Some days are a series of sprints, one after another, until you collapse, or are ready to. Today was one of those days. It started with a morning workout of nine 10 second sprints on the bike. Then work ended up being a lot of sprints. Suddenly the day is over and I am ready to stop sprinting.
Ideally you don’t need to sprint all day. Ideally you have things planned out and there are no distractions. Unfortunately we live in reality. The important part is to make sure that in between the sprints you take a moment to breath. During that moment you check in with yourself and everything else that is going on.
During a workout you may want to take a sip of water. You should also check your watch to tell how long a rest you need to take. Maybe shift down a few gears to recover.
At work you may want to check your messages in which ever platform you use. If you have a lot of urgent work that will require repeated sprints then you will want to prioritize them. Priority may be a certain client or just whatever has been around the longest. It may also be something that is preventing other things from working. Determine the priority and then move to get things done.
Workout Detail
L6+ sprints 3 sets 3 x 10″ (structured) is the name of the workout. L6+ means maximum effort, all you got. Sprints means high gear short burst. There are 3 sets. In those 3 sets are three 10 second sprints.
Between the sprints you get 3 minutes of rest. Between the sets you get 5 minutes of rest. It helps to find a hill with a 3-5% grade so that you can push as hard as possible with no chance of it being easy.
This was my first sprint workout in over 6 years. It was fun and different. I was a little nervous about keeping count of everything. Since the workout was broken up into 3 sets it was easier to keep count though. It will be interesting to see how my legs feel tomorrow.
Having a daily routine for chores, meals, and exercise is generally a good thing. The times when it isn’t is when there is a disruption to the routine. Adjusting to some type of interference in our daily routine is challenging. I still struggle with this but have found a few helpful things that keep me on track.
Be ok with the disruption: A lot of why disruptions continue to cause me problems is that I dwell on the disruption. Why did the delivery come late? When will they call back? Why is the weather doing what it is doing? These are all disruptions that we have no control over. Thinking about them after the fact is a distraction. Even worse things like resentment fester and we get angry at something we have no control over. The better strategy is to recognize the issue, make adjustments, and then move on.
Limit your decisions: When a disruption occurs to your routine you need to have steps you can take to quickly move on. Part of this is limiting the number of decisions you can make. There is an interview with President Obama where he talks about his suits: ‘“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”’ Disruptions are going to happen. If you have limited the decisions you have to make, it is easier to get through them and back on track.
Keep the end in mind: Sometimes everything goes wrong. You have a flat tire. The water heater bursts. A global pandemic happens. During those events it is easy to dwell on the despair of your situation. This is when thinking about the bigger picture can help bring me out of a funk. Things might not be great right this moment, but this will pass and things will get better. Goal planning is not my strong suit but it is very helpful. Come up with specific reasons to exercise or eat well. Think about the future and where you want to be. The crazier the better. The more the better. Write those down and return to them when times are tough. You might be surprised to find you have already met many of them without knowing it.
This was my attempt at a pep talk. Currently I have family visiting and the distractions are high. I am remembering to be ok with it, limiting my decisions, and keeping the end in mind.
Workout Details:
Back to strength training and did the Recommended Routine. Pull ups are still struggling but I did 4 sets of 3 almost all clean. I think the horizontal rows should progress to raised feet on Wednesday. Also push ups are moving up to rings on Wednesday too.
Another beautiful day in Colorado. We went on a small group ride for a couple of hours. Then came home and sat in the shade as it was also a warm day. I think everyone got sunburned today. Ooopsie.
Workout Details:
2 hour ride at level 2 heart rate zone. Nice and easy to finish out the rest and recovery week. The new wax chain setup seems really smooth. I am excited to ride on it more and see how it does.
Tomorrow we are back at it with a strength workout and then Sprints on Tuesday.
Weather forecast says Tuesday is going to be very windy and then freezing temperatures Wednesday night.
After your tires the bike chain is the most used piece of equipment. A chain is as critical as the bearings in your wheels and bottom bracket, but it gets none of the protection. Keeping a chain clean and lubricated is a constant process. The main method of lubricating a bike chain is with grease and oil, and require almost constant work.
#nasty
If we remain open and calm, uncertainty can be seen as an abundance of opportunity.
