I arrived at the tennis center off of Fair Oaks Avenue at about 6:15 and put my bike together. The weather was actually very nice. Not too hot, a few clouds and a little breeze. A great day to ride. After getting everything ready I headed on out to do my 15 minute warm up.

Once the warm up was complete I was cruising along at 15 mph in the big ring and rest my computer so I could get a good, accurate, reading on my one hour endurance ride. After about 10 minutes I noticed that I was cruising along at 16.5 mph with no problem. I backed off some but noticed again a few minutes later that I was back up over 16 mph. At that point I decided not to fight it and just fell into a comfortable rhythm.

There are four hills around the White Rock Lake loop that I ride that vary from long and steady to short and steep. I attacked each one riding as hard as I could and keeping my pace above 15, sometimes 17 mph. The short steep hill I was unable to maintain the high pace but pushed up it as hard as I could. I would continue this pace for just about two full laps of White Rock Lake. Once the hour was up I backed way down on the pace and did some easy spinning on the way back to my car. I pulled my computer off the bike and put in my jersey pocket so as to preserve my one hour data. Here are the numbers:

Total Time (h:m): 1:00
Total Distance: 16.83 miles
Avg Speed: 16.7 mph (yeah!)

When I first started riding the loop down at White Rock Lake several months ago it would take me anywhere from 40-45 minutes to complete a loop. Today I completed my first loop in 33 minutes. Amazing.

This is the traditional easy cycling day that has 30 minutes of easy spinning scheduled. Due to having to drive out of town I had to skip it.

Day 13

This was Saturday and I had a 3 hour endurance ride scheduled. Before heading out of town on Friday I mapped out a new route on MapMyRide to try. I was up at 6:00 AM on Saturday morning and rolling by 6:30. After 15 minutes I reset my computer and set out for 3 hours of riding.

I headed due east on Highway 199 towards Dickson. This is a fairly trafficked two-lane road but has six foot wide shoulders that makes it pretty safe. It’s not too flat either with three very good size hills over the 9 miles from Ardmore to Dickson. I lived and went to school in Dickson and had only been back through there a few times in the past 20 years. Before turning off Highway 199 I rolled by my brother’s house and past the old house we used to live in before moving when I was 10. Once in Dickson I turned North on Highway 177.

Washita River

Since I wasn’t starting until 6:30 PM I shortened my warm up to 15 minutes and then rolled right into the first eight minute interval. I started it on what I consider one of the toughest portions of the White Rock Lake loop which probably wasn’t a smart idea and probably should have waited a few minutes until I was passed it. Why this one section is tough on me I’m not sure. It is slightly uphill but I think it may be steeper/longer than it looks. I pushed through it and finished the first interval but a little slower than I wanted.

Eight minutes of spinning at a lower speed followed with another eight minute interval on its heals. I repeated this cycle until I had completed four eight minute (4×8) intervals. For the third and fourth intervals I actually picked my speed up quite a bit because I felt like I could. I didn’t have any problems maintaining 18-19.5 mph on those intervals. It wasn’t easy though. By the fourth interval I was really feeling it in my legs and felt it all over this morning. I’m guessing that means I’ve pushed myself a little further than normal which is a good thing.

Here are the numbers (these are very close estimates since I dropped my computer and dislodged the battery thus wiping out all my data…bummer):

Total Distance: 27 miles
Total Time: 1h:50m (15 minute warm up and 5 minute cool down)
Avg MPH: 14.7 Total (13.7 for 15 minute warm up and 15.7 for 1.5 hour intervals/endurance/cool down)

Overall I’d say that’s a good ride for me.

I won’t be able to ride the 30 minute recovery ride scheduled for today due to traveling out of town but I do have a 3 hour endurance ride scheduled for Saturday and a 1.5 hour ride on Sunday. My next post will probably be on Sunday since I’ll be without Internet access.

