Wasser Flaschen

- I've been training with the PowerTap for about a week. It's doing what it needs to do - humiliate me pretty much regularly and constantly. Want some numbers, power geeks? How 'bout threshold somewhere in the neighborhood of 330 watts. How 'bout power:weight at threshold of something like 1.3:1. Eeeew. Not good. Best 20 seconds? Doing a seated hill sprint, 1370, peak 1429. Ironically, the strongest effect it is having, is reinforcing my diet. I have something that resembles mondo power. I also have a body that resembles Mongo, from Blazing Saddles. Gotta get after it and stay after it.

- The real advantage of the PowerTap is it keeps you mellow, when you might otherwise be tempted to tweak up the effort level. I've noticed with the Hr monitor, that unless I throw a whole book of matches out at once, it takes a good three to 5 minutes of steadily increasing effort to move me up out of aerobic, and into a subthreshold (or higher) zone. As long as I don't start pounding on the pedals, it's gradual. Consequently, I work harder on zone 1 / zone 2 days than I should. Can't do that with the PowerTap, because it doesn't lie. Anything under 220 or 230, I'm cool in zone 1. Anything under 250-270, I'm rockin' in zone 2. (Corresponding more closely with .7 or .75 IF, I think). Above 300 - and I do like to cruise up hills pulling 350 or 390 - then it's Threshold City, baby, and the matches are getting burnt. It's going to be a while before I get calibrated to IF, but already I'm getting some benefits out of it. A couple of my workouts have involved doing accelerations, including one day doing them on hills. It's amazing how much fresher I am at the bottom of a hill, having ridden at a true zone 2 (.65 IF) level for ten minutes prior. Forcing me to cheat less is a wonderful thing. Of course it means my intensity work hurts a lot more, since I'm riding it that much harder... but that's the idea, right?

- Mad shoutouts to the guys who raced in the Cat IV at the Tour of Ephrata. John Larson and Sean Ross rode like Super Domestiques, forming a three-man team with James Hibbs, who placed tied for 4th (relegated to 5th on TT results, the tie-breaker). Sean and John also placed well, in spite of working like dawgs.

- Global warming... I got a nice comment a while back when I mentioned the carbon offset industry, and opined that it gave off a whiff of scam, a whiff of selling indulgences. A brainy and brave (anonymous) commenter called me retarded, and said I should give up deep thinking, just keep riding the bike. The insult may have been premature. It seems I'm not the only one with some reservations about the Offsets industry. The Financial Times - a respectable paper - announced recently that it has done an in-depth investigation of the industry. FT reports:

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.

A New York Times article from yesterday's edition adds (fossil?) fuel to the fire, noting that morons like me aren't the only people with reservations about the carbon offsets market, and the pseudo-religious tone the global warming / offsets debate has taken on:

On this, environmentalists aren’t neutral, and they don’t agree. Some believe it helps build support, but others argue that these purchases don’t accomplish anything meaningful — other than giving someone a slightly better feeling (or greener reputation) after buying a 6,000-square-foot house or passing the million-mile mark in a frequent-flier program. In fact, to many environmentalists, the carbon-neutral campaign is a sign of the times — easy on the sacrifice and big on the consumerism.

As long as the use of fossil fuels keeps climbing — which is happening relentlessly around the world — the emission of greenhouse gases will keep rising. . . . At this rate, environmentalists say, buying someone else’s squelched emissions is all but insignificant.

“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. “Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.”

“This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther,” Mr. Hayes added.

The NY Times even illustrated the article with a faux engraving of a yuppie handing over some cash to a 'green priest' in a fake confessional, buying a carbon offset indulgence. As the man says, "Damn. I mean, Daaaaamnnnn." I'm not one to crow about being right, but... oh, heck yes, I am. Cock-a-doodle-doo.

It doesn't mean I'm right about global warming (some skepticism about the degree and extent of anthropogenic warming), nor does it mean I'm wrong, just that perhaps I'm not as retarded or clueless at the thinking thing as that lovely commenter stated.

None of this is meant to bring any heat on DC Velo's excellent sponsor and its business, or on the good intentions of people who want to reduce carbon emissions. I worked in the environmental cleanup industry back in the days when I made an honest living, and can tell you that in that arena, for every thief, there's an honest man; for every con artist, a pious environmentalist with the soul of a saint. I know more than a few DC Velo-ites, and think highly of them and their intentions - I suspect they are on the side of the saints, or at least trying to be. But what I do reiterate and stand by, regardless of whose feelings it hurts, is that we should be slow to jump on any social movement that directs the re-ordering of society, especially where any resistance is met with argument not on the merits, but the irrelevant (and plain wrong, from a scientific method standpoint) ipse dixit that "everybody believes in this, you are an idiot if you don't."

