Mitochondria and the six minute workout

Can you build endurance from six minutes of working out a week? I ran across this on The New York Times site:

Since mitochondria enable muscle cells to use oxygen to create energy, “changes in the volume of the mitochondria can have a big impact on endurance performance.” In other words, six minutes or so a week of hard exercise (plus the time spent warming up, cooling down, and resting between the bouts of intense work) had proven to be as good as multiple hours of working out for achieving fitness.

More industry support

We recently got our first shipment of team product from our industry friends at GIRO. We can't thank them enough for supporting our race program with world class equipment.

We got our first podium spot on the road from Jimmy and are just a few months away from seeing who can do it first for COURAGE in the mud. The cross season approaches...

Horribly Hilly Almost Hundreds

Sunday was the Horribly Hilly Hundreds. This was my third consecutive HHH, and as always, lived up to its name. I do the easy 100K course with nearly 6000 feet of vertical. There is also a 2000K course with double the climbing. Both rides culminate at the top of Blue Mound State Park with a three and a half mile grind through the last 900 feet of elevation gain.

These are the roads that comprise the tentative Olympic course. The quality of the roads are fantastic, and the brutality of the terrain is undeniable. It would make for an awesome single day race. This year, for me, it was horribly, it was hilly, but it was just shy of the hundreds. What follows is a play by play of the comical, painful, and delicious moments of the day.

03:00 Wake Up - My eyes burned pretty bad after a scant three and a half hours of sleep.

03:05 High Pressure Explosion - I had a violent, hot and messy explosion trying to relieve a little pressure from the espresso machine. Lesson learned.

03:30 Pick up - Picked up Jean and hit the road.


04:48 Good Morning Officer - Got pulled over for going 9 over. The cop was cordial and maybe a little disappointed that we weren't drugged out, drunk driving club kids headed back to the safety of the suburbs. Lost 20 minutes, but feel lucky to have escaped without a ticked.

05:30 Live Bait - Stopped at a gas station that had a serious live bait setup with six 80 gallon percolating tanks and two big refrigeration units. Fatheads, leaches and a variety of insects made for a pretty awesome site.


06:00 Wrong Turn - Now we're going to be 30 minutes later than we thought.

06:30 Another Wrong Turn - I'm being to think we're going to miss our launch window and all of the sudden feel more comfortable speeding.

07:00 Horribly Hilly Mass Start

07:25 Register - Got there late, but it didn't seem to be a problem as riders where still rolling out.

08:00 Set Sail - We bomb down 900 vertical feet to start the ride. Hell yeah!

08:30 Last Wrong Turn of the Day - A few miles in to the ride I realize we've made our third wrong turn of the day (first and only wrong turn on the bike). We're still with a bunch of riders but we missed the first seven miles of the course and a really nasty climb.

09:30 Big Talk - Jean and I start talking about climbing the last hill twice to make up for what we missed.

10:30 More Big Talk - We're feeling really good and figure we should ride the first seven miles we missed to properly make up for our navigational error.

11:45 Reality - A stint on a 16% grade ended all conversations about riding the few miles we missed at the beginning.

12:25 Foreign Language - As we approach the last climb my quads send a strange, garbled message to my brain. Everyone we're riding with is very quite and I empty all but a a few ounces of my water bottles to prevent carrying any unnecessary weight.

12:30 A Presto - We begin the final climb. A three and a half mile grind through the last 900 feet of elevation gain.

12:32 Que Catso Fai?! - My right leg says "what the fuck, I'm done." A nasty cramp totally locked out my leg. I had never cramped that bad in my life and found that Sunday morning, 18 hours after the ride, I was still seven pounds lighter than I should have been even after drinking tons of water.

12:33 Prego Mi Gambi! - I'm back on the bike after delivering a pep talk to right leg and giving it a quick stretch.

