When the best laid plans fall apart

This weekend was the Calgary marathon and long story short, I'll talk about it more later this week, shit didn't go right.  But that brings me to today's topic, what to do when the best laid plans start falling apart.

Well I went in with a couple plans, with plan A to target a very aggressive PB time, but that was only if everything was going right. I scaled back those ambitions as I realized that it wasn't realistic to finish within that time.  It always helps to latch onto someone to help you get through to the finish like I did with the 4 hour marathon pace bunnies, but more on that in a bit.

The biggest thing that can offset plans is running off your pace (and it really is the root of all problems) how do you get back on track.  You can either go too fast, or go too slow

Too Slow
If you're finding that you're falling off your pace due to going too slow, you can pick it up if you catch it early enough and do some mental math.  For example I figured out after about 8 miles that I was about 2 minutes behind schedule, and realized hey 240 seconds isn't a whole lot that you need to make up.  Resist the urge to suddenly speed up to make it all back in one go because this just saps out energy for later on.  Slowly pick the pace back up, go slightly under what your target needs to be, and then back it off a bit.  This should get you back on track, but the most important thing is over a long distance race like half or full marathons, 2 minutes is not a huge deal and is easily make uppable (just like that word is).

Too Fast
This one is the same idea, if you're going to fast, just slow it down gradually, don't just slam on the brakes and bring that pace down directly because you're just asking for cramps to happen. 

When SH#* hits the fan
Well when that happens, it's good to have a plan b, or a plan c.  My plan b for example was just to conserve as much energy as possible and just finish within four hours and call it a day.  Work out what you need to run in order to hit that target for backup plan.  Other little things that I've come to appreciate in the past is the awesomeness of a run walk strategy.  I ran at a 9 min/mile pace or thereabouts, for 10 minutes and then took a 1 minute walk break, and then kept at it till I felt alright again and just pushed through.  I used to think that once you stopped moving forward you were done, and it's not quite that clear cut anymore. 

So at the end of the day all the best laid plans don't mean anything if execution can't follow with it.  When execution can't follow you need to figure out where you are, what you can do, and then make a new plan and start going down that path.  If that doesn't work then have a third plan ready.  Just plan in advance, and be ready to use them if the need arises.

~Cheers

Wishlist: Fi'zik:k Arione Saddle

I've noticed that certain companies that I get stuff from or like stuff from usually also has other stuff that I also enjoy.  For example I enjoy most of the entire High5 Sports nutrition range.  Now anybody who has started off on road bikes will undoubtedly have lamented about how amazingly uncomfortable the saddle is (myself included).  A lot of this has to do with the fact that there is a whole lot less padding than you're used to, but I've actually come to not mind my saddle although on super long rides it does start to leave a little bit of a pain in the back side.

Now the staus quo with saddles is that you look at how wide your sit bones are and you find a saddle that matches.  You get a cut out if you want to reduce some pressure.  Fizik are a little bit different in how they do this whole choosing a saddle business.  Instead of looking at sole width, what they do is look at your flexibility because this is a pretty big determiner on how much pressure you put on your saddle. 

They define you as either a snake, chameleon or a bull.

It's pretty easy given their diagram to classify yourself as one of their archetypes. 

Snake - Flat and Narrow, they say if you're a snake you use the entire length of the saddle.  You flex easily and naturally to accommodate changing positions.  Genital compression is not an issue for you as your weight is supported by the sit bone.
Chameleon - Flat and Wide, they say if you're a chameleon you're not restricted to saddle shape.  For optimum comfort and performance you flex instinctively to manage the body's weight.
Snake - Wide and Waved, they say if you're a bull you make one major adjustment on the bike by dramatically rotating the pelvis forward and then sit in the pocket of the saddle.  Your sit bones interface with the rear part of the saddle increasing pressure on the genitalia.

I actually first tried the Arione saddle on a test ride of the Cervelo S3. That is one sweet bike, but another story another time.  Fizik saddles are full interesting technologies like Wing Flex which allows the shell to flex when under some stress.

So where you see what appears to be little slits in the side there, it will flex especially when you're pushing down in your pedal stroke.  This allows the rider to find a comfortable position anywhere on the saddle.

