How the Other Half Lives

It took me a couple of days to find the motivation to write my race report for the Ouachita Challenge. Then this morning I saw that Carey had posted hers and I was quite surprised to find a few similarities between her race and mine:
1) It was the hardest LAST PLACE finish for me ever.
2) The start was way faster than I expected.
3) The course was way harder than I expected.
4) I was in no mood to listen to the guy giving me directions at the last check point. This was not because I was worried about holding anyone off, but because I too believed that it was all down hill to the finish and I just wanted to be done.

This, however, is not the "other half" I am referring to. I am referring to the other half (okay 95%) of the United States that is not Indiana and how I had no idea what I was getting into when I rolled up to the starting line Sunday morning. I apparently picked a very bad venue to venture out of everything I had known about mountain bike racing until that point in my life.

Arkansas singletrack is hard. When I heard that there were rocks I was still imagining Indiana rocks, but just more of them. The problem is that Indiana trails only have rocks that were placed there after careful thought on the part of the trail builder, with great consideration regarding the flow and difficulty level desired. Arkansas just has rocks: big ones, little ones, loose ones, sharp ones, etc. They grew there themselves.

So now that I've set the mood for our tale, I will proceed with my version of the 2008 Ouachita Challenge.

As I mentioned before, the start was fast, but I didn't really know that at the time as I had no previous experience with that sort of thing. I just hammered away trying to stay mid-pack so I wouldn't "get stuck behind the slow people on the singletrack" as I had been warned about the day before. Hah! Basically, I spent the first half-hour with my heart rate about 15 beats above the early race limit I had set for myself and by the time I hit the singletrack I was having a terrible time bringing back down. My handling skills were also crap because I hadn't seen singletrack since Thanksgiving, my tires had too much air, and I was already tired. The Womble seemed to last forever and by the time I hit aid station one I had basically just finished my first cross country race of the season.

Too bad I still had a 40 mile death march to the finish.

I did get what seemed to be a too-short reprieve over highway and fire road where I did my best to spin my legs out, but it was to be the last time I felt good that day. After that the real rocks and climbing set in, draining my strength with each pedal stroke or step. The Blowout Mountain section was so hard that I don't think I was able to stay on my bike for 60 seconds straight the whole time, either because of the steep climbing over rocks or because the descent was so darn technical. That made for seven miles that took two hours to cover.

The thought of quitting crossed my mind many, many times during that section, but the fact that I had come halfway across the country to be there and the need to prove all the naysayers wrong forced me to get back on my bike after a short break at the last aid station. I'm not even sure if the Big Brushy section was really that hard, but I still had to walk a lot of it. That was because my quads refused to pedal over anything steeper than 4%, even in my easiest gear.

So when I reached the fire road at the end I was ready to rip it with every bit of strength I had left and call it a day. The guy tried to tell me how to get back to town while putting on my zip tie, but I think got distracted by the fact that he was putting in on in a stupid way. Those damn zip ties were about the only thing keeping me going at the time and I wanted it put on neatly so that I could keep them as a badge of honor. Anyway, all I heard was "down fire road, left at highway, less than 10 miles" and I threw it in my big ring and started flying down the fire road.

There must have been a turn that he didn't tell me about or that I didn't hear because after what seemed like way too long I still hadn't hit the highway and I realized there were no other bike tracks in the gravel. I stopped, looked around, pulled out my cellphone and found I had no service, and cried. Then I pedaled some more until I realized I was back at the aid station where I had been before we entered the last section of singletrack. Then I cried some more and turned around. Luckily, it didn't take long before I saw the bailout route signs back into town, so I was able to get back without totally retracing my steps.

As I was rolling up the hill with the finish in sight, albeit from the opposite direction from where I was supposed to be coming from, my phone started ringing and then a guy said, "Is that her?" I looked over to find a my mom, my friend Chrysa who I had driven down with, and a small group of volunteers forming a search party to find me.

So I may or may not be on the official results when they come out, but as far as I'm concerned, I made it back to the Oden School without any motorized help, so I finished. It wasn't what I would call "fun", but it was an important lesson in resilience that I sure I will benefit from in the future.

~~

The volunteers were nice enough to leave the showers open for me and standing in the concrete walls of the high school locker room, I have to say I had the best, most luxurious shower of my life.

I also got to eat my first Sonic in five years afterward. I chose a cheeseburger, which is totally weird for me, but it was delicious. I meant to get a picture, but I stuffed in my mouth so fast that I forgot to take one.

Hopefully, I will have some race pictures to post tomorrow.

Suitcase of Perpetuem

Yep, that's what I've packed so far. That, along with my flasks, hydration pack and bladder. I've been trying to phase things into the suitcase for a few days now, but since this is technically a "B" race I'm training right up until I leave tomorrow and keep needing to use things. So I've only been able to pack things that won't be used again before I leave.

The Anthem was retired from duty after Tuesday's workout and got it's final pre-race tuneup last night. Adam made it nice 'n' sparkly for me. Too bad all the naysayers are predicting a muddy mess for Sunday. Oh well, I love mud. If we can just coax up some pouring rain I'll be good to go.

So tonight I have to do some short hill reps on the road bike and then come home and pack. Then early tomorrow, it's off to Arkansas.

~~

As for bad news, I just got a call from the vet and it turns out that Mrs. Bigglesworth doesn't have the mysterious but ultimately harmless FLUTD that we thought she did. She has a stone in her bladder/kidney (I can't remember which) that will have to be removed surgically and will cost about $600.

Not only is that painful to hear, but I'm also just upset that she will have to have surgery. I'm very heeby-jeeby about anyone (even cats) getting cut open. Kind of ironic since I wanted to be a vet for several years of my young life. However, I got squeemish as a teenager.

Just the thought of her being shaved, doped up, and in pain for a significant amount of time bothers me, but I guess if it makes her better it will be okay. I'm trying to tell myself it's probably no worse that getting your cat spayed, but that I wasn't around for that phase of her life. I pretty much pointed to the cat I wanted at the animal shelter and a week later picked her up from the vet, so it was much less personal at the time.

T-Minus 6 Days

One week from today I will be hanging out at my parents' house in Oklahoma resting. More importantly, I should be able to officially call myself an endurance mountain bike racer at that point. Only six days until the Ouachita Challenge, and I'm anxious and excited, but not freaking out too bad. Actually, I honestly say that the biggest thing I'm worried about is that I will finish and not be last, but at some point I'll loose one of the stupid little tokens that you have to turn in at the end of the race. That would be just my luck.

My training schedule over the last couple of months is making it feel a lot more like the most expensive and logistically challenging group ride I've ever been on, rather than an actual race. I want to finish and I want to beat at least one person and I will happy. After this, I will know what to expect and can set bigger goals. I did do some anxious Googling of the start list, but quickly came to the conclusion that it is a waste of time.

The race will go something like this: Carey Lowery will beat me. The other 20-something women in the race may or may not. Just pedal the darn bike.

I pretty much did what I was supposed to do during my last week of training. Things were a bit difficult, since the moutain bike trails are muddy and the gravel roads are flooded, so my training options got pretty narrow. I had myself pretty warn out last week and had to take an unplanned day off Thursday. It was kind of okay since my workout assignment was two hours off-road to work on my technical skills, which was just not going to happen due to the conditions I just mentioned. My legs were still pretty dead for my three hour ride with hill intervals on Saturday, but I spent yesterday mostly napping and watching reality TV with just a one-hour easy ride, so I'm feeling much better now. Today is a scheduled day off and I'm hoping to kick butt tomorrow on my last real workout before the race.

Look Mom, It's Vegan and I Made It Up Myself!

Sort of. I took a Morrocan Spice Oil recipe from Vegetarian Times, mimicked Alton Brown's method of stir-frying kale, and added my own twist to make a delicious and healthy Morrocan-inspired feast. It is seriously the best meal I've made in a long time.




Morrocan Style Beans 'n' Greens

2 cups dry chickpeas
1 Tbsp tumeric
1 Tbsp cumin seeds or dried cumin
2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 Tbps salt
1 Tbps pepper

2 pounds curly-leaf kale
Morrocan Spice Oil
3 cloves minced garlic
More red pepper flakes
zest and juice from one lemon

Rinse and cover chickpeas with 2 inches of water and soak overnight. Drain and recover with fresh water. Add tumeric, cumin, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until chickpeas are soft. Drain, drizzle with Morrocan Spice Oil, and lightly mash with a potato masher.

Remove stems, chop, and rinse kale. Heat 1 Tbsp Morrocan Spice Oil in largest heavy pan you own (a larger broiler pan over two burners is best, but use what you have). Add garlic, lemon zest, and red pepper flakes to taste and stir. Add kale and stir fry for about 5 minutes until tender moving constantly and evenly distributing garlic and spices through greens.

