Keeping it fresh

I've been wondering all day why I've got this achy feeling of a solid gym workout without having set foot in a gym in weeks now. It just dawned on me that my Saturday activity could have something to do with it.

When John suggested the Sandgate loop for our Saturday Fixie ride, I yawned. The Saturday Fixie ride has been an institution now for weeks and weeks and weeks. We have done the Riverloop, the Riverloop with detours, variations of the Riverloop, and then last week, the Riverloop reverse. Before that we did the Sandgate loop, the extended Sandgate loop... It wasn't the Fixie's fault. I just couldn't get excited about either the River nor Sandgate nor riding at all.

Then I had an idea. I texted back: My weapon of choice for Saturday would be... the mountainbike.

Aren't there any other loops in Brisbane that you two could do on a Fixie, you may ask? There are but my mountainbike has been sitting in the garage since the last outing months ago, despite best intentions, despite having fond memories of the last ride.

John agreed and I prayed that my mountainbike was in a ridable state. It looked alright when I dug it out from underneath car roof racks and boxes. The brakes were a bit rattly and squeeky but Alberto gave it a brief once-over and confirmed that it was ok to ride.

The Bunya Stateforest is only a short 20 min ride from home but I was glad when I finally hit dirt because, man, riding a mountain bike on the road is one frustrating experience, especially when you try riding it like your road bike.

The first trail we chose turned immediately into twisty technical single track. That didn't go too well and we walked our bikes out of there like thieves, hoping that nobody saw us bailing. Next we tried some of the wider fire trails, which were perfect to find our mountainbike legs but we kept hitting the boundaries of the forest and I think John got frustrated with it. Soon he led me back onto single tracks and disappeared ahead of me. I tried to catch him but had to walk some logs and some dips and I got my feet wet in the creeks despite the trails being dusty. How I will ever be able to jump this tank of a bike is a mystery to me.

While I may not win any mountainbike races anytime soon, my confidence grew and I had an absolute ball. Next time things feel a bit stale, mix it up a bit! The only downside to single track? It's not half as social as a Fixie ride to the farthest coffee shop... and some achy muscles maybe. But that a small price to pay for three hours of fun and smiles for the rest of the day.

Fish & Chips Ride

When I arrived at the Nundah bike track straight from work on Thursday afternoon, the sun had already set. A disco of flashing lights went around the dark track and I could hear someone yell out "Three laps to go". No sign of Alberto just yet but I was early and there were still 15 min time to the start of the ride.

I said hello to a couple in the parking lot, packing their bikes in the car. They asked if I was joining the Fish n' Chips ride that had been advertised in the club newsletter and on the facebook page. "Do you know how fast they go?" I heard the women say. I couldn’t see her face in the dark but I knew that it was a rhetoric question to state that it was a fast ride. She wasn't going to join but drive the car and meet us at Doug's Seafood Café later.

Alberto arrived, the disco lights assembled on the footpath and I stayed glued to Alberto’s side. That’s what I do when I feel uncomfortable with a whole bunch of people I never met before – mild social phobia, or common shyness, nothing serious. I haven't been down to the club races in ages so no wonder I hardly know any club members anymore.

But then we spotted Adam and another familiar voice, Kim, and we were off along the dark bike path, grassy smelly high-tide wetlands to the left, river to the right. Some raced ahead; some settled into a comfortable pace and started chatting into the night. At the first designated stop to rejoin the group, someone was missing. In the anonymity of the night I heard someone say: "There was a girl in the group". I let them know that I was there. The stragglers arrived within seconds and we were off again.

Through the winding wetland path I hung back a little. Only the flashes of light and happy chatty voices amongst the trees broke the eeriness of the dark wetland scrub. The excitement of pedalling the Fixie through tight twisty corners in the night made my head spin. A possum (or was it a rat?) scattled across the path. It went through Alberto’s wheels and missed mine by only centimetres.

Next stop at the Entertainment Centre near the Boondall train station and from there it was mostly residential back streets. On arrival, just over an hour and 27 km later, the Peacemaker all of a sudden caused a stir, or maybe not so much the bike but more so the Gates Carbon Drive. Used to it by now, I happily stepped aside and let my bike enjoy the limelight.

Over grilled snapper and fries, a gigantic serve for $16, everybody was animated; lots of bike talk, race talk, laughs and happy faces and the ever recurring “Have you ever considered racing?” question. Kim looked across the table, smirk on his face, but I didn’t flinch. “Used to! Thinking about it. Maybe!”

