And a quiet week

Saturday is the Marin Century 2009 - I had registered to cycle Mt Tam but that got shot down because of the stupid California budget problems!! So I have a choice; 100miles or 200km. I think my cycling friends are going for the 100k, which seems a bit wussy, but if I do the 100 miles at least I get to cycle a bit with them. Haven't quite decided yet. Probably leaning towards the 200km.

So this week's schedule is fairly light; I ran Monday morning, went to the gym, and today I biked to work (with a small not hilly 1 hour ride home). Tomorrow morning I'm tempted to go ride Old La Honda again, but taking it easy up there rather than trying for a time. Thursday is white water rafting day, and as long as I don't hurt myself, Friday is a day off, followed by the century. (Is this really a light week??)

Since I dissasembled part of my bike to find the size of the seat post stem my front derailleur has been clicking because I probably put it back in a slightly different place, so I adjusted it a bit today. Its probably still off, but I'm not concentrating on it too much because I intend to replace my groupset with the SRAM Rival. I think I'm going to try out the 170mm cranks - I have 175mm right now - and an 11:28 in the rear to begin with, since its pretty easy to change that. That gives me a lowest gear ratio of 34:28 = 1.214; right now my lowest is 30:26 or 1.15 - so I can't wuss out so much any more! That said I climbed Old La Honda in 30:21 = 1.42 the other day, so I think I'm going to be able to handle it.

Front fork was still clicking too today, so I tightened it again (this fixed it last time, but I may not have tightened it enough). We should see tomorrow.

Again up Old La Honda, but not as fast

I rode Google - Arastradero - OLH - Alpine with Saksiri yesterday (~50 miles) but I didn't break any records. Guess I was recovering a bit.

I ran the splits from OLH; I lost ~39s in the first mile, ~49s in the second, and ~7s in the third (primarily due I think to having to avoid that damn truck!) so I suppose I was just uniformly slower on the ride. Probably didn't have fresh legs given in the intervening day I ran and went to the gym and did leg extensions and other leg stuff.

I calculated the above manually. Yes, it was a pita. I did it from the distance measurements (which don't quite line up), but I thought this may be more accurate than the altitude (which doesn't line up either). I really ought to write a program to do this!

Started planning on replacing my gearing with the SRAM rival groupset; it looks like I'll go for a compact double in the front, and an 11-28 in the back (since its so easy to change anyway); cost around $1000. Gathering measurements so far, which aren't very well documented on the internet.

For the record, my trek 2.1 has:

175mm crank arms

34.9mm front derailleur clamp

English threaded bottom bracket

Weighed in again this morning; 179.8lbs, woot.

Gym day; fixed my knee (I hope)

Quiet day, watched the tour de france time trials this morning. I should try that, see what happens!

Went to the gym for usual workout, and ran from my office to there. This time I swapped out the orthotics I got with my running shoes for the ones that just came with the shoes, and rather shockingly I got zero knee pain. Nada. Nothing. I also ran faster than normal. I hope this is the problem! Back to running every other day I guess.

Tomorrow I plan for a quick moody and back VO2max style workout. If I get up early enough. Abductors are still sore from monday's workout!

Montebello, the gym, and Old La Honda

3 updates; on sunday I rode up montebello road, where it was waaay too hot - bike thermometer read 102! Wow, that was hard. It was quite obvious early on that I wasn't going to be close to my best so I backed off quite a bit and just aimed to get up there - I was 400 feet behind quite early and riding in my smallest gear for most of the time. Clearly poor prep - was up late and drank copious amounts of alcohol and ate crap the day before - probably didn't help either. This estimated FTP at 200W, but I didn't change it.

Monday I ran to the gym from my office. Knee felt tight but no pain. I intend to change out the insole things in my shoes and see if that helps. Hella hard workout though on my own - lots of ache afterwards, but set several records - chest pressed 2x30, 40lb flys, and better at pullups.

Today I rode OLH and busted my record. I timed a 26:08, but I suspect its more like 25:48 because I was cut off by a truck driving idiot near the top and had to stop while he drove into the ditch! I cycled altamont on the way, which hits 16% - no wonder there's a "bicyclists beware sign". The trick on OLH though - its all mental, don't change down, keep pushing. I kept it in 30:21 the whole way so I think I can do the compact double now (when I get some spending money) and tried really hard. My average power came in at 268W, previous best was 257, and I hit W/kg of 3.21. WKO puts this as a new 20minute average power record, although I didn't do so well on the 5sec/1min/5min, but I wasn't trying for that. It scored the climb of OLH as an intensity of 1.231, which seems high, so maybe my FTP is better than I thought.

Then tonight when I got home I weight 179.8! Yes, I haven't eaten yet, but getting there....

Short steven's creek run and back in the saddle; OLH!

Back at home after vacation, and still coughing a bit.

Monday I ran Steven's Creek Trail Loop for 30 mins, but my knee felt bad and I ended up limping (working on a PT appointment to fix this). Other than that, it felt fine.

Tuesday I cycled to OLH and then up for the first time in a month, and this felt much better on my knee - it wasn't perfect but it definitely didn't hurt. I was pretty out of breath going up the hill and my average HR was lower, so definitely still showing the effects of swine flu. My time was 10s off my best, but I almost weighed in at <180lbs>

Plan for the rest of the week is to rest of weds, run 15 mins on thurs, do OLH on friday again, run 15 mins on sat, and then do montebello sunday morning. Should be fun.

Interesting that I've reached a plateau in my climbing times though; I expected to do better given 2 weeks rest, but that could be the cold. Either way I don't think I've progressed much recently. I probably ought to start doing things like 2x20 intervals. I suspect montebello is a good proxy for this so I'll start working it in once a week.

The mt tam century is unfortunately cancelled in August due to CA budget stupidity; I think I'll opt for the 200k instead.

Vacation run at 3000 feet

Whilst on vacation in arizona I got swine flu (!!), but after recovering, I tried a run around at 3000 feet. It actually felt fine other than the fact that it was about 80 degrees outside and my knee felt tight. Ought to train more at altitude.

10 things I didn't know about arizona

1. Its not flat. In fact, it can't actually make its mind up what elevation to be at when you're in the northern part. Its 5000 feet one minute, 7000 the next

2. When its 86 degrees outside at night you remark on how nice and cool it is.

3. The northern part of the state hasn't caught on to this "street light" thing yet.

4. It has a sensible speed limit on the freeway! 75 mph.

5. There are roundabouts with the correct priorities

6. Some of the mountain roads are very alps-like.

7. The tv networks are obsessed with the weather.

8. Running at altitude is harder than running at sea level. But not that much harder.

9. The roads can be very straight

10. There aren't many sidewalks in the rural parts. Nice for running as you can hit the softer stuff at the side of the roads.