Serve chickpeas on a bed of stir-fried kale and eat. Toasted pita bread would be a nice side with this.

Week of Pain Concluded

After seven weeks of semi-sloth, I made it through my "Week of Pain" more or less unscathed. I still would not classify myself at either happy nor zen, but least my fog of depression seems to have transitioned into a kind of functional irritability. Still pushing forward towards the happy and Zen.

I have been a very busy girl lately, which would explain my lack of blogging. Most of my at-work time last week was spent interviewing candidates for a couple of temporary summer employees that we will be hiring. It's very exciting getting to choose and train my own team members for the first time, but also very exhausting trying to find the right ones.

Over the last couple of years, I have compared my search fulfilling and profitable employment to dating. Well, as the search for love goes both ways, so does the search for employment. So at this time, I'm no longer playing the role of rejected lover, but more of the casual online dater. I've found a couple of good candidates, but no true love yet.

Outside of work has been pretty much sucked up by the usual functions of training, eating (and cooking), sleeping, and trying to sneak in a few minutes of quality time with my husband. Between those things, miscellaneous errands, and my pursuit of Happy-Zeness, I've had very little time for blogging or mass media. In general, that's probably a good thing, as long as I don't freak out from deprivation of movies, pajamas, and junk food, the things that I have heretofore relied on for comfort.

The training has gone surprisingly well. After the rain-soaked TT intervals, the floods continued for another day, only with a 15-degree temperature drop. So Wednesday was supposed to be a 90-minute recover spin, but for some dumb reason I decided since it was recovery I could somehow make though watching a movie on the trainer. I really should have just bundled up and ridden outside because the trainer ride lasted all of 25 minutes. In fairness to myself, riding the trainer was hurting my knee and it was logical that I wasn't really doing a very good recovery ride if what I was doing hurt.

Thursday was yet another "real workout", although it was pretty informal. I was assigned to two hours of short and long hills. I was supposed to stand and attack on short hills and climb the longer ones in the saddle. No real instructions beyond that, other that I should accumulate at least 10% of my saddle time in Zone 4-5 by the time I was done. It was hard, but fun, since I got to choose my own recoveries and attacking short hills was a nice change since I rarely do any climbing out of the saddle. I ended up with 25% Zone 4-5 time, as well as meeting my personal goal of accumulating least 5 minutes in Zone 5.

Friday was an easy day on the rail-to-trail and Saturday was a 2.5 hour formal hill workout (Coach Dave loves to pile on the hill work in the pre-season). It went well, despite being in the 30's and getting pelted with sleet for a bit in the middle. I did have a tailwind on both hills though, so that was nice.

Yesterday was supposed to be a long dirt ride, but much of the route was flooded and I couldn't get my heart rate out of the 140's anyway, so I cut it to 90 minutes. I ended up with about 9 hours for the week, which seems like about two day's worth for everyone else, but it's good for me.

I try really hard not to get hung up on hour totals, as my training plan is lot more concentrated than that of the average cyclist. I'm pretty sure that if I can ever consistently work up to 15 hours a week of Coach Dave training I'll be pretty flippin' fast. The my biggest Coach Dave week so far has been around 11 hours and it was the week immediately preceding my two-month breakdown. Take from that what you will.

So my "Week of Pain" is done and this week's schedule is similar, but maybe a little more kind. At least it won't have the shock factor that last week did. Tuesday and Saturday are more hill reps on the mountain bike and Thursday is supposed to be two hours of moderate-effort technical work on the mountain bike. I have serious doubts about whether that will be possible. We will need at least 3-4 days of no rain and no sub-freezing temperatures for the trails to be rideable and the forecast isn't looking good. I suppose I'll figure something out.

Hell or High Water

Big wheels keep on turnin'

Pissed Lindsay keeps on burnin'

Rollin', Rollin'

Rollin' down the river

I really can't think of a more accurate description of my workout tonight, except for the fact that technically it was Lampkins Ridge Road and not a river, but due to the weather it might as well have been.

I've been struggling with my conversion to Happy Zen Lindsay for the last week. Not that I'm expecting to convert that quickly, but I'm disappointed that I haven't put in more work towards that end. It sucks when you're too busy, stressed, and depressed to do things that will help you stop being busy, stressed, and depressed.

Nevertheless, I also decided that I can't take any more mental health days from training and it was time to embrace my "Week of Pain". Early in the day today I decided that my number one priority would be getting home and getting on the bike, even if it meant putting off some of my more therapeutic "to do" list items another day. I know darn well after the last couple of months, that Hard-nose Badass Suck-it-up Lindsay has a shelf life of five days at the very best, but I figured I just needed her for today and I would spend some time with Happy Zen Lindsay before my recovery ride tomorrow.

So I arrived home today in full Hard-nose Badass Suck-it-up Lindsay mode. However, I knew Adam was coming home early to leave for a concert in Indianapolis today, so I figured I'd just hang out and leave after he did to avoid the whole, "You're riding in the rain?" discussion. Being married to a bike mechanic has it's ups and downs. Unfortunately, I think he took my aloofness to be signs of depression and launched into a trite speech about, "Aren't you looking forward to nice weather and being able to train outside everyday?", which wouldn't have really been the best way to cheer me up even if I had been depressed. So the "You're riding in the rain?" discussion was launched after all. His alternative suggestions and chiding me for riding my good mountain bike tires on the road too much got me through me a bit off-track. Then a time-out to email the vet about Mrs. Bigglesworth's urinary tract health didn't help matters and by the time he was out the door I was ready to vent.

Of course, this minor disagreement or whatever you would call it would have normally just annoyed me a little, but I'd been teetering on the edge for about a week and half. General work stress and an annoying new employee that's been placed under my supervision have been working me up and I'm starting the find the dark emotional cloud that's been stalking me since January harder and harder to deal with. So in the solitude of my own home with only the cats to witness, I let Angry Lindsay loose. I screamed and stomped and threw a few things that I knew wouldn't break. Then I realized that this time was I was not going to let the gallons of adrenaline coursing through my veins turn me into a sobbing pile of Jello until I had completed my workout. Thus the hell or high water. Even after getting behind schedule, not being able to find my cycling cap, and not being able to air up the rear tire of the 'cross bike I had almost been guilted into riding due to a freakishly short valve stem, I jumped on my mountain bike with the full intention of doing my schedule time trial intervals.

I had 5 X 5K on the schedule, which I shortened to 4 X 2 miles since workout time would be more equivalent when converted to a slower bike. I also had to do an even number due to the out and back nature of my ride and not wanting to get caught in the dark. It actually went really well considering my poor fitness. Of course, the one advantage to poor fitness is that is makes it really easy to keep your heart rate above 185 when that's what you have been assigned to do. The other advantage was despite all her faults, Angry Lindsay can put out some killer athletic performances. If I can ever combine consistent training, peaking on race day, and getting completely irate about 30 minutes before an A race, there will be course records set.
In the end lactic acid has a magical way of clearing adrenaline and calming the angry beast. So does riding in thee rain (I would make a good Belgian except for my aversion to leg warmers) and I got my fair share of each. More importantly, I finally got a really workout in for the first time forever. Hopefully, the first of many.

*****

I do feel weird sharing my emotional troubles with the rest of the world, but lately I feel like I need to share with someone. It's probably better to share with mostly strangers anyway since even if they do judge you harshly, it's not like the consequences are particularly severe. Of course, I'm not actually as crazy as this post makes me sound, as I don't have actual multiple personalities. I think people who do give them different first names.

However, stress, anger, and depression are things that I've struggled with my whole life and the last few months I've been experiencing a flareup. It's just the way I'm wired. I'm doing my best to help myself re-wire, but we'll just have to see how it goes. It should be interesting.

That's Not Ham in Your Beans

This week's recipe is neither vegetarian nor particularly a recipe. Yes, I know I'm getting lazy, but I discovered something extremely cool (to me at least) last weekend and wanted to share.

Quite some time ago my mother-in-law brought us package of a bulk bean mixture similar to the "15 bean soup mix" type of things you might have seen in the grocery store. My mom used to make this sort of bean soup pretty frequently when I was younger and I really liked it, but it usually involved some ham. Adam doesn't partake in pork products and I wasn't sure how to cook proper bean soup with them. So the beans sat and sat. I even had a discussion with another semi-herbivorous co-worker a few weeks ago about how it's hard to make good beans without the use of pork. She'd apparently tried turkey bacon and it hadn't worked at all.

Then last Friday I was watching "Good Eats" on the Food Network and Alton Brown used a smoked turkey leg in a pot of collard greens. I thought it was a really good idea and decided to try it on my bean soup. Despite his assertion that smoked turkey legs should be available in most large groceries stores, I had my doubts, but I was able to find them in the frozen section at our usual Kroger. At around $5 for two gigantic legs, they were also a pretty good value.

