March Training Diary – Ken

March was the first month that it’s stayed somewhat consistently above zero – As such, most of the snow disappeared (albeit fleetingly), and it marked the first *real* ride back on the road. After months on the trainer in the garage getting outside was glorious.

I didn’t have time for a long ride, just a quick 40km, but that was enough to give me an idea of how my training has been going over the winter. I could tell that I’ve made marked improvements in the areas that I’ve been working on (power & lactic threshold), and generally it didn’t feel like I had lost any fitness (If anything I felt stronger). Both of which were great motivators to keep turning the pedals.

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March Training Diary – Sheldon

April! What!

First off, how did it get to be April already? This is the 4 month countdown to TRC. Yikes!

Well, the big upside is, it’s time to get OUTSIDE. Here in Edmonton the weather is mild (+6 to +10) midday, and the snow is almost just a fond memory. Although I think it will be a while before the shady valley trails are ready, all we need is for the street sweepers to get out there and the road is a callin’! Woo Hoo!

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What’s in your music library?

Because I’m not the biggest fan of sitting on the trainer for hours, I’ve been using intervals during the week for most of the new year and leaving my LSD (lond-steady-distance) rides for the weekend (when is this snow going to disappear!?).

I like them mainly because an hour or so seems to fly by – The fact that everything is broken into little chunks (be they 4 minutes, or 40 seconds) helps me get through the time. All I’m really able to focus on is making it to the end of the current interval and maintaining form – I don’t have enough brain power to worry about anything else ;-)

For my LSD weekend rides I usually pop in a movie or TV series and just do my best to avoid boredom, but for intervals I generally rely on music to keep me rollin’.

Now anybody who’s ever been in a spin class knows that those big techno beats are pretty popular and although I dig ‘em, after a while they wear on me a bit. Looking to mix it up a bit, I’ve been looking at some alternate music choices.

So I guess I’m looking to you guys. What do you listen to? What keeps your legs moving?

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Just Cuz’ It’s Cool

Ken sent me a link the other day to the Specialized site and this video, with the comment, “what I wouldn’t give to be a pro rider…”

This is the first of a new series of Bikeridr posts called, “Just Cuz’ It’s Cool”, which will be a random smattering of nifty bike goodness. How fun would it be if THIS was a day at the office…

Fitness Testing

For the last while, though I’ve been trying to stay motivated and keep up with my training rides and push myself, I haven’t felt like I have a good sense of where my fitness is, or if it’s headed in the right direction quickly enough. Sure I feel like my training has improved my fitness but am I improving enough? Are my routines going to get me into the shape I need to be in, in time for the TRC? These were questions I couldn’t really answer myself so in an effort to get re-oriented, I searched out a professional fitness/cyclist trainer.

I went to see Kevin Masters at Aerobic Power Fitness Systems. Kevin is a seasoned Ironman competitor with extensive cycling knowledge. Last week, Kevin hooked me up to the Racer Mate compu-trainer and put me through my paces to assess my current fitness, and pedal stroke efficiency. If you’ve never had your pedal stroke analyzed, I highly recommend it; not only is it cool, but it’s really valuable knowledge for a cyclist.

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Happy Birthday to Me!

If you can’t use your own blog to tell the world about your birthday wishes, then really? What’s the point?

I just thought I’d let the masses out there know that if they like they can buy me a BMC Fourstroke for my birthday… This bike is all types of gorgeous! Glossy red, matte black carbon… Yum.

Click the banner for a better view.

The FIXIE

Rollin’ with breakless, the gearless and, oooooh yeah, the fearless…

As an XC rider, generally, I like the idea of more gears. When they came out with an 18 speed, I traded in my 10 speed. Then when they came out with a 21 speed, I naturally upgraded again. To me, having multiple gear choices means better riding, so I found the concept of the single-speed bike intriguing; last summer I got beat in an 80km XC race by a guy on a single-speed – nuff said about that. But, as foreign an idea as a single-speed was to me, the FIXIE is something else all together…

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Support Science – Be a Guinea Pig

As I mentioned in my January diary entry I’ve been part of some testing with the Human Performance Lab at the UofC over the past 6 weeks or so. It wasn’t something that I had set out planning to do, more-so something that just fell into my lap. I had been chatting with my wife (Kerstin) about potentially heading in to get some VO2 Max and lactic testing done along with a professional coaching plan – the problem was that those tests can be fairly pricey, and I’m always looking to save a buck or two!

Fortuitously a few days after our conversation Kerstin got an email through her triathlon club from the Human Performance Lab asking for subjects in an upcoming test series – what do you get in return for your contribution to science? VO2Max and lactic test results! A match made in heaven. A couple of emails later I was signed up.

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February Training Diary – Ken

For me this month was mainly about settling into a groove, and for the most part I was successful.

Overall, everything went exactly to plan – I was on the bike 3-4 times a week: 3 interval/threshold rides and one ‘longer’ ride. In light of this steady volume on the bike I decided to toss one more thing into the mix… As I alluded in my 5+2 Ways to Stay Injury Free article, I’m a big fan of stretching, and now that I’d resolved the knee issues that had been cropping up I decided to ensure that I stayed on top of my stretching as well as incorporated some general core strengthening, so after some gentle nudging from my wife I took the plunge and got a yoga pass. All told I was doing something training related every day of the week but one – and for the most part thing felt pretty balanced. It was nice to have this sort of routine to look forward to.

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February Training Diary – Sheldon

In a word,“pffft”…

February was not a stellar training month for me – not even close… It began with me discovering first-hand what ‘overtraining’ does to you. January had been a big month, and although at the time I thought I hadn’t pushed things too far, by the end of the first week of Feb I knew differently.

Pretty much the whole first half of Feb was a battle between my recovery needs and training needs. On the one hand, I was fatigued, deeply, and I could feel it through my whole body like someone had poured heavy, wet cement into all my limbs. But on the other hand I can be obstinate and I wanted to keep training. The result was half-hearted workouts in the gym, lacklustre rides on the stationary and even skipping sessions altogether. This was really frustrating!

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