


more pics here.
. . . in the few days since I left my garden had burst into bloom. And this was only the beginning, my wisteria, clematis, climbing rose and peonies were all coming along nicely. What a heart-warming surprise to come home to. As Candide said, "we must cultivate our garden"; that is the meaning of life. When one door closes, another one opens, we just need to accept this change and let ourselves pass with open minds and hearts through that door.
for all the pictures from the weekend, click here.
I want you 2 skip coffee. Much more important for you to sleep an extra 45 to 60
min than get caffeinated.
scene were I stopped and saw a Great Blue Heron
and meandered my way back to campus, through campus, and back to the Marriott. It was a stunningly beautiful day and I was lucky to be able to enjoy it in good health. I was going to get back, shower, stretch, and find myself a coffee shop in town and do some writing. There was this great coffeehouse called “Saints”—the very same joint where I stood up Ryan this morning, and I set up camp there.
(By the way Ry, I am truly sorry that due to self-absorption brought on my by my bitter dissapointment I assumed that Kuhn had called you and told you we would not be meeting you, that was truly lame and I would have been pissed if a friend did it to me, I owe you a beer, even tho by the next time I see you you will have forgotten about it)
It was nice to have some time alone to coax the cacophony of negative thoughts in my head into an epiphany of sorts. My life had turned from a honeymoon at the end of 2007 into an extremely stressful uphill battle in terms of my career, my athletic pursuits and my financial and personal life. Maybe uphill was too linear a term; really in all of these pursuits, especially my emotional life, it was more like a rollercoaster, and the uncertainty was making me crazy.
Annie interrupted these thoughts with a phone call asking if I was okay. Yes, of course, I would come back to the hotel and meet them all for dinner at 5:30. That was not completely true. I wanted to get into my car and go back to Philadelphia and see Max. I had heard via email from Chris that Max had hurt his back mountain biking, and I wanted nothing better than to spend my Saturday evening with him and Gryphon, Madison, Chloe and Diesel, our little pack of hounds.
When we got into the lobby, the choice was to go out to dinner or order in so we could take advantage of coaching on power file analysis and a demonstration of some basic bike maintenance. Everyone wanted to eat in except me-- outvoted. We ordered from Ruby Tuesdays, Annie and I got a bottle of red wine and a six-pack of Harp for the group, and we sat in the room and watched Mike messing around with that sweet new Cannondale SuperSix he got for being the fearless leader of VisitPA. I finally got an idea of how to adjust a derailleur; might come in handy when I don’t have a mechanic anymore.
Holden talked about the importance of ignoring the PT and learning to really cultivate your ability to perform by perceived effort. This is something I struggle with, and I said that I felt like I treated my body more like a child that needed to be disciplined rather than a highly trained vessel with emotional, intellectual and physical needs. In other words, these needs require that I shut up and listen once in a while, rather than try and control. I really feel that I need to develop that trust and innate understanding of my body’s needs and this was the key to becoming a successful athlete rather than merely a recreational rider.
We then looked at the setup in TrainingPeaks and the various charts and graphs pertaining to power & performance. Mike had analyzed our power data from Friday and Saturday and pointed out some interesting things, although I found it valuable, any talk or comparison of my power data was conspicuously absent, since my numbers were so much lower than they should have been.
It was getting late, and everyone headed off to bed. Mike and I discussed my baffling underperformance this weekend and tried to piece it all together. I had rested before the camp, taking off Monday and Tuesday. I had eaten plenty during the camp. My TSS scores on Wednesday and Thursday were not off the charts. I had been sleeping well, although probably not quite enough.
“What about your sudden weight loss?” he asked.
“yeah, well I did lose 5 pound in 3 days, but I have gained a couple back. I don’t think it was the weight loss itself so much,” no, I was thinking, just the extreme distress and despair that came when the only person I have ever really loved in my entire life decided that he needed to cut me loose. I think those three days were some of the worst of my life, and I have not been right since, even though Max and I have since patched things up. “I have not had one good workout since then . . . ” I said wistfully, biting my lip.
“Didn’t you go on some extreme workout the next day, when you weren’t eating?”