Other cool things is the integrated clip system (ICS) that allows you to fit Fizik accessories very easily to the saddle.

But unfortunately I'm super poor right now so this will stay on the wishlist and kinda something cool to look at.

~Cheers

Week in Review May 28, 2011

So as you've probably realized I tend to be really all over the place and write a bunch of little sentence fragments.  I also always have these little things that kinda just crop up and don't really make a full post so they just usually never make it to a full post.  But hopefully with this weekly review I will be able to put them in, and there can be a quick recap of what I've written this week.

So here it is, a nice small summarizing Saturday post, a look at what's happened, cool random things and maybe if I have not gotten distracted maybe what we will do next week. I missed last week partially because of the long weekend, but we're back again and here's the last update before I pop off to bed and go sleep before my marathon.

Posts this week

Tuesday - Making the best of your time
Wednesday - Review: High5 Energy Gels
Thursday - Training Updates

Random Notes
Tommorow is the Calgary marathon that I'm running in, looks like mother nature has decided to at least co-operate with us, but I'm looking out my window right now and it's just all grey so we'll hope and pray.

DZ (Dave Zabriskie) won the US PRO time trial championships today, hats off to yet another national champs jersey for this guy.

 

The Giro finishes tommorow, yet again El Pistolero/AC/Mr Tainted Beef/Alberta Contador has taken another grand tour.  I don't respect him as a person partially for the douchey move that he pulled on Schleck at last years tour, but I mean as a rider dang is he ever good.

~Cheers

Training Updates - May 26, 2011

So after being super on the ball last week and knowing what jess was doing and everything, this week is a little bit of ball dropping as I really don't know what Jess has done, this is partly due to us having a long weekend right in the middle

Jess
So jess is running more these days (i presume) although based on both of our schedule and being super busy, runs usually get pushed back till late in the evening so she's finishing her runs around 9.  Mother nature has once again decided to bless us with........MORE RAIN.  Honestly I hate it when it happens in vancouver, but it's kinda to be expected.  Having this amount of rain in Calgary is not, and thus sucks.

Kel
So surprisingly this week I actually managed to get in 4 runs, and a little bit of time on the rollers (I'll talk about that later). I'm in the last home stretch before my marathon and I'm not gonna lie I'm actually quite scared/nervous about running it again, because I mean yes you just kinda run, but it's a whole lot of steps and it looks like it's going to be crappy weather (read: rain).  I don't know if running in rain sucks more, or if running it in snow sucks more because at least with snow you're for the most part dry.  I've run in the rain, just not 26 miles worth in the rain.  Should be interesting but at least I've tried racing in the rain before and it was less crappy than expected

~Cheers

Review: High5 Energy Gels

So today's post covers something made by a company I've talked about in the past, High5 sports nutrition.

I'm going to keep this one relatively short because it's a pretty straightforward review.  Energy gels are things that don't matter very much when they're working how they're supposed to, but mean everything when they're not working how they should.  What do I mean by that? Well if you eat a gel, and you continue on like normal then great, you don't really notice it because it's working and you're still running along.  Get it wrong and your stomach doesn't feel right, you feel sluggish etc etc etc. I've had gels in the past where they're just absolutely awful and I feel awful, and thus usually stop my run.

So these gels come in two varieties, regular and caffeinated.  The regular ones can be apple, summer fruits, citrus burst, bannana blast and juicy orange.  The caffeinated ones come in orange and rasberry.  I've tried most of the flavors and for the most part they taste pretty good.  They go down super easily because they're not quite as thick as normal gels.

A big thing that all companies could take a book from them is to ask athletes what they want from a product BEFORE you actually make it.  Those that are nutrition snobs will probably have said gels are too sweet, too sticky, too much water and they don't taste great.  High5 in my opinion hits all of these great, and does it perfectly.  The fruit juice taste is greatly appreciated, it's easy to open while on the move, and my stomach enjoys it too.

Its safe for vegetarians and GMO free for those who care, I don't particularly much.  A box of 20 will run you about 21 bucks so essentially a buck a gel which is the cheapest I've been able to find so far.

~Cheers

Making the most of your time

I've noticed that more often than not, I can get in workouts, but then I'll hit stretches every so often that I'll be super busy and I won't be able to do all the workouts that I want, or even some of the workouts.  So what is one to do when you're pressed for time but you still need to get in workouts?

