Perfect Muscle Milk

For most of the last 15 yrs, after hard rides, my legs, especially the two quad heads at my knees, really hurt, ached and burned a little, despite massage and Advil and nutrition, this would last for 2-3 days, sometimes bad enough to keep me awake at night. 

I found a cure for that last summer when riding some 150+ mile weeks, and I found it because I remember one of the riders I used to ride with in Sacramento told me it helped him a LOT. I should have listened to him then, but when it comes to getting smart, better late than never. The solution is Muscle Milk. 

32oz Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, & Batman

 I also tried WallyWorld's Equate stuff, but it doesn't have the same effect as MM, and I suspect that's because Equate has fewer carbs, which in MM are probably fast carbs, used to arrest catabolic muscle destruction. No, Hammer Nutrition, there's no such thing as "canniballistic" muscle destruction. Catabolic is the flip-side of Anabolic, which means to break down, and build up, respectively. Catabolic muscle destruction can only be arrested by ingesting carbs very high on the glycemic index, which will create an insulin spike in your blood. There's more to the process, but this is the short story of that process.)

From a very short Google Safari...

Catabolic reactions break down larger molecules, such as carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins from ingested food, into their constituent smaller parts. ... Anabolic reactions, or biosynthetic reactions, synthesize larger molecules from smaller constituent parts, using ATP as the energy source for these reactions.

 

... and this... 

 

The Anabolic Phase: The 45-Minute Optimal Window

The anabolic phase is a critical phase occurring within 45 minutes post-exercise. It is during this time that muscle cells are particularly sensitive to insulin, making it necessary to ingest the proper nutrients in order to make gains in muscle endurance and strength. If the proper nutrients are ingested 2 - 4 hours post-exercise they will not have the same effect. It is also during this time in which the anabolic hormones begin working to repair the muscle and decrease its inflammation.

 Immediate ingestion of carbohydrate is important because insulin sensitivity causes the muscle cell membranes to be more permeable to glucose within 45 minutes post-exercise. This results in faster rates of glycogen storage and provides the body with enough glucose to initiate the recovery process (Burke et al., 2003). Muscle glycogen stores are replenished the fastest within the first hour after exercise. Consuming carbohydrate within an hour after exercise also helps to increase protein synthesis (Gibala, 2000).

 Quoted from here, because there's just so much nonsense about the need for protein after hard exercise and it's patently FALSE. Carbs, carbs high on the Mendosa Glycemic Index, and only those carbs, prevent catabolic muscle destruction, NOT protein. If you think your body breaking down muscle tissue to create glucose is idiotic and contra-intuitive, imagine your tribe just ran a large game animal to ground (how humans on 2 legs did it - with greater biomechanical efficiency on 2 legs) and now the tigers are threatening. Best run into that cave and hide, because those other tribes that had bigger muscles but no energy left to run? Yeah, they aren't around anymore!

 

While Muscle Milk is a minor miracle, mixing it with milk (they RX water, but ick!) makes a lumpy mess at the top of whatever giant tumbler you mix it in. You can also use an infuser/mixer stick, but that just makes even more mess. I was stirring with a knife to keep the mess to a minimum, and so I could scrape the knife on the edge of the glass, but I still ended up with lumps of dry powder in the back of my throat when I tried to drink it. Just FYI, I cover the ball +1" with Organic Grass-Fed milk (lots of Omega-3 fatty acids in anything grass-fed) and top up with skim milk. YMMV. 

45oz, for those really L-O-N-G rides!

Well, I found the perfect cure for Muscle Milk's goopy lumps. It's called a Blender Bottle, and Walmart sells that too. It's so ingenious I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. Think Cocktail Shaker meets Shake-Weight. The wire ball works like the BB in the bottom of a can of spray paint and blends Muscle Milk perfectly with zero mess left on anything. Beyond that, you get a wonderful (chocolate in my case) milk shake that's delicious and smooth - a nice reward after a hard ride. I'd still stick with left over Gatorade and a baked potato for immediate recovery, hot from the microwave, or freeze-dried from an Odahoan Baby Reds pouch, but after 30-40 minutes sit back and enjoy your MM milkshake!

