InCycle 08-09 ..... Are you enrolled?

Cycle University's raved about indoor cycling program, InCycle, kicked off it's 2008-09 season this past week. In it's second year of offering, this coach-led, periodized indoor program was almost completely sold out months in advance! Did you get on the waiting list? It's not too late! Contact us, or visit our homepage for more details, and a complete list of offerings.

We hope to see you soon! Until then, enjoy some photos of just a few of our professional coaches as they kicked off this year's program.

Why wattage?

We are starting our popular InCycle indoor training program this Saturday and all of us at Cycle U are pumped! For the first time we will be using exclusively wattage in all our classes instead of a mix of wattage and heart rate. We sold our LeMond revMasters ( kinda sad, they were awesome) but now everyone from novice to pro's will use our new trainers with watts. You can still use your heart rate monitors to check your intensity level, but what we learned from using these trainers at our West Seattle location last winter is that after a couple months everyone will be in love with their wattage numbers (or determined to bend them to their will).

Here is my analogy for wattage: It is just like lifting weights. Instead of doing 10 repetitions lifting 100 pounds, you do 10 minutes at 100 watts. If after a couple weeks you can do 120 pounds for 10 reps , or 120 watts for 10 minutes you are stronger, end of debate! Your heart rate might stay the same for both efforts, but the wattage actually tells you if you are getting stronger. Similarly you could do 10 intervals holding 300 watts for 1 minute and over time with proper training you want that to be 320 watts. It really is that simple and powerful. There are more layers of complexity and analysis we can provide but the basic message is that training with wattage is similar to training with weights.

Look forward to seeing you improve this winter at one of our locations, if you have any questions please e-mail or post a reply.

Spin to win. We are here to help and keep the fire burning this winter!

Craig

The End-of-Season Review

by Coach Lang Reynolds

Of the 90 days separating the beginning of July from the end of September, I was home for just over ten of them. I raced in Oregon, Colorado, California, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, the District of Columbia, and of course Washington itself. Of the 20+ days of racing over the last three months, I didn’t win a single race, and I haven’t placed in the top 10 since March. It’s been a frustrating season. I’m a Cat 1 trying to get a rofessional contract, and while this much travel and racing is not strictly necessary in the quest to obtain a contract, I thought it was the best thing to do at the time.

Here at the end of the season, it’s easy to slip right into Whatever Comes Next, whether that is binge drinking or cyclocross (or both simultaneously, as they do in Portland), without taking an honest and focused look at the season just completed. What was instrumental in the goals that you did achieve, and what prevented you from reaching those that you didn’t?
To keep things short, I am just going to cover the second half of my season, which consisted of three big chunks of racing based around the schedule of my team, the Hagens-Berman LLP Elite cycling team. First came the week-long Cascade Classic in Bend, Oregon. Three weeks later we raced the National Championship Time Trial and Road Race in Irvine, CA and, after two days off, the five-day Tour of Utah. Following that I traveled to the East Coast twice for the Green Mountain Stage Race over Labor Day Weekend and some criteriums later in September. Additionally, in order to prepare for the Tour of Utah (where all the races were over 5,000 ft of elevation) I spent just over two weeks in Fort Collins, Colorado, training and racing at altitude.
So, what did I do wrong? First of all, the altitude training in Colorado to prepare for Utah ended up backfiring on me. I’ve learned that altitude is a tricky beast: in order to fully acclimate, one must spend several weeks (not just two) living at altitude. Additionally, because altitude forces you to work at a lower intensity (unacclimated athletes face a 10-20% drop in sustainable power), I left Colorado both unacclimated and less fit than I would have been had I been training at sea level. Coming off the intense Cascade Classic, my time in Colorado wore me down instead of giving me the boost I needed.

Secondly, I raced too much. Because I missed the month of May due to a knee injury, I tried to cram as much racing as possible into the end of the season. After Utah I tackled the 12-hour drive home in one sitting and raced all three local races that weekend. The next week I flew to Vermont for the four-day GMSR, came back for the Mt. Baker Hillclimb, then flew back for more crits on the East Coast. That amount of racing and traveling is not necessarily a bad thing (you have to be able to race and travel frequently if you want to ride professionally), but I should have taken the hint after mediocre performances at Nationals and Utah. I should have rested up, trained a little, and concentrated on just a couple of additional races. Or, I could have just called it a season and started training for Cyclocross.

I’m not happy about my performances over the last three months, but I did a lot of races that I’ve never done before and gained a lot of experience. I learned a lot and I am confident that I raced as hard as I could on each day of racing. I’m thankful to be part of a great team like HB Elite and more than anything I am looking forward to next year. By taking a look back and identifying what worked and what didn’t this year, I am one critical step closer to being prepared to make next year my best yet. One thing is for sure: I am staying away from altitude!

And Thus Ends the Year, Almost.

by Coach Daniel Harm

In two days I leave to the final race of the season. To be honest, I debated for a long time about even going. Yes, this may seem surprising considering the race happens to be Elite Track National Championships, an event at which I have excelled at every year. After much contemplation I decided to make the plunge, book my plane ticket, and hope for the best.

The reason my decision process proved to be tumultuous was because this year has been quite strange. Why? Because this year I raced more than I ever have in my life. All said and done I raced 127 out of 365 days. There have been numerous ups and downs, and the hardest part of it all was having to be on the road away from home so much. This is what it all comes down to: I am ready for the off-season and want to take some rest, but, instead, I have to attend the hardest race of the year.

