back from vacation

Well, survived vacation. Great time with the family, playing in the Tirrenian Sea, hiking Cinque Terre and up the Tower of Pisa, lots of nighttime giggles and bonding but am really tired and ready to get back to the hum drum of ordinary life.

New and Improved

OK, the title changed and my scope changed. I've stopped feeling like the poor victim and am taking action to get where I want. I have a new coach and a new focus for my cycling. I'm going back to track which is my love. There are a lot of challenges but I have a great coach and a lot of support. Plus I've made other changes in my life which will help and have been fantastic! More maybe later but for now it's a new course and a new blog.

Still pedaling

OK, I'm a weak slacker but I'm still around and thawing out of this dreary Bavarian winter.

Reflecting on a month off

I'm back, actually never went anywhere. Just took some time off to focus on some family issues and reflect on my goals and desires. So, things are ok, holding my own and have some revised goals and stuff I'll share after I get back from another couple weeks away for work related things.

100 miles . . . check

OK, it sounded like a good idea like it does every year. 100 miles, nice easy day just spinning along, enjoying life. Well, it was 11 degrees F outside and despite being sunny it was just too brutal to go out. So I opted for the trainer, selected a long video for my Tacx workout and went for it. and went, and went and it is a really long, sweaty, painful thing to be on the trainer for 100 miles (160km). Takes about four hours or so which means a lot of wet chamois pads, bottles of water, stretch breaks etc. that acutally drags out the total time to like 5 hours. But it's done.

Now the holidays are over, the kids went back to school today and of course it's snowing out. Shoveling snow burns how many calories per 30 minutes? Nevermind, so I decided to bring the cross bike in to work and I'll try to sneak out for a bit this afternoon. The woods are really cool when its quiet and snowy and you're pedaling along a forest track.

I held my own over the holiday, given all the stress of being home so much, the kids being stir crazy and not having a regular eating schedule. Happy New Year everyone, get out and ride!

New Year Revolution

OK, maybe not a revelation or a resolution but a "revolution" an overthrowing of the old, a reversal. December has been miserable. With snow, sickness, family, holidays, work and little time or physical capacity to ride or train. I've held my own on nutrition through this period, not gained or lost but now that it's over except New Year's Day, I can get back moving again. So January MUST be better than December.

The sun is out this week in Germany, but it's -6 C with a windchill of -15 which is about 21 degrees. I figure if I go ride 25kmh the windchill is 8 F. Ouch! But it's SUNNY, honest sunshine. I can feel the vitamin D just by looking outside at the sun as I sit at my desk.

The new year ride looks like it'll be outside and the weather should be clear but in the low 20s. I think it'll be slow but I'm just going to ride and enjoy it.

I mentioned the holidays being tiring? After days of literally bouncing around from excitement about Christmas for a couple days, we got the boys in bed by 10pm and put the presents out. We got to sleep around 10:30 pm. My youngest son, who just turned 6 on this past Sunday, came running down the hall at 1:40 AM (yes, that's right 0140 or as we in the military say "oh dark thirty" or in this case "holy %#$@ it's early) on Christmas morning after having peeked into the living room and it was all over at that point. No going back to bed, so we got ourselves and our 8 year old son up, made coffee and within 30 minutes they tore through the presents. There was no tracking who gave what to whom. Imagine a feeding frenzy of piranhas and during the middle of it trying to get them to chew their food and stop eating with their mouth full. Not gonna happen!

They didn't get a nap or rest at all and it took us a good two nights to recover. I've discovered that when you have a bad night sleep you need at least two good nights to get recovered. Sleep is SO important!

What am I going to do on New Years? Well ride either in or out and pull together a training schedule for January and then update my blog on the 2nd after I register for Nove Colli in Italy. I'm not sure where the 100 miles came from, I think we started doing that in Tucson with Ralph Phillips and his clocktower group back a few years ago but it's become a standard. I've had to do it inside on the trainer and that's harder than outside!! Almost as hard as the masochistic sessions on the rollers in a dark room . . . get your bike on the rollers, turn down the lights, no tv or music and just go . . . for two, three hours. That was training in the 1980s and I think into the 90s, don't know if anyone does that anymore. It really was hard!

taking more time off

I'm almost done . . . with the stinking holiday and winter! Ick! Of course skiing last Saturday nearly killed me but it was fun with the family. My boys have no fear and it's great seeing them enjoy something so much.