So to that brave anonymous commenter, I'd point out the words of another guy who was skeptical about the beliefs of the masses:

The number of people that can reason well is much smaller than those that can reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling rocks, then several reasoners might be better than one. But reasoning isn't like hauling rocks, it's like, it's like racing, where a single, galloping Barbary steed easily outruns a hundred wagon-pulling horses.

Apparently, Galileo Galilei said that. I'm not in his class but when somebody lays an argument on me that is based on received wisdom, I usually call BS and ask for a better argument, this time on the merits. Sometimes I'm wrong, but usually I'm right: people typically only argue "consensus" (or "dogma" if you want a better term for it) when they aren't able to argue on the merits for some reason.

- Enough of that garbage. Sorry to go all petty and political, but "dude, you're a retard" crosses a line in the sand, and shall not stand. Besides, the proper term is "cognitive disabilities."

They Train, In Spain, But Mainly on the Plain...

That title has nothing to do with anything. I blog here to report only... well, only that I am training hard and the training and weight sucking is going fine. Yep, I'm cranky. Yep, I'm tired. Yep, I would probably kill a cow with my bare hands and eat it raw, if I had the strength to bridge up to it right now. No, it's not healthy to lose more than a pound a week. Yep, it makes you weak so your training isn't as effective as it could be. But what would you rather do? Lose 5-6 pounds a week and be done with the dieting in a month or two, and shift into a maintenance phase? Or spend a year trying to do it slow?

Yeah, the training is going fine. Coach Bill had me down at Hains Point today doing 5 minute big ring intervals. I was supposed to run 53-12 at 60 - 72 RPM but pretty soon found myself doing 26-27 MPH, and an estimated 80 RPM. So down into the 53-11 we went. Wheeeeeeee. I guess the idea is you build muscle endurance by keeping hard tension on the muscle. Given my lardy bulk-itude, hills kill me (power to weight ratio) but when it comes to straight power on flat ground, I can pretty much pound. The problem was I could keep the cadence and speed lower, but it felt like I wasn't working at all and the Hr stayed really low. There just wasn't a lot of muscle tension at all, and that seemed to defeat the purpose. So maybe I just have to ensure I'm riding these straight into the wind. Either that, or get one of those 60 tooth track chainrings. Still, it was a good workout, my legs feel wobbly as all hell still. Recovery day tomorrow. It's going to be the first day riding on the new Powertap - I don't expect big numbers. (Once I've been riding steadily with the Powertap, I really won't expect big numbers...)

Now for some non-me stuff.

Here's a really good discussion and a follow up discussion describing how much food and what types you should be eating on rides. The verdict? Lots. It has been found that mixing your sugars (carbs) to include glucose, sucrose, fructose, nearly doubles your body's ability to take in calories. Most people seem to be able to handle about 300 - 400 calories per hour - that's one bottle of sports drink plus a Clif bar. Apparently you can up it a bit by body weight, but I've seen other discussions indicating that body weight (lean body weight, BTW) isn't that relevant, the basic clearing capacity of the human stomach is the key. Not sure what to believe, but have found that about 400 calories, maybe 500, of carbs, is about the limit.

[Update: Lest I forget, Hammer Nutritionals has looked into this phenomenon and has produced a bunch of drink mixes and munchies that fit the bill. They are comprised of various combinations of complex carbs, soy protein, and amino acids. I have found Hammer products to be absolutely superb at keeping me fueled, with three caveats. One, their taste isn't for everybody. You may need to add a touch of orange or lemon juice to their stuff to make it palatable. Two, you have to figure out a fueling strategy, and stick to it - while you can fuel yourself entirely on Hammer sports drinks on very long rides (like RAAM) the stuff has some unusual mixtures of products which some find upsets the stomach. Three, it's a bit expensive, though it seems to me that the price has come down a bit recently. It's also a good option if you are vegetarian or vegan... I love Hammer but the stuff costs twice as much as Gu products, so I really can't use it all the time.]

That said, there are some wonderful things that help supplement the carbs on a long ride. I find that mixing in fats - not eating fats alone, but adding them into the mix - helps. I'm talking about nuts, though a greasy Quarter Pounder goes down a treat on a really long ride. Adding salty stuff helps - again, I'm talking about peanuts or almonds. Does your mouth hurt a bit if you eat spicy food right after a ride? I have it on good authority from a real medical-talking-guy (where you at, Jon?) that is a sign of sodium deficiency. Try eating some nuts, or some salty pretzels. And on really really long rides, real food is the key. A big fat turkey/swiss on whole wheat is tremendous. So is a roast beef sandwich, with veggies and mustard. MMmmmmm. And, if your stomach is a little shaky, the Fattest Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches in The World™ provide a huge amount of energy. I'm talking three plus fat tablespoons of peanut butter, big pieces of bread, and jelly a half inch thick. I worked it out over the weekend. That sandwich, which is my favorite pre-ride food of all time, has about 650 calories. Throw in a banana for desert, and you are ready to race a crit.

