I apologize for having not said much about this week's commutes. I know you are horribly disappointed. The truth is, I haven't had much to say. It rained a lot. It stormed a lot. The wind gusts knocked my socks off during another one of Seattle's "gale warning" days. Actually, I lied. My socks stayed put, too scared to move. The wind did blow the giant gas grill over at home, tearing the door screen and nearly shattering the glass. Chilly Hilly left me sore and tired. I have been in high hundreds to low two-hundreds on the bike counter. Perhaps next week's rides will have more nail-biting tales to offer.
Progressing toward goals
This guy makes me chuckle every time. From BikeSomewhere.com
Today I had my second monthly assessment with my trainer today. Three months in, I am finally seeing some progress after all this work! I didn't gain any muscle weight (my main goal). However, I am not discourage because I did loose 5 pounds of weight. The weight came nearly entirely from fat, which brought my lean mass/fat mass ratio closer to where I want to be. My current body fat percentage decreased by 2%, which means I am at 27.3% fat. It sees like forever before I'll get to my goal of 22%, and I don't think I'll get there is I don't start building lean mass, but at least I'm headed in the right direction. I have another 5.3 percent to go. If I keep up this 2% a month rate, I should get there by the first of June.
I could be discouraged knowing that I was only 24.8% exactly one year ago, but I'm not. I really feel like I am moving forward with every decision, and what I do today matters more than what I did years ago. I have this new health club to blame. Something about it just fits, it feels right. I've spent years not feeling that way; lamenting at the greener grass over there; the grass from my past, from my future. But I feel good when I go to this place. It's like "Cheers"; everybody knows your name. I feel like Norm every time I start my workout.
How did I make this progress?
- I visited the health club 16 times. I lifted weights as prescribed and offset the drain of biking with yoga the rest of the days.
- I kept my cycling up as per usual.
- I followed the prescribed food plan. I resisted at first. They wanted me to eat a lot more protein and a lot less carbohydrate. I have seen too many fads come and go, flip flopping nutritional guidelines. I assumed the slowly growing hatred of all thinks carb over the past decade was just that, a fad, and an intention by America's corrupt agriculture market; pushing things on us that we don't need, like milk, corn, and meat. But, I said, what the hey. Body builders have been pumping protein since before the war on carbs. I increased my protein intake to 20%, reduced my fruit intake to just 2 servings a day, and reduced my whole grain portions to just one meal a day. This accounts for 70% of my eating decisions. The other 30% is either an extra carb or a "splurge" like dessert or pancakes for breakfast. The recommend I follow the plan 80/20, but I haven't gotten there yet.
average week of macro consumption for February
What obstacles do I foresee?
- Keeping up gym attendance. I like going in the morning the best, I don't have to modify my routine due to crowding. I wake up easily at 5. But I often feel like I didn't get enough sleep, or it's raining too hard, so I ignore the natural wakefulness I feel at that time. I spent so many years not ever feeling wakeful that this feeling is weird and I am not sure what to do with it. When I wake up at 6, I drag, I fall asleep again mid-sentence, my alarm sounds like a silly joke someone is trying to play on me. My hands and feet are lead bars without phalanges.
- Putting the prescribed food plan aside to placate others. When eating in a group setting, I either eat something delicious and indulgent or I eat something I don't really feel like eating because it's there, or I have limited choices, or it seems like fun. But why eat food I don't even feel like eating if it counts as a "splurge"?
- Putting the prescribed food plan aside to feed stress. I am not very stressed or busy right now. But I worry that, my 70/30 ration will drop the second a drop of stress comes on.
Overall, I feel good. This goal is obtainable. I am enjoying myself along the way.
Chilly Hilly; living up to it's name and then some Bainbridge Island, Washington
Wooleaters ride-ready
The Wooleaters bike group all got together to create out own woolen-sheep patches to proudly display when we go on group rides together. We got together, enjoyed some wine and cheese and crafted away. The felt we used was actually partially made of wool! Each person crafted a unique and creative sheep. Every sheep came out amazing!
