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Infinitely Sustainable Pace

hiking stowe pinnacle

Friday's plan called for an hour hike so I headed up to the Stowe Pinnacle trail. I thought that snow conditions would be pretty good for a snowshoe/crampon-less hike, and i was right. there was good traction and a well packed down trail. The weather was warming up a bit, mid-twenties and the sun was even poking through the clouds.

There was a couple in the parking lot when i arrived. they were trying to use every piece of brand new gear they purchased: snowshoes, poles, gators, crampons, hand warmers. i jumped out of the car and started my stopwatch and headed up before that expedition started clogging up the trail.

It's a steady, fairly steep climb - though not as steep as most trails around these parts. because i didn't have a lot of time. I was aiming for the vista, not quite the top. 

It took me 40 minutes to reach the vista and the views were gorgeous. I hung out and snapped some photos and then took off down the mountain. Sliding down the steep parts and running the not-so-steep, I got down in half the time it took me to go up. But the day after I realized that running wasn't such a hot idea. My quads are really painful and it was challenging to do a high tempo workout on the bike the following day. Two days later, they're still hurting and I'm facing a long ride with fried legs.

seeing results

For anyone who lives in any sort of a metropolitan area, this might sound strange. But for others like me who live 45 minutes from the nearest shopping area of merit, you might understand. I never get out to go shopping for clothes. Not unless I'm traveling for work or perhaps if I'm visiting parents. Which means when I need new things I often order them online, sight unseen, fit untried. Sometimes this works out great, sometimes not so great. It's okay, I've given myself permission to return anything that's no good.

Last december I did an order from Boden, they have some good stuff for work and were having a nice sale. In addition to my new favorite cashmere sweater, I also got a pair of jeans. Jeans are hard. Every pair fits differently and may or may not look good on any particular person. So I got these new jeans. I pulled them on. they came up over my hips - but zipping and buttoning was impossible. Not going to happen. No twisting, pulling, jumping, writhing was going to get those jeans to close. But I liked them, and I wanted them. And since I was already at the beginning of this training thing - i didn't send them back. I stuck them in the drawer and decided to wait it out.

This morning, I thought it was a good day for a clean pair of jeans. For some reason I grabbed the ones I stuck away almost two months ago. and i decided to give them a try. I pulled them up over my hips, then I zipped them all the way up, and I did the button. They fit! They really fit. They're on the snug side, but seems like you're supposed to have tight jeans these days. It's just awesome to see that what I'm doing is working.

trainer time

This was my view for an hour and a half today. Same on the schedule for tomorrow. It's doable, but it's not fun. Neither would be riding outside in  this cold, cold  weather.

Honestly, it wasn't as  bad as I was expecting.

It's been a rough week. Since AZ I've had an insatiable hunger. Just can't seem to stop eating. Some of it is okay but some is not so good. Fruit binge i can live with.  Cookie binge is bad. so my weight is now showing some of  my inability to control myself, and that bums me out. I know that in the big scheme of  things I'll get back to normal eating and i'll return to where I was going - but still it makes me sad. wish i had better self control.

Now i have to work on designing the new Bike29 race kit. I'm not really feeling very inspired, so i'll go surf around the web a little trying to get some ideas. Wishing that we'd finish moving the computer upstairs so i could work on the design layout without freezing. Also working on my to-do list, all the stuff i've been meaning to do but haven't. Race kits, sock order, new biz cards for George, web updates, blog changes, etc......i need  to write it down  to have a chance  in hell of actually doing  it.

cross ride 1.30.09

January 30, 2009

28 degrees

very cloudy

My plan called for a cross bike ride today. I checked the weather yesterday and it was calling for a high in the upper 20's which fits within my parameters for 'warm enough' to ride outdoors. So i started to pull together all the stuff. tights, warm socks, shoe covers, foot warmers, layers, merino wool, balaclava, big jacket. on-and-on-and-on-and-on. that's a lot of stuff and i was sorely reminded about how little I needed in AZ last weekend.

I launched my ride (once the temp hit it's high point for the day) from my gym down the street. We have a shower and changing room at work, but i'm just not that keen to have all my co-workers gawking at me as i clump out to go for a ride. i'd rather have strangers gawking at the oddball going out to ride a bike. 

The ride was about 75% paved roads and 25% dirt. A little sloppy, mostly it wasn't too bad out there. the dirt roads were slick under the slush and i ended up letting some air out of my tires for the 2nd dirt section for additional traction which helped a lot.

In the end I really enjoyed the ride. After my last snowy ride, which was miserable cold, I was apprehensive and not really looking forward to it. But putting more thought into my route (more climbing, as little descending as possible) made a big difference.

