The Century, Metric or Otherwise, Are you Ready?

The Picture of the photo of myself and Ashley is one of my Favorite photo's Taken by our friend and professional photographer, Alex Mcknight. The bridge my lovely wife and I are standing on is called the Gandy Bridge in Tampa, FL. It was the old connector bridge from Tampa to St. Petersburg, FL. It is approxiametly 3.5 miles long. We would run, skate, and ride over this bridge A LOT when we lived in beautiful Tampa, FL. Now, they do not allow anyone on it! So, this is not only a piece of history, but also a big part of our training back in our Florida days. We actually use to do hill intervals on that little rise you see in the background, you know the rise on bridges so small vessels can get under the bridge? Yep, that was our one hill near our house! How times have changed? Even living in Kansas, I can easily get in 1500-2000 feet of climbing in a 30 mile ride, if it is planned out correctly. The other picture was taken back in May at the top of Brasstown Bald Climb, near Helen, GA. It is significant to understand what my friend went through this past weekend.

The guy behind the len's of the photo of Ashley and I just completed the Six Gap Century in Georgia. The 6 Gap is a huge task! 100 plus miles over 6 Mountain Gaps in Georgia. The highest Peak is over 4 thousand feet. I was at a training camp in May riding all of those Gaps on a daily basis. They are inspiring and humbling all at the same time. Add in 100 plus miles and you could be on the bike for over 7 hours! It takes a lot of preparation to tackle this event. I completed in 2007, but have ridden my bike over those Gaps a lot back in the Tour De Georgia days. I highly recommend a trip to this area! It is family friendly and just spectacular.

I am happy to report that Alex finished in fine fashion and is recovery from the achievement. But, not without some doubts along his journey. You could tell as he sent messages, he was up and down. Just like any other distance event you may enter, you will have some really high moments and some really low ones. It is how you handle or have prepared for the event that will carry toward the finish line. Sounds a lot like life dosen't it?

So, let's get to the real point of this blog post! I have a very good friend who has been my coach in the past and will have some future implications on a lot of great things moving forward in 2012. I thought I would add a well written article that Jeb Stewart of Endurofit Coaching published in the September Issue of Florida Cycling. The article discuss's training for a Century event. Since we have been putting in the work for this Saturday's Tour De BBQ, I felt like this would be a great read to make sure you are prepared in all aspects before the ride? So, enjoy the information and you can always email me your questions concerning training, preparation for events, and equipment needs to shoressports1@yahoo.com.

Here is the link to the article: Training for a Successful Century

GO!

Tour De BBQ Week! Nutrition! GO!

Ok, this is the week! The Tour De BBQ! WE ROLL on Saturday a.m. Oct. 1st, to join in the fun and Fight against Cancer! Many of you have been training with us all year at the SPIN! Rides, some of you have even rode enough with us that you are part of the SPIN! Team for the Tour De BBQ! That in itself is a huge accomplishment, it takes many rides and atleast 120 miles of riding to get on that team. Yeah, I bet you never thought of it in those terms did you? If you were a consistant rider doing 3 SPIN! rides a week you were averaging 40 miles a week on the low end and close to 65 miles if you were doing our longer routes. Either way, you were pedaling with us toward a goal and we thank all of you for your efforts. What a fun season!

In order to further prepare you for this Saturday, I am featuring a series of articles and tips to help you improve your performance for your best Tour De BBQ ever! Today we are featuring Former Ride Guide and 24 hr Mountain Bike National Champion, Cameron Chambers. He has extensive training with Carmicheal Training Systems and personally with the food at SPIN! So, take a moment to read some words of wisdom on how to be reading for your best ride this Saturday! GO!