We will have our inaugural sheep-showing at Chilly Hilly this Sunday where all Wooleaters on the ride will wear our new logos. If you see us on the ride, give us a "Baaaaa!" as you pass by.
I also made some sheep cookies for the crafting fest, pictured below. They are actually Timmy, the young and mischievous lamb, from the "Shaun the Sheep" children's program. Yummy! Good energy-filled simple carbs!
Left lean bike pain
by sheridestoday.com
After several massages, stretches, and joining a health club, the pain lessened at the knee, but grew in complexity. I came to find that my left “middle” it tight and contracted. My left side, lower back, hip, psoas, quadriceps, and hamstring are practically immobile compared to my right side. Now, ever since my teen years, the various osteopaths, physical therapist, and massage therapists I’ve seen all note a left-side drop in me. It’s not that my left leg is longer, it’s that my whole spine is curved in such a way that my left shoulder and hip sit lower than the right. However, I have a hankering suspicion that this tightness comes from cycling. Not only is cycling a very physically contracting sport, I always land on the ground using my left leg. I am left-handed, so it only makes sense that I trust my left foot to land more than my right. After a few years of riding in the city, where I sit at stoplights just as long as I pedal, I think the left-side lean is getting to me. When I had a more physical job, the pains of the day would rotate around my body. Now that I have a desk job, my body moves in the same way every day, and I feel the same strain compounding on itself as the day moves on.
From an amazing article about cycling tightening issues: https://physiotonic.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/is-cycling-really-good-for-you-a-must-read-for-office-workers-and-cyclists/
I tried to solve the problem by using my right leg when stopped on a bike. This is not as easy as it may seem. Brushing your teeth with the “wrong” hand is very difficult at first, but you quickly catch on. Thing is, this is the only muscle memory swap that could cause falling down if done incorrectly! I found my right leg simply didn’t reach the ground. I changed the side I hold my bike pannier from the left to the right, hoping the weight would help. The road seems curved in a way that it is sloped downward the closer you get to curb, so I feel like my right side actually has farther to go to reach the ground. Perhaps this left-side drop In my body makes it too hard. Needless to say, it just wasn’t working.
I compromised by getting fully off the saddle and bringing both feet parallel before stepping the left foot down. This shortens the travel between both sides. Before I would stay sitting on the saddle and lean my whole body to the left to reach the ground before popping off the saddle.
I am also doing a series of active stretches every day:
One-legged lunges
One-legged lunges with pelvic tilt
One-legged reverse lunges (with butt up to stretch the hamstrings)
Standing squad stretch
Standing side angle bends
These are all stretches I can do while I wait to meet people or wait for the elevator at work, which ensures I will do them at least once a day. At home on the weekends I will stretch using a foam roller before meditation time. I haven’t seen any changes in my flexibility thus far, but the body does feel better with all this stretching.
EGGS-actly!
An EGGS-ample of my breakfast; eggs and veg links
I decided to bring eggs to work this week to have fancy eggs-poached-in-the-microwave breakfasts. Yesterday I nestled them on a spinach pillow inside my lunch bag. I worried about them breaking and oozing all over my lunch all the way to work. See, Seattle’s bike lanes are riddled with seams, cracks, man-hole covers, pour-over fixes, and potholes. As it turned out they arrived just fine. Color me EGG-static!
EGG-cited to take in all my eggs for the rest of the week, I placed them in a plastic egg carrier used for camping. Because it’s for travel, right? I heard my eggs rattle with every bump, lump, and divot I ran over. LOUDLY. The sound was EGGS-treme! I tried my best to navigate the smoothest path possible. But still, all I could hear was clunk, clunk, rattle, rattle, rattle, shake. I am not EGGS-aggerating here. A few miles in, I stopped to EGGS-ercise and tentatively checked out my eggs. I was a little scared that they’d all be cracked, but took comfort in knowing that they probably wouldn’t keep rattling so much if they were broken. One poor little guy didn’t make it. It was EGGS-plosive. I removed the unharmed toughies and put them back upon a bed of spinach in my lunch bag. The remains of the EGGS-iled weakling sat perched still in the plastic carrier, out of contact from the others. Rhymes of humpty dumpty filled my head the rest of my ride into work. All the kings horse and all the kings men…
Fremont Bridge Bike Count: 209
When school bus drivers get distracted
Enough daylight rose above the horizon at 7am for me to change the setting on my headlight. Which means that my bike computer won’t have interference and I can use it. Since I started climbing “the hill” at 7, I took this opportunity to track my speed for the first time in many, many dark months. I had a strong and powerful start, and didn’t drop below 10mph- which is the goal to stay at throughout the length of the hill.
