slowdad

Planning for Fitness

So, the comeback is complete.  I'm officially declaring it.  Perhaps it's been complete for a while but I've been mentally living in a state where I'm "Getting back in Shape, Just a Few more Pounds to Lose" 

Now that I'm a bit sick, and have taken a few days off, I think now's a good time to plan.  But I need some help and input from all you armchair, and real, coaches out there.

I've completed my Marathon, done the double ski marathons, done my first real bike race, and have stabilized my weight about 2 pounds over where I was in University when I was stressed out and staying up way too late every night.

So it's time to establish a baseline, and plan to work my way into "race shape" for the fall.  

I've been in this zone before.  Not for long, and not often, but long ago I had it.

Race Shape is not about feeling good, it's not about crossing the line with more to spare and giving the cameras a wave.  It's about being able to suffer for an hour, unleash the beast, no holds barred, "I'm coming for you", "is this all you've got", collapse across the line, kind of fitness.

It doesn't get easier, you just get faster.  While I don't expect I'll get far out of the middle of the pack I do want to be in as good a shape as my schedule, and wife, will allow.

The Goal

• Be in peak cycling form in October, with September and November also being good months.
• I'd like to be consistently in the top half of the M3 cyclocross races during this time.  I know it's bad to have a goal relative to others, but it's the only way I can think to measure it at the moment.  Or I could say, I don't want to get lapped by Tom.

The Rough Plan

May

• Build up to consistent long weekend riding and weekly mileage, does 200 km sound about right?
• Hit the gym 2-3 times a week for upper body, leg strength, and core workouts
• Do a couple long intervals once a week 10-15 minutes
• ~44 hours riding?

June

• Continue with the aerobic base building, as much riding as I can fit in.
• Continue with the gym workouts in the mornings, upper body and core.
• Long intervals twice a week
• ~50 hours riding?

July

• Increase Training intensity with more threshold intervals during the long rides
• Increasing intensity over the month, more 5 minute intervals, hills, 
• Focus on core and stretching, in the gym
• ~55 hours riding?

August

• Start the "Time Crunched Cyclist" plan, Weeks 1-4
• Lots of intervals.  Lots of suffering
• Morning Hills with the Lapdogs
• Pass on the gym
• Morning CX rides in the park to practice some skills.
• ~55 hours riding?

September

• Continue with Time Crunched Plan - Weeks 5-8
• Hit the gas, max Training Volume around the second week.
• ~40 hours

October

• Race
• Recover
• Race
• ~30 hours

November

• Have fun racing
• ~25 hours??

December

• Off
• Some long cross country skiing

Over the next few days I'd like to flesh out the details of this plan and build it into a usable schedule of training rides.

I've never made up a training plan for cycling, so I need some help. If you have a particular insight, suggestion, or link I should read, please leave me a comment.  I'd really appreciate it.  After all, I'm just making this up.

2 Rides and a Break

I'd rather be riding, except when I don't want to be.

It's wierd, I'm having another mini funk.  Maybe its the cool weather, or maybe it's just the fact that the past two days have involved kid duties that got in the way of early evening riding. Or I just need to rest.

This past weekend I didn't ride quite as much as I was expecting. A total of about 5 hours and a smidge.

The first ride was fine.  Back home from the 5 Peaks race.  66ish kilometers, not too hard, not too easy, into a bit of a headwind the whole way. Here's the route. With the usual stop lights etc, I'd say the 2:32 time wasn't too bad.  I felt pretty good the entire way, having not done anything the day before.

It also included a climb up the escarpment.  About 700 meters at about 10% grade.  

View Larger Map

I didn't hit it as hard as I had planned, but it was an ok climb none-the-less. I got into a low gear pretty quickly unfortunately. 

The ride home was uneventful, if a bit tedious.  No crazy stories to tell.

The next day was a bit more interesting.

