Showing posts with label Quiet week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quiet week. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Weekday updates...

Few and far between, lately. Haven't had much to say! The weekends are jam-packed with goodies and weekdays not so much.

I have a few weight updates for ya, and I bought a bunch of goodies at Trader Joe's. I'm more and more coming to seriously love healthy eating and good food. I don't eat a ton of "rich" foods anymore, and try to stay away from sweets as much as possible. I've nearly cut out all alcohol and have been feeling pretty good and sleeping well (shocking!!).

After our all-out retaliation last Sunday morning the nights have been quiet. Sunday night I did shoring up of my own situation to ensure sleep (Tylenol PM, wax ear plugs, and a shot of Vanilla Rum - YUM) and slept great. I haven't even worn ear plugs all week since and I've been sleeping off and on. I've also made great efforts to be as quiet as possible whenever I'm home (not letting the door slam shut, not having the TV overly loud, not having the radio loud, etc.). I hope this lasts!

However, I have become OBSESSED with food. I live my day around food and when my next snack is. I haven't even been hungry. Maybe I just need to find something to keep myself busier during the day? It's a possibility. Riding is not a big focus this week (it's all about recovery and regeneration for the next cycle - starting this Saturday).

I've got my calories pretty well laid out, and while I essentially eat the same thing every week, I'm trying to change up breakfast and dinner enough that I'm getting a variety.

Cereal is a low calorie breakfast (Kashi Go Lean and Cheerios mixed, with blueberries when I'm lucky).

Bagel and cream cheese is super filling and a great way to kick start the day with a LOT of energy.

New for today - I tried making my own oatmeal that wasn't processed and full of sugar. (I'm a big fan of the Instant Maple & Brown Sugar.) I was eating a ton of that for years as breakfast, and have since moved away from oatmeal. But, we have an entire bag of plain oats that Justin's mom gave us over the holidays (she wasn't eating them) and I can't stand them plain. At all.

So, I asked (and received) lots of suggestions for what to put in oatmeal, and I made some today that included it ALL!

1/2 cup of oats
1/6 cup of Craisins
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1/6 cup almond slivers
1/6 cup walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup of milk
1/3 cup blueberries

It was pretty freaking good! In all honesty, I think the blueberries made it, but it was tasty and seemed filling. At the time. It's chockful of calories (530~), but a little high on the fat:protein ratio - mostly due to the nuts, I think. I figured with that kind of calorie intake at 6am I'd be full for the day. Not so! Wound up kind of hungry again at 8:30-9, just like always.

The cereal has been really filling this past week, but my calories are a bit lower than normal since riding is all easy spinning and really low volume.

Cereal (Kashi/Cheerios mix), milk, and blueberries comes out to 320 calories and a way better mix of fat:protein (7% fat, 21% protein calories vs. 35% to 12%).

Sorry for the extraneous info, but like I said, I'm obsessed lately!

Justin I think hooked it up with a DA cassette over the XTR for a weight-savings of 65g



and then switched out the chain to a KMC (uber pimp - pics this weekend of it installed) for a savings of only 21g.



But, it's supposed to be a killer chain, and not much difference in price from the Hollowpin SRAM chains (correct me if wrong).

With the added weight savings of -45g from removing the chainguard I'm now at minus 131g. Which is good, because next he added some weight.

At SRC #3 I was running the Specialized Fast Trak SLK tire on front with the MaxxLite 310 on the rear - 790g total.

This weekend I'll more than likely be running Kenda Karma's fr/rear (these are amazingly consistent tires when it comes to weight; we got 3 and they were 480, 480, and 481g). New tire weight is 960g. Difference? 170g.

So, we added 41g of rotating weight, but I'm also picking up a bit of rear tire traction. I have no idea how the Karma up front will behave, but I hope it functions okay.

I really liked the Karma on the back of the Dos last year toward the end of the year. It wasn't as fast/light as the 1.8 Bontrager, but it was close!

Just wish the rear tire would seal. It's been flat 2 days in a row.

Last up - the TJ's goodies:



I bought a lot more than that, but there's a selection. We got some whole wheat pizza dough so we're gonna make a chicken/veggie pizza Sunday night (whole grain dough, mixed bell peppers, red onion, marinara, black beans, lentils, canned chicken, lite mozzarella shredded cheese will be used sparringly).

I'll take pics of the oatmeal concoction if I make it this weekend, and also the pizza.

Now it's time for lunch!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Quiet week

As you can tell, I'm sure, by my silence, it's been a pretty quiet week. I found out Monday that my training just wasn't cutting it for build. My legs were plenty sore, despite a lower volume, last week, but it wasn't enough.

Friday I had some wine for the first time in quite awhile…



Yeah, it was good. But, I haven't finished off the bottle. Yet.

I got in my 6+ hours of solid road riding Saturday and Sunday. While I yearn for dirt, Justin's shoulder is still injured and road riding doesn't bother it the way mountain biking does, so we're getting in a lot of road miles. Likely this weekend will be more of the same.

Saturday we slept in a bit and decided to hit a local hilly route out to the south. It was chilly in the morning air, but the skies had cleared (despite an early week forecast of straight rain).

We managed to get in about 3.5 hours of decent hills. Next time I'll hit the hills a lot harder!

Somehow I don't have my pics from Saturday…so, you'll have to use your imagination. The blue sky was a welcome sight, and the hills were nice.

Sunday we got up a bit earlier due to having family plans in the early afternoon. Hit up a ride to the NW out to some more rural roads. After our minor run-in with a jerk driver on Saturday we were looking forward to less vehicles…

Spotted some friends early on, but didn't stay to chat long. I had a time cut off!



Was happy to be riding with this guy again



Snowy peak in the distance



The unkempt roads had a bit of mud on them and the pavement has been beat up by the rains!





Snow in the distance was somewhat majestic



Despite not working all that hard over the weekend, my legs were pretty torched. I overate and overdrank on Sunday, so I didn't feel very good on Monday morning. Still trying to recover from that debacle.

Last night I did a Friel test. I know I'm gaining fitness and speed, but it seems like my HR just doesn't max out the way it used to. Weird, right? I just can't get my HR up to where I used to be able to get it! My legs are advising me that I'm working really hard, though. So, I don't know.

After the test I ate a big dinner of chicken and yellow sweet potatoes, which were delish. I wanted to recover a bit and refuel for another harder day of big efforts and high intensity climbing. Unfortunately I couldn't get to sleep. Somehow we've managed to get stuck living below every family on planet earth that has no sense that other people are in existence. Just extremely loud, rude people. Who keeps 2 year old's up all night anyway? They woke me up again at 2 am with the kids running back and forth. Are you kidding me? It doesn't even matter if I did have time in the morning, there's no way I could be loud enough to cause them to have to wake up. I just wish the kids had to go to school at 8 am cause there's no way they'd be up until after midnight every night!

Today the legs automatically felt loaded up as we sprinted for a light, and they didn't get much better. I managed to do my intervals pretty good on the climbs. I didn't hit the HR level Justin requested, but I couldn't have worked any harder. I did manage to take the stairs on the way back to my desk, so maybe I should've gone harder? Haha.

Tomorrow is a bunch more intensity and 2 hours of night riding. Good times!

Sorry for the lack of excitement. Maybe I'll have some night ride shots tomorrow?