Long Time Gone

It's been three long weeks now,
Since Blowout Mountain blew me out,
But I'm gettin' it back on the dirt now,
But I'm takin' the long way 'round.

The last week and a half has been insanely busy with work craziness and getting back into training, so I'll try to be short 'n' sweet as I can on the catch-up.

Last week was essentially cycling rehab for me as I ditched my scheduled workouts and just tried to get back in the habit of getting on my bike ever day. Work was really stressful and just getting on the bike for an hour or so a day was about all I had in me.

Saturday I returned to formal training with 3 hours on singletrack at Brown County State Park with 4 X 3 minutes hill repeats thrown in the middle. It was hard and kind of clumsy at first, but it helped me get my dirt mojo back and allowed me to earn my first Big Ugly Black Bruise of the season:

I've been thinking that my blog needs more pictures, but as you can see, my camera phone quality isn't the best. You get the idea though.

Don't worry; it wasn't a bad crash. I just banged my leg on the handlebars after my bike came to an inadvertent stop trying to roll over a large root.

Sunday Chrysa and I went to the course for the coming weekend's XC race to pre-ride and there happened to be a dirt TT going on while we were there. They were paying well and there was only one other expert woman so I decided to enter. I was doing really well until about halfway through I blew a tire and managed to pinch a hole in my replacement tube trying to change it. Doh! I ended up walking the rest of the way back, but I got $40 for it, so I can't complain.

I'm getting pretty tired of going on long walks with my bike, but I supposed that when I finally make it to the La Ruta I will be the most experienced hike-a-biker there.

Finally, tonight was more hill reps on the mountain bike, but I opted to do them at our local mountain bike park which is within riding distance rather than go to Brown County. I already used way too much gas over the weekend and have a lot of driving to do on Saturday as well. The problem with having such a nice trail 30 minutes away (by car) is that the local trail is falling into sad disrepair. It's located next to some low-income housing and there seems to be a very high scary people to mountain biker ratio, so I don't really like going out there by myself anymore. Tonight was okay as it was a little cold; there were no hanger-outers to make me nervous.

So with that, I will leave you with one final low quality picture:

This is a very important purchase for mountain biking season: bandages that match my team kit! If you're going to beat the crap out of yourself, you might as well make it look cute, right?

Happy Cows and Tiger Eyes

Risin' up, back on the street,
Did my time, took my chances,
Went the distance now I'm back on my feet,
Just a girl and her will to survive...

I made it through my stomach pain, yet never got a diagnosis. Apparently my blood work indicated nothing more than minor inflammation (which could be anything) and any malady that would normally cause pain like that should have come with nausea and vomiting. Luckily, it went away on it's own, but really wish they would've found an explanation.

I did an easy hour ride today and should resume fully normal training by next week, but I will be missing the first cross country race of the season tomorrow. It's technically a "practice race" and doesn't count for points or prizes, but it's a fun course and it makes me sad to miss it. However, racing tomorrow sounds like a good way to relapse, which I absolutely don't want to do. So, just a couple of easy hours on the road for me.

During my couch confinement for the last week, I got pretty well caught up on my DVD watching, but more importantly I read an eye-opening article in Velonews. I generally don't pay much attention to the training articles, as I have a coach to tell me what to do, but the latest issue intrigued me. It had to do with Rick Crawford's CNS scoring, which I have been logging in for my coach for months, but didn't fully understand what I was doing.

CNS stands for Central Nervous System and the article was about measuring and balancing different types of stress and recovery in a more holistic way than just hard and easy days on the bike. More importantly, he used the analogy (and we're going to assume this is true and not just an annoying cheese ad campaign) that cows produce more/better milk when they are happy and cyclists produce more/better results when they are "happy".

So after two weeks of travel, work stress, and illness, the pursuit of happiness was heavily on my mind already. It turns out that Happy Zen Lindsay has the potential to be even faster than Angry Lindsay, and much more consistently, at that. Of course, I already knew that on an intuitive level or I wouldn't have been trying to focus on the mind/spirit aspect of my training for several weeks already. Unfortunately, it's a long confusing process and it's a little hard to come to a conclusion about what would make me truly "happy" now.

I actually visited our local "Zen community" last Sunday, which is convenient, since it's 1 1/2 blocks from my house. I'm still a little confused though. Basically, I think it comes down to that after some practice I should learn to neutralize my emotional state and learn to live in the moment. The practice should help me learn not to let my level of happiness hang on ever-changing circumstances that are beyond my control. We'll see.