Go give Elden Nelson, the Fat Cyclist, a visit. His wife's breast cancer recently decided it didn't like remission, but would prefer to metastasize, and make the normally affable and funny Elden miserable and worried. So please, go over there, drop him a comment and tell him how much you appreciate his very funny blog, and then talk to Dana Matassa or one of the other Coppis who do charity rides to raise funds for cancer research and ask how to donate or get involved in fundraising. Or just go to Livestrong and point & click from there. And if you have it in you, say a prayer that Elden and his wife (and maybe all the other people who get tagged by this wretched disease) might find the strength to fight through this challenge.

Today's Word of Warning...

If you are taking some super-potent drug for some dread disease, like bronchitis or pneumonia, and the label warns you that the drug may make you dizzy, I don't advise going for 50 miles of zone two training, with very little water, following a long day of mainly eating very modest portions of salad, veggies and fruit.

Just take my word on that, m'kay?

Carl Dolan 4/5 Race - Veni, Vidi,Volo in domum redire

I hadn't planned on doing the Carl Dolan 4/5 due to the sickness and general unfitness I've discussed in detail here, but had already paid for the entry. Moreover, Saturday's 4 hour zone 2 / tempo ride went fine, and I felt good on the bike yesterday for the first time in 3/4 months... so why not race Carl Dolan? The only goal I set was to get my legs under me and sort of get used to racing again, and check on the basic fitness. If I lasted 10 minutes it was probably about 7 minutes longer than I expected.

The start is in the middle of a two-part hill that has a fairly steep little kicker, followed by an almost-flat-enough-to-be-a-false-flat-but-not-quite stretch of a couple hundred yards. From there it is a long D-shaped curve, up a real false flat to a short downhill, a 90 degree sweeper, another false flat downhill, then the start of the relatively steep uphill to the start/finish.

Life was actually pretty good for about 25 minutes. The pace wasn't hard, only the way folks were riding made it hard - too many brakes in the turn and too much slowdown at the bottom of the hill (I prefer to carry speed into the hill, then stay on top of the pedals). On the turn, it was just stupid for people to brake. This was a pure circuit race, there was nothing technical on it, so the braking down to 12 MPH was simply inexcusable. Practice your handling drills, people! As for the hill, I can understand how nobody wants to work but on a 20-25 second climb, if you hit the bottom at something just short of a seated sprint you can practically coast up.

I could have moved up front and my race would have lasted longer but after carrying a lung infection all winter (and thinking I was slow & hurting *only* because I sucked) my confidence wasn't really that high. So I wasn't thinking "thrive," was instead thinking more along the lines of "survive". After about 25 minutes of accordion-sprint around the only corner, and slogging too slow up the power climb, I had burned a few too many matches. I quietly blew up and slipped out the back of the pack. I TT'ed at threshold for two laps, and then stopped to cough and throw up on the median for a bit. It was one of the nicest, grassiest medians I have ever vomited on. I'd like to know what they do to get the grass that lush.

I would normally be unhappy with that result but my goals were modest today, and I gained some confidence about what I can do with some additional training, life in the Cat 4 pack should be reasonably comfortable by mid-season. Next race I'll be looking to contribute a bit. And to ride at the front, you betcha.

Hard as a Bag of Hammers... Nearly as Smart

Sometimes you can be too hard for your own good.

Some of you have been following my travails with my asthma / colds / bronchitis over the winter. Cough cough cough, ride ride ride, cough cough.

Thing is, I thought I was just riding through a series of colds, complicated by asthma.

Turns out I've probably had a persistent chest infection, ranging from low grade to flaming-teetering-on-pneumonia since around January, and based on the symptoms I had last week, probably pneumonia.

I went to the doc's today for some followup care after the weekend's antics. Since the chest rattle hasn't quite cleared up after 4 days' of antibiotics, they did a chest x-ray.

The good news: It's not pneumonia, though it might have been, and likely was over the weekend, especially in light of some of the breathing symptoms I've had.

The bad news: another ten days of antibiotics, this time some killer strong pills that are designed especially for taking out lung infections.

Can I ride hard for the next ten days? "Listen to what your body says," according to the doc. Hmmm... how does one go about doing that? I've been riding in the mountains and doing tempo+ rides, probably on walking pneumonia. Seems to me, my body and I aren't talking much these days.

Can I ride easy? "Absolutely. Shouldn't be a problem. Unless your body disagrees, of course."

I'm thinking it's time to donate my Carl Dolan entry back to the promoter and maybe just do a couple long zone 2 rides this weekend, limit the high heart rate (and coughing) episodes. Maybe try to sleep a bit extra and kick this infection once and for all. Next week, if the rattle is gone, maybe return to regular training.

It's funny. I'm very in tune to what my legs and heart rate are doing. When I'm riding, I have a good sense of how many matches I have left in my back pocket. But I haven't a clue as to what the rest of my body is up to. Just not a clue.

Suffice to say, I've scheduled a complete physical for a couple months from now.

