Wow! How long is your workout every day? It sounds like you work pretty hard.
I really found that it made a huge difference to me to have lots of space to start pedaling even though I was using a support for mounting. Have you tried to ride in a big open space?
Learning on a coker must be pretty challenging. Keep writing!
Workouts
Hi, thanks for reading and commenting!
I guess not too many do, since I am writing so much. Which is why I wanted a separate thread, to avoid cluttering up the main “Learning” thread with my ramblings (sort of the opposite logic of yours, but since you write short and to-the-point-posts - as opposed to mine - I agree that it makes sense for you to post there :-))
Anyway, so far I’ve found that learning on a coker has two main differences from smaller unis:
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Because of the height, it is harder to mount - simply getting up there is a challenge. So I spent the first 2 hours just exercising the mount (totally assisted, I am just talking about figuring out how to use my legs to push myself that far up).
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Because of the height, it is easier to feel that you are falling down. Hence why people say you shouldn’t learn on a coker - I can see why they say that if you are not scared of heights, you might succeed. And most people would feel scared to be on top of a coker and not have much balance on it.
I don’t feel too scared, but at the same time it is a lot of work getting up on the thing, and if I find open spaces it will be hard to find somewhere with the necessary supports for me to mount. So I think I want to get more balance before I venture outside, for the following reasons:
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The more successful I am at mounting, the less I time I have to spend on that.
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The more controlled I am able to ride slowly inside, without supporting myself, the more balanced and controlled I will be able to ride outside.
Finally, since I am living in a rather populated area where there’s not that many open spaces not crowded with people, I guess I simply want to avoid embarrassing myself with falling down all the time, or even not being able to get up in the first place…
So my plan is to keep riding in the basement for 2-3 more sessions (perhaps less, I am progressing faster than I thought I would be) and then I will see what I do. I am considering going to a parking house like BurnerDave did, that would probably be a good place to practice - no people, large space, high ceiling (important for me on a coker) and totally flat floor.
And as for my workouts, they are not that long - the first one was for 3 hours and the second one for almost 2 hours. I want to spend some time when I am doing it. Since just clearing the basement room to make space, putting the gear on and rigging the camera takes at least half an hour, it doesn’t make sense to go down and practice for just 30-60 minutes. Also, I am doing this to build strength and stamina, and then I think 120 minutes is a good time. The first time I strained myself too much (also it was the first time and I did some things wrong plus I spent most of the time trying to mount).
As I wrote in one of the first posts here, there is a long straight running path close to my house where I’ve been running 10km (5km back and forth) and I just can’t wait to get going on the coker there 
So the goal is to fairly proficient by the end of summer, and then I’m going on vacation with my friends and I’m going to impress them all…
Perhaps by then I’ll order a smaller Muni as well, one for doing more tricks and for lending to people. I don’t want the Nightrider to be banged up, it’s got a really nice finish on the handlebars (which take most of the heat, instead of the seat as usual - and the handlebar is not detachable as far as I can see - then I would need to buy another seat mount I think. Will ask Roger about that.
So far I’m happy to have the handlebar and I feel it is useful for the training. I have padded it well using the bubblewrap that came with the uni in order to protect it while learning.
All right, time for work
Good luck with your learning too!!!
Norwegian:
Wow, du begynner å bli god høres det ut som!! det er bra, men åssen har du tenkt å ta 180 unispin på 36"?? Hvis det var det du mente?
English:
Wow, sounds like you’re starting to get really good! thats awesome, but how are you planing to do a 180 unispin on a 36"? If that’s what you had in mind?
Day 3 - I am flying !!! … Kitty Hawk style anyways…
Well, I did a little over two hours this evening and I made four major technical improvements:
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I ditched the suspensorium. I found that it was needed for mounting attempts since jumping around and hitting my crotch to the seat obviously mandates some kind of protection. But for riding it causes more pain than good. So, obviously when I am spending less time mounting and more time riding…
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I started wearing the bike shorts I had bought. I don’t know why I didn’t earlier, but I guess I thought I didn’t need them until I was going to do longer rides. They are padded and I see that I should have worn them also when I did the bike riding two weekends ago. In any case, the shorts are also tight and after using them for a while, I felt that they were also “giving my boys a home”, referring to Kramer’s famous quote from the Seinfeld show.
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I pumped up the tyre to about double pressure. That certainly made it a lot easier to control, it didn’t grip the floor as hard, so making turns was easier, and it also rolled easier.
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After riding for a while I realized that it might be possible to adjust the seat angle. This was also actually something I saw yUNIkoner ask about in the “Learning…” discussion thread, and since I’ve been quite an avid biker earlier, I have my own preferences and angling the seat forward to avoid sterilizing myself (plus reducing the tension on my behind and thus the induced pain) has always been a “must” for me. That was the other thing I forgot when renting the bike two weekends ago. It took less than two minutes with an Allen key (or Unbraco key as we would say in Norway) to adjust the seat and it was a completely different world after that
Suddenly I felt much more in control over the uni, and I felt that it was not a mistake to train in the basement as opposed to going outside. Due to the limited space, I’ve been forced to train turns, idling and backwards riding. All assisted of course, but it all helps in improving my control.
Also, I told myself to stay seated at all times. I UPD’d once by falling backwards and having the tyre hit the wall, and then I launched myself slightly off the seat only to hit the seat again a split second later as the uni rebounded from the wall - only something got squeezed between the seat and my crotch and I didn’t like it one bit.
Next time the same thing happened I stayed put on the seat and simply bounced off the seat as the uni bounced off the wall - and lived to tell about it
I didn’t cycle unassisted much, but I did it a couple of times - once going slow and controlled and the other time having to speed up to avoid UPDing, and managing to stop by grabbing the pipes at the other end of the room. Obviously I’ll have to go outside in order to increase the speed - it’s not safe inside a basement, and especially since there’s a row of parked bikes along one of the walls… Wouldn’t want to nosedive into those.
