What to wear?

Last year was my first winter riding year round. I had the whole what to wear thing down. Then winter 2008-2009 came and I had completely forgotten my guidelines. To top it off, I am not running which is a whole other set of gear to keep track of and DH is riding more in cooler weather so he asks me what he should wear. To prevent this from happening again, I started a chart which has been a good guideline.

Cycling

Outdoor conditions	Clothing
30, sunny, wind	Performance brand tights over shorts, long sleeve performance T, long sleeve jersey, Pearl Izumi barrier jacket, winter gloves and liners
37, overcast, damp/drizzle	Performance brand tights over shorts, LS T, LS jersey, PI barrier jacket, winter gloves and liners
38 and sunny, no wind	Performance brand tights over shorts, LS T, Novara jacket, winter gloves and liners
39-66, wind 5-10	capris over shorts, LS T, Novara jacket, sleeveless jersey, summer gloves w/ liners, mtb socks
40-50, wind 5-10	Performance brand tights over shorts, LS T, Novara jacket, winter gloves and liners
50 and overcast	capris, SS jersey with arm warmers, vest
58, damp, humid, wind 5-10	shorts, SS jersey with arm warmers, vest

Cycling Gear:

• Performance brand tights. I get them without chamois and wear them over my bike shorts. I have mostly Pearl Izumi UltraSensor shorts
• Pearl Izumi Barrier jacket. This is good when it's below 40.
• Gore Phantom Lady jacket.This is a great jacket for in between temperatures or days that have wild temperature swings. I like it best in the 37-47 temperature range.
  
• Novara Tempest jacket. This is one of my favorite items right now. It's warm yet breathable and I've worn it from the low 40s up to about 60 degrees without either freezing or melting. The front panels are wind proof and the rear panels are breathable. If you REI has this model in stock, get it!
  
• Headband. Below 50 degrees or so I wear my Pearl Izumi headband to keep my ears warm.
• Toesies. To keep my feet from becoming bricks of ice, I put Pearl Izumi toe covers on my cycling shoes. I also wear winter weight socks -- DeFeet Wool Blaze
• Gloves and glove liners. Full finger, winter weight gloves and glove liners are a must. The glove liners that I've used for the past year are Seirus Deluxe Thermax and gloves made with Gore Windstopper fabric.

Running

I've had an easier time with the temperature when I am running since Runner's World has a What to Wear application. That has been a good starting point for me. I've read that for running you should dress for 20 degrees warmer than if what you would wear if you are not running. In other words, if you would wear shorts to go to the grocery store when it is 65 degrees out, you should wear shorts for running when it is 45 degrees outside.

Outdoor conditions	Clothing
34, sunny, 13 mph wind	tights, 2 LS performance T, vest (frozen butt)
36 overcast, no wind	tights, LS performance T, sleeveless t, vest (comfy)
38, sunny, no wind	tights, LS performance T, vest
45, dark, no wind	capris, LS performance T, vest
47, dark, no wind	skort, LS performance T, reflective belt
53, sunny, 10-15 mph wind	skort, LS performance T (comfy)

Nutrition frustrations and confustion

What does it mean when your nutritionist says that your situation is puzzling?

Hear is what happened. Three experts say that I am under eating. I agree that I should be able to eat more. Testing revealed that my resting metabolism rate was quite low. Solution, eat more. Your body is smart and will figure it out. Testing shows how many calories are burned at specific heart rates on the bike. That plus the RMR plus a little extra for not staying in bed all day equals the calories that I can eat. Good.

RMR + living + exercise = Allowed

On paper, this all makes sense, however, I gained weight pretty continuously on this even though I was an average of 250 calories or so under that amount. However, the rate that I gained corresponded with the amount extra that I was eating. I had been eating about 1200 calories per day on average. I changed to eating about 1850 calories per day.

(1850-1200) * 28 days = 18200
18200/3500 (one pound) = 5.2 pounds

And yes, that's very close to what I have gained.

