No longer do I have to obsessively check weather.wrong, because my rollers have arrived! I placed an order with my favorite shop, Bicycle Therapy, about three weeks ago but their distributor was out of stock. Finally it came in, and being car-free meant some ingenuity on my part on how to get it home.
Strapping the massive 4 foot by 2 foot by 8 inch box to my back and riding home from the shop was a feat; I tied two tubes around the box's width, and intertwined the straps on the back of my backpack with them. Then, four or five wraps of string across the length of the box and through my backpacks handle secured it vertically. Aside from a tendency to shifty to the left, the ride home went well with plenty of odd looks from pedestrians and drivers.
I was very pleased with myself and my bag until I realized how easy disassembly is; I didn't need to go through all that, as all the individual pieces would have easily fit in my bag. So much for out of the box thinking.... Sorry, bad joke.
I gave the rollers a try, but today is a rest day after two hard rides and a "recovery ride" over the weekend after a week of off-the-bike. It's hard for me to mount, so I use a chair to stand on to get on initially. After a few minutes and one minor fall I didn't have to lean against the wall as much and started to get the hang of it. I'm now looking forward to the first rainy day, and can plan my training schedule with relative weather impunity.
Also, the first 200km is less than a month away. Despite the 11,250 feet of elevation gain, I feel close to prepared, but set a goal weight of 145 lbs from my current 155. Even though I'm at a very healthy weight right now, trimming down will help the climbing come easier and get me fitter in general. This week is finals and next is spring break, so I'll have the time for some serious miles. The plan is to dial down the intensity and increase the length of the rides to burn more fat and get my back and neck a little tougher. I've also been having some minor issues with my achilles, but found some good exercises here to strengthen them up.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Gym and New Orleans
Sadly, I have to be forcibly removed from my bike for four and a half days to go to a conference in New Orleans on Sunday.
Fortunately, it's all expenses paid, I'm going with friends and I can still do core workouts in the hotel.
The first step is to do a hard workout at the gym today, so I'll be sore for two or three days anyway. I plan on hitting the hamstrings especially hard; like most cyclists, they're underdeveloped in comparison to my quadriceps. That difference in strength can lead to knee issues when the quad's pull the knee harder than the hamstrings, so balancing the two prevents injury. I'll also do some core and back work, including the rowing machine.
If I'm lucky, the hotel will have a gym worth using and I can hit that on Tuesday, leave Wednesday as a recovery day, and possibly go for a ride after I get back on Thursday.
Fortunately, it's all expenses paid, I'm going with friends and I can still do core workouts in the hotel.
The first step is to do a hard workout at the gym today, so I'll be sore for two or three days anyway. I plan on hitting the hamstrings especially hard; like most cyclists, they're underdeveloped in comparison to my quadriceps. That difference in strength can lead to knee issues when the quad's pull the knee harder than the hamstrings, so balancing the two prevents injury. I'll also do some core and back work, including the rowing machine.
If I'm lucky, the hotel will have a gym worth using and I can hit that on Tuesday, leave Wednesday as a recovery day, and possibly go for a ride after I get back on Thursday.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Sprints
A long ride, long being relative to the individuals capabilities, requires nutrition, hydration, motivation but most importantly good pacing. Putter along too slowly and miss the chance to beat a personal record, charge up the hills and risk burning out before the end. Clearly, for a very long, non-competitive ride, where the goal is to complete within a certain time, sprinting is out of the picture. So why then, do I practice sprints?
Part of it is the old montage "If you want to ride faster, ride faster" which holds more truth than one might think. By going anaerobic for short periods, you deprive the muscles of oxygen and stimulate the growth of more mitochondria in the muscles' cells. Mitochrondria being the "power house" of the cell, responsible for doing the work involved in muscular contractions. You know you're stimulating growth when your legs burn with lactic acid, and feel almost useless hours after a hard ride.
These anaerobic periods can vary anywhere from one to sixty minutes. On 2-3 hour rides I try to include periods of hard effort to go anaerobic and really push myself. These periods last between ten and thirty minutes, but are never structured. The idea is to feel completely wasted at the end of a ride, to deplete your muscles of glycogen so they rebuild themselves stronger than they were, with more glycogen capacity.
