Recovery Boots update: Still diggin' 'em

About 18 months ago, I wrote a review of the Recovery Pump system. I know it's the time in the year when people's volumes are ramping up toward Ironman and other big adventures, so I thought it worth saying once more that I think these things are great, and I continue to use mine constantly.  

I'm at the point in the year when I'm trying to balance a lot of things: getting my running legs back after surgery, going on increasingly ultracycling adventures, and trying to hold it all together.  As a result, I'm spending a lot of time with my feet up in the boots, napping, reading a book, or watching a movie.  I've noticed that I'm not alone in finding them addictive: the system is spreading rapidly among those who try it.  For example, the newly opened Athlete Studio in Dupont Circle has a system that local athletes are using with great success after events.

Featuring Dawn Riebeling, one of my Ignite Endurance teammates!

One thing that's changed since I published my initial review is that the system no longer requires a prescription.  

If you're thinking of getting one for yourself, you can save a bit of money, get free shipping, and snag a couple of free extras by using code A11018 or using the link on the right side of this blog.

Happy training!

Epic Ride Recap: Leesburg 400k

Four States, Two Battlefields, and One Light to Live

I went into this ride asking for trouble: if it were possible to burn a candle at three ends, that's what I was doing.  In the past few weeks, I've been juggling three goals that have been, if not in direct conflict, at least in enough tension to rival an Olympic swimmer's suit:

1. Blast myself with speedwork in all three disciplines,while also 
2. Dropping weight and 
3. Keeping up an ultracycling schedule that had me riding hilly 200k, 300k, and 400k rides in the space of 4-5 weeks.  

It wasn't pretty.  In fact, this 400k ride was scheduled for Saturday, and while I'd taken Friday off, I'd put in a solid 17 hours of training in the five days before.  To put it bluntly, I was completely shelled when I rolled out of bed at 3:00 a.m. in order to make it to Leesburg for the 5 a.m. start.

Pre-Ride

I was a little nervous.  Not only was I far from rested, but this ride would tie for the longest I'd ever done (previous: 256 miles in the Saratoga 12-hour time trial), and it would have nearly three times the climbing of that jaunt.  What's more, to the extent that the proverbial wheels might come off at some point, it would likely be toward the end of the ride, the last four hours of which would be ridden after dark in the exceedingly rural, twisty, and forested roads around Middleburg, VA.  A final challenge was that, unlike that clement day in Saratoga in July, temperatures for this ride would start around 45, rise to 70 and sunny, and then dip back down to around 50 after dark.  That would require two completely different wardrobes, as well as the cargo capacity to carry everything.  I took some solace in the fact that I've never yet cracked on one of these long hauls; I just hoped this wouldn't be the first time.

Given my uncertainties, I packed for war: Arkel Tailrider bag behind the saddle, Arkel handlebar bag up front, and a massive bento box (the Revelate Gas Tank) on the top tube.  Most of the room in the Tailrider was reserved for holding gear: spare clothes, tubes, batteries, and lights.  The Gas Tank was full of Gu Roctane gels, and the handlebar bag held an assortment of my favorite endurance foods: Kirkland Cashew Clusters, Pro Bars, Dr. Will bars, dried fruit, plus an assortment of caffeine pills, chamois cream, sunscreen, and the like.  All told, I'm my poor road bike weighed in the neighborhood of 35 pounds, and with the tubeless tires set to a forgivingly low pressure, it felt like an 18-wheeler as I tooled up to the ride start.

For a 400k brevet, the start was a festive scene.  By this, I mean there were a dozen riders, up from four at the 300k.  The only things we needed from the ride coordinator were cue sheets and control cards (to record our progress along the route).  The ride coordinator, however, was nowhere to be seen at the ride start -- he'd overslept, and said he'd have to meet us somewhere along the ride.  Fortunately, another rider had thought to request the cue sheet in advance, and had had enough forethought to make copies of it for all of us.  Yes: if you're looking for an event as dissimilar to an Ironman as possible, this might have been it.

The Ride

Normally, in the DC region, people looking for a pretty ride have many choices: head west to the rolling hills of Middleburg and Marshall, northwest to the mountains and pastures around Frederick, MD, or somewhere in the middle, to gorges around Point of Rocks, MD.  An adventurous few might drive west to Front Royal or beyond, or even to Boyce or Winchester, VA.  If there's one word to describe this ride it's "All of the Above."  True, that's more than one word, but it just goes to show that this endeavor seemed fundamentally excessive.  We'd start in Leesburg, then head north through Point of Rocks, through the mountain range near Frederick, all the way north to Gettysburg, PA, before looping west back through the mountains to Antietam, then cross the river into Shepherdstown, WV, cruise past Winchester south to Strasburg, then turn east, circumnavigate Front Royal, mosey on to Marshall, and then plow north through Middleburg to Purcelville, before heading east once more to the finish in Leesburg.  That meant I had to guide my tour bus of a bike over 250 miles and 17,000 feet of climbing.