Why would I be so special that time tested formulas wouldn't work?

We know from bloodwork that at 152 beats per minute on the bike I burn 9.2 calories per minute which works out to 552/hour. We know from testing what my RMR is, this was not a guess. Even if you give me 0 calories per day for not laying in bed, this still does not work out. What is going on here?

At the same time, I am further away from my weight and body fat targets than I was four weeks ago. Frustrating. Very frustrating.

Maybe four weeks isn't a very long time for my body to adjust?

I need to give myself better gifts.

Wednesday night OMV ride

Last night Oh Melo Velo (OMV) was great as usual. I saw k1v1n there as well as several of the people that I ride with most weekends -- Jim, Sandra, Mark, John-on-the-single-speed -- and several OMV friends -- Eugene, Lisa, John, Sandra H.

The route for OMV is always an out and back. The turnaround time was 6:48 last night. The route last night went in a different direction than it has for the first few weeks and I really enjoyed it once we got across the railroad tracks. A train must of come just before we arrived because traffic was all jammed up and we were there for two light cycles. Even so, my average heart rate for the ride was quite hight.

I hung with the fastest group for the first 10 miles and then was in contact with them for the next three or so and completely lost contact just before the turnaround. I saw them coming back as I approached the turnaround and almost got back on but there was traffic where I needed to turn left so the last half of the ride was solo. I was pretty happy with how I rode and I didn't mind riding along but was a little embarrassed to come into the parking when I did. I just said that I was playing at being sweeper.

All in all, I had a nice time again this week.

Energy conservation, not in a good way

Eating. I'm not sure that I should blog about this or not. I hope that it helps someone else because I honestly thought that this was a myth and that I have been doing the right thing. Eating fiber and fruits and vegetables and lean protein in addition to 10-12 hours of exercise a week. I have not understood how other people can eat so much when I can eat so little.

The beginning seems like a good place to start.

In 2003 we got a puppy named Emma. People took pictures of me with Emma. I looked at the photos and said, "Who is that fat lady with my puppy?!" A few weeks later, we went hiking. I had problems hiking, more unflattering photos. Checked BMI. Holy Cow?! No way. Rechecked BMI. Got a program called BalanceLog and started to eat less and move more.

Fall 2003. The weight is pretty much gone. 80+ pounds of it. Woo hoo!

This is where the problem may have started. I may not have increased my calories enough when I moved to maintenance mode.

In 2005, I had an injury. My brain said moving less = eating less so I ate less. Again with the not increasing intake appropriately.

In 2006, I had a surgery. Moving less = eating less plus now there was a hormone change. I ate even less. Recovery from surgery was slow and I struggled. Would eating more have helped? Who knows.

2008, very sick of being hungry all the time. I am thinking, "I'm dong a metric century on the bike each weekend and I've done that before but it was mostly with supported rides, maybe I need to revisit this whole eating for long rides thing." I contacted a nutritionist and scheduled testing of my RMR. When I saw that my RMR was 720, I freaked out. It was not a pretty picture. I had expected it to be more like 1200. When I showed the results to my nutritionist, she said, "I don't understand this." The nutritionist and everyone else seem to think that I've managed to put myself into an energy conservation mode.

The good news is that the fix is most likely to gradually eat more. I welcome that. If someone is going to tell me to eat more, I'm not gonna argue! I hope that's the solution and that an visit to an endocrinologist is not in order.

I'm a bit surprised that with all that, no one had asked me what I eat until this week. Odd since I did have amenorrhea before my surgery. Odd since I actually told a medical authority that I wanted to "gnaw my arm off." Frustrating because I have been trying hard to do the right thing.

Naked Juice Energy oh.my.gosh.

Last Thursday, spin class was, uh ... challenging. After 15 minutes the instructor asked if we were ready to to start working.