No new year's resolutions, just going to remind myself about why I'm losing the weight and what I want to do in 2009. I got accepted on a team in Nurnberg that races track and road so I'll have some social interaction. Nurnberg is only an hour away so that's not too bad.

Merry Christmas to all, hope Santa brings you some good bike gadgets, spare parts and puts some lube, a tube and a Hammer Nutrition Bar in your stocking.

Oh, and on New Years Day? . . . do 100 miles. It's for your own good, I'm going to.

Flu and Chili

OK, my wife told me so but I stubbornly said "nah, I haven't been sick in years" so I didn't put it as a priority to get the flu spray. Well, Happy Thanksgiving sniffles led to a full on head cold Friday and Saturday. No problem, as long as it's above the neck right? Sunday was so so but Monday and today have been death but not warmed over as I don't have a fever. Couple degrees above my normal of 95 but I have all the other symptoms: headache, shakes, nausea, weakness (couldn't physically get out of bed this morning), stuffy nose etc.

Obviously no training in days not even the strength or motivation to get on the trainer and just turn the legs. Heck, walking downstairs takes twice as long as normal! But I can still stretch, just need to move slowly but the aches seem to be better afterward.

So where am I at now? Well, I don't trust the scale since I know any loss is probably due to dehydration so if I'm really low I'll drink more water. The nutrition is good, still struggling to make sure I eat. But aerobically and strength? I'm going to really be hating the first workouts and rides after I get better. The kicker is that after all this I have to go back and start again although my weight will be less, my fitness really is suffering.

Oh, and I turn 43 tomorrow . . . yippie! and I have to cook a pot of chili tonight. OK let me explain. In Germany the tradition is that on your birthday you bring in food for your co-workers who help you celebrate your birthday by eating your food and shaking your hand. Don't ask, I just know this is the cultural thing. So I found a recipe for Barry Goldwater's Arizona Chili (since I'm from Arizona and my dad and Barry were friends - he had an awesome house, was there a couple times) which I need to start tonight. No canned beans, will soak them tonight and they'll take 5 hours to cook but since I'll be up coughing at 4 am that gives me plenty of time. :-) Probably not a lot of spices since the food here is pretty bland. Oh, and it's no big secret just google barry goldwater's chili and you'll find it on the net.

So, get that flu spray or shot and take care of yourselves. I'm going to crawl back into bed now and dream of riding through sunny Spain or Italy or Tucson.

Happy Thanksgiving . . . so whaddaya thankful for?

I'm thankful for Leonardo Da Vinci inventing the bicycle (I think he did) and for all the cyclists, mechanics, designers, etc. who make cycling such a great life sport.

So I'm in hold mode or plateau or whatever. Lost some weight but I'm having to relearn my body sensations for satiety and hunger. Oh, and I turn 43 in a week. I hate my birthday, just another reminder about getting older. Anyway, enough self pity.

Winter really hit this past weekend, after a major computer crash which has finally been resolved. Snow and more snow with sub-freezing temps. There is no desire to go out and ride since it is so miserable. But I can ride inside and am stretching.

40-50km in the mornings on the trainer and stretching seems to be my standard. Nothing else really new. I know I owe my loyal readers a longer post which I'm still working on. But enjoy the holiday and family.

Time and energy fly or get suck out of you

I can't believe a week has passed. I kept meaning to write but work has been chaos with really extra long days and stress. Although I stuck to the nutrition I lagged on exercise and sleep was a problem too later last week through the weekend. I think that sleep is the biggest killer to the active lifestyle. Unless you sleep you're too tired to perform and don't really have energy to exercise. Yeah, I know the saying that if you do it then exercise will GIVE you energy. But if you've only slept for 2-3 hours at a stretch and been interrupted the rest of the time and that has gone on for nearly a week it's pretty hard to convince yourself that riding 2 hours is going to help you.

