DAILY EXERCISES

 I've written this opinion before but will repeat it here: a lot of old folks ailments are due more to inactivity than age.  And another adage: you must have a plan of activity before you retire, otherwise you end up sitting in your chair vegetating.  My retirement plan consisted of riding my bike and writing a book about it.  I did two books.  Therefore, my exercises are undertaken to ward off some age-related ailment and/or to facilitate my bike riding.  As for writing, I do that in my two blogs.  One more thing, unless I take a sleep aid (Benadryl), I only get five hours of sleep.  Generally, I'm asleep by 10:00 pm.  What follows is my daily routine, unless otherwise noted.

Upon getting up, I'll wander to the kitchen and have ten ounces of water and a thyroid pill.  The pill doesn't require that much water, I take it to get my body moving.  Next will be a set of exercises I've been doing since 2001 and it is for my hands.  Standing, arms straight in front of you, palms out (fingers toward the ceiling).  Make a fist, hold, release.  Fifty times.  This is followed by hip circles, five each way followed by three sets of ten each way.  I used to do these while the coffee was brewing, but now I put it off until returning from the gym.  Then I do the neck exercises described in the April 19th post.

The Y opens at 5am.  They offer Activtrax, a computer trainer.  I leave the house at 4:47 and arrive at the Y at 4:58.  I set the program for forty-five minutes of upper body work and I go to the Y four or five times a week.  Even though cycling is mostly legs, to race efficiently, you need upper body strength.  Starting last year, I began working on that.  The program varies the exercises so I don't repeat them during the week.  It also gives me six abdominal exercises per day.  I do them at home, at whatever time is convenient.

I have coffee upon returning home and after coffee I do Myrtl (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj8uZ1Qtx3M).  This is a set of hip-openers. From a prone position: Clams, Lateral Leg raise (10 each foot neutral, pointed down, pointed up). From all fours position: Donkey Kicks, donkey whips, Fire Plug, Knee circle forward, knee circle back.  From a standing position: Hurdle, leg forward, Hurdle leg backward, Lateral leg swing, Linear leg swing (first with straight leg then with leg bent).  If I happen to wake up early, I'll do these prior to the gym.

The full set of exercises my chiropractor wants me to do overlap some of the others, so might not get done in rotation.  But this consists of: Dead-Bug, clams, 4-figure stretch, Floor angel, the three neck exercises, Doorway stretch, Scapular Retraction, hamstring stretch, child's pose.  Two years ago I went to a podiatrist because of a shooting pain in my heel.  Turns out, it was caused by my hamstring.  I hadn't been doing my stretches.

After breakfast, while it settles, I do the neck-roll thing for twenty minutes.  Then the traction device.  I'm now up to fifteen.

Sometime during the day I will do standing yoga poses.  I prefer to get them done prior to getting on the bike.  With my recent transition to fixed gear, most of my cycling has been in the one-hour range, with longer rides on the weekend.  Ideally, upon finishing my bike ride, I'll do hamstring and quad stretches.  Sometimes that doesn't happen.  One thing I learned when training for my coast-to-coast ride was you don't stretch immediately after a strenuous bike ride.  You give the body time to recapture electrolytes in order to avoid cramping.  

I'm trying to incorporate Core X (https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=bhjtGRZX8j0) into the routine.  It is a great 5-minute set of exercises.  My plan is to alternate that with the Activtrax abdominal work.  When I did it in the past, it would actually take me seven or eight minutes.

I have an exercise ball that I lay back on.  Given the forward lean I get on the bike, it feels good to bend the spine the other way.  I have dumbbells in the garage, but with the gym back open, they haven't been used is awhile.  

A DIFFERENT SORT OF PAIN

 This next post was supposed to be about my exercises.  I guess that will be after this.  This post is about a flat tire.  I know, I've done multiple posts on the subject.  Since I was aggravated, I'm posting about it.

Yesterday I was at the Veloway with my coach, Willy Ross.  In addition to tooling around on my new fixed gear bike, I brought my gold medal winning time trial bike.  I brought it along because it fits me perfectly and Willy was going to set up the fixed gear exactly like it, so needed to take measurements.  I arrived a few minutes early and had time to take a short loop of the Veloway on the time trial bike.  Afterwards, Willy did his thing in setting up the new bike and I then put the time trial in my car.  Willy then paced me around the Veloway so I could get a good feel of the fixie.  It felt great, pedaling was smooth and effortless.  All went well, we finished and I drove home.  It had been a long day and rather than off-load the bikes when I got home, I left them for this morning.