SSAZ09

We own a bike shop. this means that George and I can never travel anywhere together from March through November. We also live in VT where it is very cold and snowy these days. I decided that this year, we were going to take a trip somewhere warm during those few months that we can actually escape. We're not really beach people, prefering the active getaway. So when Deejay started talking about SSAZ in Tucson, our decision was pretty easy. We were headed to AZ to ride singlespeeds in the desert.

The first couple of days in Tucson it was raining. Pouring at times. At least it was a warm rain, but I was really hoping for some sunshine. We had to get up wicked early on Saturday morning to make it over to the starting park, as we drove there the moisture had made fog as thick as pea soup. Temps weren't bad for us northerners, i didn't bother with arm or leg warmers to start - wasn't that cold.Above is the starting group. There were about 60 riders headed up, only 5 of them were women including myself.
We left the staging park and rolled out en mass to the starting line, chit chatting and getting to know some of the other riders.
The first part was a long fireroad climb. You can see in the photo above that i'm pretty much solo at this point. There were a couple of people behind me somewhere, which made me feel just a little bit better. But, you see, it was all part of my strategy. I knew it was going to be a long day and I wasn't going to waste all my energy on the fireroad and have nothing left for the singletrack. Besides, I had a backpack full of food and water and nothing better to do than ride my bike all day. Why rush things?
Here I am rolling up to the first aid station, end of the fireroad climbing part. You can see that there are others here, I wasn't actually too far behind. George and I headed out together onto a super fun singletrack section. It was fast and smooth and just amazing. It was still early in the morning, so the light was perfect and the whole desert riding experience was really amazing. It wasn't too long when we caught up to a pair of riders fixing a flat. We passed them there, but ended up riding with them for a little while afterwards.
Above you can get an idea of the landscape and the beautiful day. So different than VT riding and such a nice change from snow.
Due to all the rain they head earlier in the week, all the washes and streams were flowing. The first half of the ride was definitely a wet feet ride with loads of crossings. Some you could ride, others got a little deep and George wasn't keen on me to submerse my hubs. I wore the wrong socks for this ride, I should have scrounged up some wool socks as the synthetics rubbed wrong when they were wet and I was hiking - which was unfortunately pretty frequently.

So after the superfun singletrack, came some steep climbing and lots of stream crossings. Followed by fire road climbing and descending. This area is heavily used by off-road vehicles and we saw a lot of them. They were all quite friendly and courteous and looked like they were having a blast. It seemed to take forever to get to the next rest stop - you know it's coming up, you just have to get back to the main road but it was taking forever. I was already tired at this point and we'd been at it for 3 and a half hours - the amount of a normal long ride for me. And we were only about half way done. I knew George was feeling it to - after all, he hadn't been on his bike for a month. We agreed that we were going to ride on at a totally sustainable pace and we were going to finish the whole ride.

So back on up the fireroad to the other aid station for a beer. We were right on the heels of a group of 3 guys and there were a couple of other riders just hanging out there drinking in the sun and beer. After eating as much food as we could stomach, off we went for more singletrack. This stuff was pretty fun too, though more climbing in the first part. It would have been more fun with fresh legs, but I certainly enjoyed it.

After a little while we joined forces with the group of three in front of us. They had one guy who was not doing well and they were locals and knew where we were going and what sort of terrain lay ahead. Towards the end the trail got really technical and rocky and rough. I was beat and having a hard time steering and braking appropriately and was definitely walking a lot of the stuff. There were cacti of all sorts all along the trail, and landing on one was not something I wanted to do. Sure enough, I fell over at one point. Thought I was good, but when I stood up there was a cacti ball lodged in my butt. You cannot pull them off like burdock seeds, i tried.
Anyway, we made it to the end. 48.5 miles on a mountain bike with only one speed. It took us 8+ hours, but we weren't last and there was still beer and pizza left when we got there. I'm stoked. Three months ago i was in the cardiologist office on a treadmill trying to figure out why my heart didn't work right when exercising. I didn't know if I would ever get to have a good ride or run again. And so it was just a huge personal victory to do this ride.

saturday - january 17

we've been in the middle of a major cold 'snap'. seriously. it was -33* degrees when I woke up on Friday morning. You know it's cold when 9* feels warm and toasty.

there's been a lot of time spent on indoor bikes this week. frankly i'm tired of it - but it is what it is. Since it's Saturday and it was -20* this morning and no new snow, i headed out to get my workouts done first thing in the morning.