It just wouldn't do to have an arm drop off on the Sunday ride, or to prolapse my colon while doing kilos at Hains Point. Better get the rest of my body checked out, make sure it's not falling apart. Y'know, before it gets pissed at me for all the abuse I heap on it, and moves to a new zip code, moving in with some metrosexual weenie who takes it to salons and dips it in mud baths and slathers it with cucumber cold cream at night, before slipping it into cashmere pajamas. That would just spoil it completely, and *that* wouldn't be right either.

Post Camp Blues

- Sunday night, I hit the doc's. While camp was fun, I was troubled by a bum ankle, and a cough I couldn't shake. Turns out, it is bad tendinitis (probably not bike-related) in the ankle, and bronchitis complicating my asthma. I asked the doc what the diagnosis was. He said, "Dude. Yer a mess." I'm not joking.

- At least my Hr was pretty good, around 60. I had to explain that I wasn't in congestive heart failure, it's just I ride a bike *a lot*.

- So it's been on the crutches for three days, taking the prednisone for the ankle and asthma, antibiotics for the bronchitis. I'm almost not wheezing and the pain in the ankle has retreated back to just being a dull stabbing pain, where it usually is. The bronchitis seems mostly gone. Cool.

- Fun fact of the day: If you are taking heavy doses of ibuprofen (motrin), it can trigger asthma problems. Like say you had a bum ankle, and were riding in the mountains for 3-4 days...

- Doc's appointment at noon. With a little luck I'll grab an easy zone two ride tomorrow. Off the crutches as of tonight. Let's see how it goes. Not sure I'm going to be doing Carl Dolan. Mental note to self - email promoter Friday AM if the ankle is still bummered, to give some wait listed guy a shot.

- Ever had one of those weeks where the medical roof just caves in? This was one of them for me. Happens to me about twice a year and I hate it.

Camping it Up

Some notes from Coppi Camp

- It's really frickin' hilly in the Blue Ridge Mountains east of Charlottesville. That terrain isn't very hospitable to large riders... or as the great man said, "Sit down, Flatlander!"

- The Coppis are a delightfully odd collection of very talented and unique people. Most of them are damn good riders too.

- Riding hard in the hills does something weird to the gut. I was able to retreat to the throne for some private reading time roughly five times daily. Meanwhile, I was barely eating twice. Odd.

- I rode a roughly 25 mile course on Thursday when I arrived, trying to limit effort on hills (unsuccessfully) to tempo pace. I rode the same course Sunday, with the addition of another hill climb, adding about two miles, at an easy zone 2 pace, just cruising dead slow up hill, but then riding hard from the top and on the descents. I even stopped to pet a dog. I rode the 25+2 about 3 or 4 minutes faster in spite of my Hr only getting above zone 2 for a fraction of a minute. More odd.

- Electric bike races are fun, but not as fun as gambling on electric bike races.

- Sack Up!

- The Acorn Inn is a great place to take a group of cyclists, (or maybe even some skiers). Well, as long as they aren't track cyclists (or cross country skiers who can't telemark). The owners are a bigtime cycling family, and Martin (husband/owner) is a former top cyclist in the Netherlands. Just make sure you have a 12-25 or 12-27 for a cassette, or a triple. After 50 miles of bagging passes and peaks, climbing up the hill to the Inn seems like a bit of a chore. Ever had both legs cramp up solid? I don't recommend it.

- Riding in the rain can be a lot of fun, even if you start the ride in the wet. You just have to gut out the first 15 minutes or so of the ride, and keep a good mental attitude about it. Be prepared for your feet and hands to get a bit cold at the outset, and it will start to get really cold all over after a couple hours, so don't plan a 6 hour epic in the rain unless you have a good rest stop in the middle and maybe a dry jersey.

Water Bottles: Iron Lung Edition

- Ack. Is it asthma? A cold? Just drippy sinuses making me cough? I don't know. What I do know is it could shut me out from camp this weekend and I am bummed and worried.

- Major cognitive dissonance moment. Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich ad features a bunch of people eating the sandwiches, to the tune of Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun." The voiceover goes, "You're the man. You eat the spicy chicken sandwich. You're the man." Etc. But the lyrics to the music, which is a notorious earworm, include this gem of sexual angst. "Body and beats I stain my sheets I dont even know why...My girlfriend she's at the end she is starting to cry..." Yeah, you're the man, alright... the sexually confused, angst-filled, cringing-through-puberty, possibly sociopathic man. But, you do eat the chicken sandwich. So that makes it okay. Right?

What this means in the long run, is I'm going to find eating Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwiches extremely troubling, and may in fact be compelled to stick to the Classic Double Cheeseburger, with bacon. I find the double bacon cheeseburger creates fewer psychosexual side effects, though it may cause me to loosen my belt a bit... just not in the way a confused guy who eats the chicken sandwich loosens his.

