Arizona

I arrived in Tempe around noon today. Turned out it was already 1 PM because of the time difference. Yesterday I left the house at noon and drove to LA. Nice smooth sailing and no problems until I hit Pasadena. Then suddenly I was going with the commute flow and everything slowed to a crawl. That lasted for a hour or more and I called Barbara to see if the Hampton in Colton was available. No luck. Keep driving.

I drove 210 to San Bernadino and got gas in a rather poor neighborhood. Two guys in a pickup were intent on hassling me but some other car pulled up and they left. Lucky me. Then I made a slight detour (210 goes to 10 as one would think, but I was not sure) and made it to 10 by cutting across the city instead. I ended up pulling over in Beaumont when I saw a Hampton Inn by the side of the road. I made a quick 180 and found a bed for the night. I was pretty tired and after dinner I went to bed and slept until my 7 AM wake-up call.

I left Beaumont around 8:30 and had an uneventful trip to the outskirts of Phoenix. There I may have tripped a photo speed trap. That would be a bummer. After that I took it easier and once again I missed the exit and ended up driving through Tempe on city streets to get to my hotel. By then it was 2:30 so I did not have to wait for the room. I ate lunch and slept.

I woke up at 4:15 about one hour before sunset and quickly grabbed my bike and went on a short ride. Tempe is a very bicycle-unfriendly city, especially for a college town. You have to ride on the side-walk in most places and traffic is pretty inconsiderate. Cars try to push you off the road, and the cycle repeats at every traffic light. There are enough of these, spaced closely enough that you can easily keep up with the drivers -although they sprint from one light to the next.

A 30 minute bike ride, about 10 miles, relatively fast. Weather feels good, warm, sunny and the air is pretty clean. Everywhere you look you can see that the lycra has descended on Tempe. What you see the most of are runners looking like triathletes -somehow they look different from other runners?- everywhere.

We passed 100 donors!! Way to go!!

Carbo loading and ride

I started my carbo-loading cycle. I prefer to carbo-load the old-fashioned way. Although I realize that recent research has shown that one or two bouts of hard exercise followed by carb-rich meals can lead to equivalent loading, I do prefer the old-fashioned way of starving one self of carbs for a week, followed by two days of nothing but carbs.

The old-fashioned way has several advantages in addition to good loading. The most important ones are related to feeling hungry and keeping the weight off. Not surprisingly, after two weeks of very intense exercise and 4,000+ calorie days, I am tempted to eat too much during my taper. Now that I no longer burn 4-5,000 calories that means extra weight gain. In the past I found it was easy to gain as much as 5-10 pounds during those two to three weeks.

Not good before a long race. The other alternative is to restrain oneself and therefore constantly feel hungry, not fun!

The advantage of a low carb diet is that one does not feel hungry at all, and secondly, that one loses weight instead of gaining. Both of these are very helpful. The main disadvantage is a feeling of sluggishness, which may actually help prevent over-training, and a slight nausea from time to time. The latter is a small price to pay. I also tend to develop a craving for carbs but that does not come until the end of the week.

To start off my carb loading cycle and deplete my muscle, I rode a hard 40 miles today without eating or drinking sugary drinks. I rode a hilly course for 2:20, burning an estimated 1,940 calories, and working at an average of 220W or 258 NP W. The NP formula is an Ergomo proprietary algorithm that takes into account bouts of intense power output to give a better estimate of the difficulty of the workout. See previous posts.

I will probably do one more 40-50 mile ride and then a few short 10-20 mi rides once I get to Arizona.