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Showing posts from September 11, 2022

Embracing European Eating Habits

After spending several weeks in Europe, I find it challenging to adjust to the American food culture. When I return, I am quickly reminded of the dysfunctional eating habits of many Americans. Now you may be assuming that I am talking about the oversized portions, heavily processed snacks and convenient fast food that have become normalized in the USA and are commonly contributed to obsesity and health problems. Although the food industry is partly to blame, it's actually the diet industry that I despise. As we accumulated cycling miles and elevation in the French Alps, I spent very little time on social media. When I eventually opened my Facebook app and started scrolling, I was quickly reminded of our nation's unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. After a few posts talking about intermittent fasting and low carb diets, I had to close the app as I became so frustrated to see what I was reading. Certainly, my situation is a bit unique in that Karel's family lives in Cze...

Haute Route Alps Stage 7 - The finale!

  STAGE 7  August 27th, 2022 Start: Megeve, France Finish: Megeve, France 62 miles 4:21 riding time 14.2 mph average 7628 feet Climbs: Epine (6.9K), Croix Fry (11.3K), Aravis (4.4K) After 6 days, we didn't think we would make it this far. The final day. All that was between us and becoming an official Haute Route finisher was 62 miles. On any day in Greenville, riding 7600 feet would be a big climbing day but for stage 7, it was a "light" day. Besides the time trial, every stage involed over 10,000 feet of climbing. I was really looking forward to completing this event and I wore my Haute Route jersey (included in our race packet) as a celebration for making it to the last stage.  At breakfast, I looked at the results and I was safely sitting in 2nd place in my age group. Unless something extreme happened (ex. mechanical or crash), I felt like I could remain 2nd in my age group (40-44). I felt like that was a big accomplishment and I brought that motivation to the stage. ...

Haute Route Alps Stage 6

  STAGE 6 August 26th, 2022 Start: Meribel, France Finish: Megeve, France 85.45 miles 6:10 riding time 11.0 mph average 12,086 feet Climbs: TRA (9.7K), Cormet de Roselend (19.2K), Saisies (16.3K) By this point in the event, we had our morning routine nailed down and we started to become a bit more relaxed in the morning. Whereas we had stuck to a strict 2-hour before the event wake-up, we gave ourselves a bit more time to sleep in and woke up at 5:45am instead of 5:30am. We walked across the street to get breakfast and then packed up our room. At this point I was out of Skratch Super Fuel (which I used for the first 4 stages in my first two bottles). I used 2 heaping scoops C30 from Never Second and 1 packet of EFS Salty Watermelon (which was really good) in my other bottle. I also had some chews to give me a bit more calories since my other bottle only had 110 calories.  Since we didn't have far to go for the staging area (it was right next to our hotel), we made our way to t...