The day started with meeting at DeAnza Cove at 7:30 am for the Coaches talk. Coach DJ did a sexy striptease peeling a seemingly endless number of clothing layers to demonstrate how to dress for any type of riding weather. He started with three jackets, multiple shirts, even a shower cap and plastic poncho. He was down to a base layer T-shirt, bib shorts and tube socks before he stopped. We were all very thankful.
Next was the Mission Moment. This is a short talk given by one of the Team members or guest speakers that explain why they are doing what they are doing. It's a reminder of why we are participating in the program. The Mission Moment talk today was given by my buddy, Mark Rosenberger. Mark is a professional speaker and it really showed. He told his story about how he joined Team in Training about 6 years ago with a goal of getting in shape. He did a couple of marathons with the Team and then took a year off. During that year, he was diagnosed with cancer. He is a self-employed consultant/speaker and didn't have adequate insurance. His family hit hard times and eventually lost their home as he was getting treated. He also told how his neighbor across the street died of cancer and his next door neighbor also is fighting it. After a few years of treatment, he kicked cancer to the curb and a year later, he rode Tahoe as part of my Mighty B3s group in 2007. I rode with the guy an entire season and I didn't know that about him. I guess he didn't volunteer the info and I never asked. The day of this years Tahoe ride (June 7th) will be 5 years to the day of when his doctor told him he had cancer. Wow.
He left us with two main points:
1) This program isn't about us. It truly is about finding a cure for blood cancers. We get hung up on asking for donations because we are embarrassed or shy. The money goes to provide real services that generate real results and makes people's life better.
2) Enjoy the ride and celebrate life. When we are having a tough day, where the miles are too long and the climbs are too high, think about the good we are doing, take a deep breath and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us. Really look at the ocean, the countryside, the trees, the flowers, breath in the fresh air as we ride past. Feel the corporealness of our task. Appreciate that we are physically able to do this. There are many people who can't.
Awesome talk.
The ride was the same as last week, only this time with most of the group being present. Only Kent was MIA. I was happy to see that we are really starting to gel as a group. The pacelines were nice, tight and steady. Everyone was very focused and we really hit our stride a couple of times. We were lucky with streetlights and rolled off a nice 7-mile stretch at 18+ MPH. It ws a thing of beauty as we just gobbled up the miles with machine-like precision. We had a couple of really good milestone achievements today. Natalie cracked the 30MPH mark going down Torrey Pines. She has been very apprensive about going fast downhill but has been feeling more comfortable with the control of her bike with each ride and has been testing her boundaries. The 53 miles we rode today was the furthest that Tammy had ever ridden. She's a marathoner and is in great running shape, but cycling is an entirely different type of physical labor. She pulled through like a champ today and did very well.
It's a really gratifying experience to see the group conquering personal challenges and having fun. I'm having a great time as a mentor for this team.
Totals for the day were 53 miles, with 2388 feet of climbing.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Training Log - 03/9 to 03/15
Monday: Normal rest day
Tuesday: Worked late, ate like crap and had to skip my spin class. Frown.
Wednesday: Another long day. Skipped the workout to get to bed early.
Thursday: Killer spin class with the ACE team. Besides the normals stuff we did lots of heavy resistance spinning. Third hardest gear, high cadence for 10 minutes at 80% max heart rate. Followed up with a series of sprint intervals. 30 seconds on, 20 off, repeat. Felt pretty whipped after that. No climbing which is sort of weird since ACE means, Altitute, Climbing and Endurance. I guess we are working the heavy resistance to build endurance.
Friday: Worked late again, caught up with life stuff, paid bills, got ready for the Team ride tomorrow. Wrote and sent out my fundraising letters.
Saturday: Team Ride. 53 Miles, 2388 ft of climbing.
Sunday:
Tuesday: Worked late, ate like crap and had to skip my spin class. Frown.
Wednesday: Another long day. Skipped the workout to get to bed early.
