I worked from home today and around 2:30 I decided to go out for low impact, soft pedal ride around Lake Tapps. This coming Saturday we’re riding in the Seattle to Portland (STP), so my training is pretty much done, it’s just a matter of staying loosy goosy between now and then, no hard efforts and no climbing.
The problem is that when I work from home my lunch plans are much less strict and planned, and today instead of eating my usual massive bowl of fruit with yogurt and granola for breakfast, then a salad with big protein for lunch, I pretty much just grabbed crap from the pantry. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal with a banana and cup of coffee. For lunch, Cora and I had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. An hour later I got on my bike, not feeling too hot. Actually I felt like a big bloated sack of… grilled cheese. I did about 15 miles and felt like I was dragging around an extra 20 lbs. of dead weight.
Lesson learned - grilled cheese sandwiches are not fuel, they’re ballast.

I just came across this bit of cool news. Polar, the company that makes heart rate monitors, is featuring a web page that shows rider data from the Tour de France. Not only can you now obsess over your own heart rate and training statistical data, you can obsess over every rider in the TDF. In addition I think they’re tracking the race and peloton position via Google Maps.

The site goes live on 7/5 (Saturday).

Our 2-year old, Cora, has been bitten by the cycling bug, and I know what you’re thinking. This is all her idea and while she obviously sees her dad riding all the time, I think she genuinely likes riding her trike.

Carla and I have made a habit of taking her out in the early evening after dinner to let her ride her trike around the neighborhood. She loves her trike. I mean, she really loves her trike. It’s simple Kiddie-O trike, not a bunch of princess sparkly crap, but well built and comfortable for Cora to ride. There are a few steep hills in the neighborhood where she could either speed out of control, or not climb out of, so I used a dog leash to strap to her trike to either control the speed on the descents or pull her up the hills. Surprisingly, she didn’t need much help on the hills and maybe I’m a bit premature in saying that my little girl is going to be a climber, like her father. I also might have gone overboard when I started yelling, “Allez-allez, Hup, hup, dig-deep, dig-deep!”

By the end of her ride she was just shy of one mile and that’s pretty remarkable for a two year old.

I just got off the phone with my Insurance agent and got some good news. While I didn’t save a “bundle” on my car insurance, I was able to reduce my premium on both cars. Because I use mass transit to commute to/from work, I was able to reduce my car insurance premium by $50 per car every six months. Sure it’s not a huge amount, but any little bit helps. Generally, the insurance companies hate this because they think that people are liars and cheats. Which is ironic really when you consider that insurance companies really are liars and cheats. All I did to make the approval go a bit smoother is to copy and fax my train and bus passes to my insurance agent as proof.

The 2008 Tour De France is fast approaching, and this has to be one of the more confusing tours in a long time. Team Astana was not invited, which means that last year’s winner, Alberto Contador, and third-place finisher, Levi Leipheimer, won’t be defending their titles. And if you’ve only just started to get into watching professional cycling, very few teams sound familiar much less the cyclists who are riding for them. Big George Hincapie, originally from Team Discovery is riding for Team Columbia, which was up to just recently known as Team High Road. And Team Slipstream-Chipotle is now Team Garmin-Chipotle. Yes, lots of confusion.
About the only thing you can count on for this year’s TDF is the quick witted (and sometimes confusing) voice of Phil Ligget and the deep thoughts of Bob Roll.
This should be an interesting tour.

Benjamin Larson created a lovely flash video of the Poo-Coffee process. It’s even narrated by his computer!

I dig coffee. There’s nothing better on any given morning, but especially on a backpack trip than a cup of fresh brewed coffee. And as in all things there’s a line to be drawn and never crossed, butthese fellows have definitely crossed it.

In certain parts of Asia grows a weasel knows as the Civet which as a primary part of its diet, eats red coffee berries. Not only did some yahoo think it was a good idea to gather up the poo and make a cup of joe, they also thought they could charge $120-$600 per pound for the stuff.

I can see it now. You’re sitting in a restaurant enjoying a cup of coffee with a nutty flavor that you just can’t place. You call over the server - “Oh Garson. This coffee is delicious, I can’t quite determine the roast”. To which he replies, “The secret is poo.”

Yesterday I rode with a friend at work around Mercer Island and then rode home from Seattle, a total of about 65-70 miles. While I ate my usual breakfast and lunch, looking back I was definitely under fueled for the pace I was setting and the distance. Not to mention I only had one water bottle and it was empty about 40 miles from home. I ate a cliff bar on the way, then refilled my water bottle about 15 miles from home, but it was too late. By the time I hit the big hill on the north side of Orting going up to Bonney Lake I was smelling ammonia and my pace and cadence had dropped big-time.