Well the biggest thing that I've found is that I still need to do a warmup, some semblence of a cooldown and I still like to get my stretching in.  Well the quick answer is you go hard for whatever time you do have.  In a lot of peoples case they want to get faster so here's what you can do.

  If you've only got 20 minutes which is actually unbelievably short, you run short sprints.  These are good because they pretty much get your body to recruit everything and have yourself firing on all cylinders for a short period of time.  It's great for building up distance and strength, while decreasing chances of injury.

If you have 30 minutes you can still run sprints, but these are more like intervals that you can do for a minute.  This is a good time to work on your turnover of your cadence because if you can turn it over quickly, you can slowly increase the distance each stride takes.  This is good because you don't move your feet anymore but you're covering more distance.  In addition it helps to give you good form when you start getting tired if you've practiced at a greater tempo.

If you're short for time, like I said the best way will be to run hard for short periods of time and 45 minutes isn't any difference.  You can run half mile repeats, alternating between running faster than a 5k pace and then running for a little bit of a cooldown.

Now if you have an hour, you're not really pressed for time anymore, but this is a good time to do a long temp run that's a little bit slower than a 5k race pace.  This will help you build up the body's ability to continue at a pace even when you start getting tired because you've run at that pace before and for a somewhat long time.  When you finally do get tired, you'll have the power to push through because you've done it before and you'll know how it feels

So there you have it, doesn't matter how little time you have, you can always squeeze in a quick workout, just run quickly.

~Cheers

Race Report: Mothers Day 10K

So this report is coming a bit late.... make that a lot late.  So if you roll back the clock to one fateful Sunday, May the 8th to be exact, it was Mothers day.  Now every year my mom has a tradition of doing this race as a "family".  I mean do in the most literal of senses in that we all do some part of the race, I'll run the 10, my sister will usually join me, my brother used to run but now does bike pacing, and my mom will run/walk the 5k.  This year, it just so happened that all the remained was my mom and I, but no matter the show must go on. 

I've been doing this run for as long as I can remember, it used to be done up by the university and you'd end up in a stadium, but with passing time, more and more people register and this event keeps on getting larger (read: gongshow).  We've had bad weather for the past few years, and this year was no exception.  Nice rainy conditions on the morning of did not put me in a great mood.  In addition we had moved from the course of the past few years to one around chinook.  Not normally a huge deal but when it's wet I'd really like to know the course because then you don't need to worry about looking at where you're going and what not.  And the other thing with it raining is it brings up a whole host of other problems.  Running cold is one thing, running while wet is a completely different thing, but apparently according to people that were managing ATOC, riding for an hour in in crappy wet conditions only brings down your body temperature by 1 degree celsius an hour.  I would've though it'd be more than that but hey they know best.

Now like I said earlier because there's always so many people, these races have a ton of people who for the most part are not seeded in the correct order.  Now this makes for a problem because when you have to waste lots of energy cutting through people it's energy wasted not going forward.  For some reason though I think it might've just been the pace that I set out at and managed to keep that I didn't really have to filter through a lot of people nor did I have a lot of people passing me.  The course wasn't bad, there was one little kick up at 2 miles that I didn't particularly enjoy, but hey.  After that at 3.5 miles on it was just kinda a slow drag up.

I was going to target something closer to a 40 minute 10k this year, but mother nature just wasn't going to co-operate with us which is fine.  I ended up running a 46 minute, so a lot slower than I was hoping but I ran a pretty evenly paced run around 7:20 a mile.  Overall it was a wet run, cramped a little bit in the final stretch which definitely didn't help, but hey I'm happy didn't run it at full effort and it was a good confidence builder for the up and coming Marathon.

~Cheers

Training Updates - May 19, 2011

So I have to say this is probably the first time in a very long time that I actually have some semblance of an idea of what Jess has done this week, and this week also kinda marked a return to somewhat normal training.