Yet, it was all for naught. Just at the first apex, the “false summit” as it were, just past the public bus bump-out, a school bus sat parked right over the bike lane with its “unlawful to pass” flashers on. Crushed, I pulled to a complete stop. Other cyclists behind me, piled up doing the same. Moments passed, cars started to pile up. None of us saw any children, and a lady next to me (I’ll call her 90’s neon jacket) commented that this shouldn’t even be a bus stop. Just then, the flashers changed to steady red lights and we passed on. 90’s neon noted that the driver was sitting in her seat texting. All that for texting! Moments later the school bus passed us, with the driver still texting as she passed. She pulled just ahead of us into a real loading zone, not on the bike lane, with her yellow lights flashing. She chose a much better place to sit. As we passed her, we saw her still chin-deep in her phone. Maybe I'll get to attack that hill tomorrow.
Fremont Bridge Bike Count: 201
Ready for Chilly Hilly
I registered so early that I got my rider number and route map in the mail! I am so gonna crush this thing! Bring it, Bainbridge! Show me all you got!
Sunny Hilly (Chilly Hilly training ride)
Today I joined the Wooleaters on the hilliest possible ride on the north end in preparation for the Chilly Hilly next weekend. I did not want to ride at all this morning. I nearly canceled, having worked late last night, not being in a good mood, being sick and tired of riding after so much commuting in the dark and rain, and having a stomach ache. All seemed like good reasons to bail, especially since it's been raining nothing but cats and dogs all week. But, I made it out. And the bike gods rewarded me and the crew with warm sunshine our whole ride.
30.4 miles
2:37 ride time
11.6 av mph
33 mph max
72 average cadence
1992 feet climbed
394 feet max altitude
145 average pulse
176 max pulse
Waiting for all the riders
Nobody here but me
This how the employee bicycle cage looks in mid-February at work. It’s how it looks on most days in February….and January, and December. Granted, not all commuters use the cage, and not all work the same shift I do, but just wait until I post a picture of the cage in May! It will be full! May is Bike Month, and everybody comes out and rides. What is it about Bike Month that gets so many people pedaling? Why don’t they keep doing it? A big, organized competition comes with a lot of social pressure, so that must me it. Maybe someday I’ll really understand.
Ride the Rim?
If they do it again for 2016, this looks like it might be a fun potential ride. I love getting out to this eastern side of Washington. If I can spare the time, I'd love to go on a fun ride!
New Training Page
This page is all about health and wellness in general; all the bits and pieces of cycling outside of the actual ride. The fact that I love the ride and love to be outside is only part of the reason I ride. I also love cycling because it is what I call a "lifetime" sport; something I can do up until the end (hopefully) that will always support my health. This section is about that; fitness, wellness, and all the angles toward getting better, stronger, faster, fitter. Check it out!
5-Hand Friday
Drivers do this thing when they are turning from a lesser street to a major street; they steadily roll into the intersection while they look for traffic. I do the same thing. It really helps when the street has parallel parked cars or trees making it hard to see. However, drivers frequently also do this thing, where they look right at me just as the car is covering the bike lane, and don’t register me at all. When this happens, I give them “the hand.” I feel confident they will see me, and hope that the added movement of my hand will take my visibility to the next level- of actually being seen. I also use it in hopes the car notices that they have obstructed the bike lane, making me either brake and loose precious momentum, or swerve out into the car lane. Today I did this 5 times. How is it weeks can go by and I don’t need to use “the hand” at all, and suddenly I need to use it five times?