However, I am thinking that practicing slow riding in the basement is just as useful as going outside and riding fast. By riding slowly and controlled I am developing a lot of balance and I even got better at mounting towards the end. Instead of leaning on the wall, I aimed straight up and basically did a free mount except that I jammed my hand (using the wrist protector) straight up to the ceiling. So I locked myself until I had placed my foot properly and sat down on the seat properly, but I stayed straight upright the whole time, not leaning.
Also, I got much better at placing my second foot correctly on the pedal while mounting. I kept changing feet while mounting, and the other new thing I did today was that I didn’t only mount in the “home area” and always stepping on the pedal away from the wall, so that I could fall into the wall while stepping up with the other foot, as I had been doing on days 1 and 2.
Towards the end of this session I was able to mount and get ready to ride in a very short time compared to the previous days, and I felt that I improved my success rate to at least 50% when mounting.
Now my plan is to go back in the basement tomorrow evening, and then I hope to go outdoors in the weekend
Good night!!
Todo list
Just a short message:
I’ve just updated my todo-list (see signature below). Since I’m now able to do assisted mounts, rides and idles, I’ve marked that in italics. My current project is riding, so that is in bold.
I’ll keep updating my todo-list in the signature that way so you people can track my progress
Cheers!
Day 4 - More flying !!! … Huffman Prairie style
So I put in a little over three hours tonight. After reading yUNIkoner’s advice I decided to move out of the basement sooner than I planned, and enter the open spaces (scary). Also, it was due to impatience. I had planned to train again on Monday evening (after Saturday), but I had too much work so I got home too late and didn’t have time to do anything. I ended up staying up way past bedtime on Monday to write about Saturday…
Then again I was too busy on Tuesday, and on Wednesday evening I stayed up too late in order to get some training in, and then yesterday I got home too late again…
Tonight is Friday and even if I got home a bit late (like yesterday), I decided i would do it after dinner no matter what. And then I figured, it’s really light out here in Norway now, it’s close the the brightest time of year so it doesn’t really get dark at night. So even if it was after 10 PM I decided to go outside instead of in the basement.
I had already located a parking lot behind my office building which was nice and calm and away from curious onlookers. There’s a big hardware store right next door to it though, so I would have to expect some attention if I was there in the daytime.
In other words, going at night seemed a good idea.
So I went there and started out. There was a big container where I could support myself while mounting. In the beginning I couldn’t find my balance and I just kept falling off immediately. I guess I wasted a lot of film taping all that, but it might be fun to edit it in for the video later.
Then, once I got better, the battery went out and/or it was too dark to see much (typically it is not really dark for your eyes, but too dark for the kind of compact camera I am using for the video recording).
Anyway, I managed a few good runs during that time. I think my record was something like 8-10 meters, and that equals about 3 full revolutions of the wheel (the circumference of a 36" coker wheel is a little more than 9 feet or almost 3 meters). Most of the time I kept UPD’ing after just half a revolution though (if I tried going straight out from the wall), or I would do less than one revolution after leaving the wall if I went along the wall of the container and then continued.
One thing I noticed was that if I didn’t get up to speed along the wall of the container, but just went straight out from the wall, I would always UPD after a half revolution in the case that I got my left leg at the 12 o’clock “dead position” and couldn’t keep moving, unless I was focusing on the fact that this would happen due to my starting position after mounting and work on avoiding the stop at that point (by pushing harder to get initial speed).
However, I think that more than half the time I would simply lose balance to the side and have to step off.
Some positive points:
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I improved my success rate at mounting. I tried different versions, I “discovered” the front handle on the seat (so far I had been holding onto the T7 handlebar when mounting) and the fact that I had a lot more control when mounting when I used that to grab the seat more directly.
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I even attempted a few free mounts - and I was generally able to get up and stand still for a few microseconds before having to step down again.
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About half the time I would be able to dismount almost properly when UPD’ing, meaning I would step straight down and catch the uni with my hand when I lost my balance. I also did this when I stepped down after the attempts at freemounting.
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I managed to ride fairly controlled the few times I got a ride of more than 1 revolution. I had a few really good kicks when I rode 1-2 revolutions, then lost my balance and managed to recover by pedalling hard forward, and several times I also stopped when I lost my balance backwards, but I didn’t just “fall backwards” and send the uni forward, I actually stopped and stood for a few fractions of a second before I had to dismount.
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I spent a lot of time getting comfortable in the seat, idling a little while supporting myself on the container, thinking about all kinds of other stuff, and thus not being efficient and riding as much as possible. I then devised a nice method for changing this: The 1-2-3-go method. I counted 1 as I put my behind on the seat and my leg on the pedal, 2 when mounting and 3 when sitting down on the seat, and then on “go” I would start riding. Mostly I didn’t succeed at all in riding that way, since I wasn’t properly balanced or comfortable (riding while halfway sitting on one of your balls is not recommended) or my feet were not properly placed on the pedals. But it was very good and important practice in “getting somewhere fast”, as I know I will need to just get up and ride when I start freemounting.
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I was fairly good at sitting down on the seat. This is why I spent much time before I started with the 1-2-3-go method to make sure I was really well seated before trying to ride. So on the rides I did, I wasn’t standing on my feet on the pedal, at least not too much, I was sitting down and trying to control the ride.
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I even managed a few small turns (due to my wobbling side to side) of up to 20-30 degrees while riding, in addition to the stopping and fairly controlled dismounts (I also had a lot of the uncontrolled ones where the uni went flying, and on one occasion I had to take a roll as I couldn’t keep my balance on my feet when I UPD’ed).
