They posted the results for last Saturdays Devil Mountain Double. I ended up coming in 31st place out of the 112 that were able to finish. Over 150 riders entered but many can not finish this most grueling event with 206 miles and 18,600 feet of climbing. I was very happy with my time considering only extremely fit riders enter this event. I may have been the only one my age to finish.

I posted a detailed analysis in a prior blog entry.

The times for the people I know and ride with:

• Gary F. 14:03
• Me 15:32
• Brian C. 16:21
• Lyresa P. 16:36
• Russ and Sheila S. 17:01 (on a tandem!)
• Kley C. 17:20
• Paul D. 18:30
• Uji Y. 18:30
• Art C. 19:33

Categories: Devil Mountain Double, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

I finished the very difficult Devil Mountain Double on Saturday. It is 206 miles with 18,600 feet of climbing. It is probably the most difficult double century in California. My final time was 15 hours, 32 minutes, a big improvement over last year

I was happy with my time since it was hot again. I got worried coming up Mines Road because of the heat and started to get a bad case of hot foot. There was a breeze this year that helped. I really focused on drinking all day, and took a lot of Endurolyte tablets. I was so worried about cramping again on the backside of Mt. Hamilton that I went up slower than I probably needed to, but I never did cramp anywhere on the ride.

I was also happy to make it to Norris Canyon, the last section, before dark. I don’t like biking on Crow Creek Canyon road in the dark due to all the traffic. I had carried my one pound light the entire day and could have got by with a small Cateye light.

I left the aero bars on the bike which was a good thing. It gave me an alternate position not only for my hands but when I am in the aero bars I get a different position on the saddle, which greatly helped to take some pressure off a tired butt. It was either that part of the body or my right foot that hurt the most.

This year I used my newer bike with only a double crank, but I had no big issue with the higher gearing. I would have preferred to climb up Sierra Road with a triple but the better handling of the newer bike was a benefit on the rest of the ride.

Summary

Here is a detailed comparison with doing the same event last year.

Time Comparison

This chart shows my arrival times into the various rest stops. You can see that for the first 115 miles, up to the junction cafe, I did almost the same between both years. Last year my times slowed down considerably due to cramping on the backside of Mt. Hamilton. Click the chart below to view enlarge.

Stopping Time Comparison

This shows a comparision between my stopping time between years. Times shown are in minutes. Most of the improvement in the total time was due to a signficant reduction in the amount of stopping time at the rest stops.

Last Time

I don’t plan on doing this event again. It is very difficult and takes out of you far too much. Since I had a difficult time last year, I wanted to do it again to see if I could do it right with better training and more of a focus on hydration during the event. Having accomplished that, I don’t feel a need to repeat it.

Categories: Devil Mountain Double, Ultra Distance Events
1 Comment »

Okay, I have finished my training program and I can’t avoid it any longer.. The extremely difficult Devil Mountain Double will start soon. At 5 am tomorrow we will start to ride in the dark towards Mt. Diablo for our first of many major climbs. I hope to finish the 206 miles in 15 hours, of which 7 hours will be climbing the 19,000 feet. It is not a question of what will hurt, but what will hurt the most.

The forecast for the inland area is a high of 89 degrees. Last year we had a similar heat wave and it caused most everyone to have serious cramping issues. We should also have some stiff winds, especially going over Patterson Pass. They put windmills there for a reason.

Yesterday I was trying to decide which bike to take. I have now decided to take the newer bike with only a double crankshaft. Unlike the recent Solvang Double, this is going to be a slog it out type of ride where just getting through will be the main focus. Although there may be times that I wish I had my triple, the new bike handles better and fits me better, and is lighter even with my aero bars attached. If I can finish in 15 hours, that will be more than 3 hours faster than how I did last year.

Trying the DMD with just a double crank may be a big mistake. Ask me tomorrow what What Hurts the Most!

Categories: Devil Mountain Double, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

One of the advantages of keeping lots of data in a training log is that I can look back at similar events and see how much I have improved. Improvement is not something that is normally associated with someone my age but in the cycling world I have been able to get some slight improvements over the past 7 years I have cycling.

I belive this has come about because I lost weight, did a better job of training, and improved my cycling skills. These factors have combined to more than offset the effects of aging.