There was an easy club ride scheduled, and I headed out to meet up at the LBS.  I was looking forward to an easy pace stuck in the group as it was cool, and, tut tut, looking like rain. So I headed down town.

And then, much to my absolute non-surprise, I flatted, for what seemed to be the millionth time this season. (Actually I think it's the 5th, 4th on the road.)  And it was the front, and I don't remember hitting anything. So there I was, frantically changing my tube, something I'm getting better at, but I lost at least 5 minutes, maybe 10, and was sure I'd miss the group.

Sure enough, I turned the corner at Spadina and there wasn't a cyclist to be found.

So I chased, or at least tried to.

I knew they were heading east, and while I wasn't sure exactly where they were headed, there's really not many options for good roads.  So I picked Queens Quay, headed east into some stiff headwinds, and made my way towards Scarborough.

The wind wasn't helping, I was getting buffeted around, and my legs weren't feeling great.  I had trouble keeping up the pace.  The HR graph is all over the map.  I never did see the group.

After 1.5 hours of riding, including my ride from home, I decided I should think about turning around, just as I did so I thought I felt a wobble. 

I stopped and checked my rear tire.

And then I was pretty sure I felt a wobble.

I stopped and checked my cleat.

And then I was very confident there was a wobble.

I stopped and was sure my pedal was loose for some reason.  It wasn't.

And then my foot was surely wobbling.

I looked down and saw that the left crank bolt was about to fall off.

Seeing as how I had no appropriately sized allen key, I hand tightened the bolt, rode a few kilometers, stopped and hand tightened it again. And Again, and again.

The ride home was nice in that the wind was with me, but now I was really having trouble getting going, getting the HR up, and subsequently I got fairly cold.

By the time I got home I was fairly cranky.  (Lol, I slay myself)

And then I read my email, the one on the phone I had with me the whole time...

The ride had been canceled due to weather.

And so, I've taken Monday and Tuesday off, watched some cycling videos, done some extra stretching, and tried to get back on track to some earlier bed times, and earlier wakeups.  Looking back it's probably the staying up late that's getting to me.

Off to bed...

Best Jens Voigt Picture Ever

 This is, quite possibly, the best picture ever captured of Jens Voigt. Well, the best picture I've seen on flickr.  I'm sure there are a couple of Jens pulling Ulrich up a mountain somewhere.

sjaradona has captured the man who makes Chuck Norris look like a wet noodle doing what he does best, making people suffer on his wheel.

And, good news, the large size picture is available for your desktop wallpaper.  

I imagine that in this picture he's yelling at his legs to STFU.

5 Peaks Races = Family Fun

This past weekend the slowdad family went out to the first 5 Peaks race of the year at the Dundas Conservation area near Hamilton.  I was the designated spectator/photographer, as usual and captured a couple of nice pictures, my favorite being the one above.

My lovely wife has, once again, signed her and the kids up for the entire race series this summer, and has expressly forbidden me from either entering, or doing anything else on these days.  I'd sorta like to run one, but I'll trade these days as a soigneur for the permission to race the bike in the fall.

The thing I like most about these races is that they have the kids races at the start.  They're fun, fairly short, and the kids really look forward to them.  It's really teaching them that running, and racing, are very normal things to do on a weekend.  As a Dad, it's fun to see them hammering and then, at the finish, being happy with whatever position they came in.

"6th is the best place, it's almost 4th!"

The other great thing is that they're relatively small, low key events compared to the average road race.  They have a nice feel to them and if you get lucky, you might have a shot at an age group podium.

Unfortunately this year, in my opinion, the race series here in Southern Ontario got off to a bit of a rocky start, no pun intended.

The race location was fabulous.  I highly recommend the Dundas Conservation Area as a place to go run, or ride, and the usual Kicking Horse coffee was a welcome beverage.  Huge thanks to them for sponsoring stuff like this.

As I said however, operationally things were a bit bumpy, as it appears that some new people are running the events.  I'm sure it'll get sorted out but the effect was that it wasn't as good as last year.

