2006 Predictions

Here are some things I predict will happen in the coming year.

• Gasoline will be $4.00 per gallon
• I will buy a car that runs on diesel/vegetable oil
• There will be no exit strategy for the war in Iraq
• Andy Bakke will have sexual intercourse
• News programs will have more coverage of Brad and Angelina than genocide, poverty, and AIDS in Africa, combined
• I will break a bicycle rim
• A famous cyclist will fail a drug test and deny he ever doped
• Ivan Basso will win the Giro
• Chris Horner will win a stage in the Tour
• I will win a cyclocross race
• Lance will do all he can to stay in the media spotlight
• George W. Bush will still be an asshole
• I will not shop at Wal-Mart
• I will have a Colorado Paramedic License
• Mary and I will buy a home
• The Mets will win the World Series
• Federer will not win a grand slam
• A record number of athletes will fail drug tests during the Turino Olympics
• Paris Hilton will die
• Sampson will meet Vontoux
• A telemarketer from Calcutta will call and try to get me to consolidate my student loans
• I will drop an F-bomb on said telemarketer
• A Canadian will contract bird flu
• Right-winged yahoos will dismiss global warming
• Scott Johnson will spend a month on our futon, and train with me
• I will vomit from exertion
• Apple will come out with a ghetto blaster/boom box iPod

I'll come back to this list next year and see how many came true. I wish everyone a safe and happy New Year's Eve, and a prosperous 2006!

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Holy crap it's stromy here! Wind and rain and craziness. At times I don't think it could possibly rain any harder than it is. There are high surf advisories too. I might walk down to the beach and check it out. If the waves are cool, I'll post some pics.

I finished a 48 hour shift this morning. Nothing too cool to report again. I have a friend who is a paramedic in Arcata, CA, and he has the BEST stories. Weird-ass stuff I can't post on the blog. One story involves a guy who jumped out of the back of the ambulance traveling down the highway. You can imagine the result.

Less than 2 days until I get back on the bike. If the weather continues like it has, I'll be logging a lot of miles on the trainer. Fun fun. I think I want fenders.

You Gotta Make Way for the Homo Superior

This is Megan.

Here are some random facts about Megan...

Megan was the ispiration for the David Bowie masterpiece Hunky Dory.

Megan spent the Festivus holiday of 2004 at Chuck Norris's Sumatran beach home. During the feats of strenth portion of the celebration Megan had to pin Chuck Norris. They wrestled for 3 days, culmunating in Megan roundhouse kicking Chuck in the beard. We know the resulting devistation as the Asia Tsunami.

Megan once had a mild case of diarrhea. Only later did she find out it was the Avian Flu.

Lex Luthor once tried to hire Megan to distroy Superman. Megan declined, and Lex was forced to clone Nuclear Man out of Superman's hair's.

Megan once climed all 14 of the worlds 8000 meter peaks in one day. She never used supplemental oxygen.

After seeing Van Gogh's Starry Night, Megan promptly tracked the Dutch master down and cut off his ear, saying "Never paint such shit again!"

Megan eats nails for breakfast.

Megan is banned from competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Don't ask why.

Megan built 2 of the 3 great prymids.

Megan was the choreographer on Napleon Dynamite.

Megan, while holding a flux capacitor and running at 88 mph, can travel back to the future.

When God sneezes, people reply, "Megan bless you."

Megan invented the internet out of a pay phone and an old Speak n' Spell.

The film Delta Force was originally written with Megan in the lead role.

Megan invented the Total Gym. Chuck Norris only sells them to repay Megan for saving his life in Nam.

If you laugh at the picture of Megan, her fist will travel through the matrix and punch you in the face through your computer screen.

Chuck Norris's beard turned red after Megan bitch-slapped him.

Mary in Florida: Day 10

My wife finally comes home tonight. Besides the disgusting moustache I grew while she was gone, I think I still have my sanity. The "Chester A. Arthur" was shaved last Thursday at the request of my boss, but I kept the moustache. Work was incredibly slow yesterday. It just goes to show that most of our calls are because people are bored and have nothing better to do than go to the hospital.