Jess
Jess is definitely doing a lot more running these days, but it usually ends up being running late at night due to work school etc. Her longest run this week was around an hour and 30 minutes (or so, correct me if I'm wrong jess).  There's no pain, and the building is definitely there.  She also put in a long day on the bike for cross training as well.  I didn't get a chance to run with her this week, but I'm sure we'll have lots of times during the summer to run together

Kel
So Thursday nights for me have kinda turned into team training nights for cycling, and this week we attempted to work on a leadout train, it worked horribly to the point I would say that it didn't.  We kinda worked in a paceline out there so it's nice to get used to riding in a group.  These sessions are nice because they're a little bit slower and more focused on techniques.  The weekend was filled with me being in a course. 
Monday night was also another team training night, this was actually a hard training sess.  We did a bunch of hill climbs up edworthy, I attacked on the first one and definitely put myself way too deep into the red for that one and had to recover for the next few, but hey that's a lesson one has to learn right?  We took a little break to meet up with some other people that some of us knew and then it was back to business as usual.  At this point Waleed and Brent started leading us up the hill and it was a cracking tempo, not gonna lie I was afraid I was going to get dropped.  We were running a double pace line up and I was sitting 1 back with Rob, and I was worried but sticking with it.  For those that are familiar with Edworthy hill, after the flat portion, there's a sorta kick up and then a final left hand bend the final stretch up.  Jeff (my brother) attacked on this hill as he always does, he's a billy goat.  Rob followed but I was suffering just to stay there.  But then decided that well may as well go for it, and just dug in and went.  Ended up getting to the top first and shaving about 30 seconds of my personal time for going up this hill.
On Tuesday I thought it'd probably be best to go running seeing as my marathon is coming up in like a week.  Just did a short 4K loop around the house, didn't feel like anything special but I was definitely feeling the effects of a difficult monday night.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I went for a slightly longer run to the tune of 10k, I took it at a slower pace (Around 9 min/mile) just to make sure the legs are there and it's still functioning well. It was supposed to be my so called "rest" day but I kinda felt the need/want to go run and so I did.  It's nice that we have decent weather finally here in calgary.

So that's all there is this week, it's raining outside now so don't know how/if the weather will hold up for training tonight

~Cheers

Strava

So some of you may have noticed a little widget that's popped up on this blog on the right hand side about halfway down the page with the title "Activity Widgit".  That's hooked up into a program, or I guess what you would call a web application that allows you to upload GPS files either from your Garmin or the iPhone app and away you go.  Now people who do have a Garmin will probably already be familiar with either Garmin connect (web) or garmin training center (offline computer based) which you can use to offload your data and look at it.  I mean there are some cool things on connect such as the web player that allows you to "play" back your workout and see how you did.  So what makes Strava better or more appealing than either connect or training peaks?

Well on face value, there's not a whole lot different in the main feature set, you'll be able to see things like elapsed time, total time, avg speed etc etc etc. What is nice about this is you can track everything..... like literally everything.

The visualization is absolutely top notch. As can be seen below

Those of you that use map my ride will know about the categorised climbs, but what if you could own hills and be KOM on that segment?  You can actually see hills (it'll automatically objectively classify them for you) and then see who else has climbed it, and then try and better your times.  This way you don't even need to put any effort towards keeping track of that.  What if you've got a segment that you always run for intervals? Well you can create a segment and keep track of progress there too.  Best of all, it can break it down and you can see on a certain segment, your ride (or pr) compared with the KOM of that segment and see where you're losing or making up time.

Now if you're still reading at this point chances are probably pretty good that you're as much of a data junkie as I am. Looking at things like how you feel vs heart rate.  How high was your average cadence etc.  Strava can take all of that data and then capture it so you can go back and analyze the crap out of it. 

Look at all the pretty colors

The other thing that's cool about this that I like is that you can choose to obscure certain locations (ie home work etc.) So it'll automatically truncate your ride there, and you don't have to worry about security issues.

You don't exist around your set locations

But possibly the most useful thing out of all of this is the ability to track parts usage.  Training peaks has a great feature for shoes, but I mean with your bike there's a million things, wheels, brake pads, cabling, cleats ...... and the list just goes on and on and on.  From your control center you can say when you put on a part, it'll tell you how much mileage you've done, and voila.  Replace a part and let strava know you've retired it.  No more pink stinkies on my second monitor with notes like new chain, april 22.  This system not only is much more elegant, but sooooo much more accurate and easy to maintain.

