Back on the Saddle Again...

The Losing Lance Project 2.0 is moving right along. Week 7 resulted in my smallest weekly weight loss to date, only 1.5 lb. Total loss however is, even if I do say so myself, an impressive 50 lb. The two week Fall Break was challenging. As I mentioned last week, I attended a wedding in Des Moines and this past week there was a trip to Sacramento for a CTA PAC Committee meeting. Food temptations were everywhere. Moreover, all that traveling made sticking to the water intake requirement (120 oz) difficult. Now that I’m back in school and in a regular routine, I’m hoping things will improve. But enough of that, let’s talk about the bike; this is a cycling blog for goodness sake.

As I’ve lost weight I’ve discovered that I have more energy. The problem is that my daily caloric intake is only 400-500 calories. This means that long endurance rides are out of the question. When I started the weight loss program I thought my riding would be doomed. What I’ve discovered is that I can ride for about an hour without the risk of bonking. The first time I rode after starting the program I  did an 80 minute ride and had to sleep the ride off for a couple of hours. So I’m relegated to doing 1 hour rides.

The key to short workouts on the bike is to make them meaningful. Each ride has a goal or a focus. One day it might be improving the pedal stroke, another ride might be interval training another might be climbing repeats; there can even be easy recovery rides, but even those rides have a purpose. The key is to plan.

The goal for the new training regimen is two-fold: 1) Accelerate the weight loss. 2) Increase aerobic conditioning by the time I reach my goal so that I can quickly build endurance for distance riding. I want to return to El Tour de Tucson in November of 2012 and do the full 109 mile ride. For now, I will be laying down the base for that, one hour at a time.


I've decided to share the training plan I'm using for anybody interested in a doable plan with limited time. Click on the Training Schedule tab at the top of the page for more info.

Ride on!

Starting Weight: 344.5
Current Weight: 294.5
Weight Loss to Date: 50

Dropping Lance in Stages

As Operation Losing Lance approaches the end of it’s first week, I want to share my approach to dropping a 7 time Tour de France winner from my body. If I sit here and ponder the loss of 156 lbs., The goal seems too big, I mean it’s enormous! I kinda want to go buy a huge bag of potato chips and cry. That would only make things worse, so I’ve broken down the goal into manageable chunks.

It’s a Grand Tour!

Pro bike races fall generally into three categories. One day classics, as the name implies, these races happen in a single day, Paris-Roubaix for example. These races are tough and usually present some unique challenge, whether it’s cobble stones, epic climbs or a very long distance. Another is a stage race. These are usually 5 - 7 day stage races. Think of the Tour of California. Some days are relatively easy, some days are very hilly and there is usually a day for the all out time trial effort. The third type is the Grand Tour. Think Tour de France. A 3 week long stage race where what matters most is endurance, your ability to recover, and a lot of strategy taking into consideration your strengths, weaknesses and the team that surrounds you. Operation Losing Lance is definitely a Grand Tour. It’s going to be long and endurance will be key. I know I’ll make mistakes. The key is to minimize them and recover.

So what’s the strategy going in? In order to make the ultimate goal of dropping 156 lbs. manageable, I’ve broken down the “race” into manageable 10% weight loss stages. In other words, starting at 330 lbs. the first stage will be completed when I drop 10% or 33 lbs. At this point I will weight 297 lbs. Stage 2 will be achieved when I lose 10% of that or 30 lbs (OK, 29.7 but I’m rounding up). You get the picture.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight you know that the first few pounds are somewhat easy to lose, you make a few changes, burn a few extra calories, and bam! The pounds come off. As you move along further, it gets harder. Chunking the overall goal into 10% stages presents a nice solution. I get to reach interim goals and celebrate progress each time having to lose fewer pounds. And I get to make changes to eating and exercise strategies for each stage. I’ve laid out my stages in the chart below:

Stages	10% weight loss	Weight goal for stage
Stage 1	33	297
Stage 2	30	267
Stage 3	27	240
Stage 4	24	216
Stage 5	22	194
Stage 6	18	176

l'm thinking that each stage will be marked in some way. Just like at the end of each stage there is a podium ceremony. Details to come, but I'm pretty sure Stage 6 will be celebrated with a nice new expensive carbon fiber bike of some sort like a Specialized Roubaix, but I haven't given it much thought.

