podiatric power pedaling peregrinations

The next generation of cycling!

Just had my Spring Break.  In fact, I'm undergoing a real bad case of vacation hangover.  Took the kids to Moab with Keb-moe (we made up 2/3rds of the homey trinity, Billy couldn't make it) with his kids and Karen and her crew.  'Twas an excellent combination of people and the chemistry shared between us was righteous.  The kids behaved like excellent kids and the adults behaved like excellent role models.  Thankful and grateful.  The weather was absolutely cooperative.  In fact, Denver was a freezer compared to the weather in Moab.  This led to my kids being absolutely bitten the Moab bug and me riding with the kids (all of the kids at the camp along with my boy Kevin and my girl Karen).  My daughter's were the DJ and I think i listened to Thrift Shop at least two hundred times.  It's funny when Macklemore's about to the say the "F" word and the kids have their kid filters on it becomes strategically quiet for a nanosecond.  Loved the way all the kids-especially mine-behaved.  The kids had wee sun burns, a cut on a knee, and I burnt my my thumb, index, and middle finger on my left hand when I picked up a lid over some boiling water when I was making our camp dinner.   Kevin, me, and Karen on one ride, broke up the kid wrangling duties whenever the little regulators went with us.  I usually took the lesser of the daredevils (Kevin's youngest daughter Lauren and my youngest:  Mason) back to the car while Kevin would take the greater of the daredevils closer to their destination. The kids rode everyday except for the morning we left and they still wanted to ride.    It worked out quite well.

I rode six consecutive days!  One of the days was when a cold front came in and Kevin and I fired off a 65 miler.  I didn't have my cold weather gear and I suffered mightily (wonked my knee a smidge too) which drained my hemoglobin as I spiraled into another anemic rut (riding Sunday solidified that!).

Don't you hate it when the transition time from play to work is non-existent and the work routine rudely punches you in the solar plexus (i.e. Sunday night)?  Yeah, I hate that.

So come Monday I am hoitin' fo' soitin'!  Tuesday my energy level actually dropped a notch and Wednesday it plateaued in a basin below sea level.  I ate and ate and took multivitamins to get out of the iron deficient funk (Karen recommended spinach and more spinach and a healthy measure of red beans since I don't eat meat). Like I said, I had such a supremely deluxe, excellent time with my kids and friends, going back to work coupled with my anemia just put me in such a state of vacation hangover I coulda cried (but I didn't!).

Thursday I did the Meridian ride (another hour of power ride except this is in South Denver).  Energy felt low but I managed to stay in the lead group.  One noteworthy tromp was when the lead group ran a red light and the rest of us law abiding cyclists stopped.  Needless to say it opened up quite the gap and a teammate of mine along with another dozen or so riders STEPPED on the gas to bridge the gap.  My teammate did such a supreme effort he and I ended up riding away from the other riders.  I burnt all my wee matches in my physiological matchbook as I fought to stay in his slipstream (read: half-wheeling like a son-of-a-gun!).  This dude can MARCH a big gear boy!  When he faded oh so slightly on the uphill, I returned the favor of a pull albeit it wasn't as watt producing or as long (as his) bringing us to tailgunner position to the lead pack.  Finished with the lead group with a bunch of traffic bandits in the final uphill sprint.

Saturday was spent with Vivian, Jeremy, Keb-Moe, and Chris.  This ride took care of my Casa Bonita meal the night before.  I do believe I can go to my death bed witnessing the spectacle that is Casa Bonita.  Divers, gorillas with swimming trunks, shootouts, all this and more to celebrate Karen and Lauri's birthday with Jeremy and I as witnesses.  The meals were quasi-offensive but the entertainment and the excellent company more than made up for the gastro-intestinal debacle that was about to follow. Good times indeed...

Like I said, got a 5 h and 17 minute ride with Vivian.  43 all purpose miles.  Maybe 5 or 6 miles on the road?  If you didn't know, Vivian's my Airborne, dually.  It's like riding my couch.  Part couch, part scalpel on the trail.  Very good manners and loves abuse but i try and pick the sweet lines whenever I can due to my hardtail upbrining.  Whenever I can't, the suspension gives me and my spinal cord a break.  Amazingly, I have no aches.  No triceps, no lower back pains and we would go full tilt on all the downhills!  Some of the trail was under cover so there were some small muddy and snowy patches.  She felt confident floating over the snowy rocks, just can't touch the brakes. 

Downhilling on the road, I have ample standover height so I would bust the fetal position, laying on the smartly curved toptube to reduce my frontal area as I tucked and sometimes rode away from my companions.  Except Kevin, he's part roadie too, so he's savvy enough to let others share the workload be it up or downhill.  Vivian was super stable even after I locked out both the front and rear suspensions for the road portions and for the sustained climbs.  Thought I would dig a fully active suspension on climbs but for today she felt great completely locked out on the not-so-technical climbs on our route.  Started to cramp at the end though.  Could feel the hamstrings getting a smidge tight around mile 40.  No pictures of today.  We all were in the flow zone.

At Burrito Express, Jeremy said on the portion of the ride when we rode together, his Stavia app said we got in 3600' of climbing.  Before I met them I probably climbed another thousand feet with Chris!  Not too bad.  I needed this tempo riding, long saddle time to get my body ready for my mountain biking marathon season.  Not even planning anything for the road even though I'm a Cat III.  I do the Tuesday/Thursday Worlds but it's just for training for my marathoning and to make sure I still have pack (fodder) skills. 

Go away anemic funk!  I ate two burritoes and drank a Coke almost immediately afterwards.  On the ride drank two Go Fasts, a Snickers, two gel bloks, two Clif Bars, and 1 Clif-Shot.  If I drink a beer, lights would definitely be out!

Feeling good for April 20th!  Let the training continue (well at least as constructive as it can get)!