Training

Andrea

Wednesday 2-a-Day

Yesterday’s training was broken up into separate rides so that I could get my endurance mileage in and still attend the Tiger Lane training crit in the afternoon. I had high hopes of waking up this morning and writing a blog post about training criterium glory. However, the event was rained out, so I had to take comfort in racing cars along the route to the non-race venue.

Instead, here’s a story about helping old people.

It stormed like mad Tuesday night- trees and other debris were everywhere. Wednesday morning, I was JRA (like you do when you’re getting some endurance mileage) on my way to Arlington when I passed a driveway where the garbage can had tipped over and blown about 15 feet away from the curb. I actually passed a lot of garbage cans that looked like that, except on one end of this one, a little old blue-haired lady in pajamas with curlers in her hair was trying to drag it towards the curb.

I circled back and asked her if she needed some help. She looked startled and said something about the storm and that she almost had it. Upon further inspection, there were 4 water-soaked garbage bags and a few gallons of water inside the can. I dumped it out, righted the can, threw the bags in, and wheeled it to the curb while she stood there still looking sort of stunned. When I picked my bike back up, she thanked me a couple of times and told me that she was going to have to be nicer to her one grandkid that wanted to put extra holes in his head. Uh. You’re welcome, granny.

 

I fvcking love two-a-days.

 

Andrea

Back to the Ozarks

I was long overdue for a Syllamo trip. I was actually planning on it for it for a few weeks, but since Ryan was at Mississippi Grand Prix, I knew there was a chance that I’d be going at it solo, and I didn’t want to tip off you stalker types that read my blog every day. Fortunately, Matt wanted to check out the Outdoors SIR9 demo bike on some real singletrack, and we headed over friday after work.

Saturday morning, we hit the trail going reverse race direction on the blue and orange. Doing that always makes the race direction seem easier since it forces you to start with a technical decent then climb relentlessly the entire way from the Highway 5 trailhead.

You know what sucks? They’re logging on the blue trail now. A good half mile of what was the first singletrack in that direction has been opened up to “logging equipment” size. Damnit.

In climbing away from the highway, I quickly realized that geared bike riding had made me a little soft, and that I wasn’t fully over the cold I’d caught earlier in the week. Matt was also looking a little tired, so when we arrived at the White River Bluff trailhead, I suggested that we finish our ride by going up Green Mountain Road and down to Gunner Pool, then back. Along the way back, I realized that I wouldn’t get my prescribed 4 hours for the day unless I took a detour, so I bombed down to Blanchard Springs and climbed back out to polish off the day with about 4600 feet of climbing. Hopefully that one will pay off at Cohutta in a couple of weeks.

Back at the cabin, we engaged in one of my favorite past times- drinking a beer & sitting on the porch to watch the sunset. Afterward, catfish.

Sunday, I wanted to ride the entire trail loop. We started off at the Scrappy Mountain trailhead, rode the “easy” section of the yellow to the red, around the red and “hard” part of the yellow, and back to the car. I got into a fight with the rocks somewhere along the way. Rocks 1, me 0. At the car, I dropped off Matt as well as my Camelbak, which was making my back hurt (I finished the ride with one bottle, making refill stops at the jugs we dropped at the trailheads on the way in.

Highlight of the ride: cleaning the entire green trail “overlook” rock garden from end to end without putting a foot down. Me 2, rocks 1. Low point- getting chased and bitten by a swarm of horseflies while negotiating the short climbs on the orange trail. Luckily, Matt met me at the Highway 5 trailhead with bugspray so I was able to suffer in peace for the remainder of the ride.

I felt like I was flying up the last climb- a nice feeling at 5+ hours into a ride. When I made it back to the trailhead, I realized that I’d finished the loop a lot faster than my race time from last year (granted, conditions last year sucked… but it’s still a good feeling). So, I didn’t get the 6 hours that I’d planned for, but in a good way.

Syllamo’s Revenge is probably going to be the hardest race I’ll go to this year. The additional miles are going to destroy me if I start to cramp like I did at Ouachita, but hopefully this weekend leaves me a little more prepared.

