Spinning On Rollers - Learning As I Go

I just picked up a set of rollers from my tri club.  The Navy Tridents have some gear to lend out to members.  I  have spun on stationary bikes and on bike trainers but this really is my first foray on rollers.

A little research on google lead me to a number of videos showing how to set up rollers, how to get onto rollers and then a number of videos of people falling off rollers.  One thing I noticed is that everyone starts out fresh in the videos.  I wasn't able to find a video of someone when he/she was 30 minutes into a session.  As a result, the below video begins 15 minutes into a training session.

What I've learned so far:

• I try to look into the distance, but keep my front wheel, or handle bars, in my peripheral vision.  I was looking at the wall about 4 meters away, but I was unsteady on the rollers and kept drifting off the side.  When I keep my wheel/handle bars in my peripheral, I am very steady.
• Do not put your weight on the handle bars.  Support yourself with your core.  Once I start leaning on the bars, the bike becomes unsteady.  This being said, I can ride with my hands on the brake hoods, but haven't gotten my hands into the drops yet.
• Peddle in circles.  If I start mashing down on the peddles the bike gets into a jerky, back and forth motion.  You can hear the rollers making a noise that increases in pitch as I'm pushing down on my peddles.  I hope to correct this as I focus on circles.  The hope is that this will increase my speed during races.
• I think it helps to have a strong core to keep yourself stable on the bike.  I'm not there yet, but have been working on this for over a year with a bunch of different exercises.

Chlorine in the pool was ruining my hair!

Every swim season I face the same problem.  As soon as I hit the pool, my hair turns into straw.  It's dry and stiff and I'll almost say crunchy.  In the past I tried to gel it up but that really made things worse.

This season I decided that I'm going to find the solution.

• I tried a body wash/shampoo and that can best be described as horrible.
• I talked to women on the club and the best advice I got was to use a bunch of conditioner.  I tried that and it didn't really do the job.  I used a 2-in-1 shampoo that didn't work.  Then I took a bottle of conditioner and is sort of worked, but I was carrying a lot of stuff into the shower at the pool and it was inconvenient. And my hair was still sort of crunchy.
• I went to a hair salon and they told me to use a deep cleaning shampoo.  I bought the expensive shampoo and that really dried out my hair.  I tried the deep cleaning shampoo with a conditioner.....again a bunch of bottles that I have to carry around with no great effects

So at this point, I'm considering cutting my hair really short and just living with it.  I am a bit vain, because I am a 45 year old guy and I have hair.  Minds you, I don't have as much hair as I used to, but I don't want to cut it all off.

I decided to try a swim cap.

Bango! that was the solution!  

That's it...I started using a cheap 2-in-1 shampoo with a swim cap and I have all the control that I need!

Fighting the De-Motivation Storm

For me, exercise motivation comes in cycles.  Right now it’s November, and I am deep into the triathlon off season. My workout week pretty much looks like this:

• Monday Swim
• Tuesday 10k run (home from work)
• Wednesday 20k bike (to and from work) & half an hour of gym core exercises and I get to swim for an hour if I don’t have to lifeguard.
• Thursday 10k run (home from work)
• Friday Swim
• Saturday Spin and a half hour of core. Sometimes I squeeze in a 10k run before hand.

I’m also working on a thirty day ab-challenge, but I don’t think that really counts.  I am going to try to keep doing the challenge or something similar to strengthen my core.  So far, since the spring, I've completed most of a planking challenge and another ab challenge.

Sometimes I’m up at five in the morning to go for swim and I’m extremely motivated, I can’t wait to get to the pool.  I’m looking forward to the week’s workouts and generally feel great. 

I can’t predict when I’m going to hit a low cycle in my workouts, but it happens every once in a while.   It usually starts out like this:

I wake up at 5am and it’s dark and cold.  I go into the bathroom and I don’t recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror.  This guy’s hair looks like it belongs to a street person.  His eyes are blurry and the skin on his face is droopy and it looks like the muscles in his face haven’t woken up yet.  He’s staggering around a bit like he’s had a few drinks.  Nobody makes motivational posters about this guy. 

