Fatguy Roller Pic of the Week - 12/12/08

Howdy Ho!

Well here it is 6 weeks into my 2009 training season and I've only managed about 10 lbs off. I feel like maybe I'm 4 lbs behind. I know what the problem is. Too much idle time. I do hate this time of year. The shorter days mean more time lounging on the couch in front of the big screen, which means unnecessary snacking. I wish I could fall asleep really early like my wife does. She's out like a light by 9pm on most days. If I could do that I'd cut out 500 more calories every day.

It's hard to tell if I'm looking fitter than I did 6 weeks ago. I think it shows mostly in my face. My gut is still there. I cant complain too much, my feelings on the road are improving with each ride. I'm getting plenty of rest and I'm not stressed. Each new day I feel like a tightly wound spring. Especially so on this rest and reco week. It's very hard to hold back. But I've got very good discipline and am managing very well so far. Now if only I could get that kinda handle on my extra curricular eating.

I've also managed to keep a hold on my gains with the free weights. This in spite of not lifting a anything more than a beer glass for the last 2 weeks.

In case anyone is really wondering what my routine is here is Wednesdays workout:

Leg Ext: 33x12 50x12
Leg Curl: 33x12 50x12
Squat: 135x12 155x12
Calf Raise: 155x12 155x12
Dead Lift: 135x12 155x12
Bench Press: 95x12 115x12
Bent Row: 70x12 70x12
Seated Mill Press: 70x12 65x6
Triceps Ext: 50x12 50x12
Bicep Curl: 55x12 55x12

Back in 2000, my last real full season where I did anything worth talking about, my squat and dead lift numbers were in the 300+ lbs range. I could probably one rep close to that, but it's too soon to be in the hospital with a wrecked back. I should be up there come April/May.


Cheers,

FGR

211

That's what my trusty doctors office quality analog Health-o-Meter scale read this morning. I'll forget what Kyle's fancy digital scale was reading in the D'ville parking lot after we got done riding for 2 hours on Sunday afternoon.

I was expecting the worst as I dreadfully pulled the scale out into the middle of the bathroom floor. I really expected to see the weight go up, not down. It was a pleasant surprise to see 2 more pounds off from the week before. What ever I'm doing, I need to stick to it. I've lost 4 lbs in about 2 weeks since I started my 2009 season training on Nov 3.

What I've been doing is lots of zone 1, 2 and 3 riding and lifting weights. One the rollers during the week and outside on the weekend. On the dieting side I've been keeping track of food using the meal log feature in Training Peaks. I've been down the dieting path more than once, so using it is nothing new. Staying with it is the hard part. It does get tedious after awhile. In the past, whenever I have used a meal log to track food is when I've lose the most weight consistently. There is something to be said for accountability. It does keep a person honest. To a degree, of course. I can always omit something, but what good is lying to myself? The problem is sticking with the log. I should have done it all year. Maybe the fourth time will be the charm.

Week 3 is a rest week, so I have to eat light. I use the Virtual Coach feature of training peaks also and since I'm over 40, 45 1/2 to be exact, the training cycle reverts to 2 weeks on 1 week rest. I thought this was odd, so when I made my 2008 schedule I lied about my age so it would do the traditional 3 on, 1 off schedule. Looking back over the season and how effective my training was, I have to say I shouldn't have lied about my age. 2 on, 1 off may give the extra recovery time I need to keep from burning out.

On an unrelated note, Ratebeer.com has gone tits up. Seems they got hacked pretty viciously (from what I've gathered) and they will be down for quite a while. I was 8 beer reviews short of reaching the 100 beer club (not to shabby for being a member for less than 1 year and not turning into a real fat bastid) when they went offline. So I've got to keep track of them somewhere. Well why not here? Here's what I've sampled this week.

Rouge Dead Guy Ale - Awesome deep translucent amber color that was almost pearlesent. Big fluffy, merange like butterscotch head that unfortunately disappeared quickly. Aroma of sweet hops. Crisp and dry on the palate with a nice bitter hop aftertaste that didn't linger longer than necessary. Malt undertones are welcome presence. No trace of grassyness like you get with an over hopped ale or IPA. This is one very well balanced ale. One of the best i've had in a long time. A pleasant surprise for me, as I have avoided buying it for the longest time. I've often dismissed Rogue brews just because the bottles and beer names seemed too gimmicky. I glad I was wrong

Rouge Dry Hopped St. Rouge Red - Its a wonderful red ale. One thing I've noticed about Rogues brews is how great they look in a glass. And this one is no exception. It pours a pretty reddish copper color with a reddish creamy head. The carbonation is pretty high and the bubbles were beautiful as the climbed up the side of the glass. The aroma has a subdued hoppyness and the that carries over to the palate. Unfortunately the taste is average. It's not a bad brew by any stretch but the taste doesn't match up to the appearance. If Rogue could combine the appearance of St Rouge with the knockout taste of Dead Guy, I would be a fan for life.

