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Fantastic song.  I was not as excited about the rest of the album.

Day Off

Took a day off the bike yesterday.  Not a low TSS day, not even a recovery spin, but an entire day without sitting in the saddle.  Have been pushing quite a bit lately and yesterday I was just totally beat.

Did a couple hours of tempo this morning and felt great.  Tomorrow, back to the intervals.

Weight 3: Equipment

So if you are going to go through all the hard work of eating like a cyclist, you start to think about the weight of your equipment.  These are expensive thoughts.

Weight 2

I have probably spent less time thinking about my body weight than 95% of “elite” cyclists. I have always been more focused on power. I have a pretty high metabolism, am lean with no jiggly sections, and always assumed that my power would suffer if I was to lose weight.

Some things that got me reconsidering…
 Bradley Wiggins in this year’s Tour.
 Little Contador beat Cancellara in a mostly flat TT. I would have never thought this possible.
 A year ago, by a layperson’s standards, my diet was pretty poor. I constantly overate and consumed tons of pure garbage. For a cyclist, my diet was just abysmal.
 I still have some leftover upper body “vanity muscle” from my weightlifting days.
 I am one of the heaviest climber guys around.

For the past couple of months, I have really tried to watch my diet. I rarely eat to the point of feeling bloated/uncomfortable (remarkable restraint, huh?!?!?!) I seldom eat garbage (sugar, fast food, fried foods…) I am never hungry, but I do try to limit my calories. As a result, I weigh less than I ever have AND I am still able to do meaningful training.

Weight

Been thinking A LOT about body weight lately.

Back in July, a fellow racer and I were talking about the previous weekend’s race.

Him: Man, that race was epic. It was a 2200 Kj day for me.
Me: Yep, I spent 3000 Kj.
Him: Holy hell! How much do you weigh?
Me: 165.
Him: Oh.

The “Oh” was delivered with such sincere sympathy. Dude felt sorry for the overweight 165-pounder. Only in cycling.

Making Thanksgiving plans with a cyclist

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5700021/

My Best of 00’s

Inspired by Paste magazine’s Best of the Decade list…

• Doves “The Last Broadcast”
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” 
• National “Boxer” 
• Frightened Rabbit “The Midnight Organ Fight” 
• The Format “Dog Problems” 
• Sufjan Stevens “Illinoise” 
• Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson “Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson” 
• Radiohead “Kid A” 
• Andrew Bird (hard to choose just one album) 
• Bon Iver “For Emma, Forever Ago” 
• The Strokes “This is It” 
• Mew “And The Glass Handed Kites” 

I know I have forgotten a few.

 

Driving and cell phones

Seems that cell phones are the biggest driver distraction today. Have you seen the driver in the fast lane that hangs out directly beside a slower moving vehicle for miles and never notices the ¼ mile line of traffic backed up behind him? How about the car at the intersection that does not proceed when the light turns green? The erratic driver who can't keep his speed in a 30MPH range?

A friend argued the other day, "Hey, it doesn't make sense to have laws pick on the latest technology." Fair enough. Enforcing a more general "Driving While Distracted" law makes sense to me. Although not nearly as pervasive a problem as cell phones, I agree that driving while eating half a dozen Taco Bell crunchy tacos while drinking a Super Size Slurpy, while dancing to the newest Lady Gaga tune does not make sense either.

Terrorist

http://wboy.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=69844#comments

Finished Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City".

First non-fiction I have read in months. Except for a brief mention in a 1961 episode of the Twilight Zone, I knew nothing about Chicago's World Fair before reading this book. (Actually, the Twilight Zone was about the 1933 World Fair. This book was about the 1893 edition.)

I enjoyed learning about the times (It never occurred to me that there was a department whose sole task was to light/extinguish the city's gas lamps or that townspeople of the time got breaking news by standing outside of the newspaper offices.) I was impressed by the size of the undertaking (20,000 men working at one time) and intrigued by the murders, but the author wore me out a bit with too much detail.

Next, I return to The Dark Tower. Volume 3.

Wow.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101970323

Wild scene

Walking to the office in the dark this morning when I hear a quick, frantic ticking sound. I look up to see four or five deer running hard across a large, paved parking lot in “downtown” Clarksburg. Local news has been talking about a problem with the deer population. They may be right.

Chance of rain

Yesterday, after checking the weather radar and seeing a chance of rain, I called my buddy and cancelled our planned ride. He hates riding in bad weather as much as I do so he did not mind, but it got me thinking… There is no way I would have cancelled this ride a couple of months ago. My theory… I backed out, in large part, because I am out of shape and my ego is too big to enjoy riding with others when I am not in near peak form.

Would anybody want to read this and if they did, would I want them to?

Blogs that I am most interested in reading are blogs I would be least likely to write. I enjoy blogs authored by people who appear to have little issue sharing. These authors are not private people. I love to read about others’ training, their wattages, body weights, etc, but I don’t see myself writing this stuff in a blog for everybody (but probably nobody) to see. I enjoy reading other riders’ race reports, but as for me… If I do well in a race, I would not want to write about it, because I may appear immodest. If I do poorly, I certainly don’t want to publicly give my list of stupid excuses.

Why Am I Blogging?

1)  Racing season is over, so I have a lot of free time.

2)  I read a lot and appreciate good writing, but my writing skills leave me agonizing over the simplest multi-sentence email.  By writing one gets better at writing, right?

3)  I might enjoy it.