So at the end of the day, it begs the question is it worth it.  I may or may not have mentioned it's not quite free. It's free, but on that it'll only allow you to upload 5 full rides a month (for some that's fine).  It'll keep track of all your KOM's regardless of that, and it will never "Delete" your rides.  Their velo plan which is the full meal deal is 6 bucks a month of 59 bucks for a year.  I can send you a link for 5 bucks off if you want, just comment below.  So back to the original question, does it do anything ground breaking? Well I wouldn't say all of the things it does are, the parts tracker is super super nice, but I wouldn't say ground breaking.  It does what you would imagine someone before you would've though all about, brings it all into one nice package that has some cool features (like tracking and competing against friends or strangers on hills) and it does it all well without fuss.  I'm on the velo plan right now and love it, and maybe, just maybe when it runs out I'll get it again.

One last thing, even though this is geared primarily towards cyclists you can really upload any kind of activity you want into there.

~Cheers

Going hard......enough

There's always the trouble be it in training or racing that you go too hard, and that only serves to screw you over.  I went through this myself last night trying to KOM on a hill on the first go and didn't fully recover for the next 4 repeats or so.  So when you're training how hard do you go to get a lot better but not go too deep to compromise your training down the road? 

The worse thing with endurance sports like this is it's not always apparent that you've screwed yourself over, I mean sometimes it is like during intervals.  But what about if you're planning for a race and you realize that you never did fully recover from an over done workout, or in a shorter time scale you might not notice till a few days later after a rest day and you realize you can't run.  At the end of the day no matter how good you did one workout, missing one or two workouts on the backend after a difficult workout does more harm than good. 

So the big thing is a lot of us go too hard on the easy days and too easy on the hard days.  Either that or you just run into a general run of mediocrity for training intensity.  So what you can do for this is you train to race, pick a goal pace and then stick to training at slightly below that pace unless it's a race pace day or an interval day.  If you feel like you're dead like you would at the end of race at the end of a training session, chances are you've pushed too hard.

We've all run intervals and if you've done them alright they should all be around the same time.  If you noticed that you're sliding down in times you're probably starting off a little bit too fast.  Either that or you need to give a little bit more recovery time in between.  But it's better to run a little bit slower with less recovery because that will slowly build your body's ability to operate at a higher intensity with quicker recovery times.

Part two of running intervals is that you should never end with the feeling that you're absolutely gassed.  Just like part 1 said you should never push to the point where you feel like the end of the race.  Finish with the feeling that you have another interval left and it'll be good.

The last point which also kinda coincides with the point above is that you're better off doing a little bit too less than doing a little bit too much.  The reason is because your body's ability to recover from multiple trips into the redline area, is limited.  You will peak super quickly, but then you'll just burn out.  At which point burning out results in one just having to rest and rest and rest some more.

So what happens if you screwed up, and now you need to recover?  Well cut down on your weekly mileage, run a little bit slower (20-30 seconds) so that your body can build back a little bit of endurance.  Sleep lots so your body can undo the damage, and just kinda role back the clock on your training plan.  But most of all you need to listen to your body, and be honest with yourself.  If you're still not feeling the love, take a break and get back a week later.

~Cheers

Wishlist: Lezyne Pressure Drive Small

Today's post is something that I actually saw on my ride with Julie/Brian when Jeff flatted and used their pump and it actually worked surprisingly well.  I've been using small CO2 cartridges because it's just conveniant and small, but that's also partially a fault of me not having saddle bag.  I actually kinda like the look of a clean backside on my bike but not having to stuff a tube, cartridge, head and levers every time I go out in addition to everything else starts becoming a wee bit of a pain.  As a result I'll probably be going hunting for one soon.  But this pump is nice because it's really small, it's only 17 cm which will easily fit into the back of a jersey pocket

Look at the pretty colors

It comes in a multitude of different colors and even comes in a carbon version which is very nice, but also very expensive

Now a few things makes this pump a lot better than your typical "regular" pump.  First off is that it fits both presta and schrader valves.  In addition that little snake that see at the bottom of the picture is a snake that has both sides and will just fit into the base of the pump.  The other thing is that this pump is part of their high pressure line which claims to be able pump up to ridable pressure in 30% less pumps. They say that the max pressure that it can get to is 120 PSI and it can definitely get up there.  It's made of alloy metal and they've turned something very plain and simple into an item of beauty.  It comes in a small and medium version and they both cost around 33 bucks.

