New Territory

I'm coming out. I've went off the deep end and got a coach for my cycling addiction. As of November 1, Robert Panzera will be guiding me through the maze of information that I will apply to a road racing schedule next year(2010). There is so much information out there on training. I have numerous books by Joel Friel, Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrong, etc. To be honest, I love reading, but I have a business to run and I just don't have time to read through all of this information enough to make an educated training program. My goals with Robert are to have him focus me in on the important stuff. I think periodization is what all coaches are basing annual training programs off of and I don't think Robert's will be any different. I have an account on Training Peaks. Robert and I will use this as an interface for my workouts prior to and after with results from the garmin 705 entered.

I chose Robert as a coach based on his education, dedication to be involved on a daily basis, and his local involvement in Cyclo Vets. He lives here in San Diego and is very accesible as far as coaching questions and conversations go. I'm looking forward to this next step. I've been feeling great lately on the bike and I think coaching in preparation for next year will be a great thing. My goals and Robert's are similar in that he is not only coaching, but teaching the methods of training program development and nutritional information.

So, now you know. My unfair advantage has been revealed!

Excellent Ride Today - 60 Miles

Did a 60 mile easy paced ride this am. This was probably the first planned and executed easy ride. I figured this was in order after the Ranchos Ride on Saturday. I kept my heart rate down below the 80% of max for most of the ride and only his zone 5 for two minutes out of the three hour plus trek.

Did have a Pit Bull try to attack me out on Bandy Canyon Road, prior to reaching San Pasqual Valley Road. Once on San Pasqual and heading up 78 into Ramona, I hit 20 mph head winds due to the light santa ana winds coming in from the desert.

Concentrated on eating enough and drinking. Took a couple bars and some "sports beans". I ate one bar, sports beans and four bottles of water/poweraide. Couldn't get myself to eat that second bar. I need to get some gel or gu. The first bar was okay, but I just couldn't get a second bar down.

Did the easy ride in an attempt to let my body burn fat, as opposed to burning carbs that I was intaking. By keeping my heart rate down, I should be able to get this last 5-7 pounds off. I'm trying to get down to 180. Cheers.

Ranchos Ride Today

Went out on the Ranchos Saturday Ride today. Very challenging ride. I showed 4400' of climbing @ 60 miles, averaging 18mph. Went up Lake Wholford climb and Cole Grade. Although I have been up Lake Wholdford before, Cole Grade was new to me. New climbs in the club environment are always very challenging as I don't know where the top of the hill is. Pacing is pretty challenging for this reason. I was able to do pretty well. This ride was a quicker pace than 2 weeks ago when I initially went with Ranchos. I was probably 6 or 7th to the top, but within a couple hundred yards. Regroup at the top and waited for the back end for 5 mins or so. Continued on to Lilac and then took a right on Circle R, then left on Champagne and back to the mall. Most of the group took a right on Circle R to do 80 plus miles. This was a little more than I wanted to do, especially at that pace, so I took a left with a few other riders and headed back to the mall.

These rides are pretty epic by exertion standards. The ride two weeks ago was 110% effort that left me cramping at the end of the ride. I avoided that today by just riding my ride at my pace. Two weeks ago, I was up front all day and felt the urge to hammer every hill with the faster guys. I had never cramped before on a ride. I attribute it to exertion levels. Today's ride was a 90% ride. I backed off a little today, as I was feeling drained after the last outting with Ranchos. I do find their rides similar to how I felt earlier this year when I started riding with NCCC. It's good to get out of my comfort zone every once in awhile, so right now I'll try to ride with them every other week.

I've been re-evaluating goals all the time, trying to get a realistic set of goals that will carry me to the final result, of something epic. Lately, I've been thinking of a road racing schedule next year with the mountain bike race in Prescott as well. Of course, this is more of a journey than a destination, so my daily and weekly rides are definite medicine for this biking desease that I seem to have. Taking sunday off to relax and do a longer ride on Monday.

Race Across the Sky

Went and saw "Race Across the Sky" last night. It's a documentary on the Leadville 100 MTB race. 10k elevation at Leadville, 14k of climbing and 100 miles on a mountain bike. It was a good show. I was expecting a little more of regular people's stories instead of Lance, but Lance is what sells. From the looks of the show, Lance must've had a motorcycle next to him or right behind him with a camera for all 100 miles. The race is definitely grueling. Lots of climbing, but mostly double track. As a matter of fact I didn't see any single track during the film.

