My how things have changed

I recently took a night off from training to enjoy a Friday night with my friends, without having to be up at 9am to do a long 60-80 mile training ride on Saturday. During the many conversations about the ride that night I said how I was asking everyone I know to donate at least 30 bucks to the American Lung Association, thinking it's a small sacrifice in comparison to how much people might spend on dinner at a restaurant, a night out at the bars, or going to the movies. My one friend's response was "Wow, yeah, $30 is a small price to pay in comparison to what you must have sacrificed in your life to train for this ride."

That one comment kind of set me off on self reflecting on just how much I have changed my life in the past few months.

So here it is, a list, of how much my life has changed, and what I have given up/changed since training for my Big Ride Across America.

Snacks

Pre-training:

Cookies: I easily would eat half a bag of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting

Training:

1-2 peanut butter & jelly bagels.
Cut out all snacks with chocolate or milk as it has the potential to set off my allergies (yes, for those that don't know me that well, I am allergic to both chocolate and milk, and in large quantities it will set off my asthma.)

Meals

Pre-training:

2 regular meals (lunch and dinner) with maybe a late night snack. Food was something I ate because I had to.

Training:

I LOVE food. Food is my BFF! Typical day: 2 granola bars before I even get out of bed. Maybe 1-2 donuts as I roll into work. Lunch with coworkers. 1-2 PB&J bagels as I finish work/before I ride. Late night dinner of 1/3 box of pasta and 3-4 pieces of chicken. Pad the day with granola/clif bars as needed.

Weekend Routine

Pre-training:

Friday night - stay out till 6am on Saturday, asleep by 7am, wake up around 3pm. Eat a large meal around 4pm. Ready to go out by 8 or 9pm.
Saturday night - stay out till 6am on Sunday, etc., etc.

Training:

Friday night - dinner #1, quick 20 mile ride, shower, and then date night with Kristen, dinner with friends, or go to the movies. Because of all the week's training, typically I couldn't stay awake past midnight.
Saturday night - in bed by 10pm the latest so I can get up at 5am on Sunday and do a 80-100 mile charity ride in some suburb.

When I do go out...

Pre-training:

Crazy, hyper Joe. Drink lots of redbull or cokes. Caffeine is my friend. Must dance the night away and stay out till sun up.

Training:

One coke at the start of the night. Catch up with friends who I probably haven't seen in a month and wont see for another 2-3 weeks. Minimal dancing as it tires out my all ready tired legs, and I need them rested for the next day's ride. Leave early to get 8-9 hours of sleep before whatever long training ride I have the next day.

Laundry/Cleaning

Pre-training:

"Meh, it can wait till tomorrow. I want to watch this Law & Order rerun."

Training:

I only have 2 days off a week, so that day better be spent cleaning. If I don't, I live in filth for 3-4 days and my selection of clothes for work are between those two clean shirts in the back of the closet that I haven't worn in a year.

Weekly Social Schedule

Pre-training:

Clear. Give me a day or two's notice and I'm in!

Training:

Planned around the training schedule I make on Sunday nights. If the event didn't fit into my given night or two off, I couldn't go. Typically you have to give me at least a week's notice so I could alter my training accordingly.

Get a Fit at Get a Grip

Where do I even begin to talk about the bike fitting and the awesome people at Get a Grip Cycles?

What is a bike fitting?

Let's start with what is a bike fitting and why it is important. When you get into serious road biking, typically you are looking at riding distances of 20, 30, 40, up to 100+ miles in a single ride. To make this as efficient as possible you get clip-less pedals/shoes which essentially connect your foot to a pedal so if you push down or pull up with your foot, you will be propelling the bicycle forward. Now imagine doing these long 4-8 hour rides, connected to your bike like your legs are pistons, and you can start to see how being comfortable and having the bike properly adjusted could be important.

