I am off to Death Valley tomorrow do to the Death Valley Double on Saturday.  If I finish the event, it will be the first time that I biked 2,000 miles and climbed 100,000 feet by the end of February.  Although it is not quite up to my aggressive training plan, it is still more than I have done in the past.   It is not often that at an age of 60 that you reach a new milestone in sports.

Categories: Training Log, Ultra Cycling Events
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The Death Valley Double is this Saturday.  It has been difficult to get ready for a double century that takes place so early in the year.  With vacations in November and December I was not able to really get much biking in until January.  Two weeks ago some of our kids and grandkids were visiting and I wanted to spend more time with them.  Then this February had many rainy days.  Last week I was finally able to get in a lot of miles, over 350 of them.  I did a long 112 mile ride last Saturday. I felt like a slug because it had a lot of climbing, but I did make it without much stopping.  Although my accumulated miles so far this year are not quite what my training program called for, it is higher than the last two years.

I was not able to get in a real long ride, like 130 miles, but I did some long rides on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that hopefully accumulated had a similar effect.  You can see on week 7 that I was only able to get in a 52 mile ride, but at least on last week I got closer to my training plan.

As I mentioned, I felt like a slug on Saturday.   When I looked at my average speed over the 112 miles, it was not too bad considering the 8,700 feet of climbing.  In my training log I have a lookup table that shows my overall  effort when I consider average speed, climbing and total distance.  By averaging 14.7 mph, I did get a “fast” grade for the ride, even though I could not keep up with the lead riders the second half, as I could last year.

Today it was raining all morning. I had already taken a day off yesterday so I felt I needed to get back on the bike.  I went to the bike shop and bought some fenders to put on my old bike and then headed out to do some interval training.  It took me so long to get the fenders installed that the weather had cleared and the roads were mostly dry.  I have a course for interval training and measured how I did compared with similar training last year. I could not find my heart rate strap so I was missing that data, but overall I did okay, although not quite like last year.  It is a circular route so only the total can be compared with the winds different each time I do it.

Categories: Speed Workout, Training Program
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In 2008 I biked more miles and climbed more feet  than any other year in my life.

About half of my cycling miles were on the tandem with Ann.

In 2008 I did not run any marathons or even half marathons.  My running was lower than any year this decade, I believe.

I completed these events in 2008.

	Event	State	Date	Sport	Distance / Climb	Difficulty
	Mega Monster Enduro	CA	2/8	Cycle	100 mi race
	Training Ride	CA	3/8	Cycle	140 mi/12,800 ft
	Solvang Double	CA	3/29	Cycle	200 mi
	Triple Crown Ride	CA	4/13	Cycle	138 mi/10,300 ft
	Tierra Bella Century	CA	4/19	Cycle	126 mi
	Devil Mountain Double	CA	4/26	Cycle	205 mi/20,000 ft
	Davis Double Century	CA	5/17	Cycle	200 mi
	Sierra to the Sea	CA	6/14-21	Cycle	500 mi/10 days
	Taste of Death Ride	CA	6/28	Cycle	113 mi/12,500 ft
	Ulcer Century	UT	8/9	Cycle	111 mi
	300 Warriors	UT	8/16	Cycle	99 mi/14,778 ft
	Cache Valley Century	UT	8/23	Cycle	200 mi
	Utah Velo Century	UT	8/29	Cycle	100 mi
	EC Training Ride	CA	9/6	Cycle	135 mi/12,800ft
	EC Trial Rides	CA	9/13-14	Cycle	174 mi/18,260ft
	Everest Challenge	CA	9/20-21	Cycle	206 mi/29,030 ft
	Furnace Creek 508	CA	10/4-6	Cycle	508 mi/35,000 ft

Categories: Training Log
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It happens every year when you finally complete all the sporting events you had challenged yourself to complete. I started out 2008 with an aggressive schedule of events. It was many of the events that I did last year, but wanted to do better, as well as some new challenges. After updating my website with a check mark by the last major event, I am starting to feel the Big Let Down. It is too early to get into training for next year. In fact I am not sure what I even want to do next year. I have already finished all those big events I wanted to tackle. I guess I just need to accept there is such a thing as down time. I hate it as much as I hate the “tapering” phase before competing in a big event. I guess I will do more bike racing this winter to keep my mind in gear.

