Century Training Plan | Biking To Live

Century Training Series: Day 18

Posted by Bryan on Jul 23, 2009 in Blog, Century Training Series | 6 comments

For some reason I was thinking all day that today was just a one hour endurance ride but upon checking the century training plan in the June 2009 issue of Bicycling, I found out it was 1.5 hours. No big deal.

The weather was near perfect again with cloudy skies, temps in the low 90s and just a touch of sprinkles a few times. It didn’t even sprinkle enough to get the roads wet. I think the threat of rain kept most of the other cyclists at home because there weren’t many down at White Rock Lake today.

As always I started with my 15 minute warm up and reset my computer when I was done with it so I could keep track of my 1.5 hours. My legs felt tired today so I didn’t try to push it and stayed close to my endurance pace of 15 mph. I stayed in the small chain ring the entire time in order to concentrate on my cadence as well. During my warm up I did a quick calculation of my cadence by counting the number of revolutions in 15 seconds and multiplying by four. It turned out to be 92 which is right in the window you want to be in so I was happy with that.

The ride itself was pretty uneventful. I was worried about the rain at one point because I could see some major rain off to the west but it never made it to White Rock Lake. I noticed again today an inordinate number of riders with clip-on aero bars. Not sure what I’m missing with that.

Here are the numbers for today:

Total Time (h:m): 1:30
Total Distance: 23.05 miles
Avg Speed: 15.3 mph

Century Training Series: Day 17

Posted by Bryan on Jul 22, 2009 in Blog, Century Training Series | 3 comments

Day 17 brings me to Tuesday’s ride of Week 1 of the Bicycling Century Training Plan which is a 1.5 hour overall endurance ride with 4×8 intervals. The weather was near perfect today with a temperature of 90F, partly cloudy and only a slight wind.

I did a 15 minute warm up and decided I would do this entire ride in the small chain ring to see how it felt vice doing it in the big ring. At the end of the warm up I reset my computer and started on the first eight minute interval.

This first interval was setup so it was on a relatively flat section of the White Rock Lake loop. I was moving along really good at a speed of 18-20 mph with no problems. After eight minutes I backed off the speed and took it easy for eight minutes to recover. The second interval contained some hills and was into a slight headwind that made it a little more difficult but was still able to maintain 17+ mph. The remaining two intervals were done in almost the same spots as the first two which was nice for consistency.

After finishing the second interval I still had almost half an hour to ride at endurance pace so I started another loop of the lake and turned around after 15 minutes and then continued onto my car for a cool down.

Overall I felt pretty good during the entire ride and was able to push it pretty hard during the intervals. I think riding in the smaller chain ring was easier on me and I may need to make that standard right now. There were quite a few riders out today with lots, lots and lots of people riding their time trial and aero setups. There must have been some kind of sale on time trial bikes, aero wheels and profile bars I wasn’t aware of.

Here are the numbers:

Total Time (h:m): 1:30
Distance: 24.17 miles
Avg Speed: 16 mph (interval speed was 17-20 mph with recovery at 13-15 mph)

Century Training Series: Day 15 (week 2 re-cap)

Posted by Bryan on Jul 20, 2009 in Blog, Century Training Series | 4 comments

Ok, today is Monday which brings us to a rest day and Day 15 of my Century Training Plan. Now that I’ve completed two weeks I’m ready to start the 10-week plan as set forth in Bicycling Magazine. If you’ll remember, I started my century training plan two weeks early so I could get used to it before officially starting the 10-week plan. This week I’ll re-start at week 1, day 1, and continue on until my century on September 26.

Overall I think my week of cycling last week was excellent. I had a couple of hard days but for the most part I believe I stayed true to the week 2 plan and rode very well. Looking at my total mileage last week, I was kind of shocked to see I had ridden over 130 miles but at the same time very happy. I didn’t do anything extra to boost my mileage so I think the 130 miles is very close to what you should have if you have a targeted century endurance pace of 15 mph like I do.

On the other hand, if you’re reading this blog and expect to jump straight into week 1 and haven’t ridden for a while I think you may be in for a rude awakening. I had been riding anywhere from 50-75 miles per week for a couple of months before starting my plan which means I had at least a small base fitness. If I had tried to start my plan from cold turkey I’m not sure I could do it. I’ll go back and check the article but I don’t believe it mentions whether or not this plan is for a beginner or not. Honestly, I think a beginner would have a hard (if not impossible) time riding 109 miles in week 1 and 138 in week 2 like I did. I’m not say that because I’m an accomplished cyclist but because I think it may be the truth.

Here are my measurements for this week:

Weight: 267 pounds (down 4 pounds from three weeks ago)
Neck: 17.25 in (no change from last week)
Chest: 45.5 in (down .5 in from last week)
Left Bicep: 15 in (up .5 in from last week)
Right Bicep: 15 in (up .5 in from last week)
Waist: 47 in (down .5 in from last week))
Left Thigh: 28 in (down 1 in from last week)
Right Thigh: 27.5 in (no change from last week)
Left Calf: 18.5 in (down .25 in from last week)
Right Calf: 18 in (down .25 in from last week)

Overall I’m happy with those numbers. I had more drops than ups or no changes but I thought my weight would have been a little lower. I’ll take it though. With the loss of 4 pounds I’m falling right into recommended range of losing 1-2 pounds per week. My weight, chest and waist are the big three in my opinion and they were all down from last week. I can’t not be happy with that.