Often I don't have time for a 2 hour or longer ride, but can still make progress through a sprint workout in an hour. To do sprints, you need a long, fairly flat or mildly sloping uninterrupted road with light traffic. This is a difficult thing to find when you live in the middle of a sprawling city, especially when it takes about twenty minutes to get into the suburbs for good roads. Fortunately for me, Memorial Hall is only a ten minute ride away, sits in front of a long straight, flat road and makes for painfully scenic sprint workouts. Especially when this is the finish line:
The road is about eight tenths of a mile long, from a traffic light to the Civil War Memorial situated in a fairly decrepit neighborhood in north west Philadelphia. There are three parallel roads and for whatever reason, the one closest to Memorial Hall - "North Concourse Drive" gets the fewest cars, so that's where I do my sprints. The road is a slight grade up from the traffic light at Belmont and about 2/3 of the way to the end is a slight downgrade, where I hit my maximum speed and try to hold it for as long as I can. I'd like a little more room for these, but at least the scenery is nice.
Sprinting is also a way to track fitness. Increasing aerobic and anaerobic ability will allow for longer, more powerful sprints and translate to general riding. By increasing the mitochrondria in your legs, you increase your aerobic power, effectively increasing the pace you feel comfortable cruising at for very long periods, such as in a Brevet. Not only that, but your recovery time for hard efforts such as steep climbs are reduced and the stores of glycogen in your muscles increase, allowing you to do more anaerobic work until your legs are totally shot and the dreaded "death march" begins.
So, sprints do carry over to Brevets.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Post Century Recovery
After Saturdays 103 mile wind-fest, I took an easy hour long ride up the Kelly bike path to the falls bridge and back. I kept my heart rate below 75% and averaged around 65%. I rarely do this and was surprised I was able to keep a 15 mph average at such a low perceived exertion and heart rate level even with the wind common to the path. The legs felt weak and I doubt I could have made any hard efforts, but it was a definite confidence booster. I wonder if this is the result of all the aerobic work I've been doing? I'm taking it as a sign to return to intervals and hard 90-95% Max HR for a while. I've also been reading some links from bike forums about the need for deprieving your muscles of oxygen by going anaerobic, or above your VO2 max in order to increase the mitochondria density and produce more power aerobically.
On Saturday I also planned on going to a new yoga class with a friend, but she bailed because of school work so I went alone. Going somewhere new alone is something I need to do more of, so I decided it was the best decision, especially given my only experience with yoga at my school's gym, which were very relaxing with lots of slow, steady stretches in positions that stretched things I'd never stretched before. Given my past experience, I just assumed more of the same and didn't check the schedule for what type of class it would be.
Turned out it was some sort of power yoga, with fast poses that changed frequently in a hot room preceded and followed by meditation. This, most definitely, was not what my body wanted after Saturdays ride and it may have aggravated my upper back, which is still stiff. Judging by Mondays new sore spots, it did seem to work my core out a bit, which isn't a bad thing but I would have been better off at a much slower pace with long easy stretches. No serious damage though, but it's Tuesday morning and my back is still stiff.
I took it very easy yesterday and may do the same today, I'll see how I feel on the ride to school and go from there. I'd rather wait until tomorrow morning to do hard intervals than overdue it before I'm fully recovered today. A two day break from cycling aside from my 5 mile commute is a little longer than I'd like, but I have to go by how I feel and not by what I expect of myself. The former is easier in terms of satisfying an addiction but a good way to promote injury while the latter takes a lot of willpower and by including rest will actually make me stronger than over-training.
On Saturday I also planned on going to a new yoga class with a friend, but she bailed because of school work so I went alone. Going somewhere new alone is something I need to do more of, so I decided it was the best decision, especially given my only experience with yoga at my school's gym, which were very relaxing with lots of slow, steady stretches in positions that stretched things I'd never stretched before. Given my past experience, I just assumed more of the same and didn't check the schedule for what type of class it would be.
Turned out it was some sort of power yoga, with fast poses that changed frequently in a hot room preceded and followed by meditation. This, most definitely, was not what my body wanted after Saturdays ride and it may have aggravated my upper back, which is still stiff. Judging by Mondays new sore spots, it did seem to work my core out a bit, which isn't a bad thing but I would have been better off at a much slower pace with long easy stretches. No serious damage though, but it's Tuesday morning and my back is still stiff.
I took it very easy yesterday and may do the same today, I'll see how I feel on the ride to school and go from there. I'd rather wait until tomorrow morning to do hard intervals than overdue it before I'm fully recovered today. A two day break from cycling aside from my 5 mile commute is a little longer than I'd like, but I have to go by how I feel and not by what I expect of myself. The former is easier in terms of satisfying an addiction but a good way to promote injury while the latter takes a lot of willpower and by including rest will actually make me stronger than over-training.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
First Century of the new year
Originally I had planned to sneak my first 100 miler in on leap day and solo (Friday) but commitments at school said otherwise. Thursday night at Bike Church a friend who doesn't often help out that night showed up and considering his interest in long distances I asked if he wanted to ride an imperial on Saturday. Immediately he answered with great interest so we set a meeting time of 9 am and I briefly described the route; about 4,000' of climbing and basically out through Ambler to Nockamixon State Park and back a different route, with food stops at miles 30 and 70.