The time trial bike was the first out of the car and as soon as the back tire hit the ground I knew it was flat.  Pook, Ding-fu!  After getting the fixie out and settled, I pulled the back wheel and brought it to the kitchen (where I do all of my at-home tube replacements).  Then I went back to the garage and the road bike, where my extra tube and tools were safely ensconced in the saddle pack.  Oops, back to garage to get the tire pump out of the car.  Back to the garage to get the tube repair kit. By way of explanation, I keep emergency, temporary patches in the saddle pack and do permanent repairs at home. Dang, the back tire on the time trial bike is a Zipp 808.  Back out to the garage to get the tube-extension tools.  

Last year I broke my Crank Brothers extending tire lever so I was making do with two standard ones.  I really miss the old one.  Once the tube was removed I aired it up in order to find a hole, which I did.  I marked the spot(s) on the tire to give it a once-over after repairing the tube.  Tube repaired, aired to make sure I did it right, and set aside while I checked the tire.  Inside and out, meticulously.  Nothing.  Tube still holding air so I installed.  

It was a tight fit, and with my weak thumbs, I needed leverage.  As careful as I was, I must have grabbed a bit of butyl, because what little air that was in the tube rushed out.  Bummer!  To be clear, this happens to me about once every six times.  Out of time, get back to it tonight.

After dinner, I tackled the tube installation again.  Being extra careful, plus prayers, got it installed without incident.  Aired up and as of now is still holding air.   Total time messing with this was about an hour.  At least it took place in a well lighted, heated environment.

A PAIN IN THE NECK!

For the past several years I've been getting a kink in my neck when doing long rides, starting after two hours. It got progressively worse and last year I finally felt the need to seek professional help.  What I found out was that the curvature in my neck is all wrong.  In January I started doing exercises to correct the problem.

Let me back up a moment.  It takes a long time to build you neck muscles to hold up your head and helmet in a forward position.  In 2000-2001 when training for my cross-country ride and multiple 100 mile days, my neck came along with all the other muscles.  It has only been the last five or so years when it started going left that the "kink" developed.  The muscles are still strong, we just need to "straighten" them out a bit.

Well, let me tell you.  I'm learning about all the muscles that affect your neck.  Let me list my daily routine.  Three sets of ten each: Left-right head rotation, flexion & extension (up-down), left-right lateral flexion (side to side).  Three to five reps of fifteen-second Doorway Pec Stretch, ten Scapular Retractions, and then child's pose.  Just last week we added several additional specific Rhomboid exercises.  

In addition, there are two static stretches that I do.  This one I had to start with three minutes and over several weeks worked my way up to twenty minutes a day.  The lower neck is placed on the roll.

The other one is designed to go over a door, but since I had a hook in the garage at the correct height I used it.  You bend your knees with the pad on the back of your neck and the other pad under your chin.  Using 20% of your body weight, you force your neck back.  Hold for five seconds and release.  I am supposed to work my way up to twenty times a day.  It took me a week to even get the correct procedure (It is easier to do than to explain).  Unlike the roll, the repetitions are going slower.  I'm up to doing seven.

The bottom line: yesterday my two-hour, fifteen-minute 30-mile ride was achieved without getting a kink in my neck.  I got a little tightness, but all in all, it appears I'm on the right track.  Hopefully, I'll be much improved before I start training for time-trials and the much more aggressive neck position.

I'm thinking my next post will detail all the exercises I do to facilitate my bike riding/racing.  I get exhausted just thinking about it.

THE BIG FREEZE

Cycling in February is always hit or miss.  You ride outside with decent weather and inside when not.  For me, it is on the trainer set up in the kitchen.  This year, with zero races on the calendar, I'm not particularly motivated to ride and that goes double for riding in the kitchen.  It wasn't like this weather event was a surprise, it had been forecast for a week.  Depending on the forecasting entity, the low temperature was to be somewhere between 6 and zero degrees.  At our house it was 2.

So, on Sunday, February 7, I got in my long ride to Weir, skipped riding on Monday, and Tuesday got in some practice at Old Settlers Park (there will be a separate post and exciting announcement soon, and this practice is part of it).  Then the weather arrived.  I think the original forecast had a five day event, but as the front approached and other systems appeared, they kept adding days before things abated.  I decided to ride every day in the kitchen until I could get back outside.  

Because the cars weren't going anywhere, I set the bike in the garage just outside the kitchen door, and the Cycleops trainer on the other side, giving me easy access to both.  I've ridden one hour ten out of eleven days.  The only day off was when I got caught up in the impeachment trial and watched tv most of the day.  Unlike those who embrace virtual racing, I focused on cadence.  I'm most comfortable at 80 rpm but really need to increase that to 90 rpm.  Don't get me wrong, my last race at the Driveway was twenty-four minutes long and I averaged 90 rpm, with a high of 115.  The key word is comfortable.  I'd like to be comfortable at 90 rpm for an extended period of time.  

