Da Bears

A lot happens on a five hour bike ride. A lot happens when any athlete is out doing endurance training for that matter. Last week I was on another long-ass ride and encountered an atypical situation. I was about five miles out and a woman stopped to warn me about a bear up the way. It was apparently on the right.

Immediately the inner dialog starts. If you are have ever gone for a long ride, walk, drive - something in total silence then you know what I mean. You start to think. Under normal circumstances it's something like, "I'm hungry... what am I going to have for dinner? Dinner, hell - when do I get to eat next on this stupid ride?" I wondered whether or not to continue, if I did, would the bear just look at me or want my Clif Blocs... should I throw them at the bear and take off... but it's unlawful to feed wildlife, so that's bad, right?"

I pressed on and as I rounded a bend on a uphill (because it's all friggin' uphill out there) I saw the cars and thought, "Oh look, I found the bear." One couple was standing back, watching at a distance. Another was walking down the ridge... taking a video and flash photography. This couple was from Indiana. The woman kept exclaiming, "Oh - it's so little and cute!!"

Two thoughts came to my head:

1) I no longer need worry about being eaten or chased as this lovely couple is first on the list for a snack

2) The larger and less cute version must be in close proximity

With that I decided to spontaneously add a climbing interval and be on my way. As I traced my way back I didn't see human remains or their car so I am guessing they made it out alive. For future reference, if you encounter a black bear, it probably won't bother you provided you aren't moving toward it using flash photography. :)

Ride on...

Spring's Bounty For Vixen

p31.mov Watch on Posterous

So just when you thought the adventures of Miss Vixen were over... Oh no. She decided she wanted to supplement her diet with some leafy greens and wonderful grape tomatoes... I'm not sure how my chicken sandwich made it out unscathed but it did.
Enjoy y'all!

Not Quite Ready to Ride the Rockies

I'm wrapping up my second training cycle as I prepare for the Ride The Rockies. Today I completed a five hour ride consisting of 62 miles. That's what I set out to do, so I'm pretty happy. I'm even happier I have a rest week coming up. While I could do another week, it would be brutal.

I've learned a ton in the short time I've been training. The first part of this was figuring out what the heck to wear. The weather there will be unpredictable and I'll get everything. The blogs and forums say there will be sun, snow, rain, wind, possibly hail, etc. I now have the bag with bit of clothing I would need in my gear bag ready to go.

I am up to two water bottles and still a single bottle of Perpetuem. I was swinging in everywhere I could today though to get a little more water because I was thinking it would be good to have more. I'm going to need to tinker with nutrition. I am doing chews which works, but I do get hungry for real food around two hours. I started with pretzels and that works. So far I'm not getting hungry again but that's a really long time to go without real food... I can't do more sweet. I already have lots of sweet so it has to be on the savory side. There is talk of potatoes and I think I could swing that so I have to give those a shot in the next couple of weeks.

The big change lately has been in training philosophy... I drop my bike off for the addition of more gears tomorrow. I am not doing the "ride in a higher gear" thing. That was causing a trickle-down of issues. If one's riding in a higher gear heart ranges are blown out of the water. It makes sense that I was doing well on the way out but falling apart on the way back. Even when I changed philosophy for the first week, I wasn't pacing myself - so I was still riding with a HR in the 90%+ for my max. Nothing like lactate training for 4 or so hours.

This weekend I realized what I was doing and stopped. It made a world of difference. I ended both rides knowing if I had to keep going I could have. No whimpering, no crying on the ride - it was achievable.

As long as I keep improving and keep learning... I think I'm gonna be ok.

A well-earned break...

Spring taking her sweet time