Muscle Fatigue? not me!

I'm going out with the guys I now work with (started a new job on monday) for a few drinks tonight to celebrate. I think working with brantas will be an excellent experience for me and I am sure that I will learn loads. It's currently a small consultancy but hey sometimes its better to work with like minded dedicated people than it is to constantly batter your head against a brick wall in a large corporation.

Cycling is the same - sure I could go and train with a local cycling club but they dont - in my opinion - have the same drives as me and the guys doing this sponsored cycle do. They love cycling. I think it's ok. They like cycling long endless routes punctuated with the odd stop for a quick glucose drink. I like to cycle shorter more varied routes that introduce a bit of excitement to the journey.

Today unfortunately I wont get out on my bike but in preparation for the cycle on Sunday to Aberfoyle I will be starting to load on carbs. Two breakfasts of muesli with extra nuts to give myself a bit of a boost with protein to help build the structures to store ATP (adenosine triphosphate) as an energy source. I'll be increasing the carbs (both simple and complex) through the day to ensure that I have plenty of energy on Sunday.

But why do I need energy stores? Well during Aerobic exercise your body burns oxygen and the fuels stored in your body to provide the energy for your muscles to move. If you restrict any of the parts your body needs then you will tire out more quickly, or worse still start to make your muscles work Anaerobically and risk masses of lactic acid build up.

Some controversy here - recently studies have shown that Lactic acid is just another fuel that your body creates for its muscles to work. Now - in an every day persons case like you and I - your body wont have the right proteins or receptors to convert that lactic acid to energy and so your muscles will run out of steam when the glycoids in your system run out. By training at a higher intensity (as we did last night with those buses chasing us) your body will be forced to create the proteins and receptors in a higher concentration making your muscles able to convert more of that lactic acid into energy.

Now get out there and pedal like you've never pedaled before!

Urban Terror!

Most people think that cycling in parks is the only way to do it - the scenery; the quiet and the occasional manic depressive squirrel that tries to commit hari kiri under your bike tyres. Yeah its nice to see but it doesn't motivate you to push yourself to extremes like a 12 ton bus moving at 30 miles an hour trying to make pavement pizza out of you.

So instead of the usual Pollok Park then Bellahouston Park cycle round a hill and avoid some dogs we decided to cycle to the west end of town and back. That meant using the main road through glasgow, and on thursday night thats like walking into a room of hairy bikers and asking which Jessie parked their bike in the way of your car.

On the way home we chose to take the direct route home, through the busy shopping precinct on late night shopping - don't ask why you wont like it...no really you won't. There's lots of pretty girls out there shopping on a sunny day and its a welcome distraction from the burning in our legs. There are some really fun "technical" sections that you have to be extremely careful when cycling on. Like "try to get past Ann Summers without crashing into someone whilst still looking in the window", and then theres the always fun "Lets see how many people you can make scream when you appear at the top of the stairs at 15 mph".

All in all - probably the most fun I've had training in the past few weeks.

Muesli - a model for life!

Ok, so here I am back from a very drunken weekend in Prague. That didn't help my training one bit or did it? If you've been following the blog you will know we managed to cycle pretty quickly from Glasgow to Loch Lomond a few weeks ago.

So why the hell did my legs hurt so much from the walking?!

Well once I sobered up after being drunk for four days, I thought about it. When you walk you extend your leg forward, that means your hamstring and calf get stretched by the opposing muscles contracting. However when you press down on the pedal your leg never fully extends so you end up with powerful short strokes of the muscle but no power or strength over a long stroke of the muscle.

The problem doesn't really matter - it won't stop me being able to complete the cycle. What will happen though is that by limiting the movement of the limbs the muscles will start to contract and further restrict the movement causing more problems when trying to extend the legs and is one of the reasons I can't run for a mile despite being able to cycle 20+ miles.
So whats the next step? I could stop cycling and that would allow me to regain the full range of movement without any additional pain.

BUT

We all know thats not going to happen. I am far too stubborn to give in. Doing one kind of exercise is the problem. It's important to mix your exercise up to ensure that you are getting the most out of it - much the same way that Muesli is better for you than Corn Flakes. The wide mix in it has a better range of nutrients than the single ingredient alternative. Think of it this way...would you prefer to live on pasta for the rest of your life or have the option from an all you can eat buffet every day?

I used to do a lot of kick boxing and martial arts when I was younger; and thanks to my incredible sponge of a brain I can still remember all the exercises from then. Muscle Memory is great and helps you realise when you do things wrongly as it just doesn't feel right. So from now on my training will include some kick boxing exercises at home. I'll go over them later - I don't want to bore you with the details. Rest assured I shall not be posting images of me doing splits.

