First ride in a very long time

It has been a long time since I've been on my bike. Today I decided to get on the Raleigh, which is strapped to my trainer, and rip out some time. I have it rigged up with an older computer on the back wheel so that I can record mileage, but I couldn't find the actual computer so I decided to just go by time. It was a little refreshing to just ride, no HRM, no cadence. I had a stopwatch running but left it in a different room. All I wanted was a total time at the end of the ride and didn't want to get hung up on watching the clock.

I learned that it has been far too long since I've been on my bike. I rode for less than an hour and was barely able to walk for the twitchy legs after. Now I just need to make sure I stick to training regularly enough to get past this. Since I've signed up for the LiveStrong ride again and want to make the metric, if not the full century this time around I need to get the miles in.

Returning in 2011

So I've been away for far longer than I expected. Between work and family issues I haven't been riding, exercising, or blogging anywhere near as often as I wanted to be. I hope to be getting back in the saddle - both metaphorically with the blog and literally with the bike - in the coming weeks.

Thanks to anyone that has actually kept the blog in their feed through the silence. More to come.

oops

I've been busy with this and that, which means little riding and no writing. Today I decided to take some time, put my new repair stand to work, and perform the much needed maintenance on my bikes. In doing so I discovered that the front tire on the Raleigh was dead, the loud and scary way.

As in, I pumped it up to almost full pressure (90 of a max 100 psi) and about 20 minutes later it blew out. Thankfully I wasn't working on the bike anymore and it was back against the wall, otherwise I would have been changing my pants and cleaning the floor instead of blogging...

Crossfit?

I've been swapping emails with my brother, he of the Panama City Beach Iron Man, and he's been recommending that I look into Crossfit as an alternative to the standard gym-based or private coaching. I know a little about it, and know that he (and my sis-in-law) have been working out with a guy who based his program on it, but that's about it. When I did some digging I discovered an affiliate about a half mile from my office and another about two miles from my house. Neither of those is far enough away to pose an obstacle and now I'm intrigued.

Anyone have any experience with Crossfit that they want to share?

100 (or less) Miles of Nowhere

In my last post I mentioned that I hoped I would be in shape (primarily my back) for the upcoming 100 Miles of Nowhere ride. For those who aren't aware of it, this "ride" started as a fundraising bet by the Fat Cyclist that he could do 100 miles in a single day on rollers (he won). The response was so massive that he opened it up to other participants, with the support of Twin Six and other companies. This year's official date is May 8.

The large and very stuffed goody-bag from Twin Six

I recently got my bag of stuff form Twin Six, which (morally) obligates me to ride. I won't be doing so on May 8 due to a barbeque (that I'm hosting). I may try for May 9 - it would be a good way to work off the barbeque and get me ready for my first vacation in something like two years, which starts on May 10.

The inside of the goody-bag

Either way, I doubt I'll be hitting the full 100 miles. My goal is to do 65, a metric century, to see how my training is going for the LiveStrong ride. Since I haven't been doing any training I already know the answer to that question but this might be a good way to jump start the new batch of training. One thing I do need to figure out is how I can determine my distance since I've shifted over to a GPS system, which won't measure anything on the trainer or rollers.

Starting over from scratch

As the long silence might have indicated, I've been lax. Not just in writing, but in riding and just about everything that had been contributing to my physical well-being. Well, it caught up with me on Monday. I was moving and unpacking some not-all-that-heavy boxes and managed to tweak my back, leading to the last couple of days being spent in varying degrees of pain/discomfort and working from home.

This has been a wake up call for me, and come Monday (when I'm well enough to go back to work) one of my stops will be the gym to meet with the person in charge of their trainers. I need to find someone that I can see for both the minor rehab (mainly stretching) my back needs to get the last of the spasm under control, and then for moving forward. I need to focus on weight loss and flexibility, and hopefully there's someone there I can work with.

I hope I can be ready to go for the 100 miles of nowhere ride (post coming to discuss) and more importantly for the LiveStrong ride in July, but right now, I just don't know.