How long is this going to take?

Most doctors and diet programs say that losing 1 to 2 pounds per week is the safest way to lose weight. My goal is an average of 2 to 3 pounds per week. So, if I’m dropping Lance (156.5 lbs) at 3 lbs. per week, it would take me roughly 52 weeks. At 2 lbs per week it’s a little over a year and a half. In a perfect world, that's my range. However, I know there will be plateaus and perhaps weeks when weight gain will happen. So I’m giving myself a range of 12 to 20 months.

I know this seems like a very long time to be “on a diet.” But as I said in my first post, diets don’t work. I’m not on a diet. I’m not doing anything drastic (in my own estimation) like a liquid diet, or a protein only diet or some sort of surgery. Those methods offer some great advantages, but also big disadvantages. And while they work for many, I don't think they are for me. I'm looking for a lifetime lifestyle change. Much like I did 9 years ago when I became a vegetarian, ok, technically a "pescaterian." This is about improving my own health. I'm following a middle path. Moderation as opposed to deprivation. My goal is to lose Lance, but more than that, to make the necessary changes in my life, so I never find him again. If this means it might take longer to drop him, so be it.

Saturday will mark the end of week 1. I’ll be posting a progress update probably on Sunday, since Molly and I will be on the road to Arizona on Saturday.

Ride On!



LA River Ride Wrap-Up.

Ever since I became interested in cycling in the mid 1990s I've read about and wondered what it would be like to participate in a Century. To actually ride 100 miles in a single day. I had participated in half-centuries, metric-centuries (66 miles) and even the 80 mile version of the Tour de Tucson, but never a full century. This last weekend my wondering ended, as I completed the Los Angeles River Ride Century.

The pre-ride plan was for Molly and I to go up to Los Angeles early Saturday and just spend a nice evening lounging lazily. To make a long story short, a morning meeting led to quick and less then careful packing for me. We ended up getting to our hotel early, only to have to double back because we had forgotten some critical items for our ride.

Sunday morning we got up around 5 AM, criminal in and of itself for someone who values sleeping in on weekends. We had a quick instant oatmeal and coffee in our room; We shimmied into our cycling kits (you don't want to see me shimmy...take my word for it) and we were off to Griffith Park. We found the start, checked in and then got ready to go. Century riders lined up around 6:45, (some of us were in the port-a-potty lines) and promptly started at 7:00 am. I managed to catch up with the bunch before everybody had left the starting area. A couple of blocks later as I was attempting to put on my shades I dropped them. I stopped, and a very nice rider had picked them up and handed them to me. By the time I got going again, I had been dropped by the group.

Two laps around Griffith Park was the toughest climbing of the day. Half way through my second lap I had caught up to a woman and we paced each other around the last part of the loop. We didn't know it then, but Carmen and I would become riding partners for the day. We finally found our way out of Griffith Park, (there were sections that weren't well marked on the course) and we got to the first bike path along the L.A. River. We came out of the bike path and then rode some L.A. neighborhoods before getting to another bike path which led all the way into Long Beach. It was pretty impressive. We arived at Long Beach 38 miles in.

At the SAG stop in Long Beach I thought, "Cool! No sweat, now we turn around and head back." Then I overheard something about a loop. I took off with a group of riders, we found the course markers made our way southward almost to Seal Beach and returned back to Long Beach, across the way from the Queen Mary. The odometer read 60 miles.