I immediately discovered my front tire flat. This is probably the third front flat in as many weeks so I was getting frustrated. Each time I carefully inspected the tire at the location of the hole to find nothing even though the hole seemed to be forming in the same spot each time. I took a look at the rim and discovered the rim tape worn in that area and now think that the tube may have gotten the hole from a spoke hole edge. I had some electrical tape in my trunk so I ran some around the inside of the rim over the existing tape. We’ll see how that goes. Next time I’m at the bike shop I’ll pick up some new rim tape. Remember the two new tubes I bought the other day? I just used one.

After this delay I finally got started and everything went good for the warm up. It was hot again but didn’t seem too bad. The wind was blowing pretty good though which wasn’t cool. After the warm up I had a 1.5 overall endurance ride scheduled with 4×8 intervals. The plan was to ride 8 minutes at 17 mph followed by 8 minutes at 13 mph (15 mph average) and repeat four times. Everything went good until about halfway through my second interval.

As I come around a corner I see a guy on the side of the road with his bike upside down. I ask if he needs anything and he says a pump. I stop to help but after using a CO2, my pump, and having another cyclist stop and use CO2, we were unable to inflate his tire. The other guy that stopped and I think the tube he put in was bad. Even if it was good it wouldn’t have lasted long because his tire sidewall was basically shredded from age. It looked like he hadn’t ridden the bike in a while. I let him borrow my phone to call is girlfriend and then I moved on and finished my second interval.

Not a mile or so later I come around another corner and there’s a guy with his bike on the ground and his front tire in his hand. I ask if he needs help and I here him say something so I stop. Turns out he actually crashed from hitting an edge in the trail and popped his front tube. He’d never changed a flat before and needed help. He had attempted to put the new tube in himself and must have put a hole in it because it wouldn’t inflate using his CO2. I installed my spare tube and inflated it with my CO2 inflator and it worked like a champ. I actually found changing his flat a little bit of a challenge because it was an aero-style rim and I’d never changed one of those. It worked though. His bike was a beautiful Specialized Tarmac that looked brand new. He said the only damage from the crash was a scratch on the brake lever. I guess he was lucky. He offered to pay me for the tube but I refused. Told him to just help the next person he sees. As it was, my second tube was gone. I did take the spare one he had that I couldn’t inflate to see if it could be patched.

After that stop the day was getting late and sunset was fast approaching. I still had about 30 minutes back to my car so I forgot the intervals and just hoofed it at a pretty good pace. The guy with the Tarmac caught up to me (I believe his name was Fernando) and we talked for a minute since we were both heading in the same direction. He then effortlessly pulled away while I was pushing hard at 18 mph.

Pushing hard might be a misnomer. I could have ridden faster if I had shifted to a bigger gear but my cadence would have suffered. I left it where I was and kept a quick cadence while staying close to the edge of spinning out. Which brings up a question. Is it better to stay in a gear where your close to spinning out or do you shift to the next gear? If I shift to the next gear I’ll go above my planned endurance speed if I keep the same cadence. If I stay in the gear I’m in I find I have to do some coasting to let my speed drop so I don’t spin out. Do I use the bigger gear? Do I maintain my cadence? Do I raise my endurance speed of 15 mph? I’m open to suggestions.

Here are the numbers:

Total Time: 1:34:25 (30 minute warm up)
Avg MPH: 14.6 mph (13.7 warm up and 15.5 for the other 64 minutes)
Distance: 23.08 miles

As I was getting ready to post this I got a nice email:

Hi Bryan,

Just a quick note to say thanks for your blog. Its great and in my search for a training plan for a century ride i stumbled across it. Glad i did. Its inspiring to read your story, goals etc. and i will join the same training program today.

There is a scheduled 140km ride in Helsinki, Finland (tour de Helsinki) that i will sign up and ride. So while its a some miles short of the century mile ride, its enough of a goal to begin with.

So, again, many thanks i look forward to reading about your progress and any tips/advice you find.

Gary

That’s awesome. It feels good knowing that I can inspire someone else to get out there and ride. Good luck in your training plan Gary and keep us informed. I’m looking forward to hearing how it goes.