Egads.  That's the equivalent of riding the Diabolical Double, and then the Ironman Florida bike course, and then a recovery spin.

It's the distance from DC to White Plains, NY.

It's also the distance from DC to Raleigh, NC.

Finally, for those who have been in DC too long, it's 78 loops around Hains Point.

We rolled out as a group under cover of night: dawn wouldn't come until 6:30.  The beginning of these rides is always a little surreal because the end is so far away that it's hard to get a mental picture of what's coming. It's a bit like the start of an Ironman: you know that you'll be out there all day, and that crazy stuff is likely to happen along the way, but past that it's a massive blank canvas.  The mental framework is something like a haiku:

I'll ride 'til I die, 

but I'll flip the cue sometimes.
That will be awesome.

One relaxing thing about riding at 5:00 am on a weekend in a place like Leesburg is that there was no one on the roads.  Even the drunks had gone home hours before.  Although I pondered briefly whether this meant that even drunks have more sense than we did, on the whole it wasn't bad: the world was quiet in a way it rarely is, with only the crisp click of shifts and the gentle cast of bike lights on tree branches and tall grass.

The first leg of the journey took us through some truly beautiful country: north across the Potomac at Point of Rocks, MD, past the battlefields of Burkittsville, across the Catoctin mountains near Frederick, MD, and almost to Gettysburg.  There was a fairly ferocious climb when passing through the mountains, during which I definitely questioned my decision to carry All The Food along with me, but as dawn broke into sunshine, it was just perfect.  Having said that, we didn't stop until mile 67, which was more than four hours into the ride -- a little further than one expects on events like this.  It wasn't that the distance was insurmountable by any means, but the rhythm of training rides generally has one getting off the bike to stretch at least once every 30 miles.  67 was a long way to start the day.

As we looped through Gettysburg and back west up the steepish Jack's Mountain climb, the second of the ride's two notable ascents, Max and I found ourselves well out front of the pack, and accompanied by a guy named Bill, who was down from CT for the ride.  It turned out that, before turning to ultracycling (including a very creditable 400-mile performance in a 24-hour race), he'd been an ultrarunner who'd finished Western States, among other notorious events.  You meet all sorts at these events -- mostly crazy, sure, but something about glass houses.

The second leg, from mile 67 to mile 117, took us from battlefield to battlefield: Gettysburg to Antietam, the latter of which we hit at about 1:30 p.m.  I find during these events that, by the time one reaches about the 200k mark -- which in this case was about 7.5 hours -- one starts to crave real food and a place to get off the bike for a little bit.  So we treated ourselves to a somewhat indulgent stop where we refueled with sub sandwiches and fries at a local cafe, reapplied sunscreen, and shed our cold-weather gear.  We probably took a little longer than we needed to, but we'd only had one previous stop and were making solid time, so none of us felt too guilty about it.

There was another consideration: the next leg would be about 55 miles, and would take place in exposed sun at a time when we were already getting tired.  It would lead us from Maryland across the Potomac to Shepherdstown, WV, then south around Winchester to the ride organizer's house in Strasburg, VA, which is west of Front Royal.  We figured that this would be the toughest leg: it's like hitting the halfway point in the race, when you're tired but still too far from the finish to have any sense that the end is near.  Clicking off the miles would be the name of the game for the next few hours.  Inexplicably, however, Max and I were both feeling pretty bulletproof as we bombed through the rollers in this section -- we wound up dropped Bill, who'd been attempting to hang onto the back of our little train, and probably held something north of 18 mph for this 3-hour stretch.  Doing so represented something of a risk, though, because there were two countervailing considerations in play:

1. When you're feeling good, it's often best to press hard to make the best use of your spell of strength, because there will likely come a time when you're falling apart and going nowhere fast.
2. But you don't want to press so hard that you neglect your nutrition and fall apart earlier than you otherwise would have.

Here we probably erred toward number one, remarking to one another that we had no business feeling so strong at that point in the ride.  Unfortunately, I think we gilded the lily a bit by stopping at a gas station for a quick Coke; although that stuff usually works very well for me, when I used it to wash down a handful of dried peaches, it got to be a little much for me, and I spent the last portion of that leg debating whether to puke or hope that the situation resolved itself.  This is about as close as ultracyclists come to philosophical quandries.

