The Adventures of Franz » Furnace Creek 508

I did my last tough training ride today, before really tapering for the upcoming Furnace Creek 508 event in one week. Last weekend I finished the two day Everest Challenge and should be still recovering, but I did a 117 mile ride today with 7,000 feet of climbing, averaging 17.4 mph. That brings my total climbing for the past four weeks to 108,482 feet, which I am sure is a new record for me. While I was on the ride, I did push hard going up Old La Honda since I had not timed myself up there for 5 years. I did beat my old PR by close to two minutes, which made me feel good.

This chart shows my climbing during the 18 week training program (click to enlarge). You can see I am above both my plan and above last year for the same period.

For the total miles bike I am also above plan and almost the same as last year during the same period.

These are several of the rides I completed in the past 6 weeks, including the recent Everest Challenge a week ago. Some of these were on back to back days.

Furnace Creek 508 Training
Day	Miles	Climb	Time (rolling/total)	Avg/Max HR	MPH (rolling/total)
Training Ride on 9/27
61 feet/mile
9/27	117	7,080	6:45/7:14	140/174	17.4/16.1
Everest Challenge 9/20 and 9/21
141 feet/mile
9/20	122	15,468	9:07/9:20*	142/163	13.5/13.1
9/21	86	13,570	7:18/7:30*	133/154	11.8/11.5
* includes the non-timed portion final descent for each day. Race times were 8:26:40 and 6:21:08 for a total of 14:47:48
Training Rides on 9/13 and 9/14
104 feet/mile
9/13	88	8,360	5:38/6:13	138/167	15.6/14.2
9/14	86	9,900	6:39/7:54	125/158	12.9/10.9
Training Rides on 9/6
94 feet/mile
9/6	135	12,800	9:22/10:58	134/167	14.4/12.1
300 Warriors Race on 8/16/08
96 feet/mile
8/16	99 miles	9,500	6:20/6:30	148/168	15.5/15.2