The bean mixture came with general instructions, but no seasonings, so I improvised to my tastes and decided to go with a Cajun-esque theme. After soaking the beans overnight, I sauteed diced onions, carrots, and green peppers (the Cajun "trinity") as well as some minced garlic for a little extra something. Then I added the turkey leg, the soaked beans, a Tbsp of Cajun seasoning, a tsp cumin (Adam's suggestion to play up the smokiness), salt, pepper, and a can of "petite diced" tomatoes. I then added enough water to cover everything by about an inch, stirred, and brought it to a boil. After it reached a boil, I covered the pot and turned the heat down to the absolute lowest my stove would go. I simmered it for the rest of the afternoon (4-5 hours?) until the beans were tender and the turkey was falling off the bone. I removed the turkey skin, the bone, the long shards of cartilage that are apparently part of a turkey leg and broke up the meat into small chunks.

The result was absolutely delicious and I'm glad that discovered a way to make good beans without pork.

On the Road (Bike) Again

Last night my road bike saw daylight for the first time since October. It felt very foreign, like a light, responsive little munchin bike, after only riding my 'cross and mountain bikes all winter. However, I think the snow and ice are pretty much over and I know I won't be riding trainer again for awhile, so "Jake" was shelved for the summer and the TCR got it's first twitchy, windy ride of the season. It was pretty nice being on a clean, freshly overhauled bike with a new chain, bottom bracket, and crankset. I also have a set of new Continental road tires with "black chili" compound, but they haven't been installed yet.

Adam got me a compact crankset for Christmas and I finally got to test it out yesterday (compact gearing is pretty irrelevant on the trainer). It's kind of funny that after two years of grinding through the hills of Bloomington he finally decided to make things easier on me. I jokingly told him that he should hold off installing it, as I would be needing to trade it in for whatever Mario Cipollini used by spring. That was when I was still faithfully slaving away at the "Hour of Power" and various other trainer workouts on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I kind of crapped out on the next phase of my base training, so at this point I'm in not-so-great shape and couldn't tell much difference with the easier gearing.

As for being out of shape, it looks like I won't have to wait until Ouachita to pay the price for that. I got next week's training plan from Coach Dave and it appears that mountain bike season waits for no woman. The plan is moving right along and it's up to me to catch up. On the menu is: two hours with 5 X 5K TTs on Tuesday, two hours of hills Thursday, two and a half hours with 5 x a half-mile 8+% hill and then 5 x a one mile 3-4% hill on Saturday, and 3+ hours at moderate pace on Sunday. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are kind enough with light strength work and easy spinning, but all I can think when I look at my calendar is OUCHEE!

I guess it's better now that in the middle of a race though.

What's Up With That?

I missed my 9:30 bedtime again last night, but only by 3 minutes. My sleep quality wasn't the best as I was cold (I had a load of laundry in the dryer and was down to the pajama dregs) and not used to going to going bed that early. I still felt better than yesterday, so we'll see how the experiment goes. Of course, I would have made it to bed on time if hadn't spent 10-15 minutes pouring over old heart rate files dealing the following conundrum.

Of course, I'm sure I could find a message board to post on somewhere, but it just felt like it would be more fun to submit it to the vast endurance-racing knowledge of the blogosphere. The question: Why are the finish times for the Lumberjack about 1.5 hours faster than the Mohican on average, despite the fact that the Lumberjack has 60 more miles of singletrack and 2000 more feet of climbing (at least according the respective race websites)?I started discussing this with a fellow Bloomington MTB-chick and aspiring edurance racer a few weeks ago. Our discussion was based purely on percentage of singetrack and we came to the conclusion that the Mohican must be much more climby.

I filed it away in my brain until after what I considered to be a very climby dirt road ride that came in at about 4000 ft. over 45 miles. So I decided to check out the course description on the Lumberjack website. Low and behold, it reported 13,000 ft of climbing over 100 miles, a much bigger percentage than my training ride.

So now I'm just really confused. Can someone whose experienced these races please explain to me "What's up with that?"

Let There Be Light

The Uniform Time Act of 1966, signed into Public Law 89-387 on April 12, 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson, created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. And it allowed cyclists with 8-5 jobs to train after work without getting caught in the dark and we saw that it was good.

That's it. The whole "lack of light" training excuse is done for another eight months. Woohoo!

Of course, it's not all sunshine and rainbows just yet. Adam and I both had a horrible time falling asleep last night and I was barely able to stay awake at my desk the first few hours of the morning. On top of that, I made a vow last week to start getting 8.5-9 hours of sleep, even on weeknights, so I picked a pretty crappy time to start trying to go to bed at 9:30. So far, I have not been successful a single night. However, I really think that it will help my mental and physical health if I can stop procrastinating in the evenings. I also went to the library and checked out "Meditation & Relaxation in Plain English" and "Five Good Minutes an Evening". While I'm hoping that I'm just going through some late-season Seasonal Affective Disorder that will be clearing up soon, it's probably a good idea to take some proactive steps toward curing the funk I've been in the last eight weeks. I've come to the conclusion that I've got to get my mind right before I can expect my body to perform the way I want it to.

Really Late Non-Vegetarian Recipe of the Week

I've really been searching for some delicious new vegetarian recipes, but I've not had much luck lately. My go-to source for recipes is normally Food Network, but they have so many recipes that it's a blessing and a curse. It has a lot to choose from, but a lot to get bogged down by, as well. They have recently improved their search features, but there's still not a lot of nutritional thought put into what comprises a vegetarian entree on that site. I've been browsing the recipes on Vegetarian Times , but a lot of it is a little boring for my adventurous palate. I guess I'll just have to start making stuff up. I'm trying to think up some sort of cassarole with beans, veggies, and a lot of spice/flavor. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Anyway, until then I'm recycling old standbys and I'm planning on making these sometime before the week's over. They have lots of flavor and are surprisingly moist, so I serve them bun-free, but that's up to you.

Southeast Asian Turkey Burgers

1 large garlic clove
2 slices bread of your choice
1 pound lean ground turkey
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro sprigs
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco or similar hot sauce
4 light hamburger buns

Mince garlic. Into a blender tear bread slices and grind into fine crumbs. In a bowl with your hands mix garlic with bread crumbs and remaining burger ingredients until just combined (do not overmix) and form into 4 (1-inch-thick) patties. Place on an indoor grill, about 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through.

The Backswing and the Upswing

Things were looking bad there for a while. I spent a good portion of the last 2-4 weeks looking and feeling like a real-life embodiement of those "Depression Hurts" commercials except I was shoving a lot more food into my mouth. I can't really even say what what was wrong. The most craptastic weather of recent memory didn't help, but I think a lot it had to do with my overconfidence in being Superstar Winter Training Girl. When things got tough, I sat on the couch and ate ice cream. That was the backswing.

Now I'm back on the upswing. The sunny weather and the realization that I was weeks away from my Expert Class debut helped get me going again. I've got four days back on the wagon under my belt and just a few more days left before Daylight Savings Time starts. I'm trying not think about adding up hours and just focus on getting on my bike everyday except for Monday and Friday. Those are my plyo days. If I keep doing that day after day I'll be fine.

In addition to the cheery weather, Adam surprised me with pink cable housing on my mountain bike. I think it looks pretty good with the black and silver (excuse the dirt). He's been suprising me with occasional bike gifts, which are almost always pink, since about our second or third date. I think he's trying to turn me into Mountain Bike Barbie (if only Barbie would actually try mountain biking), but generally I like his taste.

Call Out

I've mentioned this in several places to several people before, but I thought I'd throw it out here. Coach Dave has recently taken over the Lindsey Wilson College Cycling program and has asked me to help him track down recruiting leads, especially for the women's team. So if you a 16-18 year-old cyclist (male or female) or know one who might be interested, please visit the link in the sidebar. There may be scholarships available to high-ability athletes.

Daydreaming

I recently read a post on Sue Haywood's blog where she interviews Kathryn Bertine, who is doing a blogging project for the ESPN website where she tries to quality for the 2008 Olympics. I found it fascinating, as I've been doing the same thing in my head since the day that I was pulled off of the OSU track during my evening jog to become a college distance runner. The 2000 Olympics found me glued to TV with a torn IT band and in 2004 I was a struggling neo-triathlete. Now, at the age of 27, I am leaning toward the decidedly non-Olympic side of moutain biking with little time or inclination left to try new sports before my mid-30's "peak". However, a girl can dream, right?




Before I even read Kathryn's article, my experiment in pathetic transition-phase running got me wondering if I could ever run at a high level again and how I would go about it. I posed the question to myself: If put away the bike today and started running full-time again, could I qualify for the 2012 Olympic marathon trials? The trials, mind you, not the actual Olympics. Of course, I was still thinking in 2000 terms back when people were slower. It appears that to compete in the 2008 trials, one must run the Olympic "B" standard of 2:47, which is pretty freaking fast. So the answer to my question is a definite probably not. Of course, I have very little to desire to try anyway; it was meer curiousity. Could I outdo my college self? I'm older and have more scar tissue, but I'm also much more mentally mature. You don't know how often I wish I could go back in time and tell my 20-year-old self to HTFU, as my husband likes to say. And to quit wasting my time and mental energy on boys.

