How was your summer riding???

[Head Hunter]

Hey guys...

Haven't been on for a while...very busy. Anyways just wanted to see if you hit your goals, etc...

I haven't tracked miles since July, but I had a solid August, even with all the hurricanes, and after that bad first week, and September has been looking good. The quality has been there a lot more than the quantity.

Many rides of 25-30 milers, but had some major pulls at fast speeds, and with high winds, made it tough, but fun...

Now comes the time to start training for a sprint tri. It's on Oct 17. Trying to incorporate everything else around my riding...

How you guys doing?

Alex

[Kaiser]

Sad and pathetic, but social. I've put take home MORALS at the end, for those who simply want to use this post to help themselves.

I fell short of all my goals:

-2K miles. Nix. Got to around 1,600 and had a VERY bad August, which deflated my sails. Did get a lot of good mtb riding in WV in Sept. though. Will post a report and pics when I can get a site I can link pics through. MORAL: good weather in Chicago, along with good health, is not guaranteed.

-Century: Nix. Although in all fairness, I could have easily extended one of my 70+ mile rides to do one, I thought, nah, let me do an organized one at the end of Sept when I planned it. Bad move. MORAL: What you can do today, don't put off until tomorrow.

Net result: (and I will post a different post on this as well entitled : 'Aerobic and Fat' or 'I'll Start Tomorrow'): after ditching the weights since March to ride a lot, after eating a lot of carbs and not eating cleanly, I am as fat as ever and in some of the worst shape of my life (I've been heavier/fatter, but in better shape). Lou's right...for fat loss and good health, cardio sucks, esp. when you combine it with a BAD diet (but you didn't hear it from me). But I'm a damn good bike rider: Hartman's sport specificity at work! MORAL: Let the sad story of a once buff Kaiser be a cautionary tale.

Signed,
Fatty (OK, not really that fat, but not happy about his BF%)

[Kaiser]

One more thing: one of my group riding buddies (and a friend) cranked it out in her second ever Ironman triathlon - she got 9th in her age category and finished in 12:26 - a few hours faster than she finished over a decade earlier before she had 3 kids)...she SMOKED it! She's 41 years young and can go like the Energizer bunny - after our 4 hour group rides, when all of us are suffering, she always asks, "So who wants to go another couple of hours?'

[ODB]

My summer riding was horrible. Part of it was getting the new job in August. I miss my 20-30 mile a day rides. I went out with My wife, Lisa and Sarah the other day for a 20 mile fire road ride with sweet hills. It sure felt good but I could tell that both Sarah and Lisa are improving faster than me. They can't catch me yet but they are moving in the right direction.