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Get Fit, Stay Fit, Feel Good - 2026

Mike95060 said:
If you look on strava very carefully you may notice that on the same day, Robert and I did very similar rides in terms distance and elevation. In terms of performance, he averaged about 6.5 mph faster than I did with less relative effort resulting in about an HOUR LESS of ride time. 😂

FML there are levels to this and I'm two or five away from where I thought I might be. I was COOKED after my ride. I doubt he was lol
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Which day?

Ya there are levels. And you are prob closer to me than I am to the race winners.

My Strava Streak is at 184 weeks with 995 activities. I’m nearing 4 years of consistent effort with training. It’s A LOT. But even with that, most of my weeks are <15hrs and that’s mostly all I can manage. Dylan Johnson said he’ll be doing 30+hr weeks for a 3wk Unbound training block. The insanity 😜
 
stangmx13 said:
Which day?

Ya there are levels. And you are prob closer to me than I am to the race winners.

My Strava Streak is at 184 weeks with 995 activities. I’m nearing 4 years of consistent effort with training. It’s A LOT. But even with that, most of my weeks are <15hrs and that’s mostly all I can manage. Dylan Johnson said he’ll be doing 30+hr weeks for a 3wk Unbound training block. The insanity 😜
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I'm glad to see Dylan back and fighting hard. His journey has been a rough one lately. On the 29th we both did about 30 miles and 2200 ish feet of climbing. I Labeled my ride "Full Send." It's a big loop that I do quite a bit. 20 miles of pavement (10 out 10 back) along the coast and then its up to UCSC campus and into the woods for about 10 miles of trails. "Mailboxes" it the reward on that ride. I usually make 2-3 little pit stops on that ride for food and water. On the 29th the goal was no stops, keep it out of zone 2 as much as possible and push as hard as I could for as long as I could. It's a little weird that I do that ride on a Santa Cruz 5010 when 2/3rds of it are pavement. The road sections are gravel bike territory but some of the trails are real mountain bike stuff. I use the 5010 as a comfortable training tool. Its such a couch. Bike choice may account for a little of our performance difference. A little... :laughing

If your ever up here with time to ride dirt, I'm down! Campus, Wilder, the Soquel Demo Forrest, whatever. I feel spoiled with good options. :thumbup
 
stangmx13 said:
There’s always new tires for that bike too 😅
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Oh shit. That's right. I am gonna get some Go Fast 42mm tires for it. My roomie is going to be so damn sick of me. He used to own a bicycle shop in Watsonville so he watches my stupidity with amusement and tolerates the inglorious displays of spandex.


@Mike95060 I look at Robert's times and speeds, and he'll be like, "Oh, this is a nice mellow 30-mile recovery ride," and I'm like, "That's a big ass workout at a flat-out pace for me!" Then I remember I am in a different phase of my fitness journey than he is, and I am always improving compared to where I was just a few months ago. I looked at Strava and I am at 700+ miles for the year and about 64 hours in the seat.

Also, tonight is the SF Bike Party, and I am psyched to go ride later. :banana
 
IMO the people that work the hardest at all my races are the ones at the tail end of the field. They spend so much more time on the course, likely burning just as many calories overall. And they experience all those aches and pains for far longer. They are also prob more likely to crash, to bonk, to suffer. And they still finish!

All my training is just to make races easier. Maybe I do more suffering before the race and they do it during 😅
 
stangmx13 said:
IMO the people that work the hardest at all my races are the ones at the tail end of the field. They spend so much more time on the course, likely burning just as many calories overall. And they experience all those aches and pains for far longer. They are also prob more likely to crash, to bonk, to suffer. And they still finish!

All my training is just to make races easier. Maybe I do more suffering before the race and they do it during 😅
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Yeah. I am pretty sure there is a mandatory amount of suffering required to play. Training or race day? We all get to decide 😂
 
I think I finally carb loaded properly for my last race. Or rather, I now realize I’ve been deficient at loading for the past few years.

I ate about 1/2lb of gummies from the Sprouts bulk section the day before my race, maybe 800Cal. Then we had Chinese food with plenty of white rice for dinner. And more gummies for dessert. My pre race breakfast was about 500Cal of oatmeal, apple juice, and breakfast sausage. That got about an hour to digest before I started my warm up. When I was doing my warmup, I just felt good. And early in the race, I already felt fully sugared. Like I didn’t have to wait for the legs to full wake up for the sugar to kick in. It was awesome. I ended up being a little short on sugar during the race… but it didn’t seem to matter. I had just enough power left to hammer on the road back into town, towing a bunch of dudes that refused to take a pull. They out-sprinted me, but nbd since I got my goal time.

