Sunday, December 16, 2012

Ride Yesterday

I went to Mount Tamalpais - another brilliant idea of mine. The ride up was tough for me. I made the mistake of starting from home so by the time I started the climb I was already 20 miles into a 43 mile-ride and I am not sure that I got the nutrition aspect right. I had a light-ish breakfast and ate a couple of power bars before my way up.

I wasn't cold on the way up but the minute I turned around, I became really really cold - it had started to rain and getting increasingly wet didn't help as my hands became cold and wet. The rain started when I was only 4 miles from the top so I decided to keep going. I wasn't dressed with fewer layers than whatever I had seen the other cyclist wear - and there were quite a few cyclists on that route. A synthetic base layer, a bike jersey, arm warms, bike shorts, leg warmers and full-fingered gloves - and a jacket that is technically water-proof.  I stopped at the Pan Toll station as there was a hair blower to try to dry off my cold fingers and gloves.

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I hooked up with a couple of Englishmen, one of them living here and we cycled down to the first Inn we saw on the way down to swallow down a bowl of hot soup and a hot chocolate. I also emailed Serge as I wasn't looking forward to riding all the way through the city in rain that wasn't stopping, and shivering. Serge picked me up at Mike's Bike in Sausalito and drove me home.

First thing I did on Sunday morning is to get a better waterproof and windproof jacket which I used for my quick ride on Sunday! That one seemed to work :)

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Total mileage for this week was a little over 100 miles.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Berkeley Midwinters December 2012

Bad start and it took us forever to get up to speed on the first upwind - after that, things were significantly better with good boat speed and we picked up boats.

Good douses, we did gybe sets and improved from the first to the second. We need to have everyone focused on their one job - this means that accepting that the others may not do a fantastic job because you will not control it.

There was too much talking to the driver, not enough looking at telltales only from the driver standpoint, and too many cooks in the kitchen for tactics.

We have agreed that we need at least one practice in-between each midwinters - all of this is just practice.

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Serge feeding the birds and the scientists that were just coming back from 11 weeks on the Farallones island, studying birds...
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Mark and Mike

Cleat Work

All photos courtesy of Serge - cleaned, rinsed and put together the mast cleat. If that doesn't solve the problem, we can look at replacing the cleat.

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Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Boys from Brazil

The Boys from Brazil

young Nazi hunter Barry Kohler stumbles on the trail of the infamous "Angel of Death," Dr. Josef Mengele, who is planning to resurrect Hitler's vision in South America.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Ride Today

I really wanted to race at the Golden Gate Midwinters but didn't get a ride, so I decided to go for a bike ride instead. 

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 Went to Belvedere, Tiburon and around the Tiburon peninsula. About 50 miles from the house. A bit of rain initially and a bit of rain as I got home. Nothing too exciting to report. I stopped for a little bit to watch the race from the bridge. 

Friday, November 30, 2012

Water Guy

Not just a water guy, but some evidence that water sports are in my blood. Looks like my dad played around with that kind of things too...

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More biking...

Photos courtesy of Serge

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#1 getting ready for sports ride

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#2 coming back from sports ride
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#3 getting ready for commute ride, off to work

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Biking and cycling combined ;-)

When it rains, wear your sailing gear on the bike to stay dry...

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Oh and the boat computer just arrived - ready to download expedition and look at routing...Excited!

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Interesting data

http://www.bicycling.com/news/2011-tour-de-france/tour-features/you-versus-pe...

These 'average' Riders are close to my stats. My average speed on flat terrain is 30 km/hr (or 18.6 miles). My average speed on mountain terrain is about 10 miles an hour (if the climb is super short, I can sprint of course, talking sustained speed here), I wonder how true the rest is...

I ride between 75 to 140 miles/week in the low sailing season - a lot less in the high sailing season.

(for everyone - biking replaced running as my cross-training for fitness for sailing. I really find the combination of endurance sport that strengthens the lower part of the body and a semi-strength/semi-endurance sport that puts heavy demands on the upper part of the body working pretty well. Tabarly also used cycling as his cross training sport of choice. I also do some weight work (pullups and such) to improve my arm strength and general upper body strength.

That way I can trim spinnakers and main sail more effectively in heavier air and that's just a million times faster than grinding it on a winch. I have noticed a real difference in how much wind I can do this in. I just added 5 knots to my top strength compared to last year :)

I read a book about how to train on a bike (not for top speed necessarily, just so that I can build fitness, avoid injuries, etc...) - very similar to how you train for running. You train to be fast by riding fast (over very short distances). You train on hills by sprinting uphills (over very short distances). So high intensity low volumes workouts combined with long rides seem to be working.

However, what I found fascinating while reading this book is the understanding of nutrition on performance both when to take food, (before, during, after) and what to eat at these specific moments (this may be key in short-handed sailing to ensure sustained performance), and the importance of REST in fitness level. This is during rest that the body actually adapts and builds fitness. And the fitter you are, the less recovery time you need for a given effort....

Hence...

High levels of fitness in sailing has a major advantage for me - it allows me to recuperate much much faster. Sailing as bursts of activity - for instance you do a sail change - and the faster/easier you recover from those, and the less energy you spend of those, the better as you can do more things/better.

If you are not tired physically you are less likely to be tired mentally :) If you don't waste too much energy or if you have a body that is used to assimilating energy efficiently, you may need less food, or less sleep for the same amount of effort - or you can increase the amount of effort depending on whether the goal is conservation of energy or all out.

The other thing that I am thinking is a disaster scenario. If something went wrong and I had to work hard to say bring the mast on deck - that would be hard work, and it would take a long time. Well, if I am fit, I will be better able to sustain that effort which makes me safer.

The other thing that I found interesting is that athletes or fit people are actually more likely to develop a cold than the average person...hmmm..that kind of sucks...

On a long distance short-handed race where sleep management will be key - there is obviously another dimension to this. Definitely not the whole picture but I can see how it helps.

Lastly - cycling and sailing share the need for a strong core (abdominal or lower back muscles).

To quote someone that was overheard on my hill today 'if I lived at the top of this hill, my ass would look so good!'

Morning routine

1) Bike Practice - to improve fitness so I can be a better sailor (and because my schedule doesn't allow me to sail every day unfortunately which I wouldn't mind doing...)

 

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2) Bike Commute to get to work on the cheap and with much higher fun factor than sitting in city traffic.

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Cold Weather Sports

Winter sailing or cold weather sailing means cold hands or fingers (imagine cold air blowing on cold water)...

Winter biking or cold weather biking means cold feet...

Awesome improvement...

Sunday, November 25, 2012

My Ride Today

Was fun, about 75 miles. Much slower than my usual pace which meant that I was not even tired at the end of it! It was my first group ride. After several weeks of riding alone, I felt ready to be with others. My host today was Peter and we were joined by Moraya.

Course

We started on the late side after a stop at Mike's Bikes in Sausalito as Moraya had an issue with her bike computer.

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The Cheese Factory - the only animals we saw were mainly cattle and horses.
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Friday, November 23, 2012

Boat work...

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My Ride Today - East Bay visit

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Nice short 20 mile run - I saw a lot of other cyclists and kept up with a group for a little while. Nice, quiet rural area with bike lanes on the larger roads and no cars on the smaller ones - a couple of big hills, much gentler than most hills in San Francisco and the rest was either mostly flat or downhill. 

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Tomorrow is rest day, will just bike to get to a brunch with Mikaela (yay!!)
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And a different kind of 'wild' life.
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Thursday, November 22, 2012

My Ride Today

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 About 42 miles, getting ready for a long ride on Sunday.
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 Very peaceful...and a lot of people.  
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or deers :)
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