The right tool for the right job

Right, so if you're following this blog you know we've been racking up a fair number of miles in a pretty short time and will be racking more and more up as the weeks go on. As our bodies need proper maintenance (food, rest and exercise) so do our bikes.

To maintain the bike you need a few essential tools - remember using the right tool for the right job will ensure that you dont damage your bike or more importantly yourself -either during the maintenance or worse. Just imagine your wheels deciding to fall off when you are travelling at 30mph down hill.

So...which tools do you need. Well it depends on your bike. I'm not going to pretend I know much about those fancy carbon fibre road bikes and will instead concentrate on the mountain bike as its my favourite.

Never leave home without:

• a multi tool like this one from topeak
• a puncture repair kit - no brainer really.
• a good pump (ideally with a big barrel and dual action so you inflate the tyre in half the time).
• a set of tyre levers - well kind of obvious given my habit for picking up punctures recently.
• a chain splitter - it can also be used to rejoin chains if they snap.
  

At home - if you are interested in your bike as we are you should have at least:

• A set of allen keys - for tightening/loosening most components.
• A decent number 2 phillips screwdriver - for adjusting the derailleurs.
• A decent number 2 flat screwdriver - might be needed for the derailleurs too.
• Pliers - for helping tension gear cables.
• Wire cutters - to cut the gear cables to length.
• A 14mm spanner (open ended)

And finally - for the competent mechanics amongst us (or wanna-be grease monkeys):

• A crank puller - to remove the cranks so you can get to the crank bearings
• A chain whip - to help you remove the rear freewheel mechanism
• A Locking nut - for your specific gear set so you can remove it. Shimano uses different means from other manufacturers and even within its own range.
• a BottomBracket tool - again watch out for the manufacturer and model as it will be different for each one.
• 3/8" Ratchet Drive - because I am lazy and dont like using spanners unless I really have to!
• and loads of grease!

I'll not bore you with the details of how to maintain your bike just yet; but I will say this for now, its important to make sure that the chain is well oiled (use oil not grease) and that the bike is left upside down overnight at least once a week if you have suspension to allow the top seals to be kept free from any perishing effects from drying out. A rubber o-ring might seem an innocuous piece of kit but if you dont take care of the smallest detail it can let you down big time.

I'll use rest days to ensure that my bike is running as it should to help ensure that the training is as problem free as possible.

Onwards and Upwards!

Positive mental attitude is a wonderful thing. Not only can it make you feel better but it has actually been proven that your body works better when you visualise the exercise and its result before you carry it out.

All along we knew that the cycle from Gothenburg to Oslo was going to be difficult. None of us even for a moment thought "this is going to be easy". I don't think there's any point in doing it if it wasn't going to be difficult. But from our cycle at the weekend we've been on a high - renewed motivation, more enthusiasm and definitely more happy in demeanour.

Why?

Well - we've come up with a plan that will undoubtedly ensure that we succeed in the venture. First of all, we've given up training on the normal cycle routes. Instead we've found some routes with climbs of 400m in altitude in less than a mile - that doesnt sound a lot but a 1:4 gradient on a bike is actually pretty steep.

Tom has managed to get a hold of a copy of a book of cycle routes in scotland - some mediocre, some easy and some insanely difficult. Its our aim to cover about 70 miles in a day with a mixture of hills and flat before we ever set foot in an airport.

When we are able to manage 70 miles we'll be mentally prepared for the 60miles per day that we need to manage. Half the battle will already be won.

All we need to ensure is diet and nutrition are taken care of.

Resting

Well - since today is a rest day theres not much I can talk about. My legs are fully recovered from yesterdays cycle - to be honest they feel a little tight but in a good way. I lost a bit of weight yesterday due to dehydration from perspiration. I'll be hoping to fix this today by eating and drinking enough to regain that liquid and hopefully build a bit of muscle.

I know most people don't worry about maintaining their weight but with very active crohns and short bowel syndrome I really have to watch my diet.

In short I eat a lot - high protein, high carb, high poly unsaturated fat diet. When I am training I drink about 500mls isotonic drink over 30 mins before the work out. During the training I drink about 500mls and then after I use specialised SIS after workout powders to help retain the energy in muscles and stop cramping.

During the day at work I just drink lots of water, and Coffee when things go bad :) Always with sugar though just to bump up the calories!

The Diet
Breakfast (6.30am)
Each day starts with a large bowl of nut based Muesli with added bananas and full fat milk. Occasionally I will use thick and creamy yoghurt instead of milk just to boost the calories a little.