But this is another week and the stress and workload has died down. I've slept pretty good the last two nights so tomorrow I'll get back to the trainer. Supposed to snow this coming weekend and get colder so indoors is still it for a while.

I got the saddle and I have to say that I never really appreciated the whole prostate cut out thing before. It looked painful but it really does reduce/eliminate pressure "there" for men and I imagine for women too.

So, overcome, adapt and move on again. The back still feels good and am working on neck stretches to keep that loose. Hopefully I'll have more posts this week and more exciting. Is anyone reading these beside me, Josh and Graeme? Let me know, I'm still interested in feedback as to strategies for overcoming obstacles.

Short but sweet today

Well, I dropped three pounds the past week. Pretty good but I can do better. Didn't get as many workouts in as I wanted but I really have the nutrition under control. My problem now is forcing myself to eat when I should to keep my strength up.

The ear problem cleared up with the muscle relaxants and I'm figuring out ways to deal with this new manifestation of my body's reaction to stress. The back is still doing really well and with the neck I'm focusing on not clinching my jaw, doing neck stretches and some balms I have that work really well to reduce swelling and muscular problems. So I learned something new and gained some new strategies.

Promise to write more this week. Last week was a bummer and my uncle's brother died on Friday but having been riddled with cancer it is for the best. Just hope my uncle doesn't get too down since he's now lost all his immediate family (parents, wife and now brother).

Oh and tomorrow is Veteran's Day. I try to go for a LONG ride on days like that so I don't have to think but I probably will anyway. Vet day and Memorial day are hard because I think about my friends I've lost and the experiences. But if you know a vet then thank them, many have been through worse than me so I shouldn't whine and I do try to be thankful. Anyway, you see where my mind goes . . . so I go riding and leave the mind at home! Plan is for at least 4 hours and may try for the Czech border again.

Feeling so freaking good!

When life gives you lemons . . . ok, life gave me a 5 year old who gets up at 4 am to come into our room. So, he's my alarm clock now. Much to his chagrin when he came in this morning, I got up went downstairs, made coffee and got on my trainer for 30 minutes. Did spin ups and high cadence (100rpm+) intervals then did Body Weight 1 on Cyclo-Core finishing with stretching. The 5 year old and my wife slept soundly but my 8 year old boy got up during my bike session and we did the circuit and stretch together. I need to get him a small exercise ball though, he keeps falling off the big one, which I think he enjoys doing! But I finished by 6 am and was really charged up!

Foggy day but not unpleasant although I'm going to be tired this afternoon. Will try to get to bed early and do another morning workout tomorrow. Those hindu squats are killers!

I feel like the stock market . . .

I ended up short of my goal for the month. 298 to 294 so only 4 pounds but this was a wild month of weight swings (298, 291 up to 301 at one point early last week) but I think I've stabilized. Lots of things happened good and bad in October, the weather, being sick, having to revise my training system/program. But 4 pounds is still 4 pounds I don't have to drag around. So I go into November with things worked out and with a goal weight of 284 which is 10 pounds. I'm not going to do cumulative and overreach by adding what I didn't do this month to next. One day and one month at a time and I'll get there but I want to get there healthy and flexible and happy.

What an amazing week, good and bad!

Well, the week didn't start too well. We hit daylight savings time here this past weekend so on Monday it was a nice light ride into work but it was pitch black and rainy by 5 when I left, even with lights it was a bit scary although the dark winding road I use was fairly surreal under those conditions. It just brought it crashing into my psyche that winter is here and I can't ride to work. So the week was spent getting my Tacx trainer updated with the Cyclo-core workouts. You have to hand jam them into the program. Very tedious but I got most in.