Anyway, a good show none the less. When you're into biking as much as I am, you could sit and watch a slide show and be entertained if it was about biking. I can't say that I have any aspirations to do this race, but I am doing the Whiskey Off Road Race in Prescott, AZ next year. The Whiskey has some double track during it's 50 miles, but has a lot of single track, which is what I like. Elevation is much lower in Prescott (5200') than Leadville, so I can see the difficulties with the Leadville vs Prescott. Lance made a comment during the file that "once you blow, there is no recovery above ten thousand feet". This has got to be true.


Short one, gotta run, I mean ride!

East County Ride w/ Cyclo-Vets

Went out to Rancho San Diego this morning to ride with Cyclo-Vets. I've been in the mood to try something new lately and looking at different groups to see where I'm at fitness-wise. This ride was a little different than anything I've done on a bike. It was a structured workout day. Interval training mixed in with what Rob called the "Anarchy" portion of the ride towards the end. We've all read about interval training, and I must have 5 books that talk about it, but it's pretty hard to go out and practice what you read until you ride with a group that specifically does the workouts. This time of year the group was working on strenth training. While climbing, we were doing intervals that would keep us between 50 and 60 rpm, while keeping our heart-rate below 80% max (my max is 188 observed). Next section was one-leg climbs. I wasn't too sure if we were sticking to the 80% rule and rpm, I was having a challenge of a time riding with one foot clicked in, then switching to the other foot on a narrow road. Once to the top of the hill (approx 3k of climbing), we re-grouped and headed off for the "Anarchy" section. This was remniscent of the Ranchos ride last weekend. All out descent and sprints on the flats. It was a good workout and I felt comfortable with the riders that I was grouped with. I think they were all very competent. We took a break at Starbucks for about 30 mins and then out for a 18 mile loop (normal pace ride). Only a small group did this last 18 miles, as the orginal group seemed huge to me. Back up to the hills for a good climb, then a descent back down to the start/finish. I had plenty of energy and felt good all day. No bonking or legs hurting. I've been impressed with my fitness improvments for quite awhile now.

I can see where the structured ride will definitely make for improvement on the bike. I have been focusing on building miles for a long time now and I think the structured training will do me good. The only negative side of this ride was the location. Driving down to Rancho California every Sunday is quite a stretch. I think I can incorporate this training into my own rides with their group ride a couple times/month.

So, total mileage today was 60. Although I know that my Garmin is off when it comes to calories, it was at 3800 for the day. A good exertion day.

Palomar Mountain

I had nothing big planned at work on Monday (Columbus Day), so I thought it a good day to take one of those longer rides. I wanted to incorporate Palomar into my ride, but didn't want to drive over to the hill, then ride up and down and drive home. I planned a route that would take me from my house, in Poway, through Escondido and Valley Center by Harrah's casino and up to Palomar Mountain. The route would take me up Lake Wohlford Road, which was my demise about seven years ago on a ride with Ranchos Cycle Club.

I left the house @ 7:15AM and made it to the top of Palomar at 10:20. No speed records were set, based on the fact that I was planning on 80 miles with 8500 feet of climbing. I made it up the mountain to find fog and cold. It was so cold that I had to stop a couple times on the way down the hill to warm up. I figured it would be cold when I left the house, so good thing I brought the ear and arm warmers. Still left my legs freezing on the way down, but it was very pleasant to be getting warmer on a 13 mile descent as I went from 5000+ elevation back down to near sea level.

The roads getting over to Palomar are terrible as far as traffic is concerned. Single lane with bumpy roads and not a big bike lane if any. The climbing was a good workout, but I would definitely change the route next time.

The first time going 80 miles was okay. I felt good until the last 5 or so miles. My legs were just sapped. I averaged 15mph, which isn't too bad considering the climbing. It took 5:22 to complete the ride. I would like to think that if I had done a 100 miles with half the climbing I could have completed in 5 hours total. I think this is reasonable all things considered.