- I heard John Feinstein on the local sports radio drive time show and he really got me thinking. He was going on about how the Duke Lacrosse players had it coming in the recently dropped bogus rape allegations case. There's no way to put this nicely: Feinstein is a friggin' ass. The malicious, race-baiting fueled prosecution of anybody, I don't care how wealthy some of them may be, or how much beer they drank and how many strippers they hired over the last two years, is flat out evil, not to mention illegal, and incredibly damaging to our society. Feinstein was kind of hinting around how privileged white males kind of have it coming, which I find amazing since he is one and he, someday, is likely to find himself on the receiving end of the over-the-top treatment that the indefensible Don Imus is receiving.

Thing is, we've had high profile racially charged bogus rape cases in the South before, conclusion jumping and vicious opinion mongering, and it always ends badly, to the everlasting shame of everybody involved, and the general disgust of the rest of the country. The unctuous Feinstein was one of the first people to convict the Duke Lax players in the press, and he feels like he has to defend his position, but it's just wrong. Equal justice, folks. Equal justice for all. Feinstein capped off the interview by talking about Masters champion Zach Johnson, who, in Feinstein's view, has pretty good character "in spite of his religious tendencies."

Yuck. Personally, I don't care if you worship rocks, or are an atheist, or if you're the pope himself, I wouldn't use your religious beliefs as a plus for you or minus against you in assessing your character. I'd watch how you act. It's the only way to do it that is fair, and also likely to be accurate in the results. With his religion crack, Feinstein comes off like the mirror image of some guy just returned from the Thirty Years War, and when you consider his comments about the Duke Lax players, it paints an ugly picture of a guy who forms a shallow opinion based solely on pre-existing notions, and then believes it deeply, no matter how vindictive it is and sometimes no matter how wrong it is shown to be. I used to actually like the guy's writing, but have gotten rapidly to the point where his toxic opinions overshadow his interesting writing. What a shame. But that isn't my point, it's just a sideshow to my point anyhow.

What does any of this have to do with cycling? Simple. Doping. We're all pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon and convict guys of doping right out of the gate. Yet we know that the anti-doping regime as practiced abroad is crooked; we know that the labs have chain of custody problems and other issues that compromise the reliability of tests; and we know you just can't rely on the results. But we're all pretty quick to hop on the 'damn him, damn her, damn them all' bandwagon. I do it too. What Feinstein's remarks today made me realize is we're often way too quick on the trigger in making our judgments. Then, when we look back on it, we're forced into equally stupid, if not more stupid positions, to justify our earlier stupidity.

It doesn't mean that we should never pass judgment. There is a time and place to do so. But the smart thing to do is to withhold judgment until the facts are more or less known. Compare and contrast Floyd Landis, versus Tyler Hamilton. The more that comes out about Tyler, the more it's clear he was doping, and has been dishonest. Those who continue to defend him, hewing to their initial say-it-ain't-so, Joe- positions, look pretty damn dumb. Those who convicted Floyd the day after the test results were announced, look pretty damn dumb too. You think the Duke Lax players are ever going to recover their reputations, after the national press jumped on them with a vengeance? Not likely. You think Floyd is ever going to make up for the lost business opportunities caused by the premature judgment we passed on him? Of course not, even though there is a building argument that he may have been set up, or at a minimum the testing process is not demonstrably reliable or accurate.

Being a grownup means that sometimes you have to admit you just don't know, and until you do, you'll keep your mouth more or less shut about the question. The reason this is the grownup way is because reputations can be damaged, men and women destroyed, by loose lips. It's hard to keep our mouths shut and just shrug, because we all want to seem in control all the time. But we aren't, and we shouldn't be ashamed to admit that the knowledge of some things is beyond us, at least some of the time.

That is hard to do, but if you want to be an honest person, and most of all be honest with yourself, I think it's what you have to do. Nobody ever said doing the right thing is easy.

Water Bottles: Looking at the world Through a Moldy Bottle Bottom Edition

- Dear God. They run Ghent-Wevelgem tomorrow. I strongly advise staying away from Velo News and all the cycling sites after about 11:00 AM tomorrow, if you want to be surprised sometime during the OLN / PBR / Occasional Hockey Coverage With-Too-Few-Cameras network coverage of Paris Roubaix. As in, Bobke saying, "It's not surprising _____ is a little slow on the cobbles today, and going back to the team car to throw up in the back window, what with winning Ghent-Wevelgem on Wednesday."

- I can't believe this weather. It's awful. I'm starting to get sick, maybe, before camp this Thursday. Riding is just so shitty right now. I can handle 30 degrees, fine. I can handle 25 MPH winds, fine. But 35, with 25 MPH winds? That's a 23 degree windchill. I was trying to ride home yesterday, into the wind, up the Cap Crescent. The legs were fine. The lungs? I had a world class asthma attack. Not sure if it's morphing into a cold, or just the glue-y lungs you get after a big fit of asthma coughing. Suffice to say, construction dust, car pollution, and all the pollen floating around in the air (which has been unnaturally blown off the trees in this weather) didn't help in the least. Man, I need some global warming. Fast.