Now that I am riding 4 or more times a week the maintenance of my bike has also increased. As you ride the dirt builds up in your chain. Wiping the chain with a rag simply pushes more dirt further into the links and rollers leading to more friction. Eventually you need to remove the chain and soak it in spirits to clean it.
When I was a kid I recall seeing chain wax in bike parts catalogs. Back then the idea of removing your chain that often was a scary proposition. Then a few years ago I saw this video:
Then this one came out just a few months ago with an improved process:
The idea of waxing a bike chain seems so bizarre at first glance that I dismissed it without additional thought. Fortunately those videos above explained it well enough that I had to give it a try. Now that we are back on the land I have all of my materials:
Slow Cooker
1 lb Wax
1.5 oz PTFE/Teflon powder 1.6 microns or smaller
Gasoline
De-greaser
Denatured Alcohol
New Bike chain
When you get a new bike chain it is covered with a sticky film that almost everyone recommends you remove immediately. In this case we do 3 soaks in 3 spirits to strip it down to bare metal. The first step is to soak it in gasoline for 12 hours. Then soak it in de-greaser for 30 minutes. After rising the chain with water it gets soaked for 30 more minutes in the denatured alcohol.
Overnight Gasoline
30 min De-greaser
30 min Alcohol
As the final two soaks are started you can fire up the slow cooker and melt the wax. Apparently the ideal temperature is between 194 and 204 Fahrenheit. Once the wax is all melted you add the PTFE powder and stir it up.
Wrong focus
Once you pull the chain from the alcohol it dries pretty quickly. Slide it onto a piece of wire coat hanger and dip it into the wax. The first application gets soaked for 10 to 15 minutes.
Then pull the chain out and let it cool. It will be very stiff with the hardened wax and you will need to run it through your hands to free each link up. At that point it is ready to be returned to your bike and ridden.
Every 150 to 180 miles you need rinse the chain by pouring boiling water on it. This will rinse any dirt off of the outside of the chain but leave most of the wax and PTFB between the pins and rollers. Then reheat the wax mixture and dip the chain for 5 to 10 minutes.
You should be able to keep rewaxing with this batch for over 9000 miles. At that point the chain may be ready for replacement. This is far more life than most chains ever see. In addition the rest of the drivetrain will last for another 18000+ miles by which time you may be considering a new bike. For comparison I hope to ride 5000 miles this year but will probably come up short of that.
There are some drawbacks to this process:
Lots of equipment involved
Preparation and organization is required
I am looking forward to seeing how this process works. From everything I have watched and read it sounds like the benefits are huge. I will report back as we progress with testing.
Pro tip in Gutenberg: If you want to add a paragraph before the first one use: ⌥⌘T . It will insert a block before the one you are currently in. Use ⌥⌘Y to put one after.
Workout detail:
This is the 6th week of my 12 week training program. While the majority of the week was full of rest and recovery workouts, today was different. Today we did a fitness or FTP test. This involves 20 minutes of maximum effort. You should be ready to puke near the end of this workout.
The idea behind the fitness test is that you go really hard for 20 minutes. From that you can make an educated guess at what your average heart rate would be for a 60 minute all out effort. From that you have your functional threshold heart rate and from that you get your heart rate zones for training. (The reason you only do 20 minutes is because doing 60 minutes would probably result in injury or death.)
Today I matched my effort from 6 weeks ago. While I wish I had improved I feel good about this. I know I could have push myself harder during the 20 minute effort. Also it was another beautiful day of riding.
15 days in and the challenge to find out what to write about is for real. Compared to what is happening in the news, my everyday life seems simple and unremarkable. Is that because it is simple, or because I haven’t spent enough time examining it?
Should I expect to be able to write amazing literature after only 15 days of trying? Is part of the challenge that my expectations need to be adjusted? Today I am trying something new: writing this post in between my work out sets. Maybe this will help me to formulate something more insightful? Currently its making me feel a little rushed.
It seems ironic that the people building the internet driven world, that I work remotely on, are tied to a physical area like Silicon Valley. I understand that the VC money is there, and that is why the companies are based there, but the workers can be anywhere.
The article mentions a couple with a 1 bedroom apartment paying over $2500 a month. In the current mortgage market they could have a $500,000 mortgage and probably pay less a month. In my rural area you can get a 1600 sq foot house on 10 acres for that much.
