A Filter, Cough, and Power : How to Have More Energy While You Ride

I've been sick the past few days with a cyclingy nose and a slight sore throat but this has not kept me from riding.  I've mostly just been spinning inside but today I went out and about.  I have this baseless idea that if I exercise myself to death I will in turn make my body uninhabitable for any bacteria or virus that is causing me to feel lousy.  I do know that my sinuses clear up quite nicely by the end of my ride where 'er it may be.  The beginning of each ride though is most uncomfortable as was the case with today.

   I started out and was quickly reminded of my hindrances.  My nose allowing no air in as though clothes pinned shut and my throat felt like it has an air filter in it only it wasn't filtering grime from the air it was filtering air from the grime leaving me wheezing and coughing and grasping for air.  As I was so desperate for air my mouth was gaping open and a wide open mouth dying for air on a warm spring evening while many little friends are out and your traveling at 28-30+mph is a bad combination.  Yes. I got a little friend who should have traveled straight on down the tube stuck in the filter of my throat.  I have no problems swallowing a gnat.  It happens.  In fact racing cyclists on average swallow three to four times more bugs than your average person (just made that up, but it sounds good).  The problem here was that it just did not want to go down or up for that matter.  This left me coughing and hacking and nearly lung chucking for a mile and a half if not more.  All things, it seems, have their purpose.  On this day this gnats purpose was to lead me to discovery.  
   The first discovery was that I can ride with no air for a mile and a half if not more at a fairly slow pace.  The second discovery was that once the gnat went down I felt a better.  This may seem trivial but it has grounds.  You see as I explained to my wife, I was able to ride a bit quicker than usual after swallowing that gnat and the reason being is that I got a tiny shot of protein which boosted my energy for the remainder of the ride.  Do not forget if you need a little oomph during a ride, open your mouth and invite the protein bites to get that energy boost.

On very special occasions I take my favorite treat - a bag of Haribo Gold-Bears.
Interestingly enough the flavors are different in Russia than in the U.S.  This
is and image I think of German vs. U.S. Haribo Gold-Bears.  I don't care where
they're from. They're good. 

  Actually by the time I did get rid of the gnat I was all cleared up and able to ride at my normal pace.  And further more there are lots of good ways to keep your energy level high while riding.  It's called drinking and eating.  I always brink two 28 ounce bottles with me when I ride even if I know I won't be out long. 
I usually fill the bottle with Gatorade since it seems to give me that little extra that water does not i.e. sugar and those lovely electrolytes.  Plus from all the reading I've done it seems that Gatorade keep your body going quite well.  I've actually filled one bottle with a protein drink during a longer race.  I don't know if doing this has any positive research results but it  seemed like a good idea and I felt good during the race.  When your about to leave don't forget to bring that banana or something that will keep your body fueled.  Sometimes a short ride turns into a long one and then when you're towards the end of the ride you'll wish you had that sustenance in your back pocket.

Thanksgiving or A Giving Thanks Ride

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving.  I had to work the night before and night of and was getting little sleep but... as I was driving home Thanksgiving day I realized there was just about nobody on the road.  This made me excited.  I should ride.  And ride I did.  I got approval from my wife and took off on a Giving Thanks Ride.  As I rode I thought about some of the things I was thankful for.  Besides being thankful for my loving and beautiful family at this time as I rode I was especially thankful for a functioning and healthy body.  Being healthy allows me to play and have fun with my family, have a physically active job, and well... ride a bike.  Though riding a bike may seem like small think many people are not able to participate in the joy of cycling.   On this Thanksgiving I was especially thankful for my ability to engoy a ride on my bike.   I told myself I would take it easy and just go for a spin but I could not help myself and pushed up some of the climbs and sped around some decending corners.  I was home in an hour.   Even though I was running on empty I felt great.  We went to the store as a family and bought what we needed for our Thanksgiving dinner and headed home.  We decided to have an Italian Thanksgiving, so no turkey and potatoes this year.  Besides my bro and his family headed to Bakersfield to spend Thanksgiving.  So anyway I wanted to share one dish from our thanksgiving which is actually a fairly regular dish that we love.  It is super easy, super fast, and the first word that comes to mind about its taste is fresh.  It tastes great.  It is caprese salad.  You need tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.  Slice up the tomates and mozzarella, slice up the basil (or just use whole leaves).  Add olive oil across the top.  Give it the salt and pepper.  And I guess it's optional but for us it makes the dish perfect is to add balsamic vinegar.  You must be careful with the balsamic vinegar because it's strong.  I usually pour it onto a spoon first and then lightly drizzle it onto the dish making sure each piece of tomatoe and mozzarella get a nice line of the vinegar.

We usually add quite a bit more basil than pictured here, but this is a good representation.  When picking out mozzorella make sure you get something nice and moist,NOT pre-cut, and NOT spiced in any way.  You can also make this dish with cherry tomatoes and little mozzarella balls (that have some specific name in Italian).  Using the the cherry tomates etc. cuts down the preparation time practically down to nil, but I personally prefer having sliced tomates and mozzarella.  Italian food equals happiness.  Well, good food equals happiness no matter who claims the dish.  And... here's a bike idea by Konstantin Datz in Germany

It's actually supposed to be a folding bike.  Whether or not this is technically engeneerically sound I do not know, but I liked the idea.  Here's a link for a few more pics.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/azor-bicycle-prototype/764198 .