With full bellies and shivering, the temperatures had dropped to 10C, we set off into the dark evening for a leisurely ride home and someone called after me “Join us again next time. We wanna see that bike of yours again!” And then “That’s impressive. A girl on a Fixie!”

What a nice bunch of people! What a great evening!

Over n' over

Julie, my massage therapist, found my tight hip flexors and poked and prodded with her thumb... and then asked me if we were still friends. She also once said that some cyclists have the incredible capacity to hurt themselves in a race but are complete wussies when it comes to enduring the "good pain" on the massage table. I knew I should've kept breathing!

Against popular opinion, massages are not enjoyable, not always anyway. She said my legs would feel like lead the next day. She was right. She also said they would come good. I'll test that tomorrow morning.

Oh, and we are still friends!

And against another popular belief, staying in bed is not always easier than forcing yourself out of it either.

If there is one thing I learnt in the past two years, then it's to listen to my body (most of the time, getting better at it... yadayadayada). The past few days there were lots of signs and they were all saying: Get some rest! I mean there were not just subtle signs that are easy to ignore but big writing on the wall kinda signs and Friday morning I was wide awake at 4:30am and wanted to meet the guys for the Riverloop really badly but my heart rate was 60bpm and there were those other signs so I chained myself to my bed and made me sleep for another two hours. And yes, it did kill me! I sat there in my office the entire long day looking out the window... the sky was so incredibly blue!

Last but not least: when have you checked your bike last time before you headed out? I spotted this yesterday while washing mine:

I must've hit something substantial but do not recall anything that could have sliced my tyre. It was almost new, too, but I replaced it tonight because I don't want it to blow at 50 km/h coming down from McAfees tomorrow morning... uh, tomorrow morning: over 'n over, right? No sign will keep me in bed tomorrow. ;)

ProRace Berlin

Sometimes, when I look at maps, I feel a little twinge of homesickness.

The below map may not mean much to you but when I look at it, all I see are images of places and people and past events. Vivid images of Love Parades on the Strasse des 17. Juni, parties under the Brandenburg Gate, the Grunewald and long summer evenings on my rollerblades, commutes between Potsdam and Charlottenburg, or pub crawls through Schoeneberg... the past floods my memory... and I really wished I was there today...

... to ride the course marked in that map, together with some 5000 other people. Berlin, a city with a long cycling tradition, will for the first time in many years host a UCI category 1.1 road race again today. Fabian Cancellara, Stuart O'Grady, Heinrich Haussler, Julian Dean... the start list goes on.

And there is a Jederman Rennen on the program, pretty much like a Fondo with two distances, 60 km and 120 km. The 120 km distance pretty much follows the course of the ProRace, only the Pro riders will add eight laps through the streets of Berlin at the end of the course to make it a 182.5 km distance. The results for the ProRace are not up on the website, they must be racing as I write this.

Maybe something to earmark for next year... spring is such a lovely time to ride a bike through Berlin and Brandenburg.

Challenge me!

What is your usual response when your riding buddy takes off half-way up a climb? I'm a chaser. Mostly. But lately I have been content to just settle into my own rhythm and potter along.

Clear Mountain from the top

Mailman's Track from the top

After Sunday's strong solo ride up Clear Mountain and Mailman's Track, both reasonably steep little climbs, and a rest day on Monday, I felt quietly confident that I could push the pace on Tuesday's McAfee's Lookout Ride with my friend P.

The past few Tuesdays the ride had been a leisurely ascent in the dark; hard naturally but not on the rivet, not pushing past discomfort.

My times for the six kilometers climb were five minutes slower than my personal best but I cared little about that. I was happy just climbing. P was happy to hang back, to take it easy, to chat all the way. I knew she was hanging back. I knew she was being polite.

P is a dual Ironman and we both used to race bikes but we just enjoy riding nowadays. But don't think this means riding slowly! Quite the opposite! She is kicking my butt more than ever and she's still got the instinct. Once we reached the seven to eight percent gradient section of the climb, my breathing got laboured, and she went for the kill.

I don't know what had changed last Tuesday. Maybe we finally ran out of topics? Maybe she just heard my heavy breathing and some old instinct kicked in?

For three long kilometers I dug deep, pushed hard, and struggled to keep her flashing red rear light in sight. I knew instantly that this was what I needed to do if I wanted to improve my climbing again. If I just keep climbing at my same comfortable pace then climbing at that speed will be all I'll ever going to get better at.

As soon as I arrived at the lookout I told P to do this again next week. I thought I could have gone harder, stayed on her wheel ... don't we always think this later?