The ride back simply retraced the morning route. A nice tailwind helped the legs rest a bit. However at about the 80 mile mark, fatigue was setting in, and I was nursing a cramp in my right calf. After a stretch stop, Carmen and I forged on. The last 10 miles were easy and flat, however mentally, I was ready for the ride to be over. After I had paced my riding partner for about 80 miles or so, she took the lead. A few miles later I caught my 7th wind and we pushed into Griffith Park together. My first century was under my belt!

Century rides aren't races, however there is always the personal desire to do well. My goal was an average speed of about 12.5 mph over the full ride, fully expecting an 8 hour ride. Turns out I did the ride in 7:10 (plus SAG Stops) for an average speed of 13.9 mph. A very nice ride indeed!

The L.A. River Ride itself was a good ride overall, and I would highly recommend it as anybody's first century. There is not a lot of climbing, it's pretty flat and there are a variety of distances. Molly did the 35 mile ride, and there were 50 and 75 mile rides as well. The organization was a bit lacking in my view, but not a deal breaker. There were very few port-a-johns at the start line and, for that matter there was no start-line per se. When a fellow rider asked where the start line was he was told "Somewhere around there." A map of the course was never posted online, you didn't really know what the course would be until you got there Sunday morning. This wasn't too big of a deal for local riders, but riders like myself who don't know Los Angeles all that well, it was a bit of a challenge.

Other than that, the volunteers at the SAG stops were very friendly, there was alway plenty of food and recovery drinks as well as water. Even later in the afternoon as we were coming back, the aid stations still had fruit and plenty of Clif Block Shots to give away. I was very impressed with that part of the organization. By the way, a big thanks to all the volunteers out there. From the kids that cut the bananas and oranges to the bike mechanics ready with a helping hand ... Thank you.

One of the things I enjoy about organized rides is the camaraderie that develops among riders. From my spontaneous riding partner Carmen, to the guy that picked up my glasses off the pavement, to that group that formed in Long Beach and kept it together until the loop was complete so nobody would get lost. Or the pair of riders who were going very strong but stopped at a SAG station waiting for their friend who had major leg cramps because as they said "no one gets left behind." In 100 miles I got to see many random acts of kindness such as these, making the suffering a little easier and finishing a whole lot sweeter!

Ride on.

It's Rosarito-Ensenada Week!

For Southern California cyclists, the Rosarito-Ensenada bike ride is like a yearly pilgrimage. A 50 mile bike ride that highlights both the beauty and harshness of Baja California. And it happens once again this coming Saturday.

In a sense the ride has risen from the ashes like a Phoenix for it's 30th anniversay. Last year it was announced that after 29 years, the ride would be no more. This was surprising to both locals and visitors who come from around the world, because this event at one point had gotten so popular that what was originally a yearly event, turned into 2 rides per year, one is April and in September. However with the however, the Baja Tourism board came up with funds in order to host the ride once again. So this coming Saturday, the 30th Anniversary ride is on!

The best part of this ride is simply the scenery, and because the roads are closed to vehicles, you can actually enjoy it. You ride along the coast from Rosarito heading south for about 22 miles. On a clear day, the vast Pacific fills the horizon and the salty ocean breeze keeps you cool. That's important because then you head inland to face a climb the locals call "El Tigre." When I did this ride in 2007, with little to no preparation, I did the walk of shame, all the way up and over. I didn't have the legs. I promised myself that I wouldn't do that again. Last year, I was proud to ride all the way into Ensenada feeling very strong.

Once you're over El Tigre, the descent can get a bit hairy, but after a few miles you find the Pacific again then it's about 10 miles into the city of Ensenada, where a big fiesta awaits at the finish line.

Last September I did the ride in 4 hours and a bit. This year I'm hoping to get in under 4 hours. I'll let you know.


Ride on!

Moment by moment.

The time I spend riding my bike often serves a similar purpose as meditation. It's a parenthesis of time where the focus is the present moment. Whether I'm going up a hill or working on spinning more smoothly, If I'm doing it right, my thoughts are completely on the pedal stroke at hand, or more precisely, foot. Yet, that constant concentration on the now has a cumulative effect.