The other day I finished the single front ring project on the cyclocross bike. I used an aero brake-only lever, a 42 tooth chainring, and two carbon fiber chain guides. The inside guide is mounted where the inner chainring would be, the chainring sits where the large, outer ring normally is, with the outer guide set outside of the chainring with 3mm spacers. It's held together by long chainring bolts used for triple ring cranksets. I also took the "oh shit levers" off, since I never used them. Here are some pics.


I wasn't sure if I'd be able to use an inner guide due to chain line issues, but everything clears, and shifts awsome. If the inner guide didn't work, I'd use a thrid-eye and maybe place the chainring in the inner position. I still need to take some links out of the chain so there is no possibility of dropping the chain. It's a pretty clean set-up, and took a quite a few grams off the overall bike weight.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Mary in Florida: Day 8

I actually have a day off. The last 2 days of work were horrible. I slept a total of 3 hours, and most of that was in the ambulance. We were busy. This morning Sampson and I were in search of snow. I thought there'd be snow up in the mountains, but it was like 60 degrees, so there was no snow. We went for a little hike anyways, and I let sampson go swimming in the river. The current is pretty strong now, so he got a pretty good workout trying to swim back to shore. Here are some pictures.



I have to work tomorrow, so I'm "celebrating" Christmas today. I have a turkey in the oven, and numerous beers in the fridge. Mary will be home Monday, so we'll have Christmas then.

I wish everyone a merry Christmas, and I hope Santa leaves fun toys in your stockings.

Mary in Florida: Day 5

Another 48 hour shift is complete. Nothing too cool to report on. I have to go back to work tomorrow though for another 48 hours. It's been rainy and windy here in Crescent City the last few days. It looks like its not going to let up until Christmas. My "Chester A. Arthur" is coming in nicely. I'll take some pictures of it before I shave it off. I've been working on changing my cyclocross bike from a double to a single front chainring set-up. I'll post pics of that also when its complete. You guys need to check out this video. It's f'ing cool! Here's a picture of the incident.

I had a message on my answering machine when I got home today. I have an interview for a paramedic postition in Boulder, CO on January 3rd. Wish me luck.

Mary in Florida: Day 2

It's storming here in Crescent City today. Windy and rainy. Sampson and I had a hike planned for today, but I don't think its going to happen. Instead, I put together a little holiday wish/lust list.

Alpha-Q CX cyclocross fork

Ritchey WCS carbon seatpost

Bianchi Pista fixed/track bike

SRM DuraAce powermeter

If anyone has the holiday spirit inside them, and has about $4600 to burn, there it is.

Mary in Florida: Day 1

Well, I wimped out on the Trans-Iowa race. I didn't want to take up one of the coveted 70 spots if I wasn't fully committed to doing it. It would have been a blast, and I only hope they have the race again in 2007. I added a couple new links. One is Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland, they do mail order, and have the most delicious coffee. The other is an enormous mail order internet wine shop. Check them out. I took some pictures of Sampson today. I tried to set the camera on the tripod and take portraits of Sampson with me, but it didn't really work. Here are a couple choice pics. Enjoy.

Iowa?

I'm toying with the idea of doing the Trans-Iowa race I read about on Simmons's blog. It sounds pretty fun and I could use my cx bike. Registration opens tomorrow at 11:00, and is limited to 70 racers, so I assume it fills up fast. If I'm feeling it in the morning, I'm going to resgister.

I just watched a video about team CSC at the 2003 tour (the one where Tyler Hamilton broke his collar bone.) It was really cool. Here is the link. Open it in Windows Media Player. It's like an hour long, and some of it's in Dutch, but it's quite interesting, and definately worth watching.

Chester A. Arthur

Hello again to everyone in Bloggerland. I have the whole weekend off, but I might as well be working since Mary left for Florida today. She is spending Christmas with her family. I will be churning out the blog posts in an attempt to curtail the foreseeable craziness that being alone over the holidays will induce. So if anyone has any requests for post topics, let me know (no pics of my chode, Andy.) Work the last 48 hours was pretty shitty. I didn't do much on Wednesday, but at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday night, I had to take a crazy guy to a looney bin in Sacramento, which is 8 hours away. So I returned around 6 p.m last night, and went to bed, and came home this morning.