Yeah, I did, a 3.5 hour hard mountain bike ride when all I had eaten all day was a bar and some coffee. I killed one-brake Jake at Belmont, and by the time it was getting dark and we did half the Wiss, he made me stop and turn around since I was so upset. “Go home and live to ride another day Andrea” he had said. But I did not want to stop riding, as exhausted as I was, because I knew once I got home my mind would go into overdrive. I’ll never forget those words.
“There has to be something else though,” Mike said. It still just did not add up.
I told them I would not be riding with them in the am. It was supposed to rain, and I knew it would be more of the same if I tried to do the 50-miler. Everyone else was hurting as well, except maybe Annie the Giant, who was bitterly disappointed this afternoon when she got back form the 87 mile ride and Holden was too tired to take her swimming. Mike told her she was nuts and to get some rest.
So that was Saturday. I was hoping I would feel well enough to take the mountain bike out Sunday, but knew it would probably not happen. So it as off the bed with heavy legs and an even heavier heart.
I think I was the only one that put sunscreen on; everyone else got a pretty good sunburn on their arms. Holden actually worked on my bike, it turns out triathletes do know how to clean a chain.
We headed off to preview the TT course. The TT course was a 10-mile loop with 3 turns and a rolling profile. Once on it, Mike Williams got the first of 3 flats. That's right, 3 flats on the same wheel. This was unfortunate for me, because I don't fare well when there is constant stopping. As a result my legs felt pretty crappy the first time through.
We talked about technique, practiced taking turns as efficiently as possible while avoiding the 6 dead animals strewn throughout the course, then rode it again. In case you were wondering, there were 2 squirrels, an opossum, a woodchuck, and a deer that I think no one else noticed because it was off to the side and almost comletely decomposed, and some other thing I could not identify. The second time my legs felt much better, and I was able to push harder through the rollers, until Mike told us to chill out and back it off. I had packed enough bars and gels for an easy 40 mile ride, but actually after doing the course again, and taking a dirt road back with a ton of potholes, I actually bonked at mile 41. I mean we were only few miles from home. I had to stuff down a mocha clif shot just to be able to ride home. It ended up being 47 miles in all.
When I downloaded my power tap data, it turns out my TSS was a lot higher, 172, than it was after the wednesday night ride, 148. My energy expenditure was 1118 kJ. Not surprising that I bonked after eating only 2 bars, and 2 gels, 2 bottles of weak sports drink. I could have used one more bar I guess, and I thought I was in the hole a little. Annie ate one gel and one bar the entire ride. Damn, think how powerful she would be if she ate more, she seriously kicks ass now.We got back at 5, and decided to meet in the lobby for dinner at 6. Everyone was starving. We went to Fascia Luna for dinner, one of the few restaurants in state college where Holden DID NOT work, and Annie found out, after we had waiting an hour for a table, that there was absolutely nothing on the menu that was gluten-free. Even the risotto had gluten in it!? So she had a salad and went back to the hotel room and chowed down on the carbs I had procured at Wegman's, many of them gluten-free and chocolate-flavored.
We were joined by Levi the Saris rep, who was pretty damn funny and convinced me that I needed to srping for the new PTs that just came out for disc brakes. I wanted to get one for the Yeti, but cash is a little hard to come by these days, not like when I was livin' large in 2007. While he was telling us a story about his younger days he kept referring to the US as "the lower 48." Where did you go to high school?, I asked.
"North Pole high school."
"is that in Alaska?" I asked, feeling pretty stupid. Hey give me a break, we don't own the whole f'in North Pole.
"Yeah." wow, no wonder he was so funny. It's amazing how growing up somewhere WEIRD makes you seem so refreshing to us pedestrian lower-48 public school types.
So that was Thursday. Annie and I went back to the room, and I proceeded to check email, write this blog, and generally stay up way to late since we had to be up at 6:45. The plan for Friday was ride easy to the TT course, do the TT, ride easy back, andf then in the afternoon the tri-geeks would run and swim, and Kuhn, Mike Williams, myself and perhaps Leech would tackle Rothrock State forest. I was incredibly psyched to be able to check out the trails up here, and went to bed looking forward to Friday.