Thursday: Killer spin class with the ACE team. Besides the normals stuff we did lots of heavy resistance spinning. Third hardest gear, high cadence for 10 minutes at 80% max heart rate. Followed up with a series of sprint intervals. 30 seconds on, 20 off, repeat. Felt pretty whipped after that. No climbing which is sort of weird since ACE means, Altitute, Climbing and Endurance. I guess we are working the heavy resistance to build endurance.
Friday: Worked late again, caught up with life stuff, paid bills, got ready for the Team ride tomorrow. Wrote and sent out my fundraising letters.
Saturday: Team Ride. 53 Miles, 2388 ft of climbing.
Sunday:
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Team Miyata and the Hareem
Some teammates and I rode my favorite Highway 52 loop ride today. I like this route a lot because it's relatively short at 20+ miles but there is some climbing to go along with it. Several parts of the route are very beautiful, particularly the part where we ride through the valley of Mission Trails park.
Here is a Google Earth shot showing the rolling climb along the Highway 52 bike path turning into Mission Trails Regional Park.
I rode my newish 1985 Team Miyata vintage bike. It's beauty. It was a top of the line production bike in it's heyday. It rides like a dream. The only complication is that it comes with tubular tire rims. This is an older style racing set up. The tubular tires fit directly on the rim, there is no inner tube. There are several advantages to them. Supposedly they are more resistant to flats as you eliminate the "pinch" flat where inner tube of a standard clincher tire pinches the inner tube after hitting a bump. They are also lighter and the ride quality is much smoother. The big disadvantage is that the tires need to be glued to the rim! This is a labor intensive and messy process that takes a few days to get right. You first have to stretch the tire on the rim for a couple of days, then apply the glue to the rim and tire during several steps, before finally mounting the tire. Then you pump it up to high pressure and let it set for 24 hours.
I was having a spectacular ride with this surprisenly agile bike, when I flatted! Horror of horrors. I had picked up a largish peice of glass and it had worked its way through the tire. First time out and pssssshhh. Damn. I had a spare tire but no glue. It took me a good five minutes to get the flat off the rim as I had to peel it away because I had done such a good job gluing it on. I quickly put the new one on, pumped it up and rode on. The look of confusion on my teammates face was pretty funny. None of them had ever seen a tire like that before. I rode the rest of the ride very gingerly making sure to not take any sharp turns fearing the tire would roll off the rim. It was fine.
In marked contrast to yesterday's ride, today's ride with with all women! All day, I heard jokes about me and my harem (Kim, Lynn, Lori, Natalie, Tonya). Couldn't get any of the to call me, Sultan, though :(
3/4 of the way back, Kim got a flat and I did my manly duty and changed it for her. Hmm, the real reason, they kept me around was now apparent. Looks like more glass. Kim's tires are pretty beat up and it was time for new ones anyway. A few more hills and we wrap up. Totals were
21 Miles
1680 feet of climbing.
Here is a Google Earth shot showing the rolling climb along the Highway 52 bike path turning into Mission Trails Regional Park.
I rode my newish 1985 Team Miyata vintage bike. It's beauty. It was a top of the line production bike in it's heyday. It rides like a dream. The only complication is that it comes with tubular tire rims. This is an older style racing set up. The tubular tires fit directly on the rim, there is no inner tube. There are several advantages to them. Supposedly they are more resistant to flats as you eliminate the "pinch" flat where inner tube of a standard clincher tire pinches the inner tube after hitting a bump. They are also lighter and the ride quality is much smoother. The big disadvantage is that the tires need to be glued to the rim! This is a labor intensive and messy process that takes a few days to get right. You first have to stretch the tire on the rim for a couple of days, then apply the glue to the rim and tire during several steps, before finally mounting the tire. Then you pump it up to high pressure and let it set for 24 hours.