Every once and a while, I doze off while eating my breakfast.

When I feel like this I can still have a great workout, but sometimes I don’t. 

Other times the down cycle starts with a run.  Trying to squeeze a 10k run on tired legs after a long day in the office  will make me walk and turn a run into a sufferfest.  A tough slow run like this can de-motivate me for the next while.

Sometimes it lasts one or two days and other times it last a week or so.  I start asking myself what am I knocking myself out for? My legs are tired, my back is tired, my arms are tired and generally my head it tired.  When racing, I don’t win my age group (45-50yrs) and I don’t have any huge goals about becoming an age group champion.

I exercise to have fun, race to have fun and sometimes it isn’t fun.

In the past I’ve simply weathered the un-motivated storm knowing that eventually I’ll have a couple of good workout that will shake me out of my funk.

Lately, I’ve recognized that my body is sending me messages and is trying to tell me that I’m not treating it well.  If my muscles are tired, I’m probably not feeding them well.  If I’m tight, I have to stretch.  Sleep is also important.  I’ve fallen asleep at the supper table before and I know that I should never get myself in that position. 

I have to treat myself properly and that involves listening to my body.  As I’m getting more experienced, this is becoming easier.  I also have a great group of people that expect me to be at these workouts and that helps me drag myself to workouts when I don’t really want to be there. 

Generally I know my workouts are helping.  I’m getting faster in the pool and faster running.  I’m not spending enough time on my bike to get faster, but I’ve got plans to spin in the evenings and we’ll see how that goes.  

Morning Lake Swims

I've been asked why I get up at 5am two or three times a week to get into a lake and go for a swim.  My answers are usually, about training, triathlon, working on open water swimming and sighting.

The conversation usually ends around there.

I don't usually get too sappy, but mornings like this one in September make early swims all worth while.

Boomers Legacy - a spin-a-thon

A few weeks ago, I was told that the Navy Tridents Triathlon Club was putting a team into a spin-a-thon to raise funds for Boomer's Legacy and to honor our service personnel who have given their lives in service.  Before I did anything, I had to find out more about the fund. 

Boomer’s Legacy was created in the memory of Corporal Andrew “Boomer” Eykelenboom with the job of continuing to help people, as he helped, while deployed as a Medical Technician in the Canadian Forces.

Boomer Rides and spin-a-thons provide an important opportunity to spread awareness and honor  the sacrifices made by Canadian Forces members. You can find out more information by following this link: 
Boomer's Legacy 

February 28th rolled around quickly and it was time to ride so to speak.  Our spin-a-thon was a 24 hour spin with team members taking a shift.  My shift was from 2:00 - 3:30 am.  To make it more fun, I thought I'd do a run and then go to my regular swim workout after my spin shift.  It made the early morning kind of a mixed up triathlon.

On the way the gym - hydrating with a Tim's coffee

I never set my alarm to wake up at midnight before, but there is a first for everything.  Of course, I slept through my alarm and was rushing to get to the gym on time.

Notice that there wasn't enough time to brush my hair, but I did find the time to stop at Tim's and get a coffee.  I know that coffee is one of the worst drinks for hydration purposes, but falling asleep and taking a header off the spin bike isn't an ideal situation either.

To be honest, my hair usually looks bad.  It can best be described as having a mind of its own.  Swimming three days a week doesn't help the hair situation much.

Kasia, our team organizer, and me before my ride.

When I got to the gym, the music was blaring and about twenty people on bikes were givin'er.  Our team organizer was there to get me registered and set to go.  She was at the gym the entire twenty-four hours and was a real trouper at keeping everyone up and organized.

So I got onto the bike and relieved my teammate. I decided to take a photo every 30 minutes or so to document the degradation. 

The spin was pretty much the same as all indoor cycling.  It takes a while to get into a groove but once you do, it's pretty smooth and you just have to worry about boredom.  The music was loud and there were enough people around to keep my mind occupied.  Right around the 45 minute mark the spin became work.  

