Alaska

Looks like Sarah and I will be heading to Alaska this summer. The opportunity came up kind of unexpectedly, but we're going to go ahead and do it. In fact, all of the trip arrangements are basically already made (except for dog sitting). The downside is that the trip just hosed my training schedule. We'll be leaving two days before my first "A" race at the end of July.

So, some re-working of the schedule was in order... I pretty much had to keep my "A" race on this side of the trip, because I'm sure my fitness will drop on the trip (which is fine).

What I'm tentatively working toward now is switching my "A" race to the 6-12hrs of Ithaca. I haven't decided if I want to try a solo 6 hour race or team up for 6 or maybe 12 hours. This is probably going to be as good of a time as any for me to try an endurance race. I'll be doing the Stony Marathon race 3 weeks before (about a 3.5 hour race) and a century the weekend before.

This new, longer, break in July/August also means that I'm going to race a little bit longer into the year. I'm going to add another Base phase in after the Alaska trip and try to race through the full cyclocross season, which ends December 2.

So in terms of bike stuff, I'm a little bummed that I will miss the Stony TT, but I'm excited about trying the endurance race. It will be a big-time challenge for me, particularly if I solo it, which is what I'm leaning toward. I'm also really geeked about doing more cyclocross races.

...leave it to me to spend most of a post entitled "Alaska" discussing bike racing...

Base 3 Test

I was trying to think of something clever to title this post, but I decided everything I came up with was stupid... so, instead, you get "Base 3 Test". Brilliant!

I did my LT field test on Sunday. I was a little concerned about how it would go since I've never done a hard ride the day before. I felt OK on Sunday morning though, so I figured I'd give it a go.

I held back a bit over my first 10 minutes; I mean, I still went pretty hard, but I left a little in reserve. I kicked it up just a bit for the last 20 minutes; I didn't even switch gears, just upped the cadence a bit. The result was a new personal best!

My average power over the last 20 minutes was 254 Watts. That's a 16W improvement over my last test (which, if you recall, I sort of blew). It was also an 11W improvement over my previous PB, which was at the end of last season. And just in case you think it's because I held back on my first 10 minutes, I also covered more total "distance" on the trainer than I did on my old PB.

If you believe these power numbers and the "power profiling" chart, I'm starting to get into Cat 2 territory with my LT power-to-weight number. Fortunately, I've ridden with enough roadies to know that I have nothing approaching Cat 2 abilities. Still, it's fun to track.

So I'm pretty happy with all of that. Right now, I'm extremely confident with my training plan in terms of continuing to develop my fitness. As I posted before though, my real limiter seems to be confidence in my trail riding skills. So I'm going to try to put a little more effort into that for a while.

Mountain Rhinos

This morning, the bulk of the Flying Rhino mountain bike team (me, Brad and Brien) met up and rode the Poto. Brad and Brien took right off and were dropped me almost immediately (fortunately, they stopped to wait every 20 minutes or so). Part of the problem was that my legs just weren't ready to go at the beginning, and the other part of the problem is that Brad and Brien are a little bit faster than me just about everywhere (climbing, descending, cornering, etc), which adds up to being a lot faster overall.

Eventually, they slowed down a little bit so I was keeping up a bit better. The thing that would seem to make the most immediate difference is that I just need to stay off the brakes. I think that I have the physical skills to descend and corner faster than I usually do, but it's just a matter of developing the confidence to do it.

Anyway, we had a good time at the ride, I expect we'll set up another pretty soon. This was the first time I'd ridden the full Poto trail. It's really nice, and it's a treat to ride a trail that's nearly 20 miles long (no need to ride a bunch of loops to get a reasonable ride in!).

My drama, however, really didn't start until my drive home. I had just gotten into the construction zone on US23 when it occured to me that I didn't remember packing my helmet and gloves back into the car. A quick glance to the back of my car seemed to confirm it. I was really ticked off about leaving them behind, the gloves were a bit old so that wasn't a big deal, but the helmet was pretty new and I've been very happy about it. Still, the thought of driving through the construction, turning around and driving back to the trail and then driving back through the construction was too much. Especially if somebody had already picked it up. So, I came home. Because of the construction traffic, it took me about an hour and 45 minutes to get home. (Was this the end of my helmet?)