I took a look at the Solvang Double century, something I have competed in three times. It is the same courses, but there are some variables, such as wind, that I can not fully account for. But comparing the three times, I get this comparision

From 2003 to 2007 I made only a 5 minute improvement in riding time, but took off an additional 20 minutes of stopping time. For the recent event, I took another 14 minutes off my riding time and even more off my stopping time. So from age 55 to age 60, I took off 1 hour and 19 minutes, of which 19 minutes was riding time and 1 hour stopping time.

The non-athelete might think that such an improvement is not signficant. To average that additional 1.1 mph means putting out an additional 14% power when you look at the effects of drag and resistance. Anyone who does any type of sport knows that even a few percent improvement is hard to achieve.

I am therefore pretty happy with the improvement I was able to achieve, while aging 5 years.

For the recent Solvang Double Century we had 47 riders who rode it for time and all started together. This group was made up of mostly the fastest cyclists. Another 400 or so riders did not want to be timed. I ended up coming in 20th place amongst those 47 riders. I believe I was the only one over 60 in the entire group of 47 riders. They do not have age groups so I am not sure. The riders in that group just looked a lot younger than myself.

Another event I looked at was the Davis Double. I have completed it twice with these results. It is a somewhat more difficult ride than Solvang.

I plan to ride Davis again this May and hopefully I can show some further improvement from last year. Before that I will be doing the Devil Mountain Double and hope to show a big improvement over last year when I didn’t do well.

I realize that old father time keeps marching and there will soon come the time when I am just happy that I have not decreased my performance as fast as others. We all need to appreciate what we have and know that all we can do is our best. There will always be others around us that are much better and some that are much slower. But if we are doing what we can, within our abilities, we can take pride in that. Today I received an email from a cycling friend who turned 50 in the past year. He said “If I’m able to do the things you do in ten years, I’ll be the happiest man on earth… You keep us young guys on our toes.”

Categories: Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

This blog entry has a lot of technical details so to to keep the reader from getting bored, I added some music tracks. Leading up the the Solvang Double I just didn’t feel I was in the same shape as last year, considering I announced to my buddies I was going to break 10:30. I kind of felt like I was “Over My Head”. The fast peleton train at the beginning reminding me of my favorite train song, “The City of New Orleans”, but keeping up with the fast pace often left me “Breathless”. The rough roads were not exactly “Good Vibrations”. Click the play button if you don’t like the music.

I guess I was in better shape than I thought because I ended up finishing with my best time ever for a Double Century. It was my third time to do the Solvang Spring Double. I did reasonably well last year and had been looking at my data to see how I might improve this year. I wrote about my strategy in a prior blog entry . My cycling training this year has been better than last year because I did not have a spring marathon to also train for. But I was concerned I had not done enough speed workouts, something I was doing last year while training to run the Boston Marathon, which was only 2 weeks after the Solvang Double Century.Joe Farinha, Gary Franck and I decided to start the day off with a nice breakfast at Paula’s Pancake House, which opened at 6:00. That was enough time to get a big breakfast and still have it somewhat digested before we started to hammer. Just as we did last year, we started with the 7:30 am group, the ones that wanted to be timed. Joining us was. This 7:30 start group is made up of mostly fast riders. We had a large gathering of 47 riders. Unlikely last year they did not do a roll call.

The whole group stayed together for many miles in a large peleton. The pace was brisk but I didn’t feel over taxed, around 21-24 mph. After 20 miles we turned to head up Foxen Canyon. This has two moderate climbs and after the second one there is a longer descent. It was on this second descent that I lost the group last year and never was able to catch back on.My strategy this year was to stay right near the front of the pack for the second climb so I had a better chance to stay connected. It may be the fact that this year there were no tandems to chase down the hill, or that I had been working on descending down faster, but in any event this time I was able to stay connected to the front pack, something only about half the group were able to do. We lost the other half on either the climb or the descent and I knew that they would never be able to catch back on.We stretched out to a single pace line. Except for a few wheel suckers at the back, everyone was taking a turn pulling, some longer pulls than other, which was okay. One guy, who was particularly strong, would ramp up the pace every-time he pulled. I found myself right behind him on a couple of rotations which meant I had to drive hard to hang on his wheel, then do a pull and still keep enough left to rotate to the back.

I had already planned to skip the first rest stop and sure enough this group went right by it. We made one wrong turn which costs us an extra 2 miles and some lost time trying to get back on course. There were some rollers right before the 2nd rest stop (our first one) that proved a bit difficult due to the pace. I was glad when we finally stopped with a total of 84.8 miles averaging 22.0 mph. My heart rate for that stretch averaged 149.