Mid Morning snack(9.30am/10.00am)
A roll with bacon and potato scone (or when I've planned ahead a roll with ham and cheese and a few chocolate biscuits).

Lunch (12.00noon)
Two rolls with chicken mayonnaise, a bag of crisps, mars bar and a cake (Muffin/Rice Crispie cake/Millionaire short bread) - and two bananas if I feel healthy that day.

Afternoon Snack (3.30pm)
Normally a banana or a pack of crisps - I should increase this but I find too many carbs will cause a bit of a lull.

Dinner (6.00pm)
Pasta with a tomato sauce, then Chicken or Steak, potato wedges and a dessert (Yoghurt with strawberry Jam or 1/2 pint custard).

Evening Snack (throughout)
Normally a tube of biscuits (Chocolate Chips or Custard Creams).

Supper (10.30pm onwards)
Muesli or cereal - this time make sure the carb content is more than the protein. As you will be sleeping soon the carbs will be converted to energy stores more readily.

So thats it. I could make my rest day during the week but having it on a sunday allows me to catch up with all that boring house work that we all have.

The Bonnie Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond

Well things looked bad this morning: I went to bed at 3am after a long night drinking; I woke up at 7am; and to top it all off I found my front tyre was punctured! Argh!

It didn't bode well for a trip to Loch Lomond at all.

Things got better though. The weather was amazing, probably one of the hottest days of the year. I love this kind of weather as it means I don't have to worry about keeping warm. We set off about 1.45 to meet Douglas at the SECC. The first ten or so miles were really straight forward, we stopped at Mags Cycle Shop for some drinks and chocolate - well we had just caned it along a canal route on mixed terrain.

After the stop though - the legs really didnt want to move again but we managed to get the next 6 miles done without any incident. We soon started to smell the salt air of the sea and then the cooler air from Loch Lomond started to help us fight off the fatigue.

I'm really surprised at the trail - I had thought it was going to be a boring path all the way but thankfully some bits are not paved; other bits are asphalt and theres even a short section of just mud track.

We arrived at Loch Lomond about 2 hours after settings off - meaning we achieved out target 12 miles per hour. This demanded a pint to celebrate, Tom obviously prepared bought us a bottle of Koppaberg Pear Cider from Tullies Bar. Probably the most refreshing pint in the world.

Easy like Sunday morning

Today is a rest day. No exercise. Just lots of carbohydrates and protein. Tomorrow I'll be cycling at least 25 miles - hopefully the full way back too as part of the first endurance test me and the guys I'll be cycling with are doing. We'll set off about 1pm and hopefully make it to the destination by 3pm.

Why a rest day today? Well simple, muscles get tired of doing the same thing every day; they also build energy stores up when you aren't using them. Ahead of the actual event there will be no training for three days but this week as its only a short distance I'll be giving my legs a break.

Remember there's absolutely no point at all in training your muscles to the point of them collapsing. By giving them a days rest you give time for the muscle fibres to strengthen, knit new connections.

There's two types of muscle that will be involved in the training both of which need to be at their peak. There is Fast Twitch muscle and Slow Twitch muscle. Fast Twitch muscles are used to give you a short explosive burst of energy - trouble is regardless of who you are they WILL build up lactic acid fast. Slow Twitch muscles are designed to develop power repeatedly and without fatigue, your neck is a perfect example, it keeps your head up all day and you never really think "God my head is really heavy today".

Giving the Fast Twitch muscles time wont do much - typically they will recover much quicker than you think. Its the Slow Twitch muscles that need to take their time to recover. The same properties that makes the muscle take longer to fatigue mean that it takes longer to remove the build up of lactic acid and other harmful chemicals.

You can speed this up with deep tissue massage and hot/cold cycle baths but seeing as I don't have access to a masseuse and I had to put up with cold showers in early spring for three weeks I am not willing to do either just yet. Maybe closer to the time when I am getting desperate to get that bit extra out of myself.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers...

First things first, to fuel yourself you need to know your body type, everyone bandies about different terms but there are three generally accepted terms (I've simplified them in my own unique way) and note that you may fit a composite of two types instead of neatly into one:

• Ectomorph: normally small framed, with light muscle structure and finds it hard to gain weight.
• Endomorph: large frame, good muscle structure and gains weight more easily.
• Mesomorph: large frame, gains weight easily and less defined muscle structure.

Now, you Endomorphs and Mesomorphs are jammy gits, I hate you, pretty much anything you do to your diet will result in your body coping with the training.

Ectomorphs find it difficult to gain weight if at all. Normally upping your calorie intake by 1000 to 2000 calories a day should suffice.

