Rain is Fine

Starting this post on the train this morning. It's Friday and still raining but I'm not going to be among the myriad of people whining about the rain. Seems like half the Facebook status updates of the last 24 hours are complaints about rain. It rains, these things happen.

I however feel good. I got out for a ride in the rain. I'm now living under the premise of No Excuses. It's too easy to make excuses for everything. I think Nike had it right: Just do it. Stop making excuses and live your life.

It's Friday and I'm strongly considering a day off Monday. It's supposed to be 52 and I need a colossal bike ride, in the 5 hour realms. Nat said, "Go for it." Maybe she's adopting my No Excuses philosophy. As long as I have nothing that needs attention Monday I think I'm going to pull the trigger. It would be really neat to put on the summer shoes again for a day and not wear the big gloves and winter jacket. Even if it's a single day I think it helps the soul.

I have some time tomorrow since Nat and Julia are going to a shower so I can get a 3 hour ride tomorrow and maybe 1-2 Sunday then bang out a huge Monday.

At 181 today and hoping to see 179 before the year is out. The 4 dozen cookies may have hurt the cause a bit last week but the entertainment value there has faded and we've stopped eating them. It's a tough time of year to lose weight but so far I'm still dropping a little each week.

On a lark this year I did another fantasy football league with some old high school friends I found on Facebook. Well the year ends and the guy is like, "Ok pay your $40 now." And I'm like fuck that, I don't gamble. So he said he would pick it up since I didn't know it was a money league but I'm sure this just severs the tenuous connection I had reestablished with them. No big deal I suppose since I hadn't talked to anyone in over 15 years.

That's all I got. In Penn Station now so I'm off to see if I can find dried cranberries and walnuts in this dump. Admittedly, I get a little OCD about some things. So sue me.

Please Steal My Car

My Facebook status today is: Not entirely thrilled. Some of you know that's a slight inside joke but it more or less describes my mood today. Nothing is tragic, yet I'm not entirely thrilled.

My car may have shit the bed, though it more or less threatens to do this every 6-12 months. Oil is dumping out at an alarming rate. It may be as simple as the oil filter coming loose. Or it may be shot. Or somewhere in between.

Either way I had to walk to the train station on the coldest day of the year. Not bad, but when I got into the Millington cafe my forehead felt like it was going numb.

Somehoe the scale also jumped from 182 to 185. I know variations are normal but I haven't had a +3 in a long time. Didn't think the ride yesterday was that taxing but I guess it was. I'm really biding my time to see 181 and I'm confident I will, but for 2 weeks the bottom hasn't fallen out to that yet, indicating that I may be pressing just how low I can go right now. This is familiar territory in a way. Last time I was down here the weight loss just stopped. I think my methods are better this time but only time will tell. Currently drawing even with last week's weight number which throws up a yellow flag.

It's Friday. I turn 37 tomorrow. I hope to get a nice long birthday ride in but they "feels like" is supposed to be 11. That's awfully cold for a 3 hour ride.

Back to March

I hit 186 again today, back to my pre-vacation weight of March. Only 4 pounds to tie my lowest weight ever. In the past I always felt it was a struggle to get to these mid-180s. Now it's really been a breeze. Refined eating habits and eating more at the right time have really helped. Aiming for 181 next.

No Magic in 2008

Today I opted for the lower level of the double decker. I'm shifting hours this week to align more with when my boss is here. He never made it yesterday because his plane didn't leave Chicago until 1:00. I guess he went right to the hotel and called it a day. The lower level is also a new perspective because you're lower than normal. Still comfy and smooth.

I find people who sit on the outside of the 2 seater obnoxious. They clearly don't want to share with anyone and often time put their bag on the other seat and sigh when you ask to sit there. What's wrong with people?

But that has nothing to do with the magic. The magic is the biking magic. I had fairly high hopes coming into this year and I think today I'm going to go ahead and say that those lofty hopes are not going to bear fruit, or at least the kind of lush, tropical island fruit I was hoping for. The plan was to come into the season really hot and compete for a top 5 spot in each of the first 5 races. Well I bagged Tymor but in those 4 races I did compete in 3 but came up empty, getting 6, 6, and 7. Not bad by any stretch. But not what I was hoping for.

Of course a lot of my spring momentum was stalled by going to Taiwan and going from 186 to 195 and even above, at one sad point seeing 200 again. So understandable I would drop a few spots out of the top 5, no big deal. This still left the second half of the season, and right before Chicago I saw 189 again and things were looking good.

But then a week out there, drinking before, drinking after, and a scale which read 195 yesterday and 194 today tells me I'm just not going to get there. I thought I was back on track last week but then I jumped from 191 to 195 in 2 days. I need to string together some reasonably healthy weekends but this summer shit and the gatherings with the neighbors suck the life out of any momentum I build during the week.

It's not like I'm having a bad time of it. I'm totally enjoying myself on the weekends (obvious), getting in huge rides and then having fun with some friends after. But following up a 50 mile ride with 5 beers and pizza leaves me all sorts of beat up, unable to consistently make a push for those much needed lower 180 scale days I need in order to compete for a podium.

And it's not like I'm slow on the bike either. This morning I went out at 5:25 am. Without question when I ride at that time of day I'm unable to pull the same average as mid-morning or afternoon. But I did my long 24 mile swamp loop and pulled a 20.3 average. That's goddamn fast for a fat drunk. 2 years ago a 17 would have made me happy now I'm doing 20+ at 6:00 am. All in all, not bad.