My observations:

• Order more porta-johns than you think you need.  5 is never enough where runners and their supporters are involved.  I'm guessing that there are now more flies congregating in the nearby bushes because of this.
• Having wave starts, with 30 seconds between waves, is not nearly enough. When one wave has barely cleared the startline, ease off on the horn.
• Invest in a megaphone.  The dirty traffic cone, while not projecting your voice, also gives you an odd dirty ring around your lips.  It's disconcerting.
• Get some music.  The audio system, combined with tunes, creates atmosphere.
• My kids are sad there were no kids shirts, which there were last year for signing up for all the kids races.  Sad kids make for angry parents. My understanding is that they've now been ordered.
• Don't wait till after the race, to give out swag, and make everyone line up for it.  That's what bib pickup time is for.
• Oh, and have more than 2 people handing out bibs while the other volunteers stand around drinking Kicking Horse coffee, figuring out how to change the channels on their radios so they can have fun private conversations.

That all being said, these races are much more fun by far than almost any other race we go to.  Other organizers can learn a lot from these.

I'll see everyone out there next time, and if you want me to take your picture, just let me know prior to the race.  

Bike Porn - Vitess with Lightweight Wheels

 Yesterday I grabbed a bike from Julien at Vitess for a bit of an early morning photo shoot. He had a pair of Lightweight carbon wheels on a demo bike and wanted a couple of shots of it. In exchange he bought me a coffee and the best croissant this side of Yonge Street.

I've posted a couple other photos from the set up on my Vitess set on flickr

The light didn't work out the best for this particular set of shots, but I got a couple good ones.  I'd love to do more of this type of thing in case anyone wants me to take some photos for them.  I want to refine my technique. Or develop a technique...

I didn't have a scale in my back pocket but this bike is crazy light.  The only thing that would make it lighter would be to switch it to SRAM Red and run it single speed.  If it had pedals I would have jumped on and rode away.

P2A Recovery

Someday I hope to be able to say that I've had a quick recovery from a race.  I think that I'll do better with cycling than running that's for sure but we'll see what happens in the fall.

I mainly write this post as some kind of reminder to my future self as I regularly go back and read old posts in order to find some shred of either glory or amusing text.

Dear Future Self,

Congrats on your first Paris to Ancaster Race.  Coming in 85th in your age group was not too bad.  Right on the 25th percentile.  Good job.

Please remember that you only got in a couple solid weeks of riding prior to the race. Actually 10 rides in two weeks after running the Around the Bay where your aerobic fitness turned out to be not too bad. Apparently you're a better cyclist than a runner as you were in the 58th percentile in that race.

But you can do better.  Next year make sure you build a strong aerobic base over the winter while doing some ski marathons, and then, hit the gas in late Feb and form a minor peak for the race. You could also do to get yourself in wave two and ride a little harder on the straight stretches.

It's taken you 3 days to feel fully recovered.  Next time remember to get more and better sleep following the race.  It wouldn't hurt to eat more properly afterwards as well.  We're not sure Tom liked the cold Tim Hortons soup.

It's day 4 of recovery as we write this and you're taking a day off after 3 days of easy rides.  The legs feel good but you should have stretched far more and invested in that massage.  Don't be such a cheap bastard.  You can barely touch your toes.

It's go time.  From here on in the singular goal is to prep for the fall cyclocross series.  Let's not screw this up.  Train hard, eat well, don't forget to get the kids out on their bikes, and hit the gym.  

Let me know how it goes.

Sincerely, 

Current Self, AKA Past Self

2010 Paris to Ancaster Route

Here are a couple of routes from Garmin Connect where people recorded the Paris to Ancaster Route on their fancy devices.  

Hero Shot - Paris to Ancaster

 How's this for random?  Tanya, a Lapdog Cycling club member, took this shot of another Lapdog whom I just happened to be passing on the final climb.  Click the photo to be taken to her photo stream.

