Loops and Studs

The ride on Saturday was another great ride. It was a repeat of last weeks course with a couple of modifications except that this time I was able to keep the rubber side of my bike on the ground and complete the ride.

We had a group of 7 Riders today with two of our regulars being absent and a new addition coming up from the B2 group. Head Coach Rick joined us for the first part of the ride which was new and different.

I had been having some seat issues with some significant discomfort in the nether regions after being in the saddle during the long mileage. I had tried to address it midweek by lowering the front tip of the seat. Unfortunately, I not only lowered the tip, I also managed to move the seat position. I fiddled with it three times during Tues nights spin class trying to find the correct position again. I thought I had it pretty much figured out but found out differently during the weekend ride. After a few miles, it became apparent that I had moved my seat too far forward and consequently, I was "short-stroking" meaning that I wasn't getting full extension with my legs during pedaling. Not good. After about 15 miles I started to get some knee pain. Luckily we stopped to eat and refill water bottles about 5 miles later and I got to mess with it again. My first stab was to move the seat back a bit. Got on and found that in doing so I had tipped the seat up to far again. Arghh. Of course, everyone's waiting for me. I mess with it again and tip the seat down being careful to not change anything else. Time to roll out. The new position felt a little weird as I my body position was tipped a bit forward putting more pressure on my wrists. After about 10 miles, everything felt fine and I was able to complete my ride.

Coach Rick, pointed out that one of the loops in Rancho Santa Fe was referred to as "Stud Loop". You get bragging rights if you can complete that rolling portion of about 4-5 miles while staying in your big ring. Me being me, I of course had to go for it. Mentor Jay gave me a few tips, particularly about conserving my momentum on the downhills and using it to get halfway up the inclines. Great advice. On the downhills, I cranked really hard to build up speed, got into an aerodynamic position and was able to make it up the hills much easier. It was pretty hard but I was able to do the entire loop.

We also did the faraday loop again which is another nice bit of climbing. The change from last week was adding an extra 5 miles to be able to climb Leucadia avenue, a fairly steep long climb. The weekday training is really helping out as I'm getting much stronger during the climbs. We finished up by climbing Torrey Pines again and this time I tried to challenge myself by not using my "alpine" aka granny gear and stayed in my middle ring the entire way.

Totals for the day were 65 tough miles with 3500+ feet of climbing good for about 3900 calories. Here's the map of the ride.

Midweek Rides

Today, Coach Rick announced multiple weekly training rides for the rest of our training season. Thursday night spin class has been officially canceled, possibly due to poor attendance and replaced with non-official road rides on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This is a bummer for me since spin class was all of about 1 mile from my office while the W/Th rides are at least a 30 min drive to get to and would require me to shift my work schedule. I may be forced to ride alone those nights or possibly organize a ride that is more convenient to my location and hope that at least one other person is interested. As the days get longer and the weather continues to get better, an early evening ride sounds like it would be a lot of fun.

Training Log March 24-30

Monday: Nada

Tuesday: Tuesday Night Spin. 888 Calories.

Wednesday: I spun at home for an hour while watching a movie, doing laundry, etc. It's a good way to get exercise in while doing stuff around the house. The only problem is hauling the trainer back and forth to my car.

Thursday: This is a normal spin training class night. It's not a good sign when you and the head coach are the only ones that show up for class. Consequently, Rick (the head coach), Ricky (the spin instructor) and yours truly, join the ACE team for their class. As I described in one of my previous entries, ACE stands for Altitude, Climbing and Endurance. They are pretty hardcore. Class consists of the same basic routine as the normal team class but with additional duration and intensity. As Nigel of Spinal Tap says, this class goes to 11. Spin up/spin down exercise goes up to 115 RPM while regular class tops out at 105 RPM. Standing climb is usually 10 minutes, but with ACE you do surges 9 out of the 10 minutes. You get the picture. At the end of class I'd done the equivalent of 17-miles of high intensity riding. Good stuff. Oh one other thing I like about the ACE team workout. Coach Phil plays AC/DC during training. AC/DC is the best "climbing" music.

Friday: Rest Day.

Saturday: 65 Miles 3920 calories.

Sunday: Pomorado Road. 21 Miles. 1264 calories

Endo

Today's ride was a beautiful trip through Ranch Santa Fe. We started out at UCSD and headed out. We had a total of 8 riders in the group today. We're definitely starting to gel as a team. Coach DJ gave spent some time with me strongly suggesting that I take it easy today. The plan was to do about the same mileage as last week but with many more hills. My mission was to save my strength until the last hill and then hit it hard if I still had gas.