But I don't think I'm going to take that magic step this year. It's not an awful realization but it is a realization regardless. So there I am. I don't think that changes anything but maybe I need to come to grips with the fact that I'm never actually going to see 179 like I had hoped. Maybe I make it to expert after next year. Or maybe I get sick of waking up at 4:30 and 5:00 am and dial it back and enjoy things more and push myself less. Or maybe I get on track, hit 182 by September, and podium the last 3 races. Either way as long as I'm enjoying the ride, literally and figuratively, I guess I have to take what I can get.

Throwing Down is Better Than Up

Let's get the ball rolling with some Coach G comments:

ChrisG

"Sounds like you are throwing down pretty hard. Good stuff. Questions: How long is your rest interval? What gearing for work/rest? You mentioned 92 rpm as slightly high- is 90 rpm your target cadence? Keep eating that fruit."

I am throwing down very hard especially compared to what I've done in the past. I commented to Walter, I think I'm finally understanding what they mean when they say, "You have to train in order to be able to train." I thought I understood last year but now I know I didn't. Having done some races undoubtedly helped that.

My rest interval is 4 minutes because I want to pare a few minutes off the workout to make sure I catch the train in time. In theory the workout calls for 5 minute rests. Now that I have the 4:30 am groove a little down I will likely go back to 5 next week.

The trainer bike is a mountain bike so my gearing is mountain specific. But the trainer also has resistance, so it basically comes down to this (roughly):

Work: big ring front, small ring rear, less 1. Resistance at 3. Say 44x14 at R3.
Rest: big ring front, small ring rear, less 2. Resistance at 1. Say 44x15 at R1.

I am targeting cadence this offseason more because I now see the value of really setting yourself into a certain cadence. I think this has helped me in those tempo rides because now my legs want to do 90. I've also seen that because I've been trying to keep the cadence higher I tend to slowly creep towards 100 and not realize it. Now I need to spend more time in the woods to see how well that all translates.

I was surprised at the 92 because it was the 3rd interval and with these I tend to hover in the 87-90 realm. So when I saw 92-94 with a few minutes to go I was happy with that. The last 2 minutes were tough so maybe I was really suffering from cadence creep at that point and paying for the higher power output.

Here's an odd thing. I felt really good all day Tuesday. Monday I was starting to get dog tired by the middle of the day but Tuesday I never hit the energy lull that usually comes on the last day of the block. And considering I was tired Monday, I expected it to be bad Tuesday. I started to fade a hair around 3:00 but some Brazil nuts and a pear helped a bit.

This morning marks my return to pre-vacation weight. That's a big milestone this early in the game. I've gone a bit militant with my eating habits but the reality is that yesterday I ate the following foods (among other things): egg, ham, avocado, meatballs, Brazil nuts, almonds, cashews, peanut butter, ice cream, almond butter, potato pancake, and a chicken thigh with skin.
My point is two-fold. Eating doesn't have to be boring and tasteless. There are plenty of healthy foods that are good for you. But moderation is huge. One egg is 75 calories. A small slice of ham is 50. The chicken thigh is small, I eat 1-2 almonds at a time, and so on. Mingled in there I also had a mango, pear, tangerine, apple, asparagus, broccoli, and carrots. Mix it all up and it's not so bad.

Saw 185 today. Hopefully I can keep this up and make a full court press on the 170s by the end of February. 181 is the new short-term goal because I haven't been there since grade school.

Mashed Potatoes

I don't have much to say today but I have to post up that I wasn't even able to crack the 180s this week which means I have to say the 2 week binge cost me 5 pounds. That's a lot of extra calories on the surface. Going with 3500 calories a pound, by 5, gives you 17,500 extra calories. Divide that by 14 and you come up with 1,250 per day. That may seem like a lot but it adds up fast, especially when you mix an all-you-can-eat cruise with the Thanksgiving holiday. Beer and wine alone probably add up to 500 a day for those 2 weeks if not more. Not totally on the wagon just yet now but mostly at this point. Need to get back into the 180s over the next month and stay there if I want to have any chance at seeing 179 in 2008.

Not much going on right now, other than the fact it's Friday which is always nice unless you work weekends. Was on the bike for an hour this morning and then have the time trial tomorrow. Then I'll come home and pound out some leaves and burn up some of the excess wood around the yard. By "pound out" of course I mean that I'll be fucking leaf piles of course. I'm hoping to at least knock out the front yard tomorrow. It's small but it's also the furthest away from the back, where the leaves ultimately go.

I think my routine change will be a weekly train pass to Penn Station next week. It's a good change from the Hoboken line for a week. Ideally it's the better solution but it's much less reliable. But I'll gamble for a week. Right now I'm doing NYC in the AM and Hoboken on the way home. My life is so exciting it hurts.

This is pretty boring. I have nothing to say other than I didn't make 189 let alone 188. After that I'm just rambling. Rutgers lost last night. I went to bed just before the half with the score 28-10, Rutgers was up. I said to Nat, "I think they're going to lose this game." She says, "Really?!" I explained Louisville scored far too easily to get to 10 and it would come back to bite them in the ass. Sure enough, 30 seconds after I turned off the TV it was apparently 28-18 and the collapse was on. As usual, sticking your dick in the mashed potatoes is more productive than watching this team some days.

Poster

I have some feedback to catch up with for sure.

Jake

"i will guess 188. after your body realizes that you're done hurting it, it will go back to functioning normally. if that fails, just grab a steak knife and lop a few lbs outta yer arse. that's my plan."

Good guess, I like it. Very aggressive. After 1 day it looks pretty good as this morning I was 191. Hit the trainer this morning so if we're lucky maybe 190 already tomorrow. Friday or Saturday's weight will be the number I compare against 185 to see how much I gained on my 2 week binge.

