Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Month in Review


Busy month. I have been preparing as best I can for Lumberjack 100. Couldn't do it without the support of so many great people.

Here's Susan in full tuck descending Afton into Waynesboro.









This was one of those "toss it all in the car we're heading for the mountains in 2 hours" kind of road trip. I failed to pack things like, hmm, WATER, so I used beer to wash my face.










Tom at Waterside during one of our Wednesday treks out to Ipswitch trails. I am not going to say why the bike is on the ground or why he is holding his back.


















Coffee after Conte's ride, Virginia Beach. These people are so fast that I need a designated driver and serious nap after the Saturday road rides. (Sally, Danbo, Laura, Young Zach)









Kevin at Camp Hilbert mountain bike race. It was nice having so many from Hampton Roads race there.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Food matters


(left, I do not recommend the Klean Kanteen for the bike but as a sippy cup for desk.)

The basics are sometimes the most complicated. I used to drink water religiously. The ever present water bottle, a glass with every meal, chaser for coffee and beer. Recently (well, for roughly the past 3 years) I have been in a state of perpetual dehydration. I’ve had no motivation to drink it outside of exercise.

I was riding with
Tom a couple of weeks ago, and he mentioned his recent Klean Kanteen purchase from Green Alternatives on Colonial Ave. It was then that I realized: I strongly dislike drinking from cycling water bottles. I do so when I ride of course, but I have avoided carrying water to work largely because I have only cycling bottle containers, and after 20+ years of cycling, I am sick of them. I immediately realized that if I got a water container that I like—easy on the eyes, stainless steel touch, cool to be seen with—then I would drink water again.

It was worth $27 to jump start my water drinking career. I opted out of the $13 container carrier because I figured that’s what my hands are for. I got the 40 oz version and have been finishing almost the whole bottle each day at work. I read a
review that suggested cyclists use the smaller versions that fit in bike cages to cut down on using so much plastic. However, I do not recommend this bottle for cycling. The squeeze effect in plastic gets water in faster and more efficiently. The Kanteen is perfect for desk drinking but not intense exercise.



In other nutritual matters, I don’t recommend the new Speical K with chocolate chunks. I know it sounds like the perfect cereal—slender waist combined with satisfying the early morning hankering for chocolate—but it just doesn’t work that way. I was suddenly eating Special K for every meal (and snacks) and of course I was mostly eating around the cereal and getting right at the chocolate chunks. It’s like having a box of Captain Crunch Berries in the house.