Easy rider

I took it easy the past couple of weeks. On Monday April 26, I rode 18 miles on the mountain bike and found that it needed a new cassette. The new chain kept on slipping over the older cogs. Since I did not have a mountain cassette I used a SRAM 9 speed road cassette. The biggest cog is a 23, which on a mountain bike looks minuscule.

On Tuesday I rode on rollers for an hour, including a hard 20 minutes. I also recalibrated my power meter and was able to ride 320+ watts for 20 minutes.

On Wednesday I ran 6.5 miles in the hills.

On Thursday I did some coaching on the Bear's loop in preparation for the upcoming Berkeley Hills Road Race. We practiced several skills and overall I had a great time.

Friday I rode 31 miles to the top of Redwood.

All in all it was a pretty average week.

On May 1 we went to Los Altos for Cat's Hill, and then took off after to Monterey for the NorCal mountain bike league race at Fort Ord. Both days I rode around Fort Ord on my Kuota, exploring the Sea Otter Road Race course. On Sunday I rode over to Laguna Seca and watched the cars for a while. There was quite a bit of wind coming off the Pacific and under those conditions riding was pretty hard.

Monday, May 3rd I rode 45 miles through Orinda and Moraga and up Redwood. On Tuesday I rode another 35. Then on Wednesday I flew to Chicago to lead a panel on neurogenesis at the BIO meeting. I spent most of my day traveling but was able to go swimming for 45 minutes in a hotel pool that was as hot as a sauna. Even though the pool was a lap pool designed for workouts, the water temperature made any hard effort impossible to sustain.

On Thursday I swam another 45 in that same pool, which by the way was located on the 30th floor and had a great view of Lake Michigan. I also rode for 15 minutes on a stationary bike. Today, I rode 40 miles to Lafayette and back. This weekend is the Berkeley Hills Road Race in Orinda.

Riding to recover

My calf muscles were pretty beat up from the Boston marathon. They have been hurting all week and I was stiff and had trouble getting up. At night I was restless and woke up many times. Walking did help but running was pretty much out of the question -until yesterday when I took a brief jog in a parking lot. So I have been riding my bike. Swimming might have helped better but we no longer have our pool membership so biking was my only option.

After flying back on Tuesday, April 20, I rode for 35 min on rollers Wednesday. Surprisingly enough I could ride pretty well and even spinning at a high cadence was no problem. Getting off the bike though was less than pleasant. It felt as if I had been sitting for hours. It is remarkable how different parts of the muscle are used for different activities. Sore from running worked fine for biking and I have experienced the opposite in IM races.

On Thursday I rode 28 miles, including a climb up Redwood Road. Then on Friday I rode the Briones loop, affectionately known as "The Bears" in Berkeley. I added Pig Farm hill just to top 21 miles. Saturday I took Alistair to the Wente Road Race and rode some 15 miles in Livermore, up Patterson Pass Rd. and up Altamont and Flynn Road. I climbed Flynn a few times which was great fun.

On Sunday I rode the loop over Altamont, Midway and Patterson Pass. The weather was great and the winds were calm, which made for a pleasant ride. Normally, the loop can be a real challenge. The west winds usually start before noon and one goes out with a monster tailwind, flying down Altamont at 40 mph, only to hit the wall at Midway and suffer a constant headwind up Patterson. None of that I am happy to say. Just a calm breeze to keep things honest.

a solid week

On Monday and Tuesday I rode 40 miles, all at a very good pace. On Monday I rode to Orinda, then Moraga and over Redwood. On Tuesday I rode down Wildcat, over the backside of Papa Bear and Happy Valley and then back to Wildcat. Both rides burned in excess of 2,000 calories -with my newly calibrated power meter. On Monday I had some trouble with the speed readout as it turned out the pickup unit got mangled between the wheel and the chainstay after I had a flat on the Specialized team ride.

On Wednesday I ran 10.5 miles in the hills (i.e. the Montclair-Shepherd Cyn, Loop). On Thursday I ran 7.25 because I did not have time to go longer. I had originally planned to run 10.5 twice. There was a nice symmetry to my plan. Two days of 40 mile rides and 2 days of 10.5 miles running.

Friday I rode on rollers (without the forkstand) for 1:15 and burned a good 1,033 calories in the process. Today I rode 42 miles completing the South Loop of the Grizzly Century. That took 2,122 calories. Tomorrow I want to ride another 40 and then on Monday I will take a rest day.

In case you wonder, I am not training for anything in particular, but I would like to keep my fitness high so I can attempt a long distance cycling event early next year. As long as the weather cooperates -and if anything it is too hot now- I want to try to ride and run as much as I can.

I am still debating whether or not I will sign up for Boston. If I do it will probably be the last time I go there -it is too far really- and three is a good number. On the other hand, I am already stuck with another Lake Placid and so I am not sure I want to add another remote race to my calendar while I should be focusing on distance cycling.

The other problem is that both Placid and Boston coincide with a major cycling event that Alistair will take part in. Boston is on the same date as Sea Otter and LP happens during Nationals. This year I missed Sea Otter, which was a shame, and I only made it to part of Nationals, which was a hassle and quite expensive to boot.

Added on Sunday: rode 60 miles with Alistair. We rode the "fruitstand ride" starting from our house. Added a few sprints here and there and kept a good pace overall. We stopped in Danville to get some fluids and then again in Moraga. Total time was 3:45.