This morning was the 5th day on the bike in a row, first time I've hit 5 straight in a while. Nothing amazing just trying to burn calories and keep a tempo pace to help raise my threshold power and lay a good base for now. I may shoot for a 6th day tomorrow but I can feel the need for sleep creeping in.

This is a poster on the train:

70% of all inmates are functionally illiterate. He is getting out soon. Wouldn't you rather he could read?

The subtitle is this:

Illiteracy is a leading cause of crime.

I agree with the underlying message, that uneducated people is not a good thing. I also agree that inmates should be educated in an attempt to correct some of what society has fallen short in providing in the first place. But I have an issue with the way this message is sent. Through fear.

The idea that you should be afraid of uneducated criminals being released is disappointing. I understand PR wars are now fought through the media and by advertising gross mis-statements and by using scare tactics. But it doesn't make it right. I have a problem when someone presents an opinion then tries to browbeat others into agreeing with that opinion. I believe you should put forth an idea, present its strengths and weaknesses, and let people decide for themselves.

I doubt I would be good at politics for this reason. I would present an idea straight up, choosing not to couch it in hyperbole to suggest you're ignorant, deficient, or sexually delinquent if you don't agree. And if the majority of the people thought it was a bad idea, I would say OK, your choice. But we expect our leaders to ignore what we think because it's much more convenient to have a strong opinion then back away from it by saying that it's not your job to know about these things and that politicians should be ignoring you. It gives the Lazy Complainer an easy out by allowing you to vociferously state your claim then later to exhaust how badly other people are doing at making decisions.

I've gone off track. I agree that we should educate everyone, including prisoners. But I don't think you should be trying to attain that end by using fear tactics. As soon as the next Educated Prisoner gets out of jail and kills someone, your frail House of Cards falls apart and you need to start from the ground again. Then you'll need a new poster campaign.

Alignment

In some ways things are coming into alignment. As previously discussed, there is no "right" way of anything but some things seem to line up better than others. Last night was day 10 of not eating overnight and I'm sleeping better than ever. I'm also able to eat more during the day to offset the fewer calories at night. That seems to make me feel better, both during the day and at night.

I'm one of these micro-manage type people with some things. Having said that I no longer track my calories, thankfully. That was tedious to say the least. But I do try to hit a few things. The general philosophy I have now it to hit a major calorie deficit hard with food. This really comes into play in 2 ways:

1. Breakfast. I used to eat through the night so breakfast wasn't so important. Now I make sure it's about 400 calories.

2. After harder workouts. After really tough workouts, I drink my Endurox and eat something else after a shower. Normal workouts I just have a decent meal.

The thing I find with covering these big calorie deficits is that it helps me later in the day. If I eat a big breakfast I seem to be less hungry all day. Likewise, if I eat my recovery food after a workout I don't seem to hurt as much. If I try to skimp calories I will rebound at some point in the day, and eventually be consuming food like an average fat American at the buffet line.

So again, while there is no "right" this seems to be working well for me. I'm eating more in the day and quite frankly not watching what I eat at all, yet my weight seems to be stabilizing at the 185-187 realm. I don't know if it's possible but the 170s in 2007 is still in the realm of possibility, though we go on vacation Friday which is then followed by Thanksgiving.

On Monday I did some Tmax intervals which were painful but oh-so-good at the same time. Last week I figured out my Vmax, which is max speed on the trainer at the highest resistance. You start at a low speed and increase 1 mph every minute until you can't complete another minute. This was 23 mph but trainer speeds mean nothing. Then a few days later you get up to that Vmax as fast as you can and hold it as long as you can. For me it was 2:12. That hurt.

The HIT workout is then 50% of your Tmax at your Vmax. So I did intervals of 1:06 at 23 mph with the most resistance. in early spring I'm probably going to block this kind of workout and stack 2-3 days a week with this sort of stuff. On the second day you do 60% and the third you do 70%. Then you take 3 days off.

Lots of load, lots of rest, become strong like bull. I'm not getting into that now I just like to play around with different workouts because I like to know what's coming. I should be backing off a bit and I am. But if I'm going to be on the trainer I want it to count.

I know it's not bike season yet. But I am still on the bike and will be all winter. I need to raise my race pace endurance in the winter so plenty of solid-length moderate pace rides to come, hopefully. Going to try to avoid the trainer as much as possible but I'm sure it will be 2 days a week minimum for most of the winter. Tentative plans to ride out to my parents on Thanksgiving morning, maybe just under 50 miles or so.

Vacation is coming up fast. Oddly, it's almost not real at all. Since I had nothing to do with putting it together, it's just this theoretical thing at the end of the week. I'm going into it with the perfect mindset right now. How often do you hit vacation week well rested?

Wash Behind Your Ears

It's been a pretty crummy week here at the ranch. First of all I have no ranch. Second of all those damn canker sores have just killed me all week. Yesterday was a little better and this morning I can definitely tell they're clearing up. But brushing my teeth last night was about as painful as anything could be. The details in life.

I'm pretty bummed right now because my PC at home seems to have a corrupt disk and it won't boot. It's the same old sob story you've heard 1000 times and it sucks donkey dick. All our digital pictures, my biking logs for 8 years, all the various bike files and maps, resume, and whatever else. The computer has never acted right and this is probably a swan song of sorts. I still have hope I can make it work just to recover all my stuff. I suppose we may need to pay real cash money for a pro to take a hack at it for the data alone.

Backup your files.

Wash behind your ears.

My weight is sorta totally stagnant but at the same time I feel like I'm getting thinner. I look thinner in the mirror, I feel thinner, clothes are looser. Scale says 186 today which is +1 from last Friday but the weekly average is 186.14 which is -0.29 from a week ago. So it goes slowly but consistently down. I think my body is still adjusting from the -7 change in the first week.

