Trainer Confessions

Back to (the new) normal

Zombie

I'm now nearly complete with my first month of training for the 2012 racing season.  The two week hiatus I took from all forms of exercise back at the end of October is fast becoming just a speck in my rear view mirror.  And were it not for the evidence documented here on this blog, the Awesome Autumn Adventures I Announced (and for the most part completed) could easily be dismissed now as a figment of my imagination.  I'm back to the normal training regimen, well, perhaps back to a new normal.

Unlike last year's start to the training season, my work-out schedule now needs to revolve around my work schedule.  In no way am I complaining as I still have it pretty good in terms of work/life/cycling balance, but I now need to assess my work Outlook calendar when planning my training, whereas last year I had the luxury to mostly just look at the Weather Channel to pencil in my training time.

As a result, most of my training over the last month has been done in the wee hours of the morning, either armed with lights outside or perched upon the trainer or rollers, often as early as 4:45 AM (and earlier on some days!).  And to maximize the time I can ride without infringing upon breakfast with Mrs D and the girls, I'm often on the bike within 10 minutes of shutting off the alarm clock.  No time for a pre-ride coffee, so instead, I've begun filling up my 24 oz water bottle to get my first dose of caffiene while I'm riding on the bike.

With the early wake-up calls and my uber-efficiencient time between bed exit and when I mount the bike I am guessing that last week I registered about 12 of the 19 hours of training before the girls even began to rub the crust from their eyes and notice that I was gone.  But as a consequence, I now feel like a member of the walking dead.

The New Normal

While my official start with my new coach doesn't kick off until next week Monday, I have been following a high-level four week training cycle that he shared with me back in October.  According to that plan, I'm now in what should be considered a "rest" week.  It is a week in which I had hoped to exit my Zombie-like state, perhaps have the dark circles under my eyes become slightly less resembling of a racoon, and maybe by the end of the rest week lose the urge to take a nap as early at lunchtime.

Unfortunately for me the zombie-like state persisted into day two of the rest week, and I began to question the plan that the new coach had me using.  While riding time is way down for this week, he still has me going to the gym and busting my butt (and my legs).  I had suspected that perhaps this guidance was given to me in error -- afterall, what I had was only a very high-level overview with general recommendations (I haven't started paying him yet, so I was getting the "free" version of the plan), so it seemed plausible that it might have contained an error, or that I might have misinterpreted what he wrote.

So before heading off for the gym once again (commuting by bike of course!) while the girls slept soundly at home, I fired off a quick email seeking clarification.  "Are you *really* sure I should be heading to the gym during a rest week?"

Amazingly I got a response to my question while I was still at the gym (talk about fast turn-around!).  When I glanced quickly at my cell and saw that I had a response in my inbox, my thoughts jumped to the possibilty that he'd say "Go home and back to bed Dennis.  No gym work-outs this week!".  Instead, I got a message that included this text: "Only the riding is easy on your winter rest weeks, which is what makes this time of year so difficult on your muscular system. Your heart is resting but you'll be consistently sore until you take an actual rest week in February."

So there it is.  I'm going to be a zombie right through February.  My "new" normal I guess.

Reason to be Thankful

I Was Competing?

When I thumbed through the mail yesterday and spotted a letter from NEBRA, I had no reason to rip open the envelop then and there to excitedly read its contents.  My only vague knowledge of NEBRA was that it stood for New England Bicycle Racing Association, and that they had something to do with publishing the racing calendar towards the end of the year.  I assumed they were sending me some mass mailing about the upcoming racing year, and I therefore dumped the NEBRA letter along with the rest of the bills and junk mail on the counter for later review. 

So you can imagine my surprise when later that day I opened the envelop to reveal a single page of typed text, along with a $75 personal check made out to my name!  Here's the the first paragraph of text in the note:

On behalf of the New England Bicycle Racing Association, I congratulate you on a very successful year of racing.  You have finished in the top 5 of the rankings in your respective category or age group.  If you finished in the top three, you will have a medal enclosed, as well as a check.  Some of you have multiple checks and medals because you moved categories during the year but still had sufficient points to score in the top of both.  

 

As I finished reading the note, I sought out Mrs D to re-read the text aloud for her enjoyment.  And of course as I read it I had a big smile on my face -- who wouldn't be thrilled to receive free money in the mail, along with a note recognizing me as a somewhat accomplished Cat 4 bicycle racer?  

