Spin Macaroni Mountain

I really meant to go dancing last night, but I didn't. What happened? Work dragged, I dragged, my brief attempt at working out dragged, and I dragged my butt around the apartment instead. There was a clear point where I thought to myself, "I can still get there by 10:30. Or not." Not.

So instead I read a bit. Brainstormed a bit. And turned on the Tour de France. I was hoping to be inspired by the mountaintop finish at Mont Ventoux, but realized early in my watching of Stage 19, that it was Stage 20 which finishes at Mont Ventoux. Darn. But I played the flat stage in the background anyway as I puttered around.

Lance Armstrong made a comeback to professional cycling this year after a last competing in 2005, and is seriously kicking butt. Well, if you were rooting for him to win (as I've been doing), he's a bit of a disappointment, but if you're a realist, as I've become, you can find his claw back to 3rd place going into Stage 19 extremely inspiring (did he really decide to return last October?!). In first place is his Astana teammate, Alberto Contador, who won the Tour for Lance's Team Discovery in 2007. 4 minutes back is Team Saxo Bank's Andy Schleck, widely regarded as the best climber in the Tour before Contador proved otherwise in the Alps. Armstrong is just over a minute behind Schleck, but has Bradley Wiggins and Astana teammate Andreas Kloden within 20 seconds of his spot. And right behind them is Andy Schleck's older brother, Frank. With inspired performances during Stage 20, Astana could conceivably hold all the podium places. On the other hand, 2nd place and 6th place are separated by just 1:40. Contador has a huge lead in the General Classification, unless he has a terrible day, but Andy and Frank might be working to get Frank in front of Kloden, Wiggens, and Armstrong into third place and onto the podium.

Stage 20 of the Tour de France is a mountaintop finish at Mont Ventoux, a 20 km Hors Category (beyond category, the hardest category) climb which takes an hour to ride. Badass. It isn't crazy to see an inspired climber make up 20 seconds per kilometer on the mountain. Though maybe not on the General Classification contenders.

Then it struck me: I should go to spin class Saturday morning. Yeah! I've been wanting to ride again, but haven't because of the prep-time (and I need to get that bike tuned up again). So why not substitute in a spin class?

The plan that formed in my mind was to get to bed, take the 8:30 spin class, shop at Sprouts for the macaroni salad I planned to take to Saturday evening's BBQ (I still don't have details on that!), make the salad, then eat my post-spin meal while watching the extended coverage of Stage 20.

Thus inspired, I crashed out.

Woke at 7:30 and puttered a bit. At 8am, I called and asked if they had spots left for the 8:30 class. One left. I'd better hurry. Started my oatmeal in the microwave and pulled up my spin class checklist and my "go bag" for spin and hugged myself; I'd left everything I needed right in the bag. Transferred the oatmeal to a paper bowl and ran out the door.

2 minute drive to 24 Hour Fitness, and got to the front desk. "You'll be the first on the waiting list." D'oh. But one of the five paid reservations was bound to no-show right? Right. I haven't taken a class since ... November 25, 2008, eight months. Yikes. I'm feeling a little trepidation as I take my pass over to the spin room. The instructor hasn't arrived yet, so I take the time to switch to my SPDs (don't spin without them) and turn on my heart rate monitor (don't spin without it). Recognize a former neighbor from Placentia. I must have talked her into finally taking a spin class. She's always been in great shape, but she's seriously lean now.

Decided to sit in the back, as it's been too long since I dragged my fat ass here (that's some serious negative talk going on there). Then realized too late that the reason I sat in front wasn't because felt like a badass, but because staring at hot cycling butts is distracting. But soon enough the sweat starts to pour and my consciousness retreats to the tip of my nose and my reflected grimace in the mirror.

My body remembers. My mind remembers. I'm in rhythm, and suddenly remember that I used to evaluate music by whether it would be good to spin to instead of whether it would be good to swing dance to. Funny memory.

I have to check my HRM constantly as I'm out of shape and competitive at the same time. I spend too much time with my heart rate over 160 beats per minute, and way too much time at 170-172 (well, about sixty seconds, but that's way to long). I have to remember to ease back into this kind of work out.

That's right, ease back into it. As in do it regularly again.

