Fat Tuesday (Sort of)

Height - 5' 10"
Weight - 169 Lbs. (This is going well))
Weight Goal - 157 Lbs. (Effectively...on the moon, or if I cut off an appendage)

OK, I give up. I actually had a really good day on the scale earlier this week (166 Lbs.) then I ballooned back up just before Fat Tuesday weigh in. Damn! I'm never gonna make weight for the frickin' bike race at this rate. I did read one thing in Matt Fitzgerald's book Racing Weight that I took to heart. He says that your body doesn't tell you that it's full until 20 minutes after it has reached capacity. The way I interpret this is that you should jam as much food in your mouth as you can within a period of twenty minutes, before your body can shut the party down! This goes along with grandfather's saying about car accidents:

"Studies show that most car accidents occur within a mile of your house...so when I leave the house, I just DRIVE LIKE HELL to get away from it!"

Another thing I took to heart was Fitzgerald's suggestion to take fish oil, in some form. I am old, I have joint pain, I think I may even "the Arthur-itis," I try to get my Omega-3s wherever I can. Now, I eat sardines a couple times a week (generally), but it's tough. I'm often not in the mood for them and you definitely don't want to eat them any time close to when you're going to be exercising. I was at Trader Joe's the other day and I saw they had Salmon Oil on the shelf and it was cheap, so I grabbed some, figuring this would be the solution to my intermittent desire for sardines. It was...sort of.

I took the first pill the other day before a ride. About fifteen minutes in it started backing up on me. The instructions on the pills do say to take with food and I had not heeded this advice. I don't eat in the morning if I'm riding for less than an hour. That fish pill was in my gut, washing around in a puddle of orange juice, next to my multi-vitamin. Ah, I can taste it now....

You know it was like? It was like opening a can of sardines, dumping out the sardines, and then tilting your head back, opening your mouth, tipping the can sideways, and letting all that thick, sardine-chunk-filled oil just cascade into your mouth.

Each reeking-of-dead-aquatic-things-breath cut through my minty fresh toothpaste mouth; making my eyes water as I let out an audible: "Oogh."

Maybe when they say: "Take with food," they mean: "Take this wretched, disgusting little capsule of pureed fish guts, place it carefully in a ground beef patty, top it with sharp cheddar cheese, wrap it in a bacon weave shell with hot dog head, legs and tail, forming an edible turtle-sculpture.

That ought to mask the taste. And even if it doesn't do the trick, it'll be a tasty way to try.

(stolen from This is Why You're Fat).

"It's cool. It's an all purpose shape--a box."

Could be anything inside.

Fat Tuesday Part III

Height - 5' 10" (I'm not getting any shorter, I don't know if this is working)
Weight - 168 (down 1.5 Lbs.)
BMR - 2733.642 (Down from 2757.78325...wait, is that a good thing, less calories?)
BMI - 24.1 (down from 24.5, but still high-average)
Weight Goal - 157 Lbs. (We may have to re-think that)

Is Matt Fitzgerald's book Racing Weight working? Yes, I think so. At least in the sense that it's making me think more about what I'm doing. I'm the guy who's idea of a diet is cutting out pizza and beer, I'm not that high-tech. Thinking about nutrition and diet at all is a big deal for me. Now I haven't gone out and bought a scale that reads my body fat content via...doing things to my body with electric impulses or something. I might buy it if it delivered a severe electric shock anytime I didn't meet my weight goal. That would be effective.

I also have not paid a visit to my doctor to get an accurate body fat reading. The only time I go to the doctor is when something falls off.

But I am losing weight at what Fitzgerald would consider a healthy and sustainable rate. This is not because I'm counting every damn calorie I put in my body, it's more because I eat like a marmoset some days and then eat like a manatee on others. It all averages out I guess. Thanks to Matty Fitz-G (as he has insisted I call him) I hesitate before ordering nachos for dinner at Redbones and opt for the smarter, relatively healthy choice of pulled chicken and broccoli (which doesn't suck). I do think about every food choice I make all day. I'm making less insanely stupid decisions and it seems to be paying off...slowly.