Since I bought my Trek 2200 road bike in 2004 I have upgraded the pedal, bike shoes, cleats that connect the shoe to the pedal, bike seat, and so on. During all these upgrades I would make minor adjustments to try to make the bike "feel" more comfortable and "faster". Sometimes I tweaked the right thing and it would eliminate a small pain in my calf, and sometimes I tweaked it wrong and would end up with my hip hurting for 2-3 weeks.

The Get a Grip fitting

Now as I looked to embark on a 3,300 mile journey across the country, I decided to get a proper bike fitting. But where to go? Some shops do an hour fitting and charge 50-100 bucks. Some offer 3 hour fittings costing much more. I continued to ask around to some friends and online forums and one name kept surprisingly popping up: Get a Grip. A quick look at their site and I was sold.

I should mention how intimidated I was walking into this shop. You walk in the door and hanging on the wall was easily a bike that cost as much as my rent... for an entire year! This intimidation was quickly calmed by Kevin, who happily greeted me with a hand shake and a friendly "come on in and sit down." It was the kind of greeting where if you told him you were there to buy your first bike in 20 years, or an $8,000 Orbea road bike, he would have treated you exactly the same. It also helped that he walked me to the back to hang out in what felt like a bicyclist's dream lounge. We're talking fully stocked bar, plasma TVs showing the latest European races, and every biking, running, and triathlon magazine you could name.

But I digress from my fantasies of an apartment surrounded by bikes and biking apparel... back to the fitting story.

The fitting was probably the closest experience I've had to being treated like a professional athlete. The Get a Grip fitting is a 3 hour fitting that starts with a 1 on 1 consultation. There are many different ways to fit a bike depending on your goals, so it was great to just explain what I was trying to accomplish. The last thing I wanted was to be fit to a bike to do triathlon races. Kevin excitedly listened to every detail of my cross country trip and what was important to me as a cyclist.

Next the questions began. What feels right about the bike? What do I think is wrong with the bike? Why do I think those things are wrong? What have I tried tweaking to fit the bike properly? What is my physical history? Do I do yoga, pilates, or stretching? If so, how often? Do I have a history of sprains, broken bones, arthritis, and the like? Although I have been lucky enough to not have any of those (knock on wood), I thought it was great how Kevin still explained, in specific detail (we're talking vocab that I hadn't heard since biology in college), how they could adjust this part, or lengthen that one, to ease any chronic pains.

Next we got into measuring: both me and the bike. Kevin quickly measured my bike and jotted down some notes for later. Then we measured both my feet. Then my shoes to find out if I had the right size. At this point Kevin said if my shoes were wrong we'd stop the fitting so that I could get fitted properly for shoes. Additionally, if cost was problem, we'd just do the shoes and cancel the fitting. I found that extremely respectable! The idea that even after almost an hour of talking and measuring he wouldn't charge for any of the fit service, as to ensure I get the best shoes I could afford, is quite admirable. That kind of policy shows true character in the shop and that it puts the best interests of its customers, and the sport, above just selling/pushing products/services for a profit.

Anyway, once again, back to the story.

After the measuring, we found my shoes were actually good enough to move forward (Props to Cycle Smithy for doing a good job on that). Next up it was time to measure flexibility. Kevin tested how far we could stretch my leg in a few directions, similar to a pedal stroke, and found I was quite flexible. Yay to the 15-20 minutes I spend every night stretching. It paid off in more ways than I knew. The interesting thing we did find out here was that I have posture issues, and because of this my right leg appears to be a few centimeters longer than my left. This is something that's probably been causing me seat and leg pains on my left side for years and could easily be corrected when adjusting my cleats/shoes later.

Now it was time to put all the measurements together. Kevin adjusted one of their fitting bikes to what my bike currently had as its measurements. I hopped on, Kevin loaded up the computer, and displayed on the plasma TV in front of me was a digital graph of my pedal stroke, cadence, power output (wattage), and more. With a little resistance on I was doing about 80-90 RPMs and pushing about 100 watts. It felt like it took a little effort to hit those numbers.