Looking around, I realize that most people still equate low, straining cadence with good effort, not realizing that high cadence is it's own discipline. When the instructor throws a high cadence song at us, most of them just sit at a lower cadence looking blank probably not able to maintain the pace even in the saddle with low resistance. But I've still got it. Well, kind of. High cadence spinning out of the saddle is what has me my heart at 170+ bpm. Don't do that.

After class, as I gulp down more water, and make my way over to Sprouts (like Henry's but close!) to shop for my macaroni salad. Home to put the salad together, protein shake, and sit down to watch the Tour.

Go Lance!

Saturday Ride and Dancing

Morning bike ride with P. First time I've been in the saddle since riding Glendora Mountain Road with Ghene. What? I didn't blog that?! That cant' be right... Crap, I really didn't. Too bad. At any rate, 11.5 miles round trip. We were about a mile from the beach, but it's always better to be conservative. As it is, I barely made it to team practice on time.

Poppa P is a cyclist and came to check out my bike. "You're not putting in 100 miles a week?!" I know, I wish I was. He really knows his equipment. Knew immediately why I hadn't upgraded to Dura-Ace ("Maybe if you were a professional, you'd need it!"), and we talked about riding together some time. He spotted my Garmin Edge 305. He rides with a 201, the non-Edge version which doubles as a running watch. I didn't talk to him about cadence riding, but I suspect he's the type who knows about it.

Swing 1 team practice:
I followed for a good bit of Jeep Jockey Jump. Not enough follows. Tiffany showed up late, and I was able to step out. Then step in again for Amanda!

You looked good out there. Your switches were interesting, but otherwise, you looked good. -- Katie

I can do switches, but I wasn't mentally ready. And no, there's no video of that.

Swing 2 practice focused on formation work with traveling swing-outs. Neat stuff. We did Jeep Jockey Jump in a rotating pinwheel, which was awesome! No Jingle Jangle. Hopefully that's pure Swing 3, though it's supposed to be on the December 12th performance schedule...

Bastanchury, Fairmont, Casino Ridge

20070901

11am is when Inspiration Weekend starts, so I wanted to ride early enough to still make it. After riding the Bastanchury - State College hill last week, I'd wanted to ride Bastanchury from the Malvern end (Fullerton) to the Village Center Road end (Yorba Linda). So today I did it.

The Bastanchury grade is slight but constant, then elevates a bit more to Harbor. Quick descent, then climbs again up to Brea Blvd. Then a 9-11% grade up to State College. Tougher than the climb from Associated, it seems. For the future, a multi-loop ride that climbs from each of the four directions?

As I got close to the Yorba Linda end, I realized that I could just return, or I could add in the Fairmont climb, ride down San Antonio to Casino Ridge Road, and do that climb. So I did. Fairmont was tougher than I remembered the San Antonio climb being. I took a breather on the partial descent down San Antonio, then climbed up Casino Ridge Road. That climb was a monster!!! I thought I'd done it last week, but no, I'd done somewhere between a quarter and a third of it. And even that part had a brief 14% grade. The latter section, after a brief flat, climbed at between 14 and 20%!!! I was in my easiest gear, climbing at a crawl, but made it to the top, took a brief break, then descended. 3/4 of a mile took 8 minutes, climbed around 400 feet. Yikes! I'll have to go back and do it again.

The rest of the ride was pretty sedate. Descended the rest of San Antonio, rode Yorba Linda Blvd to Imperial, and Imperial back to my place in Brea. Just hit 30 miles according to the GPS.


Map:

Cool Breeze Century Even More Quotes

Em: Everyone in the Lower Cadence group did awesome!

Me: Yeah, we did! But I want to suggest a new name: Soft Core Cycling.

Em: That sounds kind of porn-y.

Me: That's what makes it so awesome!

Cool Breeze Century More Quotes

Danielle: Hey, if you're feeling good and want to take off, don't worry about me.

Me: OK. And if you're feeling strong and you find yourself off ahead of me, for God's sake slow down and wait. I don't want to ride this thing alone!

Danielle: There's a hard Team Velocity ride that's was around 30 miles with the same amount of climbing as today's ride. I thought that was a lot harder than today. Today was good, but not super hard.

Me: Can't... catch... breath... to... talk...

Danielle: Don't take that the wrong way, I just meant...

Me: Listen, unless you have something more to say about how good my ass looks, I don't want to hear it!

I might have cut and pasted that last one to make it funnier.

Cool Breeze Century Part "The Other"

Well, blogging from my mobile phone (was I unclear that yesterday's entry was done from bed in the dark on my Treo?) during the ride went completely out the window. I just didn't have time, or was too tired.