Here are all the events I finished this year.  I really enjoyed that many of these were with Ann.  All those check marks showing completion are on the one hand satisfying and on the other hand depressing that I still don’t have them to look forward to.

Categories: Training Log
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This has been an unusual year in terms of biking. Never before have I biked so far, climbed so much, or went so fast. The intense training paid off with better times this year for almost every event I tackled and also completing some very difficult events for the first time. But to achieve this I have had to let running slip as can be seen on this chart.  This is also due to that this is the first year in several that I have not ran a marathon.

So this morning Ann and I ran 6 miles.  That was difficult.  Some of difficulty might be due to my legs still recovering from the Furnace Creek 508 last weekend, but it is also true that I have done little jogging in the last several weeks. I does seem odd that I might be in the best physical shape of my life but find it hard to run only 6 miles at a 10 minute pace.  I now feel I need to get back more into running and bring some balance back, although I will likely still focus on cycling for most of my physical activity.

I am now thinking to look for a marathon or half marathon in the Spring as a way to get me to start to run more.

Just to show that the lack of running was not from doing less. Here are the same charts for my biking this year, both miles and feet of climbing.  If you click on the graphs you can see that in both areas I did more than any time in my life.

I have one method of trying to equate running and biking.  It is just an approximation by using estimated calories for each sport and then converting everything back into equivalent of miles of running.  Using this approach I get this chart.

Categories: Training Log
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As the final training for Everest Challenge I needed one more speed workout.  I decided to do the Metcalf Mauler with the bike club and push hard up Metcalf.  So far this year I have been unable to come in under 14 minutes, even though I broke that time several times last year.  Jim and I bike up from Morgan Hill and met the group as they were approaching the climb.  As soon as the group started to climb, I took off, chasing Danny, a junior racer.  I quickly took my heart rate up to the 160′s.  At the midway marker I was checking to see if I had a shot at breaking the 14 minute barrier.  Doing math in your head with so little oxygen going to your brain is not always easy, but I did realize I was well under the 14 minute pace for the climb to that point and even could break 13:30.

I suppose that gave me the mental boost to drive on even harder, taking my heart rate into the 170′s, approaching my maximum heart rate.  When I came across the timing line I pressed my HRM without looking, not wanting to have that knowledge affect when I was taking the split.  I quickly looked down and realized that I had beak my prior best time by a single second, but seconds count.  I did have to push my heart rate higher than previous, due to being 4 lbs. heavier and 1.5 years old.  In any case, it gives me additional confidence for the Everest Challenge this weekend.

To prove I did not do it over some slightly shorter distance, here is tonight’s readout from my Polar HRM.

And this is the same data from last year.  You will notice that tonight (above) was even a slightly longer distance measured than previous (below).

You can see from this graph how high I had to take my heart rate (click to enlarge).

This was the second time this month for a new PR going up Metcalf.  Earlier Ann and I set a new best time on the tandem.  It is fun to be setting new PR’s in your 60′s.  I think both our tandem time and my single bike time tonight will last for awhile as the best time in the bike club for our age group.  Here is the best times each year for our climbs up Metcalf.

Categories: Speed Workout, Training Log
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After trying to climb Henry Coe three days ago following the monster ride the day before, I wanted to see how well I could do today.  I was not really fresh since we had set a new best time up Metcalf yesterday on the tandem.  But I was not as fatigued as I was on Sunday.

I was chasing Doug R. all the way up.  He can easily drop me on the hill and that is what he did today.  Still I was happy with my time of 41:19, less than 4 minutes off my race time last year when my average heart rate was 168 all 6.7 miles.  Also today we had ridden hard all the way from the bottom, including Thomas Grade so I was not rested at the start of the measured climb.  After the ride Doug told me he was planning to do the Everest Challenge also.  I said he could ride up with Eric and I and would be great to have a third person.  Maybe Doug can place in our age group since I am sure I can’t.

