Caught MRSA in Sep ’15, hospitalized ’til Jan ’16 due to blood poisoning, pneumonia, and the MRSA spreading to my left lung and valves in my heart. Thank Jesus I incurred no irreparable heart damage despite losing 15% of left lung. Ended PICC line of vancomycin in Feb ’16 (super precautions due to heart and diabetes). Rode less than 50 miles in 2016 due to lack of endurance/fitness, and the lack of motivation that comes with it.
We’re at one year later and I’m not sure how to start back. A ten mile casual ride will result in me napping afterward. Not concerned about the 10lb weight gained, that will pass. My concern is finding that muse – the thing that made me strive for the road to pass below me mile after mile.
The velomihottie is also a runner, and was outside in the rain at 6am this morning. This kind of dedication to one’s sport is awe inspiring. Don’t get me wrong now, I haven’t picked up running, but I was motivated to go out and ride in today’s heavy downpour. By the time I got home from work, and was kitted up, the roads were already steaming and evaporating the rain off of the hot surfaces. Very eerie!
I’ve been working on a local trail for about two days now, and since it rained today, this was the perfect time to see how well my modifications to the trail have held up. There are about twenty-something coroplast arrows creating a trail path that maximizes the available land, while creating a very efficient and fun topographic course. All I did was cut up some coroplast boxes, make a cardboard stencil, and spraypaint each one with the little arrow design. To create a little less than thirty of them took about half an hour from idea to completion.
I’ve been placing them about five feet from the ground, 6-10 feet before a turn on flat sections, and about fifteen feet before a downhill section:
Very easy to see, no?
I’ve dug up some edges around ponds like the one above to allow the water from the rutted out ATV potholes to runoff down the hill, or disperse into wooded/grassy areas. This took a lot of time, but I’ve been wanting to do a lot of this since 2009 or so.
I’m having trouble determining what to do for one section of trail that the ATV’s have decimated with their tires, and there is about a fifty foot section of horizontal ruts full of water. Video below:
Training has come a long way for cycling since the first race in May 31, 1868 at the Parc de Saint-Cloud, Paris. The primary training method for years was based on volume and intensity.
Volume riding is the amount of riding you would do. Intensity is a term to explain how hard you ride or train; think about high rates of perceived efforts. Typically high volume riding involved long rides without major wattage output on the off season, or on days you were not racing. As your training continues, volume starts to decrease, and intensity increases. Trading off from volume and intensity has been the staple of almost any kind of endurance sport.
Later, starting at a time when I cannot pinpoint a certain date, a type of interval training became the norm. The different types of cycling training were broken down and performed one by one on a seperate day. Ex:
Monday – Rest
Tuesday – Long Rides
Wednesday – Climbing
Thursday – Race Training
Friday – Relax Ride
Saturday – Race
Sunday – Rest
These days cyclometers, heart rate monitors, power meters and other types of training measurement are available.We know know that rest is just as important as the racing and training itself. The usefulness of modern training has made professional racing more efficient. Less grueling training has to be done, and we are not seeing as many riders racing to train during the spring classics. Racers are recovering better (drugs or not) throughout the year, and are not all wasted by the time that off-season starts. (more…)
WV Cycling 