The Motel 6 group I was with got to start line a bit late, and started at about 6:43am instead of the 6:30am time we were shooting for. Danielle and I were trying to ride with Grace and Diana, but missed out on that. By 13 minutes. Oh well. We kept seeing them coming out of the rest stops as were were entering them. There was a 500 foot climb right after the first rest stop, and an awesome 800 foot climb right out of the second stop (around the 30 mile mark).

The big bummer was that I didn't hydrate properly at the beginning of the ride or during lunch time, and I had some hard-core cramping going into the second to last rest stop. Well, around a mile from it. I'd felt it coming on and had drained my water, but it didn't help. My quadriceps went into complete lock-up contractions. I almost fell off the bike. Not sure how I avoided that, or how I unclipped. Every time I'd move, the cramps would get worse, so I just had to sit and wait that it would go away. Really scary. Danielle and I were way ahead of the group we had started with. She was really awesome to hang with me instead of taking off. I drank most of the fluids that Danielle had left. Eventually my quads unclenched, and I eased the next mile into the rest stop. We must had been there for an hour, me eating bananas and drinking copious amounts of water. A ton of water. I downed a bunch of my electrolyte drinks too. I thought I was over-packing them at the beginning of the day. Wrong!

I was still cramping as we left the rest stop. Takes a while to absorb fluid, I guess. A bit of a cramp again 500 meters out, so we pulled into a parking lot. So frustrating. Saw Lem and Courtney go by. Waited a few more minutes, and I said, "Fuck this, I'm feeling better, lets go!" I guess I'd absorbed enough water at that point, as the cramping eased off. We caught Lem and Courtney 20 minutes later, and rode with them the rest of the way.

At the last rest stop, there were popsicles! They were hyped up by everyone who talked about Cool Breeze, but they were just ok. Just remembered that I hadn't talked about the rest stops. Tons of porta-potties, with Purell dispensers in them, and foot-pump sinks. They had tons of food from Costco: bananas, cantalope, trail mix, bagels, muffins, peanut-butter, jelly, bread, water (tons of water), Country Time lemondade, and on and on. Courtney complained about the sameness, but I welcomed it.

Funny sign at the last rest stop that Courtney and Danielle had fun at:

The ride distance was 102 miles, so we stopped to take a picture at the 100 mile point:


(Lem, Courtney, Danielle, Me)

Costco dinner after the ride hit the spot. Drive back with Danielle was awesome. Drives are better with someone to be chatty with.

Cool Breeze Century Best Quote

Danielle: In a totally platonic way, your ass looks awesome on those riding shorts. I'm sorry, was that weird?

Me: No, not at all. Thanks.

[pause]

Me: You can massage it later on, if you want. In a totally platonic way, I mean.

Cool Breeze Century Pt. 1

I'm in Ventura for the Cool Breeze Century (100 mile ride). 4am & I can't fall back asleep. Darn nerves. I'll try to update at the start & each rest stop.

Danielle, Carrie, Courtney, Tony, Brenda, and I ditched the hellacious first hotel we were booked at in favor of the Motel 6. Great pasta at Ferraro's. Sharing a room with 3 girls. Which sould be more exciting than the reality.

*sigh*

2+ hours 'til the start of the ride. 1 'til everyone else wakes up...

Saddle Sore

20070805
Back on Monday's spin class, Grace told me the group was riding on Sunday. Texted LB to get the details.

Me: I heard you guys are doing a ride on Sunday. Mind if I tag along?
LB: Sure, here's where we're starting, 8:45am....
Me: Awesome! See you then. Flat? Climbing? Distance?
LB: Hills, flats - 56 miles
Me: [...]

At that point, I was offended. I mean, if you don't want me to come on a ride, just tell me so. Don't make up crazy distance numbers calculated to keep me away! But he was serious. 55 miles. I've been slacking, but the groups built up from the 30 mile ride I tagged along on back on Memorial Day.

Yikes.

I felt a lot of trepidation, but showed up for the ride. I packed my Camelback, but found out we had a rest stop at a member's house to fuel up at the 20 mile mark, so I didn't bring it.

Still can't believe I did this.