My slow chewing plan has been scrapped for the week because chewing hurts like nobody's business. I either take small bites and just get it over with or huge bites and inhale as fast as I can. Tasting food this week is a mere happenstance if my tongue gets in between my hand and my stomach.

Weekend weather looks great. I'll be out for an hour or so tomorrow then I get to watch Julia until nap time. Nat is going out to lunch with Cheryl. Maybe I'll swing by Terren's or take her for a bike ride. As soon as I put the child seat on the old Trek the weather turned cold.

Starting to think about the off-season and the bike already, which means picking up some of my bike books and rereading them on the train to work. I have some things I want to focus on in order to make 2008 more productive. I may race mostly, if not all, XC next year. Bouncing around the idea of doing the whole H2H series.

Friday friday friday. Get it done and get home so you can enjoy the weekend weather.

187

Now that I have the training blog on the other site this one is really useless. Admittedly the other one is useless too but I never claimed anything I wrote was of use to anyone anyway.

Friday morning and I'm tired. Lack of sleep is catching up to me. I think I need to face the reality that I'm doomed to a life of partial hell in terms of rest until my daughter is at least 38 years old. My legs aren't tired so much as my overall being. I'm also thirsty as hell as I only drank one glass of water this morning. They need vendors on the train.

I've flat-lined at 187 since Tuesday despite carrying at least a 1000 calorie deficit every day this week. Of course I dropped 7 pounds last week so it's a bit of a stabilization. I was 186 Sunday and Monday and I was hoping to see that on the scale this morning, even though I knew it wasn't going to happen. I woke up feeling lethargic and bloated which I've read will happen when you don't take in enough liquids. I'm certainly not drinking as much water these days. Maybe 12 cups a day but not much at night so I dry up as the sun goes down.

Seems like 187 is some barrier I need to pound on for now. I gotta say this weight loss stuff is fucking tedious. Some days I just want to say fuck it and remain a middling fatso who rides his bike for leisure because it seems like the rules are just fucking different for some of us. I burn 3500 every day, eat 2000-2500 and nothing all week. How did I manage to see 182 earlier this year? Oddly my clothes are all looser than ever right now. My size 35 pants are close to needing a belt.

I know, stay the course. Weight loss is not linear. I just seem to have one of these body types that will stockpile excess water and waste. Again, the evolutionary advantage to this is what again? Hey I'm being attacked by a bear, let me shit 3 pounds! That'll sure help!

Race this Sunday. I'll try to get as much sleep as I can the next 2 mornings and hopefully that storm doesn't hit us on Sunday. I paid for my race already so unless it's canceled or my car can't make it I'm racing that bitch. Even if it's me and Fred and nobody else fighting for that podium I'll be there. Having said that I sure hope it doesn't rain because it makes a mess of the trails and my bike.

Do Buddhists race mountain bikes?

Continued Photography

Much less blogging on this side lately as I've started a training blog/thread on the mtbnj site which you can see here. Anyone who might be interested has already seen it I imagine. Jake wants team stuff on the site so I said I would give it a shot for 6 weeks as the season wound down to see if people read it.

Well 6 weeks turned into 7 as the season changed a bit. The 50k was canceled which pretty much puts a wet rag on the season as a whole. I no longer have a target event to shoot for. Instead I'm looking to do any number of H2H races and then call it a year, where "any number" is 0-4.

I don't know what that makes this blog. Probably more readable since I won't be going on about training details and rides so much. It also makes it less frequent which is fine since it was getting mundane and verbose anyway. That gives me more time to read, something I've been lax with since I got this BB.

Back up to 187 today but I hit 186 over the weekend, which was my lowest weight since June 10. This "slow and steady" eating is working out well so far. As of today I am 7 pounds less than last Tuesday. At first it was a little tough but since then it's gotten really easy. I'm quite frankly shocked at the small amount of food I need to eat to be full. I also decided to stop counting calories on the weekend because it's just a royal PITA especially with all the goofy Asian food we eat. Since I went the weekend without my normal 3 pound weight gain that's a good start. I'd like to get to the point where I don't feel the need to count calories at all. I've been doing it for over a year now and it's become tedious. Plus it doesn't do me much good if I'm not able to turn that daily calorie count into weight loss. This approach is more realistic because I would say it represents a long-term sustainable change. I'm going to bean count during the weekday for now with the hope that I can scrap it entirely by the end of the year.

ChrisG

"Excellent stuff, Norm. Thich Nhat Hanh has written quite a bit about the idea of "eating mindfully." I totally buy into it. Shinto Bug Ingestion, I'll have to look into after dinner.. -ChrisG (Google is being a pain in my ass and not accepting my password)"

Awesome, I'll need to check it out. A quick search reveals 2628 books written which reference Thich Nhat Hanh. Any chance you could pinpoint which book you're referring to?

The funny thing is that I'm able to integrate my eating now into my life. For instance I can take an hour to eat a bowl of pasta and still be a dad (feed child, clean kitchen, shave head, etc). Sometimes I get to sit down and just relax but other times it doesn't work that way. So the trap most people fall into (gorging while sucked into the rat race of life) is totally the opposite with me. I used to stop the rat race to gorge, then go back to the rat race, then gorge later.

Two things I note in the last week that are of interest. First, food tastes differently. Some things taste better, some worse. I now see that a bagel with cream cheese really doesn't taste that great. It's the sensation of being full that I liked most in regard to eating bagels. Toast it and put butter on it and then you're talking! I also find chocolate about 12 times more satisfying than before. Just letting a piece of chocolate melt in your mouth is fantastic.

The second has entirely escaped my mind already. The train is pulling into Hoboken now so hopefully it comes to me before I publish this post.

