Corned Beef

So what if it's not really eaten in Ireland?

I went to a St. Patrick's Day party on Saturday and had some home made corned beef that was simply outstanding. It has nothing to do with the stuff that shows up on a Ruben at Applebee's. Totally different food. Tender. Tasty. What else can I say? I washed it down with a little Tullamore Dew, my favorite Irish Whiskey. It doesn't have the complexity of a good Single Malt Scotch, but it's smooth and creamy tasting and wonderful.

The Corned Beef was so good that Deana and I were both still craving more on Monday. So we did the only thing we could do; went to Hackenmeullers and bought a nice piece of homemade Corned Beef Brisket. I just finished off the last left overs. Wow, that's some yummy stuff. And all that protein is great for rebuilding muscle fiber. Now if I could just train hard enough to need it.

The last 500 Meters

Trying to motivate yourself to really go all out when riding on a trainer is not easy. There's no competition. There's no wind in your face or pavement under your wheels. There's no surge with pedal strokes or balanced tension you feel when both wheels are spinning. Music helps, for sure, and I built a play list so that I could alternate intervals and resting with each song. But even the most aggressive songs don't allow me to sustain an all out effort for longer intervals.

So visualization is a requirement. On the road, I can find a spot to sprint for, or visualize trying to close a gap. On the trainer that doesn't work. I have to go for the track. There's 500 meters left and I'm off the front, but not by much. Don't look back. Just keep it buried and try to accelerate even though you can't. I can see the black line and the red line and I can hear the boards and feel the press of the banking.

Visualization works. Now I just have to keep myself from hurling.

Tool

This weekend was almost a loss. Mid 40's and raining. Consistently. From Friday morning until Sunday morning, it didn't even stop long enough for the patio to show the slightest hint of light gray at the cracks and high spots. As I mentioned in my last post, I am woefully behind on my base due to The Sickness (also know as the yack, aptly named by my cycling buddy Steve Laurel). I'm not too worried about the base endurance for racing, as I'll be mostly focusing on track this year and with the longest event I'm riding coming in at about 15 kilometers (or 20 if I have lost my sanity enough to try the Madison), being able to sprint or ride solo after 2 hours of riding isn't as big of a deal. But I am worried about having enough base to really pound the intervals for sprints and for threshold training for Team Pursuit.

So Thursday, my gift subscription to Bicycling magazine shows up in my in box. Bicycling magazine always has a few articles that remind me more of Redbook than an athletic magazine. The 5 things you can do to loose 10 lbs fast! Ride faster while training 2 hours a week and breathing through a drinking straw! You know, the classic too good to be true stuff. So the cover article about building your base in only 10 days left me a little dubious. I looked it up anyway. Well, it was by Chris Carmichael, which gave it credibility for me. I've based most of my training off of one of his books, so I wasn't straying too far from reality. And it was actually 3 weeks, not 10 days, when you include the rest leading up to and following the main endurance block. So, I decided to give it a try.

Which is where Tool comes in. I was supposed to ride 2:30 Friday and 3:00 Saturday. Due to the aforementioned weather, there was no way I was going to start out if it was raining that hard. So, to the trainer. And so as not to go crazy, slightly shortened sessions, with long Tempo intervals. There is no better music to ride Tempo to than Tool. The short songs are 5 1/2 minutes long. From there it's 8, 9, 10, 17 minutes. When your doing an hour long interval, having a nice steady build from the tunes makes a real difference. Plus the sound is so complex and layered that you can hear the same songs over again and always find some section or part that you didn't notice before. Very, very talented guys.

And when I could take that any more, I watched some Cowboy Beebop. Too fun. Speaking of Japanese animation, has anyone ever seen Kappa Mikey? He's an American cartoon character (heavy outlines, bright colors) working on an Anime cartoon show. As the theme song says, "lost in Japan". So I'm thinking I'm going to start the Kappa Mikey Keirin team. Let me know if you want to join. I'm sure we'll have t-shirts or socks or something. Maybe I can get Chris Hoy to join....