Let’s just say the pressure is on. I have some demons to hash out. Last year at National Championships (which was also the Olympic Qualifiers) I missed the Olympic time standard for the individual pursuit by 0.7 seconds. I think the let down of putting so much time and effort into training for an Olympic possibility, and then to miss this dream by such a small margin, has been haunting me.

The combination of experiencing first hand the amount of time and dedication it takes to be a professional athlete, combined with the numerous shortcoming inherent with racing a bike, I have begun to reflect back on why I actually do this, why I race my bike. The daunting “Why?” is nipping at my heels, and I have to arrive at an answer.

Without doubt, it is very easy to focus on the negatives: crashing, missing the Olympics by the blink of an eye, the long times away from home, away from friends and stability, the crappy pay, the constant pain and dirt and grime and long nights of waiting in airports. But, still, these negative reasons are not why I race.

Going past the negatives I recall the hilarious moments hanging out with my best friend and fellow teammate, Adrian Hegyvary, after races. Racing with my close friend and winning Madison on the velodrome is quite an exhilarating feeling. In a word, we dominated the National Madison Cups this year. But, it was not the winning that made it worth while, rather, it was the sense of unity and teamwork of sharing a common goal of kicking our competitions ass that drove us to work so hard.

For me, racing is about the people, the people who I race with. It is all too easy to get caught up in the wins and losses—and the disparity between the two. But, at the end of the day, this form of thought will not be able to keep me motivated to race. In two days I leave to LA for National Championships, and there I will get to see friends, fellow racers, and people involved in the race community. Bike racing as a sport needs all the support it can get, and what better way to support the sport by facing my demons, getting on a plain and racing my bike as hard as I can? Because, after all, sometimes there is not always an answer to those daunting “whys?”

Larry Kemp Junior Camp was a huge success!

In the early part of this summer WSBA’s Trish Lawrence approached Cycle U wanting to know if any of the coaches would be interested in teaching a 4 day junior cycling camp in Cle Elum WA. Without hesitation Coach Kristi Berg and Toby Swanson jumped on the opportunity and took on being the head coaches for the camp. The idea was that they would help write up the curriculum and help run the clinic by coaching and teaching the skills involved with all aspects of cycling.

This was the 3rd year of the Larry Kemp Junior Camp. Larry Kemp was a cycling enthusiast that was killed while riding his bicycle in Spain. In his memory, WSBA has put together this cycling camp to promote cycling growth and safety within the junior ranks. This camp is funded by the Larry Kemp Memorial fund. The cost for the camp was only $100 per child for 4 days of camp. This minimal cost is made possible because of the additional funding provided by the memorial fund.

The camp started on Thursday August 21st. The kids started to arrive around 6pm at the Flying Horseshoe Ranch in Cle Elum WA. We had 23 kids registered, ranging in ages from 10-14 years old. We had 9 girls and 14 boys, so this was a great mix of kids both by gender and ability. This camp was open to kids of all levels, from beginner to advanced. The cabin counselors for the boys were Colin and Cole. The cabin counselors for the girls were Kristi, Gina and Trish. We will be looking for girls 16 and over to help with this counselor position next year. We got the kids all checked into their cabins and let everyone get to know each other. We then sat around the camp fire and made smores. We got the kids off to bed at 9:30pm, but of course like at all camps the kids were all very excited and I think some of them didn’t actually go to sleep until very early into the morning. Kids will be kids!

Friday morning we got the kids up at 8am to eat breakfast. There were many very tired children, first lesson learned; go to bed at actual bedtime! After breakfast the kids were greeted by Kat Sweet from Cascade Cycling who ran them through her Mountain Bike clinic. The kids got to learn how to ride off drops, over obstacles, balance, and many other skills. They all seemed to really like Kat’s clinic and learned so much. We broke after the clinic and got lunch, then everyone got ready to head out for a mountain bike ride up on top of the hillside above camp. The kids all trekked up a 2 mile gravel road, that had a good climb and after some adventures we finally ended up on the beautiful single track trails and rode for about an hour then headed back down for some free time, swimming in the pool and dinner. The kids were pretty tired after all that riding and had no problems getting to bed on time that night.

Saturday morning we woke back up to an amazing breakfast (cooked by Trish, Gina, Barry, Joy and many more). Then after breakfast we headed out for a Cross clinic put on by Tim Rutledge with Redline Bicycles. Tim ran them through some fun running drills, worked on mounting and dismounting the bike, and did a little race effort. The kids all loved the cross stuff, a lot of them had never heard or seen a cross race so this was very new to many of them. After the cross clinic we broke for a quick snack and then rounded up the troops to head out on a 19 mile road ride out to the river to have lunch and back. These kids were all such troopers. They all made it to the river with no problems. Once we refueled them all and let them cool off in the river they all got back on the bikes and rode all the way back. Again everyone made it with no problem. So very impressive! So we got back has some more free time, and then the kids still wanted to ride so we offered either a mountain bike ride or a 11 mile ride into Cle Elum to the Dairy Queen for a snack before dinner.

The group split into 2 and everyone went on their rides. Then we all came back together for dinner and a movie outside in the lawn. The kids all got their sleeping bags and curled up to watch the movie “Nims Island” out on the grass. The kids were given the option to sleep outside if they wanted. Most of the kids said they would sleep outside but by the end of the movie only a handful made it the whole night outside. Everyone else snuck back into their dry cabins.