Grace didn't feel the need to challenge any of us. Diana led on at least one hill I couldn't keep up with her on. But I thought I was in contention the whole time. An odd thing happened on the Jamboree climb; We had paused for a water break at the bottom of the climb, then LB suggested I lead on Jamboree. I felt a lot more comfortable with someone else setting the pace, but I was willing to do the work for a while. LB reminded me to turn at Canyon View, and I set the pace. I started out on the initial flat at about 14 mph, keeping it sedate. As the incline started, I kept changing into easier gears but stayed in the saddle. I kept hearing Grace or Diana pulling up with me, but I'd just keep it constant and without panicking. I crested Jamboree, and turned to ask Diana or whoever it was where the turn was, and realized I was completely alone. I assume Grace and Diana both decided to stay and encourage the other riders. Again, I'm not stronger than either of them.

I led the last climb of the day as well, up Cerro Villa. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. LB and Carrie talked about bailing on the climb and stopped about a third of the way up. I decided to see whether it was do-able, but at the top of that hill, the turn was onto Summitridge, another climb! I rode back down to the group to report and we cut the ride short. The others were itching to end it, since we were over the estimated time (probably because of the climbing). Total ride time was 4h 19min. I stopped my timer during the water break at 21 miles. The heat of the day had me drinking a lot more from that point on, and I ran out of water right before the Cerro Villa climb. With so much climbing in the back half of the ride, that break felt like it was after the first third of the ride, nowhere near half way.

Grace talked me into signing up for the Cool Breeze Century ride. The Metric Century is clearly within reach, but Grace thinks I should do the 100 miles. Hmmm...



Map:

Friends No More

Me: "We're climbing this ride?"
GF: "Yeah, rolling hills."
Me: "Ok, great."
GF: "You sure you can hold that pace?"
Me: "Yeah, I should be ok..."

30 minutes of straight climbing later....

Bastard! :-)

We staged out of the Rose Bowl, rode into the hills, and halfway out, GF blew his tube AND tire. I rode back and picked him up. We went straight to eat lunch with Hightop, who wasn't able to make the ride.

Here's the route:

High Emotion

Pilgrimgirl wrote about crying during the last Harry Potter book, and I responded with my favorite quote from Sleepless in Seattle.

But I have to admit that I've been brought to tears during the high drama being played out in the Pyrenees between Alberto Contador and Michael Rasmussen (and their supporters, Levi Leipheimer, Michael Boogerd, Yaroslav Popvych, Denis Menchov, and George Hincape).

Maybe only a cycling fan can shed tears over Le Tour de France.

Getting Physical

20070718
Worked out at the gym for the first time in a number of weeks. Switched to an evening session with my trainer, as mornings just weren't working. I asked to focus on our basic balance-ball routine:
15lb tricep extension
25lb chest press
20lb bicep curl
15lb shoulder press

(and repeat)

Then some core/abdominal work:
Prone iso ab
Side iso ab
(you need to search down a bit for the pictures of these exercises)

Crunches (left, middle, right) 15 reps (that is, left-middle-right counts as a single rep; 45 crunches total)

Ran home to get water, then, inspired by the Tour de France, returned for spin class with Liz. She's a great spin instructor: always on time, always ready with a pre-set play list, and ready with goals for each song. And she remembers my name and the fact that I had last taken her class with a co-worker. So awesome! She doesn't program any off-time into her class, so I have to purposefully do some higher-cadence, lower resistance recovery in the short time she leaves between songs. It's not hard to remember to do as my legs are burning with lactic acid at the end of each song. She's in amazing shape, doing high cadence "runs" out of the saddle during songs while shouting encouragement to the rest of us. My ego is usually a help to me in spin classes, as I want to walk out feeling like there wasn't really anyone there who was putting out more than I except the instructor. This class, I'm working so hard that I barely have time to check out how hard my bike-neighbors are doing.

Liz has an iPod, which I remember I was telling her she should get.
"Honey, this was a Christmas present! Has it really been that long since you were here?!" Oops. Probably. I think it's been morning classes exclusively since the new year. Perhaps I should be doing more evening classes on non-dancing days. Hmmmm....

I'm completely wrung out at the end of class. My shirt is soaked. My shorts are soaked. I've only taken in a liter of fluids during the hour, instead of the 1.5+L that I average, but get in another liter over the next 20 minutes.

Here's a graph of my effort (heartrate):

Wow, that's really interesting to see. You can clearly see a 10 minute warm-up period, after which I really don't really dip below 135 bpm until the warm-down. There are spikes where I tickle 170 bpm, and times where it's clear that I'm spending extended periods of time trying to maintain maximum effort (well, minutes at a time as opposed to 15 second peaks).