I will definitely be making all that my standard carb routine. No more Italian food and no more just assuming I ate enough carbs.
 
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stangmx13 said:
I think I finally carb loaded properly for my last race. Or rather, I now realize I’ve been deficient at loading for the past few years. I ate about 1/2lb of gummies from the Sprouts bulk section the day before my race. Then we had Chinese food with plenty of white rice for dinner. And more gummies for dessert. My pre race breakfast was about 500Cal of oatmeal, apple juice, and breakfast sausage. That got about an hour to digest before I started my warm up. When I was doing my warmup, I just felt good. And early in the race, I already felt fully sugared. Like I didn’t have to wait for the legs to full wake up for the sugar to kick in. It was awesome. I ended up being a little short on sugar during the race… but it didn’t seem to matter. I had just enough power left to hammer on the road back into town, towing a bunch of dudes that refused to take a pull. They out-sprinted me, but nbd since I got my goal time.

I will definitely be making all that my standard carb routine. No more Italian food and no more just assuming I ate enough carbs.
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I have brought you to the gummy bear side!

I love when I feel good from the beginning on a ride.
 
worlds-largest-gummy-bear.webp
Im gonna try a one gummy strategy before my next ride.
 
If you haven’t seen yet, someone finally ran a marathon under 2hrs in a legal race. Actually 2 people did. Sabastian Sawe went 1:59:30 and Yomif Kejelcha went 1:59:41 at the London Marathon.

Here’s a cool vid on the insanity of their performances

One cool point towards the end of that vid - the marathon record has moved over twice as far in the past 20yrs compared to the 20yrs before that. 2:17 from ‘86-‘06 and 5:25 from ‘06-now. I’m sure there are many factors, but I definitely put a lot of blame on sugar. 100+g carbs per hour in training and races is still relatively new in sport - maybe 10yrs old - and it’s doing crazy things to elite performances.
 
Here’s another running & carbs vid with some lab test results. It’s cool to see the discrepancy btw two very diff athletes. The larger slower runner needs even more than 100g/hr to reduce how much his body transitions to fat metabolism and slowing down.

 
Has anyone tried using two hydration bladders in one backpack? One for sugar/gel and one for water/salt? Why not have two tubes to nourish from while on a ride?
 
Those marathon runners pretty much matched my pace on the bicycle last weekend!!! Holy cow.
 
Continuing from last weekend Levi's, I experimented with maltodextrose and sugar. This is a climb that I always end up cramping. This time I went to the top shaving 20min from my fastest PR with no cramps and feeling really w good w my legs! This time the limiting factor was my breathing and heart rate, plus butt/arm/wrist pain. Pain I will deal w a bike fitting that I have never done. Fueling seems to make a big difference!

IMG_1016.png
 
stangmx13 said:
If you haven’t seen yet, someone finally ran a marathon under 2hrs in a legal race. Actually 2 people did. Sabastian Sawe went 1:59:30 and Yomif Kejelcha went 1:59:41 at the London Marathon.

Here’s a cool vid on the insanity of their performances

One cool point towards the end of that vid - the marathon record has moved over twice as far in the past 20yrs compared to the 20yrs before that. 2:17 from ‘86-‘06 and 5:25 from ‘06-now. I’m sure there are many factors, but I definitely put a lot of blame on sugar. 100+g carbs per hour in training and races is still relatively new in sport - maybe 10yrs old - and it’s doing crazy things to elite performances.
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According to Spike Lee it’s got to be the shoes.
 
On March 14 I did a 20.31 mile ride around my neighborhood. It’s two laps around the road along the lake and 3 laps of an outer road. That ride time was 1:36.12. Yesterday I did the same ride in 1:27.39. I looked at my heart rate for both rides and yesterday had a slight lower max 170 vs 166 and my average was basically the same 146 vs 145. Is this all due to my new tires?

Now I want to get a second set of wheels and mount up some fast road tires. Also I still need to get a power meter.
 
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Mike95060 said:
Has anyone tried using two hydration bladders in one backpack? One for sugar/gel and one for water/salt? Why not have two tubes to nourish from while on a ride?
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I’ve tried all combos of sugar, salt, & water. I’ve settled on carrying sugar/salt/water & just water for races. The plain water is for rinsing my mouth. Sometimes the sugar or the salt just becomes too much for either your mouth or stomach and you need to wash it down.

Whiskey50 for me was 2.75L of sugar&salt. And 0.5L of plain water. It was chilly so I didn’t actually need the water. At my only sag 75min from the finish, I ditched the empty bladder, downed half the water and ditched that, and picked up one 750ml w sugar/salt. Gotta save weight 😅
 
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