I was going to go off on my "I was a fat kid" rant now, but I realized that I've already kind of done that.

And you guys know that I just put on fourteen pounds this off season so that I could buy this book and run this vastly entertaining human experiment don't you? I'm a method blogger. When Sly Stallone gained a lot of weight for Copland, people confused weight gain with good acting. Hopefully people will do the same in this case and confuse weight gain with good blogging.

Roll Call!

"Blubba Sparxxx!"
"Here!"
"Fat Stevens!"
"Here!"
Blob Roll!"
Here!"

There's suddenly added motivation to get fit and slim. It's now inside the eight week start of the season window. If I continue to lose roughly one pound per week until then, I'll be pretty good to go. My season opener will be the EFTA King of Burlingame Time Trial March 28th in Rhode Island. It's way too far to go merely for a 30 minute race, but if it can be coupled with a Rob Stine guided tour like last year, it'll be worth it. That and a trip to the nearby Tim Horton's, and it'll be a good deal.

Why are there Tim Horton's in Rhode Island and not in Massachusetts? I have no idea, but it's just plain wrong.

Back to Racing Weight...
Fitzy-G throws out some examples of people who have no problem with maintaining competition weight, people like Michael Phelps. Apparently between his two Olympic trips he added 5 hours of weight training per week and put on 14 pounds of muscle (that's what my 14 pounds was too — muscle). He also changed his nutrition regime, taking in most of his calories during late-night munchies-driven missions to 7-Eleven for Doritos and Doublestuff Oreos. Don't get me wrong, I ain't judgin' Phelps, in fact, I think he's awesome. When will the governing bodies of sport make a distinction between performance enhancing and performance inhibiting drugs? The only way pot could possibly be classified as a performance enhancing drug is if "Thinking Robot Chicken is Really, Really Funny" became a sport.

Speaking of Potts, Andy Potts that is. He's a triathlete who says that "In heavy training it's all I can do to keep my weight at 171 or 172 pounds, which is a pound or two below my racing weight." Andy worries about getting too lean, so he ingests a lot of "cheap calories" like gourmet pretzels. It sounds like Andy has big problems. Cry me a river Andy. Oh wait, don't do that your tears may contain precious calories. OK go ahead and cry, although you might have to switch to chocolate covered "gourmet pretzels." Hey Andy, screw you, I'm going to go have seconds of broccoli and tofu now, so suck it!

Can't you see I'm serious?

No We Can't All Just Get Along

I have no idea, really, why Fat Tuesday has been replaced with "Let's talk about anything but how fat I am Tuesday." Ya sure, I rode for about five hours today, and ya I was at a massive caloric deficit by the time I limped up to the Whole Foods by my house, but I might have over-rewarded myself just a little bit. This is what happens when you spend the last 25 minutes of your ride scheming about what food you're going to eat and in what order. The answer to that question for me today was "all the food" and "at the same time."

I was so ravenous and delirious ("Ravelirious" is that a word?) with hunger that when the guy at the deli counter handed me my pizza box, I'm pretty sure he drew back a bloody stump.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that...

when I left the house this morning all kitted up, I locked eyes with my neighbor from across the road. He drives a Dodge Magnum wagon, wears a flat-brimmed baseball hat, and has a chin strap. I looked at him and thought: "What a douche." And I'm almost positive he looked over at me and thought: "What a fucking faggot." (It's OK, I'm speaking in character and my character happens to be a homophobic potty mouth.)

This reminded me of another such incident that occurred up in Andover the other day. I was riding at Harold Parker, I was on a road section between woods sections, and this knucklehead in a monster truck comes barreling down the road in the opposite direction. When he gets right next to me he stomps on the accelerator — BRAARR! He probably thought he was being awesome, but I thought he was being a douche. Of course he was looking at me like my neighbor surely was — as a leotard-wearing faggot, and he wanted to let me know that in his ever-so-subtle way.

