Alameda Runners – Get After It!

Resting is a very difficult thing for most runners.  We hang with people who have been running their whole lives without missing a day of running for the last 30 years.  We also know people who are part of the marathon maniacs club who have to run something crazy like 7 marathons in 7 days to join the club.

We know these normal people who can do these amazing things and think we can do that too, if we work hard enough.  To help ruin our mindset, we remember running as teenagers with no adverse effects.  Hell, half of us would smoke or drink or both before running with no adverse effects.  We also read magazines and articles telling us to run 6 or 7 days per week where we run hard one or two days then do a recovery run for an easy day.

I would like to point out that rest is allowed.  If you are training for a marathon and work your way  up to 6 days a week that is fine.  If you are just starting out, rest is a good thing.  A lot of us like or liked to have fun in our youth.  Some would call it a misspent youth while others will have a different opinion but that is another topic entirely.

When we reach our 30’s, we realize our bodies can’t handle the abuse and some of us change our ways.  When we begin to change our ways, we look to the fit people who never stopped being healthy.  Quite often, the healthy people give very sage advice about taking it easy.

Most of don’t want to listen to the sage advice because we want to catch up to them.  Listen to the sage advice.  Going out too hard and too fast can cause injuries.  If you don’t let the injuries heal properly, they may become chronic.

Read as much as you can and try to tailor a plan to suit your needs or goals.  If you don’t have any goals or know how to create goals, you can always go for the old 10% increase per week or lose 1 pound per week.  If you think to yourself that a 10% increase over 0 is equal to 0, find a couch to 5k plan to get you started.

We are all different, find or create a plan for yourself and modify it as you go along.  Most of us create a plan where we will run a sub 30- minute 10K after two months of training.  Very few of us will achieve that goal.  Most of us will modify our goals to something a little more reasonable.

What’s the most popular day every year for road running races?

Thanksgiving Day!

Ever since recreational runny became a trendy activity, and with more people going from couch to running, turkey trot races are extremely popular. People can wake up and get in a quick workout before going home and preparing the feast – or watching football.

In 2012, there were 490 Thanksgiving races with a total of 835,000 finishers – and it continues to grow after five years of momentum.

Brazen Racing hosts the Nitro Turkey Thanksgiving 5K, 10K, and Little Turkeys Race – and it’s a super fun event.  The small kids love racing the giant Nitro Turkey.

The Tour of California 2014 host cities were announced today, with the eight-day race course tackling 700 miles starting in Sacramento and ending in Thousand Oaks.

The race starts on Sunday, May 11 and will wrap up on May 18.

Host cities available after the jump: Read more… »

BART has unanimously voted to permanently end the bike blackout during weekday commute hours in the morning and afternoon.

Starting three months ago, cyclists were welcomed to bring bikes on BART trains at all times – it was a five-month pilot program by BART management.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The policy officially takes effect Dec. 1, but since a six-month test of allowing bicycles on all trains at all times is in progress, the unrestricted access policy is already in effect.

Public comments Thursday on the proposed change drew mostly supporters, many of them members of bicycle advocacy groups or BART committees that have worked on the issue. The only public opposition came from Antonette Bryant, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, which represents station agents and train operat0rs.

Read the rest of the post after the jump! Read more… »

The East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) continues to do a great job promoting bike advocacy throughout the San Francisco East Bay.

For anyone interested, they are promoting classroom and on-road skills classes that are great for both novice and advanced riders.

EBBC hosts these events throughout the San Francisco East Bay, but here are details for the upcoming Alameda classes:

Day 1: Classroom Workshop Schedule:

Thursday, November 14th, 2013
6pm-8pm
Alameda Fire Department Conference Center
431 Stardust Place
Building 522 on Alameda Point
Register for this Alameda class

This session is not part of the Bike Traffic School program.

Attend this class and receive a free reflective vest!