The ride through Rancho Santa Fe was gorgeous. Beautiful shaded country roads with million dollar mansions on either side. Very little traffic, beautiful flowers, chirping birds and so quiet. The road was a lovely rolling thing. There was a little up to get the heart pumping and then some fun downhills. We even got to ride around a small lake. Really very nice. Afterwards the ride in the country we start heading due west back to the coast.

One other thing that Coach DJ asked was that Mike and I, the two biggest on the team, take the lead on the way back towards the coast on La Costa Drive where we would be encountering a very strong headwind. As the biggest physically, we are better able to cut through the wind and give the smaller riders a break by letting them draft after us. After that we could rotate back and rest. It worked like a charm, Mike, Oren and I took long stretches of the lead keeping a nice steady pace of 15-17 MPH and really ate up the miles. We finally hit the coast and turned northward up the coast.

It was all going fine until we got to mile 38 or so. I was about 12 inches off of Oren's back tire when something happened up ahead and someone hit the brakes. The slowing came back like a wave but I was the last to know about it. We all hit the brakes, but Oren's brakes were better than mine and I find myself nearly ramming him. I was slightly to his right between his bike and the side of the choppy road. No man's land. Struggling to control the bike, the inside of my front tire hits the outside of his back tire. I try to avoid knocking him down but I overcorrect and then

ENDO

My front tire folds under me and I hit the ground hard. Luckily, my trusty bike took most of the hit. I landed with the handlebar and the left pedal taking the brunt of the impact then I hit with my arm just below and to the right of my left elbow and my lower left knee. Mentor Jay made sure I got out of the road quickly and got me cleaned up. He decided that my ride was over for the day and called the support wagon to take me back to my car. Bummer but understandable.















Some chewed up handlebars















Scraped up pedals from the slide

I took the bike to the shop later that afternoon and it checked out fine. I had to realign the left handset (brakes, gear levers, etc), had them tighten the brakes and retape the handlebars. The tape had gotten pretty chewed up in the slide. I also had them inspect the carbon fiber frame for cracks it everything was fine.















Some Mexican roadburger















Ouch

Silent Movie Nerd Fest

Friday is normally a rest day for me as I have to save my legs for the big Saturday rides. I'll also confess that I work 1/2 days on Fridays and use the afternoon to get all my errands done and sometimes just veg out and watch movies. Today one of my coworker, Noel came over for a mini silent film nerd fest. People that enjoy silent films like I do are pretty hard to find. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my co-worker was one of them. We had been planning a get together for a long while and were finally able to get the stars to align today.

The program I put together was













Ask Father (1919) - 13-min short starring Harold Lloyd.















One Week (1920) - 19-min short starring Buster Keaton. My favorite from him.















Neighbors (1920) - 18-min short starring Buster Keaton.

Followed by two feature films.












Asphalt (1929) - Directed by Joe May















Metropolis (1927) - Directed by Fritz Lang. This is the big daddy of all silent films. Crazy beautiful stuff.

Training Log March 17-23

Monday: 2-mile walk during lunchtime.

Tuesday: 2-mile walk during lunchtime. Spin class after work

Wednesday: 2 mile walk during lunchtime.

Thursday: Short walk during lunch. Also Thursday night light? Supposedly the easier of night of my Tue/Thur spin class but this week we did 10 minutes of standing climb with surges the last 7 of those 10 minutes. Dripping sweat time good for 880 calories burned.

Friday: Silent movie nerd fest with my buddy Noel

Saturday: Rancho Santa Fe Ride. 39 Miles then boom.

Sunday: Spin at home. 470 Calories

Blow me down...

This week's big ride was another run up and down the coast. We did a total of 62 miles today under very blustery conditions. There were a total of 7 riders in my group. We were back to the majority of our core riders this week and not surprisenly, the pace line was much smoother than last week when we had 4 new riders.

It was a very cold and windy day. The forecast was for rain but we luckily didn't get any on the ride. The wind was very challanging over the long mileage and made good drafting essential.

Overall it was a very good ride for me. The week before the ride had really tired me out and I was a little worried about this week as I knew we were going to increase the mileage. Christine made some delicious pasta the night before. I had also made sure to watch my hydration the last few days including adding electrolytes to my normal water drinking. These small changes made all the difference in the world. I felt strong the entire ride.