Contrasted with a leisurely 45 minute ride I did with Moms and Sis on the 16th:

I barely break 140 bpm during the entire ride. Not surprising, really. It was more about getting out on the bike with the family than doing any kind of strong ride.

Instead of heading straight home, I run by Sears to pick up the mini version of the George Forman grill ($20), then head by the grocery store for pre-marinated chicken thighs ($2.50/lb). Bachelor dinner on the small scale is a bit easier with this appliance. I'm going to try some veg from the Fullerton Farmers Market tomorrow. Grilled tomatoes! Zucchini, perhaps? Oh, and I'll try to remember to get more Heed fluid replacement from Banning's Bikes; Pure water just isn't cutting it during spin).

I'm still literally soaked through with sweat while running these errands. I'm lucky not to be dripping.

I sleep well and feel that nice touch of soreness the next morning. Enough to remind myself I worked, but nothing debilitating. I spend an embarrassing amount of time flexing in the mirror. I'm finally losing enough abdominal fat to see the beginnings of a hint of the abdominal six-pack. Pictures to follow. No, not really.

Re-Cycle Part 4

20070602
I've been trying to get either B to answer me on whether we're going to have enough people for a a fast and slow group. I finally hear back on Friday night that we won't. SS goes on her normal solo morning ride and EVH cancels out due to work issues.

Then I hear that everyone but Diana and I have canceled. Strictly for the hard core! Only for the head-strong! Are you ready?!

Here's the map of the ride:

Ride w/Diana:  Tustin - Back Bay (extended)
Distance:      31.2 miles
Elapsed Time:  2h
Pace:          3m 45sec per mile
Avg. Speed:    16 mi/h
Max Speed:     35 mph
Calories:      1685

Diana prefers to take surface streets to the trail, so we take Culver south, west on Walnut, and south again on Harvard. At Barranca Parkway, we get on the trail and head towards the back-bay.

Cadence vs. Time:



You can see that for the first half of the ride, I was a lot better about maintaining my cadence, running in the 95 rotations per minute range. The latter half of the ride sees me dropping off a lot more, doing a lot more coasting.

Cadence vs. Heart Rate:



You can see the peak where we rode the hill, and I hit 170+ beats per minute. There's a period later on where I sustain 160-165 for a period of time. That's a long flat section along UCI which Diana likes to really push. We're easily over 20 mph, and tickle 30 at a certain point (probably an underpass). Ouch.

Oh, and we take the street route to see the west side of the back-bay. No trip to Kean Coffee; Maybe next time, but Diana seems too serious a rider to want to take an hour off to people-watch. This route is a few miles longer, but that's ok, we're at about 28 as we approach the turn-off point from the trail when Diana asks if I want to extend the ride.

"No!"
"Oh, come on, it's only 3 more miles or so at a slight uphill."
"Oh, ok."

So we did it.

Because we're awesome!

After the turnaround point for the extra three miles, we headed back to the staging point on surface streets. At a light, I saw a guy jump out of a truck and fiddle with a BBQ in the back. Realized it was Brock and Jerry heading to the Atomic Ballroom Baby Bop, so i shouted a hello. Don't know if Brock recognized me, but I think he did.

Re-Cycle Part 3

20070528

Memorial Day

Rode with LB and EB and their crew. Been months since my first ride with EB and my first ride with LB. They rode their tandem and the rest of our group (7 people total?) clustered around them. I'd previously met Grace at the LB-EB compound for dinner and Ultimate Fighting (she's a spin instructor and marathoner). One of the other riders (Caroline?) is a spin instructor. Diana is a triathlete who is taking a break from running due to shin splints.



We have to change a tube before we start, but eventually get going.

Ride w/24 Cyclists:  Tustin - Back Bay
Distance:            24.5 miles
Elapsed Time:        2h
Pace:                4m 55sec miles
Avg. Speed:          12.2 mi/h
Max Speed:           29.1 mph
Calories:            1354

Awesome!