You need to make sure you are eating the right foods though, 1000 cals of fat is going to harm anyone that eats it. If you need to train and need to gain weight then you should increase the carbs dramatically, and up the protein too.

Another trick I have is to snack at night, your body will normally still digest whilst you are asleep (somewhat slower) but you are expending far fewer calories; pack away some simple carbs and protein before bed and you will gain weight and be able to train properly without risking muscle fatigue as much.

Mr Motivator

It's important no matter what you are training for to remain motivated and ensure that you give it 100% every day. Theres nothing worse than becoming bored with the routine or the exercise you are doing.



I'm pretty lucky that I live near some actually quite pretty parks to cycle through, the advantage of this is that they arent flat like most of the city around them, they have hills and dips too. There's even some mountain bike trails to mix it up.



More important than that though is to ensure that you don't always do the same route. I normally do a mixture of cycling to work and then home (about 14 miles total) or get in around the parks for some killer hill training and use the crossways to make a relatively small park into a much longer route.

The importance of being idle

On waking today I noticed that my arms were stiff from over use - I stupidly pushed myself a bit further than I should have lifting weights and am now suffering from slightly tweaked tendons. Obviously it would be stupid to be lifting weights in this condition. And that brings me on to my point - over training.

Regardless of what type of training you are doing - its important to ensure that you give your body enough time to recover from whatever you put it through before you start again. You don't have to be exercising like this guy to be over training.

The best way I've found to figure out if you are overtraining or not is to check your heartbeat first thing in the morning, if its 10BPM more than your resting rate - today is going to be a rest day as your body is still recovering. That being said, unless you want to be Arnie or Sly then you'd only be lifting weights every second day.

But whats lifting weights got to do with riding a bike? not a lot to be honest, you can ride a bike all your life and never have to lift a weight, but I am taking a different view on this. We don't know what the terrain will be like in Sweden or Norway at all. Some of the roads will be rough. Thats a given. That means standing on the pedals, maybe lifting the bike on to my shoulder for a short distance and thats where upper body strength comes into play. Obviously the legs will be worked constantly from the cycle training but the arms and shoulders are basically relaxed all the time. Lifting weights will help increase their stamina and strength.

At the same time it should help maintain my body size and weight so that I dont become even skinnier than I am!

Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Yeah Brain but what would you do with a GPS tracked mobile phone a USB memory stick and a mountain bike?


Answer: Ride 10 miles to your old work place, drop off a memory stick and ride the long way home past some killer hills.





I took the opportunity today to test my endurance now that I've been cycling for a while and decided to set off from home after having only a bowl of cereal for breakfast. This might sound idiotic but I felt it necessary. It would allow me to gauge how my muscles have adapted to cycling and the distances. If I collapsed after 10 miles with muscle cramp, or my legs just couldn't work any more then I'd have to up the training; if I managed the 10 miles out without food or drink and just worked on the stored energy then the signs are good that I'm making progress.



Did I do it? hell yeah! 10 miles out to my old work to drop off a USB memory stick to someone that I borrowed it from ages ago and thats the first time I had any food fuel enter my system since breakfast this morning. On the way back though I had to use a lot more carbs to get me home. I decided though that now I could feel the muscles getting fatigued it was time to hit the killer hills and push them that bit harder - no pain, no gain after all!


On the way home I took a detour past Bellahouston park it has one of Glasgows tallest hills in the middle of it and would make perfect training for my legs and the unknown terrain of Scandinavia this year. Friends have been bugging me for a while to show them how steep the hill is (and I've added camera shots for you this time) but it doesn't quite get the sense of height or steepness when you are viewing a still image. Watch out for the live footage we will get soon!

Hey Presta!

Well given my adventure coming home on thursday night I decided to fit a different set of tubes to my bike...at least this way I would be able to use ANY bike pump/car pump to inflate my tyres and not left doing a half arsed rocky training montage sequence to get home.

I bought the new tubes, took my bike to bits and tried to fit them. They managed to get through the first hole in the rim but not the second one...who designed this bike?!

Never one to give up I got out my trusty drill and started drilling the rims VERY VERY carefully.

The result: a bike with NORMAL valves and me not being left stranded anywhere again. The lesson learned is that we have to ensure that when we do cycle to Norway that we have the right adapters and that the rims of ALL the bikes can take normal Schrader valves instead of the skinny Presta valves.

See what I did with the blog post title now? and you thought I just couldn't spell!

Ah well its all training...

On the way home tonight I suffered the worst luck ever...

Jumped a kerb and then promptly found that my tyre was flat...ARGH! I thought it wouldnt be an issue, I have a pump, a puncture repair kit and used to be a mechanic...

