Back in Gear

I raced last Thursday and Saturday both with very encouraging results. After the Independence Valley Road Race debacle of two weeks ago I was questioning whether or not to even enter another bicycle race, luckily I seem to be back on track and at least able to hang with the group. On Thursday I raced the first of the weekly Seward Park Crits and on Saturday I raced the much more serious and deep fielded crit at Volunteer Park. Volunteer Park was my first foray into the Masters grouping; it was a thirty five plus Masters so I was still maybe ten years older than many in the field, but still I felt somewhat like I was with my peers – or at least my generation.

Saturday morning I weighed in at one hundred and sixty nine pounds, that’s probably the first time since my expedition to Manaslu – ten years ago - that I tipped the scales at under one seventy. I seemed to have cut a little of the extra weight around the edges and it certainly has helped me improve my cycling ability. Now I know why all these cyclists are so weight obsessive.

I have changed up my diet a bit. No more oatmeal for breakfast, and as little bread, pasta, white rice and potatoes as possible. I suppose it’s kind of a paleo approach, which I think is super valid. Two hundred thousand years of evolution can’t be all that wrong. I’m eating a lot more vegetables, a bit more fruit and a bit less meat – though I am by no means moving towards a vegetarian diet. As far as I can see, athletes need protein, and protein from lean meat – grass fed, free range – is the best source.

I think I can push my way down to one sixty five.

Young and Carefree

I'm halfway through Laurent Fignon's autobio - We Were Young and Carefree. I first started watching the Tour in 1989 and was excited to be able to "talk the tour" with a couple of racers in the office. Fignon seemed like kind of a jerk, but he seemed less of a jerk than LeMond, so I rooted for Laurent. the 89 ended with a time trail and this was the year that LeMond rolled up to the starting ramp with a bike sporting a pair of rule stretching traithlon-style handlebars. He made up nearly a minute on Fignon and won the Tour by eight seconds.

In his book Fignon refers to LeMond and one of cycling's great followers. Ouch.

The book is full of excuses and pages of how so and so done him wrong, but it's a good read. I particularly liked this passage, seems pressient for today's "video kids:"

And when I got on my bike, the call of the wild infected me with blasts of emotion. I had the feeling that I cold conquer anything, and I would, even though I didn’t know how or why; I would be dragged along merely by the yearning for it, like an explorer in new territory. Our minds were probably less restrained than those of our children. Living in virtual worlds has become their daily bread. As for us, the state on things meant that we were rooted in real life. And that is the magic of cycling: the simple forward motion from the power in your legs treats you to great bursts of freedom. Your legs and nothing more. That’s the little miracle that is the bike, where man and machine conjoin. It’s a unique invention. The union of a man with himself.

Limiters Part Deux

After putting some thought into what was keeping me out of the pack during cycling road races I came up with the following list of what athletes call “limiters:”

Strength-to-weight ratio
Aerobic fitness
Mental toughness

I’ve already addressed strength-to-weight ratio, so today I’ll just drone on about the heart and mind.

I’ve participated in endurance sports for about twenty five years now, and tough I never won any races – or even came close – I did develop a fairly good idea of how to complete the distance in a competitive fashion. An endurance event is anything lasting over two hours and thus issues such as nutrition, hydration and body maintenance come into play. Cat 4 criteriums, time trials, cyclocross races and short course mountain bike events last only thirty to forty minutes and even the longer road races rarely last more than two hours, so this bike racing is putting me in a new realm.

Finishing an endurance event, especially ultra marathons, and Ironman events, is contingent upon: nutrition/hydration, body maintenance, and fitness, in that order. Your body is like an automobile in that even a Ferrari conks out if you don’t put gasoline in it and it goes pretty dang slow if you don’t inflate the tires. Nutrition/hydration is the body’s gasoline; you don’t feed the machine it stops moving. Body maintenance (eliminating/reducing blistering, chaffing, GI distress) is like driving on flat tires, you may continue down the road, but it’s going to be a slow, uncomfortable trip. The point is that when it comes to completing endurance events fitness isn’t the paramount concern; some folks may say I’m crazy, but time and time again I’ve seen properly prepared folks trot past some super fit dude as he lays collapsed in the parking strip awaiting an ambulance.

When it comes to bicycle racing I’m learning that it’s all about supreme aerobic fitness and the ability to briefly tolerate extreme misery. Even in Ironman I never felt like my heart was going to explode, the pain of long races is more associated with bodily discomfort: an aching back, aching knees, sore feet, bad stomach, but in bike racing, at least for me, it’s all about overcoming the sensation that you’re about to go into cardiac arrest. I think a good way to improve my high end aerobic fitness is to engage in more short/explosive efforts and reduce the number of moderately paced “bike rides.” Up until now most of my training has simply been getting on my bike and riding it around for a couple of hours. From now on it’s going to be more hills and more time on the trainer.

Increasing my high end aerobic fitness will, I think, have the side benefit of increasing my mental toughness. I’m quite used to enduring long periods of low level pain, but I need to work on my ability to tough out short periods of high end suffering in order to avoid getting dropped off the back and left for dead.

