Back in Black (spandex that is)

The weather has been especially nice around here lately--chilly enough for good sleep but warming to the mid-50s in the afternoon.  As I have a bunch of work travel (the antonym of fun travel) coming up I couldn't let the day slip by without trying out the local network of mountain bike trails that I recently discovered.

Aside from a steep entrance fee it was great.  I covered about seven miles of single-track and fire road trails with a very technical rock garden, a water crossing and two short but respectable climbs.  I felt good, especially since this was my first mountain bike ride since the duathlon I raced in November.  If I can get a deal on an annual pass or something I'm going to try to fold a little more mountain biking into my workouts.

Attentive readers might have noticed that the progress bars tracking my weight training have been . . . well making progress.  That bench press is kind of stuck, but I've gotten it on very good authority that these things take time, so I'll be patient.

Short-Sleeve Running

Certainly there are things about living in the South that aren't so good, but getting to go for an hour-long jog in February wearing short sleeves isn't one of them.  I listened to all of an old Dresden Dolls album and some of another playlist and basically enjoyed my first real outdoor exercise in about a month.  Along the way I managed a neat, pain free, non-embarrassing 6.4 miler.

The April race I was looking forward to is still MIA on Active.com, so I'm trying to decide what to do about maintaining my race schedule without disrupting the very delicate balance I think I've established between work and working out.  There is a tempting half marathon coming up in eight weeks, but that's a far cry from the 5K I was originally contemplating.

Also, I hit a new max on my squat yesterday.  Hack squats on the sled have really helped me build some leg strength recently.  Now that I've added them to the rotation I expect I'll see a lot more progress on the squats.

Hero

What it's like to be John Stamstad:


From a 1996 article in Outside Magazine:


A typical day for Stamstad begins with a five-hour ride, followed by a one-hour jog from his house to the University of Cincinnati physics building, where, with his hands clasped behind his back, he makes ten trips up and down 16 flights of stairs, taking three steps at a time. It's Stamstad's favorite, most unfun workout: no windows, no distractions, no relief. The Alaskan tundra looks like Maui after months of stairwells. The day concludes with an hour on the wind trainer. Stamstad says that he knows he's mentally ready for a race when he can do a five-hour stint on the wind trainer, maintaining a heart rate of 155 beats per minute while staring at a blank wall.

Two years ago at the Iditabike, an exercise physiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina named Steve Bailey conducted a study of Stamstad and several other top competitors. Throughout the race, Stamstad's mood didn't fluctuate; he remained calm and focused. In a test that measured bewilderment and fatigue, he scored the same results at the finish of the race as he did at the start. During prolonged exercise, says Bailey, glucose stores go down and levels of free fatty acids and free tryptophan (an amino acid) go up, boosting energy. According to one school of thought, the increase in free fatty acids and free tryptophan also results in elevated levels of the brain chemical serotonin. Bailey is among those who believe that high amounts of serotonin make athletes more sensitive to fatigue.

"The hypothesis we're working with," he says, "is that fatigue during long periods of exercise isn't muscular in nature, but a perception in the brain." If that's the case, it could partly explain Stamstad's high pain threshold. According to Bailey's Iditabike data, Stamstad's blood analysis showed significantly lower levels of free fatty acids and free tryptophan than those of the other athletes in the race. "Either John doesn't experience pain like other people do, or he's better able to deal with it," says Bailey. "My guess is that it's probably a little bit of both--part training effect and part genetics."

Oh yea, in 1999, he rode the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (all of the nearly 2,500 miles of it) in nineteen days.  Bad. Period. Ass. Period.

Race Report--Success

The weather held this weekend and was able to talk myself into running that race after all. I wasn't feeling all that confident, but then again there wasn't much at stake. After the fiasco of almost missing the start at my last race, I got to registration early and had a solid forty-five minutes to warm up, decide exactly what to wear and pin on my number. I always have a better race when I really get to take my time the hour or so before, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that I clocked an early season record 22:34. I know that's not blazing fast--it only rated second in my age group--but it's almost as fast as I was at the end of last season. Results like this in February have me thinking that just maybe I can fine tune my workouts a little over the summer and finish a 5k close to a 20 flat by August.

The diet continues (although slowly). The scale at the gym said 188 this afternoon, which is a total loss of about twelve pounds last month. If I can duplicate that in February I'll be very close to my ten-twelve percent body fat goal. Honestly, I think the weight loss is at least as instrumental in this early season success as any training I did.

Inspired by libgyrl and compelled by the terrible weather, I dragged my mag trainer out of closet and ground out ten miles this morning. Indoor riding isn't my favorite thing, but I'm finally starting to make contacts in the local cycling clubs and want to be ready come spring.

The first race of the year is a 5k on Saturday morning. The forecast calls for rain/snow showers, so it might end up as the first race I skip this year. Then again, bad weather might be just the ally I need to win my age group this year. Hmmm