I just can’t.

Road cycling is not a great spectator sport to me. Give me rodeo any day. That’s probably the only sport I’d rather watch than participate in. Well, that and MMA. I’ve done my share of martial arts tournaments and have enough appreciation for getting my head taken off that I have no desire to step into the ring with another opponent, 180-pound man or 1,500-pound bovine, that would love to see me liquefied into red goo.

When it comes to road racing, I’d rather be on the bike sucking someone’s wheel and feeling the adrenaline rush of taking a corner at high speed with 30 other cyclists compacted within inches of each other like a precision aerial team.

However, with school, work that has spilled over into my non-work time, and family, watching Le Tour has dropped to the bottom of ever-growing list of commitments.

So, how do I stay current?

I’ve subscribed to Chris Carmichael’s daily debriefs of each stage. Carmichael, who was Lance Armstrong’s coach and will remind you of that every five minutes or so, does a fantastic break-down of each day’s race. More important, he explains the strategies and tactics of the teams and what worked, and what didn’t.

If you’re too busy to park in front of the TV for Versus’ two-hour race coverage, do yourself a favor and get the abridged version by signing up for Carmichael’s coverage here.

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One man lost his life in this crash.

Holy shit.

What can I say?

Jesse Campos, the driver of the automobile pictured here, decided to get liquored up, get behind the wheel of his car and fell asleep. Unfortunately, he did so at the same time a road race was going on and he careened across the center line and wreaked havoc on a bike race in Mexico.

You can read the full story at MSNBC.

I’m not going to turn preachy on drunk drivers and so forth nor start pointing fingers. I share this with you for one reason only: EVERY FRIGGIN’ TIME YOU MOUNT YOUR BIKE, DO NOT COUNT ON THE SAFETY OF THE PELOTON.

While I only have anecdotal data to support this, nearly every cyclist that has been injured in the Las Vegas valley was riding in a group. I recall my first few group rides as experiences in guts, or more likely cocky stupidity, when the peloton would consume most of a traffic lane and behave as if they owned the road, rather than share it. Kind of like what cars are supposed to with us, right?

My thoughts and prayers go out to the slain cyclist and his family.

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It sucks to be you Miss Watermelon.”

While we all know that bicycle helmets are no miracle elixirs when it comes to protecting that oh-so-valuable grey gelatin between our ears, we still would like to think they offer some protection.

A recent test by the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute has shown that helmets may not be as wonderful as we think. Sure, they should hold up pretty well against a fall when your noggin cracks against a concrete curb. However, cross paths with a cell-phone chatting soccer mom who’s running late to little Timmy’s practice and sees right through you at the intersection…it’s time to whip our your organ donor card.

Check out the results of Car runs over helmet.

Warning: Vegans beware. This test contains graphic footage of watermelon carnage.

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After a nice ride through a few rollers on Highway 9, I’ve reached the entrance
of Zion National Park.

The view sans my fat head.

The family and I just returned from a short trip to Zion National Park and we didn’t even go into the park proper. Hey, we can’t believe it either.

There are just so many things to do in the area and trust me, when you have kids and a pool at your disposal, they are not going far from the damned pool.

Anyway, I was at least able to get away from the crowd (we were traveling with another family) and take a fairly leisurely ride from our cabin to the entrance of Zion. Once I got my gear assembled, hydration set up (it was in the low 70s and very sunny and dry), and lathered in sun screen, I took the Orbea out for the 25-mile round trip on a few of the rollers on Highway 9.

The shoulder is narrow at points, particularly as you approach the towns of Rockdale and Springdale, but is otherwise satisfactory for not getting swiped by any errant RV sideview mirrors. There are a few rough patches on the pavement, but hey, the scenery more than makes up for any pedaling inconveniences.

An hour later, I hit the entrance to Zion, took a picture with my cell phone and turned around. On my way back through Springdale, I saw my wife and kids in the truck with the other family in tow. I guess they couldn’t wait for my return. It was apparently time for lunch.

For those of you who have never been to Zion, your dining choices are limited to expensive and palatable food to not-so-expensive and “I paid how much for this luke-warm piece of crap?” Those choices, however, were better than what was waiting for me back at the campground. Then again, in hindsight, maybe not.

Anyway, since I wasn’t expecting to meet them in town, I had no shoes and was walking around in my brightly colored cycling team kit and barefoot. I had to find some footwear quick but was stymied by the fact that I was stuck in the middle of a money gauntlet for the foreign touristas. To make a long, and painfully embarrassing story short, after 30 minutes of combing nearly every store on the main drag, I purchased a$28 pair of women’s sandals so I could join the rest of my group in the restaurant.

