Spectacular Grand Canyon

Since it has been about a year since we were married, my husband and I decided to take a trip to the grand canyon. We spent one day each way driving and three days at the south rim of the canyon. The trip to the canyon was interesting. We use Microsoft Streets and Trips to plan our route. Southern Utah is really very beautiful and the route took us along some very pretty vistas. At one point the road we were driving on continued in a dirt road and the paved part took a sharp left. We, naively believing that MS Streets and Trips would not put us on a dirt road when we selected the option of 'quickest route,' turned left and promptly came to a toll booth at a state park entrance. Upon querying the personnel there we discovered that MS Streets and Trips had in fact put us on a dirt road. Not only that, but after giving our four-door Nissan a concerned look, the lady informed us that we had better not try the road our route suggested. However, there was another road, about five miles back that we could pass with our car.

That should have warned us. Furthermore, we should have known we were in for something interesting when we noted that every vehicle passing us in the other direction was a four-wheel-drive truck or jeep. The occupants of which gave our car a strange look as they passed. The first mile of the road wasn't too bad, just a normal dirt road with potholes big enough to eat tires and washboards that will shudder your car off the road. Then the road went straight down along the precipice of a cliff, while turning sharply to the right. Promptly at the bottom the road shot up out of sight, still along the same cliff edge but this time turning sharply to the left while apparently becoming a single lane. I was just glad no one came over the top. When we did reach the top (poor car) we were again plunged downward and around a corner, fortunately we were no longer along the edge of the cliff. This was because we were at the bottom of a wash, complete with a little (fortunately shallow) creek. After creeping up the other side of the wash a few more steep ups and downs, with the associated potholes and washboards and we were finally out of the worst of the road, meaning we could finally travel at the posted speed limit of 25 mph. It only took us an hour and a half to traverse the 34 miles of 'passable' dirt road. I would hate to have seen what the impassible road we were supposed to have taken was like.

We finally made it to Page, Arizona at about 1:30 pm. We were still 100 miles or so from the Grand Canyon, but we had not yet had lunch and we were quite hungry. Upon entering Page I saw a sign for a Pizza Hut and suggested that we eat pizza. Michael was amenable and we headed further into town. When we came to the Pizza Hut Michael saw a pizzeria off to the left and suggested we go there. That sounded better than Pizza Hut so there we went, disembarked from our car and chose a table to sit at. Soon a waiter came by and got our drink order. Returning a few minutes later with our drinks he took our order then disappeared. We waited hungrily, sipping on our drinks. Another group came in after about ten minutes and were seated by us. Shortly thereafter they had drinks and bread on their table. I eyed their bread but stayed seated. Not very many minutes later they also had appetizers. We had been seated for about 25 minutes by now. Another group came in and were seated, soon to have drinks and bread, and promptly thereafter, salads, too. Michael was becoming antsy and I was debating asking the next table over for a slice of their pizza. We had now been waiting with only drinks for 35 minutes. We finally flagged down a waitress and asked for our waiter. She said she would find him. Five minutes later she returned and said he was making our salads. We glared and mentioned that we had not ordered salads. She apologized and asked what we had ordered. We got up and as we walked out suggested that any food would have been acceptable, we had been waiting 45 minutes and not even gotten bread! So we left. Loudly.

And took our way over to Pizza Hut, where a large line of foreign speaking people were debating what kind of pizza they wanted. We just wanted anything, so we left. Fortunately we spied a Mexican food place not far away and were quickly seated and enjoying a large bowl of chips and salsa. Our food orders were also quickly delivered and we consumed them rapidly. My hunger had been slightly appeased from the chips and salsa, so I only wolfed down the first two or three bites of chicken fajitas. Then I started to eat more circumspectly, cutting the chicken into bite sized pieces before stuffing them into my mouth. This is how I came to notice that the chicken pieces were still raw in the middle. I discovered that I was not hungry at all any more.

After obtaining a replacement dinner (no they did not take it off our bill) we quickly made our escape out of Page hoping never to return.

Yet Another Energy Bar Recipe

1 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp powdered cocoa
1 tbsp molasses
3 tbsp honey
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup chopped trail mix

If you have a gel flask, then just mix the first four ingredients. It makes a nice tasty gel. The nutritional content is as follows:

(first 4 ingredients only)
Carb: 72.5g (290 cal. = 75.5%)
Fat: 8g (72 cal. = 18.8%)
Protein: 5.5g (22 cal. = 5.7%)
Total cal.: 384

With oatmeal:
Carb: 98.5g (394 cal. = 74.3%)
Fat: 10.5g (94.5 cal. = 17.8%)
Protein: 10.5g (42 cal. = 7.9%)
Total cal.: 530.5

Disclaimer: I made this recipe up after looking on line at several other recipes. If this recipe happens to appear anywhere else on the internet, I don't know about it and don't mean to be thieving.

