Spain! Tiki-Taka! The best riding!

I did my first ride in Spain, starting from the village of Urracal, where we have a little house.  So the decent from the village I averaged 55km/hr, no pedalling, just so you understand the grade.  I decided on the first day just to try my legs out with a 52km ride.  Just gorgeous roads, 40 degrees C, with cool winds.

After that descent, I started climbing about 1,000m of gain, so the highest little hill was about 800m.  Then downhill again, it was great!  Little pain in the back but wonderful.

So again, I ask my wife to plot me a route.  Great!  Over the Sierras!  So the day started with 3 hours of climbing, never ending, leg aching climbing.  It was great!  I finally hit the summit at 1246 meters, not like a big climb of the Tour de France, but I still think a category 1 climb.

So after all day of climbing, there is the mind numbing, descent of 80km/hr that goes on for 30 minutes.  I got good practice of cornering at high speed.  But as you know, my life never goes easy.  Half way down the mountain, I feel this sharp pain in my abdomen, burning searing!!!  A wasp flew down my clothes and stung me.   I don't have disc brakes so it is not easy to stop quickly at 80km/hr.  But after the third sting, I had to grab a fistful of brakes!!

The guy was right there in my bib, just stinging away!!  Being Buddhist, I could not bring myself to kill it, it was just being true to its nature.  So I flicked it out of my clothes and started down the hill.  WOW!

My legs still ache after that delicious climb.  I leave Spain on Sunday, so I hope to get one last ride in before I return to Canada.

I should post some pictures later.

In Spain At Last

So I am in Spain ready to ride.  Of course the first day, flat tire, and guess what, I have a mountain bike tube in my pack.  WOW!!  Fun!

I have this great hand pump, it is the best I have ever seen, I could pump my tires to an amazing 120 with this baby!!

It is wonderfully hot and dry, here, ideal riding weather. I have been ill for the past couple of weeks, put on some weight, I can't believe how fast is comes on.  So I have a couple months to loose it again, and get back in shape.

The Tour De France in on which is very satisfying.  I think David Millar is going to surprise some people this year.  Thor the GOD of Thunder will be at it again.  I was very happy to see "Ale Jet" Pentacci win today.  He is one of my favourite sprinters.

Well, I will let you know how it goes.

Unleash The Beast!!

I guess I am not going to do hill repeats any more.  Because my rides have more hills than hill the hill repeat sets.  My wife set a wonderful route for me again, it took about 7 hours 30 minutes with over 3 hours 15 minutes of climbing.   After about 4 hours of this nonsense, I decided to unleash the beast!!  So I opened the cage, and the beast was cowering in there and would not come out.  ;0) (Francesco, I am sorry I could not unleash the beast!)

Whimpering, the beast closed the door and went back to sleep, so I was left on my own to complete the ride.  Another cold and windy day; the sheep were huddled together, looking at me crawl by at a mere 20km/hr, bleating and calling me a craaaaazzzzyyyy man! :0)

I decided to phone my friend Mike, if anything could get me through this would be a cheese and onion sandwich (my secret fuel that gives me about 1 hour of power) and Mike.  Well, I could not get ahold of Mike.  So here we are, no Mike, cold, windy, hilly, chipped asphalt roads, and a lot of riding left, the beast cowering in his cage.  

This is what ultra-endurance rides are about, training the brain to be tough and strong!  Jure in this years RAAM was riding through thunder, lightening and rain.  He never complains and has an amazing positive attitude.  I think he will win again this year, he is trying to do it in under 8 days!!! 3,000 miles in under 8 days, do the math!

PROPS to Tony O'Keefffee, he is from Ontario, Canada and is now 4th in RAAM and I think that he will maybe be third!!  What an awesome ride!  I am really inspired now!

I vow that from now on, I will not complain, I will be a man and "do the right ting"!!

Ok, last thing, have you ever rode down hill (knowing that you have to ride up again) and seeing at least 3 guys on mountain bikes stopped halfway, rubbing their thighs, head in hands, shaking their heads?  WELCOME TO PEMBROKSHIRE!!  :0)

a

Intensity Phase (this really hurts)!

Well since my last entry, I have gone back to the drawing board and re-planned my whole training plan.  I think that I have one that will work and get me to my goal.  One thing I added is more technique work.  I believe strongly that efficiency is very important.  Economy is crucial when you riding for a long time, saving a little bit each pedal stroke makes a huge difference.

I am also thinking of getting a coach,  it is getting harder and harder to coach myself.  I am sleeping lots, and my legs are twitchy all night, they just want to pedal!  It is getting bad, I miss my bike, it seems like an old friend, I am starting to have breakfast on the trainer while pedalling.

So this week these are my workouts:

Strength (3 times/week):

• 2x25 Seated Squats
• 2x25 Deadlifts With Pushups
• 2x25 Single Leg Press
• 2x25 Dumbbell Rows
• 2x25 Stability Ball Dumbbell Pullover
• 2x25 Dumbbell Curls
• 2x25 Triceps Press downs

Technique (2 times/week):

• 6x2min Single Leg Pedal (very slow, focus on maintaining contact with pedals)
• 5x1min Spin-up 140+rpm

Conditioning

• 40km ride with 10x10min @AT (ri=10min)
• 40km ride with 10x1km 12% hill repeats
• 83km tempo ride
• 163km ride at race pace (28km/hr)

So tomorrow I do the hill repeats, it is going to be real nice.  I finally got my video recording working so I will do some filming and post it up.