An interesting experiment

The last two or so weeks I've been very strictly monitoring my diet including keeping a food journal. I hate keeping a food journal. However, keeping that close of an eve on my intake has allowed me to drop back almost to where I was a few months ago (~25 lbs down) before I got lazy. During that time I have been very lax about exercising, having gotten in only one true ride, no runs, and a heap of yard work/activity of daily living stuff.

The next two weeks will be almost the polar opposite.

I have two weeks of travel coming up, most of it for work, and the nature of the trips will limit my ability to control my food choices. The first week I'll be in a fairly small town for a training and doubt that there will be much available, in addition I'm in a standard hotel (as opposed to an "extended stay" style one with a kitchen) which limits cooking options. The following week I'll be traveling to Honolulu for meetings, but won't have a car, which reduces me to joining my colleagues in their food choices or guiding them to mine. What I will be doing is bringing my running shoes (and for the first trip my bicycle) and planning to work out for ~60 min per day.

All in all, it will provide an interesting comparison - which is better for me when it comes to losing or at least maintaining weight: rigorous calorie counting/food choice limitation or exercising?

On hydration and being fat

Warning - I will be writing about proper hydration, and as any fitness person knows that means discussing what happens after proper hydration.

I've finally gotten back on track with watching my diet, and as such have seen my weight start heading back down. After a couple of days though I noticed something odd - my body fat % (measured by bio-electrical impedance) was climbing. Climbing at a rate of 1.0 to 1.5% a day. Keeping in mind that my scale reports in 0.5% increments this still seemed like a lot (not to mention odd) so I looked up the impact of hydration (lack of) on this sort of measurement. Short version, the worse your hydration is the higher your apparent body fat %, because it screws with the conductive properties of non-fat body mass.

Since I was already in "fun with Google" mode I decided to see what I could find about "proper" hydration. Sure, I've heard the old "8 x 8 oz glasses per day" thing, but it has always struck me as odd that my wee little friend Pest, who's maybe 5 feet tall in heels and weighs significantly less than I do, would need the same amount of liquid as me. The old stand-by is "clear and copious" urine and I knew I was failing that test, but the closest thing to a formula I found was to halve your body weight in pounds to get the number of oz of water you should drink. A little math gives us:

275/2 = 137.5

For comparison - 8 x 8 = 64

So, I need to be drinking not 8 8 oz glasses, but 17.

No wonder my body fat % has been climbing. I've made the effort for the last couple of days, managed to get close to 80 oz each day (and that was rough) and the body fat % has started reversing. Keeping up this level of drinking (water) is going to be tough.

The awesomeness....

On my ride home tonight I was passed by a, dare I say, dapper gentleman (slacks, cardigan, neatly-trimmed grey beard) riding

a unicycle.

It was one of those days where my desire to have had a camera in my bike bag was unimaginable. He was moving down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, an older Bell (all white, obvious red logo) on his head looking like he'd stepped out of a college-based coming of age movie.

As I said, the awesomeness...

(Possible) Upcoming solo mini-tour

I've got a class for work near the end of the month that will take me up into the Red Bluff (CA) area. After posting on Bike Forums for some good 2-3 day routes in the area I've come down on doing a loop around Lake Almanor. Sure, it's only a little over 30 miles, but this would be my first tour and it looks like I'll need to carry food with me (not fully loaded, but reserve).

Image from MapMyRide

The class is M-Th, so my plan would be to drive over from Red Bluff after the class ends, crash somewhere for the night and leave my truck at the hotel while I do the ride. I plan to finish in 2 days (one night on the road) and would probably stay at the same place after so I can rest before the drive home (3+ hours) which I wouldn't want to do right after the ride.

This would give me plenty of time for the riding and to check out the area. I'm not sure about the terrain, but it looks pretty level. If that's the case and I do the whole 30+ in one day then it will turn into a couple of day trips from the hotel. I would still ride fully loaded and can use it as a chance to check out the bags and get used to the balance of a loaded bike.