Here's the thing, it is highly unlikely that someone could convince me that my Magnum-driving-neighbor or that head-injury-having monster truck driver are not grade-A douche bags, nor could someone likely convince them that I am not a leotard wearing faggot. In the defense of me being a leotard-wearing faggot they would just say: "Look dyude, he's wearing a leo-taahd...just gimme the faggit paaht OK?" And they would be half right. Dammit!

I'd like to think that when I returned from my ride at 3:30 this afternoon, eight hours after I'd seen my chin-strapped neighbor, and saw him sitting at the light in his " I have-no-penis-mobile," that he maybe, just maybe, thought for a split second that I was wicked hardcore for riding my bike for eight hours. (I was at school for a few of those hours, but it would have seemed to him like I'd been riding all day.) In reality there's no way he did though. He was almost definitely looking at me going: "Dyude, that quee-ah was out they-ah faggn' it up and leo-taahding around for a wicked long time...fuckin'."

Harold Parker. Where I go to "fag it up and leotard around."

Fat Tuesday

Height - 5' 10"
Weight - 170.5 Lbs.
BMR - 1779.215
BMI - 24.5
Weight Goal - 157 Lbs.


This is the beginning of a human experiment. Over the next two months or so I will be applying principles gathered from the new book by Matt Fitzgerald: "Racing Weight - How to Get Lean for Peak Performance" in a desperate attempt to...get lean for peak performance. I'll be dedicating Tuesdays from now until race season starts in April to documenting my progress.

While my family and some friends (besides Jon Bruno) tell me that I'm already too thin, I know that amongst the ranks of wanna-be-professional cyclists I am pretty overweight. I'm sure Jay Leno's family tells him that he doesn't have an incredibly over-sized head. This is nice but it's not true. We're cyclists, we have a different idea of what ideal weight is. It has nothing to do with "looking good" or "being sexy." It has everything to do feeling good and going fast. If we wanted to look good and be sexy, we'd hit the gym, go tanning, then do laundry. Um...bro.

Part One of "Racing Weight" outlines why an endurance athlete will benefit from losing weight. Fitzgerald discusses Lance Armstrong's huge transformation from powerhouse sprinter to Tour De France winner: "Do you need to get cancer and lose a lot of weight to become a better endurance athlete? Absolutely not!"

Phew! I'm relieved that I don't have to go out and get cancer. I have no idea how to do that, and I don't live anywhere near a DuPont plant.

The first step is finding your optimum racing weight. According to Fitzgerald: "If you're close to your ultimate performance level, you're close to your optimal performance weight." This blog may seem to serve no purpose whatsoever but it does serve some purpose...to me...sometimes. I don't keep a training log but, thanks to the blog, I can go back and really see what was going on at a given time. To determine what my "ultimate performance level" is, I just had to look at the best race of my best season: Root 66, Hodges Village Dam 2008. At the time I weighed about 157 Lbs. That is not what I weighed at any point last season and it is far from what I weigh now.

Next step was to calculate my Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. This tells me how many calories someone of my height, weight, and age should ingest in a day. The calculator defaults to the "female" setting so my first calculation gave me a start — 1561.175 calories, AAH! I take in that many calories before breakfast. Recalibrate for male and calculate...1779.215. That's better. Still a little intimidating, probably no more Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on Boston Cream Donuts anytime soon. Apparently counting calories-in is key to successful weight loss, so this is a start.

I'm going to begin calorie counting today, I'm only three chapters into the book at this point, I'll apply any other awesome weight loss tricks I learn over the next week and report back Tuesday.

A guy named Michael Pollan is on NPR right now. He may have s simpler plan: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Maybe I'm over-thinning this. Over-thinking...thinking.

1.19.10 Morning weigh-in 170.5 Lbs.
See, I don't look all that skinny, do I?
Body Dysmorphia my fat ass (and man-boobs).

Fat Tuesday - Part II

Height - 5' 10"
Weight - 169.5
BMR - 2757.78325
BMI - 24.5
Weight Goal - 157 Lbs.

