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.

Day 30 – 1.5 Hour Endurance with 4×8 Intervals

This was my infamous ride that left me miserable, doubting my abilities, and lead me to write 3 minutes to a better bike ride. By now you’ve all probably read that my problem was a rubbing brake pad on my rear wheel that was basically giving me tons of resistance for the 45 minutes I rode. Not a good day. I’m better now though.

Day 31 – 1 Hour Endurance

Totally rained out. A huge thunderstorm moved through the DFW Metroplex from about 5-8 PM so there was no chance of getting a ride in. I don’t have a trainer so I couldn’t even fall back on that. Oh well.

Day 32 – 1.5 Hour Endurance with 4×8 Intervals

Basically a repeat of Day 30 and I was really looking forward to this ride. The wind was blowing which would make intervals 2 and 4 very difficult but overall it was a great ride. Interval 1 was so-so because it was my first one but interval 3 felt great. The section of the trail I was on was kind of flattish for interval 3 so I was able to maintain speeds over 18 mph with brief periods at 20 mph. That’s a big deal for me.

My nether regions are back to feeling good on the bike after starting back on a chamois cream. I’ve always used Paceline Butt’r so that’s what I went back to. Feels great. I wore my new Performance Bibs today and did notice on the right side they seemed to scrunch up right on the inside of my upper leg that caused a little discomfort but nothing major. I bought’em a little tight so that might be why. I’m hoping as I lose more weight they’ll fit me pretty good for a while.

I also moved my saddle back about a 1/4 inch and that has seemed to help too. Not sure if it’s psychological or not but I really felt I could climb better with the saddle a little further back.

Here are today’s numbers:

Total Time (h:m): 1:19
Total Distance: 19.88 miles
Avg Speed: 15.1 mph

Like I said in my last Century Training Series post I’m only going to be posting about my century training on Monday’s and Thursdays. Reading about my training is probably boring enough as it is but asking you to do it everyday would be like me asking you to sit through reruns of Al Trautwig doing Tour de France commentary on Versus. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Today’s re-cap will cover Days 23, 24 and 25.

Day 23 – 1.5 Hour Overall Endurance with 4×8 Intervals

I’m finally getting the hang of the intervals and actually enjoy doing them. With the 9 mile (or so) loop around White Rock Lake I can get two eight minute intervals in per lap with each followed by an eight minute recovery. I haven’t felt too great over the last few days and it kind of showed in my workout because I wasn’t able to ride the intervals too hard. I probably averaged about 17-17.5 mph on each interval and 13 mph during the recovery. My last interval was pretty good but I had to deal with a big Hummer that was in front of me that couldn’t pass a rider it was following. That caused me to slow down a couple of times but I was able to pick my speed back up soon after. The numbers were:

Total Time (h:m): 1:30
Total Distance: 23.21 miles
Avg Speed: 15.47 mph

My biggest problem on this ride was my new bibs or rather my discomfort in my new bibs. After an hour I was totally uncomfortable with what felt like some rubbing around the edge of the chamois. Even though these new bibs are much lighter than my old ones (and the chamois isn’t as dense) I’m not totally convinced the problem is the bibs. I’m sure they still need to get broken in but I think the real problem is my gargantuan size buttocks (it’s funnier if you say that in your best Forest Gump impersonation). With my super-sized rear, combined with the new bibs, I believe I need to take a close look at my saddle. The saddle I have is a Vetta Lite Gel and is the original that came with my bike 15 years ago. If would probably come as no surprise either that I had half as much rear then as I do now. I’ve put off looking for a new saddle for quite a while but think I may need to give it a shot again. I say again because I attempted to get my sit bones measured at a Trek store in Jacksonville, FL last year and the employee couldn’t figure out how to work the fit board. This is going to have to be a priority for me next week. If you have suggestions I’m all ears.

Day 24 – 1 Hour Endurance

I was really surprised to get this ride in because it was threatening rain all day. It actually turned out quite nice but was humid again. Luckily I remembered my headband today and didn’t have to deal with sweat in my eyes like Day 23. I did a quick 15 minute warm up and then settled into a nice and steady 15-16 mph pace for an hour. This is a very simple ride that should have been pretty easy but, again, I really felt like my legs were heavy. They’ve felt that way for that last several rides. I maintained the pace for an hour but I just think it was harder than it should have been. The numbers were:

Total Time (h:m): 1:00
Total Distance: 15.64 miles
Avg Speed: 15.64 mph

It was Wednesday so there were several large “packs” of riders out at White Rock Lake today. I was passed several times by groups with six or more riders and saw a few guys outfitted in matching kits. I didn’t get a close look so I don’t know if they were part of team or not. Maybe they just enjoyed dressing alike so they could bask in their poserness (is that a word?). Lots of Cevelo TT bike sightings the last two rides too. Kinda weird.

I almost witnessed a pretty bad wreck too. It was only avoided by pure luck of the lady who was cut off…by her son. I was done with the hour long endurance ride and was slowly spinning back to my car. A lady was riding a road bike in front of me with her son (maybe 10?) on a mountain bike on her right. For whatever reason her son decided to move from her right all the way to the left side of the road by cutting in front of her. As the situation unfolded in front of me I was really surprised Mom didn’t end up flat on the pavement. As the son cut across her front wheel she slowed and turned to the right to avoid clipping his rear wheel and barely manged to get her right foot un-clipped and on the ground otherwise it would have been ugly. I slowed and asked if she was OK and she said yes and that they were still learning. I’m just glad she didn’t smack the asphalt and that there weren’t any riders coming in the opposite direction because he went all the way to the left side of the road. Hope he learned a lesson.

Day 25 – 1.5 Hour Overall Endurance with 4×8 Intervals

Today was a terrible day on the bike. Five minutes into the ride I knew it wasn’t right. The last several rides my discomfort in the saddle had been steadily getting worse and today I had had enough. I did one loop of White Rock Lake, even tried one interval, and had to call it quits. I couldn’t ride more than a couple of minutes without having to stand up off the saddle or try and adjust my shorts.

Something just isn’t right with either my shorts or saddle. I’m leaning towards the saddle because I’ve worn a different pair of bibs or shorts each of the last three days with the same discomfort.

Not how I wanted to go into the weekend.

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.