rainy days - sunday ride - rollers

so it rained on my day off last week. boo hoo!! i'd planned on going down to wilkesboro for some mtb fun but instead hung around the house, did laundry, napped, grocery shopping, etc. a view of the day:



so that was a day. friday night after work darcy and i went to spectate pee-wee basketball. you get the idea:



saturday night we had a party for charles 30th birthday - it ran well into the night and was awesome. waking up sunday morning for mtn bike riding was slightly more difficult, but well worth it. darcy and i got in our lap at warrior creek and after switching bags/clothes out for my carpool home (thanks Chuck!) i was back out looking for marland, paul, brent, and stack. they were riding the trail backwards and i met up with them about 1/3 of the way through. we headed back towards the cars (the trail is weird backwards btw) and then after a short water stop, drop paul off to his car, and pick up greg seiz we were back at it. marland kept pushing the pace and well, i tried to hang on:



we got about halfway through the lap (normal direction) and i peeled off to head back to the car. rolling up to chuck's truck my computer says 3:59:something ride time. granted some of that was standing around but i'm happy with 3+ hours with some quick bits thrown in. pizza for dinner was made even better after some driveway/gravel work in the rain.

this morning after a bowl of cereal i jumped on the rollers for a quick easy spin. it was quite fun and i managed to unzip my jacket (basement is cold sometimes!) and also pedal up to 115rpm at one point. unfortunately i could not pat myself on the back or take cool photos/video while riding:




then i had a tough time fitting my head through the door upstairs afterwards. not sure what is going on:



thanks for reading. comments are welcome. jg

photo of the day.

i could get used to this. photo of the day makes consistent posting quite a bit easier. photos from a recent 4.5 hour solo ride:

65 miles, 3 x 30min intervals, sunshine, & recess visit with darcy!

i had a great bike ride today. probably the best 'training' ride in a long time. i rolled from george wilson rd to hodges gap, oak grove, old bristol, us321 to sugar grove. i finished my 60mins warm-up rolling up old421 with a few fastpedal and a few PI's. along the way i discovered Kern's Bakery - it doesn't look open today:



so returning to the 321 end of old421 i started 30 minutes of tempo headed toward trade. after finishing with a short loop i took a minute to stand/stretch/recompose myself and then started up 30mins of 'steady state' headed back towards sugar grove. unfortunately i went too fast, had to make a u-turn roll back to sherwood rd or so then recovered for 10 or 12 minutes including shedding a layer (long sleeve jersey and glove switch) since my next 30minutes was going up georges gap rd:




well i got to the top (beautiful view):



again, i misjudged where to start my interval so i got to the top in 21 or 22 minutes. i re-installed my long sleeve jersey and rolled/coasted to bethel elementary school playground to kick it with mrs grimes during recess =)

after some lance crackers:



i headed out rush branch rd to 321 south to rominger rd then watauga river rd:




some of watauga river rd was in perfect shape for the road bike:




some of it was not:



i managed to ride up nc194 forgetting the bridge was out:



so i walked over a 2x8 bridge then did the standard bairds creek, dewitt barnett, laurel fork. passed some mailboxes:



to nc105-bypass:


i finished up with an easy spin back down to george wilson rd and thought to myself this was a great way to spend 5 hours while getting in my workout. this is roughly my route (mapmyride.com didn't save it):



thanks max for the workout - thanks to everyone else (thousands of ppl) for reading. jg

STOP - trainer time?

so i'm riding my trainer this morning with my phone playing pandora. i put it on the fatboy slim station - good stuff plays throughout my workout and nearing the end of a 30minute (rather challenging) interval i hear "duh dunnah dunt, duhdunt duhdunt" and i think i kind of smiled a bit - here i am suffering and superfreak comes on!!! i'm reminded of Little Miss Sunshine - YES!!!!



another few notes go by and "YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS!!!" my kind of smile turned into laughing and i happily finished my workout to MC HAMMER. for your viewing pleasure:



thanks for reading - comments are cool too.

resting

so i'd been following a pretty solid training schedule for the last three weeks - hitting target power for 5mins, 10mins, 22mins, etc



and setting peak power records, doing 3+ hour mtn rides on weekends and days off - starting to feel somewhat fit - like this guy:



and then i catch the plague.



okay, not that kind of plague, maybe not even the flu, but a cold that has my ears popping, nose running, chills and coughing as a bonus. so i go home early from work, do a 1/4 day yesterday, and on my 'day off' (i actually would like to go in - i feel so slack!) i'm sitting at home, drinking emergenC, hot tea honey and whiskey,



and covering up to my nose with my blankey.



this morning i took advantage of my fatigue, feet up,



ability to surf the interweb and type to update my 2011 'racing schedule'. if you want to see all the races i'll be fighting for DFL then look to the right hand side of the screen. yup - right there--------->

so i'm excited about this year, i've got a new 2011 specialized stumpjumper EVO R 29er



at least i will look fast when performing reverse attacks. i can tell at this point that my HR (heart rate for those of you who don't know) is getting a little high suggesting to me that i am typing a bit much so i'm going back to putting my feet up and fluids. this year will be a turning point for sure - the blog will actually get updated, i will get faster (2nd to last place instead of DFL), and people will actually want to check this out. thanks for reading. jg