The clogged right ear went into the left ear and really was bothering me. Balance all screwed up. Finally took the plunge and went to a German doctor here in town. Turns out, according to him and totally unexpected to me, that a huge amount of neck tension was causing me Eustachian tubes to block. The doc prescribed a muscle relaxant so I started hitting that and putting tiger balm on the mucsles of my upper neck. Guess what!? It's worked! Of course a couple days fried out on happy pills meant no workouts but all in all I feel a lot better.

Oh, by the way, with continued stretching my back pain and knots have gotten better and it's not giving me a problem. Whatever you do . . . STRETCH!

I was feeling so good that this afternoon I got a wild hair and decided to load up the real life video of the Tour of Flanders for 83.5 km of torture on the trainer! I think I did too much, 4:17 and I'm wasted but I did it! OK, not fast and I took a couple breaks to stretch but I did it. Maybe it's that I'm feeling better or maybe I needed to burn some stress (since I hadn't ridden this week) partly since I found out this morning my uncles brother is dying of cancer in about everywhere you can have it. They opened him up to take some out but after seeing the extent they just closed him up. We figure he's got a few days to a week. I'm sad but there's nothing I can do, a terrible helpless feeling. I can't be much support for my uncle either. Sort of useless.

The hands are sore and shaky for holding the bars for nearly 5 hours. There's a lot of vibration that rumbles through the frame so it's pretty hard on the body. Time to get the kids to sleep and then I get to do Graeme's Cyclo-Zen stretch before bed!

Ciao!

Happy tree lifting day!

OK, that's not really what Saturday was about. In Germany there are church holidays (every holiday seems to be mixed with some reason or another to party, called Fests) such as this weekend in my town called Kirwa's which is supposed to be the annual rededication of the local church. This is joined with a party for late teenagers when they take center stage around the kirwabaum or kirwa tree to dance the day after the tree is put up and after a night of seeing how much beer they can drink. So Saturday we walked the two blocks to our castle to watch the tree go up. Unbeknownst to me all the able bodied me are enlisted to push the tree upward with a precarious leveraging of long poles lashed together at the top. This particular tree was not that big apparenlty, only 22 meters or 72 feet. But a tree this size is HEAVY! So, with two other guys on our pole (there were five or six sets of poles each of varying lengths and used as the tree is elevated from the horozontal until it slides into the 5 foot hole) we heaved for TWO HOURS, well around 1.5 hours, hefting this thing up. Imagine grabbing a pole and doing squats for that long with each effort about every three minutes. So I felt at the end like I earned the liter of beer! Of course today I was so sore, my legs, arms and back are tired! A good workout all in all but probably not on the cyclo-core program.

We hit daylight savings here so it is now dark at 5pm so my weekly commute home will be in the dark from now until spring. YUCK! At least I'll have some light in the morning although it's supposed to snow this week. YUCK! Cross time!!!!!! I watched the cross world cup and it looks hard but I think if I just take off across the terrain here I'll get a good equivalent workout.

Weigh in tomorrow but I'm not worrying. Whatever happens will happen and I'll take it from there. Cheers to all!

Bouncing back and up

OK, the results of the bad week are in and I put on a couple pounds. This is the opportunity to assess what happened this past week, what I could have done and learn what to do next time.

The list I made last night of the distractors all came into play leading to this morning. Despite trying to get to sleep early (got my 5 year old to be by 8:30) the following happened: my mom called from the States at 9 although I had left a message 15 minutes earlier that we were going to bed; my 5 year old woke up at 10:15 and I had to get him back to bed; around 3 am the 5 year old came into our bed to sleep; just before my alarm went off at 5 my 8 year old got up. The alarm didn't go off at 5 because I got up before it and started the coffee, with my 8 year old getting up too. I looked at the thermometer and it was 32 outside but not raining so I could ride to work after my morning workout. Unfortunately, my laptop with the workout I loaded took 15 minutes to configure some updates that happened during the night so I missed out on the trainer workout. Then I tried on the super winter stuff I got and I think it shrunk so it doesn't fit and I ran around the house trying to find my gear, winter boots, wool socks etc. Eventually got everything together and out the door late to ride to work. VERY COLD! ride but I goofed again and didn't check the forcast and it's going to be around 60 today, so the jacket, winter shoes, wool socks and helmet with winter liner will give me a good sweat session on the way home!