Why is the title of this post the name of our 21st President, you ask? Because I'm growing one of these sweet beard things while Mary's gone. Here's a picture.

Another One Bites the Dust

I killed another fine citizen of Del Norte County this weekend. Big Suprise. We went on a call where an elderly woman was having chest pain and shortness of breath. This lady was fully concious, alert and talking one minute, and the next minute she was full-on dead. Yep, so that was quite exciting. The call was started out as a typical chest pain call, so I didn't have/need/want additional help in the back of the ambulance with me, so when she died, I had to do CPR and give drugs and everything else by myself. I did get to precordial thump her, so that made my day. We also had our company Christmas party this weekend. It was terrible with terrible food and terrible gifts.

Cyclocross nats were this weekend also. I called it with Todd Wells winning. The Oregon boys did quite well also. Here is a funny picture of Chris Horner looking quite goofy. I dig the waterbottle cage and the textbook shouldering technique. If you don't know what I mean, check out some of the other pics on cyclingnews.

New Direction

Alright guys. I won't bore anyone with any more training theories. I'll bore you with rantings about my 2006 racing schedule instead. It's pretty dependent on us moving to Colorado. The season will be directed at building fitness throughout the spring and summer, with the focus being cyclocross in the fall. Thats all I definitively know for right now.

The tenative Colorado racing calender is on the ACA website, there is a link for it to the right. It looks like I'll be doing numerous crits, since they are very much like cyclocross races. I'll probably do a few time trials and road races also. I just suck at the tactics of road racing, and riding in a pack. It seems I can never get in the winning break when the crunch happens. No mountain bike races yet. Maybe in 2007. It would be fun going back home and racing the ND state championships. It's all still up in the air.

I'll be back on the bike starting January 2nd with serious base miles. I'd like to average 12-15 hours per week on the bike during my base periods. Gym work only until then. I've already started putting on a couple "holiday pounds."

Cyclocross nationals are this weekend. My money is on Todd Wells. Page will probably win another one though. Look out for all the Oregon boys. Trebon, Tonkin, Skerritt, Wicks, Craig, Horner, Dekker. All possible top 10's. Crazy.

Tomorrow I go in to work for a 72 hour shift. I'll post on Monday morning when I'm off. Maybe some cool stuff will go down at work that I can write about.

More on Training

Hi again everyone. I finished a 48 hour shift this morning. Nothing too exciting happened. No six hour naps though. I'm trying to get a couple days off, so I can go to Florida and spend some time with Mary's family. Two other guys need the same days off, so we'll see if it all works out.

I'm sure everyone has been anxiously awaiting the post talking about training zones based on Lactate Thresold Heart Rate, and the Borg Rating of Percieved Exertion. Here is a table showing all 7 training zones with corresponding heart rates.

Zone	Purpose	% of LTHR
1	Recovery	65-81%
2	Aerobic	82-88%
3	Tempo	89-93%
4	Subthreshold	94-100%
5A	Superthreshold	101-102%
5B	Aerobic Capacity	103-105%
5C	Anaerobic Capacity	106%+

Rating of Percieved Exertion (RPE) is another method for measuring the effort of a workout. RPE is a numbered scale from 6 to 20. After a workout you give a number equvalent to the the intensity of the workout. Athletes that have used RPE for many years can accurately pinpoint lactate threshold just from feel. RPE is nice in that you don't need sophisticated training equipment, like a heart rate monitor, or powermeter.

Purpose	Rating	Exertion
Recovery	6
Recovery	7	Very, Very Light
Recovery	8
Recovery	9
Aerobic Development	10
Aeobic Development	11	Fairly Light
Aerobic Development	12
Tempo Development	13	Somewhat Hard
Tempo Development	14
Subthreshold Development	15	Hard
Subthreshold Development	16
Superthreshold Development	17	Very Hard
Aerobic Capacity Development	18
Aerobic Capacity Development	19	Very, Very Hard
Aerobic Capacity Development	20

At around 16 to 17 RPE is lactate threshold. Less then 10 RPE is recovery, and greater then 17 is superthreshold. Holy crap its not easy to put tables in posts. It involves code writing, which I know nothing about.