~Cheers

Week in Review May 21, 2011

So as you've probably realized I tend to be really all over the place and write a bunch of little sentence fragments.  I also always have these little things that kinda just crop up and don't really make a full post so they just usually never make it to a full post.  But hopefully with this weekly review I will be able to put them in, and there can be a quick recap of what I've written this week.

So here it is, a nice small summarizing Saturday post, a look at what's happened, cool random things and maybe if I have not gotten distracted maybe what we will do next week. 

Posts this week

Monday -Wishlist: Lezyne Pressure Drive Small
Tuesday - Going hard.......enough
Wednesday - Strava
Thursday - Training Updates
Friday -  Race report: Mothers Day 10k

Random Notes
It's the victorious day long weekend so I"m just gonna relax this weekend and get my runs in

~Cheers

Training Updates - May 12, 2011

This week mother nature has finally decided to bless us with fantastic weather, to the tune of 22 degrees, I'd say that's not too shabby

Jess
Jess has actually gotten back into running with the longest runs being somewhere around an hour.  I think she's going a lot more off time this go around then going for a straight distance amount which also works in it's own respects so there's nothing wrong with that.  We actually managed to get a run in together and Jess is definitely getting a lot stronger which is awesome to see.  We probably ran around a 10 min mile or 6 min/k and she's got it there and now it's just time to build up the endurance.

Kel
Now that I'm back in the lab I've run into the problem of trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to deal with not being able to do all of my runs, so I've been trying to bike to and from work.  I managed to get in a short tuneup run on saturday, just to open up the legs and make sure they're all good for the race on sunday.  I'll talk about how much race went tommorow, but it went not too shabby considering the conditions.  I also did some major hill climbs on tuesday night and they felt absolutely fantastic.  Now it's only a short matter of time before Calgary is upon us and we'll see how that goes.

~Cheers

Musings since getting back on my bike

So over the past few days I've started getting back into cycling to and from work and what not and there's some things that I've noticed that really get under my skin.  A lot of people that are cyclists ruin it for the rest of us.  I was driving yesterday and saw a cyclist weaving his way through traffic at a set of stoplights.  If you want drivers to treat us as cars, act like one because threading through traffic when they're stopped really annoys them.  I know people don't like this when people on motorbikes do this.  That and it's really just dangerous, if you're one back ya sure pull into the bike lane portion if there is one, otherwise just stick where you are and chances are people will probably respect that. 

The other thing is stop signs, it seems like the entire city of calgary in addition to not knowing how to drive circles do not get the concept of intersections controlled by stop signs.  If you get there first, you go first, having a cyclist come from the other direction does not mean that you should just come to a dead stop and be paralyzed by fear.  If we wave you on to go, chances are we want you to go because we have limited amounts of rolling time left before we have to stop and unclip (or fall over if we've run out of time).  If you don't know what that is, here's a pic

I unfortunately do not posses the balance nor the skill to do such an athletic feat so I usually just wave cars on, and usually they're good, but sometimes they're not.  I don't know if I've actually talked on here about how I had my first real crash (partially a consequence of a dropped chain).  But I came up to a hill and there was a 4 way stop sign with a car going through the intersection.  When the driver saw me coming up (at a very slow speed, I was bagged after the climb) she somehow got the brilliant idea that the next logical course of action would be to stop right in front of me.........I don't know what this would achieve because if she's worried about me running the stop sign and going through it without stopping, stopping the car right in front of me seems counterproductive to the MO.  So when I started again on this hill, probably should've been in a higher gear but torqued pretty hard, dropped the chain and then dropped myself onto the pavement.  So here's a note to all drivers, if we wave you on, we really do want you to go and move, please save being courteous and an overall nice person for when you pass us on the road, we very much appreciate not being clipped by cars (like Sara did). 

But I'll take this time to thank the people that I will never meet, and will probably never get a chance to thank, the ones that move over and give us ample room when they're passing.  I'll probably think of more points later on, and maybe this will become the friday post because it went from a following our training blog to something that I just write about anything and everything really.

