Dirk's Junkie group - CLOSED (Page 68)

Nice!  Can't wait to see it, and then read the reports of her maiden voyage.  You’re gonna kick it this year.  You’ve really come a long way in a very short time.  Your running improvement is most impressive, so if the bike keeps up you’ll be a force.

And how about a new profile picture?  It's SPRING now!!!!

And I do recognize the hypocrisy in that since I've been running the same picture since the jurassic period.

Agreed with all of the above AND I am glad he's not i my AG.  I would be getting a little nervous about now

Signs of progress on all sides Vero.  I'm most happy to hear that you are getting the swim thing figured out and under control.

The weather seems to have made it to spring a little early here and the benefits of riding outside are really showing right now.  I need to do some of the same type of yard work too.  I'll ave a little bit of extra time in this weekend since it's a nice long 4 day weekend for me.

YES! Personally I have the advice and motivation of the group to thank for helping me get back up and going again. I have all but forgotten about the tendonitis in my foot that I struggled with for almost a year. That is such a HUGE relief and I credit the advice of the group for this progress!

On a training note....

I had a really fun but short brick workout on Monday night. I let loose a little on the run and felt like an athlete instead of an old lady dragging her feet. No ill effects later, back held up, feet feel good. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then yesterday I ran some laps around the track with my toddler gym kids. Mind you, these children are 3 & 4 years old - I could not even keep up LOL! Looks like I need to teach them some pacing strategies .

Matt I agree I want to see some pictures of your bike!

Jonathon you'll be smokin fast on the swim if you stick with the Masters swimmers. Sounds painful to me.

When you can't pick up your coffee up in the morning, you KNOW it was a good workout.

So quick question for all you bike gurus - I'm not feeling tired enough after my rides. What should I do?

Background: I regularly (twice a week) do a 16.5ish mile ride with two climbs - 1.3mi at 3.4% and 1.6mi at 3.9%. I push hard enough that my legs feel wasted at the top of both hills (they happen in quick succession), but after a mile or so of either downhill or flat pavement, they feel fine again. I did 30 miles of relatively flat stuff (only 700ft of elevation gain) and felt pretty wasted right after I finished, but after a couple of hours I felt okay again.

Should I push harder on the bottom of the climbs and force myself to finish so I'm more tired at the top? Or push harder on the last part when my legs already feel like they're about to drop off? I could push harder on the 6-7 mi of flat leading to the hills in the first place, so I start the succession tireder... Does it matter as long as I make myself more tired?

John

Bingo!  No it doesn't matter.  Just make yourself more tired.  I do have to say though, that the priority must go to greater distances rather than more intense efforts.  (a mixture of the 2 is important, but short, intense efforts alone won't do the trick).

Now 16.5 miles is a rather short bike ride.  I understand that may be all the time you have on those days and so be it.  Just ride harder on the flats.  Do this: target the AVG pace for the ride.  Work on seeing exactly how high you can get that 1 metric on these rides.

If your cycling is time constrained, make sure that you use the weekend to get a good 3 hr ride in.  It will work WONDERS for your cycling performance, and strangely enough...your running performance off the bike.

Let me put that this way - I have an hour, so the faster I can go, the further I can go!

Saturday mornings are reserved for a long ride, although I haven't managed to get as far as I'd like recently. Last Saturday was a two hour ride, I'm hoping for at least three this week. I have some extra time tonight, so I'm thinking about doing a mountain loop for a couple of hours - 3.1 mile loop with 430ft of elevation gain. It'll keep me off the main roads during rush hour.

We'll see what the weather does...

I'll totally agree that you should bike as hard as you can on shorter rides. Hills are fabulous for built in intervals, as putting out more power on hills is very natural and easy to do.  Once riding starts outside for me, I'll spend one day hammering hills just to build strength.  I also do one medium long (2-ish hours) ride and really hammer some hills along the way.

But remember that an important skill to time trial well is to normalize your effort regardless of conditions - terrain, wind, etc.  One thing that really saps a lot of people on the bike is pushing too hard on up hills and into the wind, then trying to recover on downhills and flats.  This is a sure fire way to cook yourself on the bike and/or have a sub-par run.  A more efficient way to get your best bike followed by your best run is to not overcook the uphills but to even out effort throughout the ride.  This is more important the longer the event.

In terms of your original comment - this means that you need to really learn how to push harder on the flats, so I think you should spend at least some of your time each week doing hard efforts on flat-ish roads.  Sounds like you have a lot hills in your area which should really help build your strength.

Here's a video shot yesterday in the weight room.  I'm sharing it because I'm overwhelmingly excited about how my shoulder has recovered from my surgery!

http://youtu.be/tACKErzdgWc

That's incredible man.  I have never been good at pull-ups.  My long arms don't help either. 

On another note, I'm tapping out of this group since the new one is going live.  Cheers!

That's impressive at any time, 7 months post surgery is crazy.  Great work. 

Now I have inspiration to get my act together and add pullups to my routine.  I've been putting it off but the gauntlet is down!

Very impressive!  But now I really think you need to change your profile pic too because you look nothing like your current pic. 

If I do a 40 mile ride, but I stop at the bike shop and browse halfway through, is that two 20 mile rides?  In other words, does the long ride need to be non-stop?

David, come over to the new group!  Look for the Asphalt Junkies.