So, where have I been?

Holy crap it's been a long time! Some of my absence may be explained by hyperscheduling and general busyness, but I've had times where I've thought about writing and just haven't managed to get it done.

A brief recap of the month: I have been working a lot, am fully recovered from my late August appendectomy, have ridden the bike a little and have decided to work a little harder at getting in a little better shape. For starters, work has been a bit crazy. Not only have I been working to keep up with my youth coldweather shop where stuff just seems to keep coming in, but I had to take some time to put together my 2008 bike program which meant a lot of extra time put in over the last few weeks. I wrapped up the bike program last Monday (on my day off) and left the next day for "Fitness University" for the store (aka "Exercise University") at our corporate headquarters in Fargo. Overall, it was a good three days in Fargo where I learned more about the exercise products we'll be carrying but also learned more about selling fitness as a consultant rather than just selling as a salesman. It's probably not interesting to most, so if you are interested, let me know and I'll explain fuller.

It was a good follow up to a commitment I made a few weeks ago to get in a little better shape as I had the chance to demo some products to see what I could be doing to supplement my bike riding and lose a few more pounds. The idea was birthed on a bike ride where I realized that Rachel Vetor's wedding in January in Indiana was the perfect motivator for me to stave off my usual end of the year slide into hibernation when cycling season ends. My hope is that I'll go back to Indiana looking better than I ever did while we lived there. I'm not far off it now, but am hoping that a little strength training with a healthy dose of cardio will make it even better. My larger reason for wanting to do this (beyond vanity) is that I'm hoping to stay in relatively good health through the off season so that I don't waste the first two months of my season just trying to get some kind of conditioning like I did this year.

Amy decided that if I was going to try to look better, that meant she needed to. Of course, she never has as far to go as I do and has been doing yoga, step aerobics and other things and looks fantastic already. I only have a handful of bike rides, the workout sessions at fitness university and a mild workout this morning in my favor. I'm going to have to pick it up if I want to keep pace.

On the plus side, I was given a heart rate monitor at university and used it for the first time on my ride today. It's really going to change the way I train. I used it today to go fairly hard and had a target zone of 148-165 beats per minute (bpm). If I went above or below that rate, the watch beeped at me to let me know to pick it up, or take it easier. It was a great ride and I was in my target zone most of the ride. It told me several times to work harder and several times to slow down (usually on hills where there was no way I was easing up). I will be looking at new computers for the bike next season with heart rate though as the watch is not the most convenient way to track the info. It was nice at the end of the ride to be able to look at my max heart rate (183), calories burned (approximately 1300), percentage of calories that were fat calories (30%) and the amount of time that I spent in my target zone (about 80% of the ride). As I learn more about using heart rate to achieve goals, I hope to be burning more fat calories and using the monitor to chip away at the goal.

Before university, I took the single speed mountain bike and went riding at Union Grove State Park about 45 minutes south of Sioux Falls. It was the day before I left for Fargo and I had a pretty tight window of opportunity, but I'd heard good things about the prospects of riding single speed there and decided I needed to check it out. When I arrived at the park entrance, I saw a sign that more or less said, "Attention park visitors: there is an active hunting season taking place in this park." My heart kind of sank because I didn't know if I'd be able to ride. For those not from this area, hunting in South Dakota is sort of a big deal. People travel from all over the country to slay the wildlife of South Dakota and South Dakotans are more than willing to kill all the animals as well. Okay, I don't really have an issue with hunting, but I also fail to see the appeal. I am more of a gatherer by nature and have other people kill my animals for me.

So, anyway, since it was early afternoon (after most hunters have already gone home, showered and had a six pack) and I didn't want to miss out on a ride, I decided to see how many people were in the park. I only saw a couple of cars at the main building and decided I'd take my chances. The riding was great, but hard. There were no water bars, steps or other obstacles to overcome like I had encountered at Beaver Creek. Instead, I found winding horse trails that work well as single track for a mountain bike with a good deal of uphill and downhill sections. Several of the uphills are very long and difficult to gut out on a single speed, but I managed to make the first lap without having to get off the bike.

Each lap is about 4.1 miles if you take the outermost sections and do a full lap of the park, so I stopped to eat an energy bar and grab some water before heading out for another lap. Because of the time crunch, I only had time for one more lap which proved really difficult. I was wheezing pretty hard on a couple of the climbs, but was able to stay upright and on the bike until the final, extended climb. I finally had a mental moment where the lights went out and I had to get off about 75% of the way up the climb. On that kind of hill, on a single speed, there was no option but to walk the bike up. I wouldn't have been able to start again even if I'd wanted to. I finished the lap well and headed for home. I'm hoping to do more with the mountain bike next season as the effort and recovery that it requires is much different than on a road bike. I think both disciplines aid each other well and provides some variety throughout the season.

I have had other, deeper thoughts in the last month or so and wouldn't mind fleshing some of these out, but probably not tonight. Hopefully they will add up to a few more super-sized posts in the next few weeks.

I am not a real mountain biker

I have had a hard time getting miles on the bike the last few months. When school starts, our schedules kick into overdrive and even commuting to work becomes difficult at best. Add an apendecomy to the mix and I have been slowed down greatly since mid-August.

I have had a few road rides to test the waters including a 40 mile jaunt on Thursday that was very good. I felt sluggish out of the gate and didn't have a lot of power in the last few miles, but I did 40 miles with an 18.3 mph average (not far off of where my peak in season speed is) where I was able to hit a rhythm and stay in it even though I didn't feel the strongest.

Today, I figured I would grab a ride in the afternoon after doing church stuff all morning. The only problem was that I wasn't all that interested in riding with temps in the upper 80's with winds in the upper 20's. On the way home from church it dawned on me that this might be the perfect scenerio for hitting one of the local state parks where I might finally be able to get the Rig (the Gary Fisher single-speed mountain bike that I bought in April) some off road action.

I looked up the info online to see about fees, trail set up, hours and such for a few of the parks and opted for Beaver Creek which is only about 10 miles east of town. I probably would have hit Newton Hills which is a hotter destination for my friends that ride, but they were having an event there this afternoon that would have made riding an impossibility. So I packed up the bike, hit the road and made my way to Beaver Creek.

Having never been to Beaver Creek, I knew that this would be nothing much more than a scouting expedition where I would get to know the lay of the land and would have to be fairly conservative. The only problem with being conservative on a single-speed is that any momentum you lose by taking it slow means you will not have the speed to go uphill or over obstacles and will probably either walk or crash. Add to that the fact that we had a lot of rain last night and there were leaves all over the trail thanks to recent rain and wind and the conditions were not ideal for my first off roading venture.

I would not have impressed anybody with my skills as I did a fair amount of walking, took a couple of spills and generally rode like a novice. In my defense, I did get better as the day went on and I got to know the loop better. I began to anticipate the terrain much better and made better decisions earlier than in previous laps. I did draw some blood early and know that I'll feel the effort tomorrow in different ways than I would with a road ride.

While I hope to spend a lot more time off road next season, I have a long way to go before anyone will acuse me of being a mountain biker. I did have fun (bumps and bruises not withstanding) and hope to even get out a few more times before it snows.