Oddly, the solution to my upset stomach came in the form of a bowl of chili, which was served by the ride coodinator at his house in Strasburg (mile 171).  We'd reached it at 5:30 pm, an hour or more ahead of where we thought we'd be, and we decided to get back on the road quickly to see if we could make it to Marshall, the last control (mile 213), by nightfall.  40 miles in 2.5 hours is a pretty aggressive pace for these events, so we knew it would be close, but we were aided by a truly beautiful and fast 10-mile stretch on Rt. 55, a road well familiar to cyclists in Northern Virginia.  I felt largely indestructible in this stretch, but I quickly decided that I'll never again leave home on a ride like this without having some clear lenses to swap into my glasses.  The problem is that, just as darkness falls, the gnat swarms emerge, and if you're riding without glasses, you'll spend most of your time scooping piles of bug carcasses out of your eyeballs.  One of those Japanese bird flu masks would have been nice as well, frankly.

We reached the famous-to-cyclists Marshall 7-11 just after nightfall.  Coincidentally, this very store was the turnaround point for the W&OD 200k we'd ridden from Arlington about a month earlier.  We wandered into the store, upon which the teenage cashiers asked whether it wasn't a little bit late for a bike ride.  Yes, of course it was -- but then again, it had been a little early when we'd started about fifteen hours earlier, and we had a solid four hours more to go.  I killed off the remainder of my cashew clusters and chased them with a Red Bull, put my cold weather gear back on, and got ready to head out.  We were facing 37 miles of night riding, which seemed pretty insignificant in the grand scheme.

Doh is Me

At this point, however, a number of things went wrong.  You just knew they had to.  First, I hit the button to turn on the backlight in my cycling computer so that I could see the turn instructions at night, but as soon as I did so, it crashed, and I had to reboot it and try to figure out whether I could get it to start following a route at mile 213 of 250.  Second, my primary headlight proved to be dead as a doornail although I'd only used it for about an hour in the morning.  Maybe it had gotten turned on while stowed in my bag during the day.  Either way, it was out of juice now, as was the large cache battery I'd been using to power my Garmin and iPhone during the day.  I was left with one light only -- my Exposure Joystick helmet light.  That could be quite bright, but I didn't dare run it at full power, because if it died before we reached the end, FUBAR wouldn't quite cover the situation.  So, while my computer was trying to figure out where we were, we headed out under limited battery power, following the cue sheet's instruction to turn left out of the control.

Fail.

See, that familiar 7-11 was on the corner of two roads, and 95% of the time, when one leaves it, one turns left to head north.  And the cue sheet said only to turn left out of the control, so, amidst our lighting and navigational issues, we did what most cues mean, and turned left to head north.  But it turns out that, when this cue said to turn left out of the control, it meant to turn left to continue going east.  We didn't figure out our mistake for about 40 minutes, and didn't determine where we were for almost an hour.  The end result was that we found ourselves about 8 miles off track, far west of Middleburg, with no choice but to plow east down Rt. 50 -- not a super awesome cycling road in the daytime, much less at 10 pm -- for about 10 miles.

Well, actually, we did have a choice.  The rules of the brevet required us to re-enter the course at the point we left it.  So, technically, we were required to head back south for an hour in order to correct our mistake.  Sorry, but there was no way in hell.  To the extent we've thus contributed to our age's moral decline, we apologize.

It's funny, but on a ride of 250 miles, one wouldn't think an extra eight would be much of a spirit-crusher.  But when those eight come after dark, when you're exhausted, and they involve trying to figure out where the heck you are as your batteries trickle away, 8 miles can be a more stressful detour than you'd think.  Both of us were in a pretty bad mood for the next hour, which involved riding on hilly, narrow, pitch-black rural roads without lines on them anywhere.  Just keep pedaling -- no choice.  And it was f'ing cold.

We finally reached Purcelville at about midnight -- 10 miles to go, having ridden 250.  From there it was a straight shot east to Leesburg, on roads with decent pavement and in something resembling civilization.  We were nearly done.  My GF Chris was meeting us at the finish line with beer, pizza, and a ride home, and because of our detour, she'd expected us around 11:30.  Here it was, midnight, and we still had 10 miles to go.  So I made a snap decision to violate a second randonneuring rule by inviting her to come ride behind us for the home stretch and use her bright beams to light the way.  I tell ya, being a deviant never felt so good -- the lighting really made a huge difference to morale and gave us some sense of what the RAAM riders must experience with their crews supporting them after dark.  Max and I knocked out the last 10 miles with no problem, and rolled into the finish line at 12:45 a.m., 19 hours and 45 minutes after we'd started.  I'd predicted 20 hours.  

True to form, the finish line was a study in anticlimax.  The ride coordinator hadn't yet made it from his house to the finish, so we signed our control cards, left them in his hotel room, and hopped in the car for the warm, luxurious ride home.  Because Max's stomach was on the fritz, I had no choice but to kill an entire large sausage and mushroom pizza by myself.  The sweet taste of victory!