I was having a spectacular ride with this surprisenly agile bike, when I flatted! Horror of horrors. I had picked up a largish peice of glass and it had worked its way through the tire. First time out and pssssshhh. Damn. I had a spare tire but no glue. It took me a good five minutes to get the flat off the rim as I had to peel it away because I had done such a good job gluing it on. I quickly put the new one on, pumped it up and rode on. The look of confusion on my teammates face was pretty funny. None of them had ever seen a tire like that before. I rode the rest of the ride very gingerly making sure to not take any sharp turns fearing the tire would roll off the rim. It was fine.
In marked contrast to yesterday's ride, today's ride with with all women! All day, I heard jokes about me and my harem (Kim, Lynn, Lori, Natalie, Tonya). Couldn't get any of the to call me, Sultan, though :(
3/4 of the way back, Kim got a flat and I did my manly duty and changed it for her. Hmm, the real reason, they kept me around was now apparent. Looks like more glass. Kim's tires are pretty beat up and it was time for new ones anyway. A few more hills and we wrap up. Totals were
21 Miles
1680 feet of climbing.
Team Ride 03-07-09
The team ride yesterday was pretty interesting. The planned route was up and down the coast starting at Mission Bay to Carlsbad and back. We've done this route dozens of times. We started out with more than half of last week's group missing. Natalie had to work, Joanie and Susan had a conflict and couldn't make it. Kristen wasn't there and Julie and Jenny had moved to another group. Hmmm, what do they all have in common? They are all female. The remaining few were mentor Tom, Me, Jeff and Kent. The ride definitely had a different feel to it with all guys, with the primary difference being that the average speed was way up from last week. Poor Tom was still recovering from being sick all week and did all he could to hang on the entire day.
The ride out was pretty uneventful, except that Tom's bike computer died on him. He's the one in charge in the groups but was flying a little blind with no data. I didn't pay close enough attention and we ended up riding a bit further than we had actually planned. It was still well within the ability of the riders and our available options.
We get to talking and it seems that each of the three guys, I'm riding with are 56 years old. They start referring to themselves as the B-56's. I've never been the young buck on a ride before. Several whippersnapper jokes later, we get to the inevitable Torrey Pines hill. The boys are feeling strong and we decide to climb up the inside (Park). The inside route is shorter but steeper and can be a real lungbuster. I'm climbing along and a jogger starts to pass me. Oh hell, no. I'm shamed into speeding up and stay ahead of him.
Back to home base and to greet the other teams coming in. We rode a pretty fast day
Totals were
53 Miles
14.3 MPH average speed
2400 feet of climbing
The ride out was pretty uneventful, except that Tom's bike computer died on him. He's the one in charge in the groups but was flying a little blind with no data. I didn't pay close enough attention and we ended up riding a bit further than we had actually planned. It was still well within the ability of the riders and our available options.
We get to talking and it seems that each of the three guys, I'm riding with are 56 years old. They start referring to themselves as the B-56's. I've never been the young buck on a ride before. Several whippersnapper jokes later, we get to the inevitable Torrey Pines hill. The boys are feeling strong and we decide to climb up the inside (Park). The inside route is shorter but steeper and can be a real lungbuster. I'm climbing along and a jogger starts to pass me. Oh hell, no. I'm shamed into speeding up and stay ahead of him.
Back to home base and to greet the other teams coming in. We rode a pretty fast day
Totals were
53 Miles
14.3 MPH average speed
2400 feet of climbing
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Training Log - 03/02 - 03/08
Monday: Normal rest day
Tuesday: Spin class with Team in Training. Spun with the ACE Team. Longer more intense workout. Quads and Hammys were still sore from Sunday's ride.
Wednesday: Cross training day at Rehab United. Lots of stationary bike, squat matrices with dumbells, medicine ball exercises.
Thursday: Spin Class with the ACE Team. Pretty hard and very different than the spin classes I've been attending for the last two years. No standing climb today. We replaced that with seated, high resistance pedaling, followed by 45 second sprint intervals. 45 seconds "on" followed by 30 seconds "off". Repeat 5 times. Really tough. Good mix of cardio and strength workout.
