What is it about full-length frame pumps that I like so much? Maybe it’s just nostalgia. My first serious bike, a cherry red Basso in the ’80s, had a frame pump. There’s also something about that lemon limey color. I really dig it, but I don’t think I’d ever own a bike of that color. Don’t know why.
The plan today was to ride hard for an hour, doing repeats on Joy Road, a ribbon of rolling hills amid horse farms and McMansions in Washtenaw County. The unknown factor, though, was the snow. Before the ride, I envisioned myself hammering along, my ‘cross tires digging into the layer of white powder that covered southeastern Michigan the past two days. When I got to Joy Road, I found a bianca strada. Oh yeah, it was plenty bianca. The unfortunate thing was that it was the bad kind of bianca. There was no powder. There was just a hard layer of hard-packed snow with strong ambitions to become ice. This made the crowned roads a bit treacherous. If I didn’t ride exactly in the middle of the road, I was riding on a slightly off-camber slippery patch. A few times I hit a weird rut and almost lost control. Instead of riding to get a good hard workout, I was riding not to crash.
When I got to the end of Joy Road, I didn’t turn around for a repeat, as I had planned. I took a right onto a paved road clear of snow. Scuttling my plans to ride the remote snow-covered roads was a disappointment, but there was no real good choice. I ended up riding on pavement for an hour, then doing repeats up a long hill near my home. It was a cold day, with highs at -4 degrees C and lows at -8 degrees C. It didn’t bother me much. My old self, the one that spent the past 10 years in the subtropics, would have froze his butt off. But I guess I’m finally getting used to the North.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I found a great way to stay in shape during the winter months: Running home from work, combining my workout with my commute. At first, it seemed like a bullet-proof plan, like all of my other fitness schemes. I did it for a while and enjoyed it, overlooking the negatives, which seemed minor at first. But then the negatives started to bother me.
This certainly isn't me running in my bare legs in January! I snapped this photo while I waiting for my bus to work.
One problem was that by working out in the evening, I found myself running with my dog less often. Originally, I thought I’d take my dog for a jog in the morning. This never happened, though. I didn’t want to get my running shoes wet and have to pack the soggy kicks in my workout bag. And I didn’t want to spend money on a separate pair. So my dog wasn’t getting the exercise she needs. I also really missed sharing the running experience with her. She just loves to get out on the road.
The other big problem was that I really don’t like to workout in the evening. I like to really chill after work. On the days I don’t run, I ride the rollers, and it really sucks to have to do this in the evening. I hate to have it hanging over my head, and often there’s too big of a temptation to skip it, drink a glass of wine instead.
So I’m back to working out in the morning. One wonderful thing about morning workouts is that my dog and I are usually the first ones out in the snow. The past two mornings, we ran on a fresh, fluffy white carpet of powder, with the air full of falling flurries. It was fantastic.
I don’t want to get too heavy or, God forbid, too PC here. But I’ve got to say that I hope most cyclists aren’t buying these t-shirts with the Japanese rising sun. Many, many American soldiers died while fighting forces that used the symbol, chosen by a regime that brutalized a large part of Asia.
When I lived in Taiwan, local companies would occasionally use Nazi-inspired imagery for a product or marketing campaign. One local firm selling space heaters (imported from Germany!) used a cartoon Hitler in ads that declared, “Wage war on the cold!” Sometimes I would see someone wearing a motorcycle helmet shaped like a Nazi helmet with the “SS” insignia. Yep, really poor taste.
When the tiny Jewish community complained about these things, the products were often taken off the market, and the companies would say it was just an innocent mistake. They would claim they didn’t know people would be so sensitive about such things. One Taiwanese friend pointed out to me that Westerners often wear jackets and shirts with the rising sun logo, something he found to be an example of extreme ignorance and insensitivity.
Anyway, don’t buy these t-shirts. You can find much more imaginative designs here. If I could get myself to plonk down $25 for a t-shirt, this is the one I’d go for:
It’s probably too late to talk about my goals for 2012 but what the hell.
1. Stay out of gyms and fitness centers, even during the tundra month of February. The world will continue to be my gym. Dealing with the elements is an essential part of the workout.
2. Become a better cold-weather rider. I’m getting there but I’ve got a long way to go.
3. Do more intervals. My natural inclination is to make every day a base-building day. But I truly enjoy intervals, when I force myself to do them.