If I was a realtor I would be figuring out how to target the workers in Silicon Valley with these types of deals. Wide open spaces. Unlimited outdoor activities. The catch will be good internet access and amenities.
Listening To:
The Comeback by Daniel de Vise, narrated by Pete Cross on Audible. Its the bio of Greg LeMond and his cycling career. I was 10 years old when he won his first Tour de France and recall the excitement many people had about it. Its a great story of talent and drive.
In one part of the story Greg’s own team works against him in the 1986 Tour to help another rider on the team. At one point Greg tells a reporter: “If they are going to crash me out of the race I wish they would just do it.” The anxiety of who would conspire against him next was driving him crazy.
This happens in business when an employer, employee, vendor, or customer are not being totally honest. We can say a lot of things but the action we take tells the other people in the transaction where we really stand. Are we in the deal to make a partnership so that everyone does better? Or are we just looking out for ourselves?
Today is back to strength training. I did the same workout from Wednesday and focused on pull ups and dips. I am trying to get my pull ups to improve but it is important to counter the pull with a push. In this case the dip exercise is a perfect match.
I have always been able to do dips so they are kinda fun. Currently I am trying to focus on form and also avoiding injuring my elbows.
What do I want to write about today? So many options and yet so little determination to make a decision. I have to work in just over 30 minutes so I need to make this quick.
Its Thursday which means we are close to the weekend. Close enough that I am already making plans:
Mow the yard
Work on the old Trek, replace chain, tune up
Get fitness test done on Saturday
Go for long slow ride with Kate on Sunday
Work on the workshop
Before then I am going to try out a new-to-me technique of waxing my bike chain. Basically you take a new chain and strip it down to bare metal by soaking it in gasoline, then de-greaser, then denatured alcohol. Then you heat up parrafin wax and mix in some powdered teflon in a crockpot. You let the chain soak in the wax for 15 minutes and then pull it out to dry. Then you ride with it. About every 200 miles you pull the chain off and rinse the dirt and exterior wax off with boiling water. The chain gets another dip in the wax and you continue riding.
Based on the following video this technique keeps everything super clean and smooth. Which results in the drive train lasting much longer. Also there are a lot fewer chemicals used over the life of the chain compared to typical lubrication techniques.
This guy is the new sham wow man!
I am documenting the process and will report as things progress.
Workout details:
We are still in the rest week so today’s ride was a simple 1 hour cruise at heart rate level 2. I went right out the driveway to Road 40 today. The temperature was a little crisp and my butt was a little tired. Still the sun was shining and I was smiling.
Do I need to have an Apple Watch? Absolutely not. Does it help me stay organized and motivated to stay active? Totally.
My most used watch face
Completing the circles is a daily habit so I put them in the center spot. To the right is Workouts so I can click into there and start a workout. Back to the left corner is the stopwatch. I use this for my strength workouts to ensure I take a long enough rest between sets. I also use the stopwatch for cooking and various reminders throughout the day. In the center I have whatever is currently playing either on my Watch or iPhone. I can quickly glance to see what song is playing. If I click on it I can pause, skip back, skip forward, and like the song to add it to my Library. Above that is just standard watch stuff: date and time.
Workout Detail
Today is strength training and I changed things up a little. Instead of doing the full recommended routine, I did pull ups and dips. I rested for 3 full minutes between every set and did 5×3 pull ups then 3×6 dips. During the rests I put my new lawnmower together.
I had a lot to say but none of it sounded great today. So now I have 3 drafts going for future posts.
Haven’t thought about ATP since high school biology.
Workout Details:
Bison, not Buffalo
This week is a rest week in my training. It is the 6th week of a 12 week program focused on getting my base fitness to a solid foundation. I was expecting to be exhausted all week. Yesterday I woke up and took my time and had planned on skipping the strength workout. By the end of the work day I was recovered and ready to do the workout.
Today’s prescription was a 1 hour ride at level 2. Turn and do not burn. I took a left out of the driveway and headed up highway 184 towards the town of Dolores. I went out about 30 minutes and then came home. The air was a little cold but once I got moving in the sun everything was good to go.
Overall the ride was great and today was pretty solid overall.
I have this mental block when it comes to sharing the mundane details of my life in public on the internet. The mental block has nothing to do with privacy. Rather, I don’t think anyone should care that I worked out, what I had for lunch, or that I’m having a good hair day. And I feel a little narcissistic even going through the motions of posting about the mundane.
