Pants, Weight, & Bike Racing

Living in IL and bike racing on flat or mostly flat ground, body weight wasn't much of a concern. I mean, I was athletic, and in pretty good shape just because I was riding about 250 miles a week, and naturally you are going to be pretty fit. Once we moved out here, and I started doing the mountain bike races, I began to notice that on the (flatter) races, I was good, and on the long climb races, I was really bad! I first attributed it to just not being able to climb or the altitude, and then after that, tried to drop a bit of weight. The past 2 seasons I was racing at about 183-185 lbs. Just getting the same results over and over. My dad say's...(Has to be his favorite saying) "Do you know the meaning of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." So basically, I was doing the same thing every season, in just trying to increase my power on the bike through different training, but not really doing much with my weight.

This season instead of falling into the same trap (insanity) I decided to mix it up a bit.
My goal was to drop to a racing weight of 175 lbs. I thought this would allow me to be much quicker uphill. It's kind of tricky for endurance athletes to cut weight while training, because if you don't eat enough, you hurt your recovery which in turn hurts your performance, but if you eat too much, your not losing any weight. After I hit 175 with no loss of power, I decided to drop it down to 170. I am almost there now, 171.4 lbs. I have been very careful with watching what I eat, and just eating very healthy and clean. I have been tracking my calories on Lose it and this has allowed me to cut the weight I wanted. (It is kind of tedious and a pain at times, but def. works!) So hopefully the lower body weight will help me get to where I want to be this racing season...(a win would be nice!)

A side effect of the lower body weight (a good one) is that none of my clothes fit anymore. They are all too big! Most noticeable are my khakis for school. I hate spending money on clothes, but love having new clothes! So I finally broke down and ordered 2 new pair of pants and a belt from Old Navy. Ordered 32x34, same size I wore through high school... and got them in today. I was excited to have new clothes, but they are too big! No Way! After I ballooned up to 245 lbs (ya, no joke! lots of pepsi's... and fast food and sleeping) my soph. year of college, I never imagined I would be back in a size 32 waist! Now a 32 waist is even too big! Gonna have to exchange for a 30 or a 31 I reckon... I know this is a good problem, but it's kind of annoying... :-)

Hopefully I'll get some pants soon that fit, and the mountain bike season will be a good one for myself and Yeti's Grind, my new team. I'm excited about it, and excited to be able to have Cayle cheering me on!