Century Training Series: Day 1
Well, today kicked off my Century Training Series in which I’ll be blogging daily during my 12-week training plan as I get ready to ride my first century in September. I’m following the basic plan in the June 2009 issue of Bicycling magazine for those interested in following along.
Since it’s Day 1 it means it’s Monday which is sort of anti-climactic since it’s a scheduled rest day. Because it’s a rest day I’ve decided that Monday’s will be the day I update everyone on my progress as far as measurements. And since it’s the first Monday we need to establish a baseline for comparison later. In truth, I probably should have established this baseline several months ago so I could measure my progress to date but hindsight is 20/20. Establishing a baseline now will allow you to see how my body is changing during this 12-week training plan. Without further ado, here are my measurements:
Weight: ? (I meant to weigh yesterday since I don’t have a scale…look for my weight update in 2 weeks)
Neck: 17.5 in
Chest: 46 in
Left Bicep: 14.25 in
Right Bicep: 14.5 in
Waist: 48.5 in
Left Thigh: 28.5 in
Right Thigh: 28.5 in
Left Calf: 19.25 in
Right Calf: 19 in
My waist measurement is disturbing. It was measured around the largest part of my stomach which is a horizontal line around the body that bisects the navel. This is how the military measures your waist size and includes your love handles. Most people don’t wear their pants that high so your pant size is usually smaller than your actual measurement. I couldn’t believe that number when I first took it.
My neck size has been as high as 21 but I know in the last couple of months it’s decreased dramatically based on doing some test buttoning of the top button on my dress shirts. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost at least six inches in my chest as well based on a normal jacket size of 52 and some of my suits are fitting so good now. I have a wool overcoat that I wore last winter (didn’t get much use for it in Florida) that I couldn’t button. I put it on the other day and can now button all three buttons and have plenty of room to spare. A great feeling.
I guess one way to look at it is that those numbers should only get smaller.
Next week I’ll add in accumulated ride time and mileage for this week.
Read MoreMuch better ride last night
After the horrible ride I had on Monday evening I decided to make some changes to what I was doing and with the help and ideas of some of the commenters on that post I made several changes and had a great ride. Here’s what I did:
- I drank more during the day. I said that I have a bad habit of not drinking enough during the day so I took that to heart and ramped it up. I still don’t think I drank enough but what I did drink helped.
- I ate a cliff bar as I left work to get some food in my stomach and give it time to digest before getting in the saddle. This means I ate it about an hour and twenty minutes before riding.
- I delayed my ride a half hour. I did this to try and eliminate some of the heat problem and it seemed to help. A lot. Sure, it was hot for the first 45 minutes or so but it started to get much better as the sun started dropping. I think that was a huge improvement.
- I didn’t wear a cap under my helmet. I sweat really bad and have big problems with it getting in my eyes. I’ve been wearing a cycling cap under my helmet to solve this problem and that solution works great. With the heat though I don’t think that’s a viable option anymore. I noticed a big difference in air flow in my helmet (I need a new one with more vents) but I did deal with sweat in my eyes. I need to pick up one of those head bands that solves that issue.
- I did an actual warm up. I road the first six miles at a sloth like 12.3 mph avg because, like Doug said, I believe I was starting out too fast. I believe this helped.
Those are the changes I made for last nights ride and I had a great 23 mile ride. Was the greatness of the ride a result of all of the above? I don’t know. I think they at least contributed to a better ride. Like I said I road the first six miles in warm up at a 12.3 mph avg speed. My overall avg speed for the 23 miles was 14.5 mph. That means I road the final 18 miles at a 16.7 mph avg speed. All in the small ring. I felt it last night and a little this morning. This is the first time in a while that I can actually feel like I had put in a hard workout on the bike and felt it after. Awesome.
Thanks to everyone who provided support and ideas from yesterday’s post. I sincerely appreciate it.
Read MoreThe tale of the belt
I’ve been absent here for a week or so while I launch an affiliate website but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped riding. On the contrary, I rode pretty hard last week and had a good ride last night.
After some of my recent problems riding down at White Rock Lake (rude cyclists and races) I’ve done some riding around the loop we use for our Monday evening training rides. It is kinda boring but there’s no traffic and the only real hazard is gettingtaken out by an airplane. The picture below is of some of the flowers on the loop. It’s actually quite pretty and is like that for the entire .8 mile loop.
I decided last week that I needed to step up my efforts in my rides because I felt like I was becoming accustomed to what I was doing. The first big change I made was to start riding on the big ring. I’m not exactly sure why I haven’t done this before now. I think I was holding back because of the hills (that I’m not used to). After the Monday evening training ride last week where we actually did some big ring work I felt more comfortable turning it.
Wednesday last week instead of doing my normal hill repeat day I decided to head to the loop and see how hard I could push myself. I did a warm-up of five miles that was probably in the 14 mph range followed by a hard 15 miles where at times I was averaging well over 20 mph a lap. In the end I rode the 20 miles at a 16.2 mph average which is huge for me.
Because the holiday weekend was over I decided to head down to White Rock Lake to get a ride in. I, again, wanted to push myself hard to see what I could do around the lake since I was riding a bigger gear now. The wind was supposed to be around 10 mph out of the SSE with gusts to 15 mph but an approaching thunderstorm had the gusts probably close to 20 mph and a steady wind of 15 mph. That’s all headwind on one side of the lake depending on the direction you ride. I rode into the headwind for the first half and pushed myself pretty hard all the way around staying in my 52T ring the whole way. All told I rode about 15 miles with a 15.2 mph average. I believe my previous best average around the lake is in the neighborhood of 14.5. I wanted to do another loop but the approaching thunderstorm didn’t look pretty.
