School is almost out, so that adds a level of crazy to the schedules, but for many of the area athletes, it is taper week. Two big 70.3 races this weekend, one in Chattanooga, and another in Knoxville. Local weather doesn’t look to favor much in the way of outdoor training, so for all the athletes that we would normally see this week that won’t be out in the rain or are hiding in pre race prep.
Important, but on the list of things making us safer on the roads, it really isn’t the top of the list…
http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/why-bike-helmets-are-last-thing-we-should-be-worrying-about.html
Haw Creek Park MTB Trails
Trail running is some of the best run training you can do. Even if you do your racing on the roads and never want to trail race, running the uneven surfaces of trails is still something that should factor into the training plan. There are so many reasons, some physical, some emotional. Physically, the uneven surfaces improve balance and strength. The obstacles in the trail help form better stride habits. The short ups and downs of a trail will force stride adaptations that will help deal with road imperfections on race day. The softer surface reduces impact and repetitive stress injuries. The shade of the trees reduces the impacts of the sun on your body. Running through the woods evokes something natural and almost primal in your mind. Enjoying nature, and the sights of a trail run are fabulous ways to rediscover the fun that is running.
Running can be great fun, if we allow it to be. Sadly, too many people associate running with sidewalks and greenways, or tracks and laps. When running is confined to artificial spaces, much of the joy of the experience goes away. Running is not an easy sport. When there is nothing to focus on but the discomfort of the run, it becomes exceptionally hard to enjoy. Fortunately, trails provide a great solution.
There are some good trails to run, but these days, many of the best trails are not being built and provided by runners and hikers, but are instead being built and maintained by the mountain bike groups. Some of those trails are closed to runners, but the ones that aren’t, they are fantastic places to run.
One of my favorites in the area is a little 3 mile loop at a park called Haw Creek. It is a perfect little loop to run. Like so many in the area, it is built and maintained on county park land by the local mountain bike organization. Fortunately, they are willing to share their work with us the walkers and runners.
In this situation, we the runners and walkers are the ones that need to respect those that made this happen. It is the rare case, where the pedestrian does not have the right of way. Sharing the path, we need to remind each other to be courteous to the cyclists. Follow the signage, to run and walk counter to the daily flow of the bikes, as most trails reverse directions on a daily basis. In addition, keep a headphone out so you can hear the bikes and give them due space as they pass.
Like on the roads, we can all coexist if we simply extend a bit of courtesy. If we do not make the effort, we will lose these facilities on both sides. The bike organizations will stop building and maintaining, and the park administrations will stop allowing them if these areas become conflict points.
So please, runners and walkers, let’s make a concentrated effort to support organizations like SORBA and RAMBO in their efforts to build the trails, but also to respect the users and donors that have made them possible when they are sharing those facilities with us.
The newly launched Garmin ForeRunner 735 looks and feels an awful lot like a replacement for the interesting, and decent VivoActive but in a more complete and attractive package. We won’t have one in our hands to play with and test for a few more weeks, but suffice it to say, for the Sprint up to 70.3 distance triathletes, or the 2 sport athletes that do not need more than 8-10 hours of GPS battery this may well be the device of choice.
So things have been a little quiet here at OGRE HQ. Sadly, this has more to do with some directional questions. Namely, where to we want to go with it. Initially, the idea was to use this for our racing, but as I have really gotten back on the bike and remembered how much I love the bike, my own personal focus has moved more towards the advocacy and cycling instruction than it has the racing aspect. In fact, it has gotten to the point where it is May, and I have yet to race a single triathlon of any distance in 2016. I’ve run a couple of 5k’s, a Ragnar Trail and biked a couple of area century rides, but that has been the limit.
Meanwhile, impacting training time has been a massive time investment into learning, researching, and working to establish some relationships in the local advocacy groups for pedestrian and cycling issues. Who knew how much of a time sink these activities could become. It is no wonder so few active cyclists are also advocates. The time it takes to be an effective advocate is time not spent on the bike, because we still have to make a living, and the people we need to communicate with usually aren’t out on group rides. The lesson learned is that in many ways, we, as active cyclists are not really doing much to make a strong case for making cycling better for ourselves, or others.
For much of this year, I admit that I have been pondering how active I wanted to get into the advocacy mess, and believe me, the more I learn, the more of a mess I think it is. It is something that I have really struggled with. Ultimately, I’ve concluded that there really cannot be a debate. If we don’t get busy on the advocacy side, we are going to find ourselves in a bad spot, with the perception that we don’t belong on the roads becoming more of a reality than any of us want.
So, with this, I am officially jumping into the advocacy waters. In many ways, I have come to think of cycling and pedestrian advocacy as the 5th discipline of being a triathlete. Sure swimming, running, and cycling are the obvious 3, with transition being the 4th, but protecting our rights and obtaining facilities for us to use is the 5th.
