Fatguy Roller Pic of the Week - 10-31-2008

"Has it been an hour yet?"


I'm going to intro a new feature on my blog today. The Fatguy Roller Pic of the Week. The idea here is to post up a new pic of me riding my rollers to chronicle my weigh loss over the next 16-20 weeks. My first planned peak is Walkersville at the beginning of April. A race I didn't do so well at last year. In 2009, I'd like to be able to finish in the front group of the Mas 35+ 4/5 race instead of riding tempo off the back like I did this year. Prior to this years race I had only been training for 7 weeks and weighed 216 pounds.

In this photo taken last night (10/30/08)I am hovering around 210 lbs. The lightest I got to this year was 198 lbs. My goal for 2009 is 175. I don't think my frame will carry much less than that without looking awful. If I only make it to 185 in the next 20 weeks I'll be happy, but 175 is the goal. Looking at the picture you can see that I am carrying too much upper body mass. Mainly in the gut, the shoulders and upper arms. I'll be working hard this winter to get rid of that.

Once the 20 weeks are up and I didn't fail in my task, I'll throw up a montage animation that shows how I shrank.

Note: I am still sore as hell from lifting weights for the first time this season on Tuesday. I skipped them last night, but still rode the rollers for an hour with some tempo efforts mixed in. After the Saturday group ride I hope to feel well enough to get a session in.

Tonight I'm going to a Halloween party with Dana at her girlfriends house. She's designated driver and I'll be throwing back some Paulaner Salavator. I know some kind of pumpkin ale is the proper Halloween brew, but I'm not a big fan. One another note, I hope everyone else on the team gets hammered tonight too so tomorrow's 3 hr group ride will be sedate.

Cheers,

FGR

(Photo: Me-Nikon D70 w/wireless remote)

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)

Umbrella Girl of the Week - Special Nicky Hayden - Ducati Edition

Sunday was the last MotoGP race of the year. It was also the last race for the 2006 World Champion, homeboy Nicky Hayden, on a Honda. After 3 years of being kicked around like a three legged mangy dog at HRC/Repsol by Puppetmaster Puig and little boy made of wood, Dani Pedrosa, he will be pairing with 2007 World Champion Casey Stoner at Marboro-Ducati. The factory Ducati team will have 2 of the last 3 World Champions taking it to the rest of field next season on the baddest of all MotoGP machines, the Desmosedici. Go Ducati! Go Nicky!



Are you paying attention HRC? This is how you treat a World Champion.

It shouold be noted that on Monday, his first day on the Duc at the first of 2 test days at Valencia, he equalled the fasted lap of outgoing sad sac Marco Melandri. Nicky was also fastest of all the riders who switched to new teams. On day 2, yesterday, he posted the fastest times of all in the wet. Not bad for never having riden a Ducati GP bike or Bridgestones. I think next year is gonna be great!

Cheers,

FGR

(Photos: Crash.net)

One Week To Go To "Go Time"

Well damn time flies when your having fun doing nothing. As I get closer to my 'official' date for starting my 2009 season training, I find myself getting a little nervous about it all. Will I stick with it or will I be 30 pounds overweight on March 1st? My biggest weakness is staying motivated in the bad weather months. It's always been my biggest weakness and I hate myself for it. Every year it's the same thing. Get fat in winter and waste fair weather months getting in shape just in time for the season to be over. I've got to break this repeating cycle of bullshit behavior. The reason I started doing a blog this year was to keep my head in the game by being accountable to something a little more concrete than a pipe dream of upgrading to Cat 3 (I've been a Cat 4 since 1998) in my head.

It didn't work out so well this season but it's been a better year than the last three previous ones that I wasted trying to put it together. I really love riding and racing a bicycle. I am a very competitive person, ask anyone who knows me real well. The thing is, I am not a winter person. And like many of you I hate the stationary trainer more than anything else. Because of these two mental road blocks I just am not motivated to suffer and sacrifice to get to thru winter training.

The worst part about it is that I know that I have the physical tools to be more than a pass/fail racer. I firmly believe that anyone has the potential to make it to Cat 3. What separates those who are from those who aren't is desire, training, level of commitment and a willingness to make the sacrifices to achieve a goal. So using my own self as a example of shit or get off the pot, I am proclaiming that this is the year that I will break the cycle once and for all and embrace as best I can, Winter Training.

I have all my tools together. My plan for next season is laid out. My bikes are in fairly good working order. My rollers are out and ready to go. My bench, squat rack, and plates are set up and ready to go. I should have my new Polar replacement Wearlink strap this week. I'm ready to go!




It all starts Nov 3.

Wish me luck

Cheers,

FGR

Cyclocross - Who opened the asylum doors?

There is a fine line in cycling between being hard and being crazy. Cyclocross blurs that line more than all the other disciplines combined.




I believe he finished the race after riding with no seat for 3 laps.

The more of these I attend, the more I wish I was doing it. I haven't done a cross race since Trek sponsored a weekly series 10+ years ago at Patapsco State park. I remember it being harder than anything else I had done on a bicycle and decided to stick to the road. I may change my mind in 2009.

The fashion statements at yesterday's event (and previous ones too) gave me an idea as to what I would wear next season were I to compete. My motoref zebra stripes and black brain bucket. Of course I would have to find a cheap cyclocross frameset and paint it Corsa Red and label it Ducati. I figure it to be good for a laugh and divert the attention from how much I will suck at cyclocross. One the other hand, It may look perfectly normal to see me in zebra stripes bringing up the rear, just like I do at the crits on my motorcycle.

Shout outs to my Latitude/ABRT teamates, Mike, Pete, Kyle, Chris, Andreas, and Tom. Great job fellas. I hope you could hear me cheering for you.

And to the dood who placed 3rd in the C race. Please get sick behind a bush next time. Big Jim can show you where is proper. The drive by puking you laid at my feet while I was working the pits was just gross.

Oh and one more thing to all; If you gonna hang around in or near the pits drinking beer while I'm working, you better got-damn bring one for me too! I sure would appreciate it.

A BIG BIG shout out to the organizers who didnt fold up the beer tent after the 123 race was over. Speaking for all the officals there, thanks for saving us a brew or two. They were good. Stoudts Pils is one I havnt seen before, but it's hoppy goodness was certainly appreicated on a crisp fall afternoon.

Cheers,

FGR.
(photo – My LG Razor cell phone)

Umbrella Girl of the Week

Last Sunday was Sepang. Malaysia is not as loose as say Indianapolis, so umbrella girl fashions are a bit more conservative. Still, she is a cutie!



Rossi wins again, and my beloved Ducati team only placed as high as 6th with Stoner. I'd say Mrs. Stoner kinda sums up Ducati's performance.



Cheers,

FGR.

(Photos: Crash.net)

Training Route Test Embed

This map is my route from last nights training ride. This is also a test of the embedding feature of mapmyride.com



Click on VIEW FULL

Then once that window is loaded click on VIEW THIS ROUTE IN 3-D MAP to load it into Google Earth

It seems to work. Yeah!

Cheers,

FGR