Friday: Nada. Worked late and went to see Watchmen at the IMax theater instead.
Saturday: Team Ride. 53 Miles
Sunday: Friendly Noodle Ride. 21 miles.
Tuesday: Spin class with Team in Training. Spun with the ACE Team. Longer more intense workout. Quads and Hammys were still sore from Sunday's ride.
Wednesday: Cross training day at Rehab United. Lots of stationary bike, squat matrices with dumbells, medicine ball exercises.
Thursday: Spin Class with the ACE Team. Pretty hard and very different than the spin classes I've been attending for the last two years. No standing climb today. We replaced that with seated, high resistance pedaling, followed by 45 second sprint intervals. 45 seconds "on" followed by 30 seconds "off". Repeat 5 times. Really tough. Good mix of cardio and strength workout.
Friday: Nada. Worked late and went to see Watchmen at the IMax theater instead.
Saturday: Team Ride. 53 Miles
Sunday: Friendly Noodle Ride. 21 miles.
Training Log - 02/23 to 03/01
Monday: Normal rest day
Tuesday: Spin class with Team in Training. Calve feeling crappy, took it easy on the standing climb exercise.
Wednesday: Cross training day at Rehab United. No more running for me due to calve problem. Lots of stationary bike, box step ups, squat matrices, walkover push-ups. Pain.
Thursday: Rest the legs day
Friday: Rest the legs day
Saturday: Team ride. 35 miles, with about 1500 feet of climbing.
Sunday: Granfondo Century Ride. 97 Miles, 6800 feet of climbing.
Tuesday: Spin class with Team in Training. Calve feeling crappy, took it easy on the standing climb exercise.
Wednesday: Cross training day at Rehab United. No more running for me due to calve problem. Lots of stationary bike, box step ups, squat matrices, walkover push-ups. Pain.
Thursday: Rest the legs day
Friday: Rest the legs day
Saturday: Team ride. 35 miles, with about 1500 feet of climbing.
Sunday: Granfondo Century Ride. 97 Miles, 6800 feet of climbing.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Granfondo San Diego
Did a Century on Sunday. It was the Gran Fondo San Diego. Gran Fondo is Italian for "big ride". The race was done in the Italian style and started and ended in Little Italy here in San Diego. It was the inaugural event for this ride. The guest of honor was Ernesto Colnago, world famous for building beautiful Italian racing bikes. Here are a few photos of some of the bikes that I took at the registration expo.
I decided to do this ride with some reservations. I hadn't really been training enough since the end of the year when I did El Tour de Tucson. In fact, my longest ride since November, 2008 was 70 miles and I did that last Sunday. I had done a few 50 milers but was never able to fully train for this one. Holidays, lingering flu, work, severe calve strain...yadda, yadda.
The calve strain was the real concern. It was a pretty nasty and painful injury.
Here's a photo of it almost healed up. At it's peak, the calve was nearly twice the normal size and the entire back of my leg was bruised. Friday morning, I got the tentative OK from my physical therapist that I have been seeing about it to ride, provided I didn't "hammer" and ride more for endurance, rather than speed.
I rode with one of my Tucson "C-Riders" teammates, Donna. She's a very strong cyclist. We had talked ahead of time and agreed to take it relatively easy as we both didn't feel we had trained enough.
The course started in Little Italy, which is essentially downtown San Diego and then proceed south and generally East, through Chula Vista, Bonita, Otay Mesa and then into the back country. We started out at the head of the race and kept up with the very speedy front group for about 5 miles. Average speed was up over 20mph. We decided to let them go on ahead when they started blowing through stop signs and lights. Not safe plus we didn't want to go that fast. It was fun while it lasted, though.
Part of the route was through the Olympic Training Center located near Otay Lake. It was a blast riding through the training facility where the Olympian's train.