A woman downtown never saw me. She was turning left from the left on a one-way. I was in the left-hand lane as I would also be turning left at the intersection just ahead. She pulled out at full speed without once looking in my direction. I had to come to a full stop. I haven’t had to do that in a long time!
Fremont Bridge Bike Counter: 193
Indy 500 CDL (commuter ride report)
As I pedaled down a long straight-a-way, a semi pulling two trailers of gravel started to pass me as it decided to floor the gas. I looked at the yellow light ahead. It was clear that there was no way the semi would make it. I had already started coasting, knowing I wouldn’t make the light either. The semi was peeling down the left hand turn lane, and I thought it was pretty ballsy for a long truck with such a heavy load to take a left hand turn on a stale red light during rush hour. Some trucks take a whole light cycle just to make the turn. At the last second, the truck suddenly changed its mind and pounded the breaks. It made a loud stinking screeching noise and bowed out to the side, into the bike lane. It stopped in time. I was glad I decided to coast when I did or the truck would have bowed into me. This particular intersection gets a lot of bicycle traffic, so there is a designated green box for all the bikes turning left. The skidding semi covered the left hand turn box, the crosswalk, and the green way for bikes going straight. I had the option to either turn around and pedal to the end of the semi to wait for my left or sit in the car's right hand turn lane. Knowing the semi would take the whole green to turn, I opted to block off the cars wanting to go right. I sat there worried that a car wanting to turn right would come behind me and lay on his horn while I had to smell the overwhelming stench of the burnt smell brought on by the skidding semi. I was impressed how strongly it smelled! Luckily, no one came behind me until the light turned green. I signaled spastically (did the semi even see me? He could have swerved right on me while he was braking!) and pedaled out as quickly as I could so as not to be in the way of the truck’s wide turn. It all worked well. While the semi took the next stretch as quickly as humanly possible, we met again at the next light 500 feet later without alarm or craziness. I chuckled, the poor guy didn’t get ahead at all with all this. The rest of my ride continued without incident.
Sunrise, sunset (commuter ride report)
It’s that magical time of year again, when I get to bike to and from work underneath the brilliant orange, red and purple that is the Seattle sunrise and sunset. How do I get to be so lucky that there is a sweet spot where I can see both in one day? I loved it when this happened in the fall, and hope this spring session treats me with clear skies so I can enjoy it while it lasts. What makes the Seattle skyline such a deep, dark purple? If there are any meteorologists out there, I am curious to know. I don’t remember seeing such dark purples anywhere else I’ve lived.
Fremont Bridge Bike Counter: 263 –Really! Look at that! Still over 100 more people than I’ve seen all winter!
Seattle riders are growing (commuter ride report)
I wanted to post an entry last Monday when the Fremont bike bridge counter soared up to 209. Up until that Monday, the variations in rider counts were mostly due to the time I’d cross the bridge. Days I’d cross over early, 7am or earlier, would be in the double-digits. Days I crossed late, you’d see the numbers higher. One day I was number 179 (not a blog day) and I wondered if I should also post the time I crossed the bridge to make my numbers more relevant. But, then, last Monday, I crossed at my usual time, and I was number 209. This seemed crazy. For months I was nearly always the same number at 7am, about one-thirty-something. And suddenly, the first Monday of February, the number of riders increased by 70! I haven’t seen a change that big since summer! I wondered if there was some secret code Seattle cyclists followed. How many cyclists decide to start riding in February? If an additional 70 made the decision just before 7am, just on this one bridge, the actual numbers seemed astronomical! And then there was today- 333!! I couldn’t believe it! The number has more than doubled! I guess cyclists like to ride in the light?! It’s not even light yet at that hour, but you can tell the sky is thinking about it, threatening to bring us daylight. Apparently that is all Seattle needs to get riding. I can’t wait to see how the numbers grow as the light continues to creep into the earlier moments of the morning!