Yes, we've gone there. I'm posting photos of me with my shirt off. I'm like a not-hot-male-version of Liz Hatch over here. I don't know how to feel about that. I'm pretty sure I know how you feel about it. OK, Shut up or the shorts come off next week.

If you're lost go back and check out this post.

If you're wondering why I'm looking less Selleck-ish than last week, that's because I suffer from a rare form of Sympathetic Chest Hair Loss. Whenever I shave my head, my chest hair tends to thin down to just about the same length, (which would be exactly 1/4"). There has got to be a cure for this anomalous, naturally occurring, man-scaping.

Due to scheduling changes at the Big Bikes I am now going to be writing all posts at night. If they don't get writ then, they ain't gettin' writ at all. Which makes this post kind of odd because I won't be weighing in until tomorrow AM. So what I have to do is make an assumption as to whether I've made zero progress toward my weight goal or actually gained weight. I'll do the weigh in tomorrow and plug the number into the stats above. We'll see how that goes.

Hey, I'm a bike racist, I'm a master of the preemptive excuse.

I have my reasons for thinking that I'm going to weigh in a little hefty tomorrow. In Matt Fitzgerald's book "Racing Weight," he talks about how athletes let down their dietary guard on weekends. Athletes do it, and I do too. I stayed on a decent plan this week. Generally my daily intake looked something like this:

• Breakfast - 3/4 Cup Steel Cut Oats with dried cranberries, soy milk, and brown sugar, pint of O.J. , and Two cups of coffee with soy milk.
  
• Lunch - Turkey on wheat with provolone and spinach.
• Snack - Cup of Greek 0% fat yogurt and an apple
• Dinner - Some sort of protein (tuna, chicken, tofu) on Salad with maybe a little brown rice
  

That's not a whole lot of food mind you, but I'm not really on a crazy/sick riding regiment right now. Problem is the freakin' weekend. Friday was dinner at the sister's house, which always means overeating. It is a house of magnificent snacks and wonderful culinary delights. "Hmm, while I'm waiting for my healthy dinner dinner I'll just finish my nephew's meatball sub...and my niece's pepperoni pizza." Yes dinner was preceded by a brisk 5.5 mile run that looked something like this:


Strange, I've never noticed my striking resemblance to a proboscis monkey doing a Richard Nixon impression before.

Oh, this is whole soy milk and tofu business. I was vegan for longer than M*A*S*H was on the air. I still can't see myself drinking "real" milk. Unless I could drink it straight from the udder and get it while it was still hot. That would be so yummy...and normal.

I had points to make about Fitzgerald's book today. Oh yes, the rest of my weekend cheating involved a bunch of beers at an engagement party Saturday night and some late night cheese-eating. And then there was ihop after our little ride Sunday followed by Thai take-out Sunday night. Not good if you want to be not-fat.

I did learn something from the book, I learned that an 8% weight gain is not only normal, but a good thing. For a guy of my stature that means a ten pound gain! I'm a little over 8% above weight though. Usually professional cyclists burn that ten pounds off during their first training camp.
OK, when's my first training camp? 29er Crew boss man Travis Ott emailed me today to say that my new GEARED Superfly HT frame will be here next week. He must have forgotten to mention the training camp. What's that? Somewhere amongst all the gibberish I actually mentioned something you want to hear about? Tough shit skippy, we're going to talk more about my fatty-fatty-boom-boom.

But not much more, I swear.

Fitzgerald also talks about how Kenyan marathon runners (Please don't quote me on this. I don't get paid to do this and I can't be bothered to open the book back up to confirm the crap that is coming out of my fingers here.) and how they can't possibly eat enough when they're in their peak training phase. I think he said they burn like 172,000 calories a day and they just walk into KFC and say "can I have a menu? Did I say 'a menu,' I meant THE MENU...the whole thing. Moses, pull the truck around." I take that back. That's pretty much verbatim from the book. Amazing.

