WonderMonkey

8/9/2014 - Here I am in Texas learning more about nutrition, performance lines and metabolic responses. Had some tremendous discussions about training, eating, timing, etc. I really focused on being on the bike and how to maximize that time for my goals. I liked how the discussions always included spending time off the bike working on imbalances, other workouts, and recovery.

WonderMonkey

Just came back learning about many things but among them was Sports Nutrition. I'm going to be tweaking a few things based on this information. Nothing dramatic but just better.

WonderMonkey

True intervals today with my lunch riding partner.

We rode "To The Pain"

Mike: Hey let's do intervals today. Maybe a few until we start to feel it.
Steve: No. To the pain.
Mike: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
Steve: I'll explain and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.
Mike: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
Steve: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.
Mike: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Steve: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Mike: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Steve: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Mike: I think you're bluffing.
Steve: It's possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all.
[slowly rises and points bike pump directly at Mike]
Steve: RIDE... YOUR... BIKE!

WonderMonkey

Didn't get to ride this weekend and my legs feel STRONG. Really pushed them this past week and I'm ready to go on Monday. Except it's going to rain. I'm going to get out there anyway unless there are strong winds. Winds are my enemy. If the wind DOES blow I'll use the trainer a bit and do some other exercises for sure.

WonderMonkey

Did 51.x miles today. 5 am ride. On the way out it was foggy and the bike path was a bit slick with leaves and recent rain. Had to go somewhat slow out of fear of sliding off the path and over the Cliffs Of Insanity. The way back we picked up the pace and was able to end up with a 13.x mph. Speed isn't something I focus on but it's an indicator of my fitness for the distance.

WonderMonkey

I feel awesome! Fifty mile bike ride on Saturday, early workout this morning, and a 20 mile bike commute home. My energy is up, my ability to recover is high, and I feel strong! Bike commuting 20 miles back into work tomorrow morning and plan on getting there in time to do a small weight (chest, triceps) routine before I shower and start working.

There was a time that was NOT a possibility!

WonderMonkey

I'm going to get to 200 miles for the month on my commute into work tomorrow. I'm getting a bit of knee pain and I think I need to get a better fit on my bike but I'm hoping I can get to 300 miles for the month. I'd have to push pretty hard to get to it but if I can get there it will be my first ever 300 mile month.

But first... 200 miles.

MikeRides

Congrats on the progress!!! Getting to 300 miles in one month is easy to do if you start commuting daily. That's pretty much the only time I get to ride these days.

WonderMonkey

Agreed on those commuting miles adding up. I'll probably only get to do that about once a week though. I am going to start to do weekly 50 mile rides.

WonderMonkey

I've got some knee pain. Almost 100% certain it is because of my bike fit. Making an appointment to get it, my cleats, etc. setup by a well recommended person. Can't wait.

Null66

Congrats!
Everything above points to continued sustainable progress.
2 things really stand out:
with rest your legs got stronger!
And your incredibly positive attitude.
Both speak to great recovery abilities!


Life has settled down. Figured out a way to add a second commute on weeks with a good schedule. Drive up to park and ride...
PARK AND RIDE....
Cuts ~10 miles off (both ways!) but more importantly cuts out the nasty climbs on the way home!

BP meds still causing troubles. Pretty much settles it, I'm gonna have to drop weight even if it does trash my strength. Also time to start an interval a week (indoors) to try and get speed up, but more importantly the only thing that brings down blood pressure w/o nasty sides is bike rides. Oddly pressure drops after riding. It goes way up after lifting...

So gonna take your cue and start a work out log.

Glad to hear your taking knee pain serious and engaging professionals. Hopefully, its some little tweak in the fit.

WonderMonkey

In the past I've parked and rode to make my commute manageable, it's a good plan. I'm lucky in that I have a bike I keep at work (most times) and one at home. I can sneak in a ride where I can.

Are you going to keep a thread as a log? I like it as I can go back and look to see what I did in time.

As for your weight, I'm fortunate that I am on a tremendous path with it. We should chat about it at some point.

intransit1217

Loved the PB ref !

WonderMonkey

Thanks! It's one of my favorite movies.

WonderMonkey

Doing a fifty miler tonight with no stressful buildup. For those that are keeping track here it is.

Fifty Mile Biker Ride Planned ? What?s Different About This One? | 280 Dude

Fifty Mile Biker Ride Planned – What’s Different About This One?

Fifty miler. Woo. To many people that’s no big deal. To some who are just starting their biking journey it is as impossible as swimming across the ocean with an elephant on their back. Others never want to do that distance or prefer not to spend the time preparing for it. Tonight I am planing on riding 50 miles, maybe more and I’m not doing several days of planning for it. THAT is what is different about this one.