Some of the group had a very quick stop, just enough to fill water bottles. I needed a bit more time but was was able to get back on the bike in less than 6 minutes. There was only one other fellow from the 7:30 group who started with me by the name of John who was from Nevada. He and I biked together for awhile. We were soon joined by others from the 7:30 group that had taken a little longer at the rest stop. But there was a couple of young guys who were driving the pace too high for me, so I eventually dropped off the back. I slowed down to wait for John who had fallen off earlier. We biked together, taking turns pulling until we hit the check point at Morro Bay. We had to wait 1 minute there to get the dot to prove we had gone to the turn around point.

While riding through Morro Bay I hit a bad bump and came down on the back of my saddle, which tipped up the nose. I couldn’t get it to move back level. Although it was quite awkward to ride like that I decided I could not afford to stop so I rode that way until the lunch stop, which was another 14 miles from Morro Bay. That section was done at an average speed of 20.1 mph and an average heart rate of 145.

It took me about a minute to fix my saddle and then another 6 to 7 minutes to get some food. We saw some of the 7:30 riders leaving, so John and I jumped on our bikes and caught them.

We started to form a pace line behind a tandem and rode with that group for awhile but eventually some of us moved out ahead and we never saw the tandem again. Soon it was just John and I again as we pulled into our third rest stop with an average speed of the last section of 19.5 mph. The pace was clearly slower while we kept behind the tandem for those miles.

After a 5 minute stop John and I took off, again just the two of us. I hit another bump and my seat got tipped once again with the nose pointing up. I didn’t want to take the time to fix it again so I decided to just keep riding that way. It made it hard to use the aero bars but I felt maybe I could just wait until the next stop.

We were taking turns pulling but on one uphill grade on Highway 1, where I was pulling, I notice that John had fallen way off the back. I had been doing some calculations in my head and figured at this point I had some slight chance to finish under 10 hours so I made the decision to ride on solo, which I did for the last 50 miles. I had a thought of skipping the last rest stop completely but was down to a half of water bottle so I made a 1 minute stop for water. Fatigue was setting in so I was having a hard time keeping my heart rate up. Fortunately we had a tail wind now. There were several club members at that stop who had started earlier. One told me that Gary was about 10 minutes ahead of me, so I jumped on the bike to chase after him. I noticed at that point I had averaged 20.6 mph rolling from the start.

On the way up Drum Canyon, I heard a popping noise so I stopped to check my bike, only to find I had broken a spoke. That was so unexpected for a light guy like me. I wrapped the broken spoke around another spoke, opened up the brake, then jumped back on the bike and started to climb. I had yet to fix my saddle and wondered if I had time. I decided to stop again and to level the seat. As I started to climb again I kept worrying about breaking another spoke and was not sure how hard I should be torquing the pedals as I climbed. I decided to climb carefully, but steady. I was getting very tired and found it hard to do the math in my head to see if I could still finish under 10 hours. My rolling average speed had now dropped to 20.1. When I made it to the summit, I was wondering how fast I should go down, considering it is a rough road. I decided to ride down fast, just hoping no more spokes broke.

Periodically I would calculate again how much further I had to go and how much time I had left. It seemed to be an impossible task and I was about ready to give up trying to make it under 10 hours. I felt lucky to make all the traffic lights in Beulton, thinking one single stop was more than I could afford. That final uphill as you are entering Solvang was just about enough to kill my chance. I then started to hit the traffic in the town of Solvang so I turned right one block early to take a back street.

I finally made it to the end and clicked the split button on my Polar Heart Rate Monitor just as I came to a stop. I was almost afraid to look down but when I did it read 9 hours, 59 minutes and 51 seconds. Ann was there, a bit surprised I finished so fast. She watched my bike as I ran to check in. I had finished 20th place of the 47 riders who were riding for time. See the posted results here. I had averaged 20.3 mph moving for the entire ride and had a total stopping time of less than 23 minutes. Funny thing was that I felt better than I did last year after finishing 43 minutes slower. I believe this was due to the better training this year.

After taking a shower, we went to eat. I had not eaten much on the ride because of the short stops and was ready for a big meal. Sometimes I wonder why I do this, but the sense of accomplishment makes it all worth the effort.