Oh to be 20 years old and 12 % body fat again...

I also spent about a half a second thinking about Olympic weight lifting during my recent Clean and Jerk sessions. Not because I'm particularly proficient at it, but because it's fun. Yes, I said fun. I know that it's heresy for a cyclist to say she likes lifting weights, but since Coach Dave turned me onto Olympic lifts, I kind of do. Of course, it appears from last year's national championships results, I need to lose eight pounds and quadruple the amount of weight I can lift if I want to make the Olympic team.

Finally, Kathryn's blog only continued to fuel my fire of athletic speculation, as her first installment covered her attempt to make the national modern pentathlon team. I've already done three of the five sports (sort of). I've run competitively, swam as a triathlete, and rode horses pretty much every day from age 3-13. I never actually show jumped, but I desperately wanted to, as spent plenty of time "practicing" over every log I could find in our pasture growing up. My horse showing career was brief and unimpressing, as my Anglo-Arab mare, Desiree, didn't fit in too well with the Quarter Horse crowd in Oklahoma. Oh yeah, and she was crazy.

From Kathryn's article, it appears that a woman can get accepted to the national training program by running running a sub 11:20 3000m and swimming a sub 2:40 200m. An 11:20 3000m is a heck of a lot easier than a 2:47 marathon and I'm sure Kathryn would have made it had she not been training for much longer distances. You do have to run fast to race fast, another thing I would like to tell my 20-year-old base-training-obscessed self.

As for the swim, it has the dubious distinction as my strongest sport in triathlon. Mostly because of my learning curve. I was able to go from barely covering 50m without nearly drowning to being decently mid-pack in the triathlon swim in about a year, while my run and bike waivered with the lack of time and attention a triathlete can give to each sport. I was only swimming three days a week or less, so it would be interesting to see what I could do if I were to really focus on daily training and getting faster rather than just covering distance.

Of course, I'm pretty committed to mountain biking and too far into being a grown-up with a job to throw everything away and run off to the Olympic training center. Then again, I have a lot of idle time on the bike and it's fun to daydream.

The Good, the Bad, and the Muddy

I like riding in rain and mud. Is that weird? My favorite mountain bike race last season took place during a thunderstorm. Of course, there were various elements that made it great, but it would not have nearly as good without the rain. At the end of the first lap, I was lollygagging around in what I believed to be the same no-man's-land I'd been racing in all season. Every race was just another interpretation of being 10 minutes back from the next place up and 15 minutes ahead of the next place back. It was the sixth race of the season and I was actually singing, "Fourth place is just another word for nothing left to lose..." in my head during my warm-up. However, at the end of the first lap I was caught by a girl who I'd only raced against once and a battle ensued as we headed into a barren rock quarry wasteland. Then thunder errupted and the sky let loose. It was all very primal: rocks, rain, epic battle with a worthy opponent, the kind of moment one races bikes to experience. In the end I was muddy, victorious (in fifth/sixth place battle at least), and one of the very few people not bleeding at the end of the race.

Yesterday's training ride was another rainy, muddy battle and I loved (mostly) every minute of it. I made another attempt at my 45 mile dirt road route and was much more successful this time. It was nearly 60 degrees and had rained all morning and about the first 90 minutes of the ride. This insured the roads were no longer icy, but I did have to hike-a-bike to avoid the flooded to section of road that I fell into on my first McGowan road ride. The hills were even more difficult without the ice, as the ground was so soft it made for major pedaling resistance. I did learn some lesson about choosing lines though: DON'T ride through the water on the flats and DO ride through the water on the hills. Meaning that the more eroded lines tend be firmer. Except the ones that run through foot-deep washouts, but you can see those coming from pretty far away.

After the McGowan hills, I headed into new territory that I really liked. It was really muddy. Grit in your teeth muddy. But it was a good time and good scenery riding through the Yellowwood State Forest. For a little while, I could see a stretch of singletrack running parallel to the road and it was very tempting to veer over and take it for a spin. Bad Lindsay! That's for the hikers! Don't worry, I kept to the road.

So the forested dirt road portions of the ride count as the good and the muddy. The bad is when I had to return to pavement. As the afternoon wore on, the temperature dropped and the already high wind picked up. The last third or so of the ride involves a lot of riding on unforested pavement. Once I got to that part, I was already at around 3 hours and decided to skip the last few dirt sections in favor of the fastest way home. It still was not very fast riding a mud encrusted mountain bike with a skipping chain into one of the strongest headwinds I've experienced in a long time. I finally made it home tired and cold, but very satified with my effort.

Belated Recipe of the Week

I was too busy with my tea tasting on Tuesday to post a recipe, but I figured better late than never. I don't think "Use 1 rounded tsp. per cup of water at 190-200 degrees. Steep 3-5 minutes" counts as a recipe. Although my coworker said my "Witch's Broom Puerh" that I tried yesterday smelled like something that you would put in beef stew. The website said it was bizarre, and it kind of is, but it's also my second-favorite out of the shipment. I'm actually just steeping up the last variety that I have tried yet, a disk of "Puerh Tuo Cha Green". We'll see how it turns out.

So anyway, that's that. Training has been very sporadic and not worth talking about lately. I'm hitting the winter-to-spring awkward transition phase early this year. Hopefully, I will be over it early, too, as it's 7 1/2 weeks until Ouachita. Now, without futher ado:

Crabby Cole Slaw Wraps

1 bag pre-shredded coleslaw mix (I actually use Mann's "Rainbow Salad" with brocoli, cauliflower, carrots, and red cabbage for a bigger nutritional punch.)
1 16 oz. package imitation crab
1 green bell pepper diced
1 apple of your choice diced
1/2 cup low-fat Miracle Whip or "mayonaise"
2 Tbsp. skim milk
1 Tbsp. vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar)
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
8 8-inch whole-grain tortillas

Mix crab and vegetables in a large bowl. Whisk together Miracle Whip, milk, vinegar, sugar, pepper, and salt in a seperate container and pour over vegetables and crab. Toss well. Add 1/2 cup mixture to each tortilla and enjoy. Makes 4 servings.

Tea Snob B-Town

In additional to bike racing, kitties, and movies, my other beloved hobby is drinking tea and a few days ago I just kicked it up a notch.

I've been drinking green tea since early on college when I heard it boosted metabolism. It was tame enough for the first few years as I tried a few different flavors and upgraded from Lipton, to Celestial Seasonings, to Republic of Tea. Then a couple of years ago Adam brought home a used Mighty Leaf tea pouch to show me how cool it was and my loose-leaf obscession began.

For quite some time, Mightly Leaf was my brand of choice. They have really good tea and good variety, but most of their varieties run $7-10 for a 4 oz. bag. The problem is that I want to try a every kind they have and the price makes it a little hard. They have samplers available, but many of the kinds I'm most interested aren't included and may of the kinds I don't like are.

A few months ago, a co-worker gave me a few infusers from Tea Forte, each of which were amazingly good. I ordered a sampler for myself, but with my 4+ cup a day habit I ran through the $24 box way too fast. It's sort of like bottled water; I can stand to pay $1.20 a bottle once in a while when I'm on the road or something, but at normal consumption rate, tap water is all that is practical.

I my other overpriced tea indulgence is going to Soma Coffeehouse for some of their delicious blends. They won't sell the loose leaf tea directly to customers, so I went on an internet search for their supplier. I came up with site for the Montana Tea and Spice Trading. I ordered a pound each of their Mountain Huckleberry and Evening is Missoula, my two favorite herbals.

More importantly, during the search I stumbled upon the holy grail. Tea Source is my new best friend. They have so many varieties and them in 2 oz. portions (about 25 cups) that run about $3-4 each, which makes dabbling a lot easier. I went a little crazy on with my Friday paycheck and ordered two blacks, a puerh, two greens, a white, an herbal, and two one-serving "pucks" for about $35. This should keep me entertained for quite some time. I've kept the packing sheet to make notes about what I do and do not like as I sample each variety, so I can learn what all those grassy/floral/earthy terms in the descriptions really mean. I've tried four of the varieties so far and strangely enough, I like the free sample of Imperial Forest green tea that I wasn't even expecting the best. Go figure.

I Don't Care What the Groundhog Says

Yesterday I decided that winter was over. I've been working on that decision for a while.

