Allegheny Mountain Loop ITT

Two very similar photos at first glance - so what is the difference - well let me tell you...

- 400 miles and 56 hours and 45 minutes

- Not knowing what awaits ahead and knowing exactly what was out there

- 30 degrees in temperature and wearing mittens on my feet

- A sore butt and a half of tube of DZ Nuts Bliss

- Two repaired knees unproven and two knees a little sore and swollen but intact

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STRAVA

The Perfect Storm - Round 3

It's here. There's always a time I feel true preparation for the next season begins. I can never see it coming but I always know it's arrived after the fact. In the past it's been when I stop eating a ton of garbage and ride my bike as hard as I can, blistering lungs and all. This usually has taken place shortly after the new year. Last year was different as we started with the TotalCyclist indoor sessions in early November making the new year giddy up a little easier. That was a pretty good wake up. This year I did it Kane Training style, but first, an update on plan 'x'.

Since the last blog I've transitioned to the gym, added some nice workout "pairings" and have made some ground on the strength/balance side of plan 'x'. Sure there are some typical type moves that one might see as u special, but it's the way we execute that makes them very specific and extremely effective. Wanna do pull ups? Well, you gotta make sure you go all the way down on each rep, do them slowly and don't let your body sway at all. Much harder than the way we did them in the infantry (well, the non-rucksack ones anyway). Paired with this is an elevated split squat. The elevated foot is resting on the toes so stability is low. In fact that's the common thread in all that I've done with Mark: work an area but work in a way that increases strength AND stability. One of my favorites is an inverted row that's very unstable and then paired with a single leg dead lift.

Now for the crazy and where I left off describing the season 'opener'. Last night was our first team training session with Mark. All of us were the except for Cricket who is still working on knee rehab. Mark set up a circiut of 10 exercises we'd do for a minute and then rotate to the next one. There were a couple typical ones like the pushup but most of them were in keeping with the specificity of strength and stability that I'm used to from him. My favorite? It's the ball slam (take a weighted ball that barley bounces and, from overhead, slam it into the ground has hard as you can. Catch it with just one bounce. Repeat). Or maybe it's the rope. Take a gym rope and, in a stable athletic position, create waves using only your lower arms. Not so bad? This will smoke your bags after 30 seconds! Need less to say, the team got a workout and our usual joking members all fell silent by the second rotation. By the end most were worked and dripping wet while a large feeling of satisfaction filled the room. Scott said he'd rather do 30 second intervals at 600 watts for an hour than do that again. Well, Scott, week one of 16 is in the books. Just 15 left.

Check out all that Mark has to offer at www.kanetraining.com.

C

Knee Rehab - Life After The Needles

Yes, this is me - on a bike - on the road - in a light drizzle - pedaling! How could this be?

I can not even remember how many weeks it has been now since the knee surgery - 6 or 7 maybe 8 - too many that's for sure. My recover has been progressing with good days and yes bad days and I started to spin on the CompuTrainers at TotalCyclist (www.totalcyclist.com) a little in hopes to progress from no resistance to hopefully being able to watch my power start to build again. Of course, still completely unable to pedal standing up even after a few weeks of spinning with little to no resistance. With a second knee surgery looming in the near future, my one hope was to ride again outside on the road with the wind in my face - and I would even take the rain and snow and hail at this point even bugs and mud - before I start this process all over again. Still working with Mark Kane (www.kanetraining.com) 3 times a week for knee rehab, he began to sense my frustration with the inconsistencies of how my knee would feel and move on a day to day basis. So I think instead of hearing me explain my need to be back on the bike and train with my teammates again and again and again, Mark suggested a new approach in addition to the soft tissue and mobility/strength exercises.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I have three great fears in life. I will not name them all but one happens to be needles and I was about to come face to face with one of the big three fears. NEEDLES! Mark suggested Trigger Point Dry Needling. It is a technique involving multiple advances of a filament needle into the muscle in the region of a “Trigger Point’. The aim of Dry Needling is to achieve a local twitch response to release muscle tension and pain. This technique is unequaled in finding and eliminating neuromuscular dysfunction that leads to pain and functional deficits. A healthy muscle feels very little discomfort with insertion of this needle. However if the muscle is sensitive and shortened or has active trigger points within it, the subject will feel a sensation like a muscle cramp -‘the twitch response’. That is the technical jargon - what it is are these tiny needles (resembling acupuncture type needles) that are tapped lightly into a muscle causing some discomfort or into a muscle group that is connected to an area of discomfort. So with my motto to "Face The Danger" echoing in my head, I allowed Mark to try the dry needling on the quads and VMO. And yes, truth be told, I personally did not find this to be the most pleasurable of procedures as my muscles were triggered by the needles into a spasm BUT the immediate release was noticeable as soon as I stood up and walked around. My knee was moving almost freely with less stiffness present. However, the next day was a miracle! There is really no other word to describe it. My knee felt the closest to normal it has in 8 weeks or so.