Sunday morning was the last day of the camp. We woke up to breakfast again, and then did some time trial races down the road to the end and back. For those that didn’t want to race, we took a group to the river to play in the water. A very mellow morning with a lot of very tired but happy kids. The parents showed up between noon and 1pm to pick everyone up.

We had so much fun getting to know each child, and watching all the kids have so much fun and learn so much about cycling. I can’t stress enough that if you know a child that is interested or has been cycling for awhile that would love to go to a camp; this is the one for them. It is so well organized and the kids learn so much about every aspect of cycling. Overall a great experience and I already can’t wait for next year!!!

Special thanks to everyone that helped make this such a huge success!
1. Trish Lawrence
2. Gina Kavesh
3. Barry Routblatt
4. Darrin Schwend
5. Christi Schwend
6. Jim Schwend
7. Craig Undem
8. Joy Undem
9. Jerry Cutright
10. Cole Cutright
11. Colin Krebsbach
12. Chad Berg
13. Kristi Berg
14. Tim Rutledge
15. Kat Sweet

End of Season...or just the beginning?

Wow, What a great time!!!

Thankyou to everyone who came out on Saturday to help celebrate the end of the season.

Coach Ed showing off true Cycle U Old School form...

Friends and teammates enjoying the sun after a great morning ride and gorging on fresh Angus burgers, beers and brats...uhhh ahhh...

We had a great ride around the north end of Lake Washington with 25 awesome folks, and finished with a BBQ celebration in the sun discussing the news of the day, like will Lance really be top 5 in the Tour this year? Good idea for our next poll.

Aly and Ed talking total dominance for Team Cycle U 09! BTW, Team meeting Monday night Oct. 20th at 6:30 pm for new and returning team members. Be there!

Which way do you turn best?

OK, so there was some rain on Saturday for the first big race of the season at Marymoor park called Starcrossed and it was a mud fest!!! It was great to see so many friends, Adam Craig back from the Olympics, Tim Johnson rockin the course as he always does, and new and old Cycle U team members out there with the hundreds of other local cross racers getting muddy. Check http://www.tpk-photography.com Tom's picture site (should be updated soon) for some amazing mud pics!

With the Starcrossed course so twisty, and me being a maven of cornering technique, I noticed something dramatic for the first time (something I had pointed out in others but not myself, nice to teach an old dog a new trick!), and that was that I could catch people on left hand turns, but they maintained their gap to me on right handers. Why is this? I talked to Dale Knapp after my race and he confirmed the same thing, and his theory is that because we are right handed that planting that foot feels better. The leg is more stable. Interesting thing is that during my hundreds of bikefits and watching people's pedaling propensity left to right there is a bias for right handers to be stronger with their LEFT foot.

For a couple years I scratched my head and kept noting this seemingly contridictory data, but now that I have seen it enough and thought about it I believe it is because if you are right footed, the left foot stays on the ground and stabilizes while the right foot kicks. So the right is more coordinated and the left is stronger. There goes Dale's theory at some level, I have seen that the left foot is often stronger.

I bet track (velodrome) builders know the answer to this, since all velodromes are races with only left hand turns. This must have been arrived at because of this same phenomenon, turning left is easier for right handers. I think it is more psychological and pattern driven than based on strength...perhaps it is the coordination....but I am still taking ideas so if you know shout it out!

Ride on,

Coach Craig

Cross me up baby!

Great first race of the season for the community, Cycle U team, friends and coaches. Wamsley and Nathan on the microphone creating the "mood", teams everywhere, Redline team trailer with a great food selection and lots of smiles! Here is Kristi warming up.

It was great to "get the cross family back together" and see so many cycle folks out on bikes getting the season going. I must admit I was having a hard time letting summer go until yesterday, now I am full on ready for the Fall!

I was having a blast in the masters A race, what a fun course! I have yet to hear how our other team members did but there were a good number of Boot Camp hard cores out there putting our teaching to use.

ASC O'boy Oberto did a great job with this race, it has really become a tradition to start the season here and this course was better than previous years with less sand and running and more emphasis on turns and handling which is what everyone needs more of this time of year. It was also a nice suprise to get some new turns put into an old course, particularly a couple right handers with less than stellar traction on downhills, adding to the single track to really take the rust off the old cornering skills. I brushed more than a few sticker bushes and was flying the outrigger more than I like.

Thanks to Jimmy Hendrix and Wick and co for keeping those trails wide and smooth from a summer of MTB Wednesday nights. I have never seen it in better condition. The start was also better with a bit shorter pavement and a nice smooth left hander with plenty of room before the hole shot to give everyone a chance to find their spot.

Coach Toby took #1 in elite men by over a minute, coach Kristi won the womens elite race in similar fashion. It was cool to see Kristi railing the corners and really putting the step through dismount to use on those 2 barrierrs!

This is the Team Tomato women warming up, lots of tents and teams showing some pride! Another shot of Holden Berg, rocking the big boy course, behind him you can see the "run or ride up" that I have to brag that I rode every lap.

The key? Hit it with everything you've got on the approach and then shift down to nurse it over the top. Good power work! The course had just the right mix of small sections with recoveries, really well laid out. No monster sections, just short doses of skills and power with enough pavement to get some recovery.