HR vs. Distance:


We made lots of stops (to avoid dropping the slower riders), which translates to inconsistent heart rate for me. You can see two peaks at 170 beats per minute at about the 47 minute mark and at 1h 5min. These were the climbs of San Joaquin Hills road where it dead ends into Back Bay Drive. I rode it once with Diana and Grace when we were the fast group. Caroline didn't make it due to a gear shift mistake, so when we returned, she and I rode it again. Ouch. The last peak at 180 was at the long straight stretch along UCI where Diana invited me to really push it with her. We rabbited, and held 28mph for a brief time, the fastest I've ever gone on a flat area.

HR vs. Cadence



My cadence is all over the place during this ride. Lots of coasting, quite a bit of slower riding not at tempo with slower riders. The B's, Grace, and Diana take off on the final stretch, and it's all I can do to hold on. My legs are made of lead at that point.

We all eat at CPK afterwards. I get the Tri Colore salad pizza and split it with Diana who gets the chicken tequila fettuccine, which is just as good if not better. Yum! Some of us will try to ride Saturday at 2pm. I'll try to work in EVH and possibly SS into the group if we do a slow and fast group again.

Friends and Re-Cycle Part 2

20070526
EVH and I ride from UCI down to the Newport - Costa Mesa Back Bay, break at Kean Coffee, and finish the Back Bay loop then return to UCI. Awesome ride for me, as it doesn't have the intensity of the previous day.

Oh, here's a map of the ride from earlier in the year:

Ride w/ EVH:  UCI - Back Bay
Distance:     15 miles
Elapsed Time: 1h 30min
Pace:         6m 2sec miles
Avg. Speed:   9.9 mi/h
Max Speed:    29.9mph
Calories:     820

Again, a much less intense ride, more geared for EVH and my recovery than anything else.

We actually took over an hour break in the middle of the ride while at Kean. The perfect melding of iced turkish soy latte w/cardamom and snarky comments about the people coming into Kean. I was on the lookout for the deconstructed beach bum outfit. That might require some explanation. I was looking for the classic casual beach-wear ensemble of sandals, jeans or shorts, t-shirt, and sunglasses, but with every element being an expensive version of itself. $40 t-shirt, $50 shorts, $70 sandals, $100 sunglasses, etc.

The highlight was when I pointed out a very attractive woman who almost fit the bill.

1: Her olive top doesn't quite look pricey enough. But those definitely aren't $20 Target jeans.
2: Well, it's not a $20 ass.
1: You're right.

It's a very special kind of gal-pal who will girl-watch with you. You're the best, EVH.

Cadence vs. Heartrate:

Again, a much less intense ride than the day before. I'm barely breaking 100 beats per minute, which means I'm not working much. There's a spike just after the 35 minute mark which is the climb on Dover, just before we turn off to Kean. The spike at the 1 hour mark is a quick climb after we broke off of Irvine Ave to the Upper Newport Bay Regional Park. There was another spike around 1:20 which was a climb on the UCI campus which snuck up on me.

Good times!

Re-Cycle Part 1

20070524
DH calls to beat me up about not riding. I use my knee as an excuse, but we decided to go riding the next day.

20070525

Ride with DH: YL Regional Park to the Angel Stadium "Big A" and back.
Distance:     18.6 miles
Elapsed Time: 1h 17min
Pace:         4m 10sec miles
Avg. Speed:   14.4 mi/h
Max Speed:    24.7mph
Calories:     989

Perfect intensity, perfect distance. It really got me charged up and inspired to ride again.

Here are some graphs about the ride from my Mac version of Garmin Training Center (no info on mean cadence or cool Google Maps export).

First, Cadence vs. Distance:


You can see that I hover just under 95 pedal rotations per minute (that's what cadence is) when I'm in the zone. Also, it looks like the ride was over at 1hour 15min and I just forgot to stop the unit.

Next: Cadence vs. Heartrate


Anything below 135 beats per minute is outside of the very lowest part of my cardio training zone. Really, that should be 140bpm, but whatever. Anything over 150 bpm is difficult to sustain for long periods of time. Looks like there was a 15+ minute gap in the middle of the ride where my cadence and heartrate were below my training zones. On the other hand, there are a couple minutes of pure-stop there, so those time periods surrounded the turn-around point of the ride. There are also clear warm-up and warm-down periods, which is good training technique.

Many thanks to DH for riding with me all this time, and kick-starting me again, for that matter.

Cycling and Still Dancing Pt 3

20070511
Started work around 5am and decided to go on a bike ride during lunch time. Went on my 12 mile ride from Yorba Linda Regional Park Down to the Pond Honda Center. Only took an hour, but was a rush. Held a 95 cadence and was doing better than that on the way back with a nice wind-assist. I really love the riding and need to do it more often.