Upon reflection, as bad a mood as I was in during the detour, I have no question that I could have kept going if the ride required it.  That's comforting, I suppose, as we'll be attempting a 600k ride in late June.  For now, though, I've taken a solid five days off of anything resembling training, eaten an indecent amount, and slept in each day.  More battles to come!

Weapons of Choice: Ultracycling gear recommendations

Check out my new weapon -- weapon of choice.

-Fatboy Slim

On Saturday, I completed a 260-mile brevet with about 18,000 feet of climbing; all told, it took just under 20 hours, making it both the longest one-day ride I've ever done and the one with the most climbing.  I'm putting the story together, but I wanted first to discuss some of the gear I used during the event.  Much of this may also be very useful beyond the ultracycling context.

Garmin's new Edge 810

One thing I've found to be invaluable is Garmin's line of GPS cycling computers with street-level maps.  On some level these are a luxury: it's certainly possible to get by with a cue sheet and simpler device.  But a major part of the game in ultracycling is making things as foolproof as they can be, and the new Garmin Edge 810 offers a number of critical advantages over the traditional cue sheet.  First, it is extremely easy to upload routes and receive prompted turn-by-turn directions.  When backstopped with a cue sheet, this method is pretty much infallible, and I love the "distance to next turn" field, something a cue sheet can't provide.  There's a related, but less-advertised, benefit to riding with a GPS, in that the screen automatically zooms appropriately to your speed.  This means that, when you're bombing down an unfamiliar descent, a split-second glance down will show the shape of the road for the 1/2 mile or so in front of you.  I found this capability gave me considerably more confidence about laying off the brakes and making the most of my momentum.  A related ability is the scrolling elevation profile: when you upload a route, the GPS cross-references the upcoming roads with a topographical map, meaning that you can easily see what the next few miles of road have in store.  If you see that a hill is only a minor blip, there's no reason not to hoof it over with some effort, but a spike going off the top of the screen is very effective in mellowing one out for a few minutes.

The mapping and elevation features aren't unique to the Garmin 810; they're also available on the older, and slightly cheaper, Garmin 800.  But the 810 does add a couple of features that the 800 lacks, in particular the LiveTrack system.  LiveTrack uses Bluetooth to connect the GPS unit with your cell phone, and then leverages the cell's signal to upload coordinates and other information to a realtime tracking website.  You can then email the link to that website to anyone you want, or post it to Facebook; when the recipient clicks the link, he or she will see your current location (refreshed each minute), and also the ground you've covered.  Here's what mine looked like at mile 213 of Saturday's ride:

LiveTrack feature

Because I'd been on the road so long, LiveTrack had broken up my route into 5-mile segments, and it showed where I was down to the minute.  The blue bar at the bottom, labeled "graphs," opens to reveal realtime stats on speed, heart rate, power, cadence, and whatever else you choose.  In the picture below, mine shows a chart of speed imposed on an elevation profile.  (Had I been moving at the time, it also would have showed current speed, etc.)

LiveTrack with performance metrics

LiveTrack is an extremely useful tool not only for long rides like this, where it acts as a safety backstop and lets people check in on you from time to time, but it can also be a killer app for spectators at races.  All you need to do is start the LiveTrack application before the race, start your computer with the Autopause function enabled, and stuff your cellphone somewhere on the bike, perhaps alongside the spare tube.  Email the link to spectators, and they'll be able to tell where you are every minute and be ready when you zip by.  No more missing people as they blow by on the bike, and no standing around unnecessarily.  It's great stuff. In my case, I emailed the link to a few friends and also posted it, just as a precaution.  

I also installed an App on my iPhone that is similarly useful: Find My Friends.  It is a terrific stalking tool that allows anyone you choose to ping your phone's location, which is then superimposed on an extremely detailed street or satellite map.  It appears accurate to within a few meters, and is yet another way for people to find you should the need arise -- valuable peace of mind when you're riding in remote locations after dark.  I also think that Find My Friends could be a very useful tool for anyone sagging a group ride.  You'll never be forced to set off in search of the missing cyclist!  Note that you can turn the app on and off with a tap of a button, so there's no need to worry about privacy unless you want to.

A pretty obvious question: with Find my Friends, is there any need for LiveTrack?  It depends.  Find My Friends shows only a location; it provides no breadcrumb trail or performance metrics.  It also doesn't provide a webpage link that's constantly viewable by anyone -- it requires much more micromanagement.  So LiveTrack does provide additional value, although the two apps are redundant to some extent.