I was really stewing by the time I got home. Sarah offered to ride with me back to the trail and look for my helmet. I thought about it for a while and finally decided not to leave my helmet behind. We also brought a map so we could navigate around the construction on the way home. Once we got to the trailhead, I saw my helmet almost immediately, sitting right where I'd left it, in the grass just on the other side of the curb where I parked. So my helmet is back home on it's shelf, and I'm happy.

Stone-Faced

Sarah has a triathlon training book that describes hardcore cyclists as "stone-faced quad machines". Ever since I read that, I decided that's what I needed to shoot for. What do you think, am I getting there?

Not quite...

Fort Custer Stuff

A few pictures from the Fort Custer race...

Me, coming to the finish.

Suzie, giving Dad the ol' googly eyes.

Brad, fellow Rhino, and winner of the Sport 30-34 class.

Final results were also posted this morning. I ended up finishing 10th out of the 14 guys in my class that finished. We had 2 DNF's, I'm pretty sure both were from early mechanicals.

Fort Custer Stampede

I raced the Fort Custer Stampede this past weekend. My race preparation started on Saturday; I went over to the trail and rode two loops to get re-familiarized with the trail. I felt more comfortable on it this year than I did last year (which was the first time I'd ridden there), but I still don't feel like I know the trail very well.

Sunday was the race. I was a little concerned about the distance beforehand. This was the first cross-country race I've done in the Sport class, which means there's an extra lap. My other Sport races have been time trials, so just one lap. It didn't help that my plan was to "train through" this race, so my legs were a bit tired before I even started.

I didn't push too hard at the start. I knew I wasn't going to be competitive with the top guys, so I thought it was good form to stay out of their way at the beginning. The fast guys were fast enough that my "strategy" probably didn't matter too much. There was a short open section before we hit the singletrack, and I was probably slightly below mid-pack when we hit it.

The first part of the race was pretty uneventful. I was in a group of about 4 or 5, and we kept swapping spots through the different sections. One thing started to become apparant to me pretty early on, I was able to open (or close) gaps on the flats and climbs, but the guys around me could open gaps on the more technical singletrack. Later in the first lap, our group pared down to three: me, a guy in a SpongeBob jersey and one other in a not-so-distinctive jersey. SpongeBob and the other guy led me for most of that first lap, but I decided that I needed to stay on SpongeBob's wheel, so that's what I did.

We had one incident about 2/3rds of the way through the first lap. Two of the top Sport riders in an older group caught us in a fairly open section. They passed me without incident, but SpongeBob didn't move over. The two guys yelled at him and the second guy smacked him on the shoulder when he went by. Yeah, SpongeBob should have gotten over, but the actions of the other two were really uncalled for. Hopefully SpongeBob got their numbers.

Anyway, at the start of the second lap, my tactic of staying on SpongeBob's wheel paid off. He popped less than a mile into the second lap and so did the other guy. I was still feeling decent and was able to open a gap on them. I didn't see SpongeBob again until after the race, but I'm not sure if the other guy got back by me or not, there were several people from his club/team out there racing. The rest of my second lap was pretty uneventful. I mostly rode by myself, some of the fastest Beginners started coming by on their only lap, but I didn't have any real issues with traffic. I ended up not having much issue with the distance. I was able to really drop the hammer on the last 1.5 miles or so; it was a pretty fast, flat section.

All things considered, I had a good race. My lap times were about 4 minutes faster than my lap time from last year, and I did both laps in nearly the same time.

Given how I felt after the race and the amount of energy I had at the end, I feel like maybe I didn't go hard enough. On the other hand, I did go hard at the places where I could go hard. There were just long stretches of the course where my speed was limited by the terrain (or, my ability to ride the terrain). I know that these sections can be ridden faster, since I saw other guys do it, so I don't know if it's an issue of my ability or not being too familiar with the trail, probably some of both. At least compared to the other guys racing around the back of the Sport field, this technical ability seems to be my big weakness, certainly moreso than any aspect of fitness.

Back to Business

So, I bounced back pretty well this week. I was feeling OK on Tuesday but, unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, so I ended up doing my speed work inside on the trainer.

I did a 3 hour road ride on Wednesday night. I was pretty tired by the end, but it basically went OK and it didn't feel as long as I expected. I rode on the roads at Stony Creek, and there were lots of people out, including a couple people flying combat with their R/C airplanes, so that helped to pass the time.

I was feeling fatigued yesterday, but I went ahead and did my Tempo ride anyway. On the last week of a training block, I think it's OK to go into a ride feeling tired. My tempo interval was scheduled for 50 minutes this week, which was almost long enough for me to ride the full loop at Pontiac Lake. I was very close to the end of the trail when my 50 minutes was up, so I kept going hard and ended up finishing the lap in 54 minutes.