I’ve only bonked once or twice and it’s a miserable enough experience that I always make certain that I’m fueled and hydrated on my long distance rides. Well, almost always.

So what’s up with the ammonia smell? Before researching it, I figured it was either due to dehydration and my sweat was causing the smell, or that it was my body burning muscle or protein because it had run out of carbohydrates and/or fat. I’ve included a quote found on a forum and a link that describes it in a bit more detail.

Catabolism yes, fat-burning, no. Burning ketones does not produce a characteristic ammonia smell, as ammonia is nitrogenous in nature. Nitrogenous byproducts of cellular metabolism tell you that you have begun to break down proteins (amino acid chains - amine=nitrogen group) for energy.
This can be due to a number of factors - primarily having too low of muscle glycogen levels, or not having enough carbohydrate included in your diet. Conditions like these can occur after intense efforts either above your normal training zones or longer in duration than usual. I have noticed that when body fat percentages get very low, this tends to happen more easily as well, but do not have scientific rationale behind that thought - just my own experiences.

To solve the issue, make sure that you are including sufficient carbohydrates in your diet. Especially important will be the complex carbohydrates found in whole grains and low-glycemic fruits. Eating such foods in the hours before an event or difficult training session are key to priming your metabolism for exercise. Also, don’t down a “power shake” containing copious amounts of protein before a ride, as your body will be more likely to begin to burn this protein for energy once glycogen levels become low enough. Leave protein (in roughly a 4:1 carbrotein ratio) for your post ride snack/meal - it will serve your body much better.

So, don’t go carb crazy and jam down 300 or 400 grams pre-ride, but I’d increase your levels a bit (such as an extra piece of whole wheat toast, or a grapefruit with your pre ride meal.)
Also, perhaps rest a little more between your harder days to ensure that your glycogen levels are being repleted fully (glycogenesis). Drink plenty of water to help aid in glycogen uptake into your muscle cells.

As a side note, to train your body to better metabolize fat on longer rides and/or higher intensities, look into “bonk-training” once or twice a month - it can work wonders for some people.

BodyBuilding.com Article on Ammonia Smell

Hey Vin, if you’re reading this, I’d be interested to hear what the Cyclist’s Training Bible has to say about this.

In my opinion, there’s nothing better than a Saturday or Sunday breakfast with hashbrowns and poached eggs. But with trying to keep my cholesterol in check, I keep my consumption of eggs to just those special weekend breakfasts. A while back, I noticed that a biker friend and coworker of mine ate microwaved scrambled eggs about every other morning, so I’ve recently been rethinking my assumptions about eggs and particularly organic vs. normal eggs.

With the birth of our daughter, Carla and I have changed our approach to grocery shopping and food choices. Yes, purchasing organic foods can be more expensive, but we realized that by starting with just a few organic choices at first, you tend to adapt slowly to spending more on your grocery bill and by going with eggs and milk first, we’ve converted a pretty good chunk of our food consumption to organic.

I’ve gone off on bit of a tangent here…

I’m changing my breakfast routine a little and adding two scrambled eggs to my normal fruit, plain yogurt and granola breakfast. After reading some about the differences between organic eggs and normal store bought eggs, I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing.

And while I’ve never had issues with eating under-cooked yolks, I’ve never considered eating just raw eggs. Friends of mine have stopped purchasing mayonnaise and make their own, which is basically raw eggs. Now that’s an interesting twist.

A while back, Dan and I were talking about cataloging and sharing movies that we’ve viewed. Since there’s not a movie version of Library Thing, I thought I would just share a recent movie we rented at home.
Let me say up front that I’m not really reviewing the movie. And I’m sure as hell not going to write six paragraphs about the directors perspective on lighting and how it captured the solitude of the character without making him too vulnerable or unbelievable. In fact, I don’t even know what that previous sentence means. I’m just going to tell you if I liked it or not, and why.
Caveat: If you make any comments like the one I just mentioned, I’m going to find you and kick your ass.

The Hunting Party
Whether you like Richard Gere or not, this is a great movie. However, if you’ve never been in a war zone, you might find the dark humor difficult to bear. What’s surprising about Hunting Party and perhaps this is true of most wars and conflict, is that most of it actually happened. Case in point, the midget scene. Sorry, I’m not going to spoil it, you’re just going to have to see it for yourself.

Here is the Trailer.