Music for the Masses (of riding I do)

I keep meaning to write more often, about all the interesting training and riding and other such stuff I do. But then I get busy or forget or want to sleep instead. Sleep is very important. If I get enough sleep then I can ride more, which I like! I try to get at least seven hours of sleep every night. This week that did not go so well since I had an all night experiment to attend one night. It was rather amusing though. I arrived home about seven AM Thursday morning. After eating and checking email I couldn't keep my eyes open any more so I went and laid down and fell asleep almost instantly. It was about eight AM at that point. Exactly at ten AM I sat upright in bed and proceeded to get up and wander aimlessly around the house. I later realized that I had not been really awake when I got up. After doing mostly nothing for an hour I went back to sleep for another two or so hours. I was still tired, but I managed to enjoy the rest of the day and get to bed early.

Saturday I needed to be at work all day again, so I took my long ride Friday morning. I went out to Uinta National Forest and climbed up to Tibble Reservoir. From the base of the climb to the reservoir is about six miles. This took me an entire hour to climb. It doesn't seem all that steep, but it is steep enough. I also didn't really want to go anaerobic during the climb so I kept to an easy pace.

I did not have my usual fuel to drink while I rode. This is not a problem for rides under two or so hours, but after two hours of just water I start to bonk even if I have eaten a large breakfast. I did not eat a large breakfast Friday but I did stop at the Bagelry to nab a bagel that fit nicely in my jersey pocket. Along with the bagel I took a baggie of trail mix and a plastic wrapped energy bar concoction I had made. The three of these enabled me to finish my ride although I was still fairly hungry by the end since I only finished off the bagel, and I didn't touch the trail mix. The energy bar was tasty but since I had to squeeze it from the plastic wrap it was not so easy to eat as quickly as I needed the calories. I ended up eating about half.

And my new MP3 player arrived today. It is great!

Stress (in very large doses) Can Kill

Did you know that too much stress can kill you? Of course, too much of anything can kill you. Mind you, it has to be a lot of stress for a very long time. And stress is cumulative. So, if you are stressed about your job and whatever relationship you are in and finances and then you physically stress you body, your body can react badly. This falls into the category of overtraining.

Overtraining is when you do not give your stressed body time to return to its normal baseline between sessions of stress. This is why when you are training hard you should check your heart rate and your weight every morning. An increase in heart rate of 10% above normal means your body has not recovered from the previous day's workout. Furthermore, a decrease in body weight of 10% or more means you failed to adequately hydrate yourself the previous day. Another thing to check for during heavy training is how long and how well you slept. If you slept 10% less than normal, that is also a bad sign, but not in and of itself indicative of overtraining.

I mention all of this merely because this last week I worked out at the gym hard Thursday night then I rode hard on Friday and Saturday my HR was up by more than 10% and my weight was down from the previous day a few pounds. So I skipped riding, but I did go do an outdoor labor service project and helped clean a camp ground. I was quite tired and very, very thirsty for the rest of the day. Abnormally thirsty, I would get up in the middle of the night to chug 20 oz of water. That night, I woke up around 3 AM and was just awake. For an hour or so. Insomnia is another sign of overtraining. Sunday morning my HR was still extra high and I was still very tired and thirsty. So I spent most of the day laying down and reading or sleeping. By that evening my HR was back to normal, for which I was very glad.

This morning I spent some time adjusting my training schedule to give me more days off but longer rides on the days I do ride. I believe this will help my body better be able to accommodate the stresses I will be inflicting upon it.

New Tires Good, Flats Bad

So I was pelting down a hill yesterday when I hit a hard bump and noticed that my bike was riding unusually stiff all of a sudden. I looked down and sure enough, going 35 mph I had blown a flat. I carefully slowed down and hauled my bike onto the side of the road. A quick inspection of the tube showed the malefactor - the valve was almost ripped out. I am not sure how such a thing could happen, but I suppose that a weak spot had developed there and so when the pressure peaked by hitting a bump, it just blew out. Fortunately I always care and extra tube and a bike pump. Unfortunately, the pump no longer will get my tire pressure above 60psi. But that is usually enough to limp to the nearest bike shop.

I hope I don't get a flat today since now I have used up all my tubes and have no extra to carry with me. Riding off!