But the smile slowly faded as my thoughts gravitated back to that old saying "Nothing in life is free."  Somehow I must have contributed some money to fund this organization that is now handing me a check, so it was time to do some research.

Who is NEBRA?

My first Google search result pointed me to the actual rankings.  I am a regular visitor to the Road Results website, but this page was totally unknown to me.  Apparently someone created a point system associated with a particular set of New England bicycle races, and the uber-mainframe powering Road Results tabulated your results on this page each time you happened to enter one.  It was done automatically, and at least in my case, without any effort on my part, and even without my knowledge.

My next stop on the Internet brought me to NEBRA's website.  The site looked vaguely familiar to me, so perhaps I had visited in the past when scouring the web for the next season's racing schedule.  If I had been here before, I certainly ignored all of the details explaining NEBRA as I read that content yesterday for the first time.  

After digging around on the site for a bit I'm still at a loss to clearly explain to you how they get funded and how the fit in with USA Cycling.  But I'm guessing that they are getting some money from the race entry fees I pay, plus perhaps some cut of the license fee I send to USA Cycling each year.  It seems as though they are the local arm of USAC with the responsibility to administer the local bicycle racing scene here in New England.  This probably entails establishing the racing calendar, processing license requests, helping to keep the race official ranks filled, enforcing race rules, etc, etc. I found enough evidence on the site to once again validate that "Nothing in life is free", and my $75 dollar check can be tied back to the money we racers pay to USAC each year.  

But later in the day as I spent hours on the road (in a car unfortunately, not on a bike) I had time to reflect more on NEBRA and came to the conclusion that indeed I am getting something for free, and by the time I arrived with the Desmarais clan at our Thanksgiving destination, I felt pretty much like a free-loader.

Pay it forward

If a race promoter was truly out to make a quick buck, I'm guessing they'd be far more financially successful putting their money in the bank and just taking a measly 1% interest CD as opposed to putting on a race.  I'd also be willing to bet that race officials could stuff their wallets far faster spending their weekends moving Christmas packages and taking a check from a part-time job at FedEx as opposed to giving up their weekends to make sure my races are safe.  And while I know NOTHING about what sort of pay the dedicated folks at NEBRA might draw[EDIT: I was informed after writing this post that only one NEBRA staffer is paid, and the rest of the people behind NEBRA do it for their passion for the sport], my guess is that if they were out for a buck, they might be better off investing with Bernie Maddoff as opposed to looking for riches in the amateur racing scene.

Sure I'm paying a good chunk of money each year in race entry feels and a little more in my USAC license.  But I doubt that money does anything more than cover the costs of keeping the sport running.  Most certainly I am getting free of charge countless hours volunteered by the likes of the folks running NEBRA.  I'm not paying a dime for their passion to see the sport flourish.  And I don't do a darned thing to help off-set the sacrifices they make so that each week in the spring and summer I have one or more races to choose from.

The NEBRA note I got in the mail had one more paragraph that read as follows:

We hope the rankings and awards have contributed to your enjoyment of the sport, your sense of success, and your enthusiasm to participate.  As leaders in your cohort, I hope you will act as ambassadors for the sport and help new riders and those with less experience.

I re-read that text late last night, and in an effort to feel just a little bit less like a free-loader, I decided go online and donate my $75 winnings, as well as $75 of my own money to the Rails to Trails Conservancy to hopefully "help new riders and those with less experience".  I don't think NEBRA's rankings and awards will ever influence my desire to participate in the sport, but their unexpected note did remind me of what I should be thankful for.  

The Best Bicycle Ride Ever

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Poor Allison (the 7 year old with the big smile in the picture above).  She's got my brown eyes.  She's developing a passion for cycling.  And now she's on a writing kick.  Before you know it, the poor girl will be boring random people on the internet with blog posts about her latest PowerTap readings.

Tonight she suggested that we sit down and do a writing contest.  The rule was that we all had to write about the same topic, and then the person with the most detail was the "winner".  I agreed to her challenge, but pointed out that we only had 20 minutes to write before bedtime (which I now realize I can use as justification for how pathetic my writing was).  I further stipulated that I got to choose the topic for her writing throw-down.  And not to be left out, Jo chimed in that pictures would also be considered in place of words (an especially good rule if you're in Kindergarten).

It should come as no surprise that the topic selected was "The Best Bicycle Ride Ever".  For the next twenty minutes I quickly jotted down images of how I imagined my best day on the bike might look like, while taking periodic breaks to respond to requests for spelling assistance (which further reduced my writing time, so again, cut my some slack for my uninspired ramblings).  Allison opted for a factual recounting of a ride from which the picture above was taken.  And Josephine, well...she opted for a very interesting collection of letters.  

