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This is about the flattest 100 miles you will find anywhere. With that in mind I like to use this every year as a little self competition to improve my time from the year before. Considering the tough time I had with my health this summer which caused me to take a lot of time off my bike and a quick 4 week fitness cram, about three weeks ago I wasn’t really excited about even getting out and doing this ride. Then about two weeks out as I started feeling stronger on the bike and entertained thoughts that it might be fun to at least just get out and do the ride and not worry about time. So I registered and set up lodging and other things for a nice long weekend family get away. Then a week out it appeared my fitness was coming back in a hurry and I started dreaming of beating my last year’s personal best time again! So here’s what happened… Forgot sun screen. Forgot to throw my Hammer Gel flask in my jersey pocket (didn’t realize until about mile 70ish when I planned to change from solid food to less solid food to see how it helped with my stomach issues on longer rides. But it turned out OK in the end. Moving time was 5:11 (5 minutes slower than last year) and my total time was 5:30 which smoked my total time of last year by almost a half hour. Not terribly impressive, especially considering that the elite peloton finishes in under 4 hours, but I am pleased with my effort today considering the following… 1. I started out a little over 3 years ago DEEP in the cave of suck. 2. The wind was hellish. Add to that, I spent much less time wheel sucking this year. Last year I was able to ride with some sort of group and share the load for a good 60-70 percent of the ride. This year I was on my own for most of the ride (probably 70 miles) including the hellish back stretch into the wind. 3. I was able to hang with the lead group for longer this year, though I’m sure I burned too many matches there. We covered the first 23 miles (where I finally popped) in one hour. That was a lot of fun. 4. Though my over reaching early in the ride (hanging with the lead group) caused me to have no pop left in my legs I was able to continue turning over the pedals at a good rate. It seems like my aerobic engine is better than last year at this time. 5. Related to number 4 above, My lungs felt like they could have kept on going. Had some left. My legs and butt thought differently. 6. Considering I was completely off the bike 6 weeks this summer due to illness, I was really pleased with my 4 week fitness cram session in the month of August. While probably not the most ideal way to build fitness, I really wanted to do the last couple races of the season and give a personal best shot to this ride. I’m very happy with the results. Time for some easy rides for a week or so. I decided to do this ride with two stops. I originally planned to stop at 47 miles and 85 miles. I ended up stopping at 80 instead because the wind was doing a number on my legs and I needed a break and to stretch a little. Turned out to be a good move I think. Total time stopped was about 19 minutes. Not bad (for me). I saw Chuck, a teammate, at the mile 80 rest stop and he was nice enough to offer to wait up if I was headed out pretty quick. I sent him on his way so I wouldn’t hold him up and I really did need a little break. And I have to say that big pickle really hit the spot at that rest stop to knock some of the sweet sticky taste out of my mouth. I also was trying out something knew for nutrition & hydration this time. I’ve been having a tough time with this on longer rides. My plan was a good sized breakfast a couple hours prior (probably about 500 calories). And then real food instead of the feed bottle thing (was using Hammer Perpetuem before). So on the menu today were strawberry Nutrigrain bars and peanut butter chocolate chip Quaker Chewy bars along with EFS and some Hammer Gel for towards the end when I expected my stomach to be a bit more on the unstable side. So I had two chewy bars, about 2 Nutrigrain bars and about two bottles with EFS and two bottles of clear water (and an awesome pickle). Of course, as I mentioned before, I forgot my gel. Nice! Anyway, doesn’t seem like nearly enough to eat drink for 5.5 hours, but I didn’t feel bonky at the end (just tired legs). So I guess it worked. Anyway, my stomach felt good throughout, though I wouldn’t have minded throwing back some gel in the last couple of hours. Might have given me a little more zip at the end. So, anyway, I had a blast. It was a beautiful day, in spite of the wind. It wasn’t hot (which probably helped me out immensely) and my legs are only a little on the sore side and looking forward to a 4.5 hour cave hike on Sunday! Sometimes I get a little frustrated when I’m not as fast as guys I race with (in fact, I’m not sure I have any teammates slower than me 2007 – 6:55:54 moving, 8:30:00 total (I’m guessing here but it was well over 8 hours and I spent a lot of time at rest stops so it could be higher) Next year I will be focusing my training on races but I would like to see if I can break the 20 mph avg. moving time while