It appears the road is flat here.  If it is it's just after the climb, or, the camera angle is playing tricks.

Either way, I'm well into the red at this point and don't remember a whole lot, and likely was making sounds remarkably similar to a steam locomotive that is having trouble hauling it's cargo.

2010 Paris to Ancaster

Now it's officially over.  I've washed the bike and hammered back a bag of Sweet Chili Heat Doritos as a reward for racing Paris to Ancaster.

This was my first time doing the race, and it definitely won't be my last.  I had a great time, as well as a few harrowing moments.

The morning started with the family up and ready early, peanut butter sandwiches made, and transformers procured for the drive to the start.  Tom joined us for the trip and the bikes were loaded up on top of the car.

Actually, the prep for the race started yesterday with a flight back from San Francisco, a replacement of my front derailleur, and the discovery that my left Campagnolo shifter wasn't working.  I've never had to rebuild a shifter, and after about 3 hours I finally got lucky and managed to pry everything into place with a screwdriver, my finger and a pair of vice grips.  I'm not sure what I did, but it shifts.

Anyhow, the morning started out fairly cold, at 3 degrees, but it felt warmer than that so I skipped the tights and went with shorts.  A good call in the end.  It warmed up about an hour into the race and I took off the vest and the arm warmers.

For some reason I was surprised to see so many people at the start. I hadn't done too much research on the race and so I wasn't sure what to expect.  There were riders of all shapes and sizes.  People on hybrids, mountain bikes, and cyclocross bikes.

I lined up in wave 3, which seemed to be the friendly wave, and took a position near the front.  When the horn went off I did my best to not get run over and get onto a wheel.

The first 15 minutes or so were very smooth, riding down a rail trail.  We even got a bit of a pace line going and kept the speed up.  And then we hit a hill and our little band shattered.

One thing I did learn on this is that I need to work on my clipping in and out of my pedals, and work on my bike handling skills.  After one muddy bit I jumped back on my bike, and headed down hill, I didn't manage to get clipped in, and in my panic I didn't get my hands on the brakes.  I went hurtling down the hill like a maniac until finally pulling it together before I hurt someone.

The last 2 hours were fun, with no section lasting for longer than maybe 5 minutes.  I was alone for most of it, moving past people, occasionally grabbing a draft.  It was kind of like a 2 hour time trial, not that I've ever done a time trial.

The ride basically went sort of like:

Rail trail - Stay in the groove and don't try any funny stuff.

Farmers Field - Enjoy the manure smell, and find some big mountain biker to protect you from the wind.

Country Road - Drink some Refresh, shift into the big ring, and get in the drops. (I rode in the drops!  Woo Hoo!)

Muddy Section - Ride until the group in front gets off their bikes.  Squeeze under large log.  

Try to get clipped in for the next 100 meters.

Repeat the above several times.

I am most proud of two things in this race.  The first was shouldering the bike and running by 10 or so people walking up and trying to ride up a short muddy hill.  That put me into the red but it was fun.

The second thing was riding up the final climb which I heard was fairly steep.  I was in my smallest gearing, barely getting grip with the tires, but I muscled it up, had my heart rate hit about 180, and went cross-eyed. I'd love to have a picture of that.

Laying down in the grass at the end of the race was the sweetest feeling I've had in a while.

When it was all over I managed 85th out of 323 in my age group.  I'll take that.

The day ended well when my kids decided to take their bikes over to the track after we got home.  They put on their little kid cycling jerseys and decided to do a team time trial.  The next phase is to teach them not to ride side by side.

Oh, and heres the HR data from the race.  I'm fairly happy with the 157 average as compared to my estimated threshold of 160 ish
 

The Night before Paris to Ancaster

• I flew back from California
• I replaced my front dérailleur
• I rebuilt my left campy shifter
• I re-rebuilt my left campy shifter
• I ate some muffins
• I went to bed...

Here's to no mechanicals tomorrow.