huntrdwayn

 ...is my day to post to this blog.  The rest of last week was busy enough that thinking about writing anything did not cross my mind... til now.  This makes me a TERRIBLE blogger or influencer 'cause the amount of attention paid to posting every day, creating content and being "visible" is minimal at best.  There's not any money being made with this site... so the allure is minimal as well.  At least until I am sorting my head out. The KirkCutty Fit Last week the Cutty was a bit miserable to ride at Reach 11.  It felt awkward trying to put power down... so shortly after writing that post, the Cutty was mounted to the trainer and MyVeloFit was setup to analyze the bike. (If you are not familiar with MyVeloFit , it is a website that uses AI to analyze your bike fit.  Maybe I will post about my experience with the software at some point... but not today.) Bike is setup, the garage is HOT as fuck... but I want this figured out.  A new not-creaking-ca...

 ...or bike ...or saddle ...or whatever & two rides in, the heat acclimation side of it all has been just fine.  The lower back / hip issue has not.  Saturday's ride was on KirkCutty, the new Salsa Cutthroat.  The plan was two-fold: See how the bike was fitting & rolling.  When I finished the last ride, I was annoyed.  The bike rides great but the carbon Zipp seatpost was creaking like a muthafucka.  Turned out that both bolts were coated in this cheap threadlock.  Came home, took a die to both bolts, tapped both anchors and put it all back together. See how my back / hip would react after a week of what felt like improvement.  The week had been good with some running, some gym work and LOTS of stretching. Get outta bed feeling pretty good, still do my routine of hot tub-to-pool-to-hot tub... and it is 9 AM before I roll out.  Right away it's clear that there is some lingering kinks in the system.  Pedal easy, moving smoothl...

 ...of what am I missing opened up after re-reading that last post.  There's still no doubt that burnout has set in a bit - same roads, same trails, same routes, same intervals.  Even with new & different bikes, the feel of it all is still mostly the same.  It is one thing to admit that burnout has creeped to THIS level of pushing me off the bike for awhile.  The blame, at first, was being placed on the temps... but yesterday on the way back from the grocery store, the benefits of heat acclimation were not clear.   That opened up Rabbit Hole #1, heat acclimation.  Like anyone else with internet access, Google's version of the AI gave me the answers.  Just for the purpose of sharing the basics, here ya go: Expanded blood plasma volume - more plasma, more available fluid to push through the muscles and skin simultaneously.  How much?  Don't know... yet. Lower operational heart rate - more plasma, more stroke volume in your heart.....

...with no training plan, no goal event or big push to ride the bike.  About two weeks ago as I was laying out a plan to prepare for the Bear Howard gravel race on August 1st, my brain just sputtered.  While the 60 miles of forest roads in Coconino Forest were not so daunting, the idea of pushing myself out the door once a week to: drive the two hours up to Flagstaff (or Payson or ???) ride growing amounts of time & distance in the woods (which still sounds fun) drive the two hours back home figure out how to recover from it all ...was daunting but not necessarily demoralizing.  Everything else that went on in between rides was demoralizing: the 4:30 AM alarm in order to be out by 5:30 or so... the mid-morning rides in the 90-100 degree heat to help with heat acclimation the recovery days after the Flagstaff rides or the Heat Acclimation rides... the gym days (which aren't so bad) Honestly, no ONE thing I am whining about is that bad... but stack em' all up in a row, ...