 

Andrea

Road Dose

Yesterday was my first day back to long endurance riding on the road bike since back around March 20th. For whatever reason, any time I go for a while without riding like that for a while, it always hurts a little more than usual the first time back. As a bonus, the workout called for 10 minutes of Z4 interval at about 1.5 and 3.25 hours into the 4 hour ride. For as much as the first one was a fun break from Z2, the second one made my blood feel like hot lead circulating through my legs. It’s both humbling and inspiring when a workout exposes weakness.

After my ride, I relaxed at home a bit, ate 2nd breakfast, and went by work to pick up one of the demo bikes to meet a customer at the trail for a test ride. I hadn’t ridden the Jet9 in a month of Sundays, so I took it out for a break from the hardtail. I’d forgotten just how much damn fun that bike is!

Because of the double-up, I took it easy this morning. Ryan woke up early to lift, so I had some coffee and hit the road pre-dawn for an easy hour before the bike-hating car commuters were packed onto the roads. Sunrises are best viewed from on top of mountains, but a suburbia sunrise from the saddle is a close contender.

Here’s the part where I get to throw in some shameless plugs with a photo featuring both my Trail LED setup and the sweet Ellsworth wheels I won at the Ouachita Challenge:

Andrea

Maintenance

I spent most of Wednesday prepping bikes and body for Ouachita. After making that last post (which, I noted, got a lot of “crickets” from the peanut gallery), I went for a quick spin, ate breakfast, then headed up to the shop to hang around and work on bikes. After getting Ryan’s Titus ready to go (wheel true, rear brake bleed), I left for a massage, then came back to work on my bike. Mine wasn’t quite as simple.

Remember my mention of XX shifting issues? I figured I’d try a few tips found on the internet and from conversation with Mike, the area Niner rep. This involved swapping my shift cables for non-coated, re-routing them to cross in front of the bike, and adjusting the B screw. This meant I needed to remove the crank, which I wanted to do anyway since the bottom bracket was so incredibly noisy during the 6 hour race.

I knew things weren’t going to be good when I had to wail on the crank with a rubber hammer to remove it. I quickly found the source of the noise- the BB30 bearings (especially the non-drive side) were partially seized and gritty feeling. Once I removed the CYA cups, I pulled the bearing seals. The bearings were filled with water (presumably from when I washed it earlier in the day). I had no idea that the seals were that loose, so it obviously wasn’t the first time they’d been fouled with water. Lucky for me, they weren’t rusted. I cleaned them as best I could, and re-packed them with grease. The drive side spins like a champ now, but I think that the non-drive bearing might not be so lucky.

The cable re-route was pretty straightforward. You have to remove the cover from the XX shifter to change cables out, which is annoying, but not difficult. The routing on the front end feels great. Unfortunately, the BB cable guide and piece of housing that runs through the chainstay creates a lot of friction for both derailleurs. If you grab a cable from the BB and shift before those parts are routed, there’s no drag on the cable. Once the cables are run through the guide in the BB and through the second housing, the drag is very apparent on both the front and rear. I really don’t want to run solid cable housing outside of the bike (or inside, for that matter- apparently some people are drilling their headbadge and doing that), but the shifting is already a little slow going to higher gears in the back. If it causes any more problems, I might have to go to solid housing as a last resort.

I finished my maintenance off with bleeding the X-loc on the suspension, which was previously feeling as if it was only working halfway. Today’s ride will tell if the efforts to improve the shift performance were successful. Unlike last time, when I was massively under-prepared for Spa City, I’m taking the Jet9 with me for backup. So, if my band-aid-ed bottom bracket decides to explode during tomorrow’s pre-ride, then I’ll have a plan B.

As far as body prep goes, I’m doing better than my bike. Yesterday’s tune-up ride yielded some nice power numbers and left me wanting more. The massage on Wednesday was excellent, and I believe will start to be a weekly addition to the my bodily upkeep. As the chiropractor said when he was laying in to one of many of the knots in my upper back- you’ve gone well past the point of exercising for health, and now it’s starting to break your body down. You have to be as vigilant in the maintenance of it as you are of the bike you race.

Point taken.