Can't wait to see everyone at the next one.

Great start to the season.

Coach Craig

I am a Tri Geek Part 3...and unrelated cool stuff

OK, the above pics are part of the "unrelated" but cool part of this story taken from us helping out at the Larry Kemp junior Camp this weekend, Left is Head Coach Kristi with firefighting mad man husband, EMT, awesome bunk mate Chad with junior phenom Holden in the foreground...the other shot is the whole group, just had to share, it was a blast, kids and bikes, like peas and carrots...more at the end...now back to my Tri story...

so I made it to the run, sorry for the pause here, but my run was the least exciting part of my first Olympic Tri. If you check results, another cool thing about triathlon, you get really detailed information on times it takes between swimming and cycling (your Transition times) and all legs of your event as opposed to some road races where there is no physical record of your brave feat. My run was less than specatular...until you factor in how little I trained and how sore I was for the 4 days afterwards...then it was pretty ferocious...to me.

So for the run I headed out at a crawl and remembered Tom's words from Triumph to just keep going, and I began to play the game. IF I kept going I could stop and take a pee after the first lap (3 of them). So I pressed on. Finally the water I had swallowed in the swim had worked it's way through my body and it was building pressure, but anther little tip here...hold it. Some how the urgency it creates is a good thing, it can make you go faster assuming it is not a full blown emergency. So I plodded on, willing my legs to keep going.

Soon I noticed that whenver I got passed, it was by hummingbirds, runners with a fast turn over. One thing about only being a cyclocross racer who runs occasionally is that I am used to bounding up stairs, not flying over flat ground at high speeds. My legs were sllllllloooooooowww. I would hear the bam, bam, bam, bam, bam of someone coming up on me as their shoes hit the ground and I was about half their pace BAM...........BAM............BAM...........BAM.....maybe that was why I was so sore the next week???

So I made it around once, then even though I could have claimed my reward, there really wasn't any place to pull over except the woods at the transition, but when I got there it wasn't that full of vegetation and there were lots of people around, so I told myself "next lap FOR SURE! I will pee and be free of this extra 10 oz!" and picked up the pace as I headed back out on the pavement.

Now the last post I did I said "why run when you can fly" and this is where the mental power of Cycle U came in. I preach to anyone who will listen that you set your vision on what you want to have happen and belive it as if it already has. I had invisioned a good run. I began to let my body do a good run despite what my pain sensors were telling me. I started to stride out a bit more on the flats, and dig deep on the rises or small hills. I fought to stay with those who passed me or at least maintain my speed. I held my head up and let my legs go.

At times I couldn't feel my legs much, they were working and flying beneath me but they didn't necessarily feel attached to my body. I had a few aches to work through, which slowed me down a bit, so I wasn't shutting out all pain but the last half of the run I was going for it and fighting to keep my pace as high as I could.

On the final lap, when I knew I was about 1/2 mile away I started to really go as fast as I could. I actually passed a few people and was striding long and fast and felt like I was really racing for the first time on the run. I sprinted across the line knowing I had given it my all. I didn't have to pee anymore. I think that h2o had be reabsorbed cause it was kinda hot by then. It was great to finish, and especially great to get the cheers from fellow teammates, wife and son and total strangers as I came into the finish line. Wow, that was great. And it totally stoked my ego to do OK at something I thought I might not finish during the swim.

Thanks for reading, look for me at Kirkland...I just might make it. I have to post a few pics from our Larry Kemp 10-14 year old camp in Cle Elum this past weekend, that was a blast! If you know of any kids this age who like cycling, it might be their favorite 3 days of summer next year.

This is us after a swim in the river and a road ride. Below is some cyclocross with Tim Rutledge. Great crew of kids!

I am a Tri Geek, Part two..

Now I don't want this to be a brag session, but if you are reading I am assuming that you are fine with some pointers on how to ride a good TT since I really can't help myself. At one time I was the 2nd or 3rd best TT rider in the state and it was the discipline I won my first stage race with, practiced every other week my first year of racing and loved for the simple fact that it was a pure measure of how you compared with other riders...once you factor in the "Geek Bike" savings.

OK, here we go with the play by play... I shuffled out of the water, and luckily had placed my bike at the far side so I know how to find it. Peeled off the wetsuit and got the shoes on and struggled getting a dry jersey over a wet body and finally was on the road and riding. I had visualized a good race. I knew I wanted to work hard and steady on the bike so I immediatly took it up to a hard level on the first little hill and on the first downhill got a Clif Shot down my throat with a few gulps of water. Now I settled in to reel in some fish that got away.

The way I approach the bike is to ride the entire bike leg with similar speeds in similar sections, go hard on the uphills hold that over the tops until rest portions of the course. We were doing 4 laps so the first lap I was not exactly railing the corners, just getting to know what the lines where and how hard I could push it when I got cooking on the last 3 laps. I was looking for pavement quality, gravel, potholes and other hazards to work around, besides the obvious like course marshals, turns and traffic. I clocked a steady first lap passing folks pretty regularly, swallowed another Shot with a few gulps of water and put my head down for lap 2.

I knew to get the best time that I had to average similar times each lap, and I purposely held back a bit on the first lap, planning to ratchet it up each lap until the last one was a full sprint to hold the speed, taking risks in the corners and really maxing out on the uphill parts. That is what came to me as I was riding, the places I made the most time was on the uphills where lots of people settle in, I was jamming them hard knowing I could rest on the downhills.

