DOMS

There's an acronym for everything. That one happens to be Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness. Oddly enough, no one actually knows what causes DOMS. Muscle soreness during and immediately after exercise is the result of lactic acid that is produced under anaerobic conditions. Basically, your breathing/circulation can't keep up with your muscles' oxygen demand. That lactic acid is cleared out of the muscles and surrounding tissue within a matter of hours though, so it can't be the cause, and no other plausible explanation has been offered for the soreness you feel the day after a hard workout. Which, by the way is the point of this little physiology lesson. I hurt.

I was okay when I woke up this morning. Until I tried to move. Luckily, hungry outweighed sore and got me downstairs for breakfast, and I managed to work the worst of the kinks out pretty easily. I rode into school a bit slower than usual, but not too bad. And then I had a 5.5 hour lab class on my feet the entire time. By the end my legs were aching so badly I could hardly walk.

So, I ate lunch after lab, then registered for my next term, and then what did I decide to do? Go to the gym. Yeah, I'm brilliant. One heavy lifting workout later, and I limped home on my bike and am now curled up in bed and planning to not move again all night. Can't wait to see how bad the hurt is in the morning. Maybe I'll take tomorrow off.

Riding less, lifting more

I haven't really had the time to ride much over the past week. The motivation is tough when I don't have people to ride with on short notice. The thunderstorms don't help either. Bernie and I will be riding together this weekend, which will be good.

Instead of riding I've been lifting. I shifted from 2 sets of 20 to 3 sets of 12-15 and upped my weights accordingly on Tuesday. A shift like that always means a day of pretty extreme soreness and stiffness. That should be mostly gone by tomorrow, though, which is good because I'll be lifting again. It is very encouraging, though, because I'm lifting weight in sets of 15 that I was only able to lift in sets of 5-8 before I left Portland. I'm also starting to see real muscle definition in my arms and more definition in my legs. As I continue with the lifting I'll slowly replace fat with muscle and should see a very visible difference. The lifting isn't going to make me shrink, necessarily, but it will definitely help get my percent body fat down.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been trying calorie counting for the first time in my life. I've decided that I hate it and it doesn't work for me. Maybe for someone that has a regular schedule and does the same amount of exercise daily it would work. I lift a couple of times a week, do one race pace workout, try to do at least one long ride, and who knows what else I'll throw in there. That means my daily caloric needs can vary by 2000kcal or more. I'm just not willing to put in the effort to keep track of that kind of thing. What I discovered is that I kept underestimating how much I should eat throughout the day and would either eat a lot at night or wake up starving, or both. Overall, I think I actually gained a couple of pounds in the past two weeks. So I'm going to stop listening to the part of my brain that buys into media hype and go back to Neil's diet plan. Eat healthy food whenever I'm hungry and ride as much as possible.

The big sticking point with this plan is making sure that I bring enough food with me to school, especially on lifting days. For example, on Tuesday I brought: a tuna sandwich, a PBJ with banana, an orange, a bag of trail mix, and a muffin. That was supposed to be enough to get me from 7:30am to 4pm with an intense workout in the middle. It didn't work. And when I run out of food at school, the only real options are vending machines and the cookies at the coffee stand. So for tomorrow, which is the same schedule as Tuesday, I will pack: a burrito, a bagel with cream cheese, an orange, a bag of trail mix, two muffins, a nutrigrain bar, and some cookies. We'll see how that goes.

Lifting and some more plan

I've been in the gym every other day this week and it's been great. I am feeling stronger, having more energy, keeping my stress level manageable and generally loving it. I realize that a week of lifting has a much bigger psychological impact than physical impact, but at least I am getting my muscles used to this particular form of abuse again. I'm staying at high reps/light weights for at least two weeks and then will talk to Neil about increasing the weight depending on what my racing situation is at that point. I'm guessing the situation will still be trying hang onto the back of the pack as long as possible.

Speaking of racing, I took the week off. I've been rather busy and stressed, and the weather was nasty, so I decided to just rest. I think it was a good decision. I'll be racing again next week though.

The plan for the next little while is as follows:

Friday: Yoga class and interval workout
Saturday: ~3 hour ride (with UR team?)
Sunday: 1 hour tempo workout, lifting?
Monday: Recovery ride with Katherine from school
Tuesday: GVCC race
Wednesday: lift

Also, I have other exciting news. I'll be back in Portland during the break between semesters, and according to Neil, he can help me bring my bike for free. That means I can use some of my new found power on flat and windy courses at PIR! I'm very excited about this possibility...

Still plugging along

I had a really nice relaxed ride on Thursday with Bernie from the UR Cycling team. We went about 30 miles in a little less than 2 hours. It was a good relaxed pace and just what I had been needing.

Friday I finally got myself into the gym. First for a yoga class, which was great. It was a very energizing style of yoga, so once the class was over I was feeling ready to go lift for a while. So that's what I did, working all the major muscle groups and using light weights just to get myself used to lifting again. By the time I finished my muscles were feeling pretty dead but I was feeling really good.

The next morning I woke up sore all over, as can be expected after weightlifting, and with a mild sore throat. So I took the day off, except for my 10 mile ride to the grocery store and back. Today I felt much better and went riding with Bernie and a couple others from UR. One guy is from Salem, so he sympathized with my dislike of the wind and lack of hills. I've got to admit, though, the farmland and rolling countryside around Rochester is beautiful. It's just a very different kind of scenery from what I'm used to.

I don't think I'm going to do the GVCC race this week. I'm going to focus on lifting and a couple of short intensity workouts at a level I can handle. With my current computer troubles and the stack of homework I'm ignoring right now, it'll be good to take the week off.