A third tier to measure training involves power output, but since none of us mere mortals has a powermeter (I assume) I won't talk about Critical Power. Measuring power is the way to go, if you can afford a powermeter. RPE is difficult to subjectively measure, and heart rate can fluctuate wildly due to hydration, rest and stress to name a few, but power remains constant.

In the next post I'll talk about limiters, and how to train to turn your weaknesses into strenghs.

Heart Rate Training Zones

Hello all. Mary and I are spending our Sunday doing laundry. Aren't we exciting? Yesterday we went on a nice bike ride. 2 hours on the road bike. I can't believe the difference between the road bike and the cyclocross bike. The road bike is so much more lively and quick. It felt nice finially riding it again. Last night was the Wild Rivers Multi Sports (Mary's tri club) party. It was pretty fun. I overheard many conversations about base training and heart rates, and I wanted to clarify some misconceptions people have about heart rate training. Here's another long post about exercise physiology. Read it and learn something.

Everyone i talked to last night had an arbitrary number they used to train at during all of base trainig. This number is calculated by subtracting your age from 180. This is a very inaccurate way of determining base training heart rate(s.) A much more accurate way to determine target heart rates is finding your heart rate at lactate thresold. Lactate thresold heart rate (LTHR) is easliy found by a simple test on the bike (a 30 minute time trial) but is harder to find while running or swimming, or some other activity. LTHR varies with each activity. Your LTHR while cycling would be very different then your LTHR while cross country skiing, for example, due to many more muscle groups being used while skiing. For examples we will use my current LTHR, which is 191 beats per minute.

But Brooks, why not train based off maximum heart rate?

Well I'm glad you asked. People like to use the generic 220 minus your age fomula to determine maximum heart rate, and base all heart rate zones from this number. This again is an inacurrate means of figuring out training zones for two reasons. 1. A person's maximum heart rate is rarely 220 minus your age, and 2. Not everyone's LTHR is the same percentage of maximum heart rate. Examples: My maximum heart rate is 205 beats per minute, not 194 (220-26.) Using this generic formula, lactate thresold is 85% of maximum heart rate. Again, my LTHR is 191 beats, or 93% of my maximum, no where near 85%.

What the hell does this mean, Brooks?

Lets say rider "A" has a max heart rate of 192 beats per minute, and his actual LTHR is 163 beats (85% of max,) and rider "B" has a max of 202, and LTHR of 190 (94% of max.) If both riders used the generic 85% of maximum as LTHR, rider "A" would be right at lacate threshold, training would be accurate and he would see improved performances. Rider "B" would be considerably under his LT. Rider "B's" training would suffer, because his training zones were inaccurate, and performances would stagnate, improve very slowly, or even decline.

Back to that 180 minus your age thing. If I used this while base training, I would have to keep my heart rate under 154 beats per minute (180-26=154.) This is at the high end of Zone 1 (65-81% of LTHR.) This trainig zone is for recovery, not for aerobic development! Zone 2 is used for aerobic develpment and is performed at 82-88% of LTHR, in my case 156-168 beats per minute. Zone 2 is an ideal base building heart rate zone.

In future posts, I will list all the training zones as a percentage of LTHR. There is also another, less scientific approach to training, that works incredibly well, called "Rating of Perceived Exertion," or RPE. I will get into RPE later.

So in summary, find your LTHR and base all training zones off of it and you will see improved race results. Train smarter, not harder!

The Weekend...Beeotch!

hello everyone in bloggerland. work was pretty sweet this week. i worked a 48 hour shift on wednesday and thursday at the "vacation station." i went on one call at 9:30 wednesday morning, and didn't leave the station after that. some people would find it boring watching tv, reading, and napping for two straight days, but, as the reigning king of sitting, i thoroughly enjoyed it. its awesome to take a six hour nap knowing you're getting paid. i cleaned the house this morning, and now i have the rest of the weekend to play. it rained like a mofo earlier this morning, but now its sunny and my road bike is ridiculing me. i haven't ridden my road bike in like 3 months. a four hour ride sounds fun (even the inevitable penile numbness.) i haven't figured out my training schedule yet due to not knowing when and where i'll be racing next year (it better be in colorado) so i don't know when i'm to start serious training. probably the next couple weeks.