The weather was calling for snow Friday night with clear skies Saturday, so I left my fenders on but the roads were dry except for the first hour in the morning.
Kevin showed up a little after 9, we had some coffee and I showed him the route on Bikely, which has a great elevation profile. We left sometime after 9:30 to low 40's and beautiful clear skies; a great change from the overcast typically of Philadelphia. Immediately the wind picked up and Kevin commented that he heard it would be gusting to 40 all day. I told him that's why I left my disk wheels at home and we pressed on.
Little did we know, but the wind would make this an incredibly difficult century. The first thirty miles tend to meander back and forth, into a headwind then into a tailwind, but the middle thirty was mostly up hill and directly into the wind. We tried to take turns pulling but it was almost always a cross wind so that was little help. The middle of the route ground on, and going up 5-10% grades into 20-40 mph wind with small downhills into the wind was incredibly frustrating. It was so strong that on somewhat steep downhills you had to put in effort to stay at a decent pace, it felt like it was flat! This part of the route was also totally unfamiliar to me, so we did get lost once but had help from two walkers. A chocolate espresso bar and a bag of dried apple slices from my carradice barley helped us through but just barely. Eventually we made it to Nockamixon and turned SW. I had expected a break from the wind but now it seemed like we were headed directly into it! In fact, looking at the route online and trying to figure out what direction the wind was blowing is mind boggling, it's almost like it was blowing from two directions at once.
In addition to the wind, Kevin is about 20 lbs lighter than me and an excellent climber so his pace up the hills was a notch or two higher than mine. It took the first thirty miles for me to tell him to slow up a bit, considering the distance ahead. This meant that by the time we got to those hilly and windy middle 30 miles my legs weren't exactly fresh, and when we turned around for the way back only to have continuing head winds was hell. Also, did I mention he races cyclo-cross? The day I out-climb Kevin is the day that I know all this riding has paid off.
Around mile 60 we had just began to hit some tail winds with me in the lead when Kevin shouts out "Pizza!" I shout out "Yes!" and make a high speed turn into the parking lot. Fueled by mushroom pizza and with a tailwind at our backs the next 10 miles flew by at well over 20 mph.
Too bad I missed the turn that was right after the pizza place and we went in the wrong direction.
That's ok though, because a friendly gas station attendant held up the line at the register to lend us a map and we got on a road that led us back on track. That little detour probably only added 2 or 3 miles, but was small chip in our morale. Still, at this point I could no longer get my heart rate above my LT so my legs were mostly shot. The aerobic system was well fueled by pizza and the home made energy bars from my friend Cole, so we were still moving at a decent clip.
For the next bit the tailwind persisted and we kept on at a good speed, it was nice finally having a gentle push up the steeper hills that remained. We were also back in familiar territory; I could practically follow these turns in my sleep. The last stretch through Manayunk was filled with traffic and reminded me of the importance of developing psychic abilities to foresee drivers making unexpected turns. Finally we made it to West River Drive and managed to keep 19 mph going pretty steadily without the tailwind and crawled up Black Road. Two more close calls with traffic and we finally congratulated each other and split off to make it home. I wasn't as hungry as I thought I would be, must be Cole's energy bars, but I managed to choked own a few glasses of milk, an omelet, some bread and my own cilantro hummus and a little granola and yogurt.
Today, my legs are sore but no saddle sores (I guess my brooks finally broke in) and no aching joints. Definitely a good sign.
Some stats from my bike computer:
103.5 miles
6:31 hrs ride time
151 bpm average - my LT is 161 and maximum somewhere above 185
I ate:
3 and a part of Coles energy bars ~800 calories
Most of a small bag of dried apple slices ~200?
1 slice of mushroom pizza ~400 calories?
2 bottles of Hammer 'Perpetuem' 350 based on the nutritional information
Half a chocolate espresso bar ~100 calories, but balanced with good amounts of caffeine
Total I would guess is close to 2,000 calories and I probably burned close to 5,000. Not bad for a days work.
Some issues did come up, mainly a sore upper back after 5 hours in the saddle, and tingling hands after 6 hours. The rowing and back workouts seem to help but I need to do more of them. Also, I think I'll double-wrap my handlebars with cork tape underneath and the washable Fizik stuff on top.