What we sacrifice for our sport, eh?

********

I’m taking a short hiatus from publishing this week, although I do hope to get some more great content put together over the next few days so the entire week won’t be completely dry. I’m also dangerously behind in my calculus homework and need to invest several days in what could turn out to be a quixotic attempt to get current…so updates may be a bit sparse.

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So what does physique transformation have to do with endurance athletes? Well, MacLaren is also a former U.S. Navy SEAL.

Got your attention now?

For those who don’t know, SEALs are those amphibious special warfare operators who are put through what is considered the most grueling military training in the world. Attrition rate through their Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL program is often near 80 percent. They do a lot of swimming, running and calisthenics as part of their conditioning…which leads to many a male triathlete fantasizing that he has what it takes to be a SEAL.

I talked to John to find out what it does truly take to be a SEAL as well as his work with triathletes and how his unique background influences his coaching philosophy.

*******

Question: Let’s go back to the beginning to set the stage. What was your athletic background growing up?

MacLaren: As a kid I was so skinny that I could watch my heart beat! I spent most of my time in sports running 5K and 10K races and cross country skiing in the winter in New Hampshire. I remember my dad buying me a shirt when I was 12 or so and on the back it said, “I may be slow but I’m ahead of you.” It was a joke of course but I never could wear it in a race for fear that someone would run on by me out of pure motivation and annoyance brought on by reading my shirt!

I loved running and if I even had a spare 25 minutes I would throw on some shoes and run for 20 minutes. In high school I spent my time in track and cross country and I was pretty fast but even in those days you had to break a 4-minute mile if you were going to be anyone in high school or college. I just could never get past that 4:03 and 4:04 barrier. I ran 10Ks for one of the Navy Teams when I first went into the Navy but very rapidly I found out about SEAL Training and couldn’t resist heading in that direction.

Question: Since you were a track and cross country runner, and admittedly skinny, how did you go about developing the strength you needed to make it through BUD/S?

MacLaren: When I first began working out I don’t think I could have put 10 pounds on the bar to do a bench press. I was at my first duty station in the Navy and I had a good friend who was a competitive bodybuilder down there and one day I confided in him how sick and tired I was of being so skinny. He said very simply, “I’ll bet you have never worked out before.”

I said, “Yes I have. It just sucks!”

But his response was that if I worked out for more than 30 days in the gym I wouldn’t ever stop and he was right. Thirty days later I was hooked and running my fastest 10K times ever for the Navy team. What I didn’t realize at that time was how much my lack of strength and upper body conditioning was slowing me down. By the time I got to BUD/S a year later, I had a great strength foundation for that age and it made all the difference in training.

Question: How would you compare the physical training you did in the SEALs to that of an age group triathlete?

MacLaren: BUD/s training and triathlon training, hmmmm this is an interesting question. SEAL Team training is more about the individual than it is about the training itself. I have known a ton of pretty tough and endurable guys in my life and it often surprises me how many of them drop out of BUD/s training in the first several weeks. Certainly they were physically capable as they often were your football stars, triathletes or a variety of other assorted sports fiends. But still they bail because it is just not them and if you ask them, which I have, they will give you a variety of reasons as to why they found it too difficult. So it would appear that they have many reasons, but in the end I wrap it all up under the umbrella of lack of desire for that type of lifestyle. In a nutshell a body can do amazing things and our mind has to constantly decide what it will allow it to do. The body will last far longer than the mind will allow itself to go in most cases and when it doesn’t, the body just cramps up or passes out and that is that.

To speak to triathletes specifically in relationship to their training and BUD/S training, there are some major differences. First off, BUD/S has an underlying mission of keeping you cold, wet and miserable as long as it can and as often as it can. Whenever I have trained for triathlons I was typically riding my really sexy bike, or spending an hour or two in the water at a time or off on a run staring at smoking hot chicks on the Strand, so overall it was just more fun to train for triathlons. Not to say that triathlon training is easy because as you all know, it isn’t. It’s just that the objectives and the whole theme of BUD/s training are different than the objective and theme of training for tri sport races.