Some things I noted that I need to improve:
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I hurt my balls badly a few times. Reminder that I need the suspensorium for mounting practice. When I am going to practice riding I shouldn’t try working on mount as well, just get up there and ride…
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My mounts very very variable. So I need to focus more on what I am doing when I mount, and try to standardize them.
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I also found that I shouldn’t start the camera right away, as I have enough footage of unsuccessful mounting attempts now. Rather I should save battery and memory stick space for filing when I have “warmed up”, in order to catch the more interesting stuff. I am not actually sure if I managed to catch a single one of the good rides tonight on video.
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Today it really “hit home” about why people said it is crazy to learn on a coker. I thought it was about the difficulty of mounting and keeping your balance, but I found that easy in the basement. But it is rather about the fear of falling and the fear of speed when you try to actually ride it. I noticed this and I think a lot of my dismounts when leaving the wall were simply due to mental block.
I said to myself at one point that I would not go home until I managed to do it, and I felt really good after a couple of good runs - thinking that now I was going to nail it. But I didn’t and I got too tired to keep going all night as I fantasized about at one point.
By now (4 AM, I went back around 2 AM) it is almost as bright as day again (a dull winter or fall day that is), and I could really see how it got brighter again after midnight, when I was training (I started around 1030 PM I think, left home a little after 10).
So I think I made some good progress and I just cannot wait to get out there again and see if I can ride a bit longer next time
Good night y’all
Stiffness, weight and resolve
So I was pretty stiff and sore after the first day when I did three hours in the evening after having done swimming in the morning as well. The next two times I only did two hours in the basement and I felt OK afterwards, I little tired but not too bad. And now I am completely shot again, whole body aching (or rather, not all of it, but all the muscles I didn’t knew I had that are activated from unicycling).
I think running, swimming and unicycling is a brilliant combination for keeping in shape, as they train and strain different muscle groups.
I was also pleased to notice that I weighed 84 kgs this morning (which was half an hour ago), even after a good-sized dinner last night. I find my body weight varies with up to 4-5 kg during a 24 hr cycle so it’s important to make measurements at the same time of day under the same conditions when I want to compare and see if there’s been a change.
So my goal now is to keep this weight and then do another 1-2 week diet and see if I can lose a few more. I feel 80 kg is within reach now, and then I’d be at the level I had wanted to be for the last 10-15 years, where I’ve always felt too flabby… Well, better late than never.
You need both the opportunity, the tools and the willpower to get something done. And now I have all three, for the first time in many years.
Riding straight and thinking of Kris Holm
Hehe, actually I also pictured Kris in my mind’s eye when trying to cycle straight last night. I fully realize that I need speed in order to stop wobbling and stop and lose my balance. I also fully realize that this is where the advice “don’t learn on a coker” and “if you’re not scared of speed, no problem” comes in… 
But I’ve also seen “dozens” of vids of people riding cokers nicely and slowly and smoothly, and I felt I was developing good control and balance in the basement, so I have faith that it is possible.
Again, though, I have to do this in the open, not in the basement. Leaning on walls and holding onto the ceiling will not get me anywhere after the first basics of simply getting onto the uni and pedal and so on. So I just have to repeat repeat repeat.
And I am sure that learning on a coker is slower, but at least I am determined to prove that it is possible
New personal records!
I set several personal bests this morning
The most important one was swimming 3000 meters (500 more than previosuly), but also nonstop (500 more than previously) and not only that, but all of it was crawl! Previously I had to switch to breast stroke after just 200 meters in order to “breathe”, but now I managed to pace myself and breathe on every third stroke, taking a deep gulp of air to really fill my lungs, and even more importantly, breathe out completely and not just partially each time. That is the secret I think - in order to get as much oxygen as you can.
After about 2200 meters I was even able to start breathing for every fourth stroke and the last 50 meters I did a sprint, breathing for every fifth stroke, really feeling the urge for air as my blood levels of carbon dioxide rose quickly.
On top of this, I managed to jog slowly both ways, not only from home to the pool, but also all the way back afterwards, cutting the time for 5 km from about 45 minutes to about half an hour - and that while eating an apple on the way home!
All in all, I pushed my limits way beyond what I thought was possible at this time in my progress towards getting in better shape. I think that’s just excellent with regard to being able to mentally overcome my difficulties in unicycling right now, where I need to “lean forward and ride” as I’ve read several places as the key to move from standstill to movement. It’s all in your brain (when your muscles have adapted to the balance thing, anyway).
I’ll list my training efforts since 1 May here, to document the progress:
7 May: 2000 meters swimming in 50 minutes - indoor 25m pool
12 May: 10 km running in 67 minutes
22 May: 2500 meters swimming in 51 minutes (2300 nonstop) - indoor 25m pool
23 May: 2 hours walking
27 May: 10 km running in 63 minutes
29 May: 15 minutes swimming - Oslo fjord - about 15 degrees
31 May: 50 minutes walking
2 June: 2500 minutes swimming in 67 minutes - outdoor 50m pool + 5 km jog/walk in 45 minutes + Day 1 unicycling - 3 hours
7 June: 4 hours biking
13 June: 2500 meters nonstop swimming in 55 minutes - outdoor 50m pool (drove the car there)
14 June: Day 2 unicycling - 1,5 hours
17 June: Day 3 unicycling - 2 hours
20 June: Day 4 unicycling - 3 hours (hurt my knee)
24 June: 2000 meters swimming in 47 minutes - outdoor 50m pool + 5 km jog/walk in 45 minutes
26 June: 3000 meters nonstop crawl swimming in 57 minutes - outdoor 50m pool + 5 km jog in 30 minutes
This in addition to the regular morning exercise of 50 push-ups and 600 abs crunches. My weight has gone down from 97 kgs on 10 May to 88 kgs today, with minima at 83 kgs on 3 June (which was the equivalent of 87 kgs since I had no food inside) and 84 kgs on 21 June (probably also on a rather empty stomach).