I got off the bike and Kevin did the first round of adjustments: bring the handle bars in closer to the seat. This would take the weight off my hands/neck/shoulders and all me more comfort in breathing as my torso would be straighter. He also brought the seat forward to start to put my knee at an optimal position over my pedals. I got back on the bike, started pedaling and guess what: the numbers were all ready way up. I easily spun into 100 RPMs and cranked out 150 watts.

The fitting continued with adjusting the seat by a centimeter, the handle bars by a few centimeters, moving my cleats a millimeter at a time, and so on. I believe in the end the computer was displaying 180 watts as my output and I was spending less effort pedaling than when I first got on the bike!

The final part of the fitting was taking all the new adjustments/measurements from the fitting bike and tweaking my bike to match. I lucked out that we only had to swap out my stem in order to match everything. I was happy to shell out the extra $40 for the new stem, knowing how big of a performance gain I would get from the bike.

The last thing I should mention is that the second, third, fourth, etc. fittings are free to ensure I get the perfect fit before my ride this summer. Again a true display of character to go the extra mile to make the customer happy, effecient, and comfortable!

The Results

I finished just over 200 miles from my first fitting and must say I am amazed at the results. My average speeds have gone up easily 1.5-2.0 miles per hour and most of the pains I had during 4-5 hour rides are gone. I do have some new complaints, but now they are knit picky ones like: can we move the seat back a millimeter to minimize friction in my sit bones, or adjust my cleats a millimeter to take pressure off one part of my foot so I don't get numbness in my pinky toe after 50 miles of steady riding.

Want some numbers to back up the claims? Last summer, after some extensive training I did a flat course 100.10 mile ride in 5 hours, 54 minutes, at an average speed of 16.9 mph. This past Sunday I did a hilly 100.97 mile ride in 5 hours, 26 minutes, at an average speed of 18.53 miles per hour. What was number 1 complaint/limiting factor in Sunday's ride? My lungs! Everything else I could have pushed hard and faster, and I owe it all to the bike fitting I got at Get a Grip!

May Training

May was a hell of a month (in a good way), so let's get to the details

Training

Training for May was fantastic. The weather started warming up. Weekend rides got longer. Charity rides were coming up making for the perfect short term goals to shoot for while doing the long term goal training for the Big Ride this summer.

I also have to give a quick shout out to Jay my new riding buddy. Up until the Easter Ride in April I was doing all my training by myself which is fine, but hard to push the pace while on those 60, 70, and 80 mile rides. Jay and I have been riding together for most of May and the company is very welcome. It definitely helps miles fly by when you have someone to talk to, take a pull into the head winds, or just vent to about how much it hurts to sit in the saddle for another hour. Many thanks to Jay for the company and bearing with my craziness when I suggest sprinting out the next half mile or picking up the pace to drop a random rider on the lake front.

Bike Fitting

A HUGE highlight from May is the bike fitting I got done by Kevin at Get a Grip Cycles at their Fulton Fit Studio. I'll have a longer posting about the fitting and minor tweaks/fittings in a soon to follow post, but for now let me just say it has made a world of difference in my performance. My "aggressive" seat position that I thought would make me faster was all wrong and the new "relaxed", or rather correct, position has me averaging easily 1-2 miles per hour faster. To all my fellow cyclists out there, take it from a self proclaimed know-it-all: you can NOT fit a bike yourself. Once you come to terms with that go visit Kevin and the crew at Get a Grip!

Health

Apparently May in Chicago means full blown allergy season, which also means I'm semi-sick all the time (yeah I know, what else is new). The good part of this is I can test out training strategies at some of my sickest points. What I learned:

• Always carry a peak flow meter to measure my asthma/lung capacity
• Always carry my inhaler in case the above numbers drop
• Biking and snot rockets are better for me than laying on a couch with kleenex
• Drink lots of fluids; even more than usual

Nutrition

The plus side of getting sick is I get to talk to the doctors about my weight and nutrition plan. In November/December I weighed around 151-153lbs. I'm happy to say with all the training I'm actually up to 153-155lbs. I did the math again recently (end of May) and I'm easily eating 3000 to 3500 calories, depending what day and what mileage I did the day before, and upwards of 5000 calories for after the 80-100 mile rides. I've never loved food so much in my entire life.