Saturday, November 16th, 2013
10am-noon
Mastick Senior Center, Room D
1155 Santa Clara Ave
Register for this Alameda class

Day 2: Road Class Schedule:
Nothing in Alameda – you’ll have to head to Fremont:

Sunday, November 10th, 2013
noon-5:30pm
Centerville Community Center
3355 Country Dr.
Register for this Fremont class

It’s amazing that the Bike Alameda and EBBC are working to ensure riders in Alameda are being as safe as possible when riding. A two-class seminar can help riders become more comfortable with riding on the road safely – and with many drivers blissfully unaware of people on two wheels, these classes could help you avoid potentially dangerous situations.

Alameda is one of the top 291 most bike-friendly cities in the United States, receiving a bronze status, according to The League of American Bicyclists.

Each city is ranked based on the five following criteria: “creating safe and convenient places to ride; providing education for new and less experienced  cyclists; creating a strong bike culture; ensuring safe roads for biking; and planning for bicycling as a safe and viable transportation option.”

This is a great award for a city that is clearly dedicated to helping people get around town by bike – and receiving recognition should be a good honor for the city.

I’ve ridden a bike in a lot of areas in the country, and believe Northern California has some of the most scenic roads to enjoy. The San Francisco Bay Area has plenty of great places to ride, with quite a few scenic locations within 60 minutes to Alameda.

Even when I get caught behind a draw bridge going up, it’s still such a unique situation to stumble across on your daily bike commute:

I occasionally have trouble with an overly aggressive driver that doesn’t want to give me room on the road, but riding around Alameda is still one of the more enjoyable locations to be on two wheels.

It was just a few years ago when the Alameda Police Department was criticized for being too aggressive with traffic enforcement. Fast forward a few years, and now some people say the APD isn’t enforcing traffic violations harshly enough – I think it is fine, as officers certainly are looking for people disrespecting cyclists.  (Also keep in mind, people on bikes not following the rules are often stopped for traffic violations.)

Bye-bye, Euskatel-Euskadi.

The Basque cycling squad, with its bright orange jerseys and largely Spanish roster over the years, is pulling the plug on a successful 20-year run.

Team Euskatel-Euskadi rider getting after it.

I grew up watching pro cycling and seeing the Spaniards in their orange jerseys light up mountain stages was inspirational.

It’s a shame to see Euskatel shutter after 20 years – the poor economy in Spain caused a long-time sponsor to consolidate spending.  There was last-minute hope that F1 driving superstar Fernando Alonso, a longtime cycling supporter, would invest millions to save Euskatel. Expect to see an Alonso-backed team sometime in mid-2014, if all goes according to plan.

The team closing unfortunately means a full squad of riders, team mechanics, and other employees are largely going to be out of a job. Team Sky picked up Spanish climber Mikel Nieve and will be an important part of Chris Froome’s 2014 Tour de France squad. Expect other riders to join a ProTour team, retire, ride neo-pro, or not have a team for next season.

Read more:

VeloNews – Cycling loses something special with demise of Euskatel
Cyclingnews – Euskatel-Euskadi: an idea as much as a team

I am a fan of organic and natural foods.  I am also a triathlete with a lousy metabolism for endurance sports.  My body does not seem to be able to digest most foods and gels when it goes into endurance mode.  That is a nice way of saying I often get sick or bonk when I do endurance events.  I subconsciously know that I will get sick when I eat something, so I always avoid eating.

Skout Natural sent me a complete set of their products for review a few months ago and I just could not bring myself to write about them.  Every time I looked at the label, I felt that I should be in a Berkeley coffee shop drinking chai tea while writing the review on an Apple computer.  If you are wondering, I am at home drinking Starbucks coffee while typing on a Linux computer.  Sometimes, we need to shed our preconceived notions and move on.

Full review after the jump:  Read more… »

Team Cannondale rider Ted King doesn’t have a contract for next season yet, with teams filling up rosters from an increased pool of talented riders to choose from.

Here is what he recently told Cycling News:

“I’m still in the contract hunt. It’s a tough year. It’s nice to see things like [Formula 1 star Fernando] Alonso coming in and salvaging a team, but there’s a lot of talk of a few teams folding and a lot of teams shrinking. So that certainly puts a lot of people out on the market.”