Andrea

Pre-OTC Weekend

The weather this weekend decided to turn (hopefully for the last time this season) cold and rainy. This meant that the usual weekend world championships (aka trinity ride) didn’t go off as normal, and I stayed in to do a 2 hour trainer workout. I made a comment about that on Facebook, and someone commented back that they didn’t know how I could stand to be on the trainer so long.

My secret? Intervals and Three 6 Mafia.

After that, I went to work. Normally, I’d be off all day on Saturday, but the shop is incredibly busy right now. We needed some bikes built, so I headed in after lunch to help get it done. Afterward, Matt and I went to Flying Saucer found someone who could quite possibly qualify as the dumbest waitress in Memphis. At least she was good looking? We appreciated each others company nonetheless- Ryan was off to Tuscaloosa for some road racing, and Matt’s potential woman was upset because he didn’t respond as she’d hoped when she expressed her deep concern over the eternal damnation of his soul.

I’ve recently come to the realization that “Hope” is just short for “setting yourself up for disappointment.”

I digress.

Sunday morning was still cold and damp-ish. Fortunately for me, the Ouachita Challenge taper had begun, so rather than a 5 or 6 hour solo endurance ride, I headed out for an urban singlespeed venture from near the University of Memphis to Overton Park and back. Along the way, I saw a reminder of past life-

No, I’m not Kalus… but I’ve hung out with the guy (and his little brother). The story is that they’re the children of gypsies and don’t live in one city long enough for their past to catch up with them. Or something like that.

After Overton park, it was back home to do a little work on my own bikes. I needed to get the suspension fork swapped back onto my geared MTB and the rigid fork back on the singlespeed. Since I’ve been spoiled with a climate controlled bike shop, I have taken to doing at-home work in the comfort of my living room rather than out in the garage. The animals (especially Thor) find this to be quite entertaining…

I can’t remember the last time I was this glad to be cutting back on training volume. Not that I don’t enjoy it- it’s just that the harder you work, the nicer it is to play.

Andrea

Saddle Search

Also on my mind this morning- I need to hoard this saddle:

It’s the Selle Italia Max Flite Trans Am. I love it, and they no longer make it. If you have one for sale (or see one for sale somewhere ), please comment here or email me (andrea @ brickhouseracing . com)

Andrea

The Weekend?

Yes, I’ve been too busy over the past two days to tell you all about my awesome weekend.

Saturday was another round of Weekend World Championships with the Trinity ride. We rolled out at a painfully slow pace into the wind, so I took it upon myself to gather a couple of others to sit at the front and pick it up a little. Instead, the rest of the pack let us roll off the front for a few minutes only to get wiley and chase us down a little ways down the road. From there, the pace was blistering. I normally try to stay in the front half of the pack, but my legs would not oblige. I ended up in the back and getting accordioned around turns.

Then, I ended up dropped, in the wind, a healthy chunk of miles from the regroup point.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a good drop. Once I realized that chasing was futile (I was 10-30 feet off the back for a good few minutes), I slowed a little to eat & drink before putting my head down and finishing off the miles alone. Somewhere along the way fellow Outdoors, Inc. employee Jay caught up to me, and we traded pulls all the way to the store stop.

BTW- a store stop on a 3 hour ride is dumb. I’d rather be dropped all the way home instead of riding my *ss off, stopping for 20 minutes, then going back to riding my *ss off half a mile later. That just sucks. So, in light of that, I rolled up to the parking lot, swapped a bottle from my back pocket, unwrapped a Powerbar, and rolled back out to ride somewhat easy until the group got their isht together and caught back up. Frank and Marta joined me, and the group caught back up just before the turn to hammer up Seed Tick hill. I managed to ride hard and stick with the group for the remainder of the route. I even managed a pretty good sprint at the end.

I’m rather certain that getting dropped was a team effort between a really damn fast pace as well as some creeping fatigue. The previous weeks training volume have been 14.5 hours and 17 hours (respectively), and this week followed suit. I felt better than expected Saturday morning, but, if you’ve been paying attention, last weekend was a tough one- the Spa City 6hr followed up by 4 hours on the Ouachita trail.

