Matt's Weekend report

I’ve been considering a helmet cam. My last two non-race rides have had close calls. In all 3 situations there was no reason for there to be a close call. At least one case they person was actually trying to drive as closely to us as possible without hitting us. Straight road, nobody in the other lane for miles. He hits the horn because we happened to be side by side. (which we rarely do). I immediately move over and he nearly sideswipes both of us as he passes. He didn’t even cross the double yellow line. With the helmet cam, could I have enough detail to send to police? Maybe they wouldn’t care. That’s where the Facebook group comes in. I’d be more than happy to pay money to an organization that improves laws, signing and safety for bikers. There are probably groups out there, I just need to do a bit of research. More on this later.
Unfortunately, it only takes one bad driver to really mess things up.

Another purchase that is happening is this, the headsweats skullcap. This is not a fashion statement. It’s an attempt to redirect the 2-3 pounds of sweat I lose every hour away from my sunglasses. (yes it’s really that much sweat, I know, yuck). When we finished our 3 hour ride Sunday. I handed Genine my sunglasses and said. “This is how well I can see once I start sweating.” She couldn’t believe how bad they were and said we need to find you different sunglasses. I think the fix is redirecting the sweat tho’. So I’m going to give this thing a shot.

At mooseman or columbia, we were given a Chocolate Chip Hammer bar. We tried that out this weekend too. The verdict is this. It t astes good and we think it might be easier to chew/swallow than a cliff bar. Mainly because this seemed to melt in your mouth and didn’t have oats to deal with. (I realize Cliff bars aren’t marketed to be bike race food). Although I’ve tried cliff shots on the bike and I found those to be difficult while on the move. I can understand why some people get these bike mixes that have all the nutrition they need in liquid form.
These things are expensive enough that we won’t be using them during training. We might pick up a few for race day tho’.

But wait, I don’t have any races until September… or do I? We are going to be in NH the weekend of the Black Fly Tri. Initially I didn’t think I’d want to complicate our vacation week by having a race at the end of it and I can’t imagine we are going to be tapering that week. It’s less than an hour from our place so we are considering it. The distances for the race are odd and it’s a time trial swim start but it’s a race and because it’s Keith Jordan’s race, I’m sure it will be good/safe/fun.

Depending on our schedule and packet pickup. Maybe the Bike Time Trial will happen too. Here is the course map for the TT.

Naturally I’ve been thinking about the marathon a bunch. Maybe I’m crazy but seeing how I just turned 40 and I’d like to be able to race when I’m 60+ I decided on a couple things. The first one is simple. Glucosamine/Chondroitin.
When I dial back the miles, I’ll probably drop this from the supplement list. For now this sounds like an easy bit of preventative medicine. If anyone knows of a reason I shouldn’t be taking these please feel free to speak up.

The other thing is something my friend Todd and I talk about all the time, a run coach. I’ve never had any instruction running. I keep thinking maybe I could find someone that could break it all down, the same way as my swim coach. Just maybe there is some easy speed to be found, along with some injury prevention. (the injury prevention is the bigger concern because of the distance, but speed would be nice too).
So I did some digging and I found this guy in NJ and he’s got a book. The book has some good reviews on amazon, so I figured it would be a good place to start learning about running technique. Then look for his seminars or consider the run video analysis.

The first week of the diet was pretty solid. I weighed myself Monday and then again yesterday (Sunday). 5 pounds lighter. Is it possible I was carrying around 5 pounds of Genine’s Mooseman cookies last weekend? Nah, more likely I was dehydrated from Saturday’s workouts, about 4 hours of training. So in reality I'm probably down a pound.
The diet wasn’t helped by this comment on Facebook. “Friday Birthday=Birthday all weekend”. Fortunately for my diet it’s Monday again and the possibility of the Black Fly Tri ups the focus a bit.

I lost track of the training miles a few weeks back. It was just crazy busy and it didn't feel like there was much training going on anyhow. I need to get the journal going again. Nothing beats seeing your preparation or lack thereof in writing. Same can be said for your food choices...