MS'ers Training in 2013

[penkalet]

AMF, I hope you are getting better and that the weather is looking more like spring.
I am going to follow your advise for the last week before the big one but I still need to push it for this week.
I did 150 mile last week with only 3 rides including a event Saturday of 62 miles in the hill country near Austin. Was great!
Pell, your are a very busy person and tell your husband to watch out for his fingers! I owned a cabinet shop for 30 year.
Good week to every one.
Alain

[milesandtrials]

AMFAdventures,
I just read about your accident. Leave it to you to make a trip to the ER sound fun! I hope you are recovering well.
Best wishes,
Beth

[AMFADVENTURES]

Kudos on the 190 miles Alain! Jill (Sulgrifjewls on the forum) had a plan for tapering which seemed to work well. In the last week or two, cut back on the amount of time you spend on the bike by about 50% but maintain most of the intensity. I tried that for the Tour de Tucson last year. Did a short set of intervals early in the last week followed by a short easy ride the next day, took two days off to drive to Tucson, and, if I screwed up at all, it was doing 2 moderate pace hours the day before the race when I should have only done one. Even so, it worked really well as I set a new personal best by 45 minutes AND, although I was spent, I felt good at the end. I’m going to use that technique for all of my rides this year to see if it holds up consistently.

Pell, bummer on DH’s knee, I assume that will take him out of the HH or at least off the tandem. If so, I’d love to ride with you. I know I couldn’t keep up with you guys on the tandem but I don’t think you’d have to wait too much for me on single bikes. If DH can ride at all, DW will be doing an easy 35 miles. We’ll register this week. I keep an eye on your weather there and I do think you’ve had it worse than we have.

Thanks for the update Teena and yes, looks like decent weather might have finally arrived. You said you have a trainer to help with the spin cycle, did you find one that can work with the kinds of weaknesses we tend to deal with?

Got an hour and a half on the trainer toward the end of last week and it wasn’t bad. Going to shoot for around 5 hours this week. The doc says stay indoors for 4 weeks from the accident. It looks like that will coincide exactly with when I think I can handle the bumps and pot holes in the roads that show up around here at the end of every winter, so I plan to get back outside about mid April.

Stay healthy everyone,

[pawpaw]

Off week

Hi all-
This week we are attending the John C Campbell Folk School so no bike riding. Mike is taking a Joinery class and I am taking enameling for jewelry. The classes are very intense so we are generally in class from 9am to 9pm. We did come a day early so I managed a long hike yesterday before orientation-cross-training.
Mike is fairly miserable with the knee. We had to find a Walmart to buy a heating pad. I don't think standing in a wood studio all day is going to help it, but who am I to say.
All of the meals here are family style and hearty- will probably go home with a few more pounds to lose.
On Friday we did ride 27 miles on the tandem at 17mph- felt great. We did the first 10 miles at 22mph- probably a mistake but it was fun.
Keep riding.
Pell

[teena marie]

Hi Larry,

I haven't visited this thread in a while and I'm so sorry about your accident. Here in Montreal, we're getting a little sprin finally, after a huge dump of 30 cms.

The treadmill is good and I hope to be starting with a new trainer who can help with the spin bike. I've also had some good outdoor walks and overall feling pretty fit.

Take good care,

Teena Marie

[penkalet]

AMF,
Back to you on Mr Ward!
Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. ”

Is the doc told you when you can baby steps on your bike?
Last year you make us look pretty bad on our training motivation so here is the revenge of the nerd!!
This week I have done 4 rides for 190 miles with fair weather but not as fast then last year, yet!
Two more big weeks to get to 14 mph target.
Question: How many days do you stop trainning before the event? I was thinking two !
Pell,
Sorry to hear about Mike knee and I understand you lost some motivation on the front of the uncertainty. but that was smart to get a trip insurance !
Let me know how thing evolve.
Good week to everyone

[pawpaw]

Keep healing ...

AMF, glad you are seeing slow progress. Be careful not to push too hard, too fast.
I seem to have lost my motivation. I did ride Saturday and did the spinning class on Sunday. Since then, it has snowed and rained and blustered. It was over 40 this evening, but we couldn't seem to bring ourselves to ride.
Alain, I hope you are having better luck with your weather so you can continue training.
Our preparations for France have taken a nasty turn. Mike is scheduled for knee surgery April 17th. It is our hope that this will resolve his pain and that he won't have to be off of it for long. We shall see. We did buy trip insurance....

Pell

[AMFADVENTURES]

Motivation

“The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.”
William A. Ward

I haven’t been back on the trainer, I don’t even have it setup yet, but today is the day….to get it setup that is. Things are progressing about as I expected, certainly no worse, I still see holding the course with a bit of sail trimming to accommodate a slow slog into the wind.