So next time a friend challenges you to a race, accept the challenge. I already look forward to next Tuesday but for now I leave you with some photos from this morning's really easy and very flat recovery ride to Nudgee Beach.

Full Moon

Plunkett Road Ride, Training Stress Scores (TSS) and Recovery

Plunkett Road Ride had been scheduled for one of the long Easter weekend mornings. I had never heard of Plunkett Road and hadn’t joined the bunch back then because I had been nervous about the 110 km distance, especially since it was said to be lumpy. So I was excited to see the ride re-appear on last weekend’s Weekend Rides email.

Not that I had done any more long rides in between then and now but I just felt more confident and a bit more confidence is all that’s needed sometimes.

But even with confidence in abundance, it was a tough ride. How tough? 293.8 TSS and 0.901 IF – if you are not used to power data, just take my word for it that it was hard. A Training Stress Score (TSS) of 150 is hard enough to require at least one day of recovery and an Intensity Factor (IF) of 1 indicates that someone went just about as hard as possible, like for example in a 40 km time trial.

When I spotted Natalie at the meeting point, I was relieved that I wasn’t going to be the only female rider in the bunch. It was still dark when the eight of us set off. New roads and areas of Brisbane beckoned to be discovered and I was excited. The route would take us further South from Brisbane than I had ever been by bike.

The pace was at the high end of my tempo zone right from the start, which worried me a little bit, especially without a warm-up.

The temperature kept dropping and bottomed out at 11.2 C as the sun kept rising above the horizon, tinting the morning into warm hues of yellow and orange. No single digits, yet, and I knew that in another hour arm and knee warmers would come off. In fact, I was enjoying the crispness of the air more than the humidity and sweat soaked jerseys of summer.

The landscape turned from city living to semi-commercial and suburban; and soon we rode flat rural roads, chatting away and tapping out a nice steady tempo.

A sharp right hander and we were on Plunkett Road, which gave the ride its name. It was rolling hills from there, lush scrubby forest, sleepy cows, scared ducks, steamy horses, the occasional driveway with a house hidden amongst trees.

A minor mechanical gave an opportunity to recover somewhat before the rolling hills continued. I was determined to stay in contact with the group even though I started dangling off the back somewhat on every rise. So I was digging deep and just like during set three of your reps on the leg press my muscles started to fatigue. I could feel the brain willing my quads to push out big Watts but the impulse from my brain wasn't arriving in my legs anymore. Miraculously a hand appeared now and then on my back and gave me a second wind (or big push :-) ), which definitely helped not dropping off completely. (Thank you, Alberto!) Before I knew it, we were back on familiar roads and I couldn't believe when we arrived at the coffee shop and the ride was over. On one hand I was glad we had the car parked there because I don't think I would have managed another 30 km to get home but on the other hand I could have just kept riding forever...

So how about recovery times after a long hard ride like that one last Sunday?

I joined my friend P for the climb up to Mc Afees Lookout on Tuesday morning (one day recovery) and my legs were heavy like lead. This ride added 127TSS.

By Wednesday afternoon (two and a half days recovery but additional TSS from the previous day) I felt generally fatigued so I skipped the Threshold Intervals on the rollers and just spun my legs easily for an hour (44TSS).

I didn't ride on Thursday at all.

Yesterday morning (four days after the ride but with another 171TSS accumulated by then) my legs felt finally fresh again for the Friday Riverloop. I love my Friday Riverloops, even in these single digit temperatures (8.5C) and isn't Brisbane pretty at five thirty in the morning?

Time to pin a number again?

The Piccolo Fondo didn't start until eleven, which I - at first - thought was brilliant because of the sleep-in. Little did I know that the Master's A race was scheduled to start at 6:30 am. So before the sun was up, the house was a flurry of excitement, air static like soft hair after pulling the knitted jumper over your head. Since sleep was out of question I also got up and played the "good wife" and helped clear the pre-race chaos. With best intentions I ended up mainly hugging my coffee quietly and staying out of everyone's way.

After seeing the boys off to their 83 km stage three race, another coffee, a chat and a walk on the beach, a little bit of reading, a bowl of muesli and third coffee along the way somewhere, it was still only nine o'clock.

By the time we were finally out on the road, I was as keen as a bean. There were tandems and mountainbikes, I even saw a Singlespeed ... all sorts and lots of women, which was great to see. An official escort on bike set the tempo in the front. We all had been given numbers to pin on and transponders for the finishing times but I think they were more a precaution so that no one got left out on course after dark.

