Sunday with Celeste

It isn't often I get to spend a lot of time with my daughter Celeste but this weekend was an exception. The weekend ended up with her drawing a bath for Claudia (with bubbles), helping me with a school project and her coaching me through a workout. She is an awesome girl.  She spent her morning working on the new lego set she got Saturday. I never thought she would so into legos. Celeste went to church with us then came home completed her homework and played with her toys. She is growing up so fast!

I learn so much from her. The one thing I learn from her is that I am so inadequate to raise her. Thank God I have Claudia to help guide me through this parenting thing. I would never get it right. Claudia is an awesome Mom. She is the kind of Mom you wished you had when you were growing up. She is kind, gentle and patient. Most importantly she is very forgiving, doesn't get tied down with all the crap of the world and looks forward with a Christ centered focus. I have said many times that I would love to be more like Jesus, that's a tall task that I will never be able to complete. If only I could be more loving, more kind and more patient. If only I could be more like my wife. If I could be more like Jesus.  If only!

So, how to be more like Jesus. Develop Jesus habits.

• Habit 1: Read His word, know His truth and be a living example of His word.
• Habit 2: Pray and Pray a lot. Pray in all things. Pray through the good, the bad and the ugly. Pray always.
• Habit 3: Serve the Church and see the work Jesus is doing. Be transformed by the miracles that happen daily around you.
• Habit 4: Forgive: Who are we to not to forgive others when God allowed his only Son to be killed for us, so that you and I could be restored to a right standing before God. Jesus forgives.
• Habit 5: Restore.  Jesus restored people, relationships and hearts. Start restoring a broken relationship.

Just a few habits. I am sure we could add a lot more. These are the big ones. Read them, think about them and pray about them. Try doing one of them for a week. Let me know what happens.

Oh yeah, the workout...

100 squat thrust
30 pushups
30 sit ups
Peace

Long Ride, didn't happen

Life just get in the way. After doing a full review of cold weather gear and my tires I concluded that I wasn't prepared to embark on 100 miles in the snow and cold! I really wished I could have made it.

Good news is that the replacement CycleOps trainer is back. I found it at my front door Saturday afternoon put it back together and rode it for 1 hour. That is all I had to give. My mom was over, cooked a roast and hung out for a couple hours.

The trainer is the updated or upgraded version. The previous trainer had the old knob style adjuster. They new one has a flip handle. Adjust it once and your done. Jury is still out on which one I like better but it was nice to it back.

One thing I noticed was the resistance seemed to be more than the old one. The increased resistance could also be from lower gearing for the rear cassette. I had to change out the rear wheel due to a bald and cable showing old tire. The rear cassette on the new wheel is 11-23. The old wheel was 12-27. The combination of new trainer and new wheel set up could have been a big resistance increase. Not a big deal. More resistance = more strength= more endurance.

New Trainer is ready to roll! Thanks CycleOps!

The goal for this week is to get the proper gear for winter riding and get my Look Keo Pedals replaced. The right pedal is clicking like crazy. Bad bearings and from what I can tell they are not replaceable. I hope I can score a warranty replacement pedals from Look. If not I have to think about what I will replace them with. I need something that is servicable, rebuildable and will give a long service life!

Milage for Saturday: 16.5 miles
Year to Date: 244.48


I know it isn't much but a Roast Beef dinner was calling me!

I am behind but there is so much time to catch up!

Peace!

Thursday

I didn't ride Wednesday. I was at the local Cleveland Touring Club annual meeting. The club is planning an awesome year and truly planning for the future of the club and cycling in Northeast Ohio. Very exciting!

Myself and some of the club members hung out at The Fire House after the meeting. Great conversations and a really great beer. What great combinations!

Thursday I went to the Twinsburg Fitness Center to hit the the spin bike. Ted Yates, our ward 3 council person, led the class. He always makes it hard and he makes it fun. He typically leads spin classes Monday night, Friday morning and Sunday morning. Check his class out!

I spun for about an 1.5 hours for a total distance of 33.5 miles.

Year to date total 227.98

Saturday I will have my first 100 miles for the year. I hope the weather holds up!

The CycleOps trainer should be back home in a few days.

Check back often,
Peace

Holy Crap, it's been a week

Hey all,

Sorry, it's been a week with out a post. I would like to say I was really busy but I haven't. I have been distracted doing a lot of busy stuff. Not that any of it wasn't important.

I met with Chris Solyntjes last week to talk about a project I would have on my heart. Stay in touch. I will need your help with this project. I can't wait to we begin working on it full tilt. Stay Tuned!

Last weeks training didn't go so well. With so many distractions I failed to focus on my training. One thing about training is that there is always another day. The bad thing about there always being another day is that you might get in a cycle of there is always another day.

Went to spin class at Twinsburg Fitness Center and got a great work out in with Jeff. This is the first time a I had spin class with Jeff. I wasn't sure what to expect but it was a really great work out and the sweat poured like rain in Cleveland.