Getting a tune up

The weekend of my bike brake-nut hunt my husband convinced me ("Here is money, get a tune up!") to get my bike in for a very long over due tune up. I decided that I would also obtain a professional bike fit that same day. I had heard in the past that just a generic bike fitting would be good enough for all but the most elite cyclists. Recently, however, it dawned on me that my knees and feet would thank me for obtaining a proper bike fitting before riding 10s of 1000s of miles. So I went over to the nice folks of J.R. Smith Coaching and had them pull out their fancy biometric tools while I sat serenely pedaling on my bike. The end result was raising my saddle 0.5 cm, changing my cleat position just a tiny bit on my right shoe, and pulling my aerobar uprights back towards the handle bars by several cm. The new position seems good so far, but I haven't ridden much since the fitting.

The tune-up was completed by Revolution Mountain Sports. They did a good job, the bike shifts better and the brakes are set better. Furthermore, they replaced my ratty bar tape. The new wrap job is excellent, for which I am very pleased.

I also bought new tires, since the ones on my bike had spots where the underlying threading was no longer under-lying. The new tires are very nice, and yellow! Now I have a pretty black bike with yellow tires and it looks sweet. I wanted yellow bar tape, too, but I failed to mention that to the shop. My bike also received a bath the night before the tune up. Surgical-prep scrub brushes are really great for bike cleaning.

Why getting a regular tune up is a good thing

Two weeks ago I was walking towards the elevator to leave work, wheeling my bike along when I noticed a strange squeaky noise emanating from my bike. As anyone with a bike knows, strange squeaky noises should be looked into immediately lest something break and you die. So I stopped and looked down to examine my bike. The cause was immediately evident. My front tire was flat. Very flat. Flatter than I can get it by letting all the air out through the valve. I always carry an extra tube and my bike pump so the flat did not worry me. However, when I went to pop the front wheel off, I discovered that one of the nuts holding my front brakes together was broken in half. Half was missing and half (okay a little more than half) was still clinging to the bolt. This concerned me. So I took TRAX (the local train system) home. Saturday I spent an hour hunting various bike shops and hardware stores for a nut that would fit. Unfortunately, as many bike manufactures do, the nut was proprietary and had a non-standard thread pitch. However I was able to find a nut that would screw on a little bit, and with a few washers to make the connection tight and a bit of duct tape to ensure the whole assemblage does not come loose from road vibration I was up and running (or riding) again.

Spring: The Best Time of Year

I love the spring. Currently we are having beautiful weather. It is getting into the 80s everyday and by the time I get out the door in the morning, it is already nearly 70 degrees. I am very fond of warm weather. Today will make the fourth day of riding in a row. I haven't ridden that many days in a row for quite some time. I slept quite well last night and when I woke up my heart rate was quite normal, which is encouraging. I hope to be able to ride tomorrow, too. Tonight I will go to the gym and weight train.

I have been leaving for home and work at odd times, so traffic has not been a problem this week. For the most part, drivers here in Utah seem to be extra courteous, which I very much appreciate. I think I have been getting better, yesterday at a stop light my HR dropped to 100 within one minute of stopping after 40 minutes of riding.

Wasatch

Well today I tried a new route in to work. I climbed up to Wasatch Blvd and followed it along until it emptied out onto Foothill. Actually, I followed the bike path from Wasatch to Foothill. Foothill was not as bad to bike on as I had thought it would be. However, it does go from two lanes, one of which has a nice wide shoulder, to three lanes with no shoulder. Fortunately, it was past rush hour and all the traffic elected to stay in the two left lanes to pass me. This route has more climbing than my normal route, but it was not too hard. I did take it easy, dropping down into my very utmost lowest gear numerous times. Wasatch Blvd is a nice road to bike on, it has a bike lane almost the whole length. Getting to Wasatch isn't so much fun since I, currently, use a route that takes me past a freeway entrance/exit. Perhaps next time I take Wasatch I will pick it up further south to avoid that intersection.

It was nice to see that my HR stayed in normal ranges with a max of 175 today. In the past, it has told me that my max was 238 or 232 or some such horrendous number. I don't exactly trust my HRM since often I look down and notice it is reading my HR as 0. Since 0 would be dead, and I am clearly alive, I imagine that electrical interference is causing problems.

I only put sunscreen on my bare legs today and I seem to have obtained a minor sunburn on my arms and face. I guess I will have to go back to liberal application. I just don't like the sticky/slimy/residue-y feeling that cheap sunscreens leave and I am too cheap to splurge on expensive sunscreens. Perhaps a fancy sunscreen company will deign to sponsor me so I can use good sunscreen for my races and training. Anyone know of a good sunscreen company???