I have to say the biggest change I’ve seen is my riding on the hills. I am now able to ride up them easier and more aggressive (I actually try to think of attacking them before I get to them). In fact, I rode all the hills last night in the big gear which really surprised me. I think I can contribute this to a couple of factors:
- I’m getting used to the hills.
- My fitness may be starting to improve.
I expected #1 to eventually happen but I think my biggest surprise is #2. Looking at the speed I was able to carry on the two rides I talked about above, along with the improved hill riding, I think my fitness maybe starting to turn around and be on an upward trend.
One of the biggest changes I’ve seen though is actually on my belt. I have been doing more riding the past 1.5 months (probably averaging about 70 miles a week) and have really tried to control my diet. There are days that my diet lapses but for the most part I’ve been very strict with it. I just need to tighten the belt (pardon the pun) and stick with the diet better.
Like I said, the biggest change I’ve seen is on my belt. I’ve already had to tighten it two holes and only have one left to go on this belt. When I moved out here from Florida I intentionally brought two smaller belts I’ve had for a while with every intention of being able to use them. I might be able to reach that goal in the next couple of months.
Read MoreCycling Skills: The Quick Stop
Last night was the Monday night group and individual handling session ride. Even though there were some threatening clouds most of the time the rain held off giving us time to work. Unfortunately, the low, dark clouds did cut the time short a little due to low light.
The sessions are supposed to start at 6 PM but there were a few folks running late and we mainly road warm up for about 45 minutes until everybody was ready. My warm up was about 10 miles. I thought I might as well keep on riding while everyone else was warming up since I need the miles like the Astana riders need a paycheck. Eventually we all got together and talked about quick stops.
The quick stop is exactly what it sounds like. A quick stop to get yourself stopped in as short a distance as possible. The group leader demonstrated the technique a couple of times which included weight evenly distributed on the pedals (basically one foot forward and one back) and a steady pull on both brakes while simultaneously pushing the bike forward and moving your weight back. We didn’t specifically talk about it but I believe the throwing of the weight back helps offset the power of the front brake and keep you from flipping over. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong.
We also talked about the importance of not skidding, if at all possible, because if the pavement is wet you could easily end up with some nice road rash. If you do find yourself skidding ease up on the front brake since it’s causing your back tire to lift off the pavement slightly.
If executed correctly you can come to a stop rather quickly enabling you to avoid whatever caused you to slow or come to a complete stop if you need to.
It’s a pretty simple technique but you need to practice it in order for it to be effective. Practice at slower speeds until you get the hang of it and then try increasing your speed. Be mindful that if you do come to a complete stop, and you’re wearing clipless pedals, that you’ll need to be ready to start pedaling again or quickly unclip lest you suffer the humiliation of the zero mph crash. Those are always classic and are a great way to impress your cycling buddies. Or all the folks at a busy street corner.
Read MoreDo you have some quick stop stories or more tips related to quick stops? If so, please leave a comment below. And if you have some of those perfectly executed zero mph crashes I’m sure we’d all like a good laugh.
Rainy day blues
I haven’t been able to ride in four days. It’s killing me. One of those days was due to me needing to do much needed maintenance that I couldn’t perform until Saturday. Another was due to traveling up to my Mom’s place in Oklahoma. The other two were due to rain/storms and driving back to Dallas.
After a ride last Wednesday I started to feel really uncomfortable with my bike and how it was behaving. The rear rim was getting out of true, the front hub didn’t sound/feel right and my front brakes weren’t working right. Because of all that I didn’t ride on Thursday due to safety concerns and planned on doing a lot of work on Saturday so I could use my Dad’s shop. So that’s what I did. I spent about six hours working on my bike.
Make Shift Bike Stand
First thing I did was re-pack the front hub with a little bit better grease and I’m satisfied with that now. I also think I may not have gotten one of the cones tight enough last time but I think I got that squared away.
Second item on the list was my rear wheel. It was in bad shape. I found four spokes that were very, very loose. I set about tightening those and got it into pretty good shape if I do say so myself. Eventually I’m going to need to go to a better set of rims due to my weight and all the riding I’ve been doing. Gotta make due with what I’ve got for now though.
The front brake is still giving me problems. For some reason the cable side arm isn’t springing back correctly after releasing the brake lever. I tried everything I could think of to solve the problem. I totally disassembled the brake and cleaned it and removed the brake cable and lubed it with no solid success. These are cheap Suntour Blaze brakes that came with my bike over 15 years ago so they aren’t the best wheel grabbers out there. Maybe it’s time to upgrade. It’s just kinda weird that they stopped working all of a sudden. I think I’m going to need to take it to a shop to have them looked at. I hate having to do that. Anything suggestions you readers have will be welcome.
Next I thoroughly cleaned my drive train. My chain looks in pretty good shape but I think the pulleys on the rear derailleur could stand to be replaced. The components are, again, old Shimano Exage and aren’t the best quality. The pulleys actually felt like hard plastic which surprised me a little. They were pretty easy to pull off and put back on. I also gave the bike a thorough cleaning which made it all nice and shiny.
All the work I’m having to do on the bike is starting to worry/frustrate me. I know every bike needs work but it’s getting to the point where I’m having to devote quite a bit of time to getting it ready. It could be the age of the bike but could easily be due to my weight. Or a combination of both.
Tonight I’m supposed to have group training at the loop so I’m looking forward to that. I hope the weather clears up enough for us to get it in. Read More
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