Mophie Juicepack Powerstation Duo

If there's a downside to this reliance on technology, it's that one needs to power the various devices.  The Garmin 810 has a battery life about 15 hours, which is more than plenty for most purposes.  But it wasn't going to be enough for this ride, and the 15-hour figure itself is wildly optimistic in that LiveTrack's bluetooth connection with the cell phone drains battery life like wildfire, and using the backlight at night is also a massive burden.  So I needed a way to recharge both the iPhone and the Garmin on the fly, and the perfect solution was a gadget I'd picked up to recharge my iPad on an overseas flight: the Mophie Juicepack Powerstation Duo.  This thing is amazing: it's compact, has two USB ports that allow the recharging of multiple devices at once (including rechargeable lights), and its massive 6000 mAh capacity is more than enough to get through the day.  By way of comparison, an iPhone 5 battery is rated at 1440 mAh, and the Garmin Edge 810 is 1100 mAh.  The Juicepack can recharge both devices twice-over, with room to spare.  It's an outstanding insurance policy.  If you bring a wall-to-USB plug to recharge the Juicepack during stops, you can probably keep riding close to indefinitely.

Exposure Joystick mk7

Next up on the new-gadget train was a new helmet light: the Exposure Light Joystick mk7.  This is by far the most elegant light I've ever used, and any lights I get in the future will be from Exposure -- it was that impressive.  These lights aren't cheap, but when you're riding fast on dark roads at night, the reassurance is invaluable.  The Joystick has an integrated, rechargeable battery, and puts out a maximum 400 lumens despite having a weight of only 87 grams (about 1/5 pound).  Even on the lowest power setting -- which lasts a whopping 10 hours -- it's more than bright enough to light the way on most roads.  The small touches are great as well: the light simply clips on and off, so that you don't need to have it weighing down your head all day (not that it weighs much), and it has a "smart port" in the back that, in addition to recharging the light, doubles as a power source for various accessories, such as a flashing rear red light that attaches to the back of the joystick, or a backup battery that piggybacks on top of it.  As a year-round bike commuter, I've become firmly convinced that helmet mounted lights are the way to go if you don't mind a bit of weight on the head: having the light go where you're looking is crucial.  Oh yeah: the Mophie Juicepack can recharge this, too: its battery capacity is 2900 mAh.

Rounding out the new equipment purchases for this ride is... a handlebar bag.  I'd long held out against using these despite their popularity among randonneurs, as I knew them to be about as aerodynamic as a barn door, they aren't light, and they don't exactly scream performance.  Having said that, after this ride, I'm kind of in love with mine.  I opted for the Arkel Small Handlebar Bag.  It's waterproof, holds a cue sheet and cell phone right in front of you, and allows easy in-ride access to pretty much anything you could want: food, chamois cream, batteries, sunscreen, control card, or whatever.  The weight is noticeable, but when the rides get this long, for me it stops being about speed and starts being about ensuring that my nutrition is on track, I don't lose my control card (as happened last June), that the cue sheet is readily at hand, and so forth.  I'm a fan.

A rear bag is also very valuable, especially when the temperature's expected to vary widely during the ride.  It's great to have a place to stash jackets, arm/leg warmers, gloves, caps, and that sort of thing.  My choice is again by Arkel: the Tailrider Trunk Bag.  It's compact, waterproof, sturdy, and expands to hold an amazing amount of stuff.  There's a convenient loop on the back onto which one can clip a couple of lights, it's easy to remove and carry, and in general it's a great piece of kit.

Of course, one also needs a rack to hold it.  Topeak makes a common one, but I didn't care for it when I tried it: the single-beam clamp mechanism causes it to sway intolerably.  I'm a much bigger fan of Arkel's own Randonneur rack, which clamps to the seat rails as well as the seat post.  The whole system looks like this:

Arkel rack and tailrider bag

Finally, although I've mentioned them before, I've come to think that two pieces of equipment are indispensable for all-day rides.  First, I've become a huge believer in tubeless road tires.  I've now been riding my Hutchinsons for about 1.5 years, and they're about ready to be changed.  In that time, I've had exactly zero flats.  Equally important, tubeless tires can and should be run at about 90 psi, as opposed to 100-110 psi for regular road tires, and that lower pressure makes all the difference in soaking up road imperfections and smoothing out the ride.  It feels like a Cadillac rolling down the road.  And, with the imminent release of Hutchinson's Secteur 28 tubeless tire, which is 28 mm wide, the ride will be all the better.

Arm coolers in action at Mountains of Misery

Second, I think anyone who's not riding in arm coolers is missing out.  I use the Zoots, which provide warmth when it's chilly and reflect the sun when it's hot.  UV ray protection aside, it's amazing how much less tired you'll be at the end of a long, hot afternoon when you're not getting baked, and they keep the skin cooler as well.  No need to take them off: just put them on and forget they're there until you're done with the ride.