Got in 22 miles yesterday, which now puts me at 625 miles for the year. Tuesday and today were trainer days.

Limiters

Back when I was a triathlete I learned a new word: “limiter.” It means that thing which is holding you back, slowing you down. In other words the aspect you have to improve upon in order to race faster. After Saturday’s dismal showing at my first Cat 4 road race I’ve determined that I have three limiters:

Strength-to-weight ratio
Aerobic fitness
Mental toughness

When compared to other bicycle racers I’m fairly strong, but at five nine, one hundred and seventy five pounds I’m also a bit heavy for a bike rider, so from a strength-to-weight ratio point of view I think I come out a bit on the low side. My weight issue isn’t as cut and dried as simply losing a spare tire; the extra ten to fifteen pounds that I have on my competition doesn’t come from belly fat but instead from upper body muscle. I’m a far cry from a body builder, but compared to most of my cycling competition I’m carrying a lot of muscle.

My doctor said that I was totally crazy for wanting to lose muscle in order to decrease my body mass for cycling. I’m forty six years old and after forty it’s hard enough to just maintain muscle mass much less build more, and here I am wanting to sacrifice what I have. This is one of those fitness versus health issues. I’ve written in the past that racing Ironman made me realize that being super fit doesn’t equal being super healthy. I’m in this athletic stuff primarily for my health
I think I can safely lose five to eight pounds, that would put me down into the one sixties; if I can get there without sacrificing strength I think I’ll be that tiny bit more competitive. Bicycle races are won and lost by tiny bits.

Rode the trainer while watching a Sufferfest video, so no miles to report.

Viscious

Rode the Independence Valley Road Race on Saturday – my first Cat 4 road race. I was taken to school – to say the least.

After a prolonged roll out and a bike pile-up, we turned left and started up a seven to eight percent grade. My plan was to push as far ahead as possible and then do the “pack slide” hoping to grab a hold of the rear of the pack by the summit. I held my own for about a half mile but then I just lost it, I couldn’t hold on. I crested the hill alone and started a breakneck descent hoping to catch the wheel of a small straggler group but everyone was gone, save a few dots down the road.
My goal now was to not get passed by the Cat 5’s. I passed an Apex guy and then nearly caught a Cycle U rider on the second hill. Near the top of the final hill I saw the dreaded flashing yellow light of the Cat 5 lead vehicle; I pulled over and let the group pass. The Masters caught me just shy of the end of the first lap.
I was totally out the race, so I turned off the course and headed for the car. I did a thirty minute cool down then waited for my teammates to show. A humiliating day to say the least.

This bike racing thing is so different than any other adult-orientated athletic event. The other “races” I’ve participated in: running road races, trail runs, triathlons are all about you doing your own thing, going as fast as you can, but basically just making it to the finish line. I put quotations around the word “races” in that sentence because now that I look back on it I never really raced. They weren’t races they were “events.” Cycling is a race.

Bicycle racing is all about some guy or some small group of guys trying to completely destroy you. All weakness is completely held up to the light for the world to see. It’s a viscous sport man. I’m going to have to harden up.

Rode 83 miles since Thursday putting my total at 603 miles.

Get Up Stand Up

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that spring has sprung here in the Northwest but we are, finally, getting some outdoor riding weather. Rode the Budu West Side Racing Series Mountain Bike race at Fort Stellacoom park on Sunday. That was a good race, albeit a bit chilly. I took second in the beginner class behind my teammate Jason. I don’t feel like a sandbagger out there as I’m not really blowing the competition away; it seems like there is always some guy pushing my wheel. Including warm-up I logged 11 miles. Monday I logged 12 miles running errands, Tuesday I got in 27 miles, Wednesday 32 and yesterday I went with Steph and Gina for 46 good miles. That’s 128 so far for the week which make a total of 498 miles. I think I missed a couple of days there. Oh yeah I rode into Seattle on Friday to meet with the Matt and Mikoyo of Georgetown Sewing that was 22 miles. So I’m at 520.

I was driving along doing my chauffer thing yesterday when Bob Marley’s Get Up Stand Up came on the radio. I’d never listened to the words before – you can’t fool all the people all the time...

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Preacher man, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Most people think,
Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. jah!

Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Don't give up the fight! (life is your right! )
Get up, stand up! (so we can't give up the fight! )
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )
Don't give up the fight! (yeah! )

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )

So you better:
Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (don't give it up, don't give it up! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Don't give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! /fadeout/

Universal Dimension

The recent killing of sixteen civilians in Afghanistan got me thinking about these words by the Dali Lama:

…because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others’ happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility and so on. It is these which provide happiness both for ourselves and for others.

The kicker here is that our every action has a universal dimension. We don’t live in a vacuum; everything that we do, every decision that we make has a downstream affect. That affect can be positive or it can be negative. It seems like the “I want mine now and screw everyone else” attitude has become prevalent in American society.
The “Trumpification” of our society, wherein a privileged few take take take, yet give nothing is unsustainable.