I will say that, in my opinion, being a good runner can make BUD/S training so much more livable and that is great news for the triathletes who might consider BUD/S. BUD/S training is just a lesson in pain for the guys out there who would rather have bamboo shoots driven under their nails than go for a 5-mile run. You never have to run fast for more than 4 or 5 miles in BUD/S and although we did it in jungle boots, if you like running races then most of your group training runs are cake for you while they are misery for those low V02 max non-runners around you.

Many triathletes in days of old had a tendency to be notoriously weak in the upper body area (and lower actually) and while that trend seems to be shifting since some triathletes have discovered the wonders of weight training. It takes a fair amount of pull-up and upper body strength to make it through BUD/S. You will tend to carry up to 80 pounds or so on your back and be out there blazing trails all day or night until your shoulders bleed or somebody quits and after a while in training nobody quits anymore so you just bleed.

So, that being said, do I think most triathletes could make it through BUD/S?

Hell no! Most everyone wouldn’t make it through the program and that’s just plain old statistical data based on years of watching every kind of individual go through the program. Most people quit, simple as that. It’s not that I think BUD/S is hard, and in fact I don’t think anything you are in the mood to train for or accomplish is hard, but that’s just the way I think and not everyone would agree with me. I have to imagine that training for and winning the Ironman is hard but yet people do it every year and a lot of other people finish well so it’s obviously not too hard for them in their minds. I have a general belief that anything a few thousand people on the planet can do, I should be able to do if I am interested in it. I was interested in BUD/S training so I did it.

As far as me competing in an Ironman? I am only interested in watching the race and am truly an almost professional level spectator. So watch for me cheering you on out there!

To be continued on Wednesday…

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How do you keep your prized possession from ending up at the swap meet? Hell if I know.

But Carlton Reid, editor of BikeBiz.com and Quickrelease.tv., put together the best article I’ve seen on the subject of bike theft. They purchased a handful of locks, put them on a bike, and let loose two professional thieves. The result is an enlightening piece on bicycle security, with video demos, on what works and what doesn’t to reduce the likelihood of your pony being kidnapped.

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Unfortunately, we’re not having much luck on eBay or any of the other online sites. Being a cheapskate, I don’t want to pay $700+ for a new bike that this 10-year-old will outgrow in a year. At this point it looks like I may have to (gulp) build her a bike on a used road frame (47 cm or below?) with 650cc wheels.

Any suggestions from the bike wrenchers?

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The cool wind in your face and the setting sun at your back.

The whir of wheels and the rhythm of breath creating your own beautiful symphony.

There’s nothing quite like it.

Traffic is at a minimum as people are settling down for dinner and everyone is focused on what they didn’t get done over the weekend, rather than what they accomplished. Tomorrow marks the start of another week of slogging away at life just so we can pay the bills relative to our level of comfort.

Oooof. Fun stuff to ponder.

Which is why the Sunday ride is the Etch-a-Sketch for the brain’s myopic future-casting. Buried in the books today prepping for a chemistry exam, I was hesitant to take El Lobo out of the stable. Wouldn’t this time be better spent reviewing acid-base reactions?

Apparently not.

I did a quick-change and headed out the door with a smile on my face. “I’ll only go for 20 minutes.”

Forty-five minutes later, I pulled into the driveway wishing I would have enough daylight to go for another two hours.

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Congratulations to Elizabeth Fedofsky for cranking through Ironman Hawaii yesterday in a speedy 10:32:10 and earning a top 10 slot (#9) in the women’s 30-34 age group!

She hit the swim in 1:08:36; the bike in 5:43:58; and the marathon in 3:33:13. Keep your eyes peeled for the full race report on her blog at http://elizabethfedofsky.blogspot.com/

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

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We all have our own character-making training sessions. Last night was one for me.

For those of you battling heat and the ensuing sweat running into your eyes, I would suggest giving the Halo II Headband a try. It’s thin and high-tech and it kept me from rubbing my eyes raw with the back of my cycling gloves trying to mop up the continual stream of sweat. Didn’t know head bands could be high-tech did ya? For a thin strip of cloth, it’s amazing how much sweat this baby holds. Plus, it’s thinness makes it perfect for wearing under a helmet.

My 10-year-old daughter has one of her own that she uses as a hair band when running or playing tennis.

While we’re on the subject of building character during training, I’m going to share another power-building trick with you tomorrow. You won’t know whether to hate me or thank me after you try it…maybe both.

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

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Man, do I want one!

Click the video to see this baby in action.

Find your edge and dance upon it,

hak

p.s. A jacket like this may have prevented Libor’s 80 km/hr (50 mph) run-in with a car.

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