My only complaint about the ride was that I was very cold for almost all of it. After working up an initial sweat, I took off my windbreaker and did about 1/2 the ride without it. We don't stop very often so I didn't really have a chance to put it back on for a long while. On the way back our last stop was right before the last big climb of the day. I was torn between putting it on and possibly being uncomfortable during the climb or leaving it off and being cold the rest of trip back to base. I decided to put it on and was happy I did. The wind was biting even on the climb.

One interesting thing about this week as that we had Coach DJ along with us. He gave me some very helpful tips about bike management on the road. He also tested me on the climbs. As I mentioned from last weeks ride, I have a tendency to take off at the first sign of elevation. We hit a moderately steep but very long incline at Faraday avenue in Carlsbad near Palomar Airport and I pulled ahead of the group. We are instructed to climb at our own pace as everyone has different speeds uphill. I was by myself for a while and DJ pulls up next to me. I initially thought he was going to rein me in and asked if I should wait for the others. He told me that we could do whatever I wanted as we had a planned stop at the top of the hill. Music to my ears. The slope was moderate enough that I could really maintain a good cadence. I concentrated on making "circles" with my pedaling by pulling up as well as pushing down with each stroke and just hammered away. It was a very good workout. Towards that end he reminded me that we still had about 20 miles to do so I should kick it down a notch. Really fun.

At Torrey, DJ was there again when I pulled away. He let me get ahead and then caught up to me and then tantalized me by staying just ahead of me. We call it "rabbiting". I tried my best to get him but I'm just not at that level yet. He pulled away and beat me to the top by a good minute or so. There's always room to improve, right?

Today was the longest mileage for me ever at 62 miles which was good for 4144 calories burned!

Next week, we finally get away from the coast and move inland. Can't wait.

Training Log March 10-16

Monday: Nothing

Tuesday: Tuesday night spin class. 702 calories

Wednesday: 1-2 hour Walk at lunch.

Thursday: Spin Class. Low turnout for the regular group tonight with only 5 total people. Way down from the normal 15-20. It looks like the ACE team had their regulars. 734 calories

Friday: Rest Day.

Saturday: 62 miles!

Sunday: 6 Mile hike at Lake Hodges to get the kinks out. Really flat trail but it was a very pleasant walk with lots of chirping birds and flowers to see. Legs felt fine except for the tops of my quads that are still adjusting to climbing with the bike. 700 calories in about 2 hours of walking.

Uncharted Territory

Saturday's long mileage was another jaunt up the coastline. It's beautiful but I hope we start doing some East County rides soon. Between the cycle and walk teams, I've been up and down this Coast more times than I can count.

It's the 4th Saturday session and the B3's rode 57 miles today into uncharted territory for me. This is the longest I've ever ridden a bicycle in one sitting. This time we started at Mission Bay and rode to Carlsbad and back. Here is the map.














The weather was gorgeous and everything was so green after the recent rains. You couldn't ask for better conditions. Our group mentor, Jay was off this week doing the Solvang Century ride with some of his old college buddies. Mentor Jack and two former mentors filled in and it was nice to have some more experienced riders to give pointers along the way. A few of the regulars weren't there and we had a new addition to the group. Having 4 new people and 3 missing regulars really threw off the pace lines. My personal pace line skills were pretty poor this week. I didn't have a lot of confidence in sticking close to the person in front of me with all the expanding and contracting we were doing. Consequently, I did very little drafting throughout the day. It's no surprise that with the longer mileage and not taking advantage of drafting that I was physically exhausted by the end of the ride. I was seriously close to bonking out when we finished. It didn't help that we did the toughest part of the course, the Torrey climb, after already being on the road for over 45 miles.

Check out the graph below of my heart rate in relation to the elevation. It's no surprise that my highest heart rate, 185 beats/minute, occurs at the steepest part of the elevation graph. Yup, right smack in the middle of the climb.







I took the lead at Torrey again and raced up to the top. I took a very aggressive pace and was mostly happy with my climb. At the top, I was pretty winded and looking back on it, I may have taken it too aggressively because I was pretty whipped at that point with another 12 miles to go.

The last 12 miles were tough. My shoulders and neck were very stiff. My hands were numb. I was out of food and was starting to feel the bonk coming on. I was also having trouble concentrating and found my mind wandering which resulted in me falling back in the pace line. Not good. I was happy to be done when we finished.