The tempo was moderate, rather slow actually. Saskia, who I ran into just before the start and I used to race with a couple of years ago, next to me also seemed antsy "Let's go to the front. This speed, it'll take us three hours...". Surprised and immensely grateful I pulled into the middle of the road and passed the group. Her words were music to my ears. We sat at the front for a while, two abreast, bunch on our wheels and just pedalled and chatted, sand dunes and ocean to our left, scrubby forest to our right and a brisk cross-head wind.

I remembered that it was a social ride and decided to roll off for a breather. The group had dwindled somewhat - oopsy - but was still eight or ten strong. Not long before I found myself on the front again, feeling like an over-excited dog pulling on a leash. It was single file now because the road was a tad busy and had not much of a shoulder.

Little boys carrying big surfboards at Cabarita Beach, beautiful waves breaking at Hastings Point, Sunday market shoppers in Pottsville - colourful little seaside communities along the Tweed Valley Road and Saskia and I kept rolling turns with a strong looking guy who was foxing and an older guy who was skipping turns, determined to stay with us. By the time we left the flat and windy coastal road and turned inland, it was just strong guy and us two girls.

We were joined by the official Escort on Bike guy, a local guy whose task it was to make sure all participants were safe on the road. Finally the road turned again and we hit some hills. Strong Guy looked big so I didn't think he would go well on the hills but he surprised me. I stayed on his wheel on the first climb and my legs started to burn, the good burn, and I wanted to push harder but it was a social ride, right?

He was heavy and dropped me down the hill the other side. I chased. Flew along the rough road and through potholes. Heartrate high. Happy. Saskia right behind me. My magnet on my rear wheel slipped with the rattling, causing it to bang against the transmitter with every revolution. A bloody annoying noise and it wasn't a race so I stopped briefly to slip the magnet back in place and tightened it. Saskia and our chaperone soft pedalled to allow me to get back on, strong guy disappeared up the road.

More hills and the countryside was so incredibly pretty, green fields down below, the white of the beaches and the deep blue of the ocean in the distance. The beige highway dotted with colourful cars looked tiny from the tall bridges. The roads we used almost entirely car-free.

Another right turn and we were back on the busy coastal road, with a tailwind this time. Glued to the rear wheel of Chaperone we were hitting 40 km/h. It wasn't a race but secretly I hoped we would still pick up Strong Guy before the finish line in Casuarina. 57 km in 1:51:35hrs and deeply satisfied, later in the pool I realised: It was a hard ride but it didn't hurt one bit.

I smiled when I saw AMR's remark on the QSM results websites Time to pin a number?

Weekends like this should last forever

Boring is one of the kindest things I heard people say about the architecture of Salt, a coastal development just south of the Queensland/New South Wales border (hence the race title Battle on the Border), where every house looks brand new like the next - huge, showy, uninspired mansions.

The House

So we weren't exactly roughing it at the beach shack. The house was big enough to accommodate eight of us, five racers and three social riders, and it didn't feel crammed. But I heard many a complaint about the pool not being heated!

The Pool

The Beach

In an attempt to maximise beach and pool time, I had only committed to the Piccolo Fondo (57 km) instead the Fondo (136 km). A distance inbetween, something between 80-90km would have been ideal but that wasn't on offer. I met Saskia. We used to race together a few years ago but hadn't seen each other in over a year. We rode the 57 km together. Someone said to me later at the coffee shop that I had come second. Insisting that it had been a social ride, we joked Pin a number on us and give us a finish line and it's inevitable that we will try and drop the bunch.

The Briefing

Dinner conversations did not only cover the race action but also the mechanics of speed wobbles.

The Fuel

And it didn't bother me to put up with sweaty, nervous and, at times, cranky racers because I remember the feeling all too well; the aching body, the nerves before each stage, the lethargy after three hours in the afternoon heat, the increasing fatigue and the dehydration ... call me soft in my old days but I didn't miss any of that.

The Warm-up

The Smile

The Pain

Back in the office, my thoughts stray frequently back to the house near the beach full of bikes. Let's face it, we didn't spend the weekend at Salt for the architecture. The Tweed Coast has plenty to offer. Tell me, where else can you pack sugar-cane lined roads, rainforest green climbs, cross-windy beach roads, sand dunes and honey-scented Melaleuca forests into a 45 km loop of road; and all this under azure blue skies?

The Ride

The Sugar Cane

The Scenery

Weekends like this should never be as few and far between.