The other key is not resting UNTIL you are up to speed on the downhill. If you let up when you hit the summit you are wasting kinetic energy, keep pushing until you are going at a fast speed downhill, only then can you get a breather!

I have to admit, I enjoyed passing all those fast swimmers. I enjoyed giving "atta boys" to everyone as I passed and encouraging everyone. I know cycling can be hard, but after the swim I was like "born again!" I was just so happy to be back in my element. The other thing I did that I didn't see anyone else really do was stand up on the climbs. This course was really fun, rollers with each climb less than 20 seconds so standing up to jam them was perfect. It was a joy to find the right gear to stand on, then throw the bike side to side to use the last of my upper body energy before the run.

I reloaded Shot and water for my last lap and really poured it on. I tried not to think of other riders as I passed them, but it is very helpful mentally to have a target. I THANK all those who were in front of me as I was rabbit hunting and there was a steady stream where I was pursuing people all the way until the transition. I didn't intentionally hammer by anyone, I just maintained my speed and sometimes it took me half a lap to catch someone.

I was just on my regular road bike so I had to ride the "fake aero" position (above). I just put my elbows on the tops of the handlebars (thankyou FSA bars with the flat tops and Coach Adrian for wrapping my bars last year!). was yelling at me that I was doing great when I came in. I must say that I am salvating for a "real" Tri Geek machine...with "real" wheels and positioning. Here is a little hint for Santa : )

I don't know how much I moved up on the bike leg but Carla from our Team (she was course marshalling, how cool!) was telling me to go for it cause I was rocking my age group or something.

I rolled into the transition and got onto the run, wow, did I have to pee. I was doing the 90 year old man shuffle powered mostly by willpower and Tom's words from Triumph Multisport "just keep running, it gets better". He was kinda right, it did, but not until the finish...next time...why run when you can fly or Are those really my legs running underneath me?

Thanks for reading, now go enjoy the summer!

Coach Craig

I am a Tri Geek, Part one.

I accept it, I am now a Tri Geek. I am suprised by this realization, and proud to have survived my first Olympic Tri, especially the damn swim. Here is my story of the swim (that is me in the middle with fellow Cycle U Teamates, ignorantly blissful).

Swimming in a Triathlon is like doing a Mountain bike race at night without lights. Thank goodness for Triumph Multisport for saving my life with a wetsuit rental!

Who ever heard of going as hard as you can with 100 other guys in pitch black darkness, not able to breath when you want, getting kicked, bumped into, going the wrong direction, barely able to see even when you lift your head out of the water, and despite giving it 110% still moving the pace of a slug. That is swimming in my first Olympic Triathlon...and that was the good part.

Let me tell you about after the adrenaline wore off and I was about 1 minute into it...I had relegated myself to breathing every stroke, and still it wasn't enough to get into any kind of grove. I was fighting the water, trying to keep my head and chest down as our awesome Tri Goddess Ironwoman Coach Tammy had instructed me, looking at the bouey that seemed to be getting farther away rather than closer. I was starting to look up so much to keep my "line" (I am a pure bike racer after all and 20 years of racing and working on line and angle and trajectory through courses taught me it was key to not go any farther out of my way than necessary) that I was essentially doing the dog paddle with my head out of the water.

I was spazzing. My breathing was frantic and I had nothing going for me other than determination. I looked into the black water, not able to see a thing and tried again...the thought that I wouldn't make it appeared. I tried to ignore it...it came back. I didn't look for a rescue boat since at the start the organizer told us that the ambulance and medic crew was late but he was going to start the race anyway. I was looking to escape the Federal Escape.

Then an interesting thought occured to me. It wasn't the physical effort to swim, I could do that, it was really that my vision had been taken away from me. I had done a couple 30 minutes in open water at Magnuson Park, but I knew the lake and it was in a roped off swiming area and there weren't any other people swimming around me. In the blackness of 5 mile lake I couldn't tell if I was going to ram into someone ahead of me, and I was certainly getting run into from guys going sideways, or me going sideways. It was like riding a mountain bike race at night, you could kinda see but you really needed to use *the force*, not worry about hitting the tree or rock and just keep going smooth and feeling your way.

Then I was finally coming to the bouy and brushed it and felt the rope hit my legs, and another guy came swiming into me...I looked up for the next one and tried again to find my rhythm...and just keeped hammering away with the arms. Damn this was hard.

Then I remembered what my 5 year old son told me the other week when he tried his first swim team workout, with eyes big as we went to the showeres early " WOW Dad! That was REALLY hard swimming across the whole pool!" I smiled and drank some black lake brew and spit it out and kept truckin...gotta do it for the little man. He is brave every day taking on the world, I gotta suck it up and keep going.

I flailed miserably to the next bouy and headed on the homestretch of lap 1. Eventually I could see a dock with people yelling but my earplugs blocked all sound. I knew people were watching me so I tried to get long and smooth again, tried to focus on the game and doing it well. It was embarassing, ego not happy. Pretty soon I was past the dock and at the end of lap one, half way, and it actually started to feel do-able. I settled into a slow and steady stroke, kept my head down more, there were only 1-2 guys around me now which helped. I broke through at that point. I was happy being slow and steady, breathing every stroke if I needed it, and soon I didn't, I was hitting the breath on both sides and making steady progress. Hey, this is alright afterall. Hope is alive!!!

