Weightlifting:
I've been in the weightroom every week at least twice a week. I made quite a bit of progress over last year's peak lifts. This year I peaked in the squat at 325 pounds and leg pressed 777.5. I even maxed out the leg curl machine!
325 pounds in the squat.
777.5 pounds leg pressed.
So was I the strongest guy in the weightroom? Heck No! Maybe 2nd strongest...
Riding:
I've been riding a lot as well. Actually it depends on who you compare me to when I say I ride a lot. Compared to the normal person, yes I ride a ton. However, I regularly see my racing buddies post these 90, 100 mile rides on Strava. I've only done two 80+ mile rides this year. I have been doing intervals though. We'll see what happens in the race.
Another factor with biking a lot is keeping good care of the bike. I haven't done a direct financial comparison to last year's riding. I have had two rear derailuer hanger failures where one caused the rear derailuer to snap in half. And I recently broke a spoke which led Veloshop to conclude that the wheel's rim was shot anyways, but at least that's not my carbon fiber wheel breaking.
I have definitely been better about cleaning my bike this year. Getting the shaft from Portland Plaza and being forced to use the bike locker across the street may have been a good thing after all. The locker is in a covered parking garage, so it is dry and it is always lit up and snobby rich people probably wouldn't be yelling at me as much when I lube my chain without a cardboard mat or something. I've got a solid routine for taking all my biking clothes and some post-ride food which I then consume while cleaning my bike afterwards.
Eating:
And it's that time of year again where I'm focused on what I'm eating. You won't find me consuming beer, but you will find me eating tons of Dave's Killer Bread. I discovered that I can buy 4 (imperfect) loaves for about $10 over at the Dave's Killer Breadquarters out in Milwaukie which makes for a nice bike ride about once every two weeks.
However, I think last year I was doing a little better about eating enough greens and veggies. I feel like I ate more mega-salads back then. But on the plus side, this year I'm doing better about eating enough during and after my rides. I'm taking Emergen-C and Zinc a few times a week and so far it seems to be holding off any illnesses. People have also always been asking me "are you vegan, are you vegan? huh? huh?" Well, not quite. I have eliminated dairy from my diet and am trying hard to also kick my lunchmeat habit, but the salmon most definitely is going to stay in my sandwiches and elsewhere.
This is actually just one serving of spinach.
Sleeping:
I have really realized that this is actually a super-important aspect of training. Not getting enough sleep seriously affects me. However, it seems to affect me mentally the most. I can really notice it at work because I'll be agitated and working slower than normal and then with people I'll become antisocial or just not have anything useful to say. It's a little more subtle when racing because your blood is already gushing through your system keeping you awake, but not enough sleep can mess with my head so that I don't have a good game plan going in and then it may do other weird things such as complicating my assessment of available energy to expel for a certain duration. Anyways, 8 hours is the absolute minimum on weekdays and 9 is the minimum on weekends, but I frequently miss both. Room for improvement and reason to rush writing this blog post so I can get to bed.
Life:
Another thing I ought to write about is Life. And this is Life as defined by Daniel Harm in his equation about training progress as follows:
(Training + Recovery + Nutrition) / Life = Progress.
As a bike racer, I don't have a "life" as most normal people may think of. I don't go out to bars, I don't watch tv or many movies and if I'm hanging out with friends its to serve a purpose in addition to just hanging out. As opposed to last year where I was pretty much a complete loner since moving to Portland and then throughout the racing season, this year I've added some Life to the equation but in ways that'll not only benefit me, but my new friends as well.
Ugly Christmas Sweater Party
The most important of these Life items I've done is joining a home community through my church. Every Thursday we get together to discuss the Sunday sermon and eat dinner. It's so awesome to be sharing the journey of walking with Christ with other people and the fact that there is food there makes it logistically easier as well. There are some times when I want to hangout too late though, like at this Ugly Christmas Sweater party I stayed until after 11pm cutting into my sleep. Sometimes even just 20 minutes of hanging out with good friends in person is all that is needed to have more than 0 Life but not conflict with recovery.
First Race (for me) Next Sunday
And so racing is about to begin. I decided not to go do the FHR or Eatonville but instead do the first Banana Belt as my first race. And the way I'm feeling is a bit tired, slightly nervous and well I was feeling excited, but I need to get over a little sleep debt I have to get back to that point of being excited. Come this Sunday it's the first time I get to see how well I perform against others and doing good at that is worthy of a whole 'nother blog post in itself. Now off to bed to sleep.