The weather has affected almost everyone across the country. It occurs to me that there is a certain fat, ground dwelling rodent in Pennsylvania that needs to be schooled in the fine art of weather forecasting, or converted into a pair of bedroom slippers.

Good luck this week Alain, hope you get the weather you need.

Larry

[penkalet]

Hello Larry,

I am glad you are already more optimist about your recovery but don't mention it too much if you want to be spoil a litlle longer by your wife and friends lady!

On my end, this week, I rode only 3 times for 130 miles. Not as much I wanted because I was planning to do 100 miles this weekend at some event but could only do the 45 miles because of bad weather.
We should have great weather this next week so no excuses, will see!
I wish great week to everyone.
Alain

[AMFADVENTURES]

In search of a Silver Lining

Thanks for your concern guys. Dave, the most pressing thought I had was “There goes my season”. But it looks like that may not be the case. A little down time, a few weeks of indoor exercise and I hope to be back at it. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like a season ender. Having MS has undoubtedly changed the way I value time.

Pell, looks like you’re off the hook for the century on the HH. Also, I’m already feeling grateful for those smooth Kentucky roads, just the thought of a bump on the bike sends shivers through my core. Although I haven’t been on the trainer yet, the HH is firmly in our plans.

Merde indeed Alain! I will get through this but in the mean time, I’m looking forward to training vicariously through everyone else’s efforts so don’t slow down. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on cycling with 10,000 other riders in the Houston to Austin 150. What a blast that should be.

I am finding a little silver lining. I had hoped we were done with the blizzards here but no, there’s one raging outside right now. We’ve already accumulated 8 or 9 inches, it’s snowing sideways, and it’s predicted to continue for 4 or 5 hours yet. DW has resigned herself to dealing with it, myself being under strict orders to avoid any strenuous exercise.

I also had several rides with a couple of young women lined up for this coming week. Rather than canceling the rides, I’ve sent out invitations for them to bring their bikes and trainers over for an indoor session. Seems like a good way to make the best of a bad situation, yes? I may not get any takers on the trainer sessions, but I’ve already had offers of chocolate chip cookies!

We Shall Survive,
AMF

[penkalet]

Merde, merde, merde! I will say.

What a bad luck . I hope you heal fast but still give some time to your body to recover.
Enjoy planning you trip to the blue ridge Parkway confortably in your arm chair!
Let us know.

Alain

[pawpaw]

Heal fast!

Larry- at least it was another cyclist and not a car you tangled with head on. It sounds like you took a serious beating- broken ribs are painful.
I'm glad you didn't hurt your new bike.
Take it easy for a while- taking those deep breaths will be a challenge.

Pell

[ActiveMSers]

Holly smokes, Larry! Thank goodness you are (relatively) okay. "At least it was my old bike." Classic. Gear first, body second, a true cyclist!

[AMFADVENTURES]

Crap, Crap, Crap

Had a little accident today. At least I was on my old bike. Hit some guy in a blind corner head on, we both went to the ER but I got the worst of it. Two broken ribs, a nasty gash on my heretofore handsome unblemished chin and a contusion in the middle of my chest where I think he buried his shoulder on impact, by far the worst part of the whole thing. The fact that he was on my side of the bike path isn't making me feel any better.

Strange thing about ER's, everybody always wants to know what the date is, weird. My ER doc turns out to be a recreational cyclist so we talked about a number of the rides we'd each done, several, the same rides at the same time, of course since he rode as a medic, he always got to do them for free . Another ER doc who just dropped by, runs marathons but says he'll take up cycling after he shreds his knees, he stuck around messing with my chin just so we could talk. A nurse, also a cyclist, who heard about this brouhaha, dropped in to visit. Turned out he has MS also and captains one of the larger teams on the Colorado MS ride. All in all, a very pleasant evening chatting about cycling in my local ER. Cyclists....they're everywhere!

Good work on the 170 miles Alain, stay healthy and it looks like you've got this one made.

Fortunately, thanks to AZgal's book club, I've got plenty of reading material so keep on keeping on, I'll be here,

Larry

[penkalet]

Well, I have a good week, got 4 rides for 170 miles including one day for 55 miles, no wind !
Yesterday I did my best time so far this year at 13.5mph with litlle wind.
Don't worry, at my speed I can still enjoy all the wild flowers. I need to say that the terrain is mostly bunch of little hills for only 700 feet of total elevation for a 40 miles ride so I use them like interval work out. Nothing like your mountains.
I wish you a spring weather soon for good training.
Alain