So, for the first seven days I did my cadence in an easy gear, so I really wasn't getting much of a cardio workout.  Then I did a few days in a much harder gear.  I found out quickly just how much fitness I'd lost, doing only one-minute repeats.  History has proven that cardio can be brought back up without too much stress.  Remember, I'm working on 2022.

I'll be riding outside today.  My original plan was a long ride, then a two-hour ride, now it's wait and see because of the wind.  It may end up being one out back at Old Settlers, but it will be outside.

MORE STRAVA

First, a little history.  I've been racing since 2005 and Old Settlers Park has been my training venue from the beginning.  It is a huge parcel of land and in keeping with Round Rock's self-proclaimed "Sports Capital of Texas" slogan, they keep adding fields.  Several years ago, in adding a slew of soccer fields, they also laid out a new road.  Part of that road is a pan-flat, .19 mile section that someone, not me, designated a Strava Segment.  As an aside, I happen to have the fastest time, not just age group, on this segment.  In any case, this was the only segment in the park until this year.  

Besides training in the park, I also start and finish my long rides in the county from there.  Several weeks ago, upon posting my ride, I discovered I had a PR on a segment.  I'd never seen this before, and my twelve minutes plus for a 2.35 mile distance was unimpressive.  Of course, it included a potty stop, so really wasn't a true reflection of my riding.  Naturally, the first thing I did was check the 75+ age category to see who held the fastest time, and what it was.  Turns out my old riding associate from the Georgetown Cyclopaths held that title, at 7:35.  I wasn't about to let him keep it if I could help it.  I won't go chasing Local Legend Laureates, but age-category championships are another story.

Rationally, there was no way could I mount a challenge after a sixty-mile ride.  I would need to wait for one of my short training days.  As it turned out, I did my long ride this Monday and my Tuesday exercises called for upper-body work at the Y early and a recovery ride mid-morning.  Usually my recovery ride is two eight-mile loops, each loop covering all of the road surface in the park, plus most of the parking lots.  But I changed that up to do a warm-up on the Strava segment, then a serious push on the second time. 

The legs were still feeling the effects of my long ride, but the warm-up only took 8:50 so I felt pretty good about coming close to 7:35.  To be clear, I didn't know my actual time until posting the results, but I estimated nine minutes.  It took twelve to get back to the start.  I replaced the cold weather jacket with my very nice ZFG wind jacket (thanks Todd) and prepared to get serious.  

When your legs are dead, or when they are "race-ready" you know it.  Mine were mid-way.  That is, they were feeling good, but not super good.  I focused on the time to beat of 18.7 mph, and saw 21-22 for the first part.  That gave incentive to keep pushing.  The one slight two-tenths uphill only slowed to 17.1 mph, and reinforced my confidence.  The last hundred meters or so is a 4% uphill and the legs didn't have a lot of power, so it became necessary to gear down and up cadence.  When I got home and posted the ride I was pleased to see 6:44 and 21 mph.

Because this segment goes from one end of the park to the other, I don't see it as anything other than a "thru" route, so suspect my time will stand for quite awhile.  Meanwhile, there are two more segments that have cropped up, and I have them on my agenda.

STUPID STRAVA!

I guess I'd describe myself as a semi-serious cyclist, or maybe a serious cyclist with caveats.  That is, even though I ride a lot and race some, I still don't do what is necessary to become really good.  Don't get me wrong, in the last eleven years I held a state championship eight times, with the other three being silver, and was national silver medalist a few years ago, and manage to get on the podium at USAC when I participate.  But I don't come close to challenging for gold.  And so far, I haven't been training to achieve it.  That's too much like work.  I have my sights set on 2022 Nationals, when I'll be the youngest in my age group.  2021 will see me getting more serious.  None of this has anything to do with today's post.

I resisted joining Strava for years, finally giving in so that Marilane could track me as I cycled about Williamson County by myself.  I find one of the features, the fastest riders doing a segment, useful.  It wasn't useful until they added age categories, specifically 75+.  Now I can see how I stack up against folks my own age.  Like anything else, you take these with a grain of salt.  

The latest innovation from Strava is Local Legend.  This gives a laureate to the person who completes a segment the most times in the past 90 days, speed not being a factor.  This is nothing I aspire to attain, it just happens when cycling routes become less varied.  For instance, when I practice 15 second accelerating, I use one of two sections in Old Settlers Park.  One of them is a Strava Segment.  That's 20 or so times it's completed per practice.  When I do cadence drills I prefer to run up and down Great Northern, a straight, flat 1.4 miles with a bike lane.  Because the drills are mainly three sets of fifteen minutes each, I do go out-back-out and rest one section, three times.  Someone, not me, created Strava Segments consisting of one out/back, two out/back, three out/back rides.  So, my practice resulted in becoming a Local Legend.  And we finally get around to today's post.