For as tired as I was during the day yesterday, I actually rode pretty well last night. The first 15 minutes or so were a little rough, but I sharpened up after that. I actually cleaned one section that I've never gotten before. It's a downhill into a flat rock garden and then up a short steep hill. In the past, I've always lost too much momentum in the rocks and then couldn't make the hill. Yesterday, I pedaled through the rocks more than I usually do, and then I found the hill wasn't too bad since I started it with a little momentum.

Tonight will be a strength workout, and then I need to mow the lawn. Tomorrow I'm heading back to the West side of the state for the Fort Custer Stampede. I'll pre-ride the course tomorrow and then race on Sunday. Fortunately, this should also be the last race for awhile that I'll "train through". It's tough starting a race when your legs are already smoked.

P-Funk Allstar?

After this weekend, I feel like I should be an honorary P-Funk Allstar...



I was in a funk almost all last week and into the weekend. It rained here for most of the week, so I did a couple of hard rides on the trainer. The weekend was nicer, but I was still in a funk both days. I skipped my ride on Saturday, but I got in a 2.5 hour road ride on Sunday; it was nice to get the ride in, but I just wasn't into it. I also decided I need a new saddle for my 'cross bike (which is what I rode), the thing was killing me after an hour or so.

Today is a rest day, and I feel much better. I worked on my mountain bike tonight, trying to prevent the chain drop problem. I tweaked the front derailer just a little and increased the tension from the b-screw adjustment. I'm planning on a fast trail ride tomorrow night, so I'll see if it's improved or not.

Pedals

I've been experimenting with my pedals for the last few months. I've been using Shimano M520's since I started using clipless pedals (a few years ago). I have two complaints though, one is that I had a few incidents last year where my shoe loaded up with mud or sand and clipping in and out became very difficult. I felt like this cost me real time in a few races. The second is that I frequently unclip accidentally, like when my shoe or pedal hits a rock or even just climbing hard. My second complaint could probably be fixed by adjusting release tension, but not the first. So, off I went in search of a new pedal.

I first tried the classic Eggbeater pedal. Certainly the design looked like it would shed mud well, and they're a cyclocross standard, so I thought they'd be winners. Unfortunately, my practical experience with them was not so good. While I didn't have trouble with mud shedding, I did have trouble consistently clipping in to these pedals. I don't know what the deal was, I think I never got the feel for finding the front of the cleat. I felt like I gave them a pretty fair chance though, I used the Eggbeaters all 'cross season last year and for a lot of my winter riding. The other thing I didn't like was that there was too much free float. It was like my shoes were always sliding around on the pedal; I never got comfortable with that sensation. So, last month, I decided that I was done with the Eggbeaters.

The pedals I'm trying now are the Time ATAC XS pedals, another cyclocross standard. These pedals also have a more open construction that looks good for mud shedding, but there's more of a platform than with the Eggbeaters. So far, I like these pedals. I'm using the middle tension setting, and I haven't accidentally pulled out yet, but I have been able to get my feet out in a few "emergency" situations. Clipping in takes a little more force than I'm used to, but I'm adjusting to it without too much trouble. I haven't used the pedals yet in muddy conditions, so I don't know how they'll really handle it, but so far, so good.

Skipped

I decided to skip my ride tonight. For me skipping a ride is always a tough decision requiring lots of justification.

Basically, it came down to this: I've been more-or-less tired since the race, I had to work late tonight and I had very low motivation. If it was week 3 of my training block, I'd probably suck it up and ride anyway, but it's only week 2. If I push now, not only do I potentially wreck this week, I most likely wreck next week too. It's not worth it for one ride.

I think what happened here can be traced back to two weeks ago, my last recovery week. I followed my recovery workout plan, but I didn't do a very good job actually recovering. I was just busy around the house and at work. I could actually feel it the beginning of last week too, I wasn't a fresh as I normally am coming off of a rest week.

Well, it is what it is. Tomorrow should be back to normal. Up early for a strength workout and then a mountain bike ride after work.


Also... a shot of a fellow Rhino at Yankee Springs...