Next up: the epic ride itself!

RIDE REPORT: W&OD is me! 200k

"We who are about to die salute you!" -Roman gladiators

This weekend I participated in my first randonneuring event of 2013, a 200k "permanent."  The normal rando event is known as a "brevet," and it involves riding a designated route (200k+) within a given amount of time, and getting signatures and time stamps at designated "controls" to prove that you covered the distance. A permanent is much the same, only it's not ridden as an official advertised event; instead, although the route itself is chosen from an officially sanctioned list, the ride is done at a time of one's own choosing, through coordination with the route's owner.

One of the challenges I'm facing this season is that, even more than in the past, I have some pretty substantial ultracycling goals in addition to my triathlon ambitions.  The big ultracycling event this year will be the 1200k (750-mile) Big Wild Ride in Alaska in July.  To qualify for that "Grand Randonee," I need to complete brevets or permanents of 200k (125 mile), 300k (190 miles), 400k (250 miles), and 600k (375 miles) by the end of June, but it's quite a juggling act.  I'm also racing a number of triathlons in the same period, as well as riding Mountains of Misery and the Diabolical Double at the Garrett County Gran Fondo, each of which is 125 miles of sadistic climbing.  And it would be good to have a life in there somewhere, too.  :-)

Put it all together and the bottom line is I needed to get started, which meant knocking out the 200k this weekend.  This route was quite a bit different from the rando rides I've done in the past in that it (1) started and finished only a mile or two from my house, and (2) involved 80 miles of riding along the W&OD bike path.  I commute on that path daily and run on it frequently, but Id never actually tried to cover any meaningful distance on it.  It turns out that the path goes clear out to Purcellville, VA, which seems like about the end of the earth when one's starting in Arlington.  I'd always thought of Reston as "out there," but it's only about 1/3 of the way to the end.

As it turns out, there's a lot to be said for riding on the trail: good pavement, easy navigation, and gentle grades.  There's also a good amount not to like: specifically, if you think running around Hains Point is tedious, it doesn't hold a candle to the sensation that you're pedaling forever and just not getting anywhere.  It all looks pretty much the same.

That sameness was, to me, a reasonable price to pay for convenience this weekend, because my longest ride to date had been 70 miles, and I had by far my hardest workout day in 9 months the day before the ride.  My philosophy was to knock out the distance as painlessly as possible.  The weather, unfortunately, was mightily uncooperative: it started in the 30s and didn't get much warmer, and once we started rolling, the skies began burping out a steady diet of rain and drizzle.  It's hard enough to cover this distance, but to do so when starting tired, in the cold, without a proper mileage base is just asking to get shattered.

Get shattered I did.  The first 40 miles of the route, from Arlington to Purcellville, doesn't involve too much climbing.  But from Purcellville, it headed south through Middleburg to a turnaround in Marshall, and that territory is seriously unflat.  There's nothing that quite rises to the level of a climb, but as the elevation chart shows, it is steep, chippy rollers pretty much the whole way.  It's gorgeous, but nothing comes easy.

I felt okay at the first control in Purcellville, but the proverbial wheels started coming off in dramatic fashion about halfway through the second leg to Marshall, which was about 28 miles.  My riding buddy was dropping me consistently on anything with an upward grade.  To be sure, I was fatigued, as I'd started the day that way, but it was more than that: I was getting frustrated and ill-tempered (though I kept it to myself), and nothing was working right.  I was having zero fun despite the beautiful views, and the rain was getting to me more than it should have.  I've been around this block enough times to recognize those symptoms as sure signs of lack of calories; being tired is what it is, but when it's coupled with mood swings and feeling off, it's a sure indication that one needs to pound the calories.  

At the halfway control in Marshall, VA, I did what I could to fix the problem, and that amounted to throwing any concept of dietary restrictions out the window: I had a tuna sandwich, large bag of potato chips, 24-ounce Coke, and an "American sized" bag of gummy bears.  We took a 20-minute breather or so to watch the rain pelting cars outside, which was restful but not entirely wonderful in that, when you're wet and cold and stop moving, the situation only gets worse.  So, we eventually forced ourselves back onto the bikes and reversed trail, back through the hills toward Purcellville.

My calorie infusion seemed to do the trick: I had by far my best segment of the day right after my worst, and I rode strongly back to the W&OD trail head before turning east to return to Arlington.  On a ride of this length, it's necessary to set intermediate goals to stay sane, and on this case, we'd pretty much agreed that we'd won the day if we made it back to the trail, since at that point one could turn off the brain and just power back home.  The thing is, though, that 40 miles on the trail is not trivial: it amounted to a solid 2.5 more hours of slopping along through the rain after we'd already been on our bikes for 7 hours.  To be blunt, it wasn't much fun toward the end: just when you think you're almost there, you see a sign for Sterling.  "Sterling?  Where the hell is that?  Nowhere near Arlington, that's for damn sure."  Then Reston, which I'd previously been conditioned to think of as "forever away."  