4. Stop being a hermit and ride with the local bike club more often.
5. Keep my blog posts shorter. I’ll live up to this one right now…
Two hours into a ride yesterday that was only supposed to last 1.5 hours, it was becoming clear that I had worn out my welcome with Mr. Winter. My entire body felt wet, cold and clammy. It was as if I were wearing a wet suit and a layer of frigid seawater was trapped between my skin and the suit’s fabric. Most worrisome, my core was cold, and that meant it was trying to hog up all the warm blood and stop it from circulating to my hands and feet, which were numb. Even my trusty balaclava stopped fending off the cold and seemed to defect to the forces trying to shut me down. 
I was still a half hour away from home, the sun was going down and I was beginning to worry. Adding to my problems, I had only eaten a light lunch (chicken noodle soup and rice cakes with a bit of cream cheese) and didn’t bother to pack any snacks because I figured I wouldn’t be out that long. On a long ride in the cold, hunger doesn’t just knock. It tries to kick down the door.
I got myself into this jam because, well, I’m an idiot, of course. I was riding the dirt roads near my home in rural Washtenaw County and decided to explore some new routes that ended up seriously prolonging the ride. I also really wanted to do a long ride. I did one the day before and had a blast, even though it shattered me physically. The weather was sunny on both days, and that’s all I really need nowadays to motivate me to get outdoors. Temperatures ranged from -3 degrees C to 3 degrees C, which is wonderful for Michigan in January.
The ride ended up being 2.5 hours. I don’t have a distance because I haven’t rigged up a bike computer to my cyclocross bike yet. I got through the last half hour by staying calm and using the old trick: breaking down the ride into legs and just concentrating getting to the next leg. “OK, just make it to the horse farm and you’ll be OK,” then “Just get to Warren Road,” then “Just make it to Nixon Road,” then “Just cruise on home.”
My new Black Diamond headlamp paid for itself the first time I used it. I just love it when a piece of gear does that. I was reluctant to buy it because I already have a perfectly good headlamp – a Mammut. Unfortunately, I just can’t find it. It went missing in my house, and I spent weeks searching for it before giving up and pulling the trigger on a new one.
I'm pleased with this head lamp. It's rugged and has already survived a few drops.
The headlamp is most valuable when I’m out with my dog on dark early morning runs. We usually like to finish our workout by running on a half-mile stretch of trail through a strip of forest in my neighborhood. It gives me a bit of an adrenaline rush, not knowing what I’m going to run into in the dark woods. I love how the darkness envelopes me. I like to let my imagination go wild. As I hammer along trying to remember where all the tree roots are, I imagine myself tripping over a dead body or fending off an attack from a raccoon crazed with distemper or stumbling into a freaky group performing a satanic ritual. I like how all my senses go on hyper alert.
With my new Black Diamond strapped to my head, I was cruising down the forest trail recently when I saw something wispy and white – seemingly fluorescent – ahead of me hanging in the air just above the trail. It looked like a white plastic trash bag fluttering in the breeze, but the weird thing was that there was no wind. I spent the next few seconds pondering what it could be. As I closed in within about 20 meters of the thing, my light illuminated it a bit more. It became apparent the white, wispy thing was attached to a small creature with a pointy nose that turned around and looked at me, his beady eyes glowing in the beam of light. Oh damn, it was a skunk!
I slammed on the brakes and yanked my dog’s leash, pulling her in close to me. We did a U-turn and sprinted away from the creature. If I were running without a headlamp, I’m sure I would have plowed into the critter. I would have had to call in late to work as I spent the rest of the morning de-skunking myself and my wooly Airedale terrier. I’ve had to do that before, and it’s a HUGE chore, an absolute
I prefer the Mammut. It's lighter and I like the attachment that turns it into a lightbulb that can hang inside a tent.
nightmare. The tomato juice remedy is just a myth. It’s best to use special anti-skunk shampoo with enzymes that break down the wretched, oily stuff that skunks spray on you. I urge all dog owners to have a bottle of the stuff in your garage because the last thing you want to do when you’ve been skunked is go into your house or get into your car to go on a shopping trip. Anyway, the headlamp saved me from this hideous hassle.
My wife told me to stop running in the forest in the early morning. She said, “That time belongs to the animals. Just leave them alone!”
I shut my left eye and pedaled a few strokes, then closed it and opened my right eye and pedaled a bit before switching back to my left eye. Sometimes, I shut both eyes and rode blind. It was all I could do to protect myself from the frozen pebbles of rain that were stinging my eyes. It was freezing. There was a wind advisory in effect until midnight. It was a miserable day for cycling. Still, I had a blast. It was just the kind of conditions I wanted for the first ride of 2012. I wanted the ride to be memorable and indeed it was.