Pretty soon (felt like an eternity) I was back on the homestretch and remembered what Cameron had told me at the pool, start to kick your legs at the end of the swim to get them warmed up for the bike.

The best feeling in the world was feeling the sand of the beach hit my hands as I swam it in hard and came out of the water like a monster. I HAD MADE IT!
Got on the bike and was back home, loving the challenge of tring to catch the 100 guys and gals in front of me now : ) rabbits watch out! Here I come!

I started to see Cycle U teammates and exchange "atta boys" with the rest of the natives! It was like heaven, free and back in control! Next stop is our Triathlon Team open water swimming clinic to keep improving on this very challenging sport.(next, the bike and how I made back all that time).

Craig out.

RAOd Warriors - First Place Overall in Race Across Oregon!

David Longdon reporting....

Hey Cycle U Coaches:

Yeah!

My team finished first overall and first in our category this weekend! The team name is the RAOd Warriors (RAO is the acronym for Race Across Oregon). Read the play-by-play commentary HERE. View pictures HERE. Our team is (mostly) wearing a red jersey with a nuclear explosion and "nuke 'em" on the side. Pictures of us start on page 3 of the flickr site.

We were well-matched with a team called Three Rivers Racing and it was neck and neck until 4AM Sunday, where we had a ~23 minute lead for a while. I think we won by about 15 minutes--pretty close for a 535 mile race. We got a 5 minute time penalty because one of our racers ran a stop sign.

Probably the most fun I've ever had on 2 wheels.

Ed, thanks for all the help with the bike fit. I rode the Scott with the aero bars and had no cramping or other body issues. After the race the 2nd place team speculated that since my teammates were all using aero bars, that may have been enough for the winning margin.

Adrian, the interval training program worked great. We mostly did 30 minute rotations, though at the end the other team was gaining on us so we went to 10-15 minute rotations. My legs felt strong and I had plenty of power to go hard on nearly all of my rotations.

Tammy, I think you need to convince the HPC guys to do something like this.

D
--
David M. Longdon
Velocity: The Seattle Area Cycling Blog


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InCycle Grad Meets "The Man"

Matthew Feliciano, a dear friend to many of us here at Cycle U, and a graduate of our InCycle program, had the recent opportunity to meet a cycling legend, and we asked him to tell us all about it. Here is his story...

LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE – Portland: Ride Report
(AKA: The Day I got to shake hands with the Man)

This ride report actually starts in April of 1999 when I was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. I was going through chemo watching Lance Armstrong win his first Tour de France.

Flash forward eight years to a very hot Sunday in July, Lance has since won six more TdFs and started the Lance Armstrong Foundation. I have done several century rides with Team in Training and raised thousands of dollars for their cause. Along the way I joined an online group called Cyclists Combating Cancer, started by Damon Phinney (father of Davis Phinney) who had prostate cancer. The people of this group had two things in common; cycling and some kind of connection to the fight against cancer. Most, like me were Survivors but others had family members or close friends who had been diagnosed with cancer. When the Ride for the Roses and the LIVESTRONG CHALLENGES started up it was only natural for members of the CCC to participate and as the events have evolved so has the level of CCC involvement. There are teams of members participating in every city that the LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE is held. And for the past several years a CCC jersey has been entered in the Team Jersey competition in each city. This year it happened to win in Portland and that’s how I got to shake hands with Lance Armstrong.

I suppose this wouldn’t be much of a ride report if I didn’t talk about the event. This year the Portland event was hosted at the Nike World Headquarters, probably one of the greatest corporate campuses ever built (especially if you are the slightest bit athletically inclined). There is a running/walking trail that circles the campus, a regulation sized soccer field and of course the Lance Armstrong fitness center. The Lance as it is called was closed for the weekend to accommodate the Challenge runners, walkers and cyclists with shower facilities. I have been in some great athletic clubs before but this one has to be the nicest of all. The high point of the weekend for the CCC group was going to be the awards ceremony which took place at 12:30. This meant that the CCC would be riding the 40 mile option to make sure the whole group would have enough time to finish the ride in time.

Forty miles was really a good choice since it was pushing 95 degrees by the time I finished around 10:30. The course was in the beautiful countryside just west of Portland, it was just a few degrees hotter than I like it 80-85 is just about perfect for me. The 40 mile option was mostly flat with some rollers and there was very little wind, which was great since I was solo most of the ride. I like to do shorter rides on occasion because the people you meet seem to be having much more fun than the ones on the 100 mile course. I also love to ride in the Portland area; they have really done a lot for cycling since I moved away in 97. One thing I noticed out in the countryside was the signage, I’m used to seeing singe that say something like “Bikes next 5 miles” but in Oregon I saw signs that said “Share the Road” with a bicycle symbol. The difference between the two really struck me; the first is more of a warning to drivers that something slow and annoying may be on the road for the next 5 miles the second tells everyone what they should be doing.

Anyway, I finished in plenty of time for the award ceremony. I showered and even considered a massage before meeting the group but instead I wandered over to the backstage area where the CCC group had assembled. We hung out back there until it was our time to go up, security tried to kick us out but the LAF staff set them straight. I took some pics for Coach Tammy with my cell phone. Of course I didn’t think to bring my camera and I’m still kicking myself.