In other words, I got dropped, but I came by it honestly. Of course, I took some ribbing from co-workers, but then I explained to them…

So, what do you do on a Sunday to follow up a ride like that? Um, ride 6 hours. Duh. I plotted a route from Cordova through Fisherville, Williston, Somerville, Lambert, Braden, Galloway, Arlington, and back. It ended up being somewhere around 105 miles and took nearly 6 hours (riding at a Z2 pace). I don’t know for sure because my Garmin froze up a few miles from home.

The route included a couple of new (to me) gravel bits including Williams road (between Longtown and Porter just south of Braden) and Walsh Rd, which parallels the RR tracks to connect Hwy 59 and Braden roads, and is closed to thru-traffic because of a sketchy bridge. On either side of the bridge, there are large gravel humps with 4-wheeler tracks over the top of them (I almost ran headlong into kids on 4-wheelers at that spot). If you lack the combination of tires, skill, and crazy it takes to ride your road bike on 4-wheeler trail, I suggest you take Hwy 70 (which parallels Walsh/RRtracks) rather than Walsh. Just watch out for that dumb little dog at the corner of 70 & Beaver Creek. He’ll nibble your ankles.

Once again, I’m having problems with ischial bursitis. Essentially, the bursa under my left seatbone gets inflamed and puts pressure on my sciatic nerve. That makes my left leg and foot hurt/go numb. Standing up periodically throughout the ride doesn’t really help, so after about 4 hours of saddle time, I found myself having to periodically get off of my bike for a minute to relieve the pain/pressure and let feeling return to my foot. Last year, a saddle switch and fit re-evaluation helped a lot. I haven’t changed anything since then, so I’m not sure what route to take this time.

The ride on Sunday polished off a 16 hour training week. If you’re keeping up from earlier in the post, that’s 14.5, 17, and 16. The crazy part is that while it’s getting harder, it’s also getting easier. At first I wanted to lay down on the floor and sleep. I managed to pull myself together and train, but it was a little bit of a fight. I was often in zombie mode. Monday, I was sore. Yesterday, I felt as if nothing had happened, and had a kickass hill sprint workout on my singlespeed- kickass to the point that I’m going to have to move to a harder gear for the next one, because the 32×16 was too easy. Today, other than the fact that I know the bursitis thing is going to hurt like hell, I’m looking forward to a 3 hour Z3 workout. If my body follows its previous pattern, I could feel dead on Friday. As of right now, though, I’m getting pretty stoked at the way I’ve been able to adapt to the rigorous routine. After next week’s taper, Ouachita should be interesting.

Andrea

Early Memphis

Last night, I was feeling down, so I figured this morning I’d join Matt and Joel for a ride in Overton Park, which is prettymuch on the outskirts of Midtown Memphis. This meant that most of my riding would be on city streets that are rarely seen by visitors to the city, so I took the camera along to catch a few shots of the morning light on the road.

At 6:00am, I headed out on the road for a few miles to get to the greenline…

I decided somewhere along the greenline that I’m very fond of pre-dawn rides, and since I’ve got the badass Trail LED light that I want to do them more often now that the weather is nice. Once I was off of the greenline, I realized that I was going to be early to our meet-up spot, so I rode backwards on Matt’s route to meet up with him.

Matt and I soon met up and went to the corner of East Parkway (which runs north & south) and Avery to wait for Joel. Joel was running a few minutes late, so we hung around in someone’s front yard, ate Gu Chomps, and discussed life as well as how much more awesome the ghetto smells in the morning than the fancy parts of town.

Once Joel arrived, we rode up the middle of East Parkway to Overton Park, which is incredibly cool because it’s a few miles of twisty trail through an old forest in the middle of the city. Matt bent a wheel on the log ride. I took more photos…

I made it home just in time to clean up and eat breakfast before work. The ride ended up being nearly 2.5 hours rolling time and 35 miles. It was somewhat over what was on my schedule, but my brain needed the saddle time. On tap for the weekend- Trinity Ride/aka Weekend World Championships followed by another Sunday Solo Century. Next week’s taper for Ouachita is gonna feel gooooood.

Andrea

Speaking of flipping…

Remember this post? Essentially, I told Pearl Izumi that their “buckle” droptail design (which, in fairness, is used by several other manufacturers) looked like it would not offer much convenience in comparison to their very awesome waistband type (which is not used by anyone else). The customer service person who was so quick to answer my initial questions about the shorts has ignored my request for an explanation as to what exactly they were trying to achieve with their buckle design.