I was extremely proud of myself a couple of weeks ago when I did the 90-minute tempo workout on the rollers, but I've completely failed to replicated it since. The fact that this workout fills me with a complete dread of Thursdays has brought me to the conclusion that it's not worth forcing myself to do. And yesterday I didn't. Of course, I can't make a habit of that, so I've decided with only four more weeks left before daylight savings time, that I'm just going to do what I have to do to go ahead and transition to full-time outdoor riding. This will probably mean leaving work an hour early a couple of days a week, but honestly I have so little to do this time of year anyway, the powers that be would probably prefer I knock off early and burn some of my vacation hours as opposed to sitting here and earning more time off while I blog.

If only I could declare winter over weather-wise as well, but I think even Punxsutawney Phil has more authority than I do in that area.

Feel the Rain on Your Shins

Yesterday was a good day. Despite the fact that the weather forecast called for t-storms all day, the rain was almost cleared up by the time I got off work at 4 p.m. My plan is to leave work a little early every Tuesday until DST starts so that I can do my Tuesday LT intervals outside. It's just to hard to dial that effort on the trainer.

As a bonus, the temperature was in the upper 50's and I was so excited to be able to ditch the the shoe covers and lobster gloves for a while. I was even able to to wear shorts, even if it was with kneewarmers. Just letting out those four inches of exposed skin between my kneewarmers and socks was incredibly invigorating.

Mostly I was excited to debut my knew wool socks, pictured above. I have one pair of specially designated "winter" socks that come up to my calves and go under my tights and shoes covers, so I haven't had a chance to wear the knew VB socks since I got them a month or so ago. Whatever gets me rushing to home to jump on my bike, right?

For those of you who are wondering, YES I am one of those dorks that is in full team kit pretty much every ride. Besides the fact that we have such cute kits, it's mostly because as a large nationwide team with a focus on racer development, Velo Bella has the buying power to demand clothing with better fit, quality, and value than 90% of the what's offered by the women's cycling apparel industry in general. Since we able to order pretty much any type of cycling clothing, except for heavy winter tights, gloves, etc., it's just easier to buy all my warm-weather clothing through the team.

Now, if Louis Garneau would only add bib knickers to their custom line I'd be set. Not women's bib-knickers mind you; since if the cycling industry gives us our own bib-knickers then we might start wanting to vote and hold jobs outside the home. However, they did a fabulous job with the unisex skinsuits w/ women's chamois, so I think any custom knickers could be fitted to suit our needs.

I'm just kidding about the cycling industry, of course, but I just get pretty frustrated with what's available to women. I do desperately want a pair of bib-knickers, but I tried on a pair of Adam's, but they just did not work. Assos is the only company that makes them for women and I refuse to give them another cent of my money since they not only invented that stupid mono-bib thing (who the heck wants a big freakin' strap right across their sternum?), but now it's tainted many other clothing lines as well. I simply hope that Castelli maintains some since of reason, as they are my main source for non-team clothing. Everything I've ever purchased from them has been absolutely fabulous!

Okay, rant complete. I've been wanting to get that out for a while now.

Unfortanately, the warm temperatures continued to rise through the evening until it was 64 degrees at about 9:30 p.m. and a violent thunderstorm broke out and left us without electricity until 5 this morning. The temperatures are now falling and should be in the 30's again by my ride tonight. Oh well, at least my legs got one day in the sun, er, outdoors.

Recipe of the Week

I'm not a vegetarian, but I usually eat like one. This mostly because I hate buying, cutting, and cooking meat. While I try to get a good amount of protein in my diet, I simply can't tolerate the whole boneless, skinless, grilled chicken breast and steamed veggies routine. Bleh! Most of my meals consist of veggie-heavy one-pot dishes with lots of flavor and plant-based protein. I do add turkey products from time to time, but I try not to depend on them.

Of course, I love me some delicious pulled pork barbeque (prepared by someone else of course) on occasion, but that's definitely a "sometimes food". That's why I try to eat 90% vegetarian.

Since there is only so much one can do with beans and tofu, I went searching for a good quinoa recipe as it has the most complete and abundant protein of any other grain. I found this recipe on foodnetwork.com and it originally called for frying the dough into little fritters, but I soon realized that putting in a loaf pan and baking was both easier and healthier.

Quinoa Loaf

2/3 cup raw quinoa
1 1/3 cups cold water
1/4 cup al all purpose flour
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoons ground white pepper
4 green onions, white and light green parts only, finely chopped
1/2 bunch flatleaf parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 large egg yolk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Rinse the quinoa in a strainer under cold running water and drain well. Heat a heavy saucepan over high heat and toast the quinoa for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a spatula and scraping the bottom of the pan so that the grains do not scorch. Transfer the quinoa to a large saucepan and add the water. Over medium high heat, bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for about 10 minutes, or until all the water has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, combine the quinoa, flour, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly and add the green onions, parsley, egg, and egg yolk. Blend together thoroughly until the mixture has the consistency of a soft dough.

Transfer dough into a loaf pan that has been lightly greased or coated in cooking spray. Bake 20 minutes or until top is golden brown and feels spongey when you press on the top (springs back as opposed leaving an indention).

Bring the Pain

In the summer of 2000, my cross country coach at Oklahoma State University chose "Bring the Pain" as our theme for the season. We even had t-shirts with the slogan, which no one wore because our equipment manager insisted on ordering size large for the entire team "to make things easier". It was always strange that we got really huge clothes in a sport where you get in trouble for being any heavier than medically underweight.

My mom hated the slogan, mostly because she was the one paying medical bills. While the coach may have been referring to lactic acid tolerance, for me it was more like "train until you IT band tears".

I thought of this when I woke up this morning with sore arms and hip flexors. There are so many kinds of pain involved in bike racing. Some are good, some are bad, some depend on the situation. For example, sore arms can be interpretted as: 1) Good because I'm buildng muscle 2) Bad because I thought they were strong enough by now that yesterday's ride shouldn't have bothered them 3) Bad if they are sore enough to interfere with the next day's training.

Bruises and injuries are mostly bad, but they usually come with some valuable lessons learned.

Lactic acid feels bad, but you need it to win races. In training it is a good thing since it makes it that much easier when it pops up in a race. In a race, it's nice to delay it as much as possible, but it's very hard to do well without it making an appearance. The same with the hollow ache of breaking down muscles that I get from endurance training. Not good at all, but better in training than in a race.

Very few successful race efforts are pain-free. For example, after I did a half-ironman a couple of years ago and afterward said it wasn't that bad. My husband responded that if a person does a half-ironman in 7+ hours and thinks it wasn't that bad, they weren't going hard enough. True enough. It wasn't fit enough going into the race, so I just kind of waddled through in survival mode. I could have made it hurt worse, but it wasn't really worth it just to take my time from abysmal to just regular old bad.

So when I state that my goal for the Ouachita Challenge is to finish comfortably, there should be an asterisk. I'm pretty sure that I could slog through it like I the half-ironman and force myself to finish right now if I needed to. However, I rather do it faster than slower. By comfortably, I want to set a steady pace, be fit enough to ward off muscle aches as long as possible, and keep from getting overly anaerobic to early on. Funny how that will involve plently of sore arms, hollow muscle aches, burning glutes, and lactic acid tolerance in the next nine weeks. Hopefully, there will be no torn IT bands involved.

My Children

While my blog hero, Ms. T, has expressed some pretty strong feelings about blogging kitty pictures and stories, I feel that it's an important part of my life I need to share. So here is a little bit about my family.



This is Sixx. She was Adam's before we got married. He named her after Nikki Sixx from one of his all-time favorite bands, Motley Crue and because she has a "6" marking on her side. It must be the other side or the way she is standing, since you can't really see it in the picture. This from her "outside kitty" phase a few months ago. We let her come out on the patio with us one afternoon in August and she spent the next couple of weeks standing by the back door and crying to go back outside. It just not safe for little kitties living in town though.

This is Campbell, named after the actor Bruce Campbell. As a kitten, he was rescued by the famous Dumpster Phil and given to Adam. He was and is still blind in one eye from a big cut that was on his face when he arrived. He grew up to be 15 pounds of solid muscle, but he's still the biggest crybaby of our crew.

This is "my" cat Mrs. Biggleworth. I'm obviously less original in my pet-naming than Adam. I thought I was being funny by naming my super furry kitten after the hairless cat in Austin Powers. However, in retrospect it was just kind of dumb. For all useful purposes, her name is Furry. She is less affectionate than the other two; I think it's from being a spoiled only kitten for the first year and a half of her life. Lately, she has become the most boring cat that ever lived, since I got her a new bed and she doesn't want to move from it.

Finally, this is my kitty-daddy, Adam, in all his MTB glory. I met him when I first moved to Muncie, IN for graduate school and he was my downstairs neighbor. I had been wanting to get into cycling, so when I saw that I had a neighbor with a roof rack and bike stickers all over his car I thought I needed to meet him ASAP. He just looked out his window and thought the new girl moving in was hot. We met a couple of days later, dated, and after some minor drama, got married two years later.