When it was our time to go on stage we filed up and each got to shake Lance’s hand then had a group photo with him and our winning jersey. So there you have it after eight years of fighting my own personal battle with cancer I finally got to meet one of the people who has inspired me publicly to do what I do to help fight the disease. Even more important however was getting to meet and put faces to the names of CCC members who I have only heard from online. Members of an international cycling club that no one joined by choice, people who truly know what it means to LiveStrong and be a part of a grass roots effort in the fight against cancer. The CCC is made up of people who inspire me to keep riding and keep fighting as long as I can.


Ride to Live!
Matt


Photo left to right are:
Mark Blum, Susan Murphy, Steve Bartolucci, Lance Armstrong, Matthew Feliciano, Debra Doerfler, and Todd McLaughlin

Lance Armstrong is Stalking Coach Tammy

It's true, and I'm just not sure what to do about it.

Lance heard I gave up bike racing to train for a marathon in 2005-06. At that point, he was still contractually obligated to race the tour, but as soon as he recovered from his 7th win, what did he do?... he began training for, and completed, a marathon. Coincidence? I think not.

The whole time he was training he kept emailing me, asking if we could go for a run together, etc. I had to tell him, that while I respect him as a athlete, and acknowledge him as a symbol of hope to so many who's lives have been touched by cancer, that's where it ends. "And besides," I told him, "it really grosses me out that you dated one of the babies from Full House".



So lately he's been trying to get to me through my friends.

Early on, he was schmoozing with my boss, Craig, asking him to "put in a good word" for him.







Next, he sent his buddy Floyd out to work on my friend & co-worker Heather. Look at him buttering her up right before he asked if he could get my cell number for Lance. Shameless. Heather didn't crack. She's tough.




Well, now he's heard that I'm moving to Austin, and it's starting all over again. He arranged a meeting with my friend Matt (a.k.a. Cancer Guy) this past weekend down in Portland. I hear the conversation went something like this:

"Come on! Give me her number. She's moving to Austin, so she'll need someone to show her around."

He even convinced Matt to take this picture with his phone, saying, "Show her how firm my glutes are!"

Matt assures me he did not divulge my private number, but I've been getting some very interesting voice mails and text pictures lately that tell me different. Sigh. What's a girl to do??

Well, if he starts training for Ironman, I might have to reconsider.

That was TOUGH!

As my 5 year old said after his first swim team practice, with eyes wide "That was tough!!!" I am training for my first olympic Tri this summer, and I have the same thoughts go through my head while learning to swim. I finally figured out the problem...you can't breath under water. I am fine when I start out, but after a few laps I get winded, and I am used to running or being on the bike where the only limit to oxygen is my ability to assimilate it. Here I just can't get the air in! It is a huge challenge and I really respect swimmers and long distance tri people more than ever. It is Tough!

I set out yesterday to swim 30 minutes non stop...I made it 23. Another observation in a pool on a hot day with a swim cap... it gets hot! I was really wanting to order the wetsuit and true it might have been the pool, but I am now ready to hit the lake without a wetsuit and go for 20-30 minutes and see how hot I get.

Who's with me?

Do the Test

This is a great video that's been floating around cyber-space for a while now. Check it out... really shows how we only see what we are thinking about seeing.

Hmm, might have some implications to a recent conversation I had with someone regarding wearing an ipod while riding your bike outdoors.

MTB. It's back! Off road for your soul

OK, it was about 10 years since I raced my mountain bike, but Tim wanted to go check out a race and I had committed to the Cycle U Team that I would race once a month so I went out last week and it was sublime. I started with the 6pm crew, Peter V was there and ended up snapping a chain at the start and driving his calf into the chainring (not recommended!) but still finished. Tim rode strong and I finally caught him on a cross section about the end of lap 1, and I was suprised by how good it felt to be back in the woods.

Somehow I forgot that I raced pro XC MTB for 4 years. I paid alot of dues and it all came back after the first 3 laps scratched the rust off my bike handling skills. What a fun ripper! Toby, Wick and crew set up a really fun course, only magic mountain would have been better, and I guarantee I wouldn't have felt as good afterward...meaning the micro brew and hot dog...along with the flush that comes with a solid workout for 1 hr, challenging heart, lungs, legs and brain.

The beauty is that you barely can think of anything else when you are racing in the woods, brushing by trees at 15 mph, ripping a line, banking turns and choosing gears to jam. I must say that Toby almost has me signing up for X-Terra Tri this summer. Nothing will make you stronger or a better handler than off road riding, so no matter what your specialty is, consider getting dirty this year on the MTB or cross machine. Here is a link to the MTB races every Wed. night under SeaTac airport: http://www.wednesdaynightworlds.com/

Hope to see you out there, wearing the sweet Cycle U kit, smiling big,

Yours on the smooth path,

cu

Issaquah Sprint Triathlon - season opener!

Congratulations to Cycle U clients Eric Buckmaster & Brenna Johnson for taking the plunge in today's triathlon season opener, the Arbor Schools' Issaquah Triathlon! It was a bit cold in the early hours, but ended up with the best weather of the day for the race.

Brenna had a stellar swim, as expected, and was out of the water at the front of her AG. Her bike is getting a lot stronger, and we're still workin' the run. This was Brenna's first co-ed triathlon.... in other words, her first non-Danskin tri. Swim 00:07:26.5, T1 00:02:22.2, Bike 00:48:27.7, T2 00:03:01.7, Run 00:32:57.7, Finish 01:34:15.8. Way to go Bren!!