So I really feel like I am making progress. I can’t really remember being this fit for more than 10 years Considering that I’ve been running 10 km in an hour, I might even consider that my shape is as good or even better than when I did 30 minute runs of about 5-6 km back in 1995-1998 as a student, and if so then I have to go back to when I was 17-18 to beat my current fitness level.
And I ain’t gonna stop here
Isn’t a normal 5k time around 18-25 mins or something like that? I’m just trying to get an estimate in a US mile standard…
This is a great journal! That sounds like really intense training, its great to see you’re so into unicycling already. I’ve never heard of someone doing this kind of unicycle specific training before they started riding.
Keep riding and keep writing.
it’s things like that which are pushed out of attention due to the immediate need of attention to other things, like getting air in to breathe. It’s probably a good example of what my original posts in the ‘learning’ thread are all about… not the everyday mantra’s and obvious things to DO, but a question on what things might be being missed or being done extra that isn’t realised. In your case and swimming you probably didn’t realise at first you weren’t fully exhaling, which means you can’t really get a full and fresh inhale.
Be aware that ab crunches are a bit cheap so don’t get too into how many you can do. You would do better to put your attention elsewhere (maybe hand-weights for leg and arm muscle development and for further calorie expenditure). Think of it this way… a person can pretty much stand or sit for as long as needed due to the ‘core muscles’ which is generally just a shortcut for saying stomach and lower back muscles. Now if you didn’t already have ‘a strong core’ to begin with then you wouldn’t be able to function as every other person who sits and stands and leans and sways etc, as a ‘weak core’ would mean you would struggle keeping your upper body up in the first place. Now clearly you aren’t falling over yourself so your ‘core’ is clearly ok. I could probably do lame crunches all day if I didn’t get bored or hungry or need to pee etc.
It’s not about quantity it’s about quality. Anyone can do a thousand rubbish crunches that are useless. What counts with ALL muscle development is actually taxing the muscles with a handful or two of intense use e.g. for arms doing roughly 10-12 heavy weight lifts as opposed to lifting a pencil 100,000 times, and for abs doing probably at a guess around 30 to 50 intense crunches (perhaps like slow movement V crunches where you lift your feet off the ground at the same time and basically touch your toes vertically if you are flexible enough, Pilates like).
As with all new exercise that is different from what used to be the normal daily routine (watching tv eating a bag of Doritos and smoking 20 cigarettes during the ad breaks) there will be muscles that are engaged more than usual which you will feel sore from at first as they get used to being used, but like I said above with the stomach it’s not particularly beneficial to do many crunches / sit-ups as you aren’t likely to put on any significant or even noticeable muscle-mass in those muscles without steroid abuse and some hardcore crunches using weights/resistance to intensify the muscle requirement. You’d fair better to put that type of training (minus the steroids of course) into your legs and arms i think.
It’s always better to strive for some more muscle than to just do lots of aerobic-like exercises as a person with more muscle doing nothing burns more calories than a person with less muscle doing nothing, so in the day to day scheme of things when not actually working-out a person with more muscle is accruing more calorie expenditure ‘on the cheap’ so to speak. Moderation is the key though because who wants to be a 100 kilo mound of muscle who gets puffed walking up a flight of stairs and has lots of strength but no stamina.
Maybe even write-down what you are currently doing and store that away somewhere for future reference in case you lose the plot a little and change things too much and lose your way… that way you can always read what your plan was for now when things felt great and you were making progress. It’s just too easy to change small things bit by bit and then completely get lost and forget where you were going and how you were getting there.
Day 5: Longer flights on Huffman Prairie (part 1)
Unicycling is a great way of spending a Saturday evening! I had a friend visit for dinner and then I took the car over to the parking lot where I was last weekend. I started earlier tonight, it was precisely 20 (8 PM) when I had buckled up with all the safety equipment.
As usual, the battery on the camera went dead before the best parts, even when I didn’t turn it on until I thought I had gotten the hang of it. So still a lot of failed mounts and UPDs on most of the tape. Lots of raw material for the compilation coming up sometime…
Anyway, I really noticed how my balance and control of the uni had improved since last time. I am feeling more and more “at one with the uni” as I get settled up there. Which is really the problem – I was probably riding for almost 2 hours before I was really able to just “mount and sit down and ride” – and even then I would need at least 20-30 seconds before I was ready to go. At the beginning I would need 2-3 minutes before I was comfortable (as much as possible, anyway) in the seat.
But, as with the other small things that have been discussed in the topic that you need to figure out to make progress, I am starting to understand where my balls need to be at the different stages of the mounting, sitting down and riding process in order to stay safe. That’s a key part to why I managed to “settle down” much faster after riding for 2 hours.
Without going into gory details, what I’ve found is that I need to make sure my bike shorts and also the outer shorts I wear on top are tightly fitting and not loose. I’ve not been riding enough yet to worry about using “Butt Butt’r” – that’s something for hours and hours of riding – but I am one of those who needs to feel reasonably comfortable in order to be able to focus fully on the task at hand.
So, back to the riding. As I am writing these words, sitting in my couch having enjoyed a large glass of homemade smoothie (one apple, two bananas, three scoops of strawberry ice cream and crushed ice) and watching myself ride on the big screen (yes, I have a projector J) I am really impressed with the fact that this person up there is actually me! I look like those other people on unis I have seen on YouTube. Pinch my arm! J
I spent the first hour or so of warm-up going back and forth along the 6 meter long wall of the container where I was doing all my mounting, and sometimes continuing for a couple of meters in the same direction but quickly UPDing or just dismounting before I would UPD.
