It is the final countdown to the Devil Mountain Double, which I will ride on Saturday. At this point all my training needs to be finished and what I do this week is more about tapering and trying to keep the edge. Yesterday I decided to not do the long distance training ride with the club because it would have been back to back 100 mile days and I felt it might do more harm than good. So instead I did the normal ride out of Sunshine Bicycle store with my friends who live in the area.

Because of the visit from John and family, I was not able to get in as much biking for a week. I mentioned in my last entry about doing a hot ride the day after they left that had a lot of climbing and miles. I continued to ride a lot during last week, including doing the Tierra Bella Century on the tandem on Saturday. It was not quite the most miles I have ridden in a week, but close. With the week being bookended with long rides, I ended up with 483 miles and 30,000 feet of climbing. This keeps me on plan for both miles and feet of climbing for my training program. The total miles I have put in is slightly above my training plan but well above what I did last year.

When looking at the feet of climbing, something more important than just miles when training for the DMD, I am well ahead of both last year and my training plan I established.

One aspect I hope will pay off is the training I did last week. In 2008 that week was spent in Atlanta to watch the Tour de Georgia. We went there after running the Boston Marathon. When I returned to California I tried to jam in some ridding, and maybe did too much the week of the DMD. This time I have a full week to recover. In 2007 you can see I biked over 400 miles the week of the DMD, which means 200 miles the days before the DMD. That was too much. This time I have moved the extra miles a week earlier.

It is a similar story with the feet of climbing.

All of this is mainly to give myself some confidence. I know that doing the DMD is going to be most difficult, no matter how much training I have done. It is a long ride with a lot of climbing. Last year I measured 206 miles with over 18,600 feet of climbing. I think it is the most difficult double century in California.

Last year I did the 206 miles in a total time of about 18 hours and 15 minutes. I looked at last year’s heart rate chart to see how I did at the midway point. At 103 miles, I had biked half the distance and more than half the climbing and had reached that at 12:10 pm, about 7.2 hours from the start (we started around 5:00 am). So if I was able to keep that pace for the second half I should have finished in 14.5 hours. Since I took nearly 4 additional hours, it is clear why I felt I did so poorly. Click on the graph to enlarge.

During the first half my average heart rate was 145, but you can see from the above chart I let it go into the red zone too often on some of the clmbs and even some of the flatter sections where I was trying to keep up with a paceline. I need to be smarter this time about monitoring my heart rate and drop off the pace line if necessary. I feel that if I keep hydrated, watch my heart rate and eating, I should be able to finish within 15 hours. That might not be a fantastic time, but more than 3 hours faster than I did it last year.

Categories: Devil Mountain Double, Training