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Metabolic efficiency

Alright, so for those of you that are out there and interested in the science behind training I will give you an eye into what our nutritionist is currently working on and what I’m able to take a part in.  The thought is based off of some work done by Bob Seebohar, however, the goal is to see if there is (and if so what is) the result of doing work at threshold on our Metabolic efficiency.  For those of you that don’t know/understand what metabolic efficiency is: roughly it is the amount of work, or in this instance power, that your body is capable of doing while still burning fat as your predominant source of fuel.  The purpose behind this is because we have a nearly unlimited amount of fat stores to fuel our body but carbohydrate stores are limited and we can only eat so much in a day.  So…the graph below is mine… Apparently right now I’m not super efficient and weird because there shouldn’t be 2 crossover points.  
So, “What are we doing to try to increase metabolic efficiency?” you ask.  Well here’s a quick screen shot of it:
So, this is 4x10min at threshold with 5 minutes of recovery in between.  Seebohar’s research focused on low intensity work (no tempo or threshold) to get the resulting improvements in efficiency.  The problem with this is that if you have minimal time to train you may see gains in metabolic efficiency but you may actually see decreases in fitness.  This is why we are putting focus on threshold work for those of us who are less fortunate and don’t have 20hrs/wk to ride our bikes.
I will keep you posted as we are going through the next several weeks of training as well as the results of the final efficiency test.  So keep your eyes posted.

Florida recap

Last Friday Janelle, Kate and I took off for Tallahassee, Florida. Janelle and I had our concerns about the flight and how Kate would handle it but she took it like a champ! We had two flights there and two flights back and nearly the whole time she had a great view of the back of her eyelids.

She handled the airports well to and we took this time to try to keep her awake as much as possible in the hopes that she would continue to sleep.

Once in Florida we had a nice relaxing time and Saturday morning we took a little trip to the beach so Kate could get her toes in the sand and more importantly momma could get some pictures.




And then Saturday night was a fun filled evening of football! FSU play Clemson and it was a game that came down to wire with FSU ending up on top in the end.

Sunday was a little A.M. lounging and then back to the airport for more flights.

Are we there yet?


Seriously guys… let’s be done with this!

FLORIDA BOUND!

Well my fellow readers(for those of you that can read and don’t just look at the pics). Tomorrow morning Janelle, Kate and I leave for Tallahassee, Florida to spend some time with one of my athletes. I had the pleasure of spending a full week with him and his crew in June for Race Across the West and now Janelle will have the opportunity to meet a great group of people too! Have a great weekend and there will be more to come…

Well, last weekend was at best a rough one. Kate was sick on Friday and then Saturday I was sick with the stomach flu or something. Magically Janelle avoided it and has been fine since.

Sunday though we did go over to the Cunningham’s (Janelle’s sister) for Halloween and had a great time with them for Halloween. Kyle and I went trick ‘r treating with the kids and Janelle, Kate and Ginger stayed home and handed out candy.


It was amazing the haul that 4 kids bring in for about an hour or so of trick or treating! Check it out. I was a little disappointed though that they weren’t running from house to house. As much as Walker wanted to he just couldn’t motivate the girls to pick up the pace though… poor guy!
The week has been pretty uneventful for the most part. Kate had a 4 month checkup and it turns out she’s freakishly tall and skinny like her old man…big surprise. She is the 93rd percentile for height and 25th for weight… My bad! All in all though she is a healthy happy baby and Janelle says that she thinks this stage is “the most fun yet”. She is recognizing faces, smiling like crazy, giggling and not able to talk yet (I added the last part) so you’ve gotta love it right?!
Wednesday group ride was interesting though… Apparently some moron was obstructing traffic and exchanged some choice words with one driver which ultimately resulted in the whole group getting pulled over by the popo(I think we had all of the Fountain PD there…). It’s the perfect example that the few ruin it for the rest. After 4 cop cars, a motor bike, some defusing of the situation (of the driver) and 20 min or so we were back on the road. Me and several others were so frustrated at the ignorant rider though that we at least made sure that the pace was high enough for the remainder of the ride that the group stayed plenty strung out. For those of you that do ride please remember that you are VERY vulnerable on the bike so if someone does make an attempt to exchange words just apologize (whether you are/aren’t in the wrong) and move on. If you are a jerk you make the roads less safe for every other cyclist that person may encounter again. I don’t know how you feel about your life but I know mine is worth a whole lot so if you want to endanger yourself do it some other way than making motorists angry please. A few recommendations are playing tag with a rabid badger, steal Mike Tyson’s tiger or being Ike Turner’s girlfriend/wife(not really possible anymore).
This weekend has been a good one though. We hung out with the Cunningham’s last night for dinner a movie and some down time. It has been so nice having them so close to us! We get to see them quite often and after seeing them 1-2 times a year for 4+ years it’s a nice change of pace to have dinner every couple of weeks with them, if not more.
Today was the typical errands and now all 3 girls are asleep on the couches. Kate is downstairs with me and Janelle and Kiya are sharing a couch upstairs(Janelle misses cuddling with Kiya a lot I think).
Today is day three off of my “take two weeks off and quit program.” NAH, just kidding. It is day 3 off though and to be honest it has been kind of nice. Motivation has been really low this fall to ride and to race but the nice thing is that I really only have to workout 2-3 days a week to stay in good shape so if I don’t feel like riding not a huge deal. The bonus is not having to worry about days like this! 🙂

