Indoor Trainers or Rollers?

My friend, Bike Noob, has posted the pros and cons about using trainers vs rollers in the off season. Some good information here if you are unsure about which one you should buy.

Last Week Before My Rest Week

This is my last week before a rest week. I posted previously that I was going to see how my second 4-week block worked before changing to a 3-week block (is that a triangle?) for training. During some exhausting moments of last week I was beginning to question the 4-week block. It might have just been a rough week so I’m going to see how I feel this week before making any decisions.

After this block it’s going to be time to pick up some intensity and work in some intervals. The spring criterium series will be here before I know it and I’m going to need to be prepared. (If you’ve never done a crit, it can be pretty intense efforts throughout, especially during premium laps, where prizes are awarded for the first one to cross the line.) I need to start training my body to deal with those intense efforts.

A Tiring Week

This week was a very long and tiring week.

After my rest day Monday I was up early Tuesday morning for a spin because I had a happy hour after work. I decided to get up early Wednesday morning to spin again and I had my weekly spin class Wednesday evening. Thursday I thought wouldn’t set my alarm but if I was up early I’d work out again. But I didn’t – I needed the extra hour of sleep and then planned to go to yoga that evening followed by a local club social, which also included the movie, Bicycle Dreams.

With a couple early mornings and something going on after work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, it was an exhausting week. Not to mention that work itself was crazy as well.

I thought early morning spins would be good way to get my workout in if I couldn’t do it at night. Perhaps I bit off a bit more than I could chew. Still, I felt good that I was able to keep my training going and not pushing it aside. I also like working out in the morning – I can manage to get out of bed at 4:30 for a 60-minute spin, though I’m not sure I can get up at 4:00 for a 90-minute spin.

Today, even though I didn’t sleep as long as I expected to, I feel much more refreshed. I had hoped to make it out on the road for a ride today but didn’t. For starters, it takes a lot less preparation to spin inside than to put on all the layers for a cold ride outside. Secondly, it’s easier to do specific workouts on a trainer without fluctuating terrain or wind speeds. I opted for a 2-hour indoor spin instead.

Next week isn’t quite as crazy but still requires me to adjust my schedule accordingly to make sure I manage the hours on the bike needed.

Counting Calories

I’m on a mission to lose some weight. During my vacation at the first of September I put on 5 pounds from eating and drinking out all the time. Then somehow I managed to put on 5 more pounds between then and the new year.

Now it’s time to get rid of some of this unwanted weight. My first task is to take off the 10 pounds I put on in the last 4 months of the year. My second task will be to shed a few more pounds after that.

Of course one method of losing weight will be through exercise. Another important method is to count calories.

I’ve used the “Lose It” application on my iPhone to track what I’ve been eating and calories. Although this is a good way to count calories I found it a little frustrating because there were a lot of items not listed in food categories.

Recently a friend told me about Livestrong’s “My Plate” food diary. This is an  free online service where you can log your consumption and expenditure of calories.Of course they have an upgraded paid service as well that offers more reports, features, and saves your information for a much longer time, if not forever.

I thought I’d check it out. Turns out, it’s a great tool! The food listings are quite extensive and easy to modify if you make a mistake. I use this religiously throughout the day to log my food and estimate how much I can eat for dinner without overeating. (This also lets me know if I can splurge on a piece or two of chocolate after dinner.)

You start out by inputting your age, weight, height and how many pounds you want to lose within a certain time frame. Then you start logging your food and workouts. If you weigh yourself on a regular basis then you can update your weight as frequently as daily to track your progress.

After using this site for almost a week I”m happy to report I’ve lost 3 1/2 pounds. That’s pretty significant. Of course I know that it’s always much easier to lose those first few pounds that it is to lose the last few.

The important thing to remember is this helps to keep me motivated. So much so that I almost dread having dinner with friends Friday night. It will be harder to track the calories I take in by eating something I haven’t prepared myself. That’s a great reason for eating at home as opposed to eating out, which is what got me to this point in the first place! Still, I enjoy eating out and it will be a social event with friends we haven’t seen in a while. I’ll just have to be smart about my food options throughout the day and leave a little room for a bit more consumption, just in case there are some hidden calories in my restaurant food.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out MyPlate and are in the market to count some calories, I recommend giving it a try. And for those of you with iPhones, yes, there is an app for that!

Rest Day? No Way!