Matty does say that when cyclists are training 20 hours per week, like Kenyan marathon runners, they have trouble keeping up with their body's caloric intake requirements. With how hopeless I've proven to be at sticking to the plan here, that might be my only route — 20 hours per week.

Unless, unless, hear me out...Fitzgerald also talks about "sending messages to your body" a whole lot. Like if you starve yourself, your body gets the message that your metabolism should slow down and hold onto more calories. Well I'm going to try sending my body a message that says, "Bacon and beer are good for you...gooood for you. You got it? Now cut it out with this turning them into man boobs and man-handles (that's what we called them in prison) crap OK?"

I hope you're finding this series on weight loss helpful.

Photo cred: C.J. Vincent, Wow Arizona

Fat Tuesday Part V

Height - 5' 10"
Weight - 167 Lbs.
BMR - 2723.9
BMI - 24
Weight Goal - 157 Lbs. (I am re-thinking this, seriously)


Damn, I can't believe I'm four weeks into this thing, I also can't believe I've only lost 3.5 pounds. OK, I can believe it. I haven't been riding as much as I usually would be at this time of year, the time of year where the pounds usually just kinda "melt off." I've also cheated a lot. My day to day diet has improved in quality as Matt Fitzgerald suggests in Racing Weight, and I suppose the weight is coming off at a reasonable, if not spectacular rate. I like spectacular, but according to Matt, achieving rapid weight loss goes with a rapid decrease in the speed of your metabolism. All this "Biggest Loser" I lost 4% of my total body weight weight in a week stuff is a recipe for disaster.

(If you don't know what I'm yammering about, check out the other posts about my fascinating weight loss saga. )

Matt talks about "Nuval Scores" for food. Telling us that the glycemic index is, in his words (as I remember them), not mine: "a steaming pile of horse shit." I won't bore you with the details (which I don't understand anyway) but basically the Nuval business takes into account all factors relating to a particular food, putting it in context. For instance, the most awesome foods on the planet are green beans and spinach (I didn't see that coming) and the worst foods on the planet are soda and Double Stuff Oreos (again...not shocking). Serendipitously enough, I have recently taken to eating steel cut oats for breakfast (see photo below). According to The Nuval rating, they are pretty high up on the awesome food scale. Sweet! They are pretty damn good I have to say...a little brown sugar, dried cranberries, raisins, and a splash of very, very manly soy milk, and you got some good eating.



Matt also talks about eating small amounts throughout the day to (paraphrasing here) avoid getting so hungry you want to eat your own butt. This is actually something I realized a while back, after I did my first couple hundred milers. I was all like "dude, I eat more during the day at work than I do while riding my bike for eight-frickin'-hours at some crazy Chris Scott race." I started eating less, more often, never getting to the point where I wanted to jam Doritos in my maw fistfuls at a time. So adapting back to that kind of diet schedule hasn't been too hard. I think of eating throughout the day as I would eating during a 100 mile ride.



Yes, dinner these days is generally something like THE BIG SALAD. I make these things huge, with lots and lots of veggies. They take a while to get through. Like I said to M the other night, "Eating salad is exhausting!" I wasn't whining about having to eat salad (it was a great salad), I was talking more about the duration and intensity of the eating process involved in putting it all away. You feel like you've done some work, you feel satisfied, satiated even.




With my school schedule I've begun cooking again. This is one of my favorite healthy dishes, it's Zeytinyagli Fasulye, a Turkish (Hi Memet...hi) green bean dish. And you know green beans are awesome according to that Nuval stuff.

Oh yes, the photo at the top. No shirtless, belly distending photo today. That's me kinda looking skinny (and like a creepy pedophile) at SSUSA as I check out Nat's pink panty's. When I came up on Nat, I thought he was riding a 36er, I was hallucinating-lightly. I was also confused by the fact that he had stopped to change into women's underwear (perhaps a bit too soon, seems his netherlands experienced some wear and tear). I looked at him going: "I know a guy that looks just like you...only not wearing pink panties."

