Funder Thuck.

That pretty much describes work, life and the weather this week.

I wimped out early in the week on riding to work Monday and Tuesday (well Tuesday I had to as I was driving in from elsewhere)  Monday I did haul home a 30lb system for some work and it wouldn't have fit in my bag.

Pace wise I'm picking back up on the CX bike slowly.  Was sub 28 in today I believe and I hit most of the lights nearly perfectly.  I stopped briefly at Nutley/Couthouse and 123/Courthouse but rolled every other light I actually made.  Good think considering how late I left!

The ride in was nice but super humid, glasses were super fogged up by the time I hit Sunset Hills I had them way down on my nose to see.

Yesterdays ride home I dogged the storm by leaving work late, 4:30 or so.  It was disgusting on the ride home.  I did a tuneup ride working on adjusting my new pedals/shoes around 6 and it was much better.  Not sure about the Pearl road shoes, they may be a tad narrow for me in the main foot, though the heel is almost perfect.  Will play with adjustments a bit more.  Right cleat needs to move inwards to move my foot outwards a bit so I can add a bit more heel in angle back on the cleat.  As of now its too far out by a tiny bit to keep my heel from hitting the chain stay.

Tonights WF ride is not looking great weather wise once again.  My plan is currently to ride, but who knows maybe it won't storm in WF land, like yesterday.  I suspect W@W is using up our good weather luck for the year.

Got in new breakpads for the MTB but I won't put em on till next week especially under the threat of shitty, err I mean gritty conditions.  Nothing like ruining new pads due to grinding the grit of the CCT/Etc.

Mileage has fallen back off.  Since the Birthday Epic Week, really to be a better rider I've got to get a 2nd day off a week and put in 1 longer ride, my Sundays just aren't regular enough.  Or I need to commit to a ride every Sunday be it a 6AM early bird or a forced march later in the day.

Weighed in yesterday at a shocking 196.  Holy crap!  Talk about un-expected especially after the Garbage In and Out weekend that last weekend was.

Well the hot fudge and brownie ice cream sunday I just ate helped that I'm sure, especially after eating salads for lunch 2 days in a row.

And to raise the level of awesomeness of this post I offer this for your viewing pleasure:

 TheBadPiper covering AC/DC's Thunderstruck.

New Month

Well September is looking up in part at this point as temps finally seem to be ready to drop after I think 61 or 62 90+ degree days this summer versus like 30'ish the last few years.

Had a good ride out yesterday at Wake-o-tink. Punga and I rode WF for 4 miles of warm up and that was solid fun, then did a fair amount of Accotink including the new trail in reverse. Pretty fun but one tight section where I almost hugged a tree. Damn it gets dark early now. I always forget I have better night vision then average when several riders start complaining it's too dark 15 minutes before I need lights at all. Oh well. We rode out a bit early but it was fine. Ended up loosing a few people as the ride went on till it was me and 1 other guy doing the power lines in reverse, and the race course section of the creek trail in reverse. Think I totaled out near 16-17 miles.

Todd swears the new bike is allocated and will arrive and be ready maybe Tuesday probably Wednesday. I'm stoked and impatient as hell.

IN unstoked news my breakfast habits are hitting me negatively and I weighed in post ride at 198. Not good. So I'm going back to watching my intake a bit of what I eat. I want to be regularly 195. That usually leaves me post big ride 193'ish.

Nice weather this weekend should help I'm planning a big ride I think sunday at fountain hell. Gotta check out the new section.

Wakefield Thursday Night Ride hits the trails again.

Wow, for the first time in a MONTH I believe that the TNR at Wakefield actually was able to ride trails. It was a blast. I pre-rode for not quite an hour doing about 7 miles of easy spinning around the park. Did 2 repeats of the Ascent Hill and Berms in phase 3. It was a good warm up, felt pretty good but a bit tired for being at 23 miles in the past 2 days when the ride started. I lead my small casual group out to Accotink the back way so as to give my legs a chance to spin up after spending 30 mins in the lot. We rode a bunch of the trails reversed out there and damn, that was tough in a few spots. It was a nice change however, and I think the funnest part was when we did the normal entry loop at accotink in reverse, it flows even better than the normal way.

With CJ yesterday I hit nearly 33 miles for the week. NOt bad. I'm hoping to sneak out for a shorty on Saturday afterwork depending on the weather. Not sure where yet.

Also after my CJ ride yesterday I hit a new low on my weight, 190. Though last night post ride/beer/food I was back to 192. Going back thru here my previously noted weight back in January 2008 was 218! I think most of that has been in the last year and the last 10-15 has been since the end of the winter when I had plateaued at 202'ish. Now if I could add some leg muscle mass I'd be real happy.

SNOW DAY IPA rocked it last night. Nice citrus finish on it, gonna be a nice summer beer. And while it's fairly low alcohol, at not quiet 6%, it hit more like a 7%. But that may have been the dehydration :)

Fitness Drive

My wife and I are starting a new drive to improve our fitness here in 2008. Not really new year resolutions, but just in general. She wants to work towards her new goal weight and drop at least 20 more pounds. For me its a mixture of dropping 10-15 lbs ideally and improving my endurance for Mountain Biking. I want to think about racing Wakefield this summer. I want to strangely ponder the idea of racing Greenbriar this spring like I wanted to last year. My goal is to be able to go out on some of the Sunday epics this year and ride the whole damn 30-50 miles and keep up with the faster group. So really its 2 part. Up my endurance and increase my average ride speed by 1.5 to 2 mph.

Hu? 2mph...thats nothing. NOT. For me going out and running 7.5 last week at wakefield was hard as hell. I couldn't have done a 2nd lap at that pace. Though thats more about endurance. Being able to ride a solid 8-8.5 at wake would put me in good shape to do well at the wake races in the summer at least in terms for me.

The endurance is really the issue for me. I can go out and do 2 hour rides, where I cover 14 or more miles, no problem but I'm shot the next day. I want to go out and do 20's and be good for a lighter 10-15 the next day or go out and push 30-40 and only need a day recovery.

The other issue I want to work on is what I call spin up. It takes me sometimes upto 45 minutes to get REALLY warmed up sometimes on the bike where my legs no longer care about what is asked of them, they just do it to the best of their ability. Maybe its my first wall of "tired", I dunno. It just sucks, eventually I am able to just keep spinning, and basically ignore my legs complaints. Maybe its just mental toughness. Have to consider that part further.

So on 1-7-08 starting the program I was at 221. I've got a ways to go, then to hold it off forever, but I want this now more than ever. This is the right time. My fitness is going to have to carry on really for the rest of my life. I don't want to end up diabetic, or wearing size 38 pants or whatever.