Over the total of 194.3 miles, I averaged 20.3 mph with a maximum speed of 46.3 mph. My average heart rate was 145, peaking to 173. The total ascent was 7,400 feet.

I took a look at the data for both this year and last year for the first 36 miles. As I mentioned before it was around mile 30 that I lost contact with the lead pack but was able to stay connected this year. Click the graph to enlarge.

You can see from the above graph on the descent at mile 25 my heart rate was much lower than last year and I had considerable margin left. This may be due to better training, allowing me to kept a lower heart rate while climbing the second hill at mile 21.

This graph shows my heart rate and altitude plotted against distance. Click to enlarge.

Here are the splits. Click to enlarge.

The route started from the Royal Scandinavian where we were staying. We did a short warm-up in the eastern Santa Ynez Valley, then heads up world famous Foxen Canyon. We essentially bypass Santa Maria by jogging around that town on dead quiet Bull Canyon to Hwy 166. Next we more or less parallel Hyw 101 as we headed north. After some really neat back roads, the route skirted the edge of San Luis Obispo, then went all the way into scenic Morro Bay, right to the waterfront and a dramatic view of “the rock.” Next we rolled through some of the prettiest state park miles anywhere, then head south on PCH along the coast through Pismo Beach, and such. After Guadalupe, we stayed southbound on this desolate and beautiful stretch of Hwy 1, bypassing the whole Lompoc area, and then continuing onto Hwy 135 to the neat little western antique haven of Los Alamos, site of the final checkpoint. From Los Alamos, we encounter what is essentially the only real climb of the entire day, up and over Drum Canyon, a quiet, twisty, 800 foot, 3.4 mile ascent. It’s had a gnarly downhill. On the other side, we hop onto Hwy 246 back to Solvang, with a big shoulder all the way to town!

Categories: Cycling Events, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

Several of us are planning  a 7:30 am start for the Solvang Double Century this Saturday. I took a look at my training log to see what happened last year. The following chart shows my heart rate, speed and altitude during the first 35 miles. I was doing fine riding with the group of 42 riders who started together. We lost some of them on the first real hill at mile 18. Going down the first real descent at mile 19 was difficult because I had a very hard time keeping up with the two tandems. It took considerable effort on my part to latch back on. I thought I would solve that with the second climb at mile 20 by going out ahead of the pack. I did not get enough of a lead because the tandems and fast riders passed me on the descent and even though I was driving my heart rate into the red zone I could not get connected to them after they passed by. I finally gave up trying because I was getting totally wasted. It is clear that I gave up the chase by looking at my heart rate.

By mile 35 I had averaged 21 mph. For the whole event I averaged 19.6 mph.

My plan for 2008 is to go ahead on the first hill so I don’t have to chase them on the first decline. It is not possible for me to jump on a train that passes me going downhill, so my only chance is to be near the front on the 2nd climb and hug a wheel. The problem is I just don’t have the weight to be able to keep up on the longer descent. It might be another lonely ride.

Click this graph to view enlarged.

Categories: Ultra Distance Events
2 Comments »

I have finished my last week of biking training for the Solvang Double Century, which will take place next week. My main focus is on the Devil Mountain Double Century at the end of April, so my training program has been geared to prepare for that. I have doing well on the training, although this week was a bit below plan. I will climb Henry Coe 5 times this week so I am getting a lot of climbing in.

This chart show my weekly miles this year compared with last year and against my plan.

But my climbing is doing well.

See all the charts here.

Categories: Training Log, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

After getting off to a good start for this year, my cycling too a hit for two weeks. The first week we were out of state to watch the grandkids. We did take our bikes up there but it was cold in Washington State and I didn’t get in that much riding. After I returned to California I did get in a good ride to watch Stage 3 of the Amgen Tour of California, but after that we had 3 days of straight rain. This week the weather has been great and I am back into fully training mode.

I have been writing an article for the club website on training for a tough double century, called The Big Climb. It is where you combine the long miles of a double century with a lot of climbing, in excess of 15,000 feet. In 2007 I completed such an event last year called the Devil Mountain Double, maybe the most difficult double century in California. Last year it was unusually hot weather and although I finished it was not easy. Having run the Boston Marathon only 12 days early probably did not help either. I am determined to do a better effort at training and have developed a program which I have included in my article.