Oh I remember. This slow, steady, and mindful approach seems to be spilling over into my daily life. Things seem less tragically important and I seem to be slowing down in all aspects of life. Paradoxically, this does not spill over to my bike riding, where I seem to be letting it go and riding like a madman more than ever. It's a really good combination, fast and slow, yin and yang, spaghetti and meatballs.

Maybe I've found my "thing", the magic bullet which gets me from shrinking fat guy to bona fide medium build. I'd like to see the mid-170s and right now I think that's a reality. As of yesterday I had dropped 8 pounds in 6 days which we all know is bullshit waste and water. Regardless, I look and feel better already, plus I have 8 fewer pounds to lug up those hills. Even at my weight that's over a 4% loss in body weight in 1 week. I have an orange Nautica shirt which is a test of how large or small I am. In the past it's been a slightly snug shirt that fits fairly in the slimmest of times. Yesterday I put it on and it fit better than ever. So even though my weight is 4 pounds above my lowest ever, I've probably put on some muscle weight through the year and I'm as small as I've ever been right now.

That's pretty exciting for this fat guy.

I'm a Photographer!

In the ever present struggle to be less fat I have adopted the (presumably) Buddhist approach of chewing my food slowly and taking time to eat all my meals. I admit I choose to call this a Buddhist approach because it sounds cooler than just saying that I'm taking my time eating. But in some ways it is actually more than that.

I started this week on a tip I read on the board in a thread about weight loss. After I did, it immediately struck me that both Nat and I eat far too fast. Our excuse would be that we have a kid, but the reality is that we probably ate like this before Julia. Now that I'm slowing down I watch Nat (and my mother on Wednesday) more or less slaughter their food. It's amazing what slowing down will do.

They say it's better for your digestion and it raises your metabolism but for me the results need to be more tangible, and they are. First of all I enjoy my food significantly more when I take time to taste it. It's amazing how we associate food with how full it makes us as much as how it tastes. The second effect is that I'm just as full, or more full, with less food.

Another side effect is that it changes meals from an all-encompassing experience to a more integrated experience. Without realizing it, I believe many of us totally focus on finishing the food and block out our surroundings. Putting down your fork and slowly chewing, and tasting, your food makes the whole experience more enjoyable, more integrated with life.

My peanut butter and jelly sandwich took almost an hour to eat yesterday at lunch. That sounds excessive and maybe it is, but I just took a bite and slowly ate it instead of consuming it as fast as I could. The inordinate amount of time was due to the fact I was doing my normal thing at work and eating a sandwich on the side as opposed to stopping my life to eradicate a sandwich. My experience does not jive entirely with the article linked above. When I focus on my food entirely, it has a much shorter shelf life.

Now, I know many people do something once and proclaim themselves that entity through and through, men in particular. We buy a camera and say we're photographers. A lot of us have been groomed by the fast pace of the Internet, where ADD rules the roost. The irony (or paradox?) isn't lost on me. After less than a week I've jumped on some new (to me) fad and all of the sudden I'm a Buddhist Eater, a notion diametrically opposed to the whole ADD nation? But then did that ADD Nation Syndrome lead to my doing that?

I know, I know, next week I'll be into Shinto Bug Ingestion but for now this is my newest approach in an effort to drop pounds. So far so good, though the weekend isn't here yet. This morning I was 190 which is good, since I've dropped the excessive weight from last week's foray.
Aside from slow eating I do plan on riding my bike this weekend. Plans are for a 3 day tour of the Labor Day weekend, all off-road if that's possible, or desirable. It's looking like Sunday will be a loop of Chimney Rock with Chris and then possibly a second loop after that. I'm considering some high-end stuff tomorrow on the road bike or a hard 2 hours at LM. Monday will be dictated by the other 2 days. That could end up being my big mileage day instead.

Next week I'm going to offset the days a bit. I'm going to ride Wed/Thu then something light Saturday and the Chain Stretcher on Sunday. I'm going to try and be a bit more fresh for this one. The course is supposed to be more rugged so I'm looking forward to it.

Fried Day

Man I am toast right now, mentally not physically. Sitting on the train Thursday evening as I start this post and a full day of training has my brain bleeding out my ears. Remarkably I managed to make my usual train by 2 minutes so that's a major bonus. Downside is that the loud-mouth reject that gets off at South Orange is on this train. Why do I sit in the front half of the last car? She's always there. Ugh on me.

The only thing going on right now are the details of the bike build, if you can call it that. Kirt suggested lo-rise, hi-rise, either is fine just get the bar you want and pick up the stem after that. Makes sense. 2 of my bikes have 135s and the other has 100. The DumpTrucker is the 100 and that's the most comfortable of the 3, but all of that means nothing because Trek bike geometry for a hardtail is going to be different than Specialized geometry for a full-suspension.

Steve

"i have heard that the geometry should be similar on your bikes, be it road, mtb, tricycle. so if the dumptrucker feels comfortable, try to match it. thinking out loud, what about a set of bar ends on the trek?"

It is comfortable, so I'll try to match it. I need to get it reasonably close to put together and then adjust the details as needed. That's probably why buying the stem last is a good idea. Really all we're talking about is bar height and the distance from the seat, which probably has some name like effective nuts-to-fingers length or something. Seat height will be easy to measure and fore/aft of the saddle is easy as well.

I was never a big fan of bar ends. They just never did it for me. Almost surely I'll pick up some Ergon grips for the bike but not sure which ones. They have an XC grip that isn't as big/bulky as the ones I have now which I may try. They're easy to get on/off so if I want to ride distance with this bike I can easily take them off the Dumptrucker for a day.