Cheers,

FGR

Fatguy Roller Pic of the Week - 11-07-2008

Another week has gone by and I've managed to do seven hours of training since last weeks picture was taken. Seven hours in one week in November is pretty good considering my track record with off season training. Although I don't look any better, I do feel better and with 2 lifting sessions done for the week I am not nearly as sore as last week.




How about that shot? I took it doing a warm up set of squats. No one ever looks pretty doing squats do they?

My weight on 11/1/08 was 215. Great. This is gonna be much harder than I figured. One of the things I may be doing is skipping club rides until 2009. I've been doing a little reading about base training and I have come to the conclusion that for myself they might be counter productive right now. In the mean time I will more than likely ride with one of the slower groups that meet at Davidsonville or ride by myself. I will definitely be giving Big Jim a call for some winter LSD once he's done racing cross.

Cheers,

FGR

Down in the Dungeon

One of the things every man needs is a place in the house where he can get away from everyone and everything. Since my house doesn't have a garage yet, that place is in the bowels of the basement where my wife, Dana, and I keep all our years of accumulated flotsam and jetsam. I keep telling her that one day soon I'm gonna get a rollback plopped down on the driveway and we are going to really clean house! The beauty of this setup is that I have everything I need for an extended stay if need be. I also have everything I need to do my winter training too. I have no excuses for why I cant get it done. Here are a couple of pics of where it will all happen. So when I'm kicking ass next season, remember it all began here. If I'm not kicking ass next season, then remember it didn't happen here but it should have.

Here is the view from the general direction of my rollers. I have a a couple old TV's (the 25 incher is hooked to basic cable), some old stereo gear, some newish stereo gear, a VCR and a DVD player. Everything I need to keep me occupied while I grind away on the rollers and *sigh* the trackstand too. I am a pack rat when It comes to bike stuff. I could get rid of half of what you see and I would still have too much.



This is the view looking back toward where I set up my rollers. On the left is the beer fridge and on the right is my free weight workout setup and about 350 lbs of Olympic plates, bars and lots of solid dumbbells. I have a routine that I've been using forever and like it very much. There is nothing exotic about my routines and in a later post, I'll share. The beer fridge doubles as my bulletin board where I put up workouts to follow for the rollers or trainer. The rollers are a set of Performance Travel Trac Technique's. They work quite well and if I put it in a huge gear and spin at 110+ rpm I get enough resistance to do VO2 max intervals. But since it's early, I'll be skipping those for a few months.



Since Tuesday night was cold and windy, I wimped out and worked out down in my little indoor cycling paradise. I started with 35 min on the rollers, then changed shoes and did weights for about 75 min and finished with 15 min cooldown on the rollers. The workout was long enough for me to watch a short movie that I've got from Netflix and had laying around forever, Good Night and Good Luck. The movie was meh at best, but the workout was great. I'm still very sore since it was my first attack of the weights this season. Tonight I'll just doing it all over again. The last Thursday ABRT ride is tonight, but i'm skipping it. Thinking about how to work recoveries in I may change my weight lifting nights to Monday and Thursday. My hard on the bike days will be Tues/Thur. Wednesday will be an endurance type night and Friday will be recovery spins on the rollers. That leaves Saturday for the group ride and Sunday for a 1 1/2 to 2 hour long LSD rides to enjoy the outdoors or an hour on the rollers at night if I have to work a race. I guess we will see how all that works out. My only goal right now is knocking off 25-30 lbs by Feb 1. Totally doable.

Here's one more picture. My squat rack is a real multi-tasking piece of equipment. When not working out it's a perfect hanging rack for all my wet kit. Speaking of, does anyone really need that much kit?



I told you I was a pack rat for cycling gear.

Cheers,

FGR

(Photos: Me and my Nikon D70)