So there I am at the side of the road bike in bits and as I reach for the pump I find its missing. It must have fallen off at some point after leaving work and me getting the puncture but I'll be a monkeys uncle if I am going to go back and look for it.

There I am 5 miles from no-where, a flat tyre and no way to fix it. Damned Presta Valves!

In the end I did what I had to do, shouldered the bike and tried to Jog/Walk home the rest of the way. Hey its exercise and its all for a good cause. Jack didn't have it easy so why should I!

Pushing on...

Ah well with work and a little flare up of crohns I haven't been doing as much cycling as I wanted to. I cycled in to work today and it took me just over 40 mins - no improvement over last week. So for the next 7 days I am vowing that regardless of the weather I will complete two cycles per day - First thing in the morning and then another at about 7pm. With monday being a bank holiday I will be able to increase the distance that day and do about 25-30 miles in the one go to help prepare for August.

No excuses.

No trying to get out of it.

Everything comes second to the cycling - apart from pretty ladies...we all have our priorities in life.

How do we know its not all hot air? GPS Tracking

Obivously there is a concern that the 205 miles is too much and we wont be able to manage it. But we're In a foreign country with no "reliable" witnesses. So how do we prove we did the full distance and that we did it on bikes?


Simple, GPS Tracking. The company I work for has given us some GPS tracking devices which will be able to track and map our progress through the cycle over the 4 days.

This has a two-fold effect; it means you guys can tell exactly what we're doing; how fast we're going; what direction; and give a total distance. It also encourages us on our cycle, after all we know we cant slack off if a few hundred people are monitoring our progress daily.


Its all a bit technical - which I'd like to explain to you but I've long since given up on the technical explanation blog and decided to go with a more discursive one. If you want to know more ask http://www.irw.co.uk/ about Hawkeye and tracking a gps smart phone.


It's not about advertising but about ensuring that we remain motivated through possibly the best experience of our lives. There will be a lot of pain involved for the riders over the 4 days. I can just imagine though the feeling of elation and happiness as we arrive in oslo on day 4 and promptly collapse from fatigue. Yeah; we wont be able to sit for a week but it'll all be worth it.

decisions decisions

A friend told me today that he'd give me £1 a mile for cycling from Gothenburg to Oslo if i had streamers and a bell on my bike and rang the bell every time we came to a town. £205 is a lot of money for a fund raising cycle so I think I may have to go for it...oh dear!

I hate to admit it but the thought of making a fool of myself through two countries is just beyond my abilities - so in compromise I will do it for one day of the cycle which should land him a hefty enough sponsorship bill!

Cheers Jenny - your donation will be warmly received!

Mauro Masochist?

Well it seems all my friends at work have decided to rename me given my latest adventures. They all think I am nuts cycling the 8 miles to work and then 8 miles home each day - when I told them it was training as I was doing 205 miles in four days in August they nearly fell over!

So, where does this leave me? I gotta train hard over the next few months so planning on cycling a few times to Irvine, maybe Largs once and definitely Edinburgh from Glasgow.

If that wasnt bad enough - I've found myself signed up for climbing Ben Nevis in June. If you see me on the news I'll be the one lying upside down in a hundred foot deep gulley!

What daring adventure next? ... hmm... only thing more terrifying than the stuff above is asking a girl out...dare I?

Work Life Balance

Why is it people talk about work life balances? why isnt it a life work balance? A realisation of priorities and requirements to LIVE not to exist should mean that its a life work balance.

I'm guilty (probably more than most people) of putting my work before my life. And sometimes i have to admit, it helped me get on with things without having to deal with things i didnt want to deal with at the time. But, there comes a point where you have to ask yourself "what is it i am doing here? what am i going to get out of it?" For me that point came this weekend when my not even two year old nephew said "mauro busy, working, very busy shhhhh".

Ok so we all know some adults think others work too much, but when a kid who has no concept of work - never mind working too hard - spots youre always working you have to take a step back and think.

I guess over the next few weeks I'll have to make some pretty big changes in my life to ensure that I do actually have a life to balance with work.

On the run!

Ok, first things first, I have not been hiding from the law. I've been working a lot lately, infact pretty much all of 2006. I've been trying to get my skillset up to speed with the new web2.0 standards and all of the w3c Standards.

Unfortunately at work I am far too busy to spend time on study so I study at night by way of completing projects through Rent-A-Coder and for businesses as a way to study without studying.

My latest project is www.bestpricebulgaria.co.uk which a friend asked me to create. It was my first major project which I worked on my own.

Amazingly though, I managed it, I think at long last I decided that documentation was actually required and sticking with it may have been why I think the project as actually a success. So many times in the past I've started something and just dropped it when it was 80% done.