440 very fast carbs, some from maltodextrin

RX for Saddle Sores

If this post looks familiar it's because it's a massive update of an old post. I tried to update it one too many times, and it just got confusing and had become obsolete when Triclosan was banned, Lysol Laundry Sanitizer became available again, and  Dial came out with a new foaming soap I love because it is full of glycerine, which is a moisturizer that is oil, so it will never dry and works wonderfully to keep your chamois interface well maintained. So, without further adieu...

The emergence of saddle sores is often met with macho bravado, and this is a HUGE mistake. Often times, and this was certainly true in my case during MIBM, these are not sores at all, but crushing and tearing wounds that create permanent scars and injury which never fully heal. Such wounds will forever limit your saddle time, and deserve an all-out, maximum remedial effort.

There are distinctions to be made between tearing/crushing wounds, sores/boils attendant with infected pimples, or hair follicles, and chaffing or pressure soreness.You may well need the help of a really GOOD friend to address pimples and in-grown hairs (a surprisingly common problem btw, and look like pimples). Huggies wet-wipe bum wipes for babies are a great idea in general, and will help keep the area very clean and sanitized. You'll be shocked at how much you've been leaving behind after using Huggies, or any other wet bum wipe.

Impossible to find, now back in force killing COVID-19

Of course, the best injury is one that never happens, and to that end here are some good ways to prevent saddle sores.

1. Clean and Sterilize your shorts, chamois and seat. Never use bleach on your shorts, or anything else with Lycra for compression. Bleach kills Lycra! Your shorts will end up ruined. Jerseys, headsweats, etc are much more tolerant of mild bleaching, but much better to use Lysol Laundry Sanitizer.  Yes, it kills COVID-19.
   
2. Wash you bottom side with a good antibacterial soap, like Dial Complete, which contains glycerin (same stuff they put in hand sanitizers like Purell) to moisturize, or for problem areas, use  chlorhexidine gluconate soap like Hibiclens to sterilize your skin for 6-8 hours. Use this RX for road rash as a general guideline. Wallgreen's soap is cheaper and smells better than Hibiclens, but both are excellent. Yes, it too kills COVID-19. The Chinese bought a million gallons of it from Canada to combat COVID-19.
   
3. Keep skin in tear-prone areas elastic by using petroleum jelly based Neosporin, brand name or otherwise. Lotion dries out and doesn't kill bacteria.
   
4. Keep your bottom side dry and ventilated for boils or infections. Save Neosporin for time in the saddle as it will suffocate the wound and retard healing. Apply Hibiclens every 6 hours.
5. Use an alternative short with a different kind of chamois, different shaped seat, or some combination of these to change the pressure points on your bottom.
6. Try a seat with a center channel void to increase ventilation to promote drying and cooling, although at 185lbs, I find a full-contact area seat to be better. 
7. Buy better shorts, and BIB shorts with high compression so they stay put and protect you. The best I have found to date are the Pearl Izumi PRO bib shorts. I can do 2-3 metric centuries in a week with these and rides of 70-85 miles with no problems.
   

Once the sore spot develops significantly, you either need to avoid putting further stress on it, or get off the bike. For boils, use max sterilization protocols, and turn everything up louder than everything else. I caught my boil very early, and stayed off the bike for 5 days, as I also was dealing with a tearing wound.

Dial Complete antibacterial foaming soap

I have not tried talc, cornstarch, or Baby Powder, but have it on good authority that these often work better than chamois butter, lotion, or Utter Butter. I used Utter Butter, and wasn't impressed. Palmer's coco butter lotion was still there and still slick at the end of a bunch of 60 mile rides.

If boils blister, you can pierce with a sterile needle. Using a hemostat and needle, dip the needle and end of hemostat in a small tray/dish of 99% alcohol, and then light on fire with a butane lighter. Let cool and you have a very sterile instrument. Everything that comes out of the boil is infected and full of bacteria, so use Hibiclens to persistently sterilized the surrounding area, and rewash the boil and area after popping it with a sterile needle.

Personally, in a MIBM situation, where you want to minimize the time off the bike, I'd find a good doctor as soon as there is any blistering. Women should be careful not to get Hibiclens on their girl part/s as it has been known to cause numbness. Betadine is a good alternative here, but doesn't have the persistence that Hibiclens does.

Properties of various antimicrobials

 Note that the compound in Dial, and most other antibacterial soaps is now Benzalkonium Chloride, as Tricolsan is no longer legal in the US. These soaps get the big chunks off, so the Hibiclens can soak in and get the deep stuff, and keep on killing pathogens for 6+ hours.