not adding to, or improving on my total time. If I can find a like minded group I think it can be done. All endurance rides starting last Saturday. I’m tapering a bit after 4 weeks of pretty steep fitness progression. My CTL has increased 36 points over the last 4 weeks. Don’t really want to push it much faster than that. So the plan was 3ish hours on Saturday and then a couple nice morning endurance rides during the week (Tue. & Thur.). Missions accomplished. I’m also trying a new site to house my workouts for posting maps up here. A friend of mine on our race team was using it and I was intrigued. So I’m giving it a shot. So here are the rides (map is from today’s ride) Saturday… 50.52 miles, 2:55:09, 2509 ft ascent, 182 watts avg power, 148 bpm avg hr, 2080 calories. Tuesday… 20.32 miles, 1:08:44, 1145 ft ascent, 198 watts avg power, 148 bpm avg hr, 882 calories. Today… 20.32 miles, 1:08:41, 1164 ft ascent, 201 watts avg power, 147 bpm avg hr, 896 calories. With the bit of a rest week this week before the Clarksville Century on Saturday I’ve been able to keep my CTL up at 72 and my TSB has recovered to -7. It should be back into positive numbers (that’s good) by Saturday as tomorrow I’ll be off as well. I am also pleased with the amount of training I have been able to get in for the month of August. I was able to log the second most miles and time on the bike in a month ever. The highest month was a month where I had some vacation time with a lot of riding. So considering this was all done during non-vacation time I am very happy. Total for August was 546 miles and 31:18:00 of training time. Saturday is the Clarksville Century. I’m going to give it an effort to beat my time from last year. Not sure how it will go but what the heck! I will have fun either way. Report back later! Ok. I’m really enjoying this route. I think this will become my official morning route. Unless I’m a bit short of time and have to cut it short a little. It was absolutely beautiful this morning. In fact, I was a bit chilled when I first took off on my ride this morning. A good chill. A welcome chill. This route has a little traffic and one school to deal with in the first 2.5 miles, but after that it’s clear sailing with the exception of a car here and there. There are a few hills to climb including one short wall (20+% grade) just to wake the legs up. Plus I get to see the lake for at least some of the ride. And it was beautiful this morning. Cool clear air and sun reflecting off the water. Very nice! I sweat my heart rate went down just from enjoying the view while I was pedaling along. Today’s ride data… 19.4 miles, 1:06:39, 1124 ft ascent, 195 watts avg power, 146 bpm avg hr, 844 calories. CTL hanging steady at 72, TSB up slightly to -28. I looked back at last year at this time (about a week before the Labor Day Sunrise Century in Clarksville, TN). My fitnes (CTL) is in a similar range compared to last year. Howerver my TSB is much lower (-28 vs -4 compared to this day last year). That indicates my fatigue is higher which makes sense considering I’ve pretty much crammed this fitness in the last 4 weeks and dug a pretty good fatigue hole. While this century ride isn’t a race, it’s kind of special. It was the first century I ever did and I like to improve my time each year. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that this year. I still want to get out for about 3 hours on Saturday, but I think I need to keep the intensity way down and just get all endurance in. Then next week really get out only a couple times for pretty easy rides and let that fatigue level decrease. Then maybe I’ll have some fresher legs next Saturday and some good form to give a good run an a new personal best for that ride. Or I’ll just go enjoy being on the bike for the 100 miles and not worry about it View 20100827 Endurance in a larger map Raced last night. Here’s the report… Cat 5 race. I went into this race not expecting much except pain since I had been sick for a couple of months and had just started riding again 8/1. And that was mostly endurance type rides and very little intensity except maybe for the occasional hill or trying to hold on to the faster guys on a couple of team rides here and there. But since this was the last race of the season for me I just HAD to go line up. The race started fast. They started with a hot lap which means there was a prime (a prize) for the person who completed the lap first. When they announced that I just sighed. I knew it would be tough on me since the pack would start out fast. I tried to hang on and did for a while. But as I expected, as my heart rate soared and it hurt. After a lap or two I was dangling but just couldn’t close the gap to the pack. I actually dangled within striking distance (had I had enough fitness) for a few more laps. I was just hoping I could recover enough to close it. Then the gap started getting bigger and bigger (looking at my data the lap speeds started dropping so it was me slowing down, not them speeding up At that point I just kept my head down and found a “comfy spot” in the pain cave and settled in. I was able to pick off a few other guys here and