Night at Atomic Ballroom
Chatted with Nicole from the Sunday OC Swing class during the class on the Madison that Jerry runs as a warmup for the Friday night dance. I don't think Nicole and I have danced for a couple weeks, and we don't that night either. But I do dance a lot. A lot.

The best follow I danced with all night was probably Jasmine, an Asian gal I remember seeing at the OC Swing Monday Jam. And I think she was Dave Graybill's follow during the intermediate lesson when I first went to Lindy Groove. At any rate, she's an amazing dancer. I don't have the skills to do her justice, but I think she was without a partner during a great Indigo Swing song, and I stepped up. She has a characteristic that I've noticed in some of my favorite follows, responsiveness. Mark's comment about driving a Ferrari comes to mind (I think he was talking about another great follow, Amy). I only needed what seemed like the lightest frame lead to start her moving, and the lightest lead to get her to stop or change directions. Very cool experience.

I ended up leaving some time after 1 am. Annoyance: I'm on my way out as Trish is on her way in. She asks me to come back in to dance with her, then bails as the rock-block starts. I wait for a couple songs, then leave. A pretty blah ending to a great night, but what can you do? Not come back, next time! *grin*

Classes earlier in the evening:
Darren teaches the Balboa class, and really tries to jam the content in. He teaches a variation on the basic where instead of just kicking, we kick-switch. Interesting.

Smoothing out the kinks: My kink right now is the Apache swingout, so we work on that. I also ask to work on facing-away from the follow moves, which we do.

Sit dip: This class focuses on follows and their ability to control themselves during a dip (and not be a the mercy of the lead). Jenny takes us through four different variations. Reminds of me the weight support that Shesha is teaching in his Sunday Drags and Rags class.

Wake Up In The Late Afternoon

It was far from a lazy Sunday.

Scheduled an after-Meeting bike ride with EVH; Meeting is halfway to Irvine, I want to bring my bike, but don't want to leave it out on the rack, so I packed it in the trunk the night before. Realized that I'd be heading to dance class after the ride without a trip back home, so I wore my dance clothing (nothing specific to dance, just stuff made from micro-fiber) to Meeting, packed my ride clothing and gear, some stuff to wash up with, and my dancing shoes. Yes, specific shoes to dance in. This isn't a post about my dance gear.

Little tardy to even the 15-minute late entry to Meeting, but oh well. Didn't see EVH. Saw the Remys and SS, but no catbonny or Animaumbrae either. KQ had already bowed out of lunch, if I remember correctly. Silent worship was very nice, but the announcements went on and on. The current downside to attending. Talking meeting next week regarding finances and fund-raising. I'll definitely stay for that. EVH calls to tell me her morning ran too late to make Meeting or lunch after, but is still up for a bike ride. Oh good, I'd hate to be late to Meeting prepping for a ride that didn't happen. Heck, I would have scouted a river-ride from Santa Ana, I think.

The Young-ish attenders decide to forgo lunch this week in favor of a time when more people attend. SS and I decide to get coffee and chat anyway. Gypsy Den staff doesn't give us service in the 10 minutes we're seated, so we leave and check out Memphis, just next door. We're seated and have water (SS's with lots of lemon, mine with moderate quantities of lemon) within 90 seconds. SS wants to write a letter to the Gypsy Den management. I think I'll do that too. I hear about her family and ethnic history, and a bit about her courtship. Getting to be better friends with people is always an incremental process. I tried to share my thoughts without imposing my mind-state on things. We agree that I'll join her for a ride some weekend.

Made it to EVH's place, changed into ride gear, and we set out on a tour of the back-bay. I managed to drop my bike computer early in the ride , but saw it fall and managed to recover it after a bit of searching. Whew!

We did 15 miles in 1:50 including some stops for the aformentioned search as well as a water break. Riding up one of the rolling hills (after the brief stretch on PCH when doing the back-bay "clock-wise"), I wondered how well I'd do on big hill up to the local high-school. I'm going to have to try that soon. Saturday morning, maybe? Some time when the students aren't driving up or down. EVH offers the use of her shower, so my plan to go to 24H Fitness isn't enacted. Chat briefly with her fellow TA who drops by; Nice guy, but I don't remember his name. EVH says he "Knows everybody." I give them the "connector" spiel from The Tipping Point.