First up, a delightful pilates class. Challenging, but still fun. Then onto the bike for an hour. However, since I haven't done laundry in a long time, I didn't actually have any sports bras or bike shorts in any type of condition to wear. I ended up going with a yoga top and the unders to an old Nema bike kilt. Those suckers are short. Honestly, the lovely women on Rock of Love wear more clothes than I had on for this ride. 

Made it through and it was actually a good workout. The sun is shining and K and the dog and I spent some time out of doors for the first time in many days. I pulled out my old Kona and started to get the dog accustomed to running next to the bike. But I guess he got tired cause after a couple of trips up and down our road he refused to go farther.

It's really going to happen

View of the full moon over the Green Mountains from the plane as I was landing at BTV on 1/10/09. Click to see larger and check out the bridge and waterfall in lower left corner.

Last week the posted the registration form for SSWC09. I colored it in and sent it in right away - even though as a woman I'm guaranteed a place on the start list as long as I pay my $35 USD. BTW - i think it is very cool that they've done this for the ladies. It's such a male dominated sport in general and particularly with the SS category. I bet they'll see a ton more female participation this way.





Anyway. So I'm on the list. I'm paid. I'm signed up and I'm going. Which means I've got to be ready. I can't go out there and ride like the lazybones that I've been for the past few years. That's not going to work in this instance.





All things considered, the fact that I began this training as winter arrived. The fact that it's been freezing cold and snowing. The fact that I've got a job and family to juggle - I think i'm doing well. The workouts are happening. I'm enjoying them. and I'm seeing results. So here's my big goal - it's concrete. No longer am I wondering if I'm putting in my base miles for naught. It's on.

Monday - January 5

January 5
Singlespeed ride
30 degrees (ish)
Not enough clothing
1:40
Picking up the new pooch took all of the day on Sunday, and with family visiting I had no opportunity to fit in a long ride on the weekend. Seemed the right thing to do to squeeze it in on Monday, besides it was going to be a whole 30 degrees which seemed a lot more palatable than 16 degrees.

Sure enough it was 'warmer', but the wind was blowing, the roads were slushy, wet, sloppy and for some reason no matter which way I went there wasn't enough climbing. I was freezing on this ride. Hands. Feet. Core. Just completely chilled and uphappy.
I rode in Stowe and headed up Nebraska Notch road to the Trout Club. That was an enjoyable climb, mostly in the saddle with my gearing. The Weirwolfs did great at about 20 psi on the roads which were covered in about 1" of new snow on top of old crunchy snow. Not much ice on the dirt roads yesterday.
Here's the dam at the Trout Club lake. The water was still flowing over the ice and it was very pretty.

Although I was aiming for a LONG ride, I just couldn't stay out any longer. Sucks because I know that I'll be wishing I had a lot more hours in the saddle when we're in AZ. But at least I don't have frostbite I guess.

why my long ride didn't happen today

Because we had to go on an 8 hour excursion to get this guy.  But I am going to reschedule for tomorrow. It's supposed to be a lot warmer tomorrow than it was today and warmer makes it a lot easier for spending hours and hours out on a ride. And by warmer, i mean 27 instead of 13 degrees.

January 2

Attempting to start the new year right. I was up extra early this morning and hit the gym. I sat on that bike and started pedaling and just felt like crud.  Like that cold that i've been so smug about not getting was being gotten.

My heartrate wouldn't really go up. My tv wouldn't do the closed captioning thing. It was a pretty miserable morning on the bike.

New Years Eve workout struggles

Today the Universe seemed to throw every obstacle in my workout path. It started out well enough, I got my body out the door and off to the gym. However, when I arrived I looked into my bag and realized that I didn't have my spd bike shoes. I didn't even have my sneakers. Just some snowboots. I did have my Speedplay bike shoes still in the car, and I guess I could have used them in the toe straps, but I didn't think about that and I went to work instead of the gym.

K had a friend over this afternoon and I was planning to ride the trainer while those guys kept each other entertained. But then I couldn't find the trainer. I thought it was at the shop but eventually, while cleaning up some junk, I found it in a corner and set it up for a ride.

One hour. That's as long as I could make it. The trainer is too loud to hear the audio on the computer and so it's pretty mind-numbingly boring. I only had to stop twice to check on the boys/mediate.

I put the Van Dessel on there because it had pedals. The plan is that the Soma will live on the trainer with a trainer tire in the back. But I only have two pair of pedals, one on the SS and the other on the VD. I don't want to constantly switch them (laziness) and Santa didn't bring me another pair but I hope he does cause i want to be able to ride the cross bike on the road outside this winter while still having an indoor set-up ready to go in a pinch.

This set-up is in our basement which I am actively working on tidying up to make it more conducive for kids/adults.