Light, the light! (a commuter ride report)
Today I had the day off from work so I decided to ride my bike to the health club. As I pedaled home, something did not feel right at all. I pondered; was it my tires? No, they were well inflated. Was it because I rode without the load of breakfast, lunch, and a change of clothes in my panniers? No, that wasn't right. What made me feel so odd, so different? Why did the road and the cars all look so strange? Then, as I squinted in the overcast Seattle grey canopy- it hit me. This was the first day I've ridden my bike in the daylight in 4 full months! In fact, I have never ridden the route to my health club in the day light because I only joined a few months ago. No wonder everything looked so different! Hey, there's a lake over there! Looking forward to the oncoming spring and the return of the light!
Bike gadgets FTW
photo credit: http://www.monkeylectric.com
Last night a tall cyclist, I deemed him “fly white guy”, caught up to me at a traffic light. He commented on my colorful array of lights. I have 38 LED’s with my bike in 5 lights, so more than most. When I first starting riding I had nearly double that in LED’s, but I’ve upgraded in quality and lumens over the years so I am actually more visible with fewer lights. He still couldn’t figure out why my bike was strewn with cables and switches, so I showed him the air horn. I explained that it is useless any time you need it because you can‘t honk and brake at the same time. But then, as the light lingered red, I qualified that the horn was best for “green light texters”. He said that would be a good marketing slogan for PEMCO (local car insurance company); “Green light texter- you are not one of us.” I guess PEMCO’s current advertisements are based around a “We are a lot light you, you are one of us” campaign (great campaign for a local company). After that, we turned on separate roads only to meet up again at another light. We chatted again about the pros and cons of different side streets and then rode in silence for several blocks.
This morning “racing kit and backpack #53” (there are too many guys like this to tell them apart) gave me a thumbs-up as he passed me, hollering, “I like your lights! That’s awesome!” A few miles later “guitar case pannier” (how cool is that?!) passed me while hollering, “Great blue stars!” My monkey lights are in a star pattern at the moment. I’ve had them this way for months, and for some reason people are taking a notice now.
We are getting Rocky Mountain rains again. Except in the rocky mountains it only rains (or shall I say dumps) for 20 minutes or so, not the days on end we are seeing here. Potholes are springing up left and right on my route, and I wonder if the rain contributes to the road decay. Seattle certainly has a hard time keeping it’s roads in decent repair, it may be that the weather fights against it. This rain is uncharacteristic of the Northwest, however. Rains fall light here, we’ve grown to expect a constant dewy mist, the kind of thing that renders umbrellas useless. This rain breaks umbrellas!
Fremont Bridge Bike Counter: 143
Kali and the moon
photo credit: http://www.kalibhakti.com/
My morning got off to an unexpected start as my yoga instructor decided to channel the Hindu goddess Kali in class. She started out giving passionate, gory descriptions of a furious, fierce, blood-drinking woman wearing necklaces of skulls and a skirt of disembodied arms. The wakefulness and rapidity of the voice she used to describe the goddess didn’t fit with how I usually think of yoga; a quiet, meditative practice with candles and dark. All this everlasting hunger for blood and guts and digesting all the gory demons seemed more fitting for, perhaps, evening yoga. While most of my professional life included a large amount of blood and body fluids in some regard, I worried for any soft-stomached or vegetarian yogis who don’t often confront blood and flesh-tearing hunger stories. The ride into work followed the mythical morning. A misty, foggy nearly full (just 2 days after) moon illuminated the dark sky, making what is usually a black canopy around me a…brighter black canopy. My racing mind (and not so racing pedal feet) brought up visions of werewolves and all the hungry, hungry things we think up to scare each other with.
Fremont Bridge Bike Counter: 123
Registered for Bike MS Oregon
I am registered for Bike MS in Oregon! This is the ride of the year. This is what it is all about. I’ll be riding with Team Slug Fish again this year. Since I finished at $1820 last year, my goal for 2016 is to raise over $2000. I am pretty sure I can do it! Especially with the help of people like you! I also hope to ride a full 150 miles, in honor of how a started the ride 15 years ago; riding the "MS 150". I haven't actually ridden the full 150 miles in the last few years. With your support to motivate me, I think I can do it.
I have a whole page devoted to my ride and fundraising here. Check it out!