But, ultimately, we made it.  And by "it," I mean 135 miles, instead of the 125 that a 200k is supposed to involve.  The owner of this permanent thought it would be a shame not to enjoy the scenic roads on the way to Marshall, so he stretched it out.  10 miles in the grand scheme of things doesn't seem like much, but it's a long additional 40 minutes when you really just want a warm shower and all the coffee in the world.  We cruised back into Arlington with a ride time of about 9:40, not too bad considering the conditions, time of year, and extra distance.  I finally got that shower, but found I was basically too tired to do anything but lie on the couch in a daze for a couple of hours before going to bed at 8:00 and sleeping for 11 hours.  Yes, apparently this is my life.  :-)

I'm definitely about ready for some spring, and I hope it arrives soon, because the brevets wait for no one.  Next up is a 300k out of Harrisonburg, VA on April 13, and then a 400k out of Leesburg on May 4.  Hopefully at some point in there my legs will remember what they're supposed to be doing.  In the meantime, I took two days completely off of everything except commuting, and I came out the other side feeling almost human.  Up and at 'em!    

Of Surgeries and Strategies

About two months ago,  I went under the knife to have my IT band fixed.  Today, it's my dad's turn: he's getting (at least) a triple bypass.  If my problem was predictable, given my penchant for sometimes overdoing things on the endurance front, his seems markedly less so: he's been thin his whole life, eaten very well, was a competitive runner in the 1980s, and ran two marathons beginning at age 65.  To my way of thinking, if he can wind up needing heart surgery, anyone can.  What's most disturbing about it is that he was entirely asymptomatic: he was diagnosed with severe blockage only during a routine screening resulting from his being hospitalized for a week with pneumonia.  If he hadn't been forced into the ICU with that unrelated problem, it is scary to think what might have happened during one of his regular runs.  If ever pneumonia could be described as a blessing in disguise, this may be that time.

This is a lot to contemplate at the same time that I'm finally back on the road to health.  I was cleared to started running again last week -- although the term "running" might be giving me too much credit at the moment -- and I've headed back to the pool for some fun with hypoxia.  My cycling is going reasonably well, at least, and I have a smoking new road bike that I'll profile in the next week or so.  It's an exciting time, what with the Ignite squad swinging into action and my plotting a way to survive the epic 4-day, 750-mile ride around Alaska that I have planned for July.  As I write this, the sun is breaking through the clouds and it seems a travesty to have to spend time behind a desk.

The sudden onset of my dad's health problems has served as a stark reminder that there are no guarantees in life, and nothing lasts forever.  (My posts about my younger brother highlight this even more starkly.)  Part of me instinctively reacts to this reminder of impermanence by trying to do as much as I can while I have the chance, and there's something to that notion.  But, at the same time, my own surgically-imposed time off from training has underscored to me that the notion of doing "as much as I can" is not self-defining, and it is maddeningly difficult to quantify.  I don't want to do the most I can in a particular facet of life if it means doing less than I want to in another.  To be sure, I could probably achieve my best in races if I go to bed at 10:00 every Friday night so I can get up to train all day on Saturday.  But frankly, I'm not willing to say no to a concert with friends I see too infrequently simply in order to improve the quality of my training ride the next day.  Ten years from now, I probably won't remember a thing about the ride, but I'll remember a lot about that evening.

Likewise, I've sometimes skipped training sessions simply because I was buried in a book that I didn't want to put down.  Is this lack of discipline?  I'm not sure -- it depends what I'm trying to be disciplined about.  If one's paramount strategy in life is to capture that bleeding-edge 1% of performance on a couple of days a year, then any distraction from it is corrupting.  But again, I don't think that, looking back ten years after an event, I'll consider my life to have been appreciably richer merely because my race history shows that I was a couple of minutes faster on the day.  For me, the strategy is to do what I'm passionate about, even if it doesn't quite add up to coherence.

I certainly have my goals.  I'd like to crack 3 hours in my marathon this December, and to put on a show at Ironman Lake Tahoe in September.  Riding around Alaska ain't trivial, and the D2R2 is calling my name.  I get excited just thinking about those events, and a few others, and I want to do well.  But I only want to do as well as I can while ensuring that it's fun, not an obligation or a second job.  If I find myself struggling up a hill on my bike because I was out late with friends, or falling off the pace on a long run because I missed a couple of runs in the week before in order to take a vacation, that's something to smile about.  We can't do it all.  Getting the most out of one's self, and being as disciplined as one can be, is something to celebrate.  But for me, it's increasingly important to keep in mind the idea that "getting the most out of myself" is not something determined by sole reference to the clock at the finish line.