And that's the way we became the Rodkey bunch...

Ice Road Bikers

There were no sub-zero temperatures or thousands of dollars on the line when Cheryl, Angela, and I headed out for a gravel road ride this morning, but we did get an unexpected test of our bike handling skills. The weather was actually pretty nice; sunny and lower 30's and rapidly climbing. We went on an abreviated version of my disastrous ride from a few weeks ago, this time armed with moutain bikes and a better sense of direction.

Things went pretty well and we rolled through the ~33 miles much faster than I expected, but it was a little sketchy as the gravel roads weren't getting much sunlight and had a lot of really slick places from the weird winter storm a couple of days ago. I nearly lost my back wheel several times, and although I never actually crashed ON my bike, I managed to fall down twice after dismounting.

The climbing was much easier on the mountain bike and we managed to make it up every hill except the last one, which was a killer. It climbs about 300 ft. in 0.8 miles and has a couple of good twists that let you think you're closer to the top than you really are, only to be disappointed around the bend. I only know of three riders who have climbed this hill the whole way and it wasn't any of us. The ice made it harder because the only place you could get traction was the rough ridge up the middle of the road, which of course was harder than if we'd been able to ride in the smoother car tracks. Oh well, I think everyone rode away with the goal of topping that thing by the start of race season.

Overall, it was a pretty good time and no one got hurt or soaked, although Angela stepped in a puddle. I tend to shy away from group rides since I always end up feeling slow and out of shape, which was the case today, but I guess it's better to find that out if February than in May. At least now I have plenty of time to do something about it.

Oh yeah...

I forgot to mention that I also came to the decision that the Lumberjack 100 is now going to be my first 100 miler instead of the Mohican. At the time I planned out my season, I chose the Mohican because it was the closest race in the NUE series and not in conflict with any of my DINO cross country races. It's since been moved up a week to the day before my "home" race at Brown County. Given that Indiana's female mountain biking talent is disapportionatley skewed towards the Bloomington area, that BCSP the state's main destination trail for non-Bloomingtonians, it's not any special kind of advantage.

Then a couple of days ago I was thinking about how my husband is transitioning into roadie world after eight years of mountain bike racing. The Brown County race is one of only two cross country races he's planning on doing this year. Even though the Mohican is the day before, making it back in time for him to race the next day was going to be a pain.

Then I realized that the Mohican and Lumberjack both conflicted with DINO races, but the Mohican conflicted with a race 30 minutes away and the Lumberjack conflicted with a race 4 hours away that I wasn't too keen on anyway. I checked to make sure that Adam didn't have a road race on June 14, as we only have one car, and low and behold, it was a free weekend for him. So I figured rather than go halfway to Michagan for a cross country race, go all the way to Michigan for a 100 miler and not have to miss the Brown County race.

Plus, the Lumberjack just looks more appealing to me for some reason. I guess I'll find out in June!

Personal Day

Yesterday I took an unplanned rest day from both training and work. I woke up not totally sick, but absolutely exhausted with the same sore throat that I've had on and off for a couple of weeks. After dragging my way through breakfast, I decided it was a good occasion to cash in some personal time.

Of course, one can't call in sick to work and then go ride in good conscience, but I really was tired so that was okay. I slept a lot and was pretty horribly bored otherwise. I didn't have any unwatched discs from Blockbuster and didn't feel like going to the store to exchange the one I had. So I indulged in a healthy lunch and some bad daytime TV. I also finally got around to completing my application for a graduate certificate program I'm hoping to start this summer.

It was probably good that my day was relaxing but not THAT fun. Boredom is good in such cases. It's allows me to rest, but I still get the reminder that laziness is not something I want to take on full-time.

I simply have not been taking very good care of myself since Christmas; mainly eating too much sugar and not going to bed on time. I've got to start keeping up with the maintanence work a lot better if I want my body to withstand and endurance training program, so I used yesterday as mini-rehab for my sugar/procrastination addiction. I'm almost 48 hours clean, but tomorrow's the office "Superbowl Party" so we'll see what happens then.

Recipe of the Week

This one is adapted from the January issue of Prevention magazine, but I added some of my own touches.






Hungarian Potato Paprika Soup

3-4 pounds russet potatoes, coursely diced with skin still on
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
2 handfuls baby carrots or 2 large carrots, shredded
8 oz turkey smoked sausage, diced
4-6 cups vegetable or chicken broth, depending on desired consistancy
2 Tbsps fresh dill or 1 Tbsp dried
1-2 Tbsp paprika*
1 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 cup milk of your choice

*This will depend on your tastes and what is available at your grocery store. The original recipe called for 1 Tbsp smoked paprika and 1 tsp hot paprika, but I could not find "hot paprika" in my regular grocery store. I did, however, have "Smoked Hot Spanish Paprika" from my local international market. Most of their spices are purchased in bulk and broken up into 3-4 ounce portions, so there is no brand on them. I use 2 Tbsp of this paprika in my soup, but my husband, the king of hot sauce, complained about the slow burn of my last batch. So use what you can find and what tastes good. If nothing else, use plain old sweet paprika mixed with cumin in a 1:1 ratio, add a little cayenne for heat and you should be good to go.

Directions:

Boil potatoes in large stockpot with salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain, mash roughly, and set aside.

Heat olive in stockpot over medium heat. Add onions and carrots and saute until tender. Add remaining ingredients and warm through.

Wow, that was easy!

Big Week

Last week was the first in an eight-week block leading up to the Ouachita Challenge that I like to think of as "super-base". All the week's schedules are pretty much the same with some variance in the Tuesday/Saturday intervals. There are no rest weeks built in; it's more like the hard/easy pattern used by runners. The idea is to be hard, but sustainable. I think it is, but will take some getting used to.

After my "screw it" outdoor ride last Wednesday, I followed it up with a 90-minute tempo workout on rollers. Now THAT took some willpower! It was only my third time on rollers, so my skills aren't to the point where I can just relax and pedal. My hands and butt were killing me afterward from keeping a death grips on the bars and not shifting my weight the whole time. As unpleasant as it was, it is a really good medium for that workout. The terrain around here is pretty hilly, so if you truly want to spin at 90 rpms and your heart in between 166-172 the entire time, rollers are about the only way to do it.

Friday was my first two-a-day in who knows how long. I got up at 5 a.m. to do my plyo workout and Olympic lifts before work. In the evening, I did another easy hour on the rail-to-trail. It was much darker this time because it was cloudy, but I remember to charge my lights this time so it was okay.

Saturday was 2 X 15 minutes at LT in a 2.5 hour ride. I did well on the intervals and it was a big improvement from trying to slog through them on the trainer. By the time I was done with my warm-up, intervals, and recovery I was at about one hour, so I wanted to do a nice Zone 2-3 steady state for the remaining 90 minutes and get some muscular endurance work in. However, it just was not happening. I ended up dragging back home getting a little slower and sicker with each passing mile. I spent the rest of the evening very sick to my stomach and hacking away with a nasty cough.

I was much improved on Sunday and had hoped to make another go at my dirt road loop, but the strain it took to climb the first little hill told me I needed to back off for another day. I turned around and rode easy on the rail-to-trail for an hour instead.

It was a balmy 47 degrees, so the trail was a muddy mess from the melting snow. I was filthy by the time I got back, the short ride and "warm" weather gave me the chance to give my bikes a much needed cleaning. "Jake" (my cross bike) was still sporting river mud from our little swim a couple of weeks ago.

So my first week of the training block didn't go perfectly, especially since I missed out on a much needed long ride. However, I have to say I'm pleased overall. Eleven hours, four days of outdoor riding, and three hard workouts a week in January is doing pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

In Good Company

It is the extremely slow time of year at my job and I was googling around this morning and found this.

Look familiar? I thought he would have "people" to design something a little more unique. Makes me feel better though.

Screw It

Martin Luther King day was my first "screw it" day of 2007. After staying indoors on Saturday and Sunday of the long weekend due to rain, I finally forced myself out into the 30 degree drizzle on Monday. It sucked, my fingers froze, but it was a turning point in my cycling career. By the end of February, I had discovered lobster gloves, charcoal toe warmers (forget hand warmers; toe warmers are flat, adhesive, and perfect for toes, hands, AND ears), and become more or less immune to 98% of bad weather conditions.

Of course, I was still riding inside on weeknights due to the dark. The plan was to keep this up until Daylight Savings Time kicked in, but one evening in late Febuary I was walking out of work and it was 50-something and sunny and I had my next "screw it" moment. There was just no freakin' way I was going pass that weather up, so I rushed home and jumped on my bike for a quick hour ride before it got dark. I figured 60 minutes on the road was better than 90 minutes on the trainer. Of course, Coach Troy of Spinervals would say just the opposite, but he has a bit of a vested interest.