Walter

"I agree with shaggz, I remember someone on mtbnj reporting that their roadie and their mtb's were set up so that their angles and reaches were almost exactly the same on all of their bikes. I have a 100 mm, 6 degree rise 4 bolt Ritchey stem I took off the mary you can experiment with if you'd like."

I would like, that would be great. The stem I have on the SS is 135 so that would show me what will work best to get the setup close to the FS bike. I think ChrisG mentioned all his bikes are setup the same and it's a good idea in theory. No idea how it works in practice as far as porting your road bike fit to the mountain bike.

I don't have any shifters either. Add that to the list of things I'll have to pick up. Damn, just another piece to add to the pile of things I need to buy. All in all not a bad tally but the more things I need the longer this project will take. You know how impatient you can get when dealing with this stuff.

After much deliberation I'm going to pick up one or possibly even 2 of these. Both Kirt and Jason at Halters think it's a good deal. Jason believes the 25.4 bars are dying a slow death and there will be lots of good deals on them going forward. So something to keep an eye on. Other than that the site is pretty pricey, so I probably won't add much else on. Probably a few stem spacers and a Powerlink or 2. Possibly the SRAM chain and maybe some Avid brake pads for when my current ones wear down. That would leave a stem, which Walter has graciously offered to let me borrow, as well as shifters, which I've yet to think much about.

Wow, a 450 pound man just got up to get off at the next stop. Of course I'm guessing but holy cow is this guy immense. I know it's really rude and all to look at people like that and even comment on it. But who am I kidding? You really have to be taking bad care of yourself to let it get that bad. I was probably 285 at one point and right now I can't fathom how I let myself go like that. I guess that's a good testament that we all live in our own reality and that reality exists in one's mind. If reality is indeed an illusion that's a strange game to play with it.

Moving on. After 5 days off I was supposed to get on the bike this morning but when I woke up at 4:50 it was pouring, so I went back to sleep which was fine by me because Julia didn't go to sleep until 11:00 and then woke up crying and vomiting with congestion from 12:30 to 1:30. At 2:00 I got back to sleep for 3 solid hours. I took the trainer setup down a few months ago to give me more basement floor space so I didn't have that option. I may need to put it back together with the rainy season coming upon us fast.

Speaking of rain this weather has tossed my weekend plans entirely. I could go to the Mooch and promise BobW to attend some TM sessions but that plan has 2 major problems. First I don't do TM. Not that I don't want to, in theory. I just never get around to it. These TM sessions end up taking more of my day than a 5 hour bike ride. As usual, if they started at 6:00 am I could make them. But they normally run until 1:00 and that just eats up the day. The second problem is that I hate getting my bike that filthy dirty. I just took it all apart to clean it from last weekend. I'd prefer not to have to do it again.

On the other side of that coin are 2 obvious questions. First, do you think it's not going to rain for the 24 hour race? Alex said yesterday the place is a mess. And as far as I can see it's been pouring for at least 2-3 hours now. So this is already setting up to be one whale of a messy race if this weather keeps up over the next 2 weeks. The second question is, if this weather scares you off are you in the wrong sport? Rain happens. Mud happens. Deal with it. I guess I better put in an order for more bearings, huh?

So I may do that anyway, which would also give me an opportunity to see how those Blue Grooves do in the wet conditions. Or I may do the same plan but on the road bike from the house, which sounds dreadfully boring. Ah, dog dick.

Friday's FGI average: 189.71

That's .72 pounds less than last week. My low weight for the week was 188, the high was 191. It's a good stabilizing week especially considering I was off the bike for 6 straight days. The last time I was off I blimped up by 5 pounds. It would nice to be firmly in the 180s by the 24 hour race in 2 weeks and in the 185 average realm or lower for the 50k.

Beer is a Poison

No biking today. Enjoying a well earned rest day and saving up for the weekend. Feeling good today though a hair tired and my legs are happy to be off. Tomorrow I'm leaning towards an early Allamuchy ride of 3 hours, no stopping if possible. I put the Blue Grooves back on this morning so I may be pre-loading an obstacle there. Sunday is up in the air. I'm supposed to ride with Woody but I don't know if that's going to happen. He's pretty AWOL these days and I want to get another brisk 3 hours in if possible. Maybe Ringwood? Round Valley? Road? Don't know right now.

I said I wasn't going to link these anymore but it's a good weekly recap. Here are my 3 ride links for the week:

Tuesday (22.08 miles, 2128 vertical, 15.9 average)
Wednesday (22.07 miles, 2124 vertical, 16.1 average)
Thursday (19.64 miles, 1139 vertical, 16.4 average)

I'm interested in coming up with a ride metric where I use vertical/mile and my average speed to calculate a score to compare the rides. But I don't think it's accurate enough to bother pursuing. Something like (feet/mile)*average would yield totally faulty numbers I think. There must be something like this "out there" already. I just need to look for it. I'm sure I need some sort of normalization of the vertical/mile number. Maybe divide that by 100 since that's a sort of gold standard. But then if I'm just dividing every 'score' by 100 the ratio stays the same. Useless rambling.

Something else of interest is the ride map from the race last week. This is what mine looked like:



This is what it should have looked like:




Click the image for a link to the motionbased ride for each. The second is one of the MASS series guys named Rick Bullotta. Note he averaged 1 mph faster than me which is a pretty big difference. Is it me or is that full race loop one convoluted course?

Someone recently asked me if I would change anything about the past year of training and I said not really. I changed my mind and the one thing would be to do one very long mountain bike ride per month. That's probably an important element that's been missing in my training, enough 30-40-50 mile mountain bike rides, or for that matter any at all. My longest non-LM ride was 21 miles at Allamuchy a few months ago. It's hard to show up for these events not having ridden substantial miles very often and I don't really count the road though it works in a pinch. Starting now I'm going to add that to my training. In the next 3 months I have at least 3 events which fill this gap with the Darkhorse 40, the 24HOA, and the 50k (yes it's still 50 at this point). After October I need to keep that going through the winter, a task which could be a chilly proposition come February.