Then I decided to start going out from the wall and get some real riding. I increased my average run from below 5 meters to between 5 and 10. My long runs were increased from 5-10 meters (my previous record on Day 4 was something like 8 meters) to above 10, and then even longer… J
I brought a tape measure to check how far I was going, and I also used that for measuring the length of the container wall. So I found I was actually going around 13 meters on a long run that was my record. Then I figured it was a lot of work dragging out that tape measure each time. And I realized that a unicycle is not much different from a “trundle wheel” used by math teachers and pupils and lots of others as well to measure distances…
http://www.etacuisenaire.com/catalog/product?deptId=&prodId=40849
I even wrote in the previous post how long the wheel circumference was. So I decided to start measuring in units of “one wheel circumference” or more easily – “one revolution”. And that 13 meter run was about 6 revolutions (fitting well with the 2,2 meter figure I calculated last time). I guess next time I will remember actually measuring the circumference with the tape measure, rather than just measuring the diameter and then multiply by pi as I did last time.
So I basically doubled my record from last time from 3 to 6 full revolutions. But I wasn’t going to stop there!
Just like previous times, when the battery is dead and the camera has stopped recording, when my muscles, tendons and tissues are starting to get sore, it is getting dark and I know I should go home and sleep and get up early tomorrow and get some more training done then, rather than stretch it too far and be too sore and get up too late tomorrow – that is when I do the exact opposite and throw in that “extra gear” which is powered by pure adrenaline – the rush of excitement you get from mastering something really difficult – in this case balancing on a stick on a big wheel – sounds crazy doesn’t it…
And that’s when I felt I was really breaking the “code” of unicycling. I managed to repeat my runs up to 6 revolutions several times. I decided I wouldn’t count anything below 5 revolutions, and after I started counting I had 4 runs of 6 revs and then one on 5 revs (in between lots of shorter ones).
At least, as I wrote above, I would say that my average run was 3 revolutions. I had of course a lot of UPDs after just half a rev or 1-2 revolutions, but not only – like last time – now I also did several around that distance, and then the longer ones in addition.
Then came the big one. Right after the 5 rev run, I struck gold and managed a whopping 13 revolutions! Then I did a couple of short ones, and then another long one of 9 revolutions. By that time I decided to start making notes of the long runs, so I could calculate my “distance covered” by the definition of not counting any runs shorter than 5 revolutions (or about 10-11 meters). So I went to the car to make some notes in my mobile, as I didn’t bring pen and paper…
Back on the uni, I kept pushing the limits and I did one run of 12, then one of 8 revs. And I kept UPDing in between. I still wasn’t satisfied. By then I had realized I needed to go one way and not the other from the container, since heading into the end of the backyard wasn’t very conductive for making long runs, as I still have not nearly mastered the art of turning…
I had some key insights by this stage that I needed to implement in order to manage longer runs:
- Speed. I knew this already last time – the pedals need to move at a certain speed in order to be able to maneuver out of it when your balance starts to go left or right. And of course this is where mental blocks will stop you.
- Smoothness. This was more today’s insight – I sort of knew that also earlier, but I externalized it today by explicitly thinking about needing to keep the pedals moving at a steady pace and not erratically, as my balance wobbles back and forth. Forcing my feet to move at a fixed pace, not too slow so I will lose my balance, and not too fast so I will get scared and dismount – that was my focus (outside of flailing my arms and trying to stay on top of the uni).
I set out to achieve those goals and I did well in the previous runs. But then came the grand finale, when I felt I could call it a day and be happy with my achievements: I nearly doubled my record AGAIN – I had a run of no less than 20 full revolutions! I even made a couple of stop-starts during the run – not intentionally, but I simply had the wheel going too fast and I managed to stop it and let my upper body catch up before starting to pedal again. This is a result of my practice in the basement and along the wall before trying to ride – I’ve been able to ride a little backwards and “idle” while holding on to the ceiling or the wall. And I’ve done a lot of stops (also today) riding along the container wall – since I’d more or less voluntarily “screech” to a halt when approaching the far corner of the wall, allowing myself to grab the corner and steady myself while turning around to go the other way.
Going back and forth that way many times helped me to learn stopping, turning and starting, even if I was supporting myself on the wall. Also, I have kept the habit of “rescuing myself” when the wheel is rolling out under me – stopping it with my feet and grabbing hold of my support and using my strength to force the wheel back under me, rather than dismounting and then having to mount over again.
I believe these experiences helped me when riding – I have a mindset of “I ain’t gonna dismount” coming from this early practice. I know others say that you need to get out and ride, and I also decided to do that after just 3 sessions inside (total 7 hours), but I still think that I needed that time inside, and also that I now spend 1-2 hours along the wall before I feel “warm” and ready to try freeriding.
Also, I should mention that the “big ride” ended in the most dramatic UPD I’ve had so far. I actually complimented myself on not really needing the safety gear since I’d only had a single UPD until now where I lost my footing and had to do a roll. All others I’ve at most had to run a few steps when UPDing forwards, and most of the time I just dismount backwards when losing my balance – a couple of times I’ve tilted to the side but I’ve managed to avoid any disasters – even when I failed a couple of mounts and hooked my upper foot on the pedal, risking an uncomfortable tilt forwards with both feet on the pedals… Faceplants are never nice, especially from a coker – even when it is not moving.