~Cheers

Wouter-Weylandt

For those that have been following the Giro, something happened this morning to one of the riders.  Wouter Weylandt from Leopard Trek crashed on a decent after going over the Passo del Bocco.  Unfortunately despite efforts from the responders and those at the hospital, nothing could be done and he passed away.  He was a rider that was about the celebrate winning stage 3 during last year's giro, as an up and coming rider with Leopard Trek.

Our thoughts and condolences go out to the Weylandt family.

Week in Review May 7, 2011

So as you've probably realized I tend to be really all over the place and write a bunch of little sentence fragments.  I also always have these little things that kinda just crop up and don't really make a full post so they just usually never make it to a full post.  But hopefully with this weekly review I will be able to put them in, and there can be a quick recap of what I've written this week.

So here it is, a nice small summarizing Saturday post, a look at what's happened, cool random things and maybe if I have not gotten distracted maybe what we will do next week.  Still haven't gotten around to redoing the format for this intro portion nor have I found a new picture, so bear with me for now

Posts this week

Monday -Wishlist: Castelli Nanoflex Warmers
Tuesday - Need to Feed
Wednesday - SwissStop FlashPro GHP-2 Pads
Thursday - Training Updates
Friday - Philippe Gilbert

Random Notes
I actually managed to get a real workout in with Jess today, where both of us were outside and both of us were running.

Tommorow is mothers day and my mom has this tradition of sorts that mothers day is spent doing the road race that's been put on for quite a while here in calgary.

~Cheers

The one and only.....Philippe Gilbert

So this post is a week late, mostly because of exams but it's kinda interesting to look back on it and revel in how good of a bike rider gilbert is.  The spring classics are kindof divided into two portions, the cobbled ones (so Milan-San-Remo, Paris-Roubaix, Flanders) and the hilly Ardennes (so ones like Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallone and Liege) If you watched the cobbled ones you'll have seen that no one rider wins all of these races, partially due to a really dominant showing by Spartacus at E3 and everyone was afraid and therefore raced against him and thus he didn't do so well.  Then the Ardennes came and Gilbert did the same thing at the first of the "big" spring ardennes.

La Flèche Brabançonne was the first seeing how people would do and Gilbert went clear winning from a two man break that got away on the final lap of the circuit, and everyone feared that this may have been Gilbert showing his hand a bit too early. 

Win #1

Up came Amstel gold and it was a race that Gilbert was coming back to defend his title from last year, with his team working super hard to keep the pack together.  Rodriguez tried to make a move and Gilbert marked it, and finished ahead of both Rodriguez and Gerrans.

Still behind?....yup

This was starting to become a common site, with Gilbert just decimating the field.  He's a rider who's unequaled in short steep finishes that you can just punch over.  Fleche Wallone was three days after and it was looking like Gilbert would do it again, but did he have the team to do it.  The circuit would ride three times over the Mur du Huy, and on the last ascent over it, Gilbert just gave it his all, gapping both Rodriguez (again) and coming ahead of Sanchez too to claim win #3.  Would he be able to go for the triple?

Up and Away

Liege Baston Liege, which is one of cyclings monuments was going to be the biggest race out of the four so far.  It was shaping up to be a huge duel between the Schlecks and him.  On the final the Schlecks made a move and no one could match but the brothers and Gilbert.  You would think that two on one that it would surely favor the two.  Well Gilbert made a move to say nope, you're not getting away easily and gapped Andy and from there, they threw everything and the kitchen sink at Gilbert, but it just was not to be and Gilbert would pull off the quad, only one other person has ever done it.

OHHHHHH YESSSSSSSSS

So here's to a fantastic rider, hopefully all the issues get sorted out with his team.

~Cheers

Training Updates - May 5, 2011

So I write this weeks post while sitting in a lab before having to go do some work.  A return to work coupled with crappy weather has meant that I can't train as much as I want to, mother nature has been not so kind

Jess
Like I've said in the past Jess is back to running and everything seems to be going good. Last week as a little bit of a crap shoot for us because we both had what would be one of the harder exams that we would write.  We both came out of it, but something had to give and that something was training

Kel
I didn't get in a whole lot of training this week mostly because of exams but I did some running and a long ride out past brag to the Kananaski info center and back.  This week should be better, and I'm racing so we'll see how it goes.