Anyway, I fully expect next Tuesday's weigh in, after M and I get back from Mexico, to be really, really bad.

Ice Cream Donuts on a stick are not on the Nuval chart.

They have to be more awesomer than spinach.

Why I Shave My Legs

(Even in January)

What it comes down to is this: I shave my legs because I want to. Of course I could rattle off a litany of quasi-technical reasons why cyclists, even mountain bikers should shave their legs, but what would be the point? The pro-hairy-leg-lobby would fire back with just as many reasons why you shouldn't shave your legs. For instance, hairy legs are great for their mud-collecting qualities. And then, subsequently, their cleaning of mud-thwarting powers. They give ticks more to grab on to as your legs brush past them in the tall grass (hey, ticks gotta eat too y'know). When you fall on a smooth surface all those long, flowing hairs are great for creating more friction as they are dragged and ripped from their follicles. And then, once they have done a great job of creating a large wound, those same very useful hairs get in the way of the cleaning and disinfecting. Most importantly of all, all that swirling fuzziness is unparalleled in its ability to mask attractive-ripped-biker-leg-muscles.


So I'm not going to pick a fight with the people from the Hair Party, I'm just going to tell you why I shave my legs. And let's get one thing straight; I am not trying to convert you or anyone you know to the hairless elite. I would never do that. I've never asked someone why he doesn't shave his legs, and I don't plan on taking up the habit. I really don't care if you shave your legs or not, in fact, I don't really care about anything you do or don't do. Unless you drive an Escalade and eat egg salad with your mouth open.



Reason #1: It's more awesome than not shaving your legs, I have proof.

In 1972 the number one song on the Billboard top 100 was Don McLean's "American Pie." David Bowie's album "Ziggy Stardust," which was released that same year was not represented on that top 100 list at all, though it boasted tracks like: "Five Years," Star Man," and "Ziggy Stardust." Fact: David Bowie almost definitely had shaved legs under those tight, glimmering pants. Fact:Don McLean probably didn't shave his legs (I could probably lose the "probably" on that one). Conclusion: David Bowie is awesome; Don McLean is not. Therefore shaving your legs is awesome.


Reason #2: It feels awesome when you swim

Well, maybe it's not so much about "feeling awesome," so much as it's about not feeling "not awesome." I love the feeling of going swimming with freshly shaved legs. If you want to feel a sensation similar to this without actually taking a Bic to your appendages, try the following experiment:

• Put on a thick pair of corduroy pants
• Go swimming in them
  
• Now take off the thick pair of corduroy pants
• Now go swimming again without the thick pair of corduroy pants on
  

That is exactly what it's like (especially when, if you don't shave your legs, your legs look like a Wookie's like mine do).

Two reasons...that's all I got. And neither of them have anything to do with cycling. Unless you count "being awesome." Because a feeling of "being awesome" can greatly reduce mental stress levels, leading to huge performance gains.

I was about to launch off on a tangent about how "punk rock" shaving your legs is. But then that leads into a discussion of how "punk rock" lycra is, and then that opens a whole Pandora's can of punk rock worms. I may have to revisit this topic at a later date, seeing as I've already surpassed my new (temporary) daily character limit.

One more thing. I've already written most of my Fat Tuesday post and I'm just gonna say that after the pile of bile I plan on spewing tomorrow, I fully expect to have a mob of clinically obese people holding torches (that are really just sterno chafers they stole from The Old Country Buffet) and pitch forks (which they use as regular forks, as they are commensurate to their portions at The Old Country Buffet) standing (well, not so much standing as sitting on their Lark scooters) outside my house Tuesday afternoon.

-t

Questions and Answers
(And a Contest...shh)

Yesterday I started responding to the questions in my comments section, and thought myself:

"Hey douche bag, you could make a post out of all this crap." So that's what I've done.

Oh, the above photo montage...you don't want to know about that. I just made it because I needed something to eclipse the weirdness of the naked nachos photo.

