Whole 30. Day 10.

The urge to quit the whole 30 is high now. I've been told that days 10 thru 14 are the hardest. It's true. Grumpy as hell. Craving all kinds of stuff. Only knowing that eating or drinking those things will lead to regret. I've broken protocol and been sneaking peeks at the scale. Whole 30 says "no weighing yourself". My pants seem looser but I've not lost much at all. That's a bummer. Riding the bike yesterday was like, umm, kind of like I've never raced a bike a day in my life. Legs wouldn't spin. Legs wouldn't mash. Hurt to stand. Hurt to sit. You get the picture.

 To add to the grump factor, I was walking the dog and noticed a tree leaning toward the house. It's in my yard and dead. It's beyond calling anyone. Imminent doom!  I can't tell if it's gonna slam, graze or miss completely. It's gonna come down today. High winds and rain forecasted. The only consolation is its tall and very skinny. We'll see, I guess. -M

All bikes can be fun at different times, I suppose.

Everytime I start thinking the whole 30 is easy it turns around and kicks me in the nuts. Saturday I felt great on the bike. Hammering up the climbs. Maybe like mid season fitness almost. At least it felt it. Sunday was met with a complete lack of enthusiasm to even ride and a really heavy feeling in the legs when I did. I managed to get a test lap out on the 34:19 but nothing more. Another 1h 11m time. Is no equipment change on the bike I make gonna make a difference? Seems only the effort level to pull the same time changes. Hence the age old ss problem. "You can only go so slow, but you can only go so fast too".  

The last few weeks on the single speed has been fun but just like mid summer I'm starting to doubt that it's a viable race machine for me. 

My buddy Gordon says that, particularly at our age, doing a stage race (let alone two) on a ss is crazy. I'm really starting to believe that. If you look at the times of the ssers and compare them to the other classes, they're not even close at stage racing. Surely not every sser can be a drunken fool at these races? I know I can compete in a one day event but the day to day grind? My thoughts are, the guys in the geared classes just recover faster. Leaving them fresher for tomorrow. Stage racing is tough enough. Why make it tougher? 

So what do I do? I'm registered in 40+ at pisgah stage race. I'll stick with gears for that, reassess, regroup and think about TSE. Maybe race ss at the xc stuff? Or maybe the ss is just something that I'm holding onto. Something that defined me in the past. Made me what I am but needs to be let go. Am I no longer a singlespeed racer? Am I just a mountain bike racer? Does it really matter? -M

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