5 Days out from Surgery: All Signs Point to "Yes"

It's now been five days since I got my IT band sliced, and so far my reaction is: I had knee surgery?  Really?  I was able to walk without crutches or a cane as soon as I got home from the operation, and was even able to climb up and down stairs after a fashion.  I figured the pain would set in once the local anesthetic wore off, but really, it never did.  The most challenging thing to deal with in my recovery has been the itching caused by the high-power narcotics I was on for the first three days.

But today?  Well, I haven't even had Advil in a couple of days.  I'm limping a bit, and there's some pinching on the outside of my knee, but I suspect that both of these problems are primarily due to the stitches, which I'll have removed on Friday.  After that, I'll be able to swim, and perhaps even enjoy some light spinning on the bike.  No running for a few weeks yet, but I'll be hitting the deep-water running to the extent I can.

In general, I agree with the instinct to make surgery the last option.  But at the moment, if I'm honest, my main question is why I didn't have this done months ago.  I'm so enthusiastic about my progress that I'm even spending my days arguing with myself about whether I need a new bike.  Any avid cyclist knows what the answer to that question is.

Way to Make Race Weight 357: Cut A Piece Out Of Your Knee

In about twelve hours, I'll be heading into knee surgery for the lamest of all reasons: to fix an illiotibial ("IT") band injury.  Last May, June, and early July, I basically buried myself with ultracycling.  Every other weekend for two months, I had a ride that was at least twelve hours long, with the longest approaching 18 hours.  During the week I'd ride my trainer twice, run intervals, lift, do yoga, and swim.   To exactly no one's surprised, this eventually caught up with me, although it happened in a surprising way.  During a 5-mile brick run (that's a run immediately after a bike ride), I felt a bolt of pain on the outside of my right knee, like I'd tweaked something.  I hopped a bit and tried walking it off, but I found I basically couldn't put weight on my leg.  It was bad enough that I hopped to a cab in the area and hitched a ride home.

I'd heard people complain about IT band injuries before -- they're quite common among runners and cyclists.  Essentially, the IT band runs from the outside of the hip, along the outside of the femur, around the outside of the knee, and connects to the tibia just below the knee.  IT band friction syndrome arises -- at least according to most physicians -- when the IT band rubs along a bony point on the outside of the knee, becoming inflamed.  Because it's an overuse injury, I assumed it would come on slowly and be somewhat easy to remedy with rest, icing, and foam rolling, but neither was true.  When it came on, it felt like I may as well have sprained my knee: running was not remotely an option.  I did everything humanly possible to treat it, from getting massages 4x/week, to icing, stretching, and using a foam roller until I couldn't stand it any more, and then some more beyond that.  I was lucky enough to be able to finish Ironman Mont Tremblant four weeks after the injury, but I could only run for about the first three miles.  After that, my fall was a series of false starts; I just haven't been able to shake the injury, as much as I've tried.

From what I've learned, if this injury doesn't go away quickly, it can turn into a life partner.  There are many stories out there about runners who give up the sport entirely for years, only to have the injury flare up again a couple of miles into their first easy jog.  I could have kept up with the anti-inflammatories, icing, rolling, and stretching, but the fact is that it's utterly demoralizing: it's hard to motivate oneself to put in hard work when you're pretty certain that you won't be able to run more than a mile or two, and when, after a hard bike workout, it hurts to walk for several days.  Enough is enough.

So, tomorrow morning I'm having what's known as an IT band release.  In my case, this means that a nickel-sized piece will be cut out of the inside of my IT band, i.e., the part that rubs over my knee will no longer exist.  I know several people who've had this surgery, and their main thought is regret that they didn't have it done sooner.  Because nothing has to grow back together afterward, recovery is somewhat quicker than with, for example, an ACL repair.  My understanding is that I'll be on crutches and unable to do much at all for a week or so, but that I ought to be back up to spinning on a bike without resistance after a couple of weeks, and that things should progress from there.  Jogging can resume, slowly, after 5-6 weeks.

This is quite the opposite of how I'd like to be spending my January and February.  But, taking the long view, it's not really optional -- I just need to get it done.  And I've found that I tend to bounce back relatively quickly after layoffs like this one; indeed, some of my best seasons have come after my deepest fitness troughs.  It's never fun to rebuild running fitness, but I've done it before, and I'll do it again.  I just need to know that, when I head out the door, I won't pull up limping after a mile or two.

My positive spin on the whole thing is that this will give me all the motivation I need to become good friends with the neighborhood pool.  In the longer term, it's just a bump in the road.