Mondays are typically a rest day for me. However, I didn’t rest for a couple reasons.

I left work early for a dentist appointment today. My 3pm appointment meant I would be home a bit earlier than normal. Since I was getting home earlier I could get a decent workout on the trainer without it being too late when I finished.

While I don’t doubt my ability to get up at 4:30am for a Tuesday morning 1-hour workout, I do question my ability to get up at 4:00 am for a 90 minute workout, as was my plan for Tuesday. So I felt it would be easier to get in the longer workout tonight.

Another factor is that although Saturday’s snow shoeing event wasn’t an arduous workout, yesterday’s 1-hour run (er, jog?) was. Working out again today allowed my to have two relatively hard days followed by one rest day.

Tonight’s plan was to manage 90 minutes on the bike and I’m sad to say it only turned out to be 75 minutes. I used a video I had created that had several blocks of tempo at varying lengths followed by some recovery sessions and then 3 sets of out of the saddle efforts followed by in the saddle effort, tempo and recovery. I could have extended the program slightly but it’s okay for what it is.

I need to make more of these video workouts because watching the video of being on the road really helps get me through some of these sessions. I also need to make sure I take my video camera with me in the summer months to capture more material for video projects. Having more riders in the video would definitely make it more interesting.

Snow Shoe Fail; Treadmill Wins

Well my plan of snow shoeing again today did not come to fruition.

First off, I slept pretty late. Then I needed to get some overdue cleaning done, in particular vacuuming. Then as we moved further into the afternoon and I still needed to make dinner and prep food for the upcoming week, it was much easier to hit the treadmill than to drive to the golf course and snow shoe for 2 hours.

My alternate plan was to “run” (if you call 12 minute mile running) for an hour. I managed just over an hour because I was so close to running 5 miles that I didn’t want to stop until I hit it. I ended up running (again, loosely used word) for 62 minutes that included a 5 minute walk/warmup.

You are probably wondering why I didn’t hit the bike/trainer for this hour. Well, with thoughts of a duathlon in my future, it’s good to start preparing. Another reason for running is that sometimes I feel I get more bang for my buck on the treadmill than on the bike. Yet one more reason is because we have a really nice treadmill and I’ll feel very guilty if I don’t use it more to justify it’s existence in our home.

I must admit that I don’t run nearly as much as I should. Granted, it doesn’t do anything for my biking abilities, but still, it’s good for aerobic fitness and bone density.

This week I’m back at my routine for training. The past rest week has really done a lot of good for me. I feel mentally recharged to refocus my training efforts on the bike, and the treadmill, too.

Snow Shoeing

We finally had a chance to use our snow shoes today at a local golf course a few miles from our home. It was a beautiful day with temps in the mid-30’s and not a cloud in the sky. There are lots of groomed areas for skiers and plenty of pure powder to trudge in.

(Husband Don and friend Tracey.)

(Groomed trails with bright blue sky.)

(Lots of virgin snow.)

(A genuine smile on my face.)

Tomorrow it’s supposed to be equally as nice. As tempting as a bike ride would be, I might head out on the snow shoes again instead. I’ll dress with fewer layers if I do – I was highly over dressed today.

Foam Roller

I have a foam roller. My friend, Tracey, who is a physical therapist, gave me one a couple years ago. She showed me a few exercises I can do with it but basically I use it to roll out my IT band. (When I think about it.)

You might have read some of my postings about cramps I often get on hard rides, especially when a lot of climbing is involved. The cramps are always in my right inside thigh and can either happen on the bike, as was the case at Turtle Pond in April, or after a ride when sitting for a while.

I’ve attributed these cramps to a lot of things – nutrition, hydration, vitamin deficiency, not stretching, etc. But who really knows.

Recently I’ve been seeing a chiropractor for a back issue. Since he’s familiar with Active Release Treatments and has worked a some Ironman events, I thought I’d ask him about my cramps. He did a couple sessions of active release in this area. The second time he told me he couldn’t believe the adhesions built up in that area, as well as on the left side, but definitely more on the right.

Since he “released” me from therapy, he told me to stretch my quads a couple times a day. (As I type this I realize I haven’t even stretched them once today. Shame on me!)