Advocacy though, is a two way street. It is not just getting a message to the municipal leaders and planners, but also engaging and motivating the runners and cyclists in the communities to get out there and support these efforts at the polls, in the council meetings and the community meetings. Teaching them to be visible, and to support the efforts of the municipalities to make the areas better places for everyone.
So, while things have been quiet around here, they are not going to stay that way. Let’s make some noise, and instead of waiting for change, let us become the instruments of that change.
Good read about how roads are paid for and how riding bikes is actually a great way to ease the funding gap.
I know this weekend was just glorious, and we had a huge turnout for the ride. It was a great ride, despite a couple of little situations that cropped up, and the post ride vitriol we discovered on Facebook. What I want to take a few minutes to talk about is something that plagues the sport of cycling.
The culture of fear.
We as cyclists perpetuate a problem, and because of it, we have a tendency to dwell on some dark subjects. I am going to talk about it for a bit. If you don’t care, tune this out and move on. Some of this is not going to be particularly nice.
So, about the culture of fear. What is the first thing that happens when a cyclist gets threatened, put at risk, injured or killed? The incident goes viral through the communities and cyclists lash out. That angry response emotion is incredibly destructive to the lasting impression we leave on the communities that we live and ride in. We really need to control that part of it, but I fully recognize how tough that is.
But, that is not even the reason I am posting this.
The bigger issue is how these viral stories harm the collective psyche of the cycling community. We are all hyper aware of the risks of cycling, and many of us ride in fear of the traffic around us because of it. That is a huge problem. Being a afraid of the cars around us often leads to decisions in the name of courtesy and being safe, that create additional risks. But it is also creating an us versus them mentality that is, quite frankly dangerous. What we need to get to is not fear, but respect. We need to respect the damage a car can inflict, but not ride in fear of it.
As most of you know, I’ve been riding for a long time. I am not sure I’ve actually quantified it in public. I’ve been riding ( out on the roads ) in and around Atlanta for a little over 28 years. In that time, I have had hundreds of a thousands more positive interactions with cars than negative. It is human nature to hold onto the negative, but the important thing to remember is that these are less than 1%. Just like we get upset that drivers call out the bad behavior of a small percentage of cyclists, we have to remember that the same holds true for the drivers.
In that 28 years I have logged over 100k miles on the road. In that time, I have had two accidents caused by a car ( glass bottle thrown at me from a moving car, t-boned a frito-lay truck that pulled out in front of me ). I have had 2 love taps where I got brushed by a mirror. A fair numbers of ‘honks’, ‘yells’ and ‘jeers’. Those last ones, used to get me wound up, but today I treat them for what they are, fear of a spandex clad butt that looks better than theirs, and some killer legs, and an indication that they saw me, for which I am grateful. The driver that doesn’t honk, yell or jeer poses a greater risk, because they may not have seen me.
Needless to say, I have a healthy respect for the cars around me, but I really don’t fear them. I understand the basic truth: Drivers are every bit as uncomfortable around us as we are of them. The don’t know the laws, they don’t want to hurt us, but they don’t want to risk themselves, or slow down and be inconvenienced.
That said, as a cyclist, I know there are things that we all need to focus on in our road riding.
In large part this means moving in straight lines. Weaving is bad, and most crashes involving passing cyclists involve the combination of a car passing too close, and the cyclist weaving into the path of the car. There are many causes for this, like moving out of the travel line as a courtesy and running out of shoulder/bike lane/turn lane and abruptly returning to the lane, door zones, potholes, road trash, or even just a brain fart in bike handing.
Interestingly, high visibility clothing hasn’t proven to be all that effective when you are not actively moving to be visible. Unfortunately, the onus of being visible does fall on us. Much like motorcycles, we need drivers to look twice. Like motorcycles, we know they don’t. That means that we have to be aware of sight lines, and when we know that visibility is compromised, we have to take steps to ameliorate that. Moving into the lane, waving, using lights, etc.
I cannot stress this enough. Perception, as they say, is a bitch. As is karma. Wave, smile, thank drivers for doing the right thing with a thumbs up, a tip of the cap, whatever works for you, but for god’s sake, be friendly. Hostility only breeds more hostility. Deflate situations with a smile and wave. Somebody startles you out of your skin by laying on the horn right behind you? wave, give em a thumbs up and thanks for seeing you. Do not flip them off, do not stoop to their level. Karma will win in the end.
Look, at the end of the day, we are a minority on the roads. We have to own that, and when one of us screws up and places others at risk, it is on us to own it. IT is also on us to be inclusive. This is not some exclusive club. When we have these encounters and rants, the best response we can take is not to be belligerent, but instead to offer to own the actions and include the upset party. In the case that prompted this, I have reached out privately and offered to bring the original poster out for a ride with the group some time. I will provide a bike for her to ride, and the instruction to get her out there so that she can understand. The ONLY real tool to make people understand is for them to experience it, and we cannot make that happen through angry responses.