When I am going to do something that I’m on the edge of accomplishing I massively prepare for it. I do route-sheets, plan water breaks, over-eat to make sure I’m nutritionally prepared and send out 15 emails to make sure everybody is also ready. When I feel I am JUST BARELY going to be able to accomplish something or I’M NOT EVEN SURE IF I CAN do it I need to reduce possible errors and obstacles.

Fear of failure? You bet. That doesn’t stop me from trying though. If I try and fail then it’s no big deal… get up and try again another day. However if I FAILED TO PREPARE and then fail then I’ve let myself (and others) down.

For tonight’s planned 50 miler here is what I did.

• Arranged take-off time and location with my riding buddy
• Bought a dry bag (lost my old one) to attach to my handlebar
• Last night I threw some on-the-bike nutrition into the bag along with my head lamp
• Charged my handlebar lights

That’s it. Oh I’ll also fill up my water bottles (Rehydrate and Spark), check the air in my tires and such but that’s all generic stuff anyway.

Notice there were no emails flying about, no issuing of routes with water points annotated, no “Hey does this look right?” calls… For me now 50 miles is still a fair distance but it is more “normal”. For me the only difference between 15, 30, 40 and 50 miles is time. Of course each will tire me out a bit more than the one before but it’s not going to hurt me. A fifty may bring on a wee nap later in the day but more so because I may get up at 4 am to start the ride at 5 am. Who wouldn’t want a nap after waking up at 4 am?

Last year I want from going ZERO miles at the beginning to doing a painful 100 miler in late fall. Even though I had lost a bunch of weight and increased my fitness a fifty miler was still something that caused me a bit of stress.

Bear in mind that I’m not saying a fifty miler is EASY. It’s not. It’s just not the stressful event it used to be. So what’s the difference? Why is a fifty miler no big stressful deal? Glad I asked!

Consistency With Exercise - Even though I am not a nose to the grindstone person when riding my bike I am consistent “enough”. I’m more conscious about using the bike as part of my exercise plan. I’m fortunate to have a shower facility where I work and can go on lunch-time rides. That in itself has really helped me be consistent. It has removed ANY obstacle that I ever had for getting the time to workout.

Consistency With Nutrition – Many of you know that I am using AdvoCare as my choice to keep me on a tremendous path with my nutrition. I’ve also using their Sports Performance line (which is nutrition, again) to help fuel my workouts and recover. Recovery allows me to benefit more from my efforts therefore allowing me to do more, etc. By being consistent with my nutrition I am dropping unwanted fat, fueling my workouts, recovering from those workouts, getting MORE from my workouts and increasing my belief that “I am can do this, no big deal”.

How I Exercise – At the beginning of this year I started to explore how to get the most out of the time I put in. My goal was to lose unwanted fat with the side benefit of increased fitness. This pointed me right to intervals, and variations of them. Not only did I work towards learning to do the intervals themselves but I also worked towards RECOVERING from them, which is equally important. As I learned more about the tremendous stress (and benefit) that intervals (and their cousins) put on the body I looked to AdvoCare’s Elite line to take care of things.

Doing very intense 12-15 mile workouts makes riding a moderately paced 30 miler an enjoyable outing. Doing a 50 miler is just a bit more time and you end up being a bit more tired. The only real challenge for me is that my rump gets sore because it’s not used to being in the saddle that long at a time. My legs can handle the distance… my MIND can handle the distance…. and there is no fear of bonking if I at least reasonable take care of things.

Next Steps – I want to do a 50 miler faster. If I can reduce my time to do a fifty miler I can do them more often. My lunch-time interval workouts will need to get faster and I’ll do more intervals in one outing. My section sprints will get faster. My pace rides will be faster. Instead of just riding my 30 milers I’ll push hard and end up laying in my yard trying to not pass out (this is what I consider fun) after rides. All this will make me faster on the 50′s.

While I am getting faster on the 50′s I’ll make 75 the new 50, and 50 the new 30. In late fall I’ll probably do a 100 miler. I could do one NOW but I want to accomplish it easier and not have it be painful. By the time I’m doing regular 75′s the end of my comfortable riding season will be ending. My challenge will be to use the indoor trainer during the Winter to keep a certain level of fitness and be able to get out in the Spring ahead of where I did this year. I’ll want to do consistent 30′s as soon as possible in 2015.

So that’s it. I’d love to hear about what is not “normal” to you that used to be a stretch, or even seemingly impossible.

Null66

Nice!