Christmas Day Ski

This is a bit out of order. But i'm finally home and have access to the shots from our Christmas day ski. My cousin and her husband came up to VT from VA for a skiing holiday. Unfortunately for them, we had a big warm up and the snow conditions were less than optimal.

But these folks are tough and fit and I wasn't about to let them come all the way up here without a quality outing. Off we went to the Waterbury Resevoir where we embarked on a 4 hour tour.

The temperature was pleasant. The sun was pale and soft in the sky. The trails largely untracked and the snow mostly crap. We had a tough, steep climb followed by a less steep slog. The lead person had quite a job laying tracks and the fun of the whole thing was compounded by numerous open water bars. 

Finally, after a couple of hours we made it to the 'road.' For some reason, no snowmobiles had been by recently which meant that the snow was SOLID. Rock hard. I'm not a good skier. It's fine on anything that goes up or stays flat, but if i start descending i'm a mess. No idea why. I skied downhill very proficiently for 12 years. I snowboard well. I like snow. Just can't do the downhills on cross country skis. Anyway, this is where we started going downhill and I started to go down.

We took a turn that I was familiar with and cruised down a wide open fire road. All was well and good until we discovered that the bridge was out. This led to an amusing stream crossing. When we finally skied up to the car, 4 hours after starting out, we were all happy to be done. And I was pretty stoked that I managed to tucker those guys out and give them way more of a ski than they were expecting.

Down in PA

It's the end of the year, a few vacation days left, daycare is closed and the ski pass is not valid between christmas and new years. So I headed on down to my parents in PA with K in hopes that I'd be able to get some good riding done.

Doesn't it just figure that this is the year that PA gets a white christmas. It was 38 degrees on Saturday when George and I attempted a singlespeed ride in Jim Thorpe. It was also very snowy. 4-6" of wet, slushy snow. We got a nice hill climb up a road, but as soon as we turned onto the fireroad it was a nightmare. Running low tire pressure with my easy gearing allowed me to ride fairly smoothly, but George was really having a rough time. In a way it was making me laugh, all those lectures he's given me about tire pressure and tire selection and weight balance and riding in the snow - all those things that I was actually doing (and have been doing for weeks) and they were working for me. He hadn't even followed his own advice and it showed.

Today I went out on the cross bike and was hoping for several hours of fun riding. However, about an hour into the ride the wind picked up. Gusts were pushing me off the bike, the sky was getting dark and I was not stoked to be out on those roads in that weather. I'm just not used to riding with all this traffic. More intimidating than the volume of cars is the fact that people don't get over. In VT cars give you wide berth if no one is coming opposite, and if someone is coming they still give you as much room as possible and pass with great care. Not here. No shoulders, no space, no respect. So hard to feel comfortable on these roads.

Christmas Eve Ride

December 24
29 degrees
Snowing
Singlespeed - one hour

Gear - 2 polypro layers on top, all winter gear, with the addition of my softshell Cloudveil pants that I normally wear x-country skiing, balaclava.

I played fast and loose with my plan today and swapped the Wednesday and Thursday schedules. And then, instead of riding inside - I rode my SS outside. And instead of following it up with a weight workout - I started my day with some pilates. crazy, absolutely crazy.

I stood in the garage doing eeny-meeny-miney-moe to pick what bike to ride. In the end, I went with the SS for two reasons. #1 - I missed it and wanted to ride it. #2 - I felt the tires might be a better choice for today.

It was snowing pretty hard. I would have been happy to have goggles for this ride. The climb part was sloppy and I found myself riding in the middle of the road for optimal traction. Good thing the traffic was light to non-existent. Still, I wasn't breaking any speed records today. The bike picked up a lot of extra weight. See what I mean:

Today's ride was a blast, I wish I had more time and some goggles as it would have been a great day for a longer ride.

Diversions - December 23

Today the plan was to head up to the mountain and grab a few runs before work in the fresh snow that fell Sunday/Monday. Monday was a super windy day, so generally the day after you can still find stashes of powder seemingly untouched.

However, turns out that today was bitterly cold. On the walk back from the bus stop those old frost bite patches were twinging and we weren't outside for longer than 15 minutes. Come to find out that it's -15 degrees outside. No wonder the face was cold. It was totally calm, so windchill wasn't the issue. Just the temp being so low. I thought about going up anyway, but really I'm not that into getting more frostbite so it was off to work.

Today was the office holiday pot luck - and it was full of lucky pots. I ate way too much food followed by too many sweets. So it was off to the gym for me. Another hour on the inside bike and honestly it was a good ride today. I pushed the pace and kept the legs moving fast and the hour flew by. Then I had to get back to the office to finish up a few things. I can't seem to find a way to fit these weight workouts into the schedule. Just have to make time I suppose and be a more dedicated to making the workouts happen.