Now as to who to declare the winner, well, I leave that to you to decide.

The Best Bicycle Ride Ever (by Dennis)

I start the day early in the morning, just before sunrise outside of a small French town nestled deep in the Alps.  Somehow I bump into some Expo teammates on the road and we have a blast duking it out up the Hors catégorie ascents and then screaming down the hairpin turns (it's my dream, so I'm now an expert at high-speed cornering).  We break for coffee and pastries after a full morning of riding, and strike up a conversation with a few Pro racers who were in town doing Recon for the TdF.  

My teammates were too fatigued from the morning's festivities and started to indulge in the local wines, but I wasn't ready to call it a day.  So I swapped out my road bike for the "train" and headed out on an afternoon family adventure ride.  The afternoon's French history cycling tour through medieval French towns brought to close my "Best Bike Ride Ever".

The Best Bike Ride (by Allsion, spelling corrected in the re-post here by Dennis)

A couple of weeks ago me and my cousin and me went to a bicycle ride.  My dad's bicycle is black.  My dad's bicycle is attached to the tag-a-long.  The tag-a-long is attached to the trailer.  We saw some ducks.  They were pretty.  The End.

Untitled (By Josephine, with no attempt by anyone to translate)

How to upgrade

Blueprint for success?

The 2011 training season officially came to a close 11 days ago, so I am now just over 2/3rds of the way through my 15 days away from the bike.  I view the time off as a necessary evil -- my body needed a break and I'll be super-charged once the 2012 training season starts on Nov 7th.  However, I'm feeling like a alcoholic who was sentenced to jail for some minor infraction.  Each day that goes by, my withdrawals grow stronger and more and more I become consumed with that first beer I'll down upon my release from jail.

I'm hoping that first "beer" is just as delicious as those that I downed by the dozen in 2011, and I've started to give some thought as to what I can do in order to make 2012 as successful, if not more so.  Those of you who are regular Trainer Confessions readers know that I spend a lot of time pondering and speculating about the myriad of reasons that a given race didn't turn out as I had expected, with the hope being that I'll find one or two things that I might try differently the next time around.  But every so often I need to flip the process around and take a look at what went well, identify why things went well, and then figure out how to repeat those things into the future.

By all accounts 2011 was a resounding success for me; lots of new experiences, memorable adventures, and I got my Cat 3 upgrade.  I don't think I need to delve into the things I need to repeat to continue chalking up new experiences and memorable adventures -- just keep on riding the bike, and minimize the time spent perched on my trainer and holed up in my office. 

The recipe for the Cat 3 upgrade isn't so simple though.  What follows is an attempt to outline some of the main ingredients used in my recipe, though I can't say for sure whether or not mixing them up again will result in another large batch of hand crafted deep flavored beer for 2012.

Just more of the same

It's possible that there was nothing specific that I did in 2011 that I can point to as the secret ingredient to my special sauce.  It might be just a matter of good things come to those who wait.  My journey towards my Cat 3 upgrade took place over the course of three full seasons racing as a Cat 4.  In my first season I generally found myself finishing mid-pack; last year I was consistently finishing in the top quarter or top third, and this year I advanced just enough to cobble up enough top ten finishes to qualify for an upgrade (only nabbing the last required top ten on my very last event of the season!). 

I ended each season with legs slightly more covered with veins than had been visible through the hair on my slightly stronger legs ( I still refuse to shave my legs, and only shave my face slightly more frequently ); feeling slightly smarter about what to do and what not to do while inches away from dozens of other riders racing through a tight corner on a crit, and just a little more stable perched upon my bike while being buffeted by cross-winds and pot holes heading down the hills of New England.  I guess if I just keep on plugging away at this thing called bicycle racing for long enough, it might just have been inevitable that I would become just strong enough, smart enough, and stable enough to sneak my way up to the front.

Equipment Upgrades

I'm sure if I sought out the latest and greatest aero and feather weight technological advances and opened up my wallet, my path to success would have been shortened.  However, I'm not really a gadget guy and a bike to me is just a tool, a means to an end, and not something to be worshipped.  So it should be a surprise that nearly all of my attention has been applied to improving the "engine" (me) that powers that tool.