After that we hit the backcountry where the terrain started getting pretty rocky and hilly. Hilly then turned to mountainy. Part of the course, Honey Spring Road, was timed as part of the King of the Mountain competition. This is a 7-mile stretch of road that proceeds upwards at grades between 4 and 8% grade. Each of the riders was timed up the climb and a special jersey and medal would be given to the fastest climber in each category. Well, I was nowhere in the running for that. In fact, the heat was so bad (90+ deg) and there was so little shade that I stopped about 5 times to cool down on the climb. Donna was feeling much stronger and could have gone on ahead but kindly stayed with me. It was a brutal climb and a very disturbing sight to see riders strewn across the course, out of water, overheated and with some puking. I stayed with my game plan and was probably overcautious but finally made it up the hill and was embarrassingly near the bottom time for the field. Lot's of riders didn't even finish the climb and were hauled off the course by the support vans.
Honey Springs Hell
We get to the top of the hill, feeling pretty beat up and we are only 41 miles into the ride with 4300 feet of climbing already. Top the hill, the aid station is nearly out of water and people are looking really sad and tired. We take a short rest, fill up on bananas, pretzels, water and then move on. The good news is that the ride was advertised as 4800 feet of climbing. The next 60 miles should be cake, right? Umm....No. Someone needs to get their altimeter checked. After a beautiful fast downhill (46 mph!) we turn the bend to stare at a huge hill up ahead. Put the head down and pound it out.
Christine agreed to meet us at mile 59 to give us a little personal support so I had that as a short term goal. I estimated that we would be there between 12 and 12:30. We roll into the aid station to meet Christine over an hour behind schedule. The scene is even worse there, with many of the exhausted riders laying in the grass and phoning for rides home. We had been out of cell phone range for hours and this was their first opportunity to use their phones.
Christine meet us with open arms with a SUV full of goodies. First off was the camp chair in the shade of the car, then there was roasted chicken sandwiches, peeled bananas and oranges, gatorade and a beautiful 20-lb bag of ice.
Who has the better cleavage?
Kicked off the shoes, doffed the extra clothing, base layer, arm warmers from the morning and chowed down.
After about 20 minutes of resting in the shade, we're back on the road. By this time we had been on our bikes for over 7 hours with another 4o miles to go. We set a new goal to finish within an absolute maximum of 10 hours, which is very slow century time for us.
On the flats, we pace-line like pro's and get the average speed up to the low 20's MPH and make up lots of time. More climbing, followed by more climbing and we are in Alpine after passing through parts of Cleveland National Forest. We hit the last aid station at mile 85 for a pee pee break and leave quickly. The last few miles were through Spring Valley back into downtown. We join up with a group of 5 other riders going roughly the same pace as us to share in the work. We finally roll into the finish after nearly 9-1/2 hours in the saddle.
Total climbing for the day was over 6800 feet! That is by far the most I have ever done in a day. I think the previous best was 4500ish.
We celebrate with a burger and beer at the Princess Pub and then go home. Shower and try to keep my eyes open. Fail. I'm asleep on the couch by 7:30pm.
Brutal ride. Definitely the hardest Century I've ever done. I stayed with my plan, took it easy, finished safely, completed the event and lived to tell about it.
I decided to do this ride with some reservations. I hadn't really been training enough since the end of the year when I did El Tour de Tucson. In fact, my longest ride since November, 2008 was 70 miles and I did that last Sunday. I had done a few 50 milers but was never able to fully train for this one. Holidays, lingering flu, work, severe calve strain...yadda, yadda.
The calve strain was the real concern. It was a pretty nasty and painful injury.
Here's a photo of it almost healed up. At it's peak, the calve was nearly twice the normal size and the entire back of my leg was bruised. Friday morning, I got the tentative OK from my physical therapist that I have been seeing about it to ride, provided I didn't "hammer" and ride more for endurance, rather than speed.