I didn’t go long. The ride lasted about an hour on my ‘cross bike over the dirt roads outside of northeast Ann Arbor. Just getting out and doing as many kilometers as possible was the goal for the day. I was close to staying indoors and doing a roller workout. There was a great temptation not to ride at all. I slept in until 8 a.m. When I took my dog out for her morning walk, the temperature was perfect for a ride, but there wasn’t enough time to go out before church. The forecast called for plunging temperatures in the afternoon along with freezing rain or snow showers. And that’s exactly what happened. After lunch, I tried to psych myself up for a ride, but I ended up sitting down with a mug of tea and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which I can’t seem to put down. At 2 p.m., I took a cat nap and woke up at 3 p.m. I stepped outside and the weather was absolutely wicked. Blustery winds, chilly, a dark brooding sky. “Screw this winter riding. I should just ride indoors until March,” I thought to myself. But as I mentally prepared for another roller workout, going outdoors became increasingly appealing. Then the dark clouds parted and there was a burst of sunshine. I started putting on my cold-weather gear and that lifted my spirits even more.
Once I got on the road, the sun disappeared, dark clouds re-emerged and strong winds began whipping me around the road. One gust nearly knocked me over. About five kilometers from home, just when I turned off on the dirt roads, the sleet began to fall. My black tights looked like someone had 
dumped sticky rock salt on them. The icey rain wasn’t melting and soaking my clothes, so I wasn’t too worried. The roads became wet with cake-batter mud, and my booties were quickly coated with the stuff. The sleet seemed to be coming down horizontally, finding its way through the top of my sunglasses and slamming into my eyeballs. Damn that hurt. It was a good pain, though. And the crazy masochist within me loved it.
My near-daily e-mail from Competitive Cyclist arrived today, and I was scanning the close-out deals. I was tempted to order a pair of Castelli bib shorts, marked down by about 50 percent, but then I remembered my love-hate relationship with Castelli. Love the fit, styling and design. Hate the unreliable quality.
I’ve talked about this before when I reviewed Castelli’s Sottile rain cape. I’ve just had a few bad experiences with Castelli garments falling apart way too soon – sometimes after the first or second ride with them. I thought that the Sottile was going to help change my opinion.
Purchased in February 2010, the rain jacket has served me well. It’s super light and the material is amazingly durable. I thought I had a real winner. But the other day when I put it on for a rainy workout, I couldn’t zip it up. The zipper got jammed up. There’s no obvious damage to the zipper. It simply won’t go up, and it’s difficult to undo once the zipper thingy is engaged. For $80, I expect much, much more. I’m going to take it to my neighborhood alternation shop to see if the zipper can be fixed, but I’m not optimistic.
I realize wet-weather gear takes a lot of punishment. But I’ve got a wind vest and jacket, both made by Pearl Izumi, that are still doing hard duty for me after 5+ years. I much prefer the design and fit of Castelli, but I love the way my Pearl Izumi gear just doesn’t seem to wear out.
When do you push through the pain and when do you stop and let yourself heal? Always a tough issue for an endurance athlete. I came down with what seemed to be a mild cold early this week. I felt congested and crappy in the morning and evening, but during the day, I was able to limp along with a light cough. Sometimes with colds, a hard workout can make me feel better. It seems to blow out all the gunk and speed up the recovery process. But sometimes it makes things worse, intensifies the symptoms. On Thursday, at quitting time at work, I sat at my desk debating whether I should change into my training gear and do the five-mile run home. A gambling man by nature, I decided to push things, call the cold’s bluff, coax this bear out of its cave so I can see what I’m dealing with.
With temps in the low 30s and light rain falling, I set off on the run and felt great. Kicking in the last mile, I set a PR by about 30 seconds. But as soon as I stopped, my head felt like someone had attached a hose to it and was pumping it full of gluey fluid. Dizziness started to set in. I began hacking up tons of lung butter. The coughing became uncontrollable as I walked the two blocks to my home. After taking a hot shower, I started feeling better, but I felt wiped out after dinner and spent the rest of the evening on the sofa watching TV like a zombie. At bedtime, I somehow fell asleep in between bouts of hacking, but I woke up coughing at 3:30 a.m. and did something I rarely do – take a shot of cough syrup. I usually don’t medicate a cold/cough because I think it just masks the symptoms, prevents me from having a good sense of how the illness is developing. But I knew there was no way I’d get back to sleep without some medicine.
When my alarm went off, I felt woozy, completely wiped out. It was extremely apparent that my run the day before got the bear way out of its cave. And it had taken a few big bites out of me. I spent the rest of the day in bed. I’m not sure what I learned from this. Sure, I could have taken the safe route and skipped the workout. But then again, I would have been left wondering if the run would have left me feeling better, like it has many times before.
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