12:5? Victory - 150 feet behind Jean, I roll across the finish line with my pride in tacked and a personal victory achieved. Not unlike Giuseppi Guerini winning on top of le Alpe d'Huez shortly after being knock over by a fan, I felt good about over coming something that for a moment seemed insurmountable. I've got a great Guerini story to tell, but I'll wait until next winter when there's nothing to blog about...


13:15 Paulina Meat Market - Jean and I sit down for some proper post ride nutriment: spicy lamb and honey pork sticks from Paulina Meat Market, prosciutto, baguette, Laughing Cow, fruit, ice cold soda, frozen Snickers...

16:00 Back to the Future - Since when did Flux Capacitors look like lawn chairs?


18:00 Home - I get home and plow a huge plate of fish tacos while my girls hear every detail of the ride. Ruby was as captivated by my flailing arms and vacuum-like appetite as she was to hear I climbed a mountain.

***

The most important thing I learned about myself this year at the HHH was that having more responsibility at work, a second child, and being a year older has taken a little out of me. I'm going to have to get focused asap for cross season.

Thanks to all the people who put on a great event. If anyone plans to do it next year watch out, registration fills up in minutes.

Kids These Days...

Sunday at 6am I was headed north with the Roscoe Village Bike guys and we ran into an awesomely offensive, hijacked road sign. It was on Montrose, just west of Damen. I'm going to let your imagination fill in the second screen of this message...

SPRING!

I'd like to officially welcome Spring to Chicago. The last few weeks have hinted at the joys of leaving winter behind, but now that everything is in full bloom and the mornings don't require head warmers I thing we can comfortably assume we're done with snow and ice in the near-term.

I pop a shot every once in a while walking through the Lurie Garden on my way to work from the commuter station - the changes these last few weeks have been dramatic.

Fresh Kit

The new road team kit is here! We're rockin the white for staying cool in the warmer months and because it's PRO to match your race bike. Aaron has a few extra available if anyone is interested.

Spring Setup

I love riding this time of year. It's cool and dark in the mornings, my legs start feeling better, I'm inspired to be on the bike again, and there is just enough foul weather to make each ride feel like an adventure.

Every spring I find my bikes setup a little bit different from the year before. I put the SRB away last year after I raced it at the Jackson Park Chicago Cross Cup opener. I'm still rocking the single vertical bottle cage, but I swapped the not CX appropriate 700x26c slicks for something faster. I'm trying a 10mm longer stem and am thinking about raising my saddle just a hair. Anyone have experience raising a saddle after years of the exact same saddle to BB measurement?

Refreshingly, I've been with out a cyclometer on the bike all winter and spring. I don't have any sophisticated workouts, and have enjoyed relying on the 'sensations' from my legs. However, I do expect the cyclometer will be back soon...



I love the Chris King / EDGE wheels on the road. I get that they are totally overkill at this point in the season, but my DT wheels are wrapped in the free, steel beaded 26c tires and I really wanted to try out my CX race wheels on the road. During the cross season I spent some time on the road with these but it was cold, icy and they were shod in 32c knobbies. During the races I was dealing with all the typical drag inducing scenarios that rob any sense of speed. However, the wheels provide an advantage in the sand and mud and the whole wheel set (clinchers) are light at just over 1400g.

On the asphalt they are fast fast fast, and buttery smooth. The 38mm profile is quick but completely unbothered by gusty winds from any direction (I did have some trouble over the winter with these on windy, icy days). And the Chris King hubs are such a treat on the road. I've had two set of CK hubs on a few different mountain bikes and always enjoyed the performance, easy maintenance, and screaming windup buzz they make when you catch nice air. In a CX race you just appreciate that they are the most reliable hub you could build a set of wheels on - there is just not enough blood in the head to think about anything else. However, on the road you can really enjoy the smooth power delivery, and the sound the freehub makes at 30+ mph is awesome! You never hit that speed on a mountain bike in a setting where you can hear anything.



After a hard 5:30am effort last Friday my bike and I both had a proper layer of winter thaw. Equal parts rain, mud and street grime makes for a photogenic patina and a good excuse to pull out the camera.