Third Party, obviously itching from the lack of drama recently, dropped me a line yesterday saying that the new MTBNJ colored titles make the member list resemble a gay pride flag. I actually LOLed at that. Good work, Third.

FatCat

"Eat less - yes, that's really all it. It's all mathematics and ball bearings these days and eating less calories is, of course the answer. For me it's always bee true weight I keep off too. I graduated RU 235. Now I'm 205. I'm a sloth tho. I just eat less and hardly touch booze now. Such is life. Now if I wasn't such a sloth then who knows. Anyway, you were right about Avatars. I know it has nothing to do with your blog but it's my dime."

Beer is evil in this equation. I stopped cold for the first 3 months of the year and drink maybe 1-2 a week at this point. Other than the 7 last weekend and the Vinny weekend I haven't had more than 3 in any one sitting. That's probably what has kept me from blowing up into the 200s again. That and not drinking a cup of hot fat and eating the head of Alfredo Garcia every meal.

Avatars - yeah, it was worse than I thought actually.

Walter

"Yes, I agree, food is an enemy of mine as well. Guess that explains the 10 pounds in a little over a month. Isnt this riding stuff and working outside in 90 degree heat supposed to counter that. I dont know where I go wrong, maybe the pint of ice cream at 10 pm isnt as ggod as I think. Again, great read, thanks."

Glad you enjoy. I guess it's a myth that you can eat what you want when you ride so much. Even in the weeks when I ride 10-12 hours a week it doesn't work that way. When I'm going that hard, I tend to need a lot more "bike energy" such as pre-ride drink, calories on the bike, and post-ride drink. You're often adding 900 calories right there. At that point it becomes the difference in weight loss versus performance gain.

Oh and the ice cream doesn't help either. And polishing off your daughter's leftovers? Bad news man.

Steve

"a lot of my comments on your blog have been through mtbnj pms, but feel free to post them over here if they are relevant, which most are not."

I delete my PMs so I don't have anything on hand. But I'll keep that in mind. Does that include when we trash people behind the scenes like making fun of Terren's big ass and Jake's ballerina lessons?

Jake

"dear norm: i too suffer from the 'fat guy on a skinny bike' syndrome. it is not entirely my fault. 'tis genetics at is finest. see, us mid-european block types are built like barrels...kegs, if you will. low to the ground for the purpose of not bending down so far and stout for carrying heavy objects over long distances. unfortunately, these traits were fantastic for my grandfather who farmed in slovakia but not so good for the modern-day bonefish who needs to be lean to climb, fit into the new "european" sized clothing and escape hungy barracuda. so as you can see, i also fight the uphill battle since i'm like a XXXXXXXL in this new european garb and end up looking like a circa 1988 materail girl.."

Good show man! I always appreciate a good ramble of words. Yeah some people battle genetics for sure but you can get lower than you think. It's just going to take a long time. I think 10 pounds a year is about the most you can expect in a maintainable sense. I remember everyone used to tell me I "shouldn't" be under 200 pounds, that it was too light. Silly.

In the American version of clothing sizes I'm a medium. How does that work? I'm not a small guy yet I'm a medium? That seems crazy. What do the 150 and 160 guys wear? Petite? When I stumble across European sized stuff medium is like a handkerchief.

ChrisG

"Oh, I wish it was as easy as it might appear. I am hungry ALL THE TIME and my diet, particularly during the week, is befitting some sort of monk. I was actually 10 pounds heavier when I was in my late teens and twenties, playing soccer and drinking way too much. I love food no less than anyone else, I suspect, but I also dig trying to go fast on my bike, so I'm willing to make the sacrifices. As simple as that equation is, it's really the core of it all. On a side note, I've had excellent results using generic hydrocortisone ointment on saddle sores. And is it just me, or is "ointment" a funny word?"

I'll check out the hydrocortisone. Ointment does sound a bit silly. Kinda like a snigglet.

I'll take your word for the food thing but man you're thin. Seems like you have some genetic advantage going on but I will admit your eating habits do seem pretty healthy. I went back to the MTBNJ discussions on meals and looked at your posts. I do remember being impressed at the time. As a recap for the readers it was stuff like turkey on whole grain, whole grain crackers, yogurt, whole wheat pasta, veggie burgers, cous cous, pierogies, baked beans, and red meat only 1-2 times a month. Breakfast was more of the same. And you don't contribute to the beer thread very often which means you follow one of the basic rules of training which is: Beer is a poison.

My suggestion on oatmeal. Mix it dry with yogurt and maybe some raisins and sliced almonds the night before and let it soak. I feel that cooked oatmeal gives me digestion issues where the uncooked seems to work better for me.

I've basically cut out cereal at this point, except for a half cup before my early morning rides. It turns out to be too much simple sugar added to the diet.

Great comments everyone! I suppose it helps when I'm more interesting and throwing out expressions like "fat cunt". Notice how Terren remains silent on the matter? He feels the pressure, especially after he sees todays FGI. Come on, I'm not really going to parade around your house naked. Well not much at least.

Friday's FGI: 188
The weekly FGI average: 190.43

Good numbers to end the week. My friday weight is -6 from last Friday and the average is -2.57. This seems to verify that your body stores waste products and water for some unknown reason. I'm not starving myself by any stretch. Just eating sensibly again as well as not eating everything in sight.

Looks to be a hot and muggy weekend. Get out and ride early, drink lots of water, and remember to enjoy it all.

