I’m still in Iowa for work, and I’m slowly introducing my brother’s family to the strangeness that is the routine of a training (and yes, what I do officially does count as training) cyclist. My younger nieces are 6 and 3, and they are at the age where they have no reservations about speaking their minds or asking any question or more accurately, any series of questions they want to ask. And that’s wonderful because I can try and field  questions they may have while also trying not to fling myself from my rollers-it adds a whole new degree of difficulty to my training.

And there’s so many questions the little ones can choose from, for instance they can inquire about Uncle Dan wearing lady clothes and riding his bike to nowhere? Or maybe they ask why does Uncle Dan eats everything in the refrigerator, including all of our cereal? There’s so many things to learn from having a 2 score old grown up pedaling his bike in your laundry room and not going anywhere, not even to the hallway. The meanings of these lessons are escaping me at the moment, but I’m sure a greater meaning will manifest itself soon. Something to do either with the meaning of life or some top tips for removing stubborn stains.

Friday, January 30, 2009

I’ve been hard at work building a new bike nest out here in my temporary quarters, and the most important component of a proper bike nest is entertainment. Because the real enemy of indoor training is neither fatigue nor pain, it is boredom. That’s why I’ve been greedily swiping electronic equipment from my hosts in order to create my roller oasis-my nieces will simply have to do without the Disney feed for a while, uncle dan has to sweat through his brightly colored man tights.

Weight 154

1:24:50

83 cadence

1007 kj

38.70

310 max

201 ave

135 ave hr

Sunday, February 1, 2009

I came to Iowa with a cold only to find that there was a wave of strep going through the house here. I have been diligently washing my hands and keeping far away from infected individuals, who, despite my shrieking, still feel the need to come near. I felt under the weather yesterday and decided to take myself in to the doctor to have my sore glands and ear ache checked out. He didn’t find any nasty bacteria on the quick strep test, but the second test takes 48 hours, so I will play it safe and take some antibiotics prophylactically-and if you think I didn’t just write up that whole description just to be able to use the word “prophylactically” at the end-you don’t know me at all. Prophylactically! Prophylactically! Hee hee!

Weight 154

1:30:00

1077 Kj

201 ave watts

142 ave HR

85 ave cadence

42.66 miles

Monday, February 2, 2009

It’s been about 48 hours since my doctor’s visit, and I haven’t got a call with a positive test, an indication that there’s no strep in my system. I am now free to live my life bacteria-free, and will celebrate by riding round drums made of aluminum with my bicycle in an effort to get nowhere at all. Carpe diem!

In order to be able to withstand my stand of indoor riding; I’m working my way through the X-Men trilogy. It’s been two straight days of mutant powers and threats to humanity. I’m as geeky as the next guy; and I did go through a comic book phase, which came before my discoveries of both the ladies (which maddeningly didn’t discover me back-thanks, high school) and alcohol. But once these twin genies were sprung from their bottles, comic books didn’t stand a chance. From that moment forward, my spare time for comic books evaporated in a haze of intoxicants and hormones. Sorry, Wolverine.

Weight 154

1:30:00

1048 Kj

43.32 miles

85 average cadence

196 average watts

140 HR average

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Today marked my return back to intensity, and goodness I missed it so! I did the stalwart interval of my winter training season, the 20/10. Ah, the 20/10, so wonderfully brief and yet very satisfying at the same time.

Weight 154

1:24:25

1018 Kj

37.91 miles

83 average cadence

203 average watts

139 HR average

20/10

311 Average

171 hr

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Now that I am jumping back into the above ground pool of intensity, I’m going to start wading into the “just as deep end” (those things are only really one depth, and not very helpful in a metaphorical sense), and start down the path of threshold intervals. You’re probably at your computer wringing your hands in nervous anxiety while you wail “No, Dan, it’s too soon for threshold!” Well, more accurately, you’re probably sitting in front of your computer at work quietly hoping that the current financial hailstorm doesn’t leave dimples in the hood of the Datsun 280Z  that is your career, but I, like most bike racers, live in a world of myopia and delusion; and I prefer to think that people actually care about whether I ride slightly harder for a longer periods of time than I regularly do.

And ride slightly harder I did. I spun my way through 4 two minute intervals at threshold. And I know that doing threshold intervals that are under 4 minutes is like wearing a Saran Wrap parka to the South Pole, but I don’t care. I am just slipping back into the above ground pool here, I’ll be doing cannonballs off the garage roof later in the season.

Weight 153

1:15:00

908 Kj

35.89 miles

83 average cadence

205 average watts

142 HR average

2 minute intervals

323 Average 167 hr

322 Average 175 hr

324 Average 175 hr

314 Average 176 hr

Thursday, February 5, 2009

There are many pleasant things about being a bike racer: you get to wear white cycling shorts in public parks on rainy days; you get to wear noisy, slippery cleats into muffin shops; you get to look down on everyone else on bikes with smug disdain; and you get to toss white bar tape and white brake hoods on your sweet ride. I think we can all agree that these wonderful perks are what makes being a bike racers so awesome.

But sometimes if you want to race bikes, you have to do some unpleasant things. This means doing intervals, and especially unpleasant are longer intervals, those going past the duration of about 2 minutes or so. Today I had the unpleasant task of completing the third panel of my triptych of intensity, the dreaded 20 minute “kinda hard” intervals. The first 5 minutes of these intervals are not so bad, but once you get past the 10 minute mark, things get uncomfortable, not awful mind you, as these are kinda hard intervals, they are just uncomfortable. But discomfort is discomfort, and I personally prefer comfort over the sensation of being without comfort.

 

Weight 155

1:29:59

1104 Kj

43.91 miles

88 average cadence

205 average watts

143 HR average

20 minute intervals

255 Average 159 hr

240 Average 160 hr