Yesterday’s ride is the same as Day 2 which is one hour at endurance pace (15 mph for me). Throw in my warm up and I was looking at about 1.5 hours on the bike which isn’t bad. I arrived at my normal parking area and put my bike together. As I was putting on my gear I realized I had forgotten my gloves. After Sunday evenings Day 7 ride I had hand washed them so they would dry over the rest day but forgot them when I left the house today. Normally I would have been upset but I looked at it as an opportunity to get some sun on the back of my hands. Right now I’ve got this tan oval on the back of my hand where the hole is on my gloves. I don’t remember the last time I had ridden without gloves so it took some getting used to. Can’t really say that I enjoyed it though. Gotta remember them today.

I started out with my normal 30 minute warm up and took it kinda slow at first because it was hot out. The high for the day was 102F with the heat index a little higher. What made it worse though was the wind. Wow it was blowing hard at times. The weather channel said it was 10-20 mph and there were a couple times I bet it was gusting over 20 mph. Once the warm up was done I settled into 15 mph and kept that pace pretty good for most of the hour. I dropped a little on a couple of the hills but gained it back on the downhill side.

About a half-hour into the endurance portion I saw a young woman sitting on the curb with her bike laying next to her. I watched two guys ahead of me look her way and ride past without saying a word. I always make it a point to ask folks if they need anything when I see them stopped or it’s obvious they’re having trouble. So, as always, I asked her if everything was OK and she said something about her chain as I went by. I stopped and took a quick look. Her chain had come off probably from shifting while coming up the hill she was stopped on. It took less than a minute to fix and she was on her way. It always feels good to help folks out like that.

After getting back on my bike I completed the remainder of my endurance ride with no issues.

Here are the numbers:

Total Time: 1:36:47 (30 min warm up; 1 hr endurance; 6 min cool down)
Distance: 23.20
Avg MPH: 14.3 (includes warm up and cool down)

I’m writing this on Wednesday so I can tell you that I felt sore this morning from the ride. Not sure why as I didn’t think it was overly strenuous. It could be lack of sleep. I’m notorious for going to sleep at midnight and only getting six hours in. I know that’s not enough and I need to do better.

Week 1 started off rather easy with a one hour endurance ride scheduled for Tuesday. I actually thought this might be too easy for me but I did it anyway and completed it with no problems. On Wednesday I had to skip an interval workout because of a late afternoon thunderstorm. Thursday, Saturday and Sunday saw me ride per the century training plan. As the week went on I found the rides getting a little tougher as the required time at endurance pace was lengthened with it topping out at two hours on Saturday. In a few weeks I’ll be doing Saturday rides of three to four hours in length which kind of blows my mind right now.

Here’s a recap of my cycling numbers from last week as well as today’s measurements:

Total Riding Time: 7h:24m
Total Miles: 109.3

Neck: 17.25 in
Chest: 46 in
Left Bicep: 14.5 in
Right Bicep: 14.5 in
Waist: 47.5 in
Left Thigh: 29 in
Right Thigh: 27.5 in
Left Calf: 18.75 in
Right Calf: 18.25 in

A look at the numbers

The total mileage of 109.3 miles is the most I’ve ridden in a week since I did a cycling fundraiser from Connecticut to Ohio over 15 years ago. If I hadn’t had to skip Wednesday because of the thunderstorm I would have probably been around 140 for the week. I think that’s pretty impressive for a guy that’s 80+ pounds overweight. My weekly time in the saddle and mileage should only increase from here and peak about three weeks before my century before it tapers down.

My measurements, for the most part, were unchanged. I’ve always carried around extra weight and being in the military it was always a problem for me. I came to dread the ‘rope and choke’ as we called it. They subtract your neck circumference from your waist circumference to get a number (the smaller the number the better). This number is then looked up on a chart and for your corresponding height you get a percentage of body fat. Not the most accurate system in the world but that’s how they do it. I was always right on the border…and sometimes over. The thing with taking the neck and waist measurements is that many people who are trying to lose weight actually get worse before they get better. The reason is because the first place you lose anything is in your neck with your waist the last place. With your neck shrinking, and your waist staying the same, the resulting difference is a higher number therefore a higher percentage body fat. Not until you start losing the belly fat and love handles do you see decreases in body fat by the way the military measure you.

