Day 44 – 4×6 Intervals at RPE9

All my interval sessions up to this point had been 4×8 (four intervals at 8 minute duration) so I was looking forward to something new and to see just how hard I could push for 6 minutes. It was hot when I started the ride with a stiff wind out of the Northeast which made the second and fourth intervals particularly difficult.

After my warm up I waited until I had a slight downhill section to start the first interval. I shifted up a couple of gears and quickly got up to 21 mph. My speed varied between 18.5 to 21 mph during the six minutes and it actually felt pretty good. I wasn’t all out but probably couldn’t have given it much more. After the interval I had to slow it way down to recover. This was repeated for the other three intervals but the two into the wind were very tough and my speed did suffer some in areas where I had a direct head wind. The last interval was particularly hard because it was the last of the day and was into the wind. I think I gutted it out pretty good though and gave it a good effort.

Even though these intervals were 2 minutes less than my normal intervals they were very hard due to the effort expended. I wasn’t all out but almost. Here are the days numbers:

Time (h:m): 1:13
Distance: 18.62 miles
Avg Speed: 15.3 mph

Day 45 – 1 Hour Endurance Pace Recovery

I was really feeling the hard interval workout from the day before. My legs were heavy, I was tired, and not keen on riding but knew I needed the recovery ride to work out the kinks in my legs. Even though it was only an hour in length it felt much longer and tougher. The wind was absolutely brutal today blowing at a stiff 20 mph out of the South. Instead of resetting my computer at the end of my warm up I just rode for an hour. My average speed really suffered because of that but I still got in a decent ride.

It was Wednesday which saw, again, lots of cyclists down at White Rock Lake. I think I’m going to have to start calling it ‘Bling Day’ because this is the day you see all the serious riders show up with full team kits, carbon wheels, TT bikes, Colnagos, Pinarellos, etc. I wonder what the total cost of hardware rolling around the lake on a day like this is?

Here’s the day’s numbers:

Time (h:m): 0:57
Distance: 13.6 miles
Avg Speed: 14.32 mph

Day 46 – 4×8 Intervals

Another interval day but back to the 8 minute variety with a little less exertion. It was a hot day but, amazingly, no wind. Wooohooo! Don’t get those very often. White Rock Lake was almost like glass. I did my warm up and rolled straight into my first interval.

I think doing the 1 hour recovery ride yesterday really helped because my body actually felt quite good and I had no heaviness in my legs at all. I had actually noticed that when I got out of bed in the morning. I found myself rolling along at 19 mph for the first interval with no problem and maintained that for most of the interval. The same was repeated for the other intervals with me able to sprint over the small hills in intervals two and four at over 17 mph and quickly accelerating back up to 18.5 to 19 mph. On the fourth interval I pushed it pretty hard for the last 3 minutes or so and it felt great. Once done with the last interval I decided to go ahead and start my cool down and roll back to my car due to it starting to get a little dark. I need to remember to bring my lights next time.

Here are the numbers for today’s ride:

Time (h:m): 1:00
Distance: 16.2 miles
Avg Speed: 16.2 mph

I have a rest day today followed by a four hour endurance ride on Saturday. Hopefully the weather will be nice.

Today marks the end of six weeks of training for my first century. Last week was a somewhat lighter load as far as mileage goes but I still managed over 100 miles for the week thanks to the 63 mile ride on Saturday. Here’s the breakdown and re-cap.

Day 40 – Off Day

Day 41 – 4 Hour Endurance Pace Ride

I was a little nervous going into this ride because I had not ridden this long at one time in a very, very long time. If ever. I did 3 hours last Saturday so I knew I could do that. If I maintained my century pace of 15 mph I should be right at the metric century mark for the ride.

I arrived at the White Rock Trail at about 7:45 AM and set off for my warm up. The temperature was pretty nice in the low 80s and there were already quite a few folks on the trail both running and riding. I finished my 15 minute warm up in the same spot I always do, reset my computer, and settled in for a long morning. After about 1.5 hours the wind really started to pick up out of the South and got steadily worse throughout the ride. I still managed to maintain at, or above, century pace into the headwind but it was very hard to do so in the fourth hour.

My biggest worry for this long a ride was fueling during it. I brought six fig newton bars and a cliff bar for use during the ride. After two hours had elapsed (32 miles) I stopped for a quick 5 minute rest, ate the fig bars, and refilled my water bottle. I stopped after three hours and had the cliff bar. When I was finished with the ride I had two bananas waiting for me at the car. Overall I think the fueling went just fine but should have brought some gatorade with me.

Here are the numbers for this ride:

Time (h:m): 4:08
Distance: 63 miles (my first metric century…unassisted at that)
Avg Speed: 15.24 mph

Day 42 – 1 Hour Endurance Pace Ride

Not sure how my body was going to respond the day after riding 63 miles. During the first part of my warm up my legs were heavy and felt sluggish. After 15 minutes though they actually felt pretty good. I reset the computer and hit it good for an hour. The wind was brutal, again, this morning but I was still able to maintain a good average speed. The most interesting thing this day was seeing a guy wearing white bibs, a heart rate monitor, and no jersey. That’s got to be a huge cycling fashion no-no. It was scary looking.