Also, forget to mention that I formed a leak in im my fluid trainer. After 8 years or more and several hundred hours of training time my CycleOps fluid trainer began to leak. I checked the warranty on line and found that it only had a 3 year warranty on the resistance unit. I thought I would have to spend over $300.00 dollars on a new trainer. Claudia (my wife) called CycleOps and they said they would replace it even though it was 5 years out of warranty. Wow! If I ever have to buy another trainer, CycleOps is where I will go! So, the resistance unit is the mail and in a few days I will have a leak free unit.

Totals so far ...

Saturday: 2 hours on the trainer 33.18 miles
Sunday: 1 hour on trainer 16.8 miles
Monday: Rest Day
Tuesday: 26 miles spin Bike

Total for the Year 193.48

I will be getting in a long ride in this Saturday outdoors with Long Distance Cycling Club of Cleveland. I going to attempt to get 100 miles in. Lets see how things go.

Peace Out!

Tuesday

Today started with a migraine. They suck. The little bit of light are like daggers to the eye. After a good sleep, migraine gone. Graded math tests for my classes, caught up on my emails and got to spin class. Hitting the goal of 12,000 miles on my bike this year is going to be tough. I will make it. 

Ran 2 miles before spin class, not counting that into the total. Just getting some cross training and breaking the monotony up. Also trying to drop a couple pounds. Need to lighten up for some big hill climbing.

28 miles today spinning.
Total for the Year 117.5

Keep checking back...

Saturday Training Session

Saturday I joined the Cleveland Triathlon Club for a 2 hour work out at the Twinsburg Fitness Center. I had an awesome work out and met a couple of great guys. The snow we had this week kept some of the club members at home warm and cozy in their bed. I was lucky to be able to be there. Celeste stayed with her grandmother so I could train. Claudia is still with her sister as her knee mends.

Total from Saturday 27 miles
Yearly total: 89.5

Not where I want to be with my milage. I will be hitting trainer and spin class a lot this coming week. I'm about 300 miles behind for January.

Keep checking back!

First Real Workout for the New Year

Wow! Two hours on the trainer. CycleOps fluid trainers are awesome. They have a lot of resistance and they really make me sweat. I don't know what the real world difference of speed on a fluid trainers are when compared to riding the road. What I do know is that your speed is slower and your legs burn. That said, this should really get me in shape for Calvin's Challenge and The Diabolical Double.

One really kewl thing about training indoors is you can really catch up on television and movies. I watched X-Men for the 33 time.

Today's totals...

32 miles
15.9 average
1800 calories burned

Running Total  62.5 miles

Check out the Garmin data!




1/11/12 Trainer Data



Check out Garmin products. They make really awesome bike computers. I got my bike computer from one of my Team H2Ope team mates last year. Really awesome data and really helped my training.





Lizard Night

Tuesday
Well, Day 2 of training was met with a serious obstacle. The Winking Lizard. I can't really image that wings and beer would be considered high powered workout food! Claudia decided it would be nice for the family to go out to dinner. She is going to Toronto to help her sister recover for the next week. Her sister had major knee surgery Tuesday. So, Winking Lizard is dinner!

However, the rest of the day I was good. Breakfast was 1/2 cup of oatmeal w/ maple syrup and Lunch was a salad with tuna and hard boil egg. French dressing covered it all.

Wdenesday
Catch up with me this evening for tonights work out.

Spin Time

Today I completed 32.5 miles in spin class. The first of many miles that I will be counting towards my 12,000 mile goal.

Weight: 185

Spinning is a great way to spin away the stress and frustration of the day. The only bad thing about spinning is that your mileage is more than you would actually get if you were riding on the road. On the flip side, my indoor trainer has lots of resistance and the mileage is actually lower than if you were riding on the road. So, it should balance itself out. Well, at least in theory. I plan to get on the road some this week and hopefully get 50-100 miles on the bike this week. The rest will be trainer and spinning miles.

The Plan

I have been considering what I will do this year. After completing RAAM I knew I could find more challenging rides out their. However, I wanted to challenge myself for the whole year.


The Plan

Overall Goal is to ride 12,000 miles this year!

So,  how am I going to do this. Ride my bike like crazy. If you do the math, I would have to ride my bike about 40 miles per day every day for the rest of the year. Very doable.

How will I calculate the 12,000 miles since I can't ride my bike everyday. The weather just doesn't allow for that in Northeast Ohio.

The Math...

• I will use indoor spinning workouts to add to the total.
• Stationary bike spin workouts in my basement.
• Commuting to work this spring.
• Rides with various NE Ohio Cycling Clubs.
• Races, local criteriums, group rides and tours.

The Races/Tours I have scheduled this year are...

Calvins Challenge

TOSRV 

Westlake Criteriums

Deepcreek Diabolical Double Gran Fondo (Christmas present from Claudia)

Eddy's Sweet Corn Challenge

Ohio Gran Fondo

Cyclocross races 

Stay in touch! Follow My milage. Meet me for rides! Check back soon for more rides and ride descriptions. 

See you on the road,

Larry