All that said, my numbers this week are reflective of the shrinking neck syndrome. I lost a little in the neck with most everything else staying the same but I did lose some in the calves too. This is only a week of keeping track so I’m not expecting to see huge changes and neither should you if you’re doing something similar. It takes time to see those numbers go down. The biggest thing is to not get frustrated if you don’t see immediate changes.

Some lessons learned

1. Hydrate. With the daytime temperatures here in Texas hovering near 100F everyday it’s very important to stay hydrated. This includes drinking water throughout the day, while on the bike and after riding. I’ve got on the bike covered but need to concentrate more on the other two especially post-ride.
2. Eat properly. I’m still struggling with this. I’m eating much better than I used to but I’m struggling with variation in my diet (chicken and tuna does get a little old) and timing of eating. Before Saturday’s ride I didn’t eat breakfast and I think it hurt my performance during the ride. You have to make sure you’re fueled to ride and re-fueled post-ride.
3. Ride early. With the temps high it’s important for me to ride early on Saturday to avoid late morning high temperatures. I got started late on Saturday and I paid for it with sweltering heat by the time I finished at 11:30.

A look at Week 2

Because I started my century training plan two weeks early I’ll go ahead with Week 2 this week and then fall back to Week 1 to start again. I did it this way to make sure I get into the training plan with no problems and can implement a couple other things into it before actually starting the 10-week plan. Week 2 will see an increase in time in the saddle of about 1.5-2 hours total with Saturday’s ride coming in at three hours of endurance riding. Should be a lot of fun as I’ll be up in Oklahoma where the area I ride is more hills than flat.

Today was a 1.5 hour endurance pace ride and I waited until this evening to do it because tomorrow is a rest day. I arrived at White Rock Lake at about 6 PM but ended up having to fix a flat on my front wheel before I could even start. Very frustrating. The tube was one that I had patched before so I should have expected it. I put in my last new tube which means I need to hit the bike shop tomorrow to pick up a couple. Another good reason it’s a rest day tomorrow.

By the time I got rolling, after having problems with my pump, I wasn’t in the best of moods and in the interest of time shortened my warm up to 15 minutes vice the normal 30. After the warm up I picked it up to 15 mph and did my best to hold it steady. After 30 minutes I didn’t feel too good and thought it could be contributed to either not hydrating enough, the bad start or the shortened warm up.

I eventually settled down and kept the pace up for the next 30 minutes until I stopped to refill my water bottle. It was a short stop but I think I may have drank too much water too fast because for the next 10 minutes or so I felt like throwing up. I never did and I eventually felt better.

One hour into the endurace part of the ride I completed my second loop of White Rock Lake and had planned on just riding another 15 minutes and then turning around to ride back to my car to complete the 1.5 hours at endurance pace. The only problem was that I wouldn’t get a cool down in. After 15 minutes I was actually feeling good and decided to go ahead and continue on around the lake to make it three loops.

The final 15 minutes of the endurance part of the ride saw me picking up the pace. I was probably cruising along at 17 mph or so and I hear that familiar hum of aero wheels approaching from behind. A guy literally blows by me like I’m standing still. I’m not kidding. It was like he had a rocket tied to his back. I’d seen him riding before, on the same bike, but never at that speed. I was totally envious.

With the 1.5 endurance ride complete I took a nice slow pace back to my car to cool down. After the rough start it ended up being a great final ride to my first week of training. Here are the numbers:

Total Ride Time: 1:51:13 (including 15 min warm up and 6 min cool down)
Total Distance: 27.5 miles
Avg MPH: 14.8

I’m sure you’ve all seen the Rock Racing kits and the out of this world prices they want for them. I actually think the designs are pretty cool even though I don’t necessarily care for the team or their prices. I’ve seen one person actually wearing one of their jerseys but today there was a guy wearing a full Rock Racing team kit. My guess is that he paid more for that kit than I paid for my bike 15 years ago.