Pre Halloween partying

This weekend was a great weekend. We spent Saturday with Makayla and Payton (nieces) at their soccer games as well as going to the Venetucci farms pumpkin patch. Both girls lost their games but had a great time and Payton came away with some hardware even. After the games it was on to lunch and the pumpkin patch. Kate and my first visit to a pumpkin patch.



Saturday night Janelle, Kate and I went over to the Pulford’s to hang out eat some great food (predominantly desserts), pumpkin carving and relax a little bit.
Sunday was a “do nothing Sunday” as Janelle called it…not sure what that means though because I blew out the sprinkler system lines, ran errands and we did laundry. Does anyone else feel like you do 2-3 times more laundry than clothes you actually wear?!?

A day at the races…

Well, you’ve got good days and you’ve got bad days for racing. Unfortunately today was one of those not so good days. The temperature was great, and the course was fun and challenging but unfortunately the body was not firing on all cylinders. I made the huge mistake of letting a gap form on the back section of the race where we had a tail wind and then once I turned into the headwind I was not able to bridge back up and then ended up burying myself for the whole race. As I tell my athletes though, “I would rather you finish last than drop out because things are going exactly as you want.” It would look bad if I DNF’ed(Did Not Finish) because I wasn’t racing at my best, character building isn’t as fun as it sounds… I have to apologize for the short socks…I lost my socks before the race started and had to go with what was already on my feet, unfortunately it made me look more like a triathlete than anything else…

We did stop at K’s for some shakes.

And then at the Wolf Reserve to see if they would accept Kate since she was in her wolf hat…

“Please mom, don’t leave me!”

(I think she is growling here)
They were closed though… but who could get rid of this cutie!
More pictures will be posted tomorrow. Have a great night and thanks for reading!

Weekend here we come!

Boy, has it been a rough week. CTS was broken into earlier in the week and we had 3 bikes stolen. Click on the image below to follow the link and watch the videos and please if you know this tool please help us catch him! Kate has officially been sick now for 2 weeks. She has been fussy now for a week as I think it has caught up with her. She’s still as cute as ever though!

SEE! I told ya!
This weekend is looking to be eventful though. Janelle works Saturday so Kate and I are hanging out and then on Sunday we will be going to Buena Vista for a ‘cross race and I’m sure a shake from K’s for one of the best Shakes around! If you haven’t tried one before and you are passing through I strongly recommend you stop. It is well worth the wait, and there is almost always a 10-15min wait. See you out there racing!

Photos should be soon to come after the race on Sunday!

Last weekend

Sorry that it has taken me so long to get this up but it’s been a pretty hectic week and time has been stretched pretty thin. Even though it’s been busy it has been a good week. Cooke stayed with us on Wednesday night on his way back home to Washington. That crazy fool decided he was going to trailer his Mustang and drive it from KS to WA which was like 26 hrs or so… No thanks! Either way it was great to have him come by and drink a few beers. It proves how much of a lightweight I am though because 3 beers in 3-4hrs was a bit much it seemed.

Alright, so now on to the story of last weekend. We headed to Denver Sat morning and I raced at 12:40. It was a bit warmer than I care for, at about 91 degrees, and the dust was flying for sure. I jumped into the “Open” race which is P/1/2 category riders and unfortunately it was a small race starting at only 14 racers. It was definitely a race of attrition though on a very dusty rough course and only 9 of us ended up finishing. 60 minutes later the pain and suffering was over and I was pleased not only to have finished but to have finished ahead of a cat 2 racer and only 15 seconds behind another cat 3 racer who was beating me by minutes last year.

After the race we grabbed some lunch and then went looking for some colorful aspen trees. Needless to say we didn’t find any… but we did find some nice views! I also added more pictures to the Photo page so don’t miss those!



Fabucross weekend!

Well, this is the first weekend that will be free for a race. Janelle, Katelyn and I will all be heading to Denver for a race on Sunday. I will be doing the open race and we will see how it goes. My new bike came in early this week and the guys at Colorado Cyclist got it built up for me in time for me to get a ride in on it and dialed in a bit to race this weekend. Now all I need to do is throw the race wheels on it and have some fun!

Keep your eyes peeled for some more pictures of the weekend either Sunday night or Monday.