Strength Targets

I've been doing a little more work with my Strength Training plan. One of the things I wanted to do from the beginning is to set some targets to work toward. So, here's what I did:

- Hip dominant and quad dominant exercises: I set this target based on my 5s threshold power target of 837W. Assuming no drivetrain losses and a cadence of 60rpm, I calculated that I'd need to apply 176lb on the crankarms. (Interesting note here, I use 170mm cranks rather than a more standard MTB length of 175mm. The conventional wisdom is that the longer crankarms help for mountain biking because they give you more leverage. However, if you run the numbers, I'd have to apply 171lb on 175mm crankarms rather than 176lb on 170mm cranks... pretty small difference.) Then I made some assumptions about how body weight is supported on the bike and during exercises and found that I should work toward using 95lb of external load for 1-legged hip and quad dominant exercises. A cadence of 60rpm for a 5s test means I should target lifting this load at least 5 times per leg. Right now, my 5-rep max is about 62lb (on a 1-leg squat).

- Horizontal pull and push: For lack of a better criteria, I used Friel's targets. 50-80% of my bodyweight for a 1 rep max. That works out to be 68-108lb. Right now my 1RM is around 50lb. (All weights for 1 arm.)

- Vertical pull and push: I used Friel's targets here also. 40-70% of my bodyweight for a 1RM. That's 54-95lb, and my 1RM is about 37lb right now. (All weights for 1 arm.)

So, I still have some work to do to hit these targets, but at least I have targets to hit now. I do think that my increased focus on strength work is paying off though. I'm noticing it this year on steep climbs where I really have to grind it out. There were a few pretty steep hills out at Yankee Springs that I was able to climb, even at the end of the race, where many of my competitors were walking.

Yankee Springs TT

I raced my first race for the year today, the Yankee Springs Time Trial. Things basically went OK this weekend. Since it's still early in the year for me, and since I hadn't ridden this trail before, I decided to just "train through" this race. So, on Saturday I rode two laps of the course, one by myself and one with Greg; it ended up being about two and a half hours of riding. My legs were pretty tired Saturday night, but riding two laps of a new trail helped a lot from the technical point of view.

When I woke up this morning, my legs were still a little dead. I drove up to Yankee Springs and got situated. They got a really good turnout for the race, I couldn't believe how many people showed up. It didn't hurt that the weather was beautiful this weekend. I did a little warm-up, but kept it shorter and easier than usual given the state of my legs. Then I went down to the start.

The race itself went pretty smoothly. I thought I paced myself well at the start. I pretty quickly caught up to the racer in front of me (maybe two spots in front of me), but I wasn't pushing overly hard. I ended up passing a few people, but a few more passed me. What was a little different this year was that most of the guys that caught me sat on my wheel for a long time, it seemed like usually over a mile. If I know someone is behind me in a TT, I always tell them to let me know when they want by, but today, most of the guys sat on for a while.

I had one little mechanical glitch, I dropped my chain on a bumpy downhill, but I don't think it cost me too much time. I will have to see if there's something I can do about that though. What cost me real time was that my legs blew up with about 1.5 miles left to go. I just couldn't get my legs to give any more.

Based on times from last year, I'd hoped to do the race in under an hour, but I ended up with a 1:02. It looked like our times this year were generally slower than last year, maybe conditions last year were a little better? Or maybe the racers that showed up last year were just faster?

Regardless, for an early-season race, I was pretty happy with how things went. My next race is in two weeks, the Fort Custer Stampede. This will be the first time I've gone the extra lap for a Sport race (the other Sport races I've done have been time trials, so we still do just one lap). Should be interesting to see how that goes.

International Ride

I had intended to meet up with another Rhino last night to ride Pontiac Lake. As it turned out he was a no-show. While I was waiting for him, I started talking with another guy who was also waiting for a group. As it turned out, his group left early, without him, so the two of us ended up riding the trail together.

This guy turned out to be a visiting engineer from Germany named Guenther. I work with a lot of Germans, so I'm used to the accent and we didn't have too much trouble communicating (his English was also very good). Even though he said he hadn't ridden in about a year, he was in pretty decent shape, so I didn't have to go oppresively slow.

I was actually really stressed out before the ride, so things ended up working out just about perfectly for me. I got a relatively easy ride in, and I was distracted from other things by making sure I wasn't dropping Guenther and that he was getting through the technical bits in one piece. By the time I was finished, I felt considerably better.

Stony TT Goal Progress

I rode out at Stony Creek again last night. I rode at a "tempo" pace for the first 30 minutes (after I warmed up). I ended up riding virtually all of the singletrack that's in the Stony TT within that time, roughly half of the total course.

