Vegetable juice???

My whole 30 is going well. Today will be the seventh day. Yesterday marked the first day I did a hard ride. Just a couple hours at Stewart state forest with my buddy James. 

 Because you can't have any sugar on the whole 30 I purchased organic apple juice, organic vegetable juice and a few coconut Lara bars. To ride with!! James just shook his head. I put a pinch of salt in the bottom of each bottle and cut the juices 50/50 with water. To make a long story short, I felt great. I was able to go pretty deep. It almost felt like peak mid season fitness. Everyone talks about how bad they feel the first 2weeks. Aside from being tired (mostly at night when I should be) I've not experienced much of this. I've been a bit tingly and few days in I had a rough patch with some back pain but other than that it's been good. I look forward to this "tigers blood" phase they say hits at about 2 weeks. 

Now the bad news. 

Jocelyn and I received news the other day that our team, Toasted Head racing is folding. Yep, remember the anti-Facebook rant? Now I need it. Awkward!!

 Next year I'm registered at pisgah stage race as well as TSE. My secondary goals were gonna be local xc to prime myself for those events. Local xc doesn't exactly make you attractive to teams. At least the teams I've considered. I don't know if I want to spend the year doing nue's and traveling the country again. Those are the teams I have connections with. We've talked about maybe starting our own thing. That could be exciting. It is a bit late but if we act quick it could work. We certainly have the connections to make it happen. I don't know. All seems stupid sometimes. -M

Day 5. Whole 30.

I'd like to tell you that the whole 30 has been tough so far but the fact is it hasn't. Maybe if my normal diet consisted of fast food and cereal it would, but I'm pretty much a meat and potato guy anyway. I'm used to cooking breakfast before work. No adjustment there. The thing I thought I miss the most (beer) hasn't really even crossed my mind this week. I've been going to bed earlier. Mostly just to take advantage of the extra sleep. As a matter of fact, I woke this morning half hour before the alarm. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. I'm not riding much now anyway and it rained quite a bit this week so I've not felt the dreaded bonk from the carbohydrate depletion. 

Thursday was the best day this week (day 4). I felt great. Today my energy is high but the back pain is lingering. Tapering my optimism a bit. I was kind of hoping for a great metamorphosis but maybe it's not to be. Jocelyn tells me "the first two weeks are miserable". I can't say that, but I haven't experienced any euphoria either. 

She's doing a whole 30 now too. We're doing it together so the added pressure to not fail is there. I'm committed. I've seen her accomplish amazing things following this program. I'm hoping it helps me too. 

Looks like I'm going for a couple longer/harder rides this weekend. I'm told that pineapple juice or apple juice (unsweetened and organic) is allowed. As well as figs, dates or Lara bars for fueling. Gotta hit the store and stock up. 

Excited to see how I'll feel. -M

Rigid fork vs suspension fork findings.

The last few weeks I've been doing some testing of different setups on my bike. Ive chosen a local loop at Ramapo Mt. for this testing. It has a good mix of everything you'll find in a race. Long fire road climb. Techy downhills. Techy single track and even some jeep road double track. The loop is just over 10miles and I hold the Kom at 1:08:58. On a 27.5 rigid ss with a 34:20. 

Tested the suspension fork yesterday on this test loop. I can't help but feel like it just eats up a percentage of the pedal stroke. It's almost like the bike has to "load up" before moving forward. This is most obvious when standing. As any single speeder will tell you, you're standing a lot! I was working the lockout too. Clicking it on every uphill and opening it up on flats and downs. The effort for this test felt harder than previous tests. The conditions were basically the same. 

Just a few observations from my rigid vs. sus tests. 

(1) instead of being aggressive, I tend to stay on the seat and let the tech "come to me". This leads to slower trail riding overall. 

(2) on the fork, I can be more aggressive on the downhills but it's a effort to do so. Not allowing proper recovery for next climb. 

(3) there were some steep pitches that I just breeze up on the rigid that I actually had to get off and walk. I attribute this to not being able to use proper body english to maintain momentum. 

(4) bike really seams vague and washy in the corners. 

(5) I was pretty sloppy in the tech. Making many mistakes. Probably because I could get away with it on the forgiving sus fork. 

My strava times were telling. I was 1m slower than my Kom even though I felt faster and with a higher heart rate than all other attempts. In the middle of the loop I was sure I was on record pace. All of the downhill segments I was faster on but only marginally. All of the uphill segments I was slower and I seemed to lose even more time uphill as the ride went on. Losing 48sec on the final 9min climb. 

What does this all mean? I think I'm gonna be running a rigid for at least the xc racing this year. Obviously in the longer stuff the comfort factor will come into play but seconds are seconds and on a single you only have one game against the gearies. That's the ability to out climb them.

-M

Next up, 27.5 vs 29 rigid testing...