Cycling and food have a beautiful relationship. If you ride your bike more, something we are always shooting for, you are going to have to eat more, something most of us are more than happy to indulge. The two always have to find an equilibruim. We all understand the effects of to much food with to little calorie expenditure. Our bodies store the excess calories as fat cells at choice places on our frame, not our bike frame unfortunatley. Instead hips, butts, and stomachs lay claim to the unused calories. On top of a host of medical problems this can lead to it also has the added misfortune of acting like an achor for our forward progrees on a bike ride, especially noteble when the road turns up. What is less understood is the flip side of the coin, when we ride and burn more calories than we take in. This can be just as detrimental to our riding as carrying extra weight up hill. It is important to develop a sound nutritional strategy that does not have you eating to much food but is delivering fuel to the engine to keep you motoring down the road.
First of all it is crucial to understand what we are using for fuel to understand what our aim is in keeping us running. Riding a bike is by and large an aerobic activity. As opposed to our glycolitic or creatine phosphate energy systems, our aerobic energy system uses fat as its primary fuel source. Great news for us as cyclists, as even the leanest riders have ample stores of energy in the form of fat cells to drive near endless miles of riding. But the story does not end there. At all levels of activity, even sleeping, we are also burning some glycogen. Glycogen is the carbohydrate form of fuel stored in working muscles. As excercise intensity increases, the overall number of calories we are buirning increases and the percentage of those calories which come from glycogen increases. We have a finite supply of glycogen stored in our muscles at any time. Even a well trained well fueled cyclist has only minutes of time where they could ride at an extremely high intensity, burning maximum amount of glycogen. As glycogen begins to run low our bodies smartly begin to rely more on glucose, delivered from our liver straight into our blood stream and immeadiatley available to working muscles. As both of these sources run low, which very generaly speaking happens in a time frame around about 90 minutes of excercise, we "hit the wall" or "bonk" or whatever other name you may call it. The phenomena is the same and you probably all have experienced it. No amount of will power or desire could possible drive your body on faster and further. It is simply over.
Luckily it is relatively easy to combat this. By providing our working bodies with nutrition as we are excercising we can continue to supplement the glucose in our blood which in turn allows us to continue to burn fat effeciently to fuel our continued effort. So then we now have to look at what is the most effecient way to go about this supplementation. When we put anything into our stomach it has to go through the digestion process before it can make its way into the blood stream. Our goal here is to eat something that requires the least amount of work to get to where it is needed. We want to minimize the water and blood and overall energy required for our digestion. If we are under three hours of duration in excercise then I reccomend keeping these calories to a liquid form for two main reasons. With liquid calories you are also combating the additional dehydration situation that we have taking place (another topic for another article) and you are providing a slow drip of nutrition to your gut. You want to avoid overwhelming your digestive system with a 100+ calorie dumping at one time. If you rode for 2 hours and you drank two water bottles and half way through chow down a full energy bar, in the end you did not accomplish anything different as if you had two water botttles mixed with sports drink that you sipped, but you did create a greater stress on your system forcing your body to work at something besides driving the pedals. Drinking the calories in sips provided you with 15-25 calories per gulp and gave yourself a steady stream of glucose and kept your body happy by allowing it to process your nutritional requests in smaller increments, therefore requiring less energy at any one given point and not having spikes and valleys in your energy levels. Think of it like an IV dripping into your blood stream. Another consideration here is your core temperature. Especially in hot conditions we need to be mindfull of our own effects on our teperature. The thermic effect of food can drastically descrease our ability to perform if what we are taking in causes an overal spike in core body temperature. We are talking a small spike but nonethless the overall consequences can be significant.
Just as we train ourselves to ride longer and stronger we must train ourselves to be able to take in and process the calories we give it. The goal is not to match our calorie burn rate one for one, but by providing somewhere in the window of 300-500 calories an hour in the form of maltodextrin and in smaller amounts fructose we can continue to maintain the fat burning environment within our aerobic energy system. Start with two bottles on your bike and having each mixed with roughly 150 calories for a 24 ounce bottle. Start sipping on it early into the ride as a preimptive strike against depleted glycogen and glucose. If you have trouble getting yourself in the habit then set a watch to beep at you in reminder to take another drink. In longer rides, ie 2.5 hours +, begin to experiment to see if you can handle a little higher calorie load. Must of us, after finding a product that works well and training with it for a few months, can comfortably ride with around 400-500 calories an hour.
The SPIN! crowd is not one that I have to remind of the importance of a good post ride meal. I am preaching the the choir here. But it is still worth mentioning that it is equally important to re-fuel after a ride to be able to recopver and come back sooner for another ride and workout. Even if you are a rider looking to cut back on calories in order to lose weight, during riding and post riding is not the time to create the calorie defecit. Our muscles are the most receptive to taking in fresh stores of glycogen during the first 30 minutes after excercise. A balanced meal provides us with all we need in terms of recovery and rebuilding. Obviously it should be somewhat higher in carbohydrate calories but we certainly also need protien and fats as well. Just as in all other times of your life, you certainly should not eat until you are stuffed full, but taking in a good meal is essential for setting you on the fast track to coming back stronger for your next ride.
Continue your steady riding throughout the year and put in place these simple nutritional principals and you are well on your way to being able to tackle any cycling challenge that you decide to lower your sights on.
Bon a pettite!