Push off to make dance class.

Back on the Bike

I went to a spin class last Saturday, but canceled personal training this week for a Quaker meeting on Tuesday (on the Bill Moyers series Faith and Reason) and swing dance lessons on Thursday. Saturday was a chance to get back into the cardio groove with E&L.

We rode 20 miles Saturday morning, keeping around 15mph on the way out (slight tailwind), but slowing way down on the return for a total ride time of about one hour, forty minutes. I think LB was hurting a bit. I'm very concerned with LB's cadence, as he seems to be falling into the habit of cranking at a cadence in the high 60's, then feeling burned out at the end of a ride. Shocker! We need to get him up to at least 75 revolutions/minute and work from there. Of course, that means a bike computer, which he doesn't have. I wonder how much it costs to just get the mounts put on a bike?

I did a mini-sprint on my own between the 91 under-pass and Lakeview Blvd, just to get my heart above the 110-125 I was holding for most of the ride. Waited for them at Lakeview and rode as a group the rest of the way back to the cars. EB had a martial arts class to teach, but LB and I ate breakfast at the Original Pancake House. Not bad.


I am going to get so many women with this bike! :-)

We don't quite have what EB calls a "herd" of riders yet, but we're working on it!

Breaking Sacred Promises

Well, I promised myself I'd stay off my knee, but didn't have the heart to turn down a casual ride with EB and hubby LB.

First, let me recount a discussion I had with new Quaker friend SS about why serious cyclists use special pedals. Perhaps this exercise will help: Sit in a chair and put your weight on the ball of one foot. Notice which muscles in your quad get activated? Now put your hands over your knee and push up against it. Notice that you're working different muscles? Alternate between putting your weight on your foot and pushing against your hands, and you might get a better picture. When you have a bike pedal without clips, you only get the downward force. With the clips, you can pull up while the other leg is pushing down, so you're using both legs on any given pedal stroke, and only working a given muscle group a fraction of what it was doing (probably not half, but maybe). That means any given muscle group is going to tire more slowly.

Ok, back to the ride.

LB & EB with their metallic green Scion in the background. Metallic chartreuse? Whatever. Their car is green.

Here I am with LB. Told me he might be moving back to the Brea gym to train again. If that happens, it will be cool to see him consistently. Here we are, talking about getting the band back together:


AL constantly tells me that I have terrific form when we work out (along with how much definition I'm getting in my arms, and how sexy my calves are, and how much chicks will swarm over me because of my new bike... ok, maybe she doesn't say any of that except the form), and I've always credited my brother and LB for that.

It was LB's first ride since high school in 1972 or something like that, so naturally he wanted us to do a 24 mile beach ride. I thought this was a horrible idea, but didn't quash it. Riding to the beach is just too tempting. Staged out of the Dennys parking lot off of Chapman in Orange, and headed out. LB had his bike checked out at Banning's Bikes, where they reportedly told him he'd need some replacement wheels if he wanted to ride more than twice. Those guys are awesome.

A ride needs to be tailored to the weakest rider, LB in this case (not weakest person, me, or weakest personality, me again, or weakest willed, again me). I should have know this and quashed even the possibility of riding to the beach by staging out of Yorb Linda Regional Park, but I was weak hearted. LB immediately mentioned sitting discomfort.

You don't ever want to go on a ride figure out that you're done, then have to ride all the way back to your staging area, but this is what I let LB talk me into. My plan was to turn around at the 5 mile point, but EB's "Awwww..." and LB's "I feel fine!" convinced me that we might actually make the beach. We stopped for a break at just under the 9 mile mark, and I quickly read my mistake. We were clearly turning around, and if luck held out, it would really only be LB's butt hurting on the return.

Luck didn't hold out, and his quads started to burn. I think the underpasses were especially hard on him (climbing up the other side) and his quads really started to tire out. We had to slow way down to make sure not to drop him. Again, not really a reflection on his fitness (he's a fit guy despite his statements about not being a cardio king). More about adjusting to cycling and the differing demands it places on one's body. Neither he nor the wife have pedal clips (or clipless systems like SPD) to help lessen the amount of work done by the quads when pedaling, and I think the amount of work one's legs do is pretty deceptive. Having them tire out can really sneak up on you.

We didn't eat at Denny's (which I'm happy about, in retrospect!), but I was still over an hour late for my next "appointment."