Two Weeks Down

Now I’m sitting in the Charlotte, NC airport.  I finished my second week away from home, and I’m heading back to Colorado for the weekend.  A few nights at home before heading back to Jacksonville will be nice.

I got in a few workouts this week.  They were OK.  I’ve listed them in my training log, but I know that I’m losing fitness.  I’m looking forward to a good workout tomorrow. 

I’m also looking forward to spending time with my family.  We had a wonderful time in Disney World, but time at home will be magical, too.  I have a lot to write about at Disney World, but that will have to be in another post.

I’m tired…

One Week Down

I’m sitting in the Minneapolis airport.  I’m on standby for a flight that will eventually — hopefully — get me to Jacksonville, FL tonight.  I will then rent a car and drive to Orlando.  I’ll be happy when the day is over.  My family is traveling to Orlando right now.  I hope this weekend is fun.

Anyway, back to this blog’s subject.  I was able to workouts three times this week.  None of them were great, but hopefully enough that I won’t lose too much fitness.

Outside of that, there’s not much to write about. 

I’m tired, worn out…. discouraged by my job.   To top it off, today starts the Speed Skating National Marathon Championships in Bemidji, MN.  I originally wanted to race.  I actually started training, but this job got in the way. 

I’ll write more about the championships later, but for now it’s just too frustrating.

Challenged by Travel

Right now, I’m sitting in a meeting room at the Sheraton hotel in Bloomington, MN.  It’s about -5 degrees outside, and not much warmer in this room.  My meeting begins in an hour or so.  I’m just trying to catch up on some work before we begin.  I will be here for the rest of the week.

This Friday, I fly to Florida.  I’m meeting my family for a weekend at Disney World/Epcot Center.  It will be a lot of fun.  I will then drive up to Jacksonville, FL for the rest of the week.  I fly home on Friday the 29th.

On March 3rd, I fly back to Jacksonville for a week… I think I come home on the 7th.

It’s going to be difficult to keep up my training while traveling so much.  I will need to stay very focused and disciplined just to maintain fitness. 

It’s discouraging to be in such a difficult spot.  I will be racing against guys who are able to train as much as they want and rest as much as they want.  That said, I think I’ll take it as a challenge… to see what I can do with it.  I’ll take pride in doing more with less.

Anyway, I have to do something while I’m gone — I’m going to go insane without my kids for so long.  Thank God I will be able to see them on the weekends.  

(Just as an afterthought, I’m thinking – and praying – for my friend Jason who has been deployed to Afghanistan for a year.  I don’t think he’ll be seeing his kids each weekend.  Jason is a stronger man than me — that’s for sure.)

Beautiful Day — Wretched Ice

Yesterday, we took the kids to Evergreen, CO for the day.  The Evergreen Recreation Department takes care of a mountain lake.  I think they run a Zamboni over the ice — maybe.  They’ve divided the lake into a bunch of smaller rinks and one large rink.  The smaller rinks are for hockey and the large rink for general skating.

So it was about 45 degrees and the sun was blazing.  It was a beautiful day; but the worst ice I’ve ever skated on.  It was slushy, chewed up, full of cracks — I could go on and on about how bad it was.  It was unbearable.  I skated for maybe 15 min. with the kids and then we were done.

Oh well… the worst ice aside, we had a wonderful day.  We also brought the sleds, so we found some “deep” snow, and a small hill and just played for an hour or so — couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day.

Nope — Nothing New

I was hoping that something would happen today – something worth writing about.  But nothing happened.  I went to work.  I played with the kids.  I worked out.

Blah, blah, woof, woof…

Nothing Happening

I haven’t added a post in a few days.  It isn’t that I haven’t been available.  There’s just “nothing” happening in my life.  I had a couple of good workouts this week, but nothing else.  Maybe tomorrow, eh?

102 RPM or 84 RPM

(**Before I begin, I want to wish my boy a Happy Birthday!  He’s 12 today.**)

This morning, I spun easy for an hour on the trainer.  I kept it easy, trying to loosen up the legs for tomorrow’s long climbing intervals. 

Yesterday, I read an article in VeloNews summarizing training methods, technique, etc. discussed at the “Serotta Science of Cycling Symposium.” 

Here is one of the summaries from the article.

“Martin (Jim Martin, Ph.D. of the University of Utah) skewered sacred cows about crank length, pedaling technique and rider positioning. We were forewarned, though, as he said at the outset that many of us would find his conclusions “irritating.”

His studies of 16 bike racers of various heights doing maximal sprint power tests of under four seconds duration on cranks of 120, 145, 170, 195, and 220mm showed no statistical difference between crank lengths. Seat height to the pedal was maintained throughout, but fore-aft saddle position and handlebar height were not readjusted with crank length changes, despite variations with crank length of pedal-to-knee relationship and saddle-to-bar drop. This also led to Martin’s assertion that he could see no point to positioning the knee over the pedal spindle.

Further Martin tests showed no statistical relationship between metabolic cost and either pedaling rate (RPM) or crank length, using nine trained cyclists riding 145, 170 and 195mm cranks who pedaled at 30-, 60-, and 90 percent of their lactate threshold at 40, 60, 80 and 100 RPM. On the contrary, power output and pedal speed (pedaling rate times crank length), accounted for over 98 percent of the variation in metabolic cost.

In another test, Martin had 10 racers perform a 30-second maximal sprint on 120mm and 220mm cranks at 135RPM for the 120mm and 109RPM for the 220mm. he found that, while the rate of fatigue was less for longer cranks, the fatigue per revolution was identical. This led him to suggest that track sprinters, rather than spinning at high RPM, should select the gear at or just below the one at which they produce maximum power output. The higher gear, as fatigue per revolution would be constant, would get the rider to the finish sooner, as fatigue would take more time to set in. …”

With that article in mind, I was curious about my spin cadence with a 175 mm crank. 

Now this this is just an observation… I don’t know what it means or if it means anything, but I found it extremely interesting.

I checked my cadence while spinning the small ring comfortably.  It was 102 RPM.  I checked again a few minutes later in the same gear — 102 RPM.  I found it curious that my RPM stayed so consistent, so over the next hour I kept checking. 

No matter what gear I spun, the cadence remained at 102 RPM.  I guess that’s the cadence my body likes to spin. 

But I was curious what would happen if I simulated a climb.  So, I changed the resistance and got into an easy climbing rhythm.  I came up with 84 RPM.  I checked again — still 84 RPM.  I switched between easy and climbing a number of times, and I kept coming up with 102 RPM and 84 RPM.

Interesting – and a bit weird.  I’ll have to do some research to figure out what this means.  If anything.