Eric achieved a PR over last year's time, despite loosing a spoke halfway through the bike course and dealing with a wobbling wheel all the way back to T2. Swim 00:08:41.6, T1 00:02:39.1, Bike 00:44:15.2, T2 00:01:27.9, Run 00:25:22.4, Finish 01:22:26.1. That's a 5-minute PR over last year!! Your coach is proud :)

Coach Tammy

The Swim - Lake Sammamish - Issaquah, WA

Transition Area
Eric setting up his transition area, and apparently practicing his aero form ;)

Brenna bring it home!

Eric & Brenna post-race

CU Lecture Series: Going the Distance - Training for Long-distance Triathlon

Going The Distance:Training for Long-distance Triathlon

Looking for a challenge beyond the sprint & olympic-distance triathlon, but unsure how to adapt your training? This lecture is for you! Learn how to efficiently train for long-distance triathlon (half & full Ironman). What does it really take? How do you know you're ready to make the leap?

Including pictures & stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly from Coach Tammy's first Ironman, Ironman South Africa this past April 13th.


Date: Monday, May 19th
Location: Cycle University Main Campus, Magnuson Park, Seattle
Time: 6:30-7:30PM (probably closer to 8pm for those who wish to stay)
Cost: $20
Registration: Click Here

***Attn USAT Certified Coaches: Earn 1.0 CEUs from USAT for attending this lecture***

Cycle U in the News! (again)

This article by BOB CONDOR reprinted from the Seattle P-I:

As the days get warmer and longer, more riders will hop on their bicycles for a spin. Just how fast and where you go will determine if your bike is a piece of fitness equipment or simply a comfortable, recreational way to save gas and enjoy the outdoors.

Ask Craig Undem about bicycling and fitness. He will give you a short but insightful answer.

"Go climb hills," said Undem, a local cycling coach who operates the Cycle U training company in Seattle and regularly serves as an instructor for the Cascade Bicycle Club.

Undem said too few cyclists choose hills for workouts, when doing so a couple times per week can transform your body composition (goodbye, fat) and dispel any doubts that cycling is a top calorie burner among physical activities.

"Hills give you more bang for the buck," Undem said. "You might choose to go on a slow, steady ride for 20 miles (about an hour's worth for experienced riders and more like two hours for novices). But if you do moderate hills for 30 minutes that will burn more calories."

Undem said moderate hills translates to "a grade of 4 to 6 percent, not too steep, especially if you're just getting back into shape." He said you want to work at an exertion rate of 70 to 90 revolutions per minute, or rpm. You can determine this level by purchasing a bicycle computer (about $50 retail) or comparing that pedaling rate of 70 to 90 rpm to how that registers on a indoor stationary bike.

"You want that cadence to be moderately intense," Undem said. "It keeps you in a safe zone and gives you a great workout."

Increasing your intensity levels in short bursts (enough to be out of breath but not gagging) elevates cycling to one of the best calorie-burners among all physical activities. In fact, statistics from the American Council on Exercise (the primary certification group for personal trainers) equates bicycle racing with a vigorous game of basketball and not far off running at a brisk clip that would leave most people gasping.

Adding hills to any bicycle ride is easy enough here in the Pacific Northwest. Undem said to do it most efficiently requires more expertise than you might think. For instance, Cycle U teaches a "boot camp" devoted strictly to going up and down hills. It runs for eight two-hour sessions.

"It's a lot like skiing once you get into it," explained Undem. "There is a lot of technique."

Some highlights: Sit more upright in the bike saddle when you're climbing a hill. Don't pull your arms back too hard or too much when navigating the upward slope. And breathe deeply as you work.

One more tip for climbers that applies to all cyclists as they roll back outside this spring. Undem said too many recreational riders forget to drink water during the ride and eat something if they are going more than a hour nonstop. Sports nutritionist will suggest a snack and water is good idea some time in the hour before your ride.

Cycle U and the Cascade Bicycle Club offers plenty of other courses for beginners as well as the most savvy riders. You can learn how to ride a bike -- "there are plenty of people who come to us that never learned as kids," Undem said -- or perhaps take a refresher course on how to shift gears. Cascade instructors might go to the bike shop with you to pick out just the right model.

Not surprisingly, the Cascade club, the country's largest with a membership base of 10,000, works with a significant percentage of injured athletes from other sports. Basketball, running and tennis lead the list, mostly due to balky knees that are treated less jarringly on a bike.

Lateral movement fells basketball and tennis players, Undem said. Runners tend to not rest their bodies enough and stride themselves right into overuse injuries.

"Cycling has a locked range of motion so those runners, tennis players and basketball players can exercise without doing any more harm to the knees," Undem said.

The key strategy is to add intensity to your bike workouts, whether you are rehabbing an injury, cross training or deciding to make your commute your daily workout. All cycling for fitness will turn up noticeable changes in your body composition and personal energy level if you add some hills and maybe incorporate a few all-out sprints for 30 seconds or less when it is safe to do.

"Cycling is a real tonic for the body," Undem said. "Work harder and it will charge you up. You will feel good even after you're off the bike."

Bob Condor writes about health and quality of life every Monday. You can send him ideas or questions at bobcondor@aol.com.
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Thank you Bob Condor for a GREAT article on Cycle U!
To register for our upcoming Road Climbing Boot Camp, CLICK HERE.