In closing I want to remind everyone of some simple things to remember. The most dangerous thing the average American does in a day is get into a car, nothing else is even close. It is 100x more dangerous than riding a bike on the roads, and yet when asked, the perception is reversed. Bike lanes are not the answer either by the way. Ask yourself, does a bike lane differ from a sidewalk? where are the risks for sidewalks? intersections where cars are crossing them. Deadly is what they are.
Ultimately, cycling is not inherently more dangerous than walking, and despite having the best road conditions in the world, America is the most dangerous country in the world for bicycles. Why? high percentage of sport/recreational usage, a lack of infrastructure, and our car culture. We aren’t going to solve these problems by attacking people for not liking us being out there and putting them into a defensive lock down.
Engaging an audience that is predisposed against cyclists is hard. Very hard. Unfortunately, it is also something that we have to do on a regular basis as advocates. I am not a great person to win an argument, because I get too passionate about the subjects, but if there is one thing I have learned, it is that engaging the anti-bike crowd into an honest conversation follows a predictable process.
You will never change a mind in a single encounter. It takes time, and repetitive erosion of the resistance to the subject in order to truly bring change in an opinion, but it you stick with it, you can eventually change minds.
This pretty much sums it up. Running Shoes and workout gear too..
Life with children, jobs and schedules that do not conform to a training schedule is probably the biggest challenge any amateur athletes faces. I am no different, and for me, there was a very hard lesson in that, dealing with a training plan while being flexible to an ever changing life schedule. There are times when sticking to the plan is a near impossibility, and worse, any deviation from ‘the plan’ just created more stress and friction, which made the problems cascade.
Somewhere along the way, someone reminded me of the most important tidbit that I was letting slip; this is supposed to be fun too. It is hard, sometimes it hurts, but at the end of the day, I am doing it because I want to, not because I have to. Remembering that, I found a need to reengineer how I train and workout, and more specifically, how I build my training plans. Once I hit the end of the season last year, I started with a new philosophy, and I am finding that I am so much better mentally and physically.
In the past, I set up rigid schedules.
* Monday was Swim/Bike ( recovery pacing )
* Tuesday was Core/Run ( tempo )
* Wednesday was Swim/Lift/Bike ( fast twitch )
* Thursday was Core/Run ( fast twitch )
* Friday was Rest Day
* Saturday was Bike/Run/Cross ( endurance )
* Sunday was Swim/Run/Cross ( endurance )
Missed workouts made me stressed about not hitting goals, and honestly, going into the later portions of the season, I was in grind mode. It wasn’t much fun.
This season, I decided to change it, and build in some fun along with some adaptability. Instead of such a rigid schedule, I set up my workout plan and adjust as life dictates. A missed workout isn’t a crisis, and I am switching to a regimen that emphasizes volume in Z2-Z3 over more traditional Z4 high intensity workouts. The intent is that I should spend 85% of my training time in low Z3 or lower, but I will probably accumulate more miles and hours than I did in the past.
What does this look like in practice though?
Let’s look at last week for example. Last week was a baseline week, so it was about measurements.
There are not rigid days for getting these done, so last week, 1,2 & 3 all got done on Monday. Tuesday was just 4. Wednesday got 5,6 & 7 done. Thursday saw 8 & 9. Friday, got 11 done, and Saturday saw 10 get done, and due to some schedule conflicts, a 60 minute bike was subbed in for 12. Sunday? it was a treated as a Rest Day with cleaning house as the Life-Style exercise. Trust me, that’s a workout, we have kids in the house.
The key is to look at the body of work, and be fine with missing a workout here or there, and being willing to adapt. Missing a swim isn’t going to break a race, but getting bent out of shape because it got missed, or because Saturday is overbooked and getting angry (or missing out on important life events) because of a workout might ruin a race. In addition, each week I flag 5 workouts as key workouts that are the ‘important’ ones, and if something has to be cut, these are the last to go.
In full disclosure, my weight is up about 10 lbs from my race weight of 185 lbs. I do not consider this a crisis, as it will come off over the coming months. My LTR is right where it was at the end of last season. I was hoping it would have come down a little, and since I did the test indoors on a treadmill, it may well have. I do not cool as well indoors. The bike FTP number is actually a little higher than I expected. For the test this session, I used the numbers from the TACX Bushido trainer instead of off the crank based 4iiii Precision power meter. The Bushido has been consistently about 8% lower than the Precision, and it was again for this test, but the output number is 1 watt greater than my end of season FTP test using the Precision..
So what does this first build week look like?
When the week forces adjustments, they’ll be made, and I know going into each week exactly what can be adjusted. I also know that if Friday’s schedule sets up to make those workouts exceptionally difficult to fit in, then I can adjust my ‘rest’ to Friday, or pick it up somewhere in the middle if needed.