Even if it is only just a few riders, if you're in the right spot it can take a ton of strain off your legs saving them for the sprint finish or allow you to hang with a fast moving peleton.  During the Seagull Century in Maryland a couple of months ago my son illustrated this concept quite nicely.  He hadn't trained much leading up to the ride.  He had only put in about four weeks worth of riding with his longest ride topping out at about 35 miles.  During one section we were with a fairly speedy group. For 12 miles we averaged over 25 mph, a speed we could not have maintained by ourselves.   It was a combination of aerodynamics, adrenaline and fear.  He bonked at about 80 miles so I pulled and at some points literally pushed him the rest of the way.  We finished in 5:03:30.

I'm about to let my new secret weapon out of the bag.  My World From a Bycicle is an extremely helpful resource for a budding racer.  David Henderson gives me hope.  He's a very high end rider but is also over 40.  If he can do what he does, I can make it to Cat 4...Cat 3?  We'll see.

I've never put100% into cycling training so I've never been close to what I'd consider to be my cycling peak.  For a 41 year old with 4 kids, a hectic job and a great wife, I squeeze training in when I can.  I'm not one of those guys that gets up at 4 am to get in a two hour spin before work.  During the summer I usually get 1 hour rides on Tuesday and Thursday evenings if my wife lets me go and a 2 hour ride on Saturday mornings.  These are usually all solo rides unless my son goes with me.  Four hours a week of solo riding isn't going to put me on the podium so I'll have to be creative.

T-minus 9 days

Since I'm going to be starting my training program in 9 days I'm a bit torn with what to do with myself in the meantime.  Some folks say to eat like a pig and enjoy your last few days of freedom.  Having previously trained for a marathon I realize that whatever sins I commit now, I'll have to pay for later. 

That said, I enjoyed Thanksgiving like a death row inmate eating his last meal but I also participated in the annual Turkey bowl with a bunch of guys from church so I felt like I deserved to splurge.  The annual football game refreshed my memory of something I have to look forward to when the training starts...pain.  After running around like a fool for 2 hours and playing a rather heavy handed version of two-hand touch, I am in a lot of pain.  Strangly enough, it's my ribs that hurt the most.  Sitting on the couch and watching football is fun but when I try to pry myself off the furniture it hurts.  Even the little muscles in my feet hurt.

About two years ago I did the first 7-8 weeks of P90X.  I couldn't walk for about 5-6 days.  It did work however.  I plan on using some of the videos of that program during my winter training mixed in with cycling of course.  If I did the entire P90X system I would be in great shape but I'd also have more upper body mass than I want.  As a cyclist you want your upper body to be fit, not Mr. Universe fit.  You don't want to be carrying weight that isn't helping move you forward.  You want a firm frame and that's what core training can do for you.  As I mentioned in a previous post I don't want to be rail thin.  I want to get some solid fitness through a combination of a few items.

1. Treadmill running (Weight control, cardio and impact training that cycling doesn't provide.)
2. P90X (Only selected parts, for overall strength and coordination.)
3. Core work (A fast bike needs a stiff frame, so does an athlete.)
4. Bike rollers (Base miles as well as interval training.  I plan on doing most, if not all of my winter cycling indoors.  If it's 49 degrees or under, count me out.)

I have some Kreitler rollers I intend to use for indoor training.  Some people do damage to themselves with these things but I've had them for about 3 years now so I can watch tv while keeping a consistent cadence.  It takes about 30 min for a first timer to get the hang of them so you don't fall off but more like a year before you can focus on something else while riding.  I've fallen once or twice, I'll admit it.  I don't do any tricks.  That's just for people with far too much time on their hands.   I can go edge to edge and have fairly good control.  I like to do cadence work on these.  The primary limitation is not being able to do any out-of-saddle training.  The problem with not being able to get out of the saddle is that you tend to get numbness due to sitting in the saddle the entire time as well as the lack of variation in your bike position.  Sprint work will have to wait until March. 

The Bike

My first road bike was a 2008 Specialized Roubaix Expert.  I intended to do long endurance events but things change.  I sold that one to my brother at the family discount and used the proceeds to buy bike number two.  Now that I have the goal of doing crits that are 15-30 miles I need a bike with a more aggressive profile.   

It's a 2011 Specialized Tarmac Expert.  It has full Shimano Ultegra components with the Fulcrum Racing 4 wheels that come standard on this model.  I bought it off the internet from a private seller. The previous owner had purchased it new and worked at a bike shop so I figured he'd taken fairly decent care of it.  My tires are Continental Grand Prix 4000's (700x23) with the Black Chili version on my front wheel for added aerodynamics and cornering.

Stock weight is 16.04 pounds but with my change in tires it is down to 15.9.  I have a cadence monitor on my bike computer but I generally use the Strava app on my iPhone to track my rides.  I'd like to get a power meter to assist with my training but I don't think I'm going to pay for that this year. 

This should be a fitting companion for my upcoming exploits.