And on the record run, I had several times recovered from potential UPDs due to almost stopping and wobbling by pushing hard on the pedals and accelerating out of it. That last time I did the same, had good speed but didn’t recover my balance, and also I was just encountering a slight uphill where I just had time to think about how I’ve read several reports about people saying they would UPD immediately on going uphill the first times. I actually also had time to think that I expected less problems with that particular issue since I’m riding a coker – and then I was flying.
I braced myself with my hands/wrists and then took a roll, so I didn’t get a scratch. But I heard a breaking sound and discovered when I was back on my feet that the splint of my left wrist protector had broken straight off… Good thing I had made a mistake when ordering and thus have three sets. I wonder if you can buy spare splints for these, since the rest of the protector is of course fine. But the splint’s of course the critical part.
Speaking of the need to get consistent and regular pedal revolutions, I also figured that it would be easier to do this and achieve a smooth rolling motion on a coker:
[LIST=1]
So all in all I feel that learning on a coker has several pros. The cons are mostly that it is higher and bigger, and thus requires more strength and also less fear of height and speed. I could have hurt myself badly falling down and I still can next time I go training on it – since I necessarily need to go at some speed to be able to move on the thing, and UPDing on a hard surface will obviously have a high hurt potential. But I feel reasonably safe with the gear I’ve got on.
One exception is when I almost fell backwards on a UPD almost directly from a failed mount today. I realized that I all too easily could break my tailbone if I didn’t get my feet under me. Also, I almost twisted my ankle when UPDing slightly sideways. But so far I’ve managed to avoid those fates and I also think the entire point of “getting physical” is subjecting your body to situations where you need to exert that little extra effort to avoid unpleasant results. To me, unicycling is an extreme sport.
And it gives me a rush just putting on all that gear that I’ve seen skateboarders and such people use (or, rather, not use – in the YouTube videos showing how they injure themselves badly), since I know I am going to do something where I will need it. And today I did – it was just so cool to dive off the coker on the parking lot going perhaps 10-15 km/h and getting away unscathed J
Can’t wait to get out there again!
Day 5: Longer flights on Huffman Prairie (part 2)
Ok, this must have been my longest post ever. Here’s the summary of tips / insights from today:
- Stay on the uni and try to pedal out of it rather than dismount when you get unstable. I’ve tried dismounting several times and ended up almost or actually hurting myself (mostly by crushing my balls) when I realized in mid-air, with one foot off and heading for the ground, that I actually wasn’t losing my balance after all, and that my other foot and the upper body is still going strong – but about to be pulled down by the foot and the mental decision to dismount. However, when you’re poised on top of the uni and pedal another half a revolution before you actually UPD, you end up falling differently, perhaps the other way, and usually OVER the seat rather than away from it…
- Spend some time to get settled and warm up along the wall (even sitting still and just ”mini-idling”) before trying to ride. Even if you’ve warmed up your muscles some other way, you still need to warm up to the situation and balance of being on top of the uni. I notice of course that I am getting more used to this for every time I practice (and this is still only my fifth day), so I can imagine the day when I just hop on and ride – but now as a learner I think it is very important to take things slowly even in the course of each training session, in order to reduce the frustration and feeling of failure.
- Make sure the uni is in top shape. I had been hearing creaking noises last time and also at the beginning today, and then I realized both of my pedals were getting loose. So I tightened them and later I also sat down and tightened all of the spokes. I tried doing it evenly by going around the entire wheel 5-6 times and tightening all loose spokes until they were all taut. But I still don’t know if I did it symmetrically, and if I ended up distorting the wheel shape from a perfect circle, then I’ve perhaps done more damage than good. I tried looking at the wheel while spinning it, but I couldn’t hold it still enough so I think the wobbles were not from the wheel itself but from my holding. I hope it’s OK but should probably get it checked at my LBS.
- Sit down and pedal at a steady pace. As written above, I believe this is much easier to do on a coker than on smaller unis. So even if I take a few more hours to learn how to ride, I believe I come out of it riding more correctly from the beginning.
- When mounting, use both legs. I am deliberately trying to do all combinations of starting with left or right leg on the pedal, facing both ways along the wall (so I have two ways of mounting when leaning left, and vice versa). This means I sometimes raise the arm on the same side as the foot I am stepping up on the pedal with, and sometimes the arm on the other side (in order to lean on the wall with it). Later, when I will freemount, I believe this exercise will help me not get stuck with just one way of doing it. In principle there’s four ways of combining your arms and legs when doing a standing mount and grabbing the seat with one hand as you step on the pedals. The free arm will usually be held up and out for balance, and if you limit yourself to just doing one of these four combinations when learning, it will be much harder to learn the other ways of doing it later – from what I’ve read and also what I can reason for myself.
In short, I try to do it slowly but correctly – I am way impressed with people like yUNIkoner but he’s a natural who’s also been doing icehockey and other sports that give him a large natural head start on me in learning to master the uni – but for me it makes more sense to try taking it one step at a time rather than force it in order to keep up with those who learn faster than me (or perhaps prefer to just “get going” and mount just one way to get to the riding as fast as possible, with less stability at low speeds than I believe I have been working on from the start, before I was able to freeride at all.
Of course, perhaps I am not doing anything “smarter” than others, perhaps I am just slow and perhaps even slower due to learning with a coker. But at least I am really enjoying this process, and I also feel it is going faster than I would expect from the difficulties I had in the beginning. Before I got the uni I had of course some fantasies about how fast I would learn, but when I unpacked it and saw the size of it, not to mention when I managed to climb on top of it and feel the instability I reduced my ambitions of how fast I would learn… J
It is way cool to have a coker though. I showed it to my friend today, and he was just “I had no idea it was that HUGE”. Which is of course always nice to hear 
So all in all a good session.