My fitness is good right now but I think I've reached the end of my "credit". I'm not going to be able to rely only on physical strength any more. The long and the short of it is that I need to work on riding skills if I'm going to be able to complete this 100-mile ride.

I need to:

1) DRAFT more consistently. You spend 30% less energy when you are drafting behind another rider. I could have used the gas at the end of the ride.

2) ROTATE in the pace line more frequently. This is a team sport. I'm uncomfortable riding behind some riders so I'm spending more time than I should be at the front of the line taking the brunt of the wind.

3) CONSERVE my energy and not attack the hills so aggressively. This is going to be hard because I love the challenge of the climbing. I'm taking the hills too hard and fast and spending (wasting?) a lot of energy doing so. I might be able to save some gas by taking them more slowly and steadily.

DRC...Something to work on this week.

Hanging with the ACE team

For some reason, the attendance for training tonight was really small. We were down to one coach where there are usually 2-3. Anyway, tonight's spin leader was Coach Phil, the head coach of the ACE team. ACE stands for Altitude, Climbing, Endurance. They are also part of TnT but are a specialized team that is training for more mountainous rides.

Here's a really blurry photo of me taken with a camera phone at the start of training before I got too sweaty.


The workout was shorter than Tuesday's but it was very intense.

We started out with a spin up starting at a cadence 80 RPM and slowly increasing speed until we got to 120 RPM. On the regular team, we had only ever gone up to 105 RPM. That extra 15 was tough.

We then moved on to ILT (individual leg training) where we pedal with one leg at a time for three minutes at a time in the highest gear you can crank while maintaining a cadence of 80 RPM. This got the quads really burning.... We did two sets with each leg.

Next was everybody's favorite, the standing climb. The regular team did 12 minutes of standing/sitting. Stand for 3-minutes in your highest gear and then sit for the next 3 minutes without shifing gear. Repeat. It's very hard to crank in that high of a gear when you are sitting. It's easier when you are standing because you have your body weight to help your crank down.

The ACE team did 15-minutes of all standing with the last 5 minutes including rushes. In each of the last 5-minutes, 15 seconds were spent "rushing" which is sprinting while still standing. I decided to see if I could hang with the ACE team and gave it a shot. I was able to do the entire 15-minutes without sitting or stopping including the rushes but it was an ass-whooping. I was pouring sweat by the end of it.

Next was a modified 3-3-3. Pick a hard gear and go 80 rpm for 3 minutes, then upshift to the next hardest gear for another 3 keeping the same cadence. Then 3 more at a gear where you can barely keep that speed up. The ACE team does a 3-3-1.5-1.5 so they shift 3 times. It's tougher than it sounds.

Last was another spin up to cool down. Progress through various speeds up and down. Something along these lines 80-85-90-95-100-105-110-105-100-95-90-85-80. Then stretch, wring out your bandanna, pack up and eat.

Training Log (March 3 - 9)

Monday: Rest day.

Tuesday: Spin Class 950 calories.

Wednesday: Nothing.

Thursday: Thursday Night Light?!! aka "Hanging with the ACE Team" 720 Calories.

Friday: Nothing

Saturday: 57 Miles Mission Beach to Carlsbad and back.

Sunday: Really bad sinus headache and general tiredness killed my normal hike/walk workout. Consequently just did a little light walking around the Hillcrest farmers market and around town.

Walking pays off

Today we took our mileage up to 45 miles which is an all time high for me. We had 8 riders in our group today with a two newish people joining in. Both were absent last week but had ridden with us before. The pace line was a little choppy this week as we all continued to get used to riding with each other. Some of the riders were uncomfortable being so close to the person ahead to be able to draft effectively so we had a problem staying tight in a group. This is pretty bad because we end up with a gap between sets of riders and waste a lot of energy since there are now essentially two pace leaders.

The route was pretty much the same as last week starting in Carlsbad and riding South into San Diego and then turning around and coming back.

Check it out:













We did Torrey Pines one more time today and once again, I was very strong and passed all the other riders in my group to finish first again. Speaking later to Christine, she had a similar experience where as soon as she hit the incline she was able to separate from and pass from the rest of her group. We both have really strong legs and a lot of endurance from our time on the walk team.

We spent the last 10 miles rotating riders in the pace line. The leader would drop back and once they were "on" the back of the line, the new leader would set the pace for about 30 seconds before dropping back. Repeat. It was very good practice.

I'm really looking forward to next week's ride. I hope we do 50-miles.