2:30 am

3:00 am - The smile is a bit of a grimmace

 At around three in the morning I noticed something wrong with one of my pedals.  When I stood up, there was a knocking noise and after I sat down the pedal seemed a bit wobbly.  The pedal was working itself loose.  

I jumped off the bike, grabbed a spare bike and climbed on that one.  I think the little break helped and mentally I knew I only had thirty minutes till I was done.  My relief rider arrived and so did my running buddy.  The company made the last stretch easy.

Getting ready for an hour run at 3:30 am.

I handed off to the next rider, got the bike adjusted for her and then I was off for some running.  

Tim was remarkably bright for waking up that early.  He was committed to the run as he got up early to run before his turn spinning.  I was already at the gym and was sort of killing time between the bike and swim which was later in the morning.

There was an old wooden track that is above the gym floor.  You can see the other spinners behind us.  I think they are more in focus than we are, but what can you do with a selfie. 

It was hard to tell how long the track is.  There was a sign that said 15.5 laps was 1.5 miles which means nothing to me.  After I got home, I sat down with a calculator and figured the track is about 155 meters long.  

We had a social run and chatted the entire time and had no idea how many laps we ran.  We ran for about an hour.  After Tim ran, his turn spinning started and I ran with Stacy.  I only had about 10 minutes or so running with her before my legs started to cramp up.  Time to stretch!

The three stooges ready for a swim.

Before I knew it, 6:00 am rolled around and it was time to head to swim.  Luckily, the pool is in the same building as the gym.  

This was the hardest swim I've ever had.  My arms were tired for some reason and I can only figure that all the blood was in my legs.  

The 600 meter warm-up was ok, but as soon as I got into the main set of 8 x 100, I really felt bad.  Legs were cramping, and everything generally hurt.  I couldn't hold my base pace so I decided to just get through it.  

I also decided that there was a good reason that the swim is first in all triathlon races.  I toughed out the hour swim, but didn't feel good in the water at all.

All in all the spin-a-thon was fun, it was for a good cause, and I was able to work an over-night workout into the event.  I did take the day off work and had a little nap after I got home.  The day was pretty normal and had a fantastic sleep that night.

Steven

PS - All three of the swim stooges made it to our Saturday morning spin and core workout.  

Washing a kilt

I wanted to have a kilt in my family tartan for a long time so when I was engaged I said to myself. "Myself, now if a fantastic time to get a kilt!"  I did and was married in a brand spanking new kilt and I looked fantastic.

I probably should say that I live in Nova Scotia and there is a strong Scottish heritage here.

That was 18 years ago.  I've worn the kilt probably about 6 times a year but never really got around to having it cleaned.

My next door neighbour is a bagpipe instructor so I asked him how he cleans his kilts and it turns out that he has several and gets them dry-cleaned.  I also did a little research on the web in blogs www.xmarksthescot.com/ and kilt forum. 

Generally, the impression that I got was to gently hand wash the kilt or take it to a dry cleaner.  I didn't really want to go the dry cleaner route because I hate spending money and I'm planning on purchasing another kilt for running and don't want to be getting the thing dry cleaned after every run.

Then I stumbled upon the below conversation: http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f100/washing-wool-kilts-48624/

It appears that two fellows who work in kilt shops washed their kilts in a front end loading washer that was set to the hand wash setting and then laid the kilts flat to dry.  I believe one fellow even put his into the drier on a sweater drying rack he had.  I don't have a sweater drying rack so that option was out.

I do however, have a washing machine with a hand wash setting so I tossed in my prized kilt and let it go. I was not very confident, but felt washing was worth the risk.  People went to war in these things so really will a wash hurt them?

After an agonizing wait, the cycle was finished and the kilt came out looking fine.I then put it over a drying rack for a while, but thought that the weight of the kilt would take the wrinkles out if I hung it up so I did.  I also put a dehumidifier under it to dry faster.

The kilt looks fine.  I didn't even iron it afterwords.

There may be a lot of factors that influence why mine came out well.  It's a heavy wool kilt.  It's never been washed before so maybe after 10 washes it will look like crap...I don't know.   Alls I know is that it worked for me.

If you give it a go, let me know how it works out for you.

Cheers.