All in all a massive challenge but a very rewarding day. There were definitely times when I was hating it, but I wouldn't be doing it if there weren't.
The weather was calling for snow Friday night with clear skies Saturday, so I left my fenders on but the roads were dry except for the first hour in the morning.
Kevin showed up a little after 9, we had some coffee and I showed him the route on Bikely, which has a great elevation profile. We left sometime after 9:30 to low 40's and beautiful clear skies; a great change from the overcast typically of Philadelphia. Immediately the wind picked up and Kevin commented that he heard it would be gusting to 40 all day. I told him that's why I left my disk wheels at home and we pressed on.
Little did we know, but the wind would make this an incredibly difficult century. The first thirty miles tend to meander back and forth, into a headwind then into a tailwind, but the middle thirty was mostly up hill and directly into the wind. We tried to take turns pulling but it was almost always a cross wind so that was little help. The middle of the route ground on, and going up 5-10% grades into 20-40 mph wind with small downhills into the wind was incredibly frustrating. It was so strong that on somewhat steep downhills you had to put in effort to stay at a decent pace, it felt like it was flat! This part of the route was also totally unfamiliar to me, so we did get lost once but had help from two walkers. A chocolate espresso bar and a bag of dried apple slices from my carradice barley helped us through but just barely. Eventually we made it to Nockamixon and turned SW. I had expected a break from the wind but now it seemed like we were headed directly into it! In fact, looking at the route online and trying to figure out what direction the wind was blowing is mind boggling, it's almost like it was blowing from two directions at once.
In addition to the wind, Kevin is about 20 lbs lighter than me and an excellent climber so his pace up the hills was a notch or two higher than mine. It took the first thirty miles for me to tell him to slow up a bit, considering the distance ahead. This meant that by the time we got to those hilly and windy middle 30 miles my legs weren't exactly fresh, and when we turned around for the way back only to have continuing head winds was hell. Also, did I mention he races cyclo-cross? The day I out-climb Kevin is the day that I know all this riding has paid off.
Around mile 60 we had just began to hit some tail winds with me in the lead when Kevin shouts out "Pizza!" I shout out "Yes!" and make a high speed turn into the parking lot. Fueled by mushroom pizza and with a tailwind at our backs the next 10 miles flew by at well over 20 mph.
Too bad I missed the turn that was right after the pizza place and we went in the wrong direction.
That's ok though, because a friendly gas station attendant held up the line at the register to lend us a map and we got on a road that led us back on track. That little detour probably only added 2 or 3 miles, but was small chip in our morale. Still, at this point I could no longer get my heart rate above my LT so my legs were mostly shot. The aerobic system was well fueled by pizza and the home made energy bars from my friend Cole, so we were still moving at a decent clip.
For the next bit the tailwind persisted and we kept on at a good speed, it was nice finally having a gentle push up the steeper hills that remained. We were also back in familiar territory; I could practically follow these turns in my sleep. The last stretch through Manayunk was filled with traffic and reminded me of the importance of developing psychic abilities to foresee drivers making unexpected turns. Finally we made it to West River Drive and managed to keep 19 mph going pretty steadily without the tailwind and crawled up Black Road. Two more close calls with traffic and we finally congratulated each other and split off to make it home. I wasn't as hungry as I thought I would be, must be Cole's energy bars, but I managed to choked own a few glasses of milk, an omelet, some bread and my own cilantro hummus and a little granola and yogurt.
Today, my legs are sore but no saddle sores (I guess my brooks finally broke in) and no aching joints. Definitely a good sign.
Some stats from my bike computer:
103.5 miles
6:31 hrs ride time
151 bpm average - my LT is 161 and maximum somewhere above 185
I ate:
3 and a part of Coles energy bars ~800 calories
Most of a small bag of dried apple slices ~200?
1 slice of mushroom pizza ~400 calories?
2 bottles of Hammer 'Perpetuem' 350 based on the nutritional information
Half a chocolate espresso bar ~100 calories, but balanced with good amounts of caffeine
Total I would guess is close to 2,000 calories and I probably burned close to 5,000. Not bad for a days work.
Some issues did come up, mainly a sore upper back after 5 hours in the saddle, and tingling hands after 6 hours. The rowing and back workouts seem to help but I need to do more of them. Also, I think I'll double-wrap my handlebars with cork tape underneath and the washable Fizik stuff on top.
All in all a massive challenge but a very rewarding day. There were definitely times when I was hating it, but I wouldn't be doing it if there weren't.
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