Here’s the mileage numbers from last week with total since the start of the plan in parenthesis:

Riding Time (h:m): 9:12 (16:56)
Mileage: 138.1 (247.2)
Avg Speed: 14.95 mph

I really find it hard to believe I rode 138 miles last week. If you follow the plan though you’ll have no choice to put up numbers like that and they’ll only increase as you get deeper into the plan. The Saturday ride is where a lot of it comes from (45 miles) but that means I still put in over 90 miles during the week. If I were at home with my family it would probably be very hard to put in that many miles during the week. Could I find time? Sure, but it would be harder. The average speed is close to my target of 15 mph but is skewed a little because it does contain some warm up time that is lower than my endurance pace. To fix that I’ve started resetting my computer after my warm up so I can get an accurate mileage and average speed for my endurance rides. My warm up time/mileage is now just banked time/mileage that I know I did but doesn’t show up anywhere.

With two weeks under my belt I think I’ve gotten off to a good start. My body has responded well to the mileage but my quads do feel a little sore this morning. That’s probably due to the long ride on Saturday followed by the windy ride last night. I still need to work on my diet some to make sure I’m eating at the correct times. Another thing Saturday’s ride told me is that I do need to invest in new bibs (I already knew this). I could tell after 3 hours in the saddle though that I’m going to need some that will provide a little more comfort for the longer rides. As soon as can I’ll be getting some of the Performance Elite IIs that come so highly recommended.

Thanks for all the encouragement and support so far.

Century Training Series: Days 12, 13 and 14

Posted by Bryan on Jul 19, 2009 in Blog, Century Training Series | 9 comments

Day 12

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

Highway 177 is also in good shape but there’ no shoulder. It wasn’t a big deal though since there wasn’t much traffic. What traffic there was gave me a wide berth and waved. Nearly everybody waved. Even the old guys mowing lawns on riding lawn mowers. There’s something to be said about that. At one point I crossed a bridge over the Washita River and stopped to take a couple of pictures with my phone. As a kid I fished in this river for catfish all the time with my Dad. Brought back some interesting memories that I hadn’t thought about in over 25 years. This ride up 177 was very nice and full of farm land and cows (do cows watch you ride by or is it just me?). I know for a fact it’s been well over 20 years since I’d been on this road. At one point three dogs got the drop on me and I had to go to an instant sprint to outrun them. Luckily I was in the big chain ring already and was quickly up to 25 mph. One of them tried to keep pace but eventually gave up. Turns out those were the only dogs I would encounter the whole day.

Eventually I reached SH53 and turned left (West). This was the same type of road as 177 but with even less traffic and more scenic. I’m not sure I’d ever been on that road before. It was truly a beautiful piece of highway to ride on. I went by the old airport, turned to the North and then back to the West so I could continue on to Highway 77 over at Springer. Once past the airport though I ran into some more hills that really taxed me but I suffered on.

The trip down 77 was the worst part of the ride because the shoulder was in absolute ruins. Luckily this was a four-lane highway and I was able to ride in the right-hand lane heading South. Again, traffic was light so that wasn’t a problem but I hit a couple more hills that put the burn into my legs.

Once back into Ardmore I headed across town and realized that I was on track to finish in only 2:15 (h:mm) so I needed to kill 45 minutes. I wound up doing some loops on the South side of town to complete the ride and eventually ended up riding 2 hours and 57 minutes.

Overall I felt great this entire ride except for the last 20 minutes or so. After I had been on the bike an hour or so I realized that I hadn’t brought anything with me to eat and was worried that might be a problem. Turns out it wasn’t for the majority of the ride but I think that may have been what caused the last 20 minutes or so to hurt some. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Here are the numbers:

Time: 2:57:18 (plus an additional 15 minutes warm up)
Distance: 45.69 miles (plus an additional 3.31 during warm up) (49 total!)
Avg Speed: 15.4 mph

Day 14

I was back in Dallas this evening and was scheduled for a 1.5 hour endurance ride. I was worried I wouldn’t get the ride in because of thunderstorms but I did. I didn’t feel too great and the wind was terrible and coming from just the right direction to make it feel like I had a head wind no matter which was I was headed. White Rock Lake sits in kind of a natural bowl and I think the wind swirls really bad on spots which contributed to the head wind. Because of the wind, and feeling tired from yesterday, I only road for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Here are the numbers:

Time: 1:15:32 (plus 15 minute warm up)
Distance: 19.17 miles
Avg Speed: 15.2 mph

Century Training Series: Day 11

Posted by Bryan on Jul 17, 2009 in Blog, Century Training Series, Cycling and Weight Loss Report, White Rock Lake | 4 comments

Yesterday was Day 11 of my Century Training Plan and consisted of the same workout as Day 10 which was 1.5 hours overall endurance with 4×8 intervals stuck in there. I was looking forward to trying the intervals again since Day 10s intervals were interrupted with road side assistance. I was thrilled to find no flat when I opened my trunk. I did patch the tube I took from Fernando after I helped him so I would have a spare. I still need to pick up some more CO2 when I get a chance.

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.