Part of my training for the DMD is to do the Solvang Double Century 4 week earlier. The following four charts track my training for DMD. For each chart I plot my training for 2008 compared with both my actual for last year and against my training plan. The first two are accumulated miles ridden and feet climbed. Click all charts to view enlarged.

The next two charts show the weekly targets for both the longest ride of the week and the weekly total for climbing. In 2007 the dips from Week 14 to 16 were due to running the Boston Marathon, which made the final training for DMD difficult. That will not be the case this year. Click to enlarge.

Categories: Training Log, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

The weather is turning noticeably more like fall. Although the days are still warm, the mornings are a bit cooler. I am also closely approaching the major cycling events I have scheduled for the year and am in the final stages of training.

First up is the Everest Challenge. I leave for that in only a week from today. Then less than two weeks later I will be doing the Furnance Creek 508. I had previously read an interesting blog of someone who attempted to do both in the save season. He blew up on the 508. I hope that doesn’t happen to me.

I took it easy today, only ran 6 miles. I will then do some good cycling over the next 3 days, then go into a 3 day recovery period. I hope it all comes together. I have a better handle on training for a marathon where I have worked out more of a detailed training schedule. Both the Everest Challenge and FC 508 are new to me so I am just trying to adapt what I do for marathons to see if it works for ultra distance cycling events.

Categories: Everest Challenge, Furnace Creek 508, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »

Ouch! I mean Ouch!

The Everest Challenge is only 18 days away. Is it too late to cram for the finals? I got in a good week of biking (370 miles last week) but I have not been climbing quite as much as I hoped to with only 24,000 feet last week. I probably need to focus more on climbing now and do some hill repeats.

Their website boldly calls this event:

THE HARDEST TWO DAY U.S.C.F. RACE!!!

“North American Climbers’ Cup”

Here the profiles and descriptions for the two days:

DAY 1 (click graph to enlarge):

Day One starts outside of Bishop at Millpond Park, 4,425′. The first climb is up to Mosquito Flat. At 10,250′ it is the highest paved road in the Sierras. The run in is 11 miles long. The climb is 22 miles, average grade is 5%. Maximum grade lower half 9%, upper half 11%.

Back down to Round Valley for a short climb up Pine Creek to 7,420′ in 8 miles, average grade is 7%, max is 9%, extended sections of 8%.

Then past the start/cars and up Bishop Creek to 9,835′ in 20.4 miles, average grade 6%. While this is not the highest spot or most vertical gain, the last mile has two short sections around 15% grade and will certainly test your strength and endurance and desire to stay on the bike. Bottom half has extended sections of 8-9% grade, max grade 9%. Timing finish will be at the top after the turnoff to the boat ramp. Total climbing for Day One is 15,465′ in 120 miles.

DAY 2 (click graph to enlarge):

Day Two starts outside Big Pine with a climb up towards the Palisade Glacier. Starting elevation 3,940′ finishing elevation 7,800′. The actual climb is 9 miles with an average grade of almost 8% (max is 11%). There are extended portions of 9-10%. Then riders head back across the valley past the original start. Next we head up the Death Valley Road/Waucoba Canyon to 6,545′ in 8.5 miles, average grade 5% (max just touches 12% in the roller in the “narrows”, 11% in one corner before that).

Back down to the cars/start and then up to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest at 10,100′ in 21 miles, average grade 6% (max in the lower half is just touches 14%, max in the upper half just touches 17%). There are dozens of 9-12% rollers in the bottom third. The last 3 miles averages 10% grade. Timing finish will be at the high point a half mile before the Visitors Center. Total climbing for Day Two is 13,570′ in 86 miles. This brings the two day total to 29,035′ (the elevation of Mount Everest) in 206 miles.

In late September when we climb to over 10,000 feet, we may well encounter snow. But down in the valley it could be warm. So I expect a wide swing in the temperatures, making this ordeal even more challenging.

I was also checking the gearing recommended: pro 39/25-27, CAT 1-2 39/27-30, CAT 3 34-39/34, CAT 4-5 30-34/34, Public 26-30/34. If you are a great climber you may get away with higher gears. If you aren’t a good climber go LOWER.

Gee they are recommending mountain bike gearing for me. That is silly, but I am wondering if I should take my older Trek bike with the triple crankshaft. I would prefer to use my new bike because it is lighter and descends and climbs better. I will have to think it over.

Categories: Everest Challenge, Ultra Distance Events
No Comments »