Fall Treats

Fall is definitely in the air here in San Francisco. I always tell people that the weather is pretty temperate with a vary narrow swing in temperatures between dawn and dusk. The coldest parts are just north of the GGB in Marin County. My coach didn't have anything planned for my training today but I wanted to get in some more base stuff. Rolled out early to Fairfax again and it was quite nippy, upper 40s, low50s. Thats wicked cold for the Bay Area. Legs felt pretty good which was a welcome surprise. Yesterday I did my first core strength workout using weights. Core work is vital to staying injury-free throughout the season and it gives you that edge when the race starts to blow apart. For anyone that is interested in getting some core strength exercises which are excellent for ANYONE!, I suggest that you pick up a copy of Core Performance by Mark Verstegen. He has produced several followup books as well for more advanced workouts. Verstegen is the guru on core strengthening and can add benefits to anyone. The reason I like doing core stuff is that it doesn't require the use of a lot of free weights or machines. Everything is pretty natural. By not using a lot of weights, you are less prone to injury and you don't get bulky...bulky=no bueno for cycling up hills really fast.

This morning on the ride I saw some pretty funny stuff. #1 a guy was riding his bike and smoking a cigarette. I guess he is going for the zero-sum approach, ie cycling to improve health, smoking to destroy health = no change in health. Not sure if they are equitable though.

Now that fall is in full swing, I recommend diving into some culinary fall treats ie butternut squash and apples. Two evenings ago I made a sick roasted butternut squash risotto. Unbelievably creamy and delicious. I just finished off the last of it this afternoon for lunch. Tonight I am going to dig deep into my culinary arsenal and attempt a roasted butternut squash ravioli. I was originally intending to make a soup with the remainder but the sailing team gave me the idea to try a ravioli. Yesterday at practice I had a food smackdown with Joey, sailing team member. He thinks his kitchen skills are far superior. The dude doesn't even have a blog to share his treats and his main source of critics are college students. Now, we all know college students will say things are really good no matter what as long as they don't have to buy it or cook it.

For any of my readers that will be in Johnson City, TN over Thanksgiving, I will be visiting. Will be bringing my bike and hoping to get lots of kms. On another note, I saw today in the SF Examiner newspaper as picture of a guy(Aubrayo Franklin) I went to high school with in TN. Surprisingly it wasn't for lawless acts, the guy is playing pro football for the SF 49ers. Pretty crazy stuff. They listed his stats as 6-1, 334lbs. The guy is a monster. I weighed in yesterday at a fit 162lbs and 6-4. Of course, I am going for 30min threshhold power-to-weight. Whereas, Aubrayo is going for 5sec "I'm going to smother that quarterback" weight. I think I can bring down the weight to 72.5kg in the next month or so as my training increases. One of the side-effects of my new weight weeniness is that I get chilly crazy easy. Ohh well, its all for the cause of going faster up the hills. I believe I was at 166lbs in high school when i ran XC, no where near as fit as I am now. Age has been good to me I guess =)

Chow,
Matthew