Thursday. More climbing with Dean. Got a few more lead climbs under my belt. Spent some additional time working out some tougher bouldering routes. Hand is good.
Friday. Bike to work day. This is something organized by some type of cycling advocacy group where "pit stops" are located all around the area. Felt like a normal commute to work for me, except that I met some coworkers for a longer ride. And I got some food and a t-shirt at the end. Morning ride was 27 easy.
Saturday. I was indecisive coming into the weekend about which day I'd take a longer ride. This because I wanted to also get in some weights. Chose Saturday for the weights and it was a good decision.
Sunday. Beautiful, if only slightly damp, ride out to Patunxent. This was a variation of a route I'd recorded back in April. I began slightly reserved, keeping recovery in mind for this weekend. The cards unfolded and I felt great, enough to surge here and there and pick up the pace for the second half of the ride. Last weekend's hills made the Patunxent loop seem flat as a pancake. There are some rollers but it's very moderate compared to northwest of the city. Also experimented with an altered nutritional approach. This has been on my mind lately. How do I best balance my various interests while enabling them to benefit each other rather than work against themselves? Less abstractly, how do I make sure all the cycling isn't altering my metabolism in such a way as to sap me of strength while at the climbing gym?
I've been reading a little bit about how body builder's gain mass. Not because I want to do that, really that I just don't want to metabolize too much muscle tissue on my rides. It seems steady carbohydrate intake is one of the keys to providing a buffer against this. I've read so many times in various running related articles about the reasoning behind fueling up on long runs. And I don't think I've ever come across a connection between carb consumption and buffering against loss of strength. Maybe I just read over it, but I'm not sure there are many references to the topic. If I'm reading things correctly, insulin in the bloodstream induces an anti-catabolic (anti-muscle eating) state, so taking a gel for instance can be of greater benefit than just topping off the energy reserves because it raises insulin levels.
All of this to say really that I took more gels than I normally would have yesterday (two instead of one) and mixed some whey protein into one of my water bottles. The lack of junk in my legs this morning is indication of either the positive results of this approach, my increasing tolerance for longer rides, or my vulnerability to placebo. 50 miles in almost exactly 3 hours.
Last week came in lower than average at about 90 clicks. This week should be more but I'm a point where I don't really want to push things, so I may rest a few days as well.
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