39 Days and Counting...

This morning I woke early again, as I had to get some hill intervals in before heading to work...yippee!  I love riding my bike...I really do.  What I dont like however, are hill intervals!  These are the most grueling, painful, un-enjoyable thing I have ever done on a bike.

The last time I did hills, I climbed for three minutes, then turned around, sped down to the bottom of the hill, turned around and headed right back up for another three minutes.  This morning however, I did not have any way of timing myself, as I do not have a cycle computer mounted on my race bike yet.  So instead of climbing for three minutes, I just went until I could go no further...which by the way ended up being about 200 feet further than my three minute mark.  I never shifted out of the middle ring, and kept from shifting to the lowest (easiest) gear, within that middle ring range.  It was amazing...each time up the hill, I just kept pushing through the pain, and them WHAM!  I immediately hit a wall right at the same spot each time.  My legs just gave out...to the point that I could not even stand while I was coasting sown the hill...I had to sit in the saddle because my legs would not support me. Even more amazing though, is how quickly they recovered, and were ready to go again.  The human body is an amazing machine!

I ended up doing for intervals this morning, but I intended to complete five.  On the way down the hill from my fourth climb I must have run over a small piece of glass that cut my tire.  As I was coasting nearly 30-mph downhill I heard a sudden, intermittent sound...psst, psst, psst.  Go ahead, make that sound out loud, at a quick pace.  No really, do it.  That is pretty much exactly what my tire sounded like as it spewed out the latex sealant that is supposed to quickly seal up cuts and punctures in my tubeless tires.

Tubeless tires?  Yep, tubeless.  Tubeless tires are the latest and greatest for mountain bikes...for a couple of reasons.  First, they weigh less.  Believe it or not, by removing the tubes from bike tires (29" inch wheels) I am able to shed roughly two-pounds of weight from my bike!  Second, by running a tubeless setup I am capable of running far less pressure in my tires, which allows them to adhere to the terrain better, ultimately providing much greater traction.  With the standard tube setup, running low pressure often results in a pinch-flat.  A pinch-flat happens when an under inflated tire contacts something hard...like a rock...and pinches the tube between the tire/rock and the edge of the rim.  This usually results in two small holes (often referred to as a snakebite), and a flat tire.

So anyway, my tire got cut by a piece of glass on the way down...and due to the fact that I had not brought an emergency tube, or even a pump with me, I decided not to chance it, and just called it a day.  My legs thanked me!  In hindsight however, I wish I would have made one or two more climbs so that I could have burned off another couple hundred calories.  Why you ask?

Today was not a good day for me...nutritionally speaking.  I have not eaten as bad as did today, for quite some time.  Breakfast started out good with a bowl of oatmeal, one-half cup of blackberries, one-half cup of raspberries, and a small box of Horizon Organic Chocolate milk (great recovery drink, remember?)...pretty healthy.  After some fire department training drills, I managed to eat a pretty healthy snack...and even managed to consume a healthy lunch.  It was shortly after lunch that the wheel came off the the health wagon!  A craving came over me, and there was no fighting it.  Before I knew it, I had eaten a large bowl of ice cream!  Things just continued to go downhill from there.  The crew that worked the shift before us had made garlic bread for dinner the night before, and there was plenty left over.  Yep, I threw down at least three pieces of that!  Then came dinner...Jambalaya.  Two hefty servings later, I forced myself to get up form the table and put away my dish.  I think I probably consumed at least four or five more servings of rice than I should have!  This is certainly not the time to be falling off the wagon...there's only 39 days left!