Time (h:m): 1:05
Distance: 16.76 miles
Avg Speed: 15.47 mph

Day 43 – Rest Day

Here are the mileage numbers for last week:

Total Time (h:m): 6:46
Total Last Week: 104.1 miles
Avg Speed: 15.53 mph
Total Training Mileage: 613.96

I’ve updated the charts on the Century Training Tracker if you’d like to see those.

This week in the Century Training Plan is basically a recovery week so in addition to having Monday as a normal rest day I also had Tuesday off with Wednesday as an easy spin day. I believe this week was positioned this way to give riders a chance to recover some after having put in three hard weeks prior to this week. I can tell you that I needed it. Here’s the daily breakdown:

Day 37 – Rest Day – not much to say here

Day 38 – .5 Hour Easy Spin – I mentioned this ride a yesterday when I posted my rant about weatherchannel.com and horse dung. This was truly an easy spin for 30 minutes that felt pretty good. My legs were actually still a little sore from the weekends rides. Having this easy spin helped to loosen them and they felt pretty good for last nights ride. Here are the numbers:

Time (h:m): 0:30
Distance: 7.57 miles
Avg Speed: 15.14 mph

Day 39 – 1.5 Hour Endurance with 4×8 Intervals – I had been eagerly awaiting this ride because I wanted to really hammer the intervals. The wind hurt me on intervals 2 and 4 but I road them very hard regardless. On interval 1 and 3 I was able to maintain some good stretches at 19+ mph with some over 21 mph. That’s huge for me. I find it funny that while I’m doing these intervals upwards of 20 mph that I’m still getting passed by other folks. It just tells me that I have a long, long way to go to get back into shape. I have noticed though that I can maintain higher speeds on the hills and when I’m done with each interval my recovery time seems to only take a few minutes. I don’t have a heart rate monitor to see exactly how long my recovery time is but I do know that when I’m finished with an interval I’m back to breathing normally and wanting to pick my speed back up to 15 mph after only 2 or 3 minutes. That tells me that they seem to be working. Here are the numbers for yesterday’s ride:

Time (h:m): 1:03
Distance: 16.76 miles
Avg Speed: 15.96 mph

You’ll notice that I cut the time short by about 27 minutes. Believe it or not, I was getting uncomfortable in the saddle again and I was wearing my new bibs (with chamois cream). I have one particular spot on my right side that seems to really bother me. Almost like a blister. My left side is perfect. I don’t believe it’s a saddle sore just an irritation caused by my bibs, saddle, or fit. If I can figure out how to remedy this one problem I think I’ll be good to go.

I read an interesting article today about FRS in Men’s Journal – The Best Energy Supplement Ever? I had wondered if the stuff was all it was cracked up to be and the article suggests it is. I love how Juan Pelota (Lance Armstrong) was able to get some free samples. I tried to get some free FRS so I could do a long-term test during my century training and was politely told to buy my own. Guess I don’t have the pull ole Juan does. Sometime soon I’m going to have to start looking at something besides gatorade. My weekend ride mileage is starting to climb with me probably looking at 65 miles tomorrow which would put me over the metric century mark. I’ve also noticed that after some of my longer/harder rides that my legs will be sore the next day. I’m just hesitant to lay out the cash for supplements and not see any help. I thought the discussion on FRS potentially having to be banned by WADA interesting.

I just said that I’ll probably ride about 65 miles tomorrow (4 hours on the bike). Last week for my 3 hour ride I had a cliff bar at the 1.5 point and lots of water throughout. For tomorrow’s (and subsequent long rides) I think I’m going to need a little more. Maybe a cliff bar and a gel or peanut butter sandwich. I’ve read that 45 minutes between refueling is a good point to start. I’d like to hear some of your opinions on eating/drinking during the 4 hour ride to include food choices and when to eat.

Yesterday marked the completion of my first three weeks of training for my first century and since Mondays are a rest day it’s weekly re-cap time. For those that are new to this series I’m following the Century Training Plan from the June 2009 issue of Bicycling Magazine to train for my first century ride the last Saturday of September. Along the way I thought I would document the effort to see what changes my body would undergo and to, perhaps, provide a little inspiration to others who might be looking to cycling as a way to lose weight or improve their fitness.

Even though the Century Training Plan in Bicycling Magazine is 10 weeks in duration I decided to modify it to a 12 week plan by performing the first two weeks of the plan twice. This week was a repeat of Week 1. I felt I needed the two extra weeks because, basically, I’m not Lance Armstrong on a bicycle. I’m way overweight and out of shape and wanted those two extra weeks to help prepare. I had been riding before the start of this program so it wasn’t like I just decided on Day 1 that I wanted to start training for a century. I firmly believe that if someone decided to start this program cold turkey on Day 1 that they would end up quitting because it is a lot of riding.