So I returned for a second round of the needles, this time a bit more knowledgable of the results. I also returned with my road bike in hand because - come on - I have to get back on the bike!!! Round 2 started out with Mark watching me pedal the bike on a trainer to see exactly where I was having issues. Then after a few carefully placed needles, we would return to the bike and see the difference. It was working! My biggest issue with spinning was not being able to complete a rotation while I was standing on the pedals. So we worked that area for a while so he could see what might be causing the problem. A few needles later and I was standing and completing full rotations on the bike. You know what came next - well I took the bike out to the road - just a short ride but I was on the road again. It was obvious today that I have lost a lot of fitness and power and my left side is extremely weak. But I do not care - feeling the wind in my face was all I needed! Needle away Mark Kane!

www.kanetraining.com

A Great Team Makes for a Great Race

A few days of reflecting on this past weekends big race leaves several memories that I must talk about. I personally feel the solo SS class win comes in at the bottom of the list.
The best parts of the event are the fact that Sherry came back from her ACL surgery to race for 9 laps (85ish miles) on a SS, win the event, and not even be sore the day after. WTH?? I hurt all over, heck even my eyelids are sore.
Second, Megan our 16 year old daughter. Poor girl doesn't even ride bikes but for her to get her drivers license we asked her to go out there and ride till she could ride no more, and dang it she did! She ended up with 5 laps(48ish miles) on a SS. all I can say is WOW!! My first race was the Cowbell in 2009 were I crawled 4 laps(32 miles), laid down in the grass and watched buzzards circle overhead. If this Tree Shaker would have been my first race I would have got chicked by my daughter!! now that good stuff! All I can say is she is a trooper, and now I hope she realizes what physical and mental ability she posses. DAD IS VERY PROUD!! now if I could only get her to do her chores.
The Third best thing about this race and even the Cackalacky Cup race a few weeks ago is how freaking awesome my teammates and friends are. Baker, Chris W, Traci, Jon, Cricket, Eric, BC, Mudd, Kellie, Joel, Joe and everyone else that gives moral support for these races. You guys are what makes mountain biking so great! Nothing beats coming in to the pit and you have someone there trying to take care of the things you need. food, water, time splits, and overall metal support, BC even offered his beer. Baker and Eric riding a lap with me at my darkest, most tired moments really give me a boost. Thanks Guys!!

Now for race stuff. I have learned it really helps to go into a race telling yourself your going to win, no matter how bad it hurts. I started planning for this race 3-4 weeks ago and the Cackalacky Cup was a training race for this one. The Tree Shaker has always been a tall mountain for me to accomplish and truthfully I was thinking next year was going to be my better chance to shine. Up until the Cackalacky race I have never been able to "race" an event beyond 3 hours. Cramps have always played a large part of my day. It seems to be if I race hard I will be cramping after 1.5hours, race moderate after 3 hours. My latest race where this happened was the River's Egde 50 miler. I went out about 80% effort and bammmm! 3 hours I was pedaling like a stiff legged penguin, then Spent the next 1.5 hours surviving. Somehow finishing a distant 3rd on shear will power but knowingly if I could beat the cramps I could do so much better.
Going into the Cackalacky event I thought I would attempt a slightly easier pace more like a 70-75% effort so I would be able to last 8+ hours, well this plan worked. Any time my heart rate went above 155-160 I backed it off to the 140 range, and wow what a difference. Now I really don't know what my max HT is but I do know anything above 170 and my internal temp. starts heading to overheat zone. Maybe this is why I really like riding in cold weather.