there. Again, like my first race on this course before I got sick, I tried to pick good fast lines through the corners and that’s where I actually made up time on some of the other stragglers. I also was able to use the headwind section to gain on a couple guys too. I passed a few. Got passed back by a couple. Not sure if it was a net gain or not. It looks like I was lapped on the 11th lap (of 13 completed by me) this was an improvement over the first race. I think it only took them 7 or 8 to catch me that time Finished up the last couple of laps pushing hard. Looks like I was able to find a little more juice on the last lap as it was the fastest lap I had since lap 3. Ended up 22 of 35 starters (I think). Anyway it was a lot of fun and a beautiful evening. My daughter was there cheering me on and teammates were encouraging. Had the awards ceremony for the series. Two of my teammates won an overall podium in the cat 4 & 5 competition and our team placed 3rd for the series team points (unfortunately I contributed no points to this Good things I took from this race: 1. I heard it said that this was the fastest cat5 race of the series. Considering that, I’m not too displeased with how I did. Data for the race were: 7.21 miles, 19:43, 122 ft ascent, 280 watts avg power, 173 bpm avg hr, 370 calories So I was debating going fro a ride this morning. But, heck, I had the time so I figured why not. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. Nice endurance ride this morning. I decided to just toodle along and ride down by Percy Priest Lake as much as possible this morning. Mission accomplished. Today’s ride (map above)… 19.33 miles, 1:07:39, 1114 ft ascent, 191 watts avg power, 143 bpm avg hr, 834 calories. CTL 72, TSB coming up to -30. Another easy paced ride tomorrow and then a longer easy paced ride on Saturday before I start tapering a bit after this 4 weeks of “training”. View 20100826 Endurance in a larger map Two typical training rides the last two days on the same route by my work in Hermitage, TN. Nothing extraordinary to report. Heart rate continues to come down compared to exertion level and fitness continues to slowly increase. Legs are getting stronger again and it feels good. The weather was absolutely gorgeous for riding the last two mornings. The humidity level and morning temps have dropped a bit and I really enjoyed the last two mornings. Especially this morning. I’m feeling more and more fatigue building in my legs in this fourth week being back to a more normal training schedule. That’s right on cue. So this morning was really just all about a TRUE endurance pace to rest the legs a little for the race tomorrow. I’m proud to say I actually stuck to it. Average heart rate was 139 for the entire ride. Haven’t seen it that low for a LONG time. Plus I really enjoy these slower rides. Very pleasant. So the net result of the last two days is that my CTL is holding steady at 71 and TSB is at -36. This season has been a bit disappointing as far as racing goes since I got sick for so long. I was hoping to get 8-10 races in and be eligible to upgrade to Category 4 at the end of the season (if it made sense). So now after tomorrow I’ll have 5 races in total which puts me half way to upgrading to Cat 4. I’m not expecting a lot for the race tomorrow night. I’m just chomping at the bit to line up and race again. Maybe I can endure 20 minutes of pain and finish better than I have before even though my fitness isn’t where it was earlier in the season or even last year. But who knows. Maybe in the few races I’ve done I’ve learned enough to hang with the pack a bit longer. After tomorrow’s race it’s time to back it down a bit. Just keep riding endurance and maybe only 50 miles or so on Saturday and then some rest to let the legs recoup for the Clarksville Sunrise Century on 9/4. In theory, if I can get some rest into the legs and taper the week before or so I should come back a bit fresher and stronger to start another 4 week or so block. So there’s a bit of randomness for y’all. Can’t wait for tomorrow night. Leah will be coming with me and we will be hanging out at the races. There’s free BBQ too. So, win, lose or draw, I win I say plus because I got out about an hour before the actual team ride this morning and met the guys at the appointed time and place. Rode with the team (more or less) for about 30 miles and then split off with another teammate to head back toward home while some of the other guys climbed some more hills. Then I did another 13 miles or so after that at a bit of an easier pace. Felt really good today on the bike. I had to work pretty hard to keep up with the guys and there are times I didn’t. They were nice enough to wait for me at a few spots. Cheers boys! It is quite clear that these boys are in better form than I am! But it was a blast none the less. Hopefully some day I’ll be puttin’ the hurt on someone else! I’ve tried to get out for 4 hours or so the last two Saturdays. Clearly, this Saturday I got more miles in approximately the same amount of time. I feel good about that (though some of that gain was undoubtedly due to hanging with the team longer today and