So coming into the winter of 2008 I was pretty well set up. I've only missed one ride due to weather, but the dark thing is still throwing me for a loop. However, Tuesday night was my first time back on the trainer in two weeks and it was a pain in the butt. Two times 15 minutes at LT in 90 minutes of total riding. Trainer intervals just shouldn't be longer than 3-4 minutes. Too much pain for too long with no distractions. However, it's getting to be that time of year and it's time to step it up.

Funny how my "step it up" time turns out to be almost exactly the time I started riding in crappy weather last year. I'm taking it as a sign of advancement: Last year's hurdles cleared and we're on to a new set.

Anyway, I got over the weather thing easy enough once I bought proper winter clothing, but the dark thing is harder to get over. Even with lights, training after dark is scary. However, last night became my first "screw it" night of 2008, almost 6 weeks earlier than last year. My assignment was 90 minutes of easy riding, but I figured there was no rule that I had to do the whole thing on one bike. So I rushed home, got decked out in full winter gear, and jumped on my mountain bike. I rode the rail-to-trail for almost an hour. I wasn't able to finish before dark, but at least I didn't have to deal with traffic and was back into decently lit neighborhoods before it got too hard to see. When I got home I did a Superman wardrobe change and jumped on the trainer for 30 minutes, which seemed very doable after a nice outdoor "warm-up".

Tonight is a 90 minute tempo ride that I'm planning to do on the rollers. I've been scheming, but I think it might still be a little early to try this one outside. Maybe in a couple of weeks...

Recipe of the Week

Since I like to talk about all the bad stuff I like to eat I thought I'd change things up today and talk about what I eat when I'm eating healthy. My meal plan is pretty simple, as I have the same breakfast every morning and don't cook during the workweek. I usually make a large batch of something on Sunday and have it for lunch for the rest of the week. Here is one of my winter favorites:

Southwest Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

1 large onion, diced
2 TBSP olive oil
2 TBSP chili powder
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp dried oregano
8 cups (2 big rectangular carboard containers) chicken or vegetable stock
2 15 oz cans of black beans
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
2 tsp minced garlic
2 TBSP minced cilantro (you can usually find tube of minced fresh herbs in the produce section)
2 TBSP lime juice

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onions, chili powder, cumin, oregano and cook until onions are slightly soft. If the onions start to brown as soon you put them in the pan, your heat's too high. Once onions are soft, add stock, beans, and garlic and bring to a boil (uncovered). Once soup has come to a boil, add pumpkin, cilantro, and lime, turn heat to low, and cook 3-5 minutes until heated through.

I someones like to add a cup or so of frozen corn kernals and/or a diced zucchini to increase the veggie content of this dish. These should go in the same time as the beans.

Feeling Like a (Clean and) Jerk

This is what I looked like earlier this afternoon (so I did a little too much stress eating last week). Okay, not really. Try inserting a broom stick where the 500 pound weights are and you'll be a lot closer. However, since I moved into a new phase of training this week, my strength workouts also started a new phase. Instead of the gentle bodyweight/core work, I will now be doing a routine of plyometrics and Olympic lifts (clean and jerk) on Monday and Friday. I will probably still keep up the push-ups and chin-ups three days a week, since my upper body needs all the strength and endurance it can get by April.

The idea is to try and revive some of the fast twitch muscle that I killed during my former life as distance runner. We're working on power, baby! It's all kind of funny to me that I am doing "sprinter things" now, as pretty much any time I try to perform a fast twitch muscle activity it's a site to be seen. I have to say it's actually pretty fun, though, except for knowing how sore I will be tomorrow.

The rest of the day was wonderful as I had the whole day off from work and only one hour of training to do. I spent the morning pattering around the house alternating between watching Cold Mountain (what a depressing movie with so much violence towards animals), doing laundry, and surfing the internet. I had a bit of a short attention span, so it took me four hours to get through a 2.5 hour movie. I even made it through all of the free time without eating any junk food. It was just the morale boost I've been needing and I feel great!

The Dumpster Phil Effect

When my husband a was a collegiate cyclist at Ball State University, he had a teammate that all his friends refer to as "Dumpster Phil". I personally have never met the guy, but I have determined three things about him from Adam's stories:

1. He was "dumpster" (the favorite slang adjective used by Adam and his clique).

2. He rescued our cat Campbell from the middle of the road as a kitten and gave him to Adam as he was already at his pet quota (very un-dumpster of him).

3. Most importantly, he had a way of sabotaging himself before hard rides and races so that when they ended badly he had an excuse. For example, he would drink milk before a hard ride so that it was no surprise when he through up, or he would purposely ignore routine bike maintance so it was no surprise when he dropped of a race "due to a mechanical" when the going got tough.

So towards then end of my beginner mountain bike season in 2006, I came up with "The Dumpster Phil Theory". With the exception of the last race of the season, SOMETHING went wrong every single race that gave me a perfectly good excuse as to why I was getting my butt kicked. Of course, I knew damn well that it was mostly the fact that I just wasn't a very good rider yet, but most of the time it was easier to point to my flat tire or the puncture wound in my leg and go for the sympathy vote. Consciously, I was doing everything right (except sticking to a consistant training plan), but every race something got screwed up anyway. So I decided that I must be subconsciously sabotaging myself to have so many things go wrong.

In the 2007 season, I came back must stronger and more skilled and while I was still getting my butt kicked by the regulars, I also beat a few people myself. I can't say I had an ounce of bad luck, and had two or three very satisfying, well-excuted races. Then 'cross season came all of the sudden it was getting sick and missing my pedal at the start. Hmm...

The point of all of this is that right after my pedal came off ten minutes into my ride today, I realized that the Dumpster Phil Effect has been taking hold again the last couple of weeks. After two months of brilliant, clockwork-like training, things mysteriously start going to pot when I get to the meat of the training plan, instead of the namby-pamby, 6-hour-a-week, prep work.

Not that it's a huge deal; it's just a realization I came to. After a screwy training camp week followed by five days of doing nothing, I finally got myself out for a ride yesterdat I suppose it can be argued that anytime one ventures out to ride bikes in 12 degree temperatures, that they're asking for trouble. I was supposed to ride for four hours, and took my mountain bike out to Brown County to get in some rare winter singletrack time. There was snow on most of the trail, which made riding difficult, but I wanted get practice over rock obstacles since I will be encountering my fair share of them this season at the Ouachita Challenge and the Shenandoah Mountain 100. So I headed straight for the most technical parts of the trail system. O course, riding snow-covered rocks is harder than riding regular rocks, especially when you wear yourself out climbing the snow-covered hill to get to them. So I was dabbing all over the place and my left cleat finally iced over so much that I couldn't clip in. Riding technical trails with one foot loose was darn near impossible, so I ended up walking my bike back to the nearest road intersection and riding back to my car on the road. Getting 2.5 hours in that kind of a weather is nothing to sniff at, but after my screwy weak I was really wanting to go into the weekend swinging.

Today was 18 degrees and I was supposed to get two hours in. I planned to ride the rail-to-trail out to the local mountain bike park, since that seemed like the slowest and most sheltered route to take in the cold. I was feeling good and staying toasty with the five pairs of charcoal warmers I had stuck to various parts of my body, but not long after getting to the trail, my right pedal came off. I couldn't even screw it in enough with my fingers to ride it home. So I had to one-legged drill the whole way home, which was uphill most of the way. I couldn't deal with going back out after that so it left me an hour and a lot of quality short for the day.

So with all this evidence that the spirit of Dumpster Phil is taking over again, what am I going to do? I'm not really sure. They say the first step is admitting you have a problem, so I guess I have that part out of the way.

Downhill

So the training camp that intended to give me a super-boost in my winter training schedule turned out to be more of a super-bust.

I was pretty physically wasted after my little back-country adventure. The next day (Thurdsay) was I supposed to leave work at 1 pm to go on a 3.5 hour road ride before dark. It was raining, but not thunderstorms, so it was still considered rideable outside. However, as 1 pm neared the urge to put my head down on my desk and go to sleep kept getting stronger. It's not usual for me to be sleepy at work, but I rarely actually have to fully struggle to stay awake. That morning I actually scooted my keepboard out of the way a couple of times to make room, before I talked some sense into myself.

I decided that I deserved a nap when I got home since I was so sore and fatigued. Just one hour and I could still get my ride in before dark. That turned into the compromise that I would switch the 3.5 hour ride with Saturday's schedule 2 hour "ride how you feel" session. At 3:30 I woke up, decided that today was just as good a time for my scheduled rest day as Sunday, and went back to sleep until 6.

Things didn't get any better the next day (Friday) when I was still sore and fatigued and a little gimpy from when I decided to save my bike instead of my calf. I also found out that I would begin the interview process for a potentially big promotion on Monday. This turned me into a sore, fatigued, gimpy, nervous wreck and I ended up skipping the night's core workout to watch movies and baby myself.