Now back to the tree Shaker, since competition was rather thin I didn't have to focus on many guys. Ross has been in the Tree Shaker and a rather reliable top 3 finisher in pretty much every race he enters so I know he would be to one to beat. Going by last year lap times and several of this years races he tends to be a pretty constant guy. I really don't think he gets tired. He pace doesn't vary much from beginning to end and in some races he's withing seconds every lap. He has never been a rocket off the front in the starts but his strong point is his ability to maintain speed through out the race while the faster guys crack and he rolls on by. My game plan if I could call it that was to ride his wheel on the first lap, hoping his first lap pace played nice with my sub 155 heart rate goal. All while talking to him and grazing his wheel periodically to remind him I was back there. I noticed I could climb in my zone with him but he tended to brake a little more then I would in the corners and the downhill so this weakness become my advantage. I figured If I got away from him I could add a little time in the corners and down hills.
At the end Of the first lap, he pitted but I planned on 2 laps before I needed to pit so I used this time to put some distant between us. Well it was short lived, on the first flat section of the trail a hot rod team guy decided to play lumberjack and try to pass me in the woods, unfortunately for him a 1 1/2" sapling got in his way and promptly dismounted him is a marvelous fashion. Well the tree was strong enough to toss the guy like a bag of rock in a french Trebuchet, then whip back and bi-otch slap me to China. It knock my light off my handlebar, twisted my helmet, and left a stinger on my arm I will never forget. It was bad enough to just stop and do a self assessment, count my finger and my teeth. well I was standing there getting the feeling back in my arm I figured I would do a trail side bladder drain. I surly though Ross would come roaring by but strangely he never did. Well I hoped back on my bike an took off, Sticking with my strategy I attacked the curves and down hill while saving my legs on the ups. At the end of the long red clay climb I looked back and didn't see my competition anywhere. By now I was a little confused, He surely should have caught me by this point, but he hadn't. I though to myself, maybe my strategy is working. well for 8 laps I kept doing the same, keeping the heart rate low and attacking the fast stuff. On Lap 9 former Tree Shaker Champ "Hot Rod", Eric Haggerty popped out onto the course to ride a lap with me and told me Ross had tossed in the towel??? what my main competition has once again bailed? dang it!! I was really wanting to win a straight up race against a endurance legend. Oh Well, Eric talk to me about what I wanted to do and I said keep riding so we rode a lap at good pace, nothing amazing but about as good as it could be seeing that I was over 90miles in. Once we reached the pit area I was pretty drained, maybe because I knew at that time I had won and mentally I was getting tired. After a 1 min 30sec pit I headed back out for lap 10 with Another Tree Shaker Champ The "Shake and Bake" Chris Baker. At this point I felt and looked like a half eating gummy bear. Every hill hurt and my heart rate was around 120 but there was just no energy to be found. Chris talked me through the lap and in the Pit Chris W was giving me food and some mental motivation. BC offered me a beer(I wanted it bad but my stomach said no). I left the pit for lap 11 and about half way through It was like someone replaced my batteries, my power started to come back and the stomach issue went away. I was starting to feel great again. By the 3/4 way mark I felt like I did on lap 3-6. After blasting through the rest of the course I raced up on Sherry and the now 2nd place SS guy Eric Green, 2 laps down. At this point I decided my day was done, he had no chance to catch me and I had nothing to prove by stacking more laps in, so I decided to ride my 12th lap with Sherry and make sure her flaky light worked the whole trail. It was nice and easy victory lap, Eric" flat pedal" Green rode behind us the whole way and we all 3 crossed the finish line together.

I do have to give it to the guy he did great, he ran a 34x19 gear, ouch! rigid fork, ouch! I think it was pretty good to get 10 laps with that combo. Not long after we finished, Markley Anderson our other pit mate and Tour Divide finisher came in to take the first place Solo Men's geared class win. Anyone who attempts Tour Divide and finishes it is pretty amazing in my book. i hope to learn more from this amazing athlete.
Well that's about it for this write up. I hope it doesn't have to many Gastonia education grammatical errors and it makes sense. I may do the point to point race at Kerr Scott in a few weeks but sitting more on the finished for the year side of the fence. Got a lot of non-biking stuff I gotta get done.