NO.. it's not over I must add that I think I have one more reason to love holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  No one is out on the rode in the morning.  No One. ok. that's all.

Eating and Riding: A few Words for the not so wise - cough cough myself

Eating as you would think goes hand in hand with many things.  Riding your bike just happens to be one of them.  A lack of fuel means problems.  I've had the problem of not properly filling my tank and I again had this problem over the last week while riding in Bakersfield.  I was doing pretty well until the ride was over or shall I say about 3 hours after the ride was over.  I ate some cereal before I went for my ride and grabbed an apple for the trip back.  It was a great ride.  40 miles at a leasurely pace.  I ate my apple as I was homeward bound and felt good.  When I finished I felt pretty worn even though I didn't push the pace at all.  My first mistake - not eating for three almost 4 hours after my ride.  My second mistake - eating way too much delicious heartburning greasy pepperoni pizza from Rosa's Italian Restaurant!!!  The pizza was amazing as usual.  My body about ten minutes after eating half a pizza was not in a good way.  The lesson to be learned here is to eat.  Eat enough, but not too much, eat often and make sure it's the good stuff, not the amazing stuff like pizza.

Yes, I still love Rosa's and highly recommend eating there if you're in Bakersfield.

 

Date Day!!

So today was an abnormal workout day!  I got to workout/relax with my wife for about half of the day!  Maybe it sounds a bit odd but we went to the gym for our date.  My wife is lucky enough to be aquainted with the yoga director at this gym and she gave us some free day passes.  So we decided to use them finally.  We used the bike trainers, then worked out different muscles with the training machines, then ran for a half hour on the treadmills.  After all of this we got into the pool and finished off with the sauna. Quite nice.  We then went to the store together.  Going to the store without kids when you have young'ns is like sitting on the couch and watching TV for those who don't have kids.  We bought what we needed to make this

It's a grilled tofu sandwich.  My wife had something like this at a restaurant and wanted to go back as part of our date but I said that we could make it at home for a quarter of the price.  So we did. And it was good!  It is toasted basil garlic parmesan sourdough bread with basil pesto spread, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, tofu marinated in nama shoyu sauce, jack cheese, caramelized red onion, and then after the pic we added some buffalo cheddar (which is a spicy hot cheese) since my wife said it needed some heat.  We had already picked up the kids from Uncle and Aunties house, who (Thank You, Thank You) watched the kids while we were out playing,  so the kids helped us eat the sandwiches.   Great Day with the one I love! We of course missed our kids so we were happy to pick them up and go home.  I think we're going to sing songs together when I'm done here.   I was going to add my thoughts on gyms here but I think I'll make a separate post later.  Hopefully this sandwich will inspire some good eats!  I bet it would be good with some cold cuts or grilled chicken too, whatever floats your boat. 

Apple Pie?

Part of staying in shape is determined by what you put in your body.  Luckily my wife makes sure I eat well.  I'll be posting some of the great food that she (often times we or I - I usually make the unhealthy stuff) prepare.  

A little background on our eating habits.

We've tried out being vegetarian and vegan for periods of time but when it comes down to it we love food, all sorts!  But, this has not kept us from eating healthy. In fact we have just added raw foodist recipes to our plethora of recipes.  It's quite fun and different to not have to cook.  The idea behind eating raw is that you loose no nutrients from your food through unnecessary cooking.  The food can't reach over 120 degrees.  A lot of the what we "eat" is not eaten but drunk because it is either juice or a smoothie.  There are though tons of good recipes for main dishes, snacks, and desserts!

This recipe comes out of "Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Ever Meal of the Day" by Erica Pamcrantz and Imela Lilja. You can find the book on Amazon.

There were three parts to this Apple Pie: the crust, filling, and garnish. The ingredients are thus.

Crust:

1 3/4 cups almonds

1 tbsp canola oil or almond oil

5 fresh dates

pinch of nutmeg

2 teaspoons cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon honey

Filling:

1 or 2 apples (we used 2)

1 banana

2 dates

1 tsp cinnamon

Garnish:

2 or 3 apples, sliced (we used 3)

Cinnamon to taste

Instructions:

1. Finely chop the nuts in a food processor. 

2. Add the oil, dates, spices and salt. Mix

3. Add the honey, and mix to for a dough.

4. Spread the dough out on the bottom of a pie dish.

5. Thoroughly blend the filling ingredients in a food processor , and place inside the pie.

6. Garnish with sliced apples. sprinkle cinnamon on top.

We used our blender for most of the food processing since we don't have a food processor and it turned out great! I usually don't take my own opinion to know if food is good or not.  I need to hear it from someone else or better yet see in their actions that the food is good (they eat a lot of it).  Our best critics are our kids.  If they're eating it, it must be good (besides the sticks and every other thing our one-year-old tries to put in his mouth)!  The pie was a hit and did not last long.  We also made a cream to put on top from the same recipe book.  Here's how it looked (cream excluded).

No the post is not over yet.  I have to connect this to cycling besides just being healthy.  Luckily there was some left overs because this hit the spot after my ride the next morning.  Climbing +1,500 ft and Apple Pie = A happy Andrew!