This past week was tougher than I expected it to be especially since it was a repeat of Week 1 of the Century Training Plan. Perhaps I was lured into a false sense of security thinking it was just a repeat of Week 1. It was still 117 miles of riding. Yesterday in particular was a very tough ride where wind, and possibly, fatigue were factors. I don’t think the fatigue is ride related either. I believe it’s due to lack of sleep because I’m the world’s worst person at getting the recommended eight hours of sleep a night. Too many nights I stay up late reading or messing around on the computer and only end up getting six hours in the rack and sometimes less. I’m going to make it a short-term goal this week to get eight hours a night to see how it works out.

Below are the measurements taken this morning. I’m seeing little to no change over last weeks measurements which can be a little frustrating. The thing I need to keep re-enforcing upon myself is that I’m not going to change overnight. If you’re nearly 100 pounds overweight like I was then it’s going to take a while to get down to where you need to be. I may be seeing little change from week-to-week but I’m hoping that when I’m done with my century I’ll see a good steady decline. I won’t be done when my century is complete either. I’ll still have a long ways to go which means my training can’t stop. Here are this weeks measurements:

Measurements:

• Neck: 17 in
• Chest: 45.5 in
• Left Bicep: 14.5 in
• Right Bicep: 14.5 in
• Waist: 47.5 in
• Left Thigh: 27.75 in
• Right Thigh: 27.75 in
• Left Calf: 18.5 in
• Right Calf: 18 in

The riding numbers for this past week look pretty good with me actually averaging above my planned century pace of 15 mph. I will point out that the hours only indicate the amount of time spent riding the specific workout for that day. For instance, if the workout is a two hour endurance ride I reset my bike computer after my warm up so I get an accurate log of just those two hours. Once the two hours are up I pull the computer off and do a cool down. Because of that I’m not logging my warm up or cool down mileage which could probably add another 5 miles or so per day to the total mileage. Here are this weeks riding numbers:

Mileage Numbers:

• Riding Time (h:m): 7:30
• Total Mileage: 117.1 miles
• Avg Speed: 15.72 mph

That’s it for this weeks re-cap. I believe I’m making good progress but I’ve still got 7 weeks to go until my century on September 26, 2009. I’m hoping those 7 weeks will see big changes both in my measurements and my riding.

If there are questions you have about my century training please feel free to ask. I may gloss over some things that a beginner might need to know so don’t be bashful. Ask away.

Also, I’ve decided to slow down my posting frequency of my Century Training Series. Why? Because it’s actually quite hard to come up with stuff to make each post interesting and if they aren’t interesting they’re boring. I don’t want my four readers to be bored. Plus cutting back lets me post other content on days I don’t write about my century training. So, starting this week, I’ll post about my century training on Monday and Thursday leaving the rest of the week for my award-winning pontification that my rabid readers rely on to make it through their day.

Before I could ride today I had to replace my cut tire. I picked up a new yesterday at a local bike shop. The one I picked it up at wasn’t my first choice but the first one I went to didn’t have a single road tire hanging up so you could browse through them. I wasn’t going to play a 1000 question game with an employee to find what I was looking for. So I left there and headed to a shop where I knew they had tires I could browse through. Putting the new tire on was a snap.

Today called for a 1.5 hour endurance ride. Normally I would have ridden in the morning but I wanted to watch the final stage of the Tour de France live. Plus I wanted to sleep in some because I was tired and had been fighting a head ache since last night. I was pulling for Farrar to get the win but I think Garmin started too early and with Renshaw’s perfect leadout of Cavendish he didn’t stand a chance. Sad it’s over but looking forward to Team Radio Shack next year.

I headed down to White Rock Lake at about 4:30 so I could finish up my ride a little early. Turns out I was smart to go early (raining as I write this) but it was a lot hotter than I thought it would be and the wind was a killer. I checked the weather before going out the door and Weather Channel online said the wind was 2 mph out of the South. As soon as I started riding I noticed the wind. It must have been blowing 10-15 mph straight out of the east which makes for a nasty head wind on two hills. Ouch!

Overall today’s ride was very hard. Not at all what I expected. It could have been the wind but I felt it was more than that. At times I felt like I was struggling when riding into the wind and the first time up on one particular hill absolutely destroyed me. Those who ride White Rock Lake know what hill I’m talking about (or maybe you don’t). It’s the one that’s on Northcliff Drive (appropriately named) at the Bath House Cultural Center. It’s relatively short at a few hundred feet but it pitches up as soon as you turn onto it and pitches up even more about halfway up. That hill always pushes me to the limit when I ride it. I’m not sure why. I’ve thought that perhaps it’s my gearing because I only have a 7-speed cassette and I may not have enough gears to make it easier. Who knows.

Here are today’s numbers:

Total Time (h:m): 1:30
Total Distance: 22.64 miles
Avg Speed: 15.0 mph

You’ll notice that I changed the theme today. I was getting tired of the old one and wanted to have a little more flexibility with my header graphic (which still needs a few changes). Thanks to those who sent emails and tweets to provide feedback.