100 days left and $1200 to go

As of March 1st I officially have 100 days left to train before "The Ride"... Not only that but I also need to raise another $1200 dollars in order to meet my personal goal.  I'm already over 50% of the mandatory $2500, but I'm trying to get a little bit extra. I'm actually trying to give 120%.. haha.

So far things have been going pretty well, though fundraising has find of ground to a stand still.  Work has got in the way of living and I haven't been able to devote a lot of time to updating this blog or even go to spinning classes during the week.  At this point, the only real training that I'm doing is going to the two-hour RTCC training sessions on Sunday.  Don't get me wrong, that's pretty great but I'll definitely have to step things up and devote a good amount of time to riding later into the year.  As the orientation leader said in the first meeting I went to "This is not something that you can cram for the night before... It won't work. You definitely DEFINITELY need to invest effort ahead of time."

In other news, I'm hoping to build myself a guerilla camera mount in order to mount my little point and shoot camera to my handlebars.  I've been looking into a few different solutions and so far the simplest solution is by MacGuyver-ing a bit of PVC in order to accept a 1/4" threaded bolt that'll screw into the bottom of the camera.  That being said, I'm a little concerned about how huge my handlebars are.  No seriously, 3T Rotunda bars are huge!  Between the size of the bars and the size of the stem, it's quite the hefty setup, though AMAZINGLY light... oh yeah.

I should probably cut this short... I'm at work waiting for stuff to compile. woo!

See you at the finish line!
KR

Hardest ride to date

So last week's training ride has proven to be the hardest yet.  It was a profile ride of what day 1 will be, albeit a heck of a lot of the ride had been trimmed off to fit into a two hour class.

Here are some facts from my heart rate monitor that will mean nothing to a bunch of people I'm sure.

Total time: 1h 56m
Average heart rate: 170BPM
Peak heart rate: 191BPM
Minimum heart rate: 102BPM (during cool down)
Total calories used: 2150

I've been really bad with updates lately due to a project that's taking up a HUGE percentage of my time.  Also I seemed to have had norwalk or something evil this week so I've been feeling a little under the weather.  I'm aiming to get into the groove of updating a lot more often in the future.  Hopefully every second day or something like that.  Fingers crossed!

Lack of updates, sorry all!

Hi everyone! I'm sorry that I've been so sporadic when it comes to updates.  Things have been going pretty well in RTCC training.  We're gradually increasing our overall climb times in order to prepare for the actual climb up Hamilton Mountain.  I've been thinking about what route we'd be taking up the mountain considering that it's HIGHLY unlikely that we'd be able to shut down the highway for that long for all of the riders from Toronto to climb.  The only thing that I can think of is that we'd go up the Jolly Cut or something along those lines.  Only time will tell!

February 12th's training session was pretty good, though I felt like I couldn't try as hard.  My lower back was a little messed up from sleeping weirdly so I had to keep straightening up ever ten minutes or so.  By the time we were doing our final drill I couldn't stay in the saddle very long at ALL.

As per Erin's advice I decided to try coconut water as an electrolyte replenishment drink.  I put in a little bit of E3Live as well in order to give myself some amino acids.  I also put in some lemon juice and a pinch of sea salt in order to replace some of the essential salts I'd be sweating out.  It still tasted pretty potently of coconut, which was alright by me.  I had a few people ask what the intensely dark green drink I had was.

I've recently noticed that the front derailleur on my bike seems to be rubbing the chain when I pedal.  I'm not sure how I can fix it, but I've been told from the guys at Wheels of Bloor that it's an inherent issue with the smaller frames.  Somehow I find that hard to believe but I thought I'd bring it in to get a once over... this is their job after all.

I can't wait to get on the road and start getting in some serious riding.  There's something that pavement beneath your wheels just feels different than being in a studio.  For one, ROAD VIBRATIONS are a giant nuisance that you don't realize.  Man do your arms get tired quickly.  I noticed that my tires are hella soft too.  Considering those bad boys are supposed to be over 100psi, I could pinch them with my fingers!! That's definitely not supposed to be possible.

We'll see what happens.  I think I've stalled out for donations at this point.  But it's only halfway through February.  Lots of time to fundraise!  Almost 50% there.

Still need to worry about surviving the day to day office life though.

G'night all!
KR

Spinning class is a different beast

total time minus cool down: 56
Average Heart Rate: 164 bpm
Peak Heart Rate: 181 bpm
min Heart Rate: 94 bpm
Total calories: 950

Some interesting training numbers for fitness nerds

So I've finally figured out how to store information about my workouts in my heart rate monitor so I can review it after my workout.

Here are some general stats in regards to my Feb 5th RTCC training session.

Routine

15 minutes warmup

10 minutes uphill climb
5 minutes flat natural cadence
[repeat hill/flat 5x]

5 minutes single-leg drills

10 minutes high-cadence drills

5 minutes high-cadence, high tension

10 min cool down and stretching.


HRM stats


Total time: 1:50:00 (I don't typically count 'cool down' as part of my workout)
Average heart rate: 170 BPM
Peak heart rate: 184 BPM (based on the 'rule of thumb' calculation, my maximum HR is 192)
Min heart rate: 112 BPM
Total Caloric Burn: 1,938 calories

Not too shabby eh?  I almost burnt an entire day's worth of food in under TWO HOURS.  I can't imagine what those numbers are going to look like during the ACTUAL ride :D

Thanks for checking in,
KR

New video! Vlog #3, thoughts and all that jazz

Quick note... 600!

600 views!  Actually...619!

Between the donations that I've been getting today and the weather... it's definitely time for me to go to spinning tonight.  I've been itching to go but classes keep filling up since the weather's been so cold and bleh.  I'll have to muscle my way in and get going!

In case anyone's wondering, I go to RPM Spinning + Gravity in Bloor West.  They're really friendly and definitely work you out.  But as always, you've got to put your best effort in otherwise you're just wasting your time!

Alright, I've been slacking with content... Video tomorrow!