Century Training Series: Days 40, 41, 42 & 43 (Week 6 Re-Cap)
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.
Read MoreCentury Training Series: Days 37, 38 and 39
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.
Read MoreWeatherChannel.com and Steaming Piles of Horse Dung Suck
Yesterday was my first ride this week because of having two rest days in this weeks schedule. I was really itching to get back on the bike even though it was only an easy 30 minute spin session. The physical act of riding was uneventful so I won’t talk about that. I would like to talk about weatherchannel.com, horses and group-ride Wednesday.
Anemometer=Wind Bird
White Rock Trail here in Dallas is a multi-use trail and you’ll see cyclists, runners, walkers, and roller-bladders on it all the time. The far northern section of the trail also sees use by horseback riders but they stay off to the side of the trail for the most part. Recently though, and yesterday was a prime example, these equestrian wannabees have decided they’re going to ride Mr. Ed on the trail and let him dump a huge pile of steaming crap down a 20 foot section of trail. Come on. At least have the common courtesy to get off the trail before letting your horse clog the trail for the rest of us. Before you know it your leisurely ride has turned into a full-blown obstacle course with dirty wheels and copious amounts of crap-stink as your reward for nailing a pile/log of horse dung. That’s awesomeness you can’t buy.
Fonzie=White Tshirt Coolness
With it being group-ride Wednesday, I also saw all the poseurs dressed to kill in full team kits on their racer bikes. The really cool ones were the dudes sporting full kit and time trial bikes. In one spot I saw a group of no less than six dudes flying in paceline formation while sporting full kits and TT bikes. I’ll admit that I was blown away by their awesomeness. I even saw a group of four ladies doing the same thing about 10 minutes later. Which reminds me of the chick I saw last Saturday down on the trail. She was riding a sweet looking pink Tri bike. Being a real dude I’m OK with pink and even have a couple of pink shirts but I could never ride a pink bike. This girl though rode it hard which is kinda like cool if you think about it. The pinkness tempts you to think or say something about it. I bet she hopes you do because when you blows past you she’ll yell, “Go get your own pink bike you girlie man!” Heck, most of the girls I see down at the trail would own me any day of the week on a bike.
What did I wear yesterday? I walked the line between Fred-dom and Poseur-like. You could call it ‘Freseur’ (not to be confused with Friseur). That means I combined the qualities of both into the total package of manly (or non-manly) cycling. I started with simple black bibs followed with a low quality, all-white, jersey. Nothing like the contrast of black and white in cycling fashion. After getting my black cycling shoes on I remembered that I had new gloves for today. And they were…black. I’m not sure I could have planned it any better. I looked like something out of an epic old school cycling mag or a model in a White House | Black Market catalog. Then I remembered that I actually look like Jabba The Hutt while dressed in spandex and barely stifled a laugh before donning my brain pan and shoving off.
Read MoreCentury Training Series: Days 33, 34, 35 & 36 (Week 5 Re-Cap)
Day 33 – Rest Day
Not much to be said about that. I considered riding anyway because I had missed a day earlier in the week due to rain but decided against it so I didn’t compromise my Saturday morning ride.
Day 34 – 3 Hour Endurance Pace Ride
I woke up a little before 7 AM and headed on down to White Rock Lake to get this ride in. The morning was just beautiful and the temp was still in the lower 80s when I started. There were a lot of folks out this morning doing their riding, running, rollerblading and walking. There even looked to be some kind of running race going on but I missed most of it because it looked like it had started early.
This ride was fairly simple – ride at endurance pace (15 mph) for 3 hours. I’d done this same length of ride just a couple of weeks earlier so I knew I could do it. After a 15 minute warm up I settled into a good rhythm and went to it. Everything went really good but after about an hour the wind started to pick up from the South and that made my Southbound leg around the lake a little difficult on some of the exposed points. I was really happy with the way I attacked the three or four hills that I see in each loop. I did notice that after several laps I couldn’t maintain the same speed I did initially but I can tell I’m getting better at riding them. I brought a cliff bar with me this time and had it at the 1.5 hour point. Immediately after that I rode pretty good (could have been psychological) but the 2 hour to 2.5 hour time frame was pretty hard.
After I was done I felt really good about the ride and am happy with the numbers. While I didn’t ride 50 miles during my timed endurance portion, if I was to add on my warm up I would be over the half-century mark. Here are the numbers:
Total Time (h:m): 3:10
Total Distance: 48.4 miles
Avg Speed: 15.28 mph
Day 35 – 1.5 Hour Endurance Pace Ride
This is the same ride as Day 34 but for only half the time. Instead of waiting until the evening to ride I decided to ride early and am glad I did because it got HOT later in the day. One bad thing about the ride though was that the wind was brutal. Straight out of the South but blowing hard. It made it quite difficult on portions of the loop but I just grinded it out. Saw lots of riders again this morning. Here are the numbers:
Total Time (h:m): 1:30
Total Distance: 23 miles
Avg Speed: 15.3 mph
Day 36 – Rest Day (Week 5 Re-Cap)
Today is Monday and the standard rest day. The Century Training Plan I’m following also has tomorrow as a rest day so I should be well-rested for Wednesday’s ride. I know I need the rest but I don’t feel like I need two days off.
The mileage numbers and measurements for this week are below. I’m about 23 miles short of what I should have been for the weekly mileage due to a rain day but I’m still happy with the numbers. My measurements seem to be fluctuating a bit and frustrate me. I really thought I’d start seeing change changes in my girth by this point but I haven’t seen anything significant. It seems like I’m holding within a half inch on all measurements with some up and some down. The next several weeks should tell me a lot though because my Saturday rides will see me really raising the bar on the mileage with this Saturday calling for a 4 hour ride. I’d like to find someplace other than White Rock Lake to do it so if any of you readers are in Dallas and can suggest a safe, low traffic route I’d like to hear about it.
Here are this weeks mileage numbers:
Total Time: (h:m): 5:59
Total Distance: 91.3
Avg Speed: 15.2 mph
Total Training Mileage (since 4-Jul-09): 509.87
Measurements changes since last week:
Neck: +.5 in
Chest: -.5 in
Left Bicep: -.25 in
Right Bicep: +.25 in
Waist: +.5 in
Left Thigh: -.5 in
Right Thigh: -1 in
Left Calf: -1 in
Right Calf: 0
New Gloves
After finishing my ride on Sunday morning (Day 35) my gloves finally gave up the ghost with one of the seams giving way. The seam had actually given away a while ago but it finally came all the way loose today. I can’t argue with how they’ve performed because they were a cheap pair of Nashbar gloves that have probably seen well over 1000 miles of riding. They needed replacement a long time ago but I try to make stuff last as long as possible (maybe I’m just cheap). I ended up going to the local Performance Store and they had several gloves on sale. I opted for the Performance Century Gel Glove which cost me $12.99. I know they aren’t a name-brand glove but compared to some of the name-brands that were on sale the Century Gel seemed to fit better and had better padding. We’ll see how they go and I’ll probably do a long-term review to let you know how they work out.
Read MoreCentury Training Series: Days 30, 31 and 32
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
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