Also note that many of these compounds are partially neutralized by organic material, including the cotton in a cotton washcloth Use a synthetic microfiber washcloth for washing. They are commonly available as microtex dish cloths in the grocery store kitchen cleaning supplies area. Mine is labeled Mr Clean. I bought it at Safeway.

These can be sterilized by washing in bleach(kills almost everything known to man), which insures your washcloth stays part of the solution, and doesn't become part of the problem. Just be very sure you rinse all the bleach out, as it will destroy the action of Hibiclens.

Continental GP5000 TL Sealant Refresh

This is an update to my 6 month review of the CP5kTL, and maybe an important one. 

With any, or at least, most other tires, this would not be news, but the GP5kTL will absolutely let go of the bead when the air-pressure drops below ~ 10lbs psi, so adding sealant is a bit problematic, as the old, dried sealant tends to get between the bead and rim in an irregular way, but alas, I had no choice. 

While out riding a couple of months ago I ducked behind a shuttered restaurant, rolled through the parking lot to a discrete little nook, and relieved myself of some used Gatorade, not realizing that the shrub affording me privacy was a puncture vine, which I didn't realize until rolling across the parking lot to reenter the road from the other side. 

I stopped as soon as I noticed, and was able to pull most of the needles out of the front tire before they penetrated, but they and a couple of patches of broken glass left me with a tire whose leak became something more than "slow".

 

As a remedy I decided to try adding 30 ml of Stan's Sealant to see if that would slow the leak so I could rely on a constant pressure throughout my rides. I have to say, to my surprise it worked quite well, but there are a few caveats if trying this. 

First, is the tire worth saving? Mine was ~ 1/2 worn by the wear dimples depth, so in my case, yes. Second, I did everything I could to NOT disturb the bead while releasing the little remaining air, by turning the bike upside down so the wheel wasn't bearing any weight. Third, I used a CO2 cartridge to air up the tire as quickly as possible. Fourth, I used an injector that didn't seal the valve stem with the core removed.

I did lose a small amount of sealant, but slightly less than the normal amount, and put the full 110lbs or so of pressure in the tire to press the new sealant past the old. After sitting overnight I released most of the somewhat diminished pressure to purge the CO2, and aired up the tire with my floor pump. 

I've ridden it a few times now and it's holding air much better, so I am pleasantly surprised this prodecure can, in fact, be done with the GP5kTL. The tire still has wet spots where the water from the original sealant seeps out, but it holds pressure well during my 2-3hr rides now. I really didn't think this would go well at all, so a very pleasant surprise.

Meeting the Challenge in 2020

Strava put up a nice piece on how athletes adapted to the constraints of COVID-19 in 2020, and it's an interesting read. The thing is, somewhere in my early 30s (I'm in my mid-60s now) it hit me that it's no one else's job to keep you fit and healthy. If you want that for yourself you better learn to be selfish and make that time, because nobody else is going to make it for you. 

I upped my game a LOT in 2020, setting a ton of new PBs since retiring in SoCal, more than doubling my mileage in 2020. A big part of that was being able to do much longer rides after buying new wheels and finding the truly wonderful Conti GP5K TL tubeless tires, which do an excellent job of shaking off all the cactus needles and goat-heads here in the high desert that used to ruin my rides all the time. 

Part of it was buying better bib shorts, and now tights, so I can ride those miles, and part of it was going back to a solid seat from one with the center cut out (YMMV, but for me the extra surface area combined with better chamois did the trick). 

I also found new, remote routes, found ways and places to relieve my bladder without going into enclosed places, minimizing the time inside closed places, carrying a mask with me for when I was inside a bathroom or stopped getting water inside, and finally, just finding hydration that didn't require going into enclosed spaces. 

The political horror show that was POTUS Trump and the gut-wrenching, grim toll of COVID were also motivation to get out there and burn off some angst. Finally, as friends and loved ones were slowed due to age and disease my gratitude for being  healthy enough to do lots of long rides got me out the door on days I might have otherwise stayed home. 

For 2021 I think I'm going to up my climbing a bit, and maybe even ride fewer miles. I'd like to spend more time with my wife and our dogs, one of which is a working dog and needs a LOT of exercise to stay happy and healthy. At a certain age you stop taking loved ones for granted, because in a 55+ community people keep disappearing every week, and it drives home the point that tomorrow is promised to no one. 

Get Some!