Tune in Tomorrow as we feature SPIN! Co-owner Richard Lozoff and his re-post of an article from 2010 concerning Electrolyte replenishments!

See you on the Road!

JP

Going The Distance Down the Long Road!

The picture above says it all! I have been pretty silent lately, for good reason! It has been very busy. Vacation, work, family, and any spare time has been spent riding or running! The SPIN! rides have been unbelievable this year! We have been averaging close to 70 riders at each ride the last month. Even with the extreme heatwave, people were riding there bikes and then hanging out and eating some pizza. It makes me smile to think about all the people who have been riding with us over the past few years. I remember when we were excited if we had 20 riders on any given night. Don't get me wrong, I am still happy when anyone shows up to ride with us, but this has been the best year for attendance. It tells me that many people are turning to fitness on a bike as an outlet and/or social activity! Because we love to socialize and talk about biking as much as we do riding at the SPIN! rides. If you have not been out to one, come and join us before September 17th. That is the last scheduled ride before we all meet up at the Tour de BBQ on October 1st! If you have yet to experience the Tour de bbq, it has become an instant KC cycling must ride over the last few years. The money raised goes to fight Cancer right here in the KC Metro area and the food is the best of any ride you will ever encounter. The post party event is unreal down at the P&L District across the street from the SPINT Center. I am definetly not going to miss any of the festivities at this event and if your family or friends do not ride, have them meet you after the ride for one heck of Party! You will not regret it.

So, the road to my next events has required a lot of changes in my training. It also has me re-assesing the rest of the racing year. I have had to cut back on some events due to the increased volume of training and adding the running to the program. Change is something that had to occur in order for my body to adapt to the new demands that will be placed on it during the longer endurance events. So, this month has Zero racing, but September, October, and November will both have a mix of running and Mountain Biking events to close out the racing season. Cyclecross is on the horizon, but I am not sure what my decision will be on racing Cross for 2011? I will most likely enter a few events, but it is not a major focus. I am looking down the road at 2012! Some major events are already booked and on the calendar and they will require more focus, preparation, and planning than most of the events require. I am fine with it, as I will see the family a bit more and have no racing pressures going into the holidays for 2011. Usually I am full on with Cycle cross and it goes right up to Christmas. By December, the season will be over for me and should be a nice little off season!

But, there are still races to be raced and a lot of miles to put in over the next several weeks to get ready for some new events this Fall. I am embracing a lot of changes this month physically and mentally. It is good to do this, it is healthy to imput stresses on your body that require yourself to dig a little deeper. Sometimes, I just enjoy the training more than the racing, I know it is a sickness that I have had since I first laced up my speed skates and felt the exhilartion of going fast for a long time, just ask my cousin Mark about my training sessions back in the day. But, at some point, I need to be let out of the cage and see what is in the tank? I will be doing this a few times in September, October, and early November. Other than that if you see me slow to stand up, or walking a little gingerly, it is all good! That means i am putting in the required efforts, to make the changes necessary to reach that next goal and provide myself with the opportunity to get to the next level, whatever that will look like?

Life is good! Train smart, train right, and the rewards will come your way!If the season ended today for me, a big smile would always be on my face thinking about the 2011 racing season. But, it is not over and there are still some races that our team is focused on and I am a part of that focus. Besides, there are only 272 days left until the gun goes off at Ironman Texas, going the distance is the goal! I am not sure what it will feel like crossing that finish line? But, I am going to place myself in the position to enjoy every step of the way!

See you on the road, at SPIN! Ride or in the dirt!

GO!