Anyway, I get back to the office and find this set up outside my office:

It's like a rumpus room up here right now.

Oh - and the best news? I booked our flights to SSAZ today. We are going to AZ for some warm weather biking and I can't wait.

oh the snow

We all knew it was coming. Winter. And it's here.

Sunday dawned grey and gloomy, the forecast was no good. George headed up to the mountain and I got K ready to go up and do a few runs on the bunny slope. Between starting the car up and actually leaving the driveway the snow started to fall hard and fast. By the time we were coming off the mountain at noon it was piling up significantly and we were far from the rumored high temps in the mid 20's.

it was at this point that i knew that my planned afternoon ride was going to be a bust. the road conditions were pitiful and plow trucks were out in force, not a good time for a cyclist. Temps were only 15 degrees, my feet just aren't equipped for that low. I thought about the gym, but honestly driving back to Stowe was not sounding like a wise choice.

So i just laid low. Oh well. And to top off Sunday, today I didn't want to go to yoga. We're getting a new instructor on Monday nights and I'm just not that into her style. It'll be fine, i just need to mourn the loss of the old instructor.

I did however go to the gym and sit on that damn bike for over an hour and pretended like I was riding over my favorite hills on my singlespeed. The glimmer of hope in my future? Looks like 50's for the mid-atlantic region later this week. I'm looking forward to riding outside and not totally freezing.

December 19 - hiking

December 19
19 degrees
snowing

so, my goal was to hike for an hour. I debated where to go and whether or not I should trail run instead or ski or what-have-you. I ended up choosing the Stowe Pinnacle Trail which is in general, one of the most accommodating trails around. It's not nearly as steep as most and it's only 1.6 miles to the top.

What i wasn't sure about was the conditions. And sure enough, they sucked. 6-8 inches of fresh, fluffy snow on top of shear ice. It wasn't all ice. Just the parts with an incline. Which is 90% of the trail. In the beginning it wasn't too bad. A few people had been there and the trail was tamped down enough to be passable.

But after a certain point I was breaking trail. At this point i needed to watch for the blazes and watch my footing.


This is where it started to get really treacherous. All of the rocks, of which there are many, were covered in a layer of thick, slick ice. There was nothing for traction. So, after 40 minutes of up, i gave up and turned around. Good thing, cause it took me 30 minutes to get down (about 15 minutes more than it should have). There were a few crashes and there were lots of feet skiddering out from under me at totally random moments.

Right now I'm feeling stoked that I got out without breaking a wrist or a femur or something like that. The positive side is that it was beautiful in the woods and the snow was just starting. Very quiet and calm and nice to get outside for a little while. And really a good workout. Despite the tricky footing, my heartrate was up the whole time.

12/16 and 12/17

On Tuesday - I won.  It was a nutty day with lunch out and a work dinner and I didn't know where I was going to fit in my ride. But I ended up having some time in the early evening and I slipped over to the gym. Those 45 minutes on the bike flew by, I didn't want them to end.

But yesterday - I lost. I had a meeting scheduled for 10:30 with my boss's boss. He was running late, it got pushed and pushed and pushed. And I kept thinking that any moment it was my time. It finally happened at 4:50. For ten minutes. 

Meanwhile, George has K on Wed and I could tell that it just wasn't going that well for him and me going to the gym for 2+ hours after work wasn't going to be an option. I hadn't been home for two nights at this point, and that's just not right. So, I sucked it up and went home and had no workout.

Today, my plan is to do yesterday's long ride. And lift when I get home. It's warm enough that I could ride outside this afternoon, but pulling all the gear together for a 25 degree ride from work seems really daunting. So i think i'll just throw a movie in and ride this afternoon inside.

12/16 Fitting it all in

I woke up today determined to have my butt to the gym directly after loading K on the bus. But then I realized, that I don't get done with bus duty until 7. By the time I got to the gym, rode for an hour and got to work that'd i'd be later than I should be.

But - my salad was made and I was feeling pretty organized. So I took care of some business and did a 20 minute weight workout and aimed to get to work early to make my afternoon workout less guilty.

Then - I realized that I have a holiday lunch date today. And I have a dinner with the boss of my boss.

I believe that I can fit my ride in directly after work and before dinner. Or, I'll sneak out mid-afternoon and just work until dinner. The hard part about doing this training is not the workouts, that's the fun part. The hard part is arranging schedules and owing favors and managing guilty feelings to get it done.