More in tune with the article though, I started brainstorming on ways to make an immediate reduction in my stress scores, other than just lying to the computer program and myself as I apparently have been doing since I keep burning out before the numbers say I should. It also made me question if I'm really cut out for this if cycling doesn't intrinsically make me happy.

It's a weird question since I'll admit I'm not one of those girls who says, "I've just always liked riding my bike", because a lot of the time, I don't. However, I do LOVE racing bikes and training is just something you have to do in between. I hope that doesn't make me seem bitchy and overly competitive, because I really don't want to come off that way. I also don't want to come off like all my self-esteem is hanging on "who's ass I can kick" (although it never hurts the ego). Honestly, as cheesey as it is, my feelings can best be described as such:

It's the eye of the tiger,
It's the thrill of the fight,
Rising up to the challenge of a rival...

I really just like engaging with a competitor and really pushing myself. It's probably why I don't like just riding for training so much and why I like cycling so much better than I did triathlon. I probably would have felt the same way about running, but trying to go from a non-runner to Division I runner, I really never got good enough to race head-to-head with anyone much. I really wish I would have got to run at the high school or Division III level instead.

Anyway, I come to the conclusion that cycling does make me happy, more or less. I just need to find a way to keep the rest of my life from draining on me so much. Maybe that's where the meditation will come in. Until then I will leave you with another great quote not from the Rocky III soundtrack:

"....I realized that sometimes riding a bike is just plain not fun and too many people in the world are assholes (I've decided to stop being an asshole in order to decrease the numbers)."

-Tracy Nelson

Ummm, Barium...

First Mrs. Bigglesworth and now me. The mystery abdominal pain that slowed me down on my ride Saturday decided to stick around and get worse, so this morning I decided to see a doctor. So far, we don't have a clear diagnosis, but I do get to drink a couple of Barium "smoothies" and go back for a CT scan at 2:30. It's just goes to show that missing work isn't always fun.

Until then, I get to sit around and worry about what my diagnosis will be. I'm sort of worried it's my gall bladder and they're going to want to take it out and I won't be able to ride for another month or so. I guess it not a good idea to get too freaked out too early though. Hey, at least I should lose some weight from it, right?

Bike Race to Rat Race

I got back to Bloomington Wednesday night well-rested and ready to get back on my bike, as I had been bikeless since the end of the Ouachita Challenge. My bike rode home with my friend Chrysa on Monday and I flew home on Wednesday. Not really the best laid plans, but the brilliant travel plan that I had when I signed up back in December slowly fell apart as the race drew nearer. Oh well, you live, you learn. It was my first time "travel racing" as my husband would say.

Unfortunately, my anxiousness to start training again was completely killed my first day back at work. So much work had piled up while I was gone and I got stressed out to the point of feeling physically ill: headache, random body pains, dizziness, and nausea. That bled on into Friday and I ended up not riding until this morning.

Today's ride was my first official "mountain bike ride" of the season (last weekend was a beast all of it's own). I went to Brown County to try out my singletrack legs and found them quite lacking, even on less-techical terrain and with a non-exploding heart rate. I was riding very weak both fitness-wise and techincally. I've had stomach pains since breakfast this morning that didn't really subside for my ride, but I got the distinct feeling that I still wouldn't have exactly been a superstar otherwise.

I did get some good practice on the "fake rocks" today though. I pretty much rode out the most techical section and back to see if I'd gained any skills in last week's experience. Overall, I was actually pretty wussy, as I tend to be when I'm out of practice, but I did manage to clear the "S-shape rock garden" for the first time ever. It's considered to be one of the more difficult elements on that trail system, so that was an accomplishment.

I nine more weeks to get myself ready for the Lumberjack 100 and while podium places are probably out of reach, I would at least like to get through it with a little less pathetic suffering than Ouachita. Taking five-day breaks from riding are probably not the way to do that, but I'm going to try really hard to make sure that doesn't happen again, well, like ever... We'll see about that.

~~

In case anyone was wondering. I made the last-minute decision for Mrs. Biggleworth to have her surgery while I was out of town. I didn't want Adam to have to take care of her afterwards by himself, but the vet was leaving town the day I was getting back and I didn't want Mrs. B to have to wait two more weeks. I figured that given the choice, it was more important for the vet to be there for the surgery than me, so she had the operation while I was on my way to Arkansas.

It went really well and she's feeling much better. Now she just has a bald belly and a little strip of one front leg shaved (for the IV, I presume) that makes her look like she's wearing Uggs.

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.