- Speaking of camp... spoke with the coach about it. His heavily structured plan - 'ride lots, have fun.' For this I'm paying? He also had a warning. 'There are a lot of hills there. Be careful. You could get killed out there.' He's right. I'm a big fat dude and nowhere near mid-season shape. I stuck on the 12-27 pieplate cassette and plan on doing *a lot* of zone 2/3 spinning. That's if I don't have pneumonia by Thursday. Just stop me if this starts sounding like a Woodie Allen script.

- Uh-oh... GIRLFIGHT!

Water Bottles: Ronde van Vlaanderen Edition

- Congrats to Ballan, for a great sprint. Condolences to Leif Hoste... Is he condemned forever to the the perpetual second fiddle at the Spring Classics? Perhaps so. But that's what you get when your parents name you for a second rate pop star.

- Watching the BoSox/Rangers game tonight, I was transfixed by Texas manager Ron Washington. He ingests, chews, de-shells, and spits out sunflower seeds at an amazing rate. For whole minutes at a time, when the camera lingers on him, he looks like a human wood chipper.

- Suffering is so much a part of our sport. Watching Leif Hoste struggle to the line and get edged today, it occurred to me that I'll always remember him for that and for his anguished face. Same thing with Matthias Kessler - I'll always remember him not for dragging Eric Zabel's lost-a-step ass up some steep hills or for winning a stage in the TdF... I'll remember him instead for his epic loss, 50 meters short of the line in a TdF stage last year (followed by the win, of course) and for his epic crash, and completing the stage with rocks in his helmet. So too with my friends - in my mind, their suffering defines them. John messing up a knee grinding through 70 miles of mud on the canal, Trev rolling pretty much a whole MTB endurance race on a wheel that was un-turn-able by hand (second hand story, but still pretty amazing); Bill by his random season-ending injuries; James grappling with Asthma and working harder than anybody; Ken, just frickin' grinding. I guess even the pros are defined this way, often. Saul Raisin, the guy coming back from brain injury, Lance Armstrong, who beat cancer to win, Fausto Coppi, the weak child who became il Campionissimo. This is often true in life in general, and I think if we realized it more often we'd be happier: our struggles define us. If we could approach all challenges knowing that they are the evidence of our passing in this world, we'd probably all do better at our challenges, and feel better being tested. We'd certainly take an attitude into them, that challenges are things we rise to, not things that put us down.

Phew.

Glad I got in a 2.5 hour ride this morning - I was in D.C. around 5:00 AM and rode almost the entire Muffin Ride in reverse in brutal wind, before catching a small group riding the normal Muffin Ride in the normal direction. I'm glad, because we're supposed to get snow tonight, so my road riding may be done for a couple days. I may be able to hit Rosaryville in the AM but I'm not counting on it.

On the upside, there is some good racing on TV this weekend.

NBC will be broadcasting the US Open Road Cycling Championships on Saturday at 2:30, which will feature 50-60 miles of rolling countryside around Richmond VA, followed by around 45 miles of hard hammering around an 8 mile loop in Richmond, including a cobblestone hill. Mmmmm.... Cobblestone Mayhem... Special bonus: Roll/Trautwig will be broadcasting it, and we should have some horrid weather - snow is in the forecast. Roll riffing on freezing sleet, snow and crashes, should be worth the price of admission.

Then on Sunday, OLN / VS / the Bullriding Network or whatever they are calling themselves, will be showing the first of the Northern Classics, the Ronde den Vlaanderen, starting at 5:00 PM. I like Boonen or van Petegem, but I'm liable to be surprised.

Sweet.

Muffin Ride Tomorrow AM

Do you know the Muffin Ride, the Muffin Ride, the Muffin Ride?
Do you know the Muffin Ride, that starts from Java Shack?

Yes I know the Muffin Ride, the Muffin Ride, the Muffin Ride.
Yes I know the Muffin Ride, that starts from Java Shack.

I know the Muffin Ride, 'cuz I love to ride the Muffin Ride.

Essential Stats:

Time: 6:30 AM

Dist: ~21 miles, not counting transit to ride start

Pace: 16-18. Not quite no drop, but pretty close.

Course: Custis Trail to W&OD to 4 Mile Run to Mt. Vernon Trail, to Arlington Blvd, left on Veitch and back up to Java Shack.

Calories burned: Probably about 600

Calories consumed: Probably about 800, post-ride muffin plus coffee

Coppis on the Ride: usually 7 to 30

Participants: Squadra Coppi members, guests. Women, children, people of all races and inclinations, as long as you're interested in racing or at least a serious bike degenerate. Just introduce yourself, and ride with good pack manners. Make sure you tip the baristos at the Java Shack generously.