So, assuming that my tempo pace is roughly my race pace, which it should be, I rode at a pace that would get me about a 59 minute time trial. That's 5 minutes faster than my time from last year, but still 4 minutes slower than my target for this year. I suppose that means I'm basically on schedule to hit my target time by the end of July.

Most of the gain I've made so far is coming from better technical skill. I can tell that I'm riding much smoother, and therefore faster, on the singletrack.

The part of the TT course that I didn't ride yesterday is mostly more open two-track, and it also has an extended climbing section. So, speed improvements on that part of the course will come from improvements in fitness.

Sunday Ride

I ended up not racing at PLRA yesterday. Having only been out on the trail once this year, I just didn't feel comfortable racing out there.

I did go out to Stony in the afternoon though; I rode for an hour and a half. I tried out my Kenda Nevegal DTC tires. They seemed to work pretty well. I felt like climbing traction was better than my Panaracer Fire XC's, as was rolling resistance. I don't think they cornered quite as well, but it wasn't much of a drop-off.

As for the ride itself, I pushed harder than I had intended to on my first lap. I rode pretty well, but I was starting to get tired by the end. I backed off on the second lap and felt much better, and, for the most part, I don't think I went much slower. I carried my momentum better on the second lap and picked better lines, so I still went pretty fast but didn't use nearly as much energy.

Base 2 Test - Ugh

Sorry about not posting more, this week's been busy.

This morning, I did my LT field test for this phase. I had expected to do pretty well; I felt very fit going into the test. Long story short, it didn't go as well as I expected.

With the idea in mind of crushing the test, I went out pretty hard for the first 10 minutes. That would have been fine if I was really fit enough to crush the test. As it turned out, my energy started dropping off after 15 minutes. At that point, my average power had fallen to about where I was last month. I felt like throwing in the towel then, but I didn't. I kept pushing through to the end; I figured, if nothing else, it was good practice for sustaining hard efforts (that, and it's bad to get in the habit of quitting).

I ended up improving my average power by 5 Watts from last month, mostly by pushing hard again over the last minute or two. I suppose an improvement is an improvement, but it wasn't what I expected.

Looking at the numbers afterward, it's clear that I went too hard at the beginning. In fact, my speed over the first 10 minutes was faster than I've ever gone on a LT test. I suppose this just sets me up for a big improvement on the test next month.

Snowed Out

I had planned to do a lot of riding over the weekend, but Mother Nature derailed me. We got about 3-4 inches of snow at my parents' house this weekend. Crazy...

We're supposed to keep getting rain and snow this week, which probably means I won't race at Pontiac Lake this weekend. It will most likely be a mudpit and I've only been on the trail once this year.

Where Did Spring Go?

It's cold and snowy here tonight.

OK, just a little snow...

Tempo

I've been doing Tempo rides on Tuesday nights for this training block. Last night was also the first Rhino track night. I had considered going, but they were predicting bad thunderstorms so I decided to stay home and do my Tempo ride as-planned on the trainer. It turns out that I could have gone to the track, it still hadn't rained by the time I went to bed!

Anyway, I had a great ride last night. I did a short warmup, then 40 minutes at tempo, then a short cooldown. My legs felt great for all but the last 5 minutes of the tempo riding. For the past two weeks, I felt like I struggled to keep my power numbers even at the lower limit of Zone 3, but last night, I was able to stay at the upper end with reasonable comfort. It's workouts like that that give me confidence in my training plan.

Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to get pretty bad around here this week. Lots of cold days and rain (and maybe snow!). Sarah and I are heading over to Mattawan for the weekend. I'm hoping I can get some rides in anyway, but we'll see. I'll just have to break out my cold weather riding gear again.

The first mountain bike races of the year are coming up in the next few weeks. The first two are time trials, one at Pontiac Lake and the other at Yankee Springs. I was originally thinking I wouldn't do the Pontiac Lake race, it's on the last day of my Base 2 phase, but I'm starting to get anxious to race. I may treat it as a "fair weather" race: if the weather is nice and I feel good, I'll do it, if not, I won't. I'm already signed up for Yankee Springs.

POTATOEE Wrap-up

Well, Dad and I wrapped up our POTATOEE challenge last weekend. We ended up doing our last ride together, and both of us made it to Cockeysville.

Dad got there faster than me. He ended up with 657 miles, I had 639 miles.

I think that all of the riding has been good for him. He's definitely faster than he was last year.