There is a ride that I like to do. It starts at my doorstep, it goes to Escondido, just a couple of blocks from where the Tour of California ended and then back home. It's got some rolling hills and some flats. A good all-round 28 mile ride. When I started doing this ride, I used to worry about making sure I saved enough energy to get back home; about getting over the hills that I would reach much later, about the headwind I would undoubtedly encounter on the return leg. All that worry took away from paying attention and ultimately just added time to my ride.

Where in the past I would be concerned about my ultimate average speed and the overall ride, in the last few weeks I've been concentrating on immediate things, things in the moment: cadence and heart rate. All I worry about is that at the present moment I'm producing the highest possible cadence while staying in my Tempo and Sub-threshold workout zones. I don't mind going above those zones during hills or deliberate hard effort sections, but for the most part, I try to keep it tempo. The results? I've been shaving a minute or two from that ride over the last 3 or 4 weeks.

I've heard Mari Holden, former National Time Trial Champion, Olympic silver medalist in the time trial, World Champion and all around cycling babe, talk about staying in the moment. For her, every pedal stroke, every turn, every small rise of the rode was an opportunity to put time on her rivals. But to take advantage of that she had to be present for each of those opportunities. In cycling, as in life, there is no better way to get a favorable result than to focus on the moment at hand.

For now, it was a good week of training, even though I was in San Jose for the weekend. On March 14, I will be doing the Solvang Century, half-century for me. I look forward to reporting back next weekend, hopefully I'll beat my time from last year. Nevertheless I can guarantee that my focus will be heart rate and cadence, because a good ride is built moment by moment.

A good week of training

I had a good training week. After weeks of wishy-washy, more days off the bike than on, and the fact that I struggled a bit with Tour de Palm Springs, this week was hunker down week. Palm Springs was the first ride of my "season" so I don't feel so bad about struggling a bit. With the Solvang Half-Century in March, the Tour of the Tucson Mountains in April, and possibly the San Diego Century in May, I'll be spending a lot of time on the saddle and more time than ever before on climbing. Its time to put serious ass time on the saddle.

This week was all about getting back into a training routine. During the week I did 3 rides, all focused on time trialing and doing cruise reps. My ride today, Saturday, was completely focused on hills. Coach Sean, had me go out and find some 6 minute climbs. My task was to go up but not go above my Zone 5a heart rate. I accomplished that for the most part, but not entirely. Although only about 30 minutes of my almost 3 hour ride was spent abouve that zone. With roughly 1520 feet of climbing, and thankfully about the same in descents, it was a challenge, but it was fun. Training my weaknesses.

This is what my ride looked like today:

The weight loss program also went on hiatus for a few weeks, but I am now back on track. Tracking all of my food through the Livestrong website and their "Daily Plate." Good tools and a very impressive amount of foods listed in their database. I'll report more on that as I become more familiar with it. In any case, I've been keeping track of my food intake all week.

Another bit of fun news, is that the rest of the year I'll be wearing the 53x11Coffee kit on the organized rides I'm participating in. I mentioned this to my students the other day and they thought it was completely appropriate for me to be sponsored by a coffee company that caters to cyclists. I want to extend a big thank you to Evan Laurence at 53x11Coffee.com for agreeing to be a sponsor even though I'm not a racer. My students are also thankful that I will be well caffeinated.

Quick update....more later.

I just realized I haven't updated here in a while. It's been a pretty busy summer. I am still riding, and I may just add a bunch of riding log entries here later in the week. However one of the reasons why I haven't blogged here in a while is that I'm trying to figure out what I want this blog to be.

I want it to be about more than just a training log. On the one hand I like sharing that part, especially now that I'm working with a cycling coach. (More on this in a future post), however I realize that nobody is interested in my training log but me. So I want to broaden the scope a bit. I want this to be a true Tour de Bike. A place where I share not only my training and my weight loss, but my interest and enjoyment of all things cycling. I'll be experimenting here and we'll see how it goes.