Purpose: warm up the legs a little for the race weekend (1-2 short efforts okay. Don't come here to hammer though). Socialize with friends. Get to know prospective new members of our race club. Plot out race strategy. Eat tasty muffins. Orange/Cranberry may be the best.

Grins: Where S is the number of riders, Grins = S x 50.

It's the best ride of the week. Even if it is going to be 30.

Random Stuff

- Steve Czaban, who does the drive time sports radio on 980 AM in D.C., and Fox Sports Radio nationally, came up with a good one the other day talking about the NBA and the players' propensity for fathering kids out of wedlock, getting arresting, and shotgunning limousine drivers. He called it, "The League of Distinguished Gentlemen." Nice one, Czabe. Pretty much nails it.

- Went to a baseball game with some rugby buddies who were hosting some British referees on an exchange program. Bumped into a guy at the beer stand who does sports writing / blogging for the Wash Post. Turned him on to the referee story, which he blogs, mentioning me, and my mention of cyclocross. He asked if I still played, I said no, bad back and ankles, I raced bikes now for Squadra Coppi. This went into a sidebar discussion of bike racing, road and cyclocross, as we walked up to where the referees were sitting. The funny thing was, Steinberg described me as "well built" in his blog entry. It just goes to show you what they say about beer goggles. And yeah, if you have any doubts about whether the media is accurate or not, all you have to do is look at that article and you'll have your answer. I may try and turn him on to the Charm City Cross in the fall - that scene would probably blow his mind.

- NCAA women's hoops: other than the top ten or 20 teams, it pretty much debunks everything the voices in the corn told Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams. I was watching the highlights of the championship game this morning, and it was brutal. What was the final... a 13 point or 15 point win for Tennessee? That sport, along with WNBA, blows "if you build it, they will come" right out of the water. The style of play is almost bad enough, to make the NBA look reasonable, and except for a few programs, the arenas are empty. This is in the pros, and the college ranks too. The WNBA, as a friend of mine with a bit of savvy in sports marketing pointed out, is great political insulation and it's a good tax writeoff for the NBA owners, nothing more. Don't get me wrong - I am not inveighing against women's sports generally. There are some women's sports I love. Tennis, volleyball, bike racing, rowing, swimming, soccer, and golf - fine sports. It's just that hoops doesn't translate well with shorter, slower athletes than I'm used to on the court. George Mikan and some pasty white 5'11" forward (with no tats) who shoots free throws underhanded and wears Converse All-Stars unironically would feel right at home with the women's game of today. It would help if the games were closer, but there's far too much of a gap between the royalty of the women's game, and everybody else... too many 83-40 scores. Say it ain't so, Joe... it is, kid. It is. And if it makes you feel any better, I think men's tennis is absurd for similar reasons. The courts aren't scaled for 140 MPH serves, and I'm not sure they could be. Tennis played by women, in contrast, is a beautiful game. Played by men... it's akin to watching skinny guys in nice clothing doing powerlifting. Ack.

- Road racing - dorky, in a cool sort of way? Or cool, in a dorky sort of way? Mountain biking - cool in an uncool sort of way? Cyclocross - cool in an "I don't care if you think it's cool" sort of way? Or uncool in an "I am trying to hard to be a non-conformist" kind of way? Track racing - uncool. Uncouth, in fact. But oh so good. In fact, it's so uncool, it might actually be cool, kind of like tacky polyester bowling shirts.

- Speaking of the tacky bowling shirts... The Big Lebowski - the best existential comedy ever, and possibly the best single source of one liners in all moviedom*. I will brook no argument on this point. This is not Viet Nam... this is Unholy Rouleur, Walter. There are rules here.

- Couldn't ride during the day today, so I rode after putting the boy down to bed. Went out with Tom the Wrench. Tom is young. I tried to explain that doing 5 or 6 seated form sprints, on 5 minutes rest with easy spinning,, after a 15 or 20 minute warmup, is quite an adequate workout for racers, even though we only rode for about 75 minutes, and only covered maybe 15 miles. Somehow, I don't think he believed me.



*(The Big Lebowski is in close competition with Caddyshack on this point).

Bike Wash

Did the bike wash tonight. Washed the bike, and the riding clothes too. It's gotten to the point where I have enough more or less delicate lycra stuff, that I have to keep a separate laundry basket in the Man Cave and do a big wash every week. Do you wash your own stuff? If so, you know a secret. That secret is... bicycling is a disgusting sport.

Admittedly, this week has been tough on me. I'm trying to ride myself back into shape, so I'm riding a lot. There is mucho pollen in the air, and it is chilly in the mornings, and this is bad for my asthma, so I'm hacking and spitting for two hours every morning. It's also warm in the evening for the last 15 miles of commuting of my day. And I had a good crash on Saturday. What does this have to do with laundry? Easy. It totally changes it from "a collection of dirty stuff," to "a zoological display of disgusting stuff."