WonderMonkey

I did the above 50 miler. It was fun. Pushed in certain sections even on the way out. Made sure I did my recovery activities when I got home and woke up feeling great.

RoadTire 

Just...don't...know...what...to...say...except - AWSOME! A 20 mile commute show one heck of a commitment.

WonderMonkey

Thanks! I don't get to do it very often which reduces the awesomeness. I usually ride 13-15 miles at lunch and commute once a week or so. Then a long (for me) ride once a week.

Those that commute a distance every day ... that is a commitment! While out yesterday on my ride I met a guy who commutes each day, excepting really bad weather. 30 mile round trip. That's a bunch of time!

chasm54

My favourite commute was a 32 mile round trip. It took about two hours ten minutes out of my day, but that was less than an hour longer than the journeys took by car. Did it about four times a week, on average, because sometimes I needed the car at work.

One year I was based at a different place and commuted 29 miles each way, a 58 mile round trip. Now that was a bunch of time, I limited that to three times a week in the interests of domestic harmony. Commuting is fantastic way to get the hours in on the bike, though, even on the shorter journey it made it very easy to get in close to 200 miles per week.

Which reminds me. The other day you said you were just over the 200 mile mark for the month. Given how much riding you're doing at lunchtimes, that surprised me. Schedule getting interrupted?

WonderMonkey

It does get interrupted here and there. Either some days I can't get out or there will be stretches of 3-4 days at a time when it doesn't work out. Meetings, projects, etc.

In theory I should be close to 300 miles each month. In reality it never seems to get there. I have 264 miles as of right now. I could get 36 more today to hit 300 but I don't know if I'll be able to get on the bike today. More likely I'll start next month (tomorrow) with a longer-ish ride.

MikeRides

Awesome how long did it take you to ride the 50 miler? I ended up riding a solo 50miler yesterday in 4 hours (total, including 2 rest stops and a unexpected mechanical failure that took me 30 min to fix), I can't complain about my average speed since I was riding on crushed limestone and ridiculously deep gravel for half of the ride.

My commute of 10 miles round trip is too easy to not do it daily. It takes an hour out of my day, and helps me relieve any stress that I may have from the day-to-day business ritual.

My former commute was 25 miles ONE WAY, I actually rode it daily back in February (in the snow/ice/extreme cold) but I had no other choice since my car was out of commission and we still had to eat. That was a four hour commute every day, and probably only because I was trying to keep warm by pedaling faster than I should have been going on snow/ice.

WonderMonkey

I did it in 3hr 37 minutes with a few small stops. Riding on non-paved surfaces would be quite tough! That's a pretty good time no matter what, on gravel it is tremendous!

As for my commute the route I should take is about 25.5 miles one way (used to be shorter but we moved facilities) and the crappy route is 20.5 miles.

MBfrontier

Hey, WonderMonkey.
I was awake early yesterday and saw this post on your workouts. I started to relate to how you started out with short rides and trying to get back in shape. In fact, I read all of the posts through all of the pages. I am impressed with your attitude, determination, and the progress you have made.

In the early 90's I began bicycling to supplement my running routine because of the toll on my hips and knees. I've always enjoyed bicycling and found I was bicycling for exercise much more than running and the issues I was having with hips and knees improved dramatically.

I am now retired and after many years of no exercise routine I decided I would get back into bicycling in August. I broke out my old hybrid and started riding short distances. My first couple rides were 6 miles, then 8, then 10, and now I'm doing 15 miles.

After reading your post yesterday it motivated me to get out and ride despite the threat of rain (It's always raining in Northeast Ohio this year) and I rode 15.38 miles in an hour and 17 minutes for an average of 11.8 miles per hour. I purchased a new bike on 8/18/2014 to replace my old hybrid and I'm currently at 92 miles on the odometer. I'd like to get out again today to break the 100 mile mark on the new bike and the forecast is (you guessed it), 60% chance of rain.

This is my first post on this website. I just registered this morning so I could add a post to your thread so I could say thank you for taking the time to post your progress and the interesting details along the way.
Oh, by the way, I'm in the process of checking out the products you mentioned to see if Nighttime Recovery can help an old man out.

By the way, my name is Mike so the name is growing.

Keep on pedaling WonderMonkey.

WonderMonkey

Mike ..... I'm humbled... seriously. One one side of my brain I *AM* thinking that maybe someone that needs a boost can feed off the boosts that OTHERS HERE HAVE GIVEN ME but mostly I try to keep myself accountable to my goals. I am very pleased that something I typed was the small boost you needed to get on your bike yesterday.

As for the Nighttime Recovery, it is a game changer for me. Is it right for you? Don't know. I'll take this to PM to try and help out on that.