It’s true that King will face a larger amount of other riders seeking contracts in the ProTour peloton, but he’s a very good domestique when working for others. For both Team Liquigas and now Cannondale, King has done a great job working on the front of the peloton, namely working for Peter Sagan.

Poor King crashed during stage 1 of the 2013 Tour de France, and then was time cut from the stage 4 team time trial when he missed the cut by a mere five seconds. Even worse, his family just landed in France to follow his first crack at the biggest cycling race of the year.

(Image Courtesy: Team Cannondale)

I am often asked about tapering for a big event.  I don’t usually taper because I don’t do many “A” events that I peak for.  I usually do events that are within my standard training zones so I can push it hard for one day, take a rest day then get back to normal.  I can usually do a half marathon or an international distance triathlon on a day’s notice.  Anything longer will require training and a training plan.  Some people can run a mile on a day’s notice  and need a plan for a longer distance.  Other people can run 50 miles on a day’s notice.  It is up to you how you should train and what you need to train for.

Let me start out by saying “Tapering is hard!”.  There is a reason that I don’t usually taper, it is easy to mess things up while tapering.  You can probably do a Google search any distance event taper training and find at least 5 different ways to taper for the event.  It is not a bad idea to read a few different articles then plan your taper from there.  I will explain my taper and reasons here.  When you ask yourself these questions, you should give yourself honest answers.  Sometimes, we give ourselves politically correct answers but that is not really the goal.

A.      You will need to ask yourself what are your goals?  My goals for a half ironman are listed below:
1.       Cross the finish line healthy in less than 7 hours.  I said I did not care about the time but I had a massage scheduled for 7 hours after the start.
2.       Set a personal record (PR) on the bike.
3.       Show up to the start line healthy.
4.       Run the whole course.
5.       Look good on the run.
6.       Finish in less than 6:30.
7.       Ideal would be to finish in less than 6 hours but not likely.

B.      Look at your schedule
1.       Events are supposed to be fun.
2.       Live your life.
3.       Will it make you happy to skip a day out sailing to save 1 minute on a marathon?
4.       Will a day out sailing one week before the marathon be the difference between finishing and a DNF?

C.      What type of racer are you?
1.       Speed
2.       Endurance

Comments for A – Do you notice how I have finish healthy is number 1 but starting healthy is number 3?  I must have told myself that exercising for 7 hours will heal any injuries that I start with.  In my case, I was recovering from a run injury so I trained more for the bike than the run.  Looking back on this list, after I finished the event, I can say that my number one goal was to finish any way possible.  But that was not my goal when started tapering.  I tapered to list.  I did not bother add swimming to the list because I knew that I could and would do a sub 40 minute swim.  It should have been on the list.

Comments for B – I had a 5 day weekend the week before the event.  I could have been taking it easy to help me arrive at the race in peak condition but I did not.  I was out riding my bike all over Northern California during the long weekend.  I decided that riding my bike around the week before my “A” race would cause me to not meet goal number 2.  To me, having fun for a few extra days was worth risking goal number 2.

Comments for C – My goal is to complete races so I can go into a race pretty well rested.  People who plan on speed are rested when they do slower workouts for similar durations as peak training.

Now that we have examined ourselves and understand our goals and schedules, we can think about tapering.  Typical taper time is 1-3 weeks.  For a really big race like a marathon or half iron man triathlon, I like to taper for two weeks.  I could taper for 3 weeks and handle it physically but I don’t think I could take it mentally.  It is really hard to slow down after you have trained for 4-12 months preparing for an event.  I cycle my training in 3 week cycles where I build for 2 weeks, back off for a week the repeat.  Because of this, I average my workout time for the last 3 weeks before taper then cut back on the average going into the event.  For example:

For an average of 10 hours training per week, I would train
8 hours per week 3 weeks before the event
6 hours per week 2 weeks before the event
4 hours per week 1  week before the event

It is not a good idea to work on speed or strength during the taper phase.  The reason for tapering it to arrive at the start line healthy and ready to race.