Anyway, the new Felt frame is all together with the Shimano Ultegra. It's a nice bike. I am selling it, as I don't have use for two nice bikes. It was hard enough to get the Trek dialed in, I don't want to go through that again. I actually think the Felt frame is better looking than the Trek. One of the main reasons I'm not going to switch all my Campy stuff over, is the Trek is Made in the USA, but the Felt is made in Taiwan. It's the small things right. Here's a picture of the Felt. It is already sold to one of the guys in the NCCC group.

Tried Something Different Today

Since Joe and Chip of NCCC were off doing other things this weekend, I decided to try a ride with Ranchos Cycle Club here in San Diego. Their ride starts pretty close to my house, so it's convinient. I rode or tried to ride with Ranchos about 7 or 8 years ago. It wasn't pretty. I was dropped on the first climb (Lake Wohlford Road). They were kind enough to wait at the top, but I was done. I couldn't believe how fast they were climbing. I had pretty good strength, but no stamina to climb continuously fast. One of my goals since I started riding again last year was to get in good enough shape to ride with these guys and be able to keep up. My rides with NCCC are great and they have pushed me to my current level of fitness, but I knen that Ranchos were just a faster group. I thought today would be a good day to try a ride with them, considering I'm in the best shape of my life.

It's a strange feeling to be the "new guy" at the group ride. Not knowing what to expect, I had a little anxiety. I kinda stick out in the parking lot before the start. Everyone notices that I'm riding a brand new Trek Madone and how did I get Campy Record on it? And how are those Record brakes gold lettered? There's always a guy that shows up on fancy equipment and can't ride worth a turd. I didn't want to be that guy. I was modest and explained how this was my first time out with that one exception along time ago and off we went.

I knew the route fairly well from riding with NCCC and had been on it a few times before. The first hill was Jesmond Dene about 12 miles from the start. I stayed mid pack and waited to see what was going to happen. To my surprise, people were falling off the sides and I was still in the front 4 with the top of the hill in sight. A couple guys stood up and started to hammer to the top. I didn't feel it appropriate to be the first one to the top of the first hill on the first ride with the club, so I stayed in the saddle and rode over the top as the third guy. I was pleasantly surprised that I could keep up with these guys, let alone get to the top of any hill in the front group. The next hill was West Lilac, a 5% climb of some distance. Once again I was up front and able to crest the hill as the third guy again. This continued and eventually, I was able to lead some hills or top in second place. These guys were moving at a pretty good pace. The average was about 2mph faster than NCCC with 57 miles.

Overall, it was great, as these guys pushed me harder than ever. Kinda like when I first started riding with NCCC. I felt spent every Saturday after the ride. Same thing today. I will continue to ride with NCCC and fit in a few rides with Ranchos over the next few months. Maybe that will change in the future.

Who woulda thunk that I could go hammer with the front of Ranchos! Pretty happy and ready to keep my fitness moving onward and upward. Cheers.

Tour de Poway

Did the metric century yesterday, Tour de Poway. Pretty good ride 4000' of climbing, 62 miles. It's a lot of terrain that I have been riding on a regular basis in the last month preparing for it. A couple guys from my regular ride group got together for the ride. It was great fun. Here's my observations on my performance over the last few months.

I haven't lost any more weight, still hovering between 188-192. My fitness has gotten much better on the bike. I seem to have more strength on the hills than all of the guys I ride with on a regular basis. It atleast appears to be so, maybe they are slacking off or something. I just visualize these guys behind me at the bottom of the hill and by the time I get to the top, they are gone. I sit up and soft pedal to wait for them. I don't do this on every hill, but can on most when I want. You have to remember that these are guys that I couldn't keep up with about 4-5 months ago. I'm still making progress every week, just from riding more than I used to. I am averaging 150 miles per week. It's actually pretty hard to do that much mileage when you figure in my work schedule and one or two mountain bike rides per week. I would say that one mtb ride per week is all I've been doing the last few weeks.

Anyway, point being, I'm not going to change much of what I'm doing for training until I really plateau. My goals are still something epic, but I have come to realize, just as we are all taught at some point, to make realistic goals. At this point, weekly rides and preparing for a century are where I'm focusing my energy. I would like to do a century in 5 hours with a good group of guys. I figure it is very feasible. 20mph for 5 hours is very realistic with a good group.

Should have a couple good pics from the Tour de Poway in the next week or so. Meanwhile, here's a pic Inna, myself and the new ride.