Running
I’m not a fast runner - I’ve only started running again now this summer and it takes more than 3 sessions to train the tendons and muscles and everything to be able to run faster for longer. Also, I should buy some new running shoes…
What I’ve heard is that if you plan to run a marathon (42 km) the first step on the way is to be able to run 10 km in 50 minutes. If you can do that, then you can gradually try running longer and longer until you can do a half marathon (21 km) in a couple of hours. And then you might manage a marathon in 5 hours when you’ve trained your feet and legs and rest of body to endure such a long run.
I don’t really have any plans of hurting myself like that - my goal is to run for at least an hour in order to brun fat (obviously running for even longer would be better, so who knows what the future brings). Once when I was younger (one summer I was home from studies, or perhaps even when I was in high school) I went running one day and just ended up going a lot longer than I planned and I was gone for 4 hours. Haven’t checked the map to find out how long that was…
Hmm let’s do it now… Not bad! It’s 12,7 km one way. So let’s say 25 km total. In 4 hours. I didn’t exactly rush it, it was a warm day (I remember stopping halfway in a gas station asking them for some water - coming in there wearing nothing but shoes, running tights and sunglasses was a bit funny I though) and there was a 4 km uphill to where I turned around.
Anyway. So that’s my benchmark from when I was young and sporty - 25 km in 4 hours. Plus I would regularly run something like 5-6 km in half an hour when I was a student, including some small hills.
Compared to that, I am happy doing 10 km flat in a little over an hour. Will see how I improve from here
Thank you
Thanks for the encouragement!
Well, I have to admit I’m not really doing much uni-specific training. It’s more like I view the unicycling as part of my overall training - in order to lose weight and get in better shape. As I wrote in the introduction post, one important factor in choosing unicycling was that I figured sitting up straight would be good for my back.
I’ve always been unstable in my back (it runs in my family) so I have a hard time sitting up straight - I keep slouching and having back pains. So using wobble boards and chairs and unicycling is just the kind of stuff my chiropractor would recommend - I think
Training philosophies
I think you have a good point here. It is often about externalizing your knowledge. I was probably aware of the benefit of exhaling completely, but I wasn’t focusing on it and using it to improve my results. I was already trying to pace myself and not swim fast short strokes but rather long slow ones - but it was only when combined with the slow and complete exhale that I managed to get it to work really well.
I also focused on the long and slow strokes and pacing myself though - I started accelerating many many times and had to slow myself down. Then at the end, when I had the rhythm mastered I was able to swim a little faster (at least I think so). But in the beginning, with my little experience, I am not able to immediately find the correct speed, so I need to swim a little slower in order to “settle in” and find the right pace.
You’ve already said that 2-3 times already I’m not getting into how many I can do more than that it feels nice to have a higher number than 25, and I am timing myself so it is just as much about breathing and getting my pulse up in the morning. In order to avoid them being “too cheap” my aim is to be able to feel a distinct crunch for each and every one, at the same time as doing them as fast as I am able to. I have noticed that doing them correctly by using the ab muscles to contract and pull in the legs and chest actually can be done a lot faster than “cheating” by just oscillating the legs and chest with other muscles. They simply cannot oscillate fast enough to achieve the speed I want.
When I approach my best time, I am doing 3 crunches per second (I do 600 in a little over 3 minutes) and it requires a good combination of breathing right, focusing on the abs and shutting out everything but the counting (I have often miscounted and then I have to start over from where I lost count, so I end up taking a lot more crunches) to be successful. Plus I notice a lot of difference depending on how much I slept, how “fired up” I am (depending on what I’m going to do later that day), what time of day I do the exercise (on weekends and days off I don’t always do it ASAP after waking up). So it gives me a nice benchmarking tool.
Also, I’ve been doing these exercises for many years - I restarted in the fall of 2004 again after a break of more than a year, and then I could only do 30, then slowly increasing (I think I already wrote this earlier, so I won’t repeat it).
The results are at least as follows:
- Improved self confidence and feeling of accomplishment
- Much improved ab muscles (believe it or not)
- Improved stamina - simply from the 5 minute workout every morning - when you're sufficiently out of shape even that helps...
And now it’s become a habit and I feel like I’m disappointing myself if I don’t do it every day. It’s a will power thing more than perfect exercise.
A sensible assumption, but wrong. As I wrote in the previous post, I’ve got back problems and I think my core muscles are too weak. I know that I should make sure to train my back muscles more and the abs less - but I haven’t really noticed any worsening of my situation since I started doing all these crunches - my back hurts from slouching on the chair now as it did when I was 15, and my neck hurts from reading/writing/working with a bent neck now as it did before. So if anything I don’t think I’ve done any damage.
I’d rather like to think that strengthening my abs will indirectly force the back muscles to strengthen too, nopt immediately but as a slow followup in order to counteract the pull from the abs.
This can be paralleled to my triceps/biceps. I don’t care for doing curls just to build a big biceps. I don’t see why I would need that. But my biceps has grown as a result of all my push-ups. My triceps is now bigger than my biceps, and the biceps has had to grow in order to counter the growth of the triceps (and just as the biceps controls the motion of the triceps which is doing the work of the push-up, the back muscles need to do work in order to control the motion of the abs doing the work of the crunch).
Again, due to my back, I cannot do that kind of exercise. I need to keep most of my back flat on the floor. And this is also the advice I’ve heard from everybody I’ve consulted about it. I’ve seen lots of videos on YouTube and heard people say that you get more punch from going all the way up, but I can’t do it.
One thing I’ve tried doing is lift my legs and do scissor-like movements. That’s a great addition to doing crunches. But it isn’t something I can do absolutely every day, in a cramped hotel room or my girlfriend’s apartment or wherever I might wake up in the morning. I need to do something quick and compact, and then push-ups and crunches are the ones passing the test of practicality and mental/physical results that I am happy with.