He also suggested that I use my foam roller on my thigh. Basically I lay on the floor, with my thigh perpendicular over the roller, and work the thigh over it from the knee to the top of the thigh. He said I might just start out holding a position on the roller with the thigh until the adhesions got a little looser. So I started doing it. As he said, I’m not rolling on it much right now because it’s so tight and painful. Once I get about 1/3 of the way up my thigh the pain is pretty intense. So I just rest on it and work my thigh down it slowly.

I think it’s helped too, because after I did it a couple times and then stretched, I had to go deeper into a lunge to feel the stretch.

I also use my foam roller to lay on, with the roller positioned under the length of my spine and my arms splayed out to the side. It’s a great stretch to open up my tight shoulders from hunching over the bike so much.

Do you own a foam roller? If so, what stretches do you do with it?

Snow Predictions

Last night I looked at the snow predictions for Portland. 3 to 6 inches. I hoped we’d be on the 3 side of that prediction.

I woke up to my alarm at 5:30. Since I hadn’t heard the snow plow during my in-and-out of sleep over the past 1 1/2 hours I figured we might only have received a dusting of snow. So I got out of bed to peer out the window. No such luck! We had at LEAST 6 inches and it was still snowing.

So out the door we went to start shoveling. We started shoveling as we went out the door and worked out way down the driveway, which is about 2 car lengths long an just over one car width wide. Just as we reached the end of the driveway the snow plow came by to pile what was left to about 50% higher than it was. I hate when that happens but it’s MUCH worse when they come through when you have finished shoveling.

With the storm that continued for a good part of the day, accumulating to 13+ inches, my friend decided to bag the yoga debut for the evening with a goal to make it to a class next week. So my day turned into the complete rest day that it should have been.

Good thing too, because my body hurt from my shoulders to my knees from yesterday’s yoga. Not to mention that my back was a little tight and my last chiropractic visit was scheduled today. (Again, I’m not one to go the chiropractic route but he’s made all the difference in the world for me and my back – no more pain on the bike. He also worked some active release on my adductor muscles which tend to give me fits with some intense cramps during and after rides. Turns out I have some pretty massive adhesions built up in there so hopefully with the AR therapy and some stretching I’ll get them back to somewhat normal before some of the intense activities to come.)

But back to the snow…. and my wish of 3 inches of snow. Fat chance!

(That’s a lot of snow from one storm!)

(Note the height of the snow on the sides of the path. Most of the previous snow had melted so this is all from this storm.)

There is also more snow on the way for tomorrow night. How much is still to be predicted. I hope they predict this one a little more accurately.

My outside rides just came to a screeching halt. It means many hours on the trainer in the near future. Perhaps we’ll have a chance to break in the snow shoes this weekend!

Yoga Sunday

Waking up to 27 degrees shouldn’t have seemed quite as bad as it did. Temperatures below freezing after a warm day with lots of melting on the roads is a recipe for disaster in the form of black ice.

Since I’m transitioning into my rest week I decided to go to yoga at Yogave instead of taking the bike on the road. I thought that a little yoga would be a lot easier than a 2-hour ride. Boy, was I WRONG! The first pose was rag-doll (basically stand with your head hanging down by your knees and your arms folded to grab each elbow with your hands) and my legs were quivering in short order. Not to mention I could feel how tight my hamstrings were. Most of the class was like that – quivering quads and dripping sweat. (Yes, you sweat a LOT in yoga if you are doing it right.)  Attending yoga on a more regular basis was good for me and I’ve gotten out of the habit and need to get back into it for strength training.

You see, I’m a higher intensity kind of gal. I think the only beneficial kinds of workouts are intense cardio workouts, to the verge of puking, even though I’ve read lots to the contrary. Weight training is very good for cyclists of all levels. Though I’m not one to hit the gym for weights. I find that all pretty boring. Yoga fits that bill for me – building strength while also encouraging some flexibility. Some also call it a “balancing” of the body, especially for those areas that are neglected while cycling, like the core and the upper body.

If I can lift my arms tomorrow it will be a small miracle. Another session of yoga is planned for tomorrow as I promised a friend I’d take him there to check it out. It will probably help flush my arms from the soreness that I can feel building already.

I’m also going to struggle this week with my rest. I know when I get on the bike I’m going to want to push hard but that’s not the goal. It’s going to take a fair bit of discipline to be on the bike and go easy. Being on the bike is still key without taking the week off the bike, which could be detrimental. Gotta keep the legs pedaling in circles ya know.