Fundraising

Donate now to the American Lung Association! So apparently I don't have as long to raise my money as I thought. I've raised close to $2,200 but still have a long way to go to the $5,500 mark which I need by August, or the difference will come out of my credit card.

The Stats

I've been tracking all my training at MyCyclingLog.com so why not show off some stats for the month of May?

Total Ride Time:

31:39:03

Total Miles:

532.25

Average Speed:

16.45

Total Rides:

19

Hello? Is this thing on?

"Hey, are you still doing that ride this summer?" "What's going on with your blog?" "Have you done any training since February?" "Are you going to be ready by June?"

Those are just a few of the questions I've gotten over the past few months since I haven't made time for blogging about my training. I apologize for keeping you all in the dark, but know it was for good reason. What reason would that be? Well, I've been kicking my butt on the bike and really didn't set aside the energy to write about it.

So let's catch everyone up:

Training

Training is going great! If you notice, I now post my weekly goals to the right side of this site. I've been pushing 150-170 miles for the past two weeks, and am looking towards the 200 mark this week.

The Rides

While some of my stories of doing rides around town might only appeal to those that are into cycling, I have some good ones including a great charity ride, meeting some new cycling friends to ride with, chasing a dog with sunglasses through down town Chicago, getting chased by a ~80-100 lb farm dog (yeah, that's probably karma right there), and a weekend of fighting wind gusts of up to 35 mph.

Don't worry though, that's just a tease. I'll be posting more complete stories later.

Health

Remarkably, cycling seems to cures what ails me. Although I appear starving all the time (ask my coworkers/lunch crew) I'm actually feeling really well. Even the one or two times when I felt a cold coming on I was able to bike through it. The result was only having to take one extra day off the training week I wasn't feeling well.

Nutrition

I eat A LOT now. I did the math once and usually hit 2500-3000 calories, sometimes nearing 3500 calories on days after doing 60+ mile days. I really haven't checked my weight, but don't seem to be losing any pounds. I look a lot leaner in my upper body, but my legs are becoming tree trunks. I figure it all evens out.

Fundraising

Ok, this one is slacking BIG TIME. I've been so focused on riding that I forgot I need to raise 5 grand by end of June. I'll be drafting a fundraising email this week. However, if you are reading this and want to donate now, please visit: www.seejoeride.com/donate

So I think that's it for now. Now that the training routine is down, I can start to schedule time for blogging, fundraising, and maybe even a party or two.

Cadence is making me a wuss.

I upgraded my bike's computer (to those friends that don't ride, yes I'm that geeky) to one that allows you to see your cadence (rpm). This is handy while training so that if you hit a bad head wind, you can down shift and keep your cadence at the same level. The idea is you will then be putting in the same amount of effort and not tire out as quickly.

So, after the race this past Sunday, I realized that although this kind of training has helped me build endurance to easily bike like 60+ miles in a ride, this numbers studying has made me a wimp when it comes to raw power. During the race I hit some nasty headwinds while trying to head west to the finish check point. I of course stuck with my old mindset and down shifted to keep my cadence high. Although this helped me from over exerting, it didn't make me push through the wind to keep my speed up.

On top of that, when I did try to power through the winds I found I just didn't have the mental will power. Training based on cadence made me forget what it's like to enjoy the anguish and pain that comes with trying to maintain a good speed when mother nature is against you. I found my heart rate spiking and lungs yelling "just down shift, we'll love you forever if you shit down a gear or two".

I really think the above is why I didn't place in the top 50 at the time trial. It majorly came down to mental strength, and the cadence/endurance training I've been focusing 100% on shot down those chances.

The solution? I really need to mix it up. If I'm biking at night after work, I know I only have an hour or two to ride. I should take that time to really push through and work on my speed... do some sprint intervals, not down shift for head winds, be ok with letting my cadence drop from 90/100 rpm to 50. It just means I'll be building speed strength.