Knee Rehab - Week 5

As recovery progresses into another week, I start to think I will never see single track again as I have watched my leg muscles dwindle. It is true that I have regained a considerable amount of mobility back but the knee does not move as freely as it once did and the simple tasks of walking normally and climbing stairs still allude me - making me wonder if it will ever feel strong again. The metal stresses test me everyday I swear! During these last 5 weeks, with no aerobic activity and leg exercises aimed at knee recover versus muscle building, I have been focusing on other areas that I do have control over right now - Upper Body Strength, Core Strength, and Nutrition. I think as cyclist, we sometimes work the

legs hard but forget about the importance of having a strong upper body and core to help us negotiate our bikes. With a strong supportive upper body and core, we have better balance, better control, and better support for our leg muscles to perform optimally. Nutrition is yet another area that is sometimes over looked but is so important during the training and racing seasons. But even during a downtime, like recovering form an injury, nutrition I believe is even more vital. It would be so easy during these down weeks, or months do I dare say, to forget about what goes into our bodies - AND I will admit I forgot for a few weeks and fell into the eat whatever mode. But I am back on track and have been maintaining healthy eating habits so that when the time to get back on the bike and train hard again, I will be ready to give it my all. Getting back on the bike and riding strong again is what is keeping me focused!

I believe that these upcoming weeks will be the most critical in my recovery process as I continue to work on gaining more consistent mobility as well as focusing on gait mechanics with Mark Kane (www.kanetraining.com). Mark focuses on proper body mechanics especially during this recovery process. During recovery, one body part might be overcompensating for another and this is the time when bad habits, the root of all imbalances, are formed. So I have been focusing on walking properly without my leg swinging outward. With the use of my hiking sticks, to take the weight off my legs, I could focus on a proper gait.

So simple and it worked!!! No more hiking sticks. I also exaggerated the gait to aid in increasing flexibility and it too has worked! I am walking with a normal gait - still feels a little stiff but the knee is moving properly again at a walk. Negotiating stairs is like climbing Mount Everest for me these days. We have started to work on some aided strength exercises to work the muscles used to ascend and descend stairs. Aided because it reduces the body weight so I do not overcompensate somehow. It allows me to purely focus on the movement pattern. With the use of a band attached to a door to lessen the weight on the legs, I started with the simple squat and then progressed to a split squat. I can feel the quads being engaged again (YEAH) while protecting the knee and maintaining equal pressure throughout the range of motion.

It is all about taking it back down to the basic building blocks that will ultimately support a strong and balanced body!

The Perfect Storm - Round 2

Saturday saw my first return to see Mark Kane and continue my implementation of plan 'x'. Don't ask why it's plan 'x' as I don't really have a reason other than it's easier to refer to something if it has a name. Besides, plan 'x' sounds sorta cool like it's an x-men experiment and I'll come out the other side strong as hell but with some sort of abnormality like poor vision and a slight onion tolerance. I'd rather have a tolerance to wild animals though.

Anyway, it was time to begin work on the areas of concern that were highlighted by the assessment; more specifically my back and glutes. I fall into the 'I sit all day and don't do shit' category when it comes to daily, general activity. Therefore, one thing that tends to happen is my glutes tend to switch off or go to sleep. The trouble is they stay that way and when I try to ride a bike or perform any complicated sports move they don't contribute as they should, leading to reduced performance. We began with some simple exercises to wake up the lazy ones and then moved on to a few more advanced exercises that are designed to engage the entire core but also focus on my weak areas. One is called the Inchworm. Essentially, you begin in a downward dog type position and slowly slide your hands out in front of you as far as possible but still remaining stable. The back must remain flat and not sag; hold for a few second and return. It's basically like a really hard plank.

We also did Mountain Climbers, but these were very much unlike the ones we did all day in the Infantry. These are designed to increase one's ability to resist rotational forces with the core so the movements were preformed very slowly. To me these weren't too bad until Mark had me do them on an instability ball. Nice.

We meet again this week and are going to start a bit of work in the gym to progress things a little. Should be interesting; drive on soldiers, drive on.

C