I was all set to ride my first interval day of the century training plan but mother nature decided not to cooperate. As I was getting off the train from work it was just starting to sprinkle and by the time I got home (a 5 minute drive) it was a downpour of biblical proportions. Tons of rain and it was headed straight for White Rock Lake. I decided then that riding was going to be a washout.

Day 4

Today saw better weather but it was hotter. The temp at 6:30 PM was in the high 90s and the heat index was probably over 100F. It was windy too with it blowing 10-20 mph out of the South which gave me a headwind for half of the 25 miles I rode.

Today’s scheduled ride was a 1.5 hour endurance pace ride which, for me, means 1.5 hours while maintaining 15 mph. Because of the 1.5 hour ride I opted to only do a 15 minute warm up which put me in the saddle for 1 hour 45 minutes. I felt OK but the wind was brutal in spots and made it hard to maintain 15 mph with the headwind. There was one uphill spot where I couldn’t maintain 15 mph but made it up on the backside. I ended up in the small chain ring for the most of the ride which didn’t bother me in the least.

Overall I think it was a good ride but not easy. When riding these endurance rides I’ve switched my computer from a speed/distance display to a speed/time display. This lets me keep an eye on my speed so I can maintain the required endurance pace but not be worried about the distance I’ve ridden and instead watch the time.

Here are today’s numbers:
Distance: 25.73 miles
Avg Speed: 14.8 mph (including warm up)
Total Time: 1:44:00
Piles of Dog Crap Run Over: 1 (lovely)

A few people have asked about the Century Training Plan I’m following. Here’s the link to the Century Cycling Training Plan on Bicycling.com. It’s basically what was in the June 2009 issue but it doesn’t show what days you do intervals.

They’re on those trainers getting their bodies warmed up and ready to ride before the stage starts. If they don’t do this before the stage starts they won’t be ready for the physical stress of the stage and will likely perform poorly on the stage and risk potential injury.

The same goes for those of us who are just struggling to get our daily mileage in. If we don’t warm up properly we won’t be able to reap the benefits of our training.

Up until a few weeks ago I really didn’t warm up at all. I would hop on the bike and start out at 15-17 mph even though my target speed for my century is 15 mph. Starting out fast like that made me suffer later in the ride because I had not adequately warmed up and expended too much energy early.

Since then I have become religious in doing a 30 minute warm up before actually starting my training ride. That 30 minutes equates to six miles for me and seems to work good. I had no plan for how I would do my warm up other than easy spinning with a gradual increase in my speed over those first 6 miles until I was at 15 mph at mile 6. It seems to work for me and actually follows the stair-step format for the general warm up in the article I talk about below.

The article is a Cyclist Guide to Warm-Up: General to Specific and it has some pretty good info on why you need to do a warm-up and what you should do as a beginner, intermediate or advanced cyclist. A pretty interesting read.

So, do you warm up? If so, how, and if not, why?

The weather was pretty nice actually with it not being as hot or humid as it has been the last couple of weeks. It made for a pretty pleasant ride. There was a large number of cyclists around White Rock Lake today too. This was the first day I’ve ridden there since the Tour De France started so I’m thinking some folks have been watching on TV and deciding to hit the road. Call it the TDF effect.

Overall I think this ride went pretty well. Near the hour point I was starting to feel it a little but I think that’s because of my bibs. Here are the numbers for today’s ride:

Total Time: 1:36:11 (1 hour at endurance; 36 minutes warmup/cooldown)
Avg: 14.6 mph
Distance: 23.49 miles
Crunches: 20
Push Ups: 20

I was going to make a copy of the training plan found in Bicycling to post here but won’t be able to. I emailed Bicycling for permission and was told I could request a PDF of the article but prices start at $1900. I like my readers but that won’t be happening.