That said, I came to the conclusion after nearly being beaten down by hills like the infamous Devil's Kitchen in 2010 that my success in such races as the Tour of the Catskills could be greatly enhanced if I invested in a compact crank to replace the standard crank that originally came with my bike.  That was my lone upgrade in equipment last year.  I have to say that had I not made the change, I might still be a Cat 4 right now.  Had I still been running the standard crank at the Tour of the Catskills, odds are that I would have fallen a few spots in both stage 2 and stage 3, which would have meant my top 10 count for the year would have fallen short of the 10 required for the Cat 3 upgrade.

Bike Handling Skills

This year I barrelled down steep mountain descents with more confidence, felt more relaxed when my bike rattled beneath me as I traversed over pot-holed dirt roads, and cut the gap between me and the wheel in front of me by a few extra inches.  In the process I conserved energy and had more Watts in the tank ready to match moves when the competition got fierce. 

I have to imagine that my big step forward in bike handling skills played a role in my Upgrade, and I am certain that those skills were enhanced because of the time I spent during the off-season on climbing and descending a collection of nearby hilly dirt roads.  And those skills were further enhanced with my hours on the trainer being displaced by hours balancing on the rollers (that is, those hours spent on the rollers after my first few weeks where I fell so often I seriously contemplated wearing a helmet!).

Coaching

2011 was my first year training with a coach, and it was also the year I upgraded.  Coincidence?  I think not!  While I was very proficient at finding ways to thrash my legs without a coach, I found myself in 2010 focusing on parts of my "engine" that I had given short change to in the past, and in the process I built a proper base that kept me strong right through the end of the successful season.

Unfortunately the scientist in me can't exactly quantify any specific end result that could be tied back to the training plan the coach had me followed.  The target set by my coach was more or less framed as "doing better", and I find it hard to assail such a vague target.  But I'm a numbers guy and I get jazzed by an audacious & concrete goal like "improve my 20 minute max power by 25 Watts".  It might not end up with better race results, but because I enjoy training nearly as much (or more?) as I enjoy racing, I've opted to try out a new coach for 2012.

Weight

In 2009, my weight hovered between 150 and 155 lbs.  Two years ago, I raced at weights ranging from 140 to 147.  And in my most successful year, 2011, I weighed as much as 137 but by the end of the season I was down to 129.  Think there's any correlation between my weight and my racing success, especially given my affinity for hilly road races?

The bad news though is that further race improvements stemming from further reductions in weight will be tougher to come by.  All of the weight loss thus far can be attributed to improved eating/drinking habits while cranking out the miles. 

In order to drop any more weight, I'll actually have to start dieting.  I'm not sure if I want to cross that bridge.  I don't mind suffering on the bike for hours and hours, but the prospects of suffering at the dinner table don't have me very motivated.  It would also result in a further encroachment of cycling on family life ("daddy can't go out to dinner with us because he has to stay at home and eat his special diet food"), so I'm not sure if I'm ready to cross that line in 2012.

Work/Life/Cycling Balance

I find it hard to believe that 2011's race results would have shown even the tiniest of progression if it were not for the near ideal work/life/cycling balance I was able to strike.  Work was a disaster for me for the first five months of the year, where I found myself more and more under utilized to the point where I was told to go looking for a new gig.  Yet that work disaster allowed for a cycling boon-doggle, where I could plan my work hours around my cycling training hours.  While most folks had to choose between family time and cycling time when deciding if and how to increase training duration, I had the luxury for a majority of my 2011 training to choose between work time and cycling time.  Any guesses as to who won that decision? 

Add to the mix a wife and family that fully supported my quest to upgrade, and toss in a few "family" vacations in locations ideal for a mountain goats and hill climbers, and you end up with about the perfect amount of miles and hours in the saddle required to score a Cat 3 upgrade, and in a way that didn't seem to intrude on the other important parts of life.

Summary

I admit that the title of this blog is a tad bit misleading.  I doubt the ingredients outlined in my recipe above could be followed by someone else and end up with the same results.  I didn't even specify the measurements to use when adding in the indegredients, so I doubt you could even call this a recipe -- just a list of ingredients.  Furthermore, those that are genetically more gifted than me likely can get by a far simpler recipe, perhaps one of those quick dinners that only require 4 ingredients or less.

Heck, I don't even know if I can follow the recipe again (e.g. I can't easily control work/life/cycling balance now that work has picked up), nor do I know if the same recipe used for a Cat 3 upgrade would translate into success riding as a Cat 3.  But I'm excited to give it a try and start cooking up a successful 2012 as training will begin in about 91 hours!