I rode with one of my Tucson "C-Riders" teammates, Donna. She's a very strong cyclist. We had talked ahead of time and agreed to take it relatively easy as we both didn't feel we had trained enough.
The course started in Little Italy, which is essentially downtown San Diego and then proceed south and generally East, through Chula Vista, Bonita, Otay Mesa and then into the back country. We started out at the head of the race and kept up with the very speedy front group for about 5 miles. Average speed was up over 20mph. We decided to let them go on ahead when they started blowing through stop signs and lights. Not safe plus we didn't want to go that fast. It was fun while it lasted, though.
Part of the route was through the Olympic Training Center located near Otay Lake. It was a blast riding through the training facility where the Olympian's train.
After that we hit the backcountry where the terrain started getting pretty rocky and hilly. Hilly then turned to mountainy. Part of the course, Honey Spring Road, was timed as part of the King of the Mountain competition. This is a 7-mile stretch of road that proceeds upwards at grades between 4 and 8% grade. Each of the riders was timed up the climb and a special jersey and medal would be given to the fastest climber in each category. Well, I was nowhere in the running for that. In fact, the heat was so bad (90+ deg) and there was so little shade that I stopped about 5 times to cool down on the climb. Donna was feeling much stronger and could have gone on ahead but kindly stayed with me. It was a brutal climb and a very disturbing sight to see riders strewn across the course, out of water, overheated and with some puking. I stayed with my game plan and was probably overcautious but finally made it up the hill and was embarrassingly near the bottom time for the field. Lot's of riders didn't even finish the climb and were hauled off the course by the support vans.
Honey Springs Hell
We get to the top of the hill, feeling pretty beat up and we are only 41 miles into the ride with 4300 feet of climbing already. Top the hill, the aid station is nearly out of water and people are looking really sad and tired. We take a short rest, fill up on bananas, pretzels, water and then move on. The good news is that the ride was advertised as 4800 feet of climbing. The next 60 miles should be cake, right? Umm....No. Someone needs to get their altimeter checked. After a beautiful fast downhill (46 mph!) we turn the bend to stare at a huge hill up ahead. Put the head down and pound it out.
Christine agreed to meet us at mile 59 to give us a little personal support so I had that as a short term goal. I estimated that we would be there between 12 and 12:30. We roll into the aid station to meet Christine over an hour behind schedule. The scene is even worse there, with many of the exhausted riders laying in the grass and phoning for rides home. We had been out of cell phone range for hours and this was their first opportunity to use their phones.
Christine meet us with open arms with a SUV full of goodies. First off was the camp chair in the shade of the car, then there was roasted chicken sandwiches, peeled bananas and oranges, gatorade and a beautiful 20-lb bag of ice.
Who has the better cleavage?
Kicked off the shoes, doffed the extra clothing, base layer, arm warmers from the morning and chowed down.
After about 20 minutes of resting in the shade, we're back on the road. By this time we had been on our bikes for over 7 hours with another 4o miles to go. We set a new goal to finish within an absolute maximum of 10 hours, which is very slow century time for us.
On the flats, we pace-line like pro's and get the average speed up to the low 20's MPH and make up lots of time. More climbing, followed by more climbing and we are in Alpine after passing through parts of Cleveland National Forest. We hit the last aid station at mile 85 for a pee pee break and leave quickly. The last few miles were through Spring Valley back into downtown. We join up with a group of 5 other riders going roughly the same pace as us to share in the work. We finally roll into the finish after nearly 9-1/2 hours in the saddle.
Total climbing for the day was over 6800 feet! That is by far the most I have ever done in a day. I think the previous best was 4500ish.
We celebrate with a burger and beer at the Princess Pub and then go home. Shower and try to keep my eyes open. Fail. I'm asleep on the couch by 7:30pm.
Brutal ride. Definitely the hardest Century I've ever done. I stayed with my plan, took it easy, finished safely, completed the event and lived to tell about it.
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