The Calm before the Storm

This week between the holidays is always an "off" week. Those of us working have about half staff. The staff that does show up is blurry-eyed (from lack of sleep or excess of alcohol .. or both) and unmotivated. The upside is that traffic is noticeably lighter and the parking garage at work might actually have an open spot. Sweet.

While "calm before the storm" does apply to this time of year for us boring accountants, I was actually referring to it in the cycling/racing sense. By now, teams have solidified their rosters for the coming year, have finished the begging drive - I mean the sponsorship drive, and are finalizing clothing and equipment orders. All that's left now is the (gasp) training. This week is sporatic with teammates traveling for the holidays, making nice with relatives that will not see them for at least 8 months once we start racing. Ah, but they know the storm is coming, they've been through this before.

This calm is weird for us. Yeah, we've all been doing base miles and we've all reminded each other that ITS DECEMBER, no need to hammer. But January brings a whole new game. I mean, racing starts in February, doesn't it ? The madness begins this month - the dedicated long hours in the saddle, dabbling in some intervals, planning the race schedule and trying to jockey vacation days to get the best bang for the buck. Just typing about is exciting !

The New Years Day ride at Hains Point is always a great way to kick things off. I look forward to it because, lets face it, other than your teammates/close friends, you probably haven't seen many of your fellow competitors since September. Has it been that long ? I run into random people there every year - some of whom I only see once a year at this ride. Everyone is happy to be on their bikes and happy to see each other.

I only go to HP for a few laps to socialize - I do understand that some actually do a "century" at the Point. I am not so sure you could pay me to spend that much time going in circles. But hey, who am I to say? There are plenty of people that think we're crazy to dress up like some lycra-clad michelin man to go for 4 hour rides in 28degree weather. One man's crazy is another man's dedication. Go figure.

TGIF - 12/19/08

Hey, how about that - 3 posts in one week and its the middle of off-season ! I'm proud of myself.

A co-worker just came up to me to proudly show off a "new" CD she just bought - for $1. It was a flashback to middle/high school. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. Heavy D and the Boyz (this was back when it was novel to spell boys with a z). Kris Kross. I include a link to that one just in case you say who ?? An outtake of the wikipedia file on Kris Kross - The duo is ... famous for their....fashion styling—consisting of wearing their clothes backwards. Yes, this was a rough time in the music biz. Anyhoo, as we were reminiscing these old artists, I recalled a hilarious country version of "Gin and Juice".

Mitch had it on CD and played it during our travels to the SE Crit Series in 2007. We laughed so hard we cried ... there's something about hearing gangsta lyrics in a southern drawl to the music of a banjo. For your listening pleasure: you have to turn the volume up to really hear the lyrics (and since it's a Snoop song, you know this is not safe for work !). But it's well worth 6mins of your life.

Happy Friday, ya'll ... counting down the days to the new year.

Gam Jams - Trainer Distractions

It's truly a wonder that I survived my first winter of training. I remember being so thrilled about training indoors when the weather was bad. Oh, the young and naive.

My first realization that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be was when my then-team-coach had 3hrs on the schedule and I sat on a trainer for . all . three. hours. I knew it was going to be a mind numbing experience so I popped in the only movie I could think of that would last as long as the ride: Forrest Gump. Lets just say I've never watched Forrest Gump again. And I never paid attention to that coach's direction again, either.

In the 4 seasons since then, I've found a variety of ways to make indoor training more palatable.

The first distractions were the Spinervals videos. How can we make sitting on a trainer more fun ? Have Troy Jacobson yell at you while you're doing it. Awesome ! I swear my neighbors thought I was abused on a regular basis - from outside my house all you'd hear was a male yelling for 45-50mins at a time. A bonus is seeing some local racers in their early years in the videos. Good for some amusement while you're suffering.

I still use Spinervals during the winter to get in a quick, hard workout and get the heck off the trainer. Troy will help you pass the time and before you know it, you're a schwetty mess but you're done.

I've have since graduated to rollers for most of my indoor workouts. Since I couldn't stand up on my Krietlers, I couldn't very well do most spinervals. So, I was reduced to regular TV.

The winter of 06-07, I watched the Soprano's almost from beginning to end. Side note: the only time I've ever fallen off the rollers was during a Soprano's episode ... one of the characters swept a bunch of clothes hanging up to the right, finding someone dead behind ... I was so surprised at the revelation that I steered in the direction of the clothing on TV ... right off the rollers. Ouch.

The winter of 07-08, I caught up on Heros and Lost.

This fall, I did quite a few roller workouts to politics - the debates would lend themselves to power workouts as I was annoyed by the rhetoric. Other political reporting was good for steady riding b/c I wanted to hear what was going on. Yes, I know, I'm a geek. I'm an accountant, what do you want outta me ?

When the weather on the weekend prevents outdoor riding, group trainer workouts are the best ... 2 hours with a few friends goes by a lot faster and you motivate each other. Otherwise I'm bound to get off to let the cat outside, get a drink of water, answer the phone etc etc etc.

To summarize:


Spinervals - good for trainers, good for a quick workout and good for spotting racers in early
years.

Sopranos - good for rollers as long as you're not excitable.

Heros/Lost - good for trainers and rollers

Political debates - good for power workouts

Equally masochistic friends - good for weekend marathon trainer workouts due to inclement weather.

Forrest Gump -if you're on the trainer long enough to watch this movie, you've got other issues.