Training resumed on Saturday, which had gorgeous weather for January, and I got in a 4 hour road-ride on my 'cross bike, which I have designated as winter road bike since I feel safer on it in crappy weather and it allows me to leave my road bike hooked to the trainer. The ride went really well; it was a zone 2-3 steady state with a 8 second super spin every 10 minutes. I rode well, but my quads ached enough to tell me that I will need a lot more long rides to get my muscular endurance where it needs to be by the Ouachita Challenge.

Sunday was my 2 hour "ride how you feel" day. I was hoping I would be able to ease myself up into some zone 3-4 "sweet spot" work, but it just didn't happen. After a half-hour, just getting up to upper zone 2 seemed like a chore, so I backed off and soft-pedaled the rest of the way.

So I ended with 12.5 hours for the week and overall pretty decent quality, but the accumulated fatigued, red peely nose, and stress of impending job interviews didn't bode well going into this week. Basically, I had an interview on Monday, a presentation and second interview on Wednesday, was at the vet until 8:30 pm Wednesday night with Mrs. Bigglesworth and her "feline acne", and I have not turned a pedal, done a pushup, or lifted a weight since Sunday. So the subsequent crash completely voided anything I did during the training camp. I didn't get the promotion, either, but after it was all over I found out it wasn't as great as I thought it was, so I guess that's all right.

So after a good night's sleep tonight and good nutrition over the weekend, I think I'll finally be ready to resume normal training. Tomorrow I will attempt a 4 hour MTB ride since the high is about 18 degrees and the trails should be sufficiently frozen. Sunday will be another 2 hour "ride how you feel" on the road and then next week I start my new training phase. Coach Dave has blocked out the next 8 weeks with a basic 13 hour a week schedule of Plyo/Olympic Lifts on Monday and Friday, VO2 or LT intervals on Tuesday and Saturday, easy ride on Wednesday and Friday, tempo on Thursday, and long on Sunday. The long rides are all scheduled at 3 hours right now, so some weeks will be more than 13 hours as I will rotate those days between road, dirt road, and MTB depending on the weather. I will basically be using Sundays to do what I need to do to survive Ouachita and then the Mohican 100 later in the season.

Well, that's my life in the last week and a half. Now that I'm caught up on my rest and blogging, it's time to move forward.

La Ruta de los Hoosierista

Last Wednesday afternoon was a rare sunny and 40-something January day as I headed out for my 45-mile dirt road ride. I questioned my choice of a regular long-sleeved jersey instead of my thermal jacket during the first few minutes of the ride, but decided I would be fine once I warmed up. Once I got past the stoplights and in-town traffic, I settled into my assigned zone 3 rhythm as I cruised the paved road that would lead me to the Brown County wilderness. However, when I hit the first dirt road I discovered that it was freshly laid with new gravel, the big, chunky kind. My pace slowed a lot as checked my handwritten directions and tried not be bounced all over the road. I chose to ride my cyclocross bike instead of my mountain bike thinking it would be faster for my first time on the route. However, it didn't take long for me to start wishing for some suspension.

I made it McGowen Rd., which is a remote DNR access road that goes through some sort of protected wetland area. There was no traffic and I was thinking how great it would be lead a group of mountain biking ladies on this ride in the next couple of weeks. Singletrack riding is hard to come by in the winter in Indiana and the route was turning out out to be a pretty acceptable substitute.

Then I came to a flooded part of the road. There was a stretch of shoulder that was mostly above water, except for about a three foot wide strip. I started carefully riding across, anxious to get on with my adventure. As I came up to the narrow strip of water I notice I couldn't see the bottom, but the water so murky I wasn't too surprised. The shoulder wasn't that high so I expected nothing but a small dip as I started to ride across.

Wrong. I watched helplessly as my whole front wheel sunk in, then my drops, all the way to my brake hoods before I finally endoed completely onto the other side of the pit. It didn't hurt too bad, but I was pretty much soaked except for bits of my head, chest, and shoulders. Then my left calf completely cramped up as I unclipped and my bike completely submerged save one brake hood. I was face with the quick decision of what to do first: save my bike or stretch my calf. I saved the bike and the calf would continue to hurt for days.

At this point, I really should have turned around and gone home ASAP, but I'd been wanting a chance to do this ride forever and I'd already delayed my schedule by one day. So I decided I wasn't THAT cold and pushed on. I was fine for the next 60-90 minutes that I was on McGowen road, as it was rough, narrow, and had some killer climbs. I was staying warm and enjoying the spectacular winter views of the ridges, valleys, and river down below.

Unfortunately, once I hit the end McGowen, I came to a smoother road with no signs and I started to doubt my navigational skills. I started to chill very fast on the new road as I was not working as hard and going faster. I took a wrong turn and didn't realize it until I hit a dead end 2.5 hours into the ride. At this point, I could not longer feel my hands or feet and just wanted to be home. I knew I was probably over halfway through the loop, but in the interest of not making any more mistakes, I decided it was safer to go back the way I came. I really struggled to make it home since my numb hands wouldn't let me shift well or brake on the sketchy gravel downhills. I put in a lot of hike-a-bike time.

I got home well after dark, which was scary, and I ended up with 33.3 miles in over 4.5 hours. I have to say the experience will probably be my new "worst time on a bike" for my 2008 Velo Bella profile, but it is a terrific route and I will definitely be conquering it in the near future, now that I've learned a couple of valuable lessons, of course.

Training Camp

I just have been in a very bloggy mood since Christmas. That's probably okay since last week was very boring training-wise and nothing really happened worth telling about. Mainly just the same ol' strength and trainer workouts that I've been doing for a while. The only weird part was that Coach Dave gave be a rare SATURDAY day off, which was incredible, but also weird since I had the opportunity to ride in daylight and decent weather for January (40's and no rain or snow) and didn't. The weirdness continued on Sunday when it was in the 60's, but I had a one-hour trainer workout on my schedule.

I could have protested, but I've strongly committed to doing the workouts I've been assigned. Plus, this is going to be my first big week of 2008 at a whopping 11.5 hours. ;) I figured I would soak in the easiness while I could.

However, yesterday's wind and thunderstorm threw a small monkey wrench in my plans. I was supposed to have Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons off and do long rides, but the weather required me to move my long rides to today and tomorrow instead. Not a major deal, but kind of annoying.

So this afternoon I'm taking off a 45 mile dirt road ride that I've never done before. Apparently, it's pretty hard and the directions are pretty complicated, so I'm sort of nervous, as well as excited. I'm a little worried about being so deep into hillybilly country all by myself, but I usually don't let things like that bother me so I'll try to get over it. I was going to do it on my MTB to simulate the Ouachita Challenge and Mohican 100, minus the singletrack parts mixed in. (It's very hard to get in any singletrack time this time of year since the trails are so muddy.) However, since it's my first time, I'm going out on my 'cross bike since it's a little faster and I don't want to be stuck out after dark if things go badly.

Party Animal

So here's my New Year's Eve:

I worked from 8-5 since I didn't really have a good excuse not to and I'm sure I'll want to use my acquired time off for training or racing at some other point in the future. After work I stopped by the library rechecked a book I hadn't finished yet and went to Krazy Kroger to refill a prescription(you know what I mean; every town has a ghetto Kroger that's a little scary to go in). Then I came home and devoured the remaining mini-loaf of banana nut bread left from Christmas and a bag of chocolate-covered pecans as my day's attempt at sugar-detox blew up in my face.

Then I preceded to watch a major portion of Big Love: Season Two on DVD while I shelled the gigantic paper grocery bag of pecans that my mom sent home with me for Christmas. Around 10 p.m. the bread and pecans were semi-digested and I figured I better quite procrastinating and go do my leg workout. By the time I did my workout, got showered, and cleaned the litter box it was just about time to go sit in front of the TV with my husband and watch the ball drop at midnight. How exciting!

The problem with New Year's is that it is too darn close Christmas. I'm pretty over the whole holiday thing at that point and want to avoid any feasting or partying for a while.

New Year's day itself was a bit of a bust, too. I was looking forward to getting to ride outside on my day off, but when I got up it was snowing much harder than the flurries that had been predicted. I was disappointed, but at the same time I was feeling completely lazy and gross, so it was probably just as well. One has to really want it to go outside in 20 degrees, 20+ mph wind, and snow. I went out in the car later in the day and came to the conclusion that I made the right decision by staying indoors. I did to the interval portion of my prescribed workout on the trainer, but it was pretty half-hearted and left my 1:10 short of the prescribed saddle time.

I'm hoping the training and diet ennui wears off soon as my first "mini training camp" is next week. Since it's dark by the time I get off work in the winter and I have nearly 200 hours of paid time off racked up, I've decided to schedule two-day "training camps" during the second and third week of my January, Febuary, and March training cycles. I think this will really help bring up my training hours and will probably boost morale quite a bit, too.