On Thursday I received an email from Strava saying that I had lost my Local Legend on Great Northern.  Since I really don't care, that didn't bother me, but I was curious about the person who overtook me.  The email included a link to his page.  He had completed 25 (I had 23) segments, or 70 miles in the last 90 days.  More power to him.  Then I saw that in the last four months he had only cycled 152 miles.  That got my dander up (it shouldn't have, my reaction was completely irrational).   I had completed my "hill" route on Thursday and Friday called for a heavy leg workout at the Y in the early morning and an easy hour spinning on the bike mid-morning.  It could have been at Old Settlers Park, but I decided to return to Great Northern and get my laureate back.  So silly, competing for something I didn't care about.  I hadn't been on my TT bike in awhile, so on Friday morning I loaded it up and cycled Great Northern, completing seven segments.

I'm not doing that again.  That is, competing to be a stupid Local Legend.  A deeper dive into his Strava showed he rarely does anything other than Great Northern and close environs.  This is what the Local Legend was designed for and he deserves the recognition.  Of  course, I'm not abandoning my cadence drills, so will continue to increase my segments.  I blame this all on Strava.  The email created a false competition.  I fell for it once, shame on me.  Not twice.

JEFFERSON, TEXAS

 Marilane wanted to spend a few days in the tourist town of Jefferson, TX.  I'm not much for wandering around in and out of shops exploring and getting the history of old towns, so I brought my bike.  Before going, I managed to pull up the local information and they had four routes listed, each heading out of Jefferson in the four compass points.  Two of them had significant mileage on US 59 which normally had a wide shoulder but is currently repaving and had one side shut down.  So those two routes were immediately nixed.  I previewed the other two and didn't like one of them.  The one toward Caddo Lake had a wide shoulder but was really rough.  But traffic was minimal.  The suggested route was a triangle of thirty-six miles, more or less the distance I was willing to ride.

For various reasons it took longer to get ready, so my first decision was to just do an out-and-back to Caddo Lake.  That would be twenty-six miles and an estimated two hours.  The sun shone brightly in a clear sky, temperature 68-73, a slight wind from the SE that would be at my back on the return.

Leaving Jefferson included several blocks of brick streets, but within a mile and a half I was headed east toward the lake.  I had assumed that cycling enthusiasts in the area were few and far between, and sure enough, my morning ride netted me two Strava Local Legends crowns plus being the fastest in the 75+ age category.  The right-of-way was even rougher than what I imagined and my shoulders were getting quite a workout.  But once I determined that traffic was minimal, I moved out into the much smoother road and spent most of the ride looking in my mirrors.  I'd move onto the shoulder when I saw a vehicle, but surprisingly 90% gave me lots of room.

I hate logging trucks.  That goes back to Cycle Montana (1998) and one scary day without shoulders and logging trucks that were overly aggressive.  Each subsequent encounter has only reinforced that first one.  Therefore I was disturbed to see logging trucks barreling toward me every five to seven minutes on my way east.  Already I dreaded to return.  As estimated, an hour of heading east, really SE, and I hit my turn-around spot.

Fortune favored my return.  I picked up the very slight wind at my back, was able to spend most of the ride in the roadway and not on the shoulder, and apparently the logging truck drivers were on a lunch break.  Only one passed me and that was just before I turned toward town and he was nice enough to drive the other lane.  The return took ten minutes less.  

My second ride consisted of two legs of the triangle ending at Caddo Lake, with the third leg being the same as yesterday's return.  Same weather as the previous ride, same rough shoulder, but a bit more traffic since this was Saturday morning.  Not to belabor the point, but the first two legs of this ride have NO Strava segments.  Once again I monitored the mirrors and more assiduously in that the 75 mph speed limit left little time to get on the shoulder.  But again, the drivers were quite courteous.

As I approached the first right turn I heard some guy yelling "Y'all come back here" multiple times.  There may have been a few expletives thrown in.  I looked over and saw about a half dozen Chihuahuas (or similar breed) running out a gate and chasing after me.  I could still hear yelling, and about a quarter mile down the road, two little guys were still coming for me.  They weren't close, I turned the corner, and assume they finally gave up.

The first and third sections of the ride were macadam (interesting sidenote: macadam roads were introduced by Scotish inventor John McAdam.) but the second one was the roughest chip-seal you can imagine.  I probably lost 100 miles of rubber in those nine miles.  It was also a block headwind, thankfully not very stiff.  Traffic increased.

I make it a point to carry nutrition, generally Clif Bars, on any ride over two hours.  For this trip, I forgot my Clif Bars, and also forgot to pack any nutrition.  When I made the right turn onto the last leg, I was beginning to feel the loss of energy.  I had Nuun, so electrolytes were good.  I husbanded the remaining energy and cruised on back into town.  Again, no logging trucks.

All in all, these were good workouts.  Not much scenery, rough roads, but good weather.