I commented on his blog that I have this issue every. time. I. blog. In fact part of the purpose of doing this 100 day challenge is to help me get past this hangup. Jon puts it best in why he is still going to post:
1. It may connect me with someone else.
2. It will force me to stop and form coherent thoughts.
3. It will sharpen my writing skills.
See above citation
I dig all of these reasons and would say he has met all 3. Great post Jon and thanks for helping remind me why I am doing this as well.
Naturally I found an article about writing in Hacker News just as I was writing this part of my post:
More and more people are being exposed to working remotely. One of the key factors for success in a remote workplace is a culture of written communication. It’s not always obvious how to create such a culture, and it takes at least some level of discipline from the people involved to make it a habit.
While this article talks more about posting in Slack-like public channels the overall theme is that writing takes practice. Why not practice writing by writing about stuff you do all the time? There is plenty of material and the challenge to make it interesting to others is considerable. If you can make your workouts/ interesting then writing about business decisions that affect your company should be a breeze.
Watching:
Fun video. The production value is hilarious.
That was a fun but exhausting weekend. I slept for 9.5 hours last night and it was glorious. My body definitely needs a little rest.
Workout Details:
Today is supposed to be strength training. I was not in the mood this morning at all. Got a nice sleep in for a few hours and felt refreshed. Was considering not doing the workout today but the sunset was too good to not do something. At first I was gonna do yoga or stretching but the music got me amped up and I did the recommended routine.
Pull ups are holding steady at 3 reps a set. I added 2 sets for a total of 5 today. The last set was more like 1.5 but I went for 3. I am trying to get all reps clean from the lowest point to collar bone to bar. Feeling good about the progress overall. Sometimes my elbow starts hurting when I train pull ups but that doesn’t seem to be an issue so far. Something to be aware of however.
Overall its been another great day. I hope yours was good too.
Happy mothers day to all you mothers out there! Kate and I spent some time with my mom at their home in Durango. We brought some homemade chocolate treats that Kate made: buckeyes, peppermint patties, and orange truffles. Too maintain social distancing we sat outside and wore masks.
Bike talk:
The free-hub on my bike is not acting 100% free lately. Normally a free-hub spins in the opposite direction of the rear wheel when you stop pedaling. This allows you to coast without stopping the forward revolutions of the rear wheel.
The issue my free-hub is having is that it has some additional drag occurring at speeds over 20mph. This causes slack to occur in the top length of chain between the cassette, which is on the free-hub, and the chain rings. The chain then drops in between the bike frame and the wheel.
If that sounds fun picture this: the way you find out it’s happening is when you are going 20mph or faster. In the end I learned that if I continue pedaling at a certain rate, I can prevent the chain from falling and potentially destroying the wheel while I am riding it. 😬
The good news for yesterdays ride was that we were halfway through before I realized by bike was kinda broken. The bad news for today’s ride was that I knew the whole time, and still went for a 3 hour ride.
Workout Details:
3 hour ride, any terrain, level 2 and 3 zones. Get back home.
After last Sunday’s ride, I was pretty tired. This week is week 3 of the current 3 week progression cycle in my 12 week training program. That means its the hardest week of the 3. Starting the week tired evolved into being very tired after yesterday’s ride. To the point where I was not excited about today’s ride. Last night and when I woke up this morning I was dreading the idea of a 3 hour ride.
So I got up, made breakfast, and got on my bike.
As soon as I started pedaling down the driveway I was grinning and knew this was gonna be a good ride. The weather was in the 40’s which is chilly but the sun was shining warmly. Once I started climbing I knew I would be warm for the rest of the day.
I turned off on Road 40 and headed up to the Chicken Creek Nordic Area. From there I cut over to Road 41 and continue on the Chicken Creek Road trail. This time, instead of dropping into Chicken Creek Trail, I took the 561 into town. The 561 is paved from just about where I topped out, all the way down. Its fast.
I took 2 hours climbing up for 15 miles to gain 2000 feet of elevation. In 30 minutes I was back to zero. From there I made my way back home with a couple of climbs and was on time to make it to Mother’s Day.
Don’t have a cow, man.
Even with a malfunctioning free-hub, and me being wingey first thing in the morning, it was a great ride. I hope you had a great Sunday as well!