What do I mean? Let's start out with the crash damaged stuff. Bloody shorts, bloody gloves, and a bloody jersey. Those don't smell, but the mere sight of copious bloodstains, especially when it's one's own blood, is kind of gross.

Then there's the base layers, and the right leg of each pair of shorts. When I have asthma attacks while riding in the cold, my sinuses and lungs turn into firehoses of snot. The 5" kind of hose, not the 1.5" or 2.5" type. If nobody is around, I just blow snotrockets and spite out over my arm, and wipe my nose on my forearm. This leads to a huge crust of snot and less viscous stuff all over my base layers. If people are around, I dip my head under my arm, and spit / snotblast out between armpit and thigh. Because my thigh is going up and down, pedaling, it means half of it lands on my nice black shorts. This leaves long, slender whisps of disgusting phlegm on my shorts, as if a kid went wild with the green Silly String.

Then you've got your gloves. I hate blowing the nose on the gloves, but sometimes the forearm on a base layer is just too disgusting to raise to your face to wipe off the snot. That's when the gloves have to take one for the team.

As for the shorts, I'm not done yet. The left side each has a big crust where my road rash is seeping and weeping into the fabric. The only upside to it, is if I crash, I won't reinjure the road rash; I'll be able to slide down the road on a shield of hardened goo.

Worst of all are the socks. I don't know what it is about the socks, but if I ride more than about 50 miles, they get so sweaty and salty, that they feel almost waxy, and like they were spun from polyester. It doesn't matter if the socks are made from polyester, or wool, or cotton - they all go nasty as hell after a good long ride.

The funniest thing about the bike wash, however, is my wife's kit. It doesn't even smell awful. Funnier yet, she rides with a handkerchief, to blow her nose. I have to talk to that girl and teach her about the mysteries of the Church of the Unholy Snotrockets.

Oh, the riding. You want to know how that's going... well, it's going just fine. I'm racking up 40-50 miles a day of mostly zone 2 riding with a little bit of intensity thrown in, aka occasional fixed gear thrashes. I'm definitely getting stronger again and losing some weight, and I'll be getting back on Coach Bill Gros' plan next week, now that I have a wee bit of form.

How's your training going? More to the point, are your clothes as disgusting as mine?

You Can't Handle the Workout...

You want a workout, Lieutenant? You can't handle this workout.

Seriously, if you feel a bit stagnant and keenly feel the need for a real butt whupping workout, break out your fixed gear and sling a smaller cog on it. I recommend the smallest cog you can spin at a low intensity level - 95 or 100 RPM while your heart rate is high zone one, on a nice flat surface on a calm day.

Now go ride 35 relatively hilly miles. Cruise on the downhills and flats, and when you get to the hills, bomb them absolutely as hard as you can. Do 'em standing, what the hell.

By the time you finish this workout, I guarantee you will have trouble keeping up a 95 RPM spin. It is a great workout, providing your knees are okay and you have some level of base fitness in the legs and engine.

Better bring a plastic bag to stick your lungs in, however. They'll be coming up about 10 miles in on the ride. Just trust me on that one.

Water Bottles 4/1 Edition

- Congrats to Sean for knocking out the Cat 5's at Tysons. Way to take the win, bro.

- Congrats to my man Jens Voigt, for winning the Criterium International for the third or fourth time. He's won it often enough that it should be called the Jens Voigt Invitational, and the trophy should be a miniature bronze replica of Jens' ass - because that's all anybody ever sees at that little omnium.

- Add a seriously bruised lower back to the casualty list, and my jersey pockets. It wasn't that bad of a crash, just a low side, but hitting the deck at 25-30 is *never* without cost.

- The stuff Arnie Baker recommended for covering up road rash is Nexcare Tegaderm, and there is a comparable Johnson and Johnson product. My wife bought me a box of the bandages tonight. She didn't know what I wanted, but the box showed a cyclist's leg on the cover, and, she said, "I saw he had cycling shoes on, and road rash. So I figured it was the right stuff." Yes, it was honey, unless Major League Baseball has paved the basepaths.

- Can't wait to ride this week. Going to overload myself on Zone 2 miles with limited intense spurts for about 10 days prior to camp, hit the diet hard, ride as much as I can manage at camp (ignoring the group rides, just doing my own Zone 2 / occasional hill sprint thing), and then start Build 1 when I return from four days of camp. After 2 or 3 days of rest and easy riding, anyhow.

- Overall status? Not quite sure. My legs are coming back alright, the weight is starting to slough off pretty decently. It's getting to be time to start throwing in some intensity work, because I am just plain slow right now - but losing the weight and really blasting the base miles for about 14 days has to be the priority. This puts me on track to be reasonable competitive by June 15 or so. That's about when I want to be rolling really hard, since I like the mid- to late season crits - they are flatter, more technical and faster.

- Have fun riding this week folks. Don't ever forget, it's supposed to be fun. Try to lift the eyes of the power meter and HR meter for just a couple minutes, and take in the scenery and enjoy it.