[quote=“nubcake”]
It’s always better to strive for some more muscle than to just do lots of aerobic-like exercises as a person with more muscle doing nothing burns more calories than a person with less muscle doing nothing, so in the day to day scheme of things when not actually working-out a person with more muscle is accruing more calorie expenditure ‘on the cheap’ so to speak.
[QUOTE]
Agreed and this is why I’ve mostly been able to eat what I wanted without putting on much weight. I’ve had people ask me how much I exercise (as in weight lifting) when I hadn’t done any exercise, even aerobic, for years. I am simply born with lots of testosterone, so I’ve had lots of acne as a teenager and been tall and muscular all my life.
Thus it is easy for me to lose weight by eating less, and also to gain muscle by small amounts of exercise. Which is again probably why I haven’t bothered to do any serious training before.
Kind of like the kids in my class who were smart, so they didn’t feel like they needed to work hard since they could just surf through with grades slightly above average, but not really good ones - just “good enough”. I never understood that and worked hard to be the best of the best academically. And then I was sort of accepting that I couldn’t also be in the top physically/athletically. That sort of changed when I was on the swim team as an exchange student - I realized then what I could have become if I had stayed in swimming instead of quitting when I was about 8 years old, due to the lack of a social environment around the swim club (in Norway, we don’t organize sports around the schools, you enter separate clubs that use the school premises in the evenings for training - so you go after dinner instead of before, immediately after school, like in the States) and the long travel.
Well, no point in crying over lost opportunities. Norway’s got a swimmer in the Olympics this year and I am of course cheering for him And the captain of my high school swim team in the States when on to get a swimming scholarship for the University of North Carolina and aimed for the US Swim Team in the Atlanta 1996 games. I didn’t see him there but I also didn’t look for him - didn’t have a TV at the time etc etc.
You are right about that too, in general. However, I am not the kind of person who does that. I usually know very well where I am going and why I didn’t get there if I don’t.
Which is also why I’ve set up this journal precisely in order to document what I’m doing. I’ve also got records for the last 8 or so years for the morning exercises I mentioned to you - and I’ve actually also recorded all other forms of training I’ve done there - so this is in a way expanding and enriching that dry table of figures with some prose to make the training journal become an actual journal.
The great thing about posting here is that it’s in many ways a “training blog” and I get comments like yours that enrich it even further, making me rethink a lot of stuff and provide arguments for why I do things the way I do them, or even why I do them at all.
So thank you for good comments!
I’m not sure if you back will let you do it, but the plank is an isometric position thats really good for core muscles. http://exercise.about.com/od/abs/ss/abexercises_10.htm
It’s very popular amongst XC skiers… That’s where I picked it up.
Day 5: Longer flights on Huffman Prairie (part 3)
After posting the first two parts (which were actually one long post that I had to cut in two since it was too long) and while writing the responses to the other posts, I realized that I had forgotten one important part of the summary of today’s training session (which is by now yesterday’s session since I’ve been up way too long again - bad boy…):
The overview of my distance covered. (I did mention this but it wasn’t followed up with hard facts).
So, as I summarized all the exercise recently in a previous post, I’ll summarize the essentials of my uni-riding here:
RESULTS OF UNICYCLING SESSIONS
Day 1: Assisted mounting, balance training
3 hours inside. Distance covered: 0
Day 2: Assisted mounting, assisted riding
1,5 hours inside. Distance covered: 0
Day 3: Assisted mounting, assisted “free” riding
2 hours inside. Distance covered: “5 meters”
Day 4: Assisted mounting, riding, some freeriding
3 hours outside. Distance covered: 20-25 meters (record 8-9 meters)
My estimate is that I had 2-3 rides of about 3 revolutions.
Day 5: Assisted mounting, freeriding
3 hours outside. Distance covered: 185-200 meters (record 45-50 meters)
I had lots of rides below 5 revolutions, so I am not counting those anymore.
I had the following number of rides of 5 or more revolutions (after I started counting): 5, 4*6, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 20 - total 91 revolutions.
I’ll have to double check the distance per revolution but I thought it was about 2,2 meters. Now I see that I actually wrote it was “almost 3 meters”. So I’ll have to recheck my calculations here. This is getting exciting!
Given that one revolution is e.g. 2,75 meters, 20 revolutions would be 55 meters, not 44 as it would be with a 2,2 meter circumference… So perhaps I already have a personal best of more than 50 meters…??
Thanks a bunch!
I’m bookmarking that link right now!
Thanks a lot, this is the kind of easy-to-do exercise that can be done anywhere. I’ll try it out. If it fits in the morning routine depends on if I can fit it in the time frame of 5 minutes to get warm before jumping in the shower. I found that a routine taking 15 or even just 10 minutes is too long and I will not be able to keep it up every morning. It needs to be short enough that I cannot tell myself I don’t have time for it, and not too hard so I won’t have problems mentally getting ready to do it (of course I know I can do it, but IO procrastinate when I can, so unless I am in a rush, I often take my time before doing the exercise - finding out that I’m better off those days I do it in a rush before running out the door less than an hour after getting up (to me that is quick, when I exercise, shower, eat breakfast and pack my stuff - I like taking my time so a comfortable pace requires getting up 90-120 minutes before I leave the house). Obviously if I made it a habit, I could fit in more exercise - but I am not quite ready to get that hardcore yet…
The morning swimming on an increasing number of weekdays is hardcore enough for me. I did it twice this week and I aim to increase week by week - perhaps I can manage thrice next week, or even more?
OK, now it is really time for bed…