SwissStop FlashPro GHP-2 Pads

Today's post isn't really a first impressions or a review seeing as I just got them and they just went onto my bike, it's more like hey this is something that I've heard great things about.  These probably weren't on my list of things I would expect to upgrade I mean, stopping was never really ever an issue for me on my mountain bike.  I was going down home road the other day and when I had to stop to yield to some pedestrians I came to the horrible realization that I couldn't actually come to a stop.  I ordered brake pads a while ago and they finally shipped so of course straight on they went to the bike.

They come in a few different versions, these are the "FlashPro" which means it's just the pads if you already have the metal block which are the shoes.  If you get the "Full" version it includes the metal blocks and they can also charge you lots more. Changing them out is relatively easy, simpler then when we swapped them on Simon's bike because the pin's kinda finnicky but it's cool to learn how to start wrenching.  Other things that I noticed is that they're quite a bit softer than my Shimano ones were and apparently they still last a very long time so we'll see.  I'm a huge fan of SwissStop giving you some extra wear by making them thicker, but man is it ever hard to get them aligned with enough clearance on either side.  They're closer to the brake track when the brakes are fully open, then when the Shimano ones were fully closed.  So thats it, short post on new gear for the bike, heading out for a ride tommorow so we shall see how they work.

~Cheers

The need to feed

Today's post is something that I am absolutely guilty of doing while riding my bike and more recently while running.  That thing is adequately feeding yourself and drinking enough (while cycling).  It usually starts off with the best of intentions, for example this weekend when I went on my long ride, I packed two bottles of gatorade, clif bar, three gels and a tube of shot bloks.  It usually starts off with the best of intentions but as it usually ends, it's with me having some major cramping because I didn't drink enough or eat enough etc. 

I've been getting better with forcing myself to drink some gatorade every 10 minutes, but I also need to figure out a timeline for things like shot bloks, and gels.  Clif bar is usually consumed whenever we have a break of some sort.  But usually the thing is you get so into a zone or you're just spending every little last ounce of will power to just stay with the group.  One thing that makes feeding easier is if you can grab said food easily which I've found is not easy with the new team vest because the zippers....... well long story short they suck. 

If you feed yourself adequately at the very least if you can't keep up it's just because you don't have the legs.  As for bonking because you've not gotten enough food in you, you're not going to recover from that quick enough in a ride to save you the embarrassment that is soon to follow.  So if you stay hydrated, make sure you get electrolytes in so you don't cramp, it's painful when it happens and it doesn't go away for a while. 

So moral of the story is bring your food, but remember to eat it, if it's going to quickly just ask whoever you're training with to pause for a sec or go slow and eat.  There's nothing worse then getting all caught up and then forgetting to eat and then bam, disaster hits.  But even more importantly, bring enough food so that you can eat it.

~Cheers

Wishlist: Castelli Nanoflex Warmers

So this weekend the team kit finally got here and I got to try it out.  It also happened to be the first time that I've gotten warmers, unfortunately the leg ones didn't come but the arm ones did and that got me thinking, I guess I need to go get a pair of leg warmers and remember that Castelli had a great pair that were looking pretty snazzy and that is the inspiration for today's post.  There's three separate kinds, arm legs and knees.  I'm not sure if I want knee or the full legs because I rode with the knees yesterday and as ridiculous as I used to think they looked they were just right for the temperature.

Arm and knee warmers

They also make full on leg warmers, and the cool thing with this stuff is that it comes in three different colors but knowing my awesomeness with white clothes, they will get dirty very very quickly. 

Leg Warmers

The thing with warmers is that they're great when it's dry and it keeps you warm, but what happens if it starts to rain a bit, well then wet fabric does not agree so well with keeping you warm.  So they took their thermoflex warmers and then made them fully waterproof, like you can actually run them under water and you still stay dry.  Other little things that set Castelli apart is that in addition to having grippers on the inside of the warmers, they have them on the outside.  So not only does the warmers not slide down, what they're under doesn't slide up either. 

So now it's just a matter of decided color and which ones I want to get.  I'm leaning towards black knee warmers right now

~Cheers