Hamstrings

Holy hamstrings batman!!! They are TI-I-IGHT!

November 3rd marked the beginning of off-season, base training. I'm hoping to really gain a lot this year in strength and speed on the bike. I'm not bad on speed now, actually. I made some really good progress last year on my average speed. I guess now it's maintaining that speed for longer durations, and climbing faster. The climbing faster thing comes down to something that's called power to weight ratio, and frankly in the last 2 years mine has been shit! Can I say that on the blog? Well, it has. Now that I've got some health stuff sorted out I think I might actually be losing some weight. But I haven't dared step on the scale yet. I promised myself and Jess that I wouldn't for 2-3 more weeks. Just stick to the program and wait for it to happen.

So, base training... right now I'm in the middle of a six-week period which is called 'pre-base'. I'm not allowed to push hard on the bike or any other cardio activity I decided to pursue - zones one and two only (estimated HR zones for me since I haven't done any fancy-shmancy blood work to know exactly what my zones should be). It's actually really hard to sit on the bike for an hour and not push yourself. You know - it's fun to crank up the resistance and push hard - get into the music and such. However lazy I feel for the super-easy workout, it's supposed to work - burn fat now, and prepare my muscles to use fat more and conserve carbs a little more when I'm on the bike in the summer. You want to conserve some of the carbs in your muscles for when you have to push harder or faster quickly because carbs are quick energy. The low burn is the sitting and climbing kind of stuff. If I can use more fat for energy then, I'll be working more efficiently. Anyway... I don't want to bore you with all of that.

At the gym I've started to really do a lot more strength training. My legs aren't used to maintaining a contraction for extended periods of time - hence hamstring hell tonight! Ahh! So right now I'm preparing them for heavy weights which I will start in 3 weeks' time. This year I plan to really push myself when it comes to the weights. I know Jess is a bit skeptical (although still on board with the plan) - not of my ability (god knows she had me doing some crazy weight last winter) - but I kind of bulk up quick, so you know... I don't want to look like this:

i removed the image...

Hahaha! Funny picture (never knew 'muscles' was spelled with an 'a'). ;) I want to be really, really strong. I want to climb those mountains in Vermont next year. So, here goes nothing...

And I apologize in advance to my poor hamstrings, quads, glutes, and calf muscles. No pain no gain, as they say.

Wings

Back for a whole month now before having to travel again! The last 2.5 months have been exhausting with travel every two weeks... be careful what you ask for, eh?

It's a bit rough leaving plus 30 degree weather to be greeted by true Canadian autumn in full-swing (minus 2 this morning). Still, it really is good to be back.

Last night I got to fly direct and it was a great flight. First I want to tell you all that my experience with WestJet was really nice. I know, we all love to bash the airlines (particularly our favourite monopoly - Air Canada). WestJet seems to be getting a lot more flights started up to various places (including Hawaii and Bahamas - for all you snow birds). The staff is ultra-friendly and easy going. Geez... I sound like an advertisement, but I wanted to just put that out there. I guess I fly AC too much so common courtesy seems like a novel experience today!

We flew at 42,000 feet (I watched the map on my personal satellite TV when I wasn't reading my book which I will blog about soon), and we had clear skies the whole way (the likely cause of our 25 minute early arrival - sweet!). It was phenomenal to look out the window and correlate which state I was seeing form my bird's-eye-view. Not often can you see the world from that height. And I also saw 3 different planes flying below us at different points during the flight. Wow!! The only other time I've seen planes around me while in the sky was at LAX when we took off - then they are much closer to you and you are silently thanking the women and men who are working in the control tower that day. Flying these days is usually more of a pain than anything else, but yesterday it was a nice experience. It reminded me of the novelty of the experience when I got to fly as a child.

So now it's time to get re-organized, do the laundry, clean the house - all of the little things that never get done when you are gone every other week for weeks on end. And this morning I got all caught up on my emails, blogs, and podcasts. Speaking of podcasts... check out this video: Ben Harper. The way he so quickly and so assuredly turns thought into words reminds me of how lacking I am in the ability to truly articulate my own ideas and feelings.

Orange County - East

Here I am, putting my post-conference day achy feet up (smelly, achy feet - ick! no socks worn today), writing for whomever it is that reads here. I got a pedometer in my conference package and so far I've walked 6.5 km. Far less than I should have - as I was intending on walking to the congress centre, but realized it's at least 1.5 km's to the end of the drive of our hotel/resort. Then maybe 2-3 km's to the facility. So instead I take the shuttle with everyone else. What's new today? Well, second conference in two weeks - I'm just about lectured and exhibited out. The US conferences are so different from those at home. Firstly, they are 100x larger - everything is bigger... booths, congress centres (this one is one million square feet and that's no exaggeration - obviously the conference doesn't occupy the whole space), lectures, numbers of delegates, etc. All the rules are different here too. My time spent at the booth is quite useless because I'm not allowed to dispense my ever growing knowledge. Not here. That's not allowed. So I just look cute and speak French with all of the people here from Marseilles, Lyon, Paris, and Switzerland (today's list of French-speaking foreign delegates). The US reps think it's great that myself and the Quebec rep can do this so, even when the person can speak English, they send them our way. It's funny how I seem to be speaking French so much more these days. And in places I wouldn't have normally thought it would happen - US conferences and Panama (last spring) for example. It's great! I've also been speaking French with my Quebec counterpart most of the time here - it's really fun to talk and know that 98% of the people around us cannot understand. He, he! So many things I could write tonight, but I'm fading fast and need my sleep. Perhaps I'll have more to put down at another time.