Month: February 2011

Andrea

Snow Bike (Memphis Style)

We usually don’t get much snow around here, but this winter has been quite the exception. As a result, my training plan has undergone constant revision. Here’s the latest for today:

“Snow ride for fun! Put on snow pants, big coat, hiking boots (platforms and old bike not new cool plastic bike)Go ride around the park in the grass and work on skills sliding around down hills and through the trees. This is a fun recovery ride in Z1-2 and works best with beer;-)”

Since I’m not allowed to ride a plastic bike, I had to break out the Surly Crosscheck. Just to be awesome, I put some flat handlebars on it, and the largest tires that would fit:

Of course most snowbound individuals like a pugsly or other fatter-tired bike, but since this is Memphis, my bikes have to be multitaskers. I don’t own snow pants, but I’m sure I can find something that will work. We’re planning a post work night ride in the snow. The beer and flat pedals part is probably a good idea since I might die otherwise.

Andrea

New favorite thing

Since I’ve had to learn to sleep on my back in order to keep my arms from falling asleep (see the TOS post if you don’t know what I’m talking about), I’ve been trying to figure out how to not wake up with a backache. The bed at the cabin has a sweet memory foam pad on top, and it’s always been comfortable, so I convinced Ryan to splurge on one. After a couple of hours of reading online information and reviews, I settled on this one: Sensus 3-inch, 5lb Mattress Topper

Oh, wow. It’s like an instant coma.

I still can’t sleep on my side, but I can sleep on my back now without my back hurting, so not only am I sleeping better, it’s helping to alleviate the daytime arm numbness I was periodically feeling when I was riding, working, driving, etc. Hopefully it will help heal everything back to normal.

The only downside is that it’s really, really hard to convince myself to get out of bed in the morning.

…highly recommended to anyone that loves sleep. Don’t waste time with the cheapie ones- go for density. This was one of the few I found in the 4-5lb range that actually weighed in at the correct weight for its stated density (in other words, customers who wrote reviews measured and weighed their pads in order to confirm that the foam was as dense as advertised. A lot of them don’t stack up). Lower density is overly soft and wears out faster. This one is definitely soft, but in a very supportive way (if that makes sense).

Yesterday, I rode for 5 hours. As soon as I was home and showered, I felt magnetized to the bed and ended up laying around watching the Superbowl pre-game BS until Ryan made it home from the Marx-Bensdorf team camp in Nashville. We went to El Mezcal, and I had some freaking awesome huevos rancheros before coming back home and vegging out while sort of watching the big game. I was in a training coma about halfway through the 4th quarter. Oops.

Andrea

Crank Therapy

I was debating as to whether or not to post this because (to paraphrase my parents), sponsors and employers don’t want anything to do with someone who has “issues.” I’m taking a leap of faith here in assuming that those people understand that everyone has issues, and the act of posting about mine allows my growing blog audience to understand that the fight to try and be competitive at the highest levels of my sport  is, well, sometimes a fight.

The past few months have been mentally tough. I was experiencing a random, spastic carousel of mental states and attempting to level them out with copious amounts of beer. The one thing keeping me “sane” was getting the job in the Outdoors bike shop. I absolutely love, with every fiber of my being, being a bike mechanic. I spend most of my Sundays daydreaming about going to work on Monday. Also, having really great coworkers is icing on a really badass cake.

The past few months were a repeating cycle of  workdays followed by a somewhat uncontrollable desire to ingest alcohol. As of late, though, I’ve felt much better- more of a fun and gently undulating roller coaster of emotion (kinda like the old Zippin Pippin- the highlight of a trip to Liberty Land, the now closed amusement park lovingly dubbed “Six Flags over Orange Mound” by Memphis residents). I’ve traded triple corkscrews and loops for small highs and lows… I can deal with that. Heck, that feels pretty damn normal by my standards!

It took a minute to figure out why, but I’m reasonably sure that it’s the addition of higher training intensity into my pre-season program. Something about the perpetual tear down/recover cycle takes a bit of the edge off and makes a drinking binge seem much less desirable than when I was on a diet of endurance pace riding (not that I didn’t need that training- I sucked at it when I started, and have made some pretty nice improvements). I’m hypothesizing that it has something to do with brain chemistry.

So I’m currently feeling more “Andrea” than ever. Now that my fitness is really coming back, I am itching to get the race season started. I look forward to hard training days, and I relish in the tired/sore feeling that follows them… that’s the feeling that “fast” makes when it’s growing in your muscles.

Andrea

Ode to Debbie Milne

You local roadie chicks (as well as non-locals, pros, and guys… she beats you, too, on occasion) know who I’m talking about.

Though, if you’ve raced against her, you would know her better from behind. She’s a master’s national RR champion, and she’s placed top 10 at Elite Road Championships, racing on her own, against full teams of pro women.

Why am I posting about Debbie Milne when I haven’t raced against her in over a year?

It all started yesterday. I had a very non-stellar circuit/trainer workout. Coach says if I don’t feel up to it today, I can push today’s trainer workout to Thursday and have the day off. I wake up this morning feeling tired and lazy, so I send out this tweet: “Thinking of postponing today’s trainer ride for tomorrow. I’m still beat from yesterday.”

Then, as I’m drinking my coffee and thinking about being lazy for the remainder of the day, I scroll through facebook, and see a post from The Milne: “Really really really dont feel like intervals tomorrow which means they are right on track……”

Why does this matter?

It’s like this- women’s road racing can be an intimidating place for a beginner. More often than not, the cat 4 (beginner) category races with all of the other categories. Unlike the men, who have the “benefit” of racing against people of  similar experience level, a woman could be lining up for her first road race against a seasoned pro.  If you’re not incredibly strong and fit, you get dropped. If you’re strong and fit, you do something dumb, get schooled, and get dropped. It’s trial by fire, and it will either make you a great racer or make you quit and resolve yourself to triathlons.

Ever since my first real road race (Mississippi Grand Prix, 2007), Debbie has administered more 2-wheeled beatdowns to me than any other person I race against. While other women in the peloton resolved themselves to riding for 2nd place when she showed up, I was chasing my ass off with the few others that didn’t take to defeat so easily. For some of us, we thrive on the thought that at some point, we might actually be able to catch her. It’s happened a couple of times.

My point? Ever since I started racing, every time I think about slacking off, I think about how Debbie is probably out riding a century, in the mountains, with all of her kids (and the dog), in a trailer behind her bike, never bothering to use the small ring. In the freezing rain. No disrespect for the women I race against now that totally kick my ass and train just as hard, but Debbie was the original “HTFU and TRAIN” person.

I could go on, but I have a trainer workout to do.