Ah yes, The Contest:

If you can guess the inspiration for the above image, you will WIN a Big Bikes Mix Tape (which is actually a CD). This won't be some MP3 massive file dump with thousands of songs on it, totaling hours of haphazardly selected music. It will be comprised of 90 minutes of well thought out music. Just like we made 'em back in the olden days. Of course the cover will be the above image (or the naked nachos photo, your choice).

Wow, that is a HUGE incentive to twist your brain inside out trying to figure out what the hell is going on in that creepy, creepy picture. But really...I make sick mix tapes, it's the only thing in life, about which, I will actually stand up and say: "Dude, I am wicked good at this shit."

This contest will run as long as it takes to produce a winner, or until I get bored with it like I did Fat Tuesday and stop talking about it. Good luck!

And now...Answers for you!

Fatmarc Vanderbacon said...

I gotta couch, and free entry if you feel the need to race Granogue down in delaware...

just sayin'

respect
fm

8:40 AM

Big Bikes said...

Fatmarc,

That event occurs while I'm still in school and working weekends; that said,
a theme of this season may be going to races where:

a.) The entry is free

and

b.) There is a couch for me to crash on

What I'm saying is — anything is possible. Appreciate the offer. I'll be in touch.

rosey said...

wasn't the darkhorse 40 less than $35 recently? are all these mtb races trying to copy battenkill? more than $1 per mile? it's a far drive for these but to top it off with the high entry fees really stings.

i guess i will stick to $10 outlaw races with all you can drink beer.

10:21 AM

Big Bikes said...

Rosey,

But The Darkhorse 40 is a race that's actually worth it. They feed you and beer you and make sure you have a good time. It's not like dropping $60 on some Kenda Cup or somethin'. And by all means, keep having outlaws races, hopefully I can make the next one.

Amanda said...

naked nachos?

i can't seem to get to reading Matt either...

10:57 AM

Big Bikes said...

Amanda,

damn, I guess Spanish isn't as hard a language to crack as say — Navajo. (I do wonder how you say "nachos" in Navajo.)
Post ride, in a bonk, couldn't wait for dinner, couldn't decide whether to shower or eat first, got halfway to the shower, doubled back for the recovery nachos, and ate them in the bedroom, hunched in a wooden chair...normal.

David Alden said...

Yo. I'm in the same boat (how appropriate with this weather) in terms of the weight loss, though I suspect I had more to lose. I'm about 20lb down with 10lb to go. I signed up for Wildcat--should be a fun one. The burning question is--gears or no gears?
http://beardedbiker.blogspot.com/
http://www.racer-x.cx/

11:31 AM

Big Bikes said...

Dave,

Ya, I'm going on a weather-based training schedule right now. I ride when it's sunny and sit on my ass and eat when it's rainy. I can't say that it's working, but I am more sane than I normally am in late March. There must be a correlation between fat cells and sanity, that's all there is to it. I'll be on gears at Wildcat, good luck with the SS if you decide to go that route.

Emily said...

this Stoopid 50... will it be fun? or just stoopid? is it like all the good parts of W101 without the fire roads? I'm bummin I'm gonna miss Wilderness this year, maybe I should come up for this one?

1:20 PM

Big Bikes said...

Emily,

I hear it's Stoopid fresh! Just like the 101 without the gravel. Everyone I know who went last year liked it a lot. And only some of them used to huff a lot of glue.

Fat Chance said...

DH40- great race and you should bring the girl. Hopefully we wont have the super strong heat this year.

The picture: one really needs to shed some light for the enquiring minds...

3:37 PM

Big Bikes said...

Georges,

Don't know what the girl's plans are. If she's racing mountain bikes this summer, I'll try to convince her to do it...because it's awesome. Mike and those guys put on a good show. The heat, wow, that was rough. I'm packing a coffin sized cooler of ice in the car, so I can dive into it after the race. Oh, and hey...when is the NYCMTB Highbridge Classic race?

Big Bikes also said (as he wiped a tear of exhaustion from his eye)...

I'm goin' to bed.

Thanks for reading youz guys.

-t