RAAM is starting now and it is so exciting! Will Jure win this year or will Gehard hurt him. It has been great for me, with all the cycling, World Cup Soccer & Tour Du France coming up!!!

I will tell you how my hill repeats go!!  Never give up goals guys, keep working smarter, harder, and consistently.

Climbing: Improving Somehow

Today, I went for a 4:00 hour ride, again working only on climbing.  The 16% grade that I normally climb was suddenly easier.  I was not climbing anymore in my lowest gear, and my CAD increased from 12rpm to abut 40rpm!  I am not sure if I am losing weight or getting stronger or both.  To get this picture, I had to do almost one hour of climbing.

However, I am noticing that I am sucking more on the flats.  Mind you, the friction on the roads are so intense, that if I stop pedalling down-hill, I start slowing down, so I have to keep pedalling all the way through.

I tried some new fuel today, and now I have lots of gas, I am typing this blog, outside now, because I have been thrown out of the house.  I tried lighting a match but it would go out right away.  :0)  I bought a lot of this stuff, so I am not sure what I am going to do.

Those hills that you see on the right there, are the Preseli Hills or Preseli Mountains, the fabled stones from Stonehenge come from these hills.  No one knows how such large blocks of stone were quarried and transported so far away.


Now there are loads of cattle and sheep in these hills, so they have these things in the road that keep the cattle at bay.  There are grills that will catch anything with hooves or small bike tires.  :0)  I was a wuss and walked over these in the road, I can't afford to get injured now anyways.
In my next few posts, I will get some pictures of these amazing structures.
I will be off to Spain for a week in July, just before I get back.  And that will conclude my strength prep.  After that is speed, speed and more speed!  Lots of Intervals!!

Hills and Headwinds!

So for the next 4 weeks I am working on strength, therefore I am riding lots of hills.  Now my back is starting to hurt a bit and my legs are sore to the touch.  But my weight is dropping, and the climbing is just a little bit easier.

For those of you who did not believe me, the picture to the left is very common place in Pembrokshire where I am riding.  I can't wait for June, when I hit Spain for the real climbing (OMG my aching legs).  Today was cold and windy, I thought that I felt cold winds in Canada, but there is nothing like a cold north wind off the ocean right into your teeth.  As days would have it, climbing a 16% grade with a cold headwind is not fun, especially at 235lb and a power to weight ratio of 0.78!  Which means that I climb the hill in 39x27 with a CAD of 12rpm.  Yes it is possible to pedal that slow.

All my work today was rewarded with some beautiful scenery of the Southern Wales coastline.   Overall, it was a great strength day, and I feel like I am getting stronger and stronger.  As my weight drops, I will just get faster and faster.  I had a wonderful accident today with my handle bars coming loose as I was screaming down a hill at 60 km/hour, my chin was inches away from the stem.  The roads are so rough here because they use chipped asphalt so that the car tires still have a lot of grip when it rains, and boy does it

rain a lot here!!!  The road sucks up lots of energy in your legs because of the increased resistance, and I think all the bouncing loosen the screws.  Now I check everything before I leave the house.

It is starting to get colder and colder so I think I will do some interval training on the trainer.

I have to hit the gym and still keep working on strength as my weight drops.

Hills! Hills! Hills! I love Wales!

Well I asked the people that live here to give me a hilly route.  I suck at climbing, the main reason is that I am 6 feet 3 inches big, like linebacker big!  No I am not going to post any pictures yet, I have another 5 months to lose about 35lbs.  Now mind you I used to be 360lbs and I am down to 235.  Looking at the cyclists in the Giro and Tour of California, where you can see their hip bones through their cycling clothes, I have a long way to go.

Wales is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been, the coast line is stunning and hilly.  Dragging my body up 12% - 17% hills really hurt.  They never warn you that you are about to climb 12%, they just warn you going down.  It was relentless, up-hill, down hill, followed by up-hill, each hill averaging form 8%-17%, from 400m - 5km.  After about 100km of this, I had enough.  It was like doing leg presses for over four hours.  The down hills were fast (65km/hr), which was just enough time to catch your breath and start climbing again.  I get the feeling that the people here had a good laugh when they gave me this route.  Some of the houses were just beautiful, and I just had to stop to take come pictures (at least that is how I am justifying to my self, basically I could not breathe.  :0) )

I had a wonderful experience of swallowing a bug, it went right down the old pie hole.  I grabbed a handful of brakes and started vomiting, for a few minutes.  I think I could still feel it wriggling in my throat.  Damn!

There is this down call Fishguard, really beautiful, except when you try to leave, 15 minutes, 10%, 12%, followed by 17%, then 20%.  All this spinning crap I coach my athletes, let them try it with 40lbs of bricks on their back, see how fast they spin. Hah!! :0)

The secret to climbing, is to lightest you can be and still be healthy.   That old strength to weight ratio.  Today, I will do a small 3 hour ride on the trainer, doing some technique work, and go to the gym and do some leg presses for 6 hours.  That should help my climbing.  :0)

For me right now, the challenge is to cut enough calories to lose weight, but still eat enough to support the training.  I am getting a bit concerned that I have not been able to do a 15hour ride yet.  This weekend I think I will be planning an epic ride!