There you have it- Pearl Izumi has, once again, given the middle finger to customer service.

I’ll wear the current shorts until they fall apart… which, in my experience with lower quality shorts, will be about May, if I’m lucky. By then, the Outdoors Inc team shorts should be in, and I will just deal with non-drop bibs. It’d still be nice, though, to have the “perfect” shorts. I have no idea if anyone in the business of bib-shorts making reads this blog, but if you’re willing to listen, these are my “demands”:

-Quality construction. Don’t use the thinnest spandex, and use strong thread to hold it together. Ibex is a champion of this. Hincapie also comes to mind. Thin spandex sucks. My first experience with poor-quality fabric was back in 2008 (racing with Kenda) when Verge went cheap, and lots of chicks in the pro/elite ranks were left showing off their under-shorts tattoos because the fabric was so thin. It caused a big stink amongst women’s teams that most of the general racing public didn’t hear about because, well, if you don’t have anything nice to say about a sponsor, then don’t say anything at all.
-Chamois that isn’t a diaper. Yes, women are different than men. No, that doesn’t mean that the fabric used in my chamois should be measured in square feet and the thickness of my chamois in inches.
-Droptail. Steal Pearl Izumi’s waistband design.
-Fit. Most athletically-built women complain about not being able to find shorts/jeans that fit their thighs without going up a size, leaving the remainder of the garment too large. Take this into account when making your women’s shorts. 8-inch inseam, generous leg-holes, snug around the waist, and snug-fitting suspenders.
-Price. I don’t mind paying a little more for good quality, but don’t put the “hey these are euro and cool” markup on your product like Assos and others do. I’m not paying $300 for a pair of shorts. Ever. It’s spandex. No matter how much quality you put into the construction, no matter how many panels it’s made out of, consumers realize that the cost to make the shorts is probably somewhere in the range of $.50 per pair (including the daily handful of rice you give to the kid in the sweatshop that’s running the sewing machine). Don’t insult me with a %9000 markup.
-Offer them as a custom-sublimated product.

Takers? Somehow, I doubt it. I think that with most clothing manufacturers, women’s bib shorts are somewhat of an afterthought.

Andrea

Spa City 6 hour and the art of flipping your sh*t

As the Spa City 6 Hour draws near, the entry list has grown, and now includes not only Laureen Coffelt, but also Monique Mata (aka Pua Sawicki). Laureen is steady. In “short” races like a 6 hour, she’s waiting just a few minutes back, never slowing down, never having a mechanical, and ready to eat you alive should you waver. Pua? Well, two years ago when I started this off-road stuff, she was a big name. She still is, though in my typical pre-race e-stalk, I can’t find any recent results, and her blog hasn’t been updated since May of 2010. Maybe I’ve got a chance?I have yet to e-stalk the rest of the entry list. It could be full of additional badasses for all I know.

Since not everything can be an “A” race, I haven’t let up on training. I plan on breaking camp at Ceder Glades after the race and making the short trip west to camp and do some Ouachita Challenge recon with the Antique Gun Show on Sunday morning. If everything goes as planned, I’ll end up with a 17 hour training week.

If anyone knows of a good breakfast joint in Hot Springs, let me know.

In other news, I’ve recently come to realize that I am mastering the art of “Flipping my Sh*t.” Not in a “needs anger management” sort of way, but more like a “you just did something so dumb/thoughtless/etc. that I’m going to tell you exactly how I feel about your actions” sort of way.  If you’ve ever watched a show featuring Gordon Ramsey (Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares), you’ve seen a master sh*t-flipper at work. I call it an artform, because anyone can lose their temper and yell and act a fool. It takes a master to very sternly tell someone (in a way that he/she can understand) that the act that he/she has committed is so incredibly stupid/thoughtless that it’s blown your mind almost past the point of sanity. This must also be applied only at the appropriate time/place, and must be such an inarguable verbal lashing that the receiving person is left with nothing to say.

And, finally, I think I found my new spin instructor (thanks to Nate for the link):