catching a draft. The purpose of these longer rides is to try to get a little fitness back in time to ride the Clarksville Sunrise Century in two weeks (100 miles). It’s a flat century so hopefully these rides in hillier country will get me ready for the longer flat ride in two weeks. We’ll see I guess. So, today’s ride (oh yeah…I got out for an hour on the same route by my work yesterday too – 18 miles): 65.45 miles, 3:42:21, 2608 ft ascent, 184 watts avg power (probably overstated due to drafting), 152 bpm avg hr, 2690 calories. CTL up to 72 and TSB down to -64. Next week more endurance rides and a much easier ride next Saturday (maybe 3 hours but really easy) to taper a bit and get rid of some of the fatigue I’m starting to feel building in my legs. View 20100821 Team Ride + in a larger map … is that you see quicker returns when it comes to improvement. I was planning on racing last night but it ended up being a rain out. Booo. It was the right call but still, BOOO. So I figured since I took it a bit easier on Tuesday and had yesterday off I had better push it a little more today. So I targeted to keep my heart rate up a bit higher than on Tuesday and push my legs a bit. So I headed out on the same route as I did Monday and Tuesday. I was able to improve over my Monday time by almost two minutes over the 18 mile route. It felt good to push it some and keep my heart rate up at a pretty high level the whole way with just a little bit of recovery here and there. I’m still not quite back up to the form I should be but it is feeling much better and my old body seems to be responding to the training stimulus again. That feels good (even though it hurts a little…in a good way). So here is today’s ride… 17.89 miles, 58:34, 1051 ft ascent, 215 watts avg power, 158 bpm avg hr, 812 calories. CTL is hanging at 64 and TSB has risen to -32. Tomorrow’s goal is to see if I can get Leah and myself out the door 10-15 minutes earlier to see if I can get a bit longer ride in. I’d like to get 20-22 miles or about 75 minutes at an endurance pace and still make it into my chair at work in time. View 20100819 SST in a larger map This is just great! Morning ride this morning. I did the same route today as I did yesterday. Thought I’d take it a bit easier today. Just a good endurance spin to keep the legs moving and give them a little recovery to get ready to race tomorrow. I could tell right from the get go that things just seemed easier. My heart rate stayed down even when I upped the pressure on the pedals to climb some small (but sometimes steep) hills. While I was able to keep my average heart rate down to 146 bpm (haven’t seen an average heart rate that low for 2 months), what excited me most was that even when I would work my heart rate up a bit on a climb my heart rate would recover very quickly when I let up a bit on the descent. I was also able to cruise along at a nice speed and keep a very constant lower heart rate. This was also the first time that I really got a sense that the weight I have lost (including the 10 lbs from being sick) will end up being a big plus once I get my power back. I really got a sense that when I threw down some power to the pedals that I was chewing bigger chunks of the hills off with each stroke compared to 10-20 lbs ago. This is all very exciting and is an indication that things are coming back around again. Unfortunately, it’s just in time for the end of the season for me Today’s ride… 17.89 miles, 1:03:17, 1040 ft ascent, 182 watts avg power, 146 bpm avg hr, 751 calories. CTL steady at 64 & TSB recovering to -43. Race tomorrow weather permitting. I’m excited! View 20100817 Endurance in a larger map Man I like those old Chicago songs! I decided to try a different route today in Hermitage (where I work). The one I did last week, now that school has started, was just too hectic which cause me to do some defensive yelling at motorists. I’d just as soon avoid those situations since I’m smaller and lighter than the fully armed motorist! It seems I clicked into a new gear. It’s funny. Yesterday I commented to Nancy how I just felt “GOOD”. I couldn’t remember the last time I just felt good like that. You know. Rested, healthy feeling. I don’t really know how to explain it. But I just felt GOOD! It’s been at least 2 months since I felt like that and I usually feel like that most of the time. Well that seemed to translate well on my ride this morning. My heart rate seems to be falling back down closer to normal ranges for me considering the exertion level. Seems my cardio system is falling into sync. To the point where I can really start working my legs over again. I’m still not as strong as I was this time last year or even as I was earlier in the season but it seems like things are falling into place to get some good building in again. Exciting! Today’s ride… 17.87 miles, 1:00:28, 1053 ft ascent, 197 watts avg power, 154 bpm avg hr, 776 calories. CTL steady at 64 and TSB -48 after the day off yesterday. Tomorrow is going to be a bit easy and I’m planning on racing on Wed. night. Excited! View 20100816 Endurance in a larger map |
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