Monday, December 31, 2012

Last Post of 2012

Well. I've gotten in three or four garage rides since my last post and finally got to my 5000 mile goal for the year. The final score: 194 bike rides for 5,021 miles. I rode .25 mph faster this year, which may or may not mean anything depending on the comparability of the rides.

I did a very nice metric century in Tennessee where I chased down, however briefly, some famous pro riders, completed four of six stages of Cycle Montana before falling ill, and lost about 15 pounds give or take. I also rode up Glendora Mountain Road outside of Los Angeles on the 4th of July and met Volosong and Mr Beanz on that ride. Videos and photos can be seen by scrolling back through the blog pages so I won't repost them here.  Well maybe just one (that little line behind me is the road up GMR, by the way):

I've been on prescription testosterone supplementation for nearly a year now and  almost feel like I've been aging in reverse. Middle aged men, get tested!

 
It has been a very darn good year. In 2013 I'm going to a week-long cycling camp in Rimini, Italy and will ride up Passo Gavia in mid-July. We're also going to see a stage of the Tour de France, the one on Mont Ventoux. More on that soon. For now thanks for reading and Happy New Year. 


Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The End of the Year Draws Near

Well, it's been a few hundred miles of mostly uneventful rides since my last post and it will soon be time to wrap things up for the year. My longest ride since the last post has been about 37 miles, so certainly I've done nothing epic. And I haven't been anywhere to ride either.

But there are two things worth talking about. First, I've started back running a little on the indoor track at work. I've lost enough weight to be able to do this, at least at a very easy and slow level. I kind of figured at my age "if not now, when"?  It went well until a severe calf cramp/strain put me down for a week. But I like running and intend to continue to run once a week or so.

A second at least somewhat noteworthy thing to report is that we have begun indoor training in the "Velo Garage" again. Here in Omaha outdoor riding can be limited by cold weather and winter is a good time to put in some intense work on the indoor trainer.

I reported on this at some length last year. The crew consists almost entirely of faculty and staff at the university where I work, and we generally meet twice weekly between about Thanksgiving and Easter. The sessions are usually under an hour and never more than 90 minutes, and they are designed by "Coach Dusty" a Ph.D. in exercise physiology.
I use a power meter in the indoor training sessions, which gives an objective measure of the work output for each ride, beyond just what a heart rate monitor could provide. The indoor sessions were very productive for me last year and I know they made me a stronger rider. Here's a sample workout:
My fellow travelers in the Velo Garage this year in addition to Dusty are John:
Jeff and Griff:

And Dusty's wife Megan will also be riding sometimes. Mavic is our official Mascot.
This is what the output from my power meter looks like in case you haven't seen such. Right click to see larger versions of the pictures.

I am going to post at least one more time before the end of the year to review what's been accomplished in 2012 and maybe talk about what lies ahead in 2013. (Hint: I'm going to Italy to ride.... the pics should be great!) Thanks for reading.