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Drop a pound: Check!

• Last week: 186.6#
• This week: 184.6#

Everything running on schedule.

Ride the "hard climb" three days: Check!

Building climbing volume has been good, and I'm getting stronger. I even set a new PR on this climb without using my bottom cog, which is awesome.

Ride 3+ hours: Check!

Final time: 3:56. Solid.

Do two Gymnastic Bodies workouts: Nope.

Just ran out of time. I need to figure out how to incorporate some general fitness work into my weekly routine.

Miscellany

I finally made a proper spreadsheet to track my saddle time, climbing total, and weight. As expected, it's showing consistent progress, which is great.

Recent rain has affected my workout schedule, so I'm really trying to establish that my expected volume is just 3 rides, ~3500 ft, and 3 hours. Working in some running & calisthenics on wet days will really help keep things on track.

Next Week's Checklist

• Drop a pound
• Ride the "hard climb" three days
• Ride 3+ hours
• Do 2 Gymnastic Bodies workouts

Don't gain weight: Check!

• Last week's weigh-in: 186.4
• This week's weigh-in: 186.6

That's within the margin of error. I'm calling it flat.

Ride 3+ Hours: Check!

Wanted this to be something of a back-off week, so just did 3 days, at one hour each. (Total time: 3:03.)

This week, I plan to ride all five days if I can, and do the "hard climb" three days this week.

Next Week's Checklist

• Drop a pound
• Ride the "hard climb" three days
• Ride 3+ hours
• Do two Gymnastic Bodies workouts

I've been badly neglecting my general fitness. Time to re-incorporate the GB workouts into my normal routine.

Drop a pound: Nope.

• Last week's weign-in: 185.2 lbs.
• This week's weign-in: 186.4 lbs.

With the weight coming off as fast as it was, I was bound to hit a plateau at some point. I also suspect that I simply had too many sweets this week. I was having a single break & bake cookie with lunch, but I didn't get a chance to bake those this week, so I've been eating the cookies from the cafe at work. I think they probably count double, maybe tripple.

And I had a helping of my mom's leftover birthday cake on Wednesday, which I'm sure didn't help.

I'd love to believe that I'm putting on a bit of muscle from the tough climbing I've been doing, but I know that's most likely not the case.

This week is Thanksgiving, so I expect it'll be tough to really stay on the straigh & narrow, but I'll do my best to at least avoid gaining.

Ride 3+ hours: Check!

Finally tally: 3:47 hrs, 3930 ft, 44.8 mi.

Clean & lube bike: Mostly.

The problem from a couple weeks ago returned on Thursday with a vengeance. I noticed the freehub catching a little bit early in my lunchtime ride, but it was fine as long as I was pedaling, so I decided I'd get my workout and deal with the problem when I got home.

Unfortunately, the innocuous catching got more serious, and eventually (I still don't really understand how) the missing link on my chain popped, leaving me chainless.

Luckily, the chain caught in my rear derailleur, so I didn't have to go back and hunt for it. A few minutes of fiddling with a replacement link had me moving again, but I had to baby the bike all the way back to the office.

I didn't have time Thursday night to repair the rear wheel on my mountain bike, which forced me into some road exploration. I've been driving some of the roads south of City of Industry on my way to work each morning, so it was fun to finally get to ride a few of them.

Still, my heart really is in trail riding. So I swapped out the bearings in my rear hub for new ones on Friday after work, and did some general maintenance on Sunday night. I'm all set to ride.

Unfortunately, wrenching didn't leave a lot of time for cleaning, so while my drive train is shiny, the rest of the bike needs a bit of love. I'll try to get that in this week.

Weight Loss Goals

I'm steadily dropping weight, and that's awesome. My goal is to get under 180 lbs, and I'm just a few pounds away from that.

My stretch goal here is to get under 175 lbs. If I do that, I've promised myself something nice. (New jacket/jersey, etc.) I havce my eye on a jacket from Twin Six, but I may change my mind.

Next Week's Checklist

• Don't gain weight
• Ride 3+ Hours

It's Thanksgiving. Keeping it simple.

It's been an... exciting week. The Woolsey fire is scorching my hometown, and my mom had to evacuate, so Friday's ride and my weekend bike cleaning & repair plans were scuttled.

Clean & lube freehub: Nope

Simply no time. Once life returns to normal, this will get done.

Drop a pound: Check!

• Last week's weign-in: 187.6 lbs.
• This week's weign-in: 185.2 lbs.

All good. I'm feeling fine, not hungry. Here's how I'm doing it:

• Almost no refined sugar.
• "Breakfast" is coffee with double my usual half-and-half.
• I do a daily (when possible) training ride around 11am, before lunch.
• Lunch is a sandwich or other home-made leftovers.
• I eat one cookie with lunch, eaten immediately after finishing my lunch to reduce the glycemic spike.

This week I'm starting to feel a bit hungry in the mornings, so I'll add an egg scramble or some other low-carb breakfast to the mix.

Ride 3+ hrs: Check!

Being sick with the flu on Monday and getting the house ready for my mom to stay with us on Friday meant I only got three rides last week, but hit my 3-hr target exactly. And I hit my goal of doing the "hard climb" loop twice, so while I didn't do as much as I hoped, I hit all my concrete goals.

Schedule a vacation day in the Spring to ride the Skyline Trail in Big Bear: Nope

Didn't get around to this either, mostly because of time. A little research shows that there's likely to be snow on the ground well into March/April, so maybe I aim for a Monday in May?

This Week's Checklist

• Drop a pound
• Ride 3+ hours
• Clean & lube bike

I'm keeping it simple this week. There's plenty of time for (over-) thinking later.

Schabarum Loop

The third week of Tahoe Trail 100 training is in the books.

Drop a Pound: Check!

Check!

• Last week's weigh-in: 190.2 lbs
• This week's weigh-in: 187.6 lbs

I'm skeptical that I'm genuinely dropping weight that fast, but the consistent downward trajectory is great.

Ride 3+ Hours: Check!

Logged 3:50 hrs & 3800 ft of climbing this week, and set a PR on the big climb I've been doing, so I'm happy.

I felt super tired on Thursday, but recovered really well last night and was looking forward to today's ride. But dad life forced that to the back burner. Still, solid week of training, especially if I can sneak out for a cool morning road ride over the weekend.

Plan a Benchmark Ride: Check!

I've put together a loop in Chino Hills State Park that's about 19 miles with 2800 ft. of climbing. Three solid climbs with plenty of little punchy stuff mixed in, if I remember Chino right. The next order of business is to make time to go ride this loop.

What's Next?

Over all, this week went really well. More of the same for a couple more weeks, then I ramp up the climbing a bit.

I've also mapped out a loop in Big Bear that I'm really itching to ride. The research that I've done says it's basically useless to try to train for altitude unless you can train at altitude for 3 weeks or so. That's not going to happen.

Still, I really do need to establish a steady rhythm of 3hr+ rides between now and July, and doing a few at altitude will at least be educational. Maybe I'll burn a vacation day and go do that some weekday in the spring once the trails are rideable.

And there's a problem with my freehub that's causing it to rotate with the wheel once in a while when I'm coasting. At first I thought it was the bearings again, but they're fine. So I'm going to give the freehub a good cleaning and see if that resolves it for good.

This week's checklist:

• Clean & lube freehub
• Drop a pound
• Ride 3+ hrs
• Schedule a vacation day in the Spring to ride the Skyline Trail in Big Bear.