So, my day is dorked up right? Well, here's the thoughtful part:

1. I can do the trainer workout tonight and then stretch so missing my planned workout this morning because of all the stuff is overcome by shifting it to another time.

2. I can't do much about the weather being warmer except to enjoy it and remember to check the forcast ahead of time (again which I couldn't do because the laptop was tied up and the boys were on the other computer).

3. The boys will be tired tonight so they'll get to be early and I'll be more able to get up early tomorrow to workout.

4. I put on 3 pounds, which I can get off and more this week. The back is better today and I'll see the doc about the ear sometime, maybe, so all is not lost.

All in all nearly everything that could go wrong that I anticipated did occur. But I can overcome that and still pull a successful day out of it. I did ride to work and while it was very cold and my muscles were stiff I concentrated on spinning rather than pushing a big gear. Although I didn't ride yesterday I did play soccer for about two hours with my youngest and I did feel it today.

So a bad week and a bad night/morning aren't the end, you just need to think ahead about what distractors will occur and plan a way around it. I feel better knowing I have anticipated this and that I can overcome it.

Nervous time

I knew this week was going to be a challenge and it has. Unfortunately the challenge came in the form of a flare up in my back pain and a clogged middle ear that's still sloshing around. I could not ride . . . I tried a couple days in the early morning fog and dark but the low back pain from spasmy muscles which also hit my mid back nearly put me down. I did adapt though. While I didn't do the full strength or yoga workouts I emphasized the stretching routines which helped. That and doing nearly the whole workout in the sauna at the gym!

From experience I know that once I can warm up my body in the sauna and lay back and let the hot boards work on the tense back muscles I can stretch and loosen everything up. The pain would go away. Eventually I would get tight but those stretched and the at the desk energizers REALLY help! I think it's stress.

So given the horrible week, how will the weight come out tomorrow morning? I probably put back on a couple pounds because I feel my tank is still about a quarter full and I haven't drained it out with a long hard workout. I mentioned the weather before and had some challenges with winter coming on. I have to be at work at 8 so I need to leave at 7:15 but the sun isn't coming up until 7:45! So I bought some lights for all the bikes I usually ride.

Before I close, thanks to Graeme for getting the Zen disks to me so quickly. And for the saddle! I'm honored, don't think I've done anything to deserve "winning" anything yet, but thank you very much!

I compiled a list of distractors and ways to overcome them which I'll post tomorrow but I think it would be great that if you would drop me a comment with one of YOUR distractors and how you overcome it. Please?

YEAH! I did it, now the hard part . . . maybe

I had a bad weekend. Did pretty good on the nutrition but fell off yesterday, Sunday, although I did pretty good. My youngest wnet to a birthday party and I did let myself have one small speck of cake but also had my salad. I knew the day would not allow me to follow the schedule so I jiggled it a bit. We went to a restaurant but they were out of pasty so I had a burger. All in all I adapted and did meet my goals.

So I woke up today early and after weighing I treated myself to a long ride and basically just went wherever I wanted! It was foggy so you don't notice the 6% grade until you feel it in your legs but I decided to amble through the hills. It was fun and I got a good workout in. Now for some more house duty and a stretch tonight.

I'm behind the curve on planning this week out but am working on my strategy to overcome distractions. The basic thought I need to keep in my mind is that no matter what happens in each day I NEED and WANT to workout whether this means a ride or a strength workout. As long as I do SOMETHING then I win and get closer to my goal.

Right now I have a 5 year old pestering me so I need to go but while I know that there is alot of planning and documenting to do the biggest thing I can do to make this easy is to believe in ME. I know I can do this and I've done harder things before so I can do this. And it's really not HARD to exercise, ride the bike and eat well. What is hard is to overcome inertia and get moving but once you get moving you keep moving.