Someone -- a newbie -- innocently asked, "What have we been doing up to now?" We were all wondering the same thing but we were afraid to ask. Ugh.

Anyway, the instructor said that it must be the Naked Juice with caffeine that was doing it. His wife had been getting Naked Juice for him... Bad bad bad. After some behind the scenes research, we were able to determine that Naked Juice Energy Cherry Pomegranate Power is his drug of choice. The power referred to is caffeine from guarana extract (about 80 mg per two serving bottle) in addition to green tea extract and B vitamins. (Hint: All of the blends in their Energy product line have yellow caps.)

This morning, most of the class came in with Naked Juice. One class regular said that he thought about printing a sign saying, "I got Naked with..." but decided against it.

I had never had Naked Juice before and I'm not a comsumer of "energy drinks" outside of coffee products. All I have to say is that about 30 minutes after consuming half a bottle -- oh.my.gosh.

Zoning out

This week started using my new training zones that were developed based on my fitness assessment. I'll still be keeping an eye on the perceived exertion but it's more of numbers game now.

Maya the Virtual Coach provided these training zones for me:

Zone 1=<146

Zone 2=146-159

Zone 3=160-166

Zone 4=167-175

Zone 5=176-179

Zone 6=180-184

Zone 7=185+

The bad news is that now I need to start wearing my heart rate monitor (HRM) during my outdoor riding -- something that I have resisted. I acquired bike mount for my Polar F6.

One interesting thing is that now that I know that what my lactate threshold (LT) is, I can feel my body "switching over." I can look at the HRM but it only provides confirmation of what I already felt.

Another thing that I've noticed is that some spin instructors keep me right in the "base" zone and up to the tippy top of that and they jump to T2 and others would have me sit in T1 if I am not paying close attention. This is important to know since base improves endurance and T2 improves LT and T1 just feels like hard work. It's too hard to be efficient and too easy to improve LT.

Sunday's mix

Confession time: I missed my first outdoor ride of the year due to cold. I've missed ride due to rain this winter, but not cold. It was in the 20s and windy on Sunday morning and I was a bit nervous about ice left over from Saturday's "wintery mix." I bonded with the trainer instead. I set up the trainer in the bonus room and put on the TV, muted it and listened my iPod.

I have a SmartPlaylist set up on my iPod that grabs all of the songs with "spin" in the comments section. I shuffled that list and this is what it came up with:

• Money by Pink Floyd
• Black Rock by O.A.R.
• Is It Really So Strange? by The Smiths
• Papercut by Linkin Park
• Absolutely (Story Of A Girl) by Nine Days
• Same Man I Was Before by Oingo Boingo
• Smooth by Santana
• Busted by matchbox twenty Yourself
• Stumble by R.E.M
• B.J. Don't Cry by Moxy Früvous
• Pay the Man by The Offspring (silence at end snipped off)
• Girl Like That by matchbox twenty
• Life Of Saturdays by Dexter Freebish
• Fire Escape by Fastball
• Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana Nirvana
• Land Of Confusion by Disturbed
• I Want You (She's So Heavy) by The Beatles
• Hard to Handle by The Black Crowes
• Headstong by Trapt
• Thinking of You by Lenny Kravitz

Emma antics

DH is out of town so our morning routine is a little bit different. I usually get up and feed and potty the girls and then head out to the gym while the girls go back to bed. Today, they hung out with me. I had my core work on the workout schedule for today so I did that before going to spin class.

Hannah is aware that when I get on the floor to play with the balance ball and do crunches, etc., I am no fun. She comes and sniffs me from time to time to make sure that I am OK but otherwise, let's me get my workout done. Emma is very much a daddy's girl and if he is around, she focuses on him. This morning Emma kind of stood and watched me. When I got my obliques -- crunches with a twist -- Emma was pretty sure that I was suggesting that we play. She started to jump up and down and play bow and kiss me and left in a huff when I did not respond appropriately!