Banana Taco

I love food. I really do. There's no other way for me to represent it than to profess my love for calories in all sorts of shapes and sizes. If it has calories, chances are I like it. If it has a lot of calories, chances are I like it a lot. Of course that explains how I was able to get up into the 280s in another life.

Thus I battle, something I've been doing on and off for probably 8 years now. And really I've pretty much won. I'm just about 5'11" and weigh 190 as of this morning. I have a reasonable muscle base, more like a linebacker than a cornerback. So I'm in decent shape, especially compared to the average American though admittedly that's like comparing your 40 time to a 2 legged groundhog's.

Then enter biking, where power-to-weight ratio means oh, oh so much. So 190 is no longer acceptable. I want to be lower, lighter, and stronger. I want to climb better. When it comes down to it there's no good reason to lug all that excess lard up the hill. And the battle continues.

One of the coolest tricks I have to lose weight is pretty ingenious really. I'm going to share it with you because my loyal readers, all 5 of you, deserve nothing but the best. I want to help all of you get where you want to be, weight wise, as easy as you can. So in the interest of being a benevolent blogger I'm going to share. My magic secret is this. Eat less.

OK maybe not that ingenious but unfortunately for the loads among us that's the straight reality of how we need to lose weight. For guys like ChrisG and Woody, they know nothing about these battles. For the rest of us it really comes down to eating less and getting used to being hungry from time to time.

The problem is, food tastes so damn good. Cooking, chewing, swallowing, and being a fat lard - all of these things just feel good. Few things feel as good as chowing down on a big fat block of cheese, at least short of going with a full wallet to a place like Chopsticks in Philly. But that's another post entirely.

Let me get to the real point. When I eat less I feel better. Sure there are times when I get hungry and my stomach wants food even though I know it doesn't really need it. But most of the day I just feel better. I sleep better. I ride better. I have more energy. Overall everything just feels better.

Speaking in a highly scientific manner, I feel like I get "gummed up" when I eat too much. Often times the calories I cut are useless carbs which seem to have an adverse effect on how I feel overall. No matter how good that bagel tastes, it's going to end up eating you in the end, like Pizza the Hut.

I've been using fitday.com for a while and here is my weight chart for the last year:



Interesting that I seem to go in 6 month cycles where I bottom out then bounce back a bit. Actually this graph resembles an old carriage road running down a steep hill. Have you ever ridden a steep hill that has a bunch of tiny little flat areas? Those are from the horse-drawn carriage days, when the horses would need a flat area to stop and rest. So any road with those is an old road. Or you really live in the boonies.

I think this is fine and doesn't represent the typical rebound many people experience where they end up heavier in the end. Hopefully this particular rebound is over and I can make a solid push to the 170s now. I really want to see 179 on the scale this year. Of all the goals I have that would be the most impressive to attain.

Terren

"What's up fat guy. Daily measurements of my weight are pretty useless. I swear to you that one day last week I weighed 168.5, after a run, but also after a quart of water and a sandwich. The next day I weighed 176. I did however smoke over 4 pounds of crack in between, but you would think that you exhale most of that out."

Oh you fat lying cunt you're not 168.5. I crapped an alligator the other day and it sang the Star Spangled Banner in Farsi. True story!

I like weighing myself every day. It helps me see a pattern and prevents me from slipping too much. My Friday weight is often what I go by to see how I'm doing overall and my 7 day average on Friday is sort of my "official" weight.

176 eh? I guess I could threaten that. It might be really hard but I'll see what I can do. If I get close expect me to call you up and demand you get on the scale immediately. I'm pretty far away now but you just never know how it's going to work out. Nothing would be sweeter than to weigh less than you for one day. Well, ignoring the Chopsticks stuff again. If that happens I might be forced to parade around your house naked for the day with pompoms and shit.

Jake

"i spit water on my keyboard when i read the "this morning i was 212 comment" while thinking "no wonder norm wants me to bring hotdogs to the 24 HOA!! :)""

Oh I see you get pleasure from my being a big fat pig? I see how this goes. Man let me tell you that you really have no idea what screwed up things you want to eat during a 24 hour race. The later the race goes on the more the solo contestants are like a bunch of pregnant women. Hot dogs are the least strange thing on the menu.

"I said banana taco you shit! Where's my fucking banana taco?"

Steve and Jake, it could be a real fun night. Of course smart money is on most of us being in camp most of the night and just hanging out and so on. But you just never know how it's going to turn out. More than likely we'll have fun with it all.

So food. I like it. One of these days I'll have to scan a picture of myself from 8 years ago. You'll be appalled and disgusted to say the least.

Today's post is focused on food and weight but there is bike stuff to talk about. My Kentucky saddle sore didn't get a break today because I'm going with the "hammer it home" weekly routine so I can take next week off with good conscious. Actually it got a little better yesterday so I'm optimistic it won't engulf my ass in the coming days.

I put on my diaper shorts with the extra thick padding and set out for a more tame loop around the swamp. I didn't have the same power as yesterday but the route was flatter so I kept a faster pace. It struck me on today's ride that this 'tweener' pace probably doesn't do me any good at all. By Thursday I'm sufficiently spent that I can't go hard and I don't have enough time to lay out 3-4 hours of steady tempo to help my endurance. But as weight loss aid it works great so it's not a total wash.

Today is also more validation that less food means more energy. Usually I'm really dragging by Thursday but I woke up at 4:49 and was on the bike by 5:11. I have to imagine that since I sleep better I don't crash as hard when I skimp on sleep during the week. Hopefully tonight I can get a solid 8. Right now at work I feel really fantastic. So in this case, less is more.

Thursday's FGI: 190.