I'm so hungry, and weak . . . oh wait, that's good!

Day Four and it's the very low carb day of the Cyclo-Fuel Fat Loss week. I get carbs tonight but the ride into work this morning was horrible! I felt so weak at the beginning but better toward the end. No energy in the legs so it was easy pedaling up hill and not pushing a big gear on the flats. Just get there I told myself. I think I was hallucinating too, I remember seeing a log by the side of the road and it looked like an eclair! Mmmm . . . NO I can't let myself think that.

Here's something to think about though (I was thinking about this in bed last night having a craving then turned it around): We have Burger King here and I like the Whopper no cheese. Occasionally I'd get the double without cheese but mainly the single. Don't like fries so that saves calories and hate soda (I stopped drinking fizzy drinks a couple years ago). A Whopper is 670 calories. I want to loose 80 pounds which is 280,000 calories. This equals 418 single Whoppers without cheese. That's a LOTTA FOOD! Oh and while we're at it that's 107 POUNDS OF MEAT!

Anyway, I'm hungry but not that hungry and I have choices.

So next week is rapidly coming and I need to keep on with PHASE TWO - the plan. I'm going to start the Cyclo-core Off Season Intermediate Plan and adapt it to include more riding since I'm bike commuting. Josh Liberles has some good morning rituals I'd like to incorporate but I need to stretch and do core in the morning and do stretching in the evening. Even 15 minutes is paying off in loosening my core and tight muscles and relaxing me.

I will gear the workouts to the templates in the Fuel plan, what I mean is to watch the workouts I have on certain days and eat what my body needs. As a top level master/senior amateur racing cyclist (which is what I need to think of myself and my new life as) I need to eat what my body needs to be able to function optimally.

Now that I have somewhat of a plan (I'll refine it this weekend watching Paris-Tours) I need to especially focus on the last Phase . . . PHASE THREE - the plan to deal with distractions.

I mentioned that this is like D-Day, well I got the troops together and hit the beach this week. I know now where to push the bridgehead out to continue the advance but PHASE THREE is really the plan for when the counterattack happens. To be prepared you need to anticiapte the issues and this is questions, questions and more questions.

For instance, what happens when I need a ride and I wake up and it's snowing? Or what do I do if my kids are up late and have trouble sleeping which leads to when I wake up and am dragging my sorry fat butt out of bed, that I can reengergize and salvage the day physically, nutritionally and emotionally? Those questions are the ones we all seem to have . . . how do I deal with distractions to be able to keep on track?

I need to stretch now, been at the desk and feel my back knots cramping up more because I've been slouching! More later, I'll write in the morning on how great the carbs were (pasta with olive oil and cheese with toasted spelt bread and butter) and if I feel really jazzed in the morning.

Day One, Phase Two . . . huh?

OK, it's Monday 6 October and D-Day. Day One is the first day of the Fat Burning Week of the Cyclo-Fuel plan to jump start my metabolism. Phase Two is the second part, planning, to achieve the Phase One goals I identified previously. I have this week to work on it since the fat burning week is an all in one program.

Bad weekend though, did too much yard work raking up fallen apples and cleaning up in the garden which triggered back muscle spasms and a wicked migraine that lasted most of Sunday but with two shots of anti-migraine meds I was a zombie yesterday!

Then the weather hasn't cooperated and we blew the power out to the first floor which means that until the electrician comes I don't have power, light etc. for my trainer and computer set up. I have a Tacx VR Fortius and 17" screen laptop set up for winter training and for bike stuff so that's where I download my Garmin data and other stuff into. So this morning I look out the window and it's not cold, maybe high 40s, but the trees are all over the place and the rain is coming down. Typical fall but also at this high latitude, we are about the same as Maine, the sun doesn't come up until later and sets earlier so riding is a challenge in the dark even if the weather is ok. That's why I have the good trainer!

Anyway, day one is here so off I go! I'll let you know tomorrow how today goes but my adaptation to overcome the training distractor of the weather is to do an hour on the trainer tonight when I get home and be extra careful of my eating today.