Categories: Everest Challenge, Speed Workout
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Yesterday I did a monster ride out to the junction (135 miles and 12,800 feet of climbing).  Since the Everest Challenge is a two day event, with two monster days back to back, I wanted to see how well I could do today.  The south county boys were going to ride up Metcalf, Quimby and Mt. Hamilton but that is what I did yesterday and I was not up to such a long ride.  I thought doing Henry Coe would be a good test so I called Gary and we decided to make the climb.

I could feel the effects of yesterday’s ride.  I was able to climb reasonably well, considering I was fatigued.  What I did notice is that I could not get my heart rate up above 150 and most of the time during the climb it was only in the mid 140′s.  This was a clear sign of fatigue.  I decided to time myself over the race portion of the climb.  Last fall I had raced this section and wanted to see how I compared.  I knew it would be about 10 minutes slower since 1) this was not a race today and 2) I was not fully recovered like I would be for a race.  Here is how the times compered.  You can see the big difference in average heart rate, which is why it took  longer.

However overall I was happy with my time and felt like I could a lot more climbing if I needed to.  I did realize that for the Everest Challenge I need to back off a bit on the first day and be fully rested, at least for a couple of days, before even starting the event.

Categories: Everest Challenge, Training Log
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It was only 5 days ago that we were in Utah and I rode up Alpine Loop to see the snow from a recent storm. I did not take a jacket and was very cold on the way down.  Today’s long ride out to the junction was HOT HOT HOT.  Kind of like out of the kettle into the fire.

I was leading a long ride for the bike club.  The official start was in San Jose, but I figured starting from Morgan Hill would be the same distance, please riders said they were going to meet us along the way.  To meet meet the timing I would have had to start biking from home at 6:30 am, but it was still dark so I asked Ann to drive me 6 miles towards Morgan Hill and I started there, at about 6:55 am.  It was warm enough, despite the early hour, that I did not need any arm warmers.  Ten minutes later I met Gary F and we rode together up Monterey to Bailey.  We then made our way over and did the first climb of the day, Metcalf.  I did the climb slower than usual because I had a long ride ahead.  We had to wait at the top for any riders to show up and then only two did.

We then started down the backside and were met by Russ and Joe F.  Not long after that Cindi S. was coming the other way and turned around to join the group.  We made our way of to Quimby for the second climb.  Quimby is a nasty climb of nearly 2,000 feet with some sections that approach 20% grade.  I had not really tried to time the climb up there for years so I did push a bit harder to see how I was doing compared with several years ago.  Since those prior times were all set on a short ride, I felt good with my time which was less than a minute off my best time ever and better than I ever did in 2004.

Russ and Gary had gone ahead of me but the others were all behind.  There was not waiting at the top of Quimby by the leaders so I headed down and to Mt. Hamilton road where I caught them getting water.  We then had the long climb up to the top of Mt Hamilton.  It was already getting hot.  We passed Louise M. on the way up, she had started the climb earlier.  Russ had reached the summit before anyone so Gary and I stopped just long enought to fill our water bottles then head down.

Due to the heat our plan was to turn around at the bottom and make the climb up Mt. Hamilton before it got too hot.  Gary, Russ and I stopped at the Isabel Creek to wait for others.  Then we started to talk about going to the junciton, per the orignal plan.  No one else showed up so we headed out to the junction, not realizing how hot it was going to be.

I had a simple lunch, a turkey sandwich and some potato chips.  Russ and Gary both had a big lunch with a lot of french fires.  I thought I could never eat all those fires and climb up the backside.

We didn’t take too long to eat because we knew the temperatures would continue to rise.  We each bought a Gatorade to stick in our back pocket because we knew that two water bottles would not be enough to make it back to the summit in this heat.  I ended up drinking mine on the spot then filled the bottle with water to carry.

On the way back we saw a couple of cyclists headed in the same direction, pulled off the road resting in the shade.  One yelled out that it was 112 degrees. I check my cyclometer and it was reading 112, although it tends to read high when in direct sunlight.  But then my body was in direct sunlight!

The three of us were biking together until the last climb before we descending back to Isabel Creek for the start of the big climb.  Then Russ started to move ahead and Gary started to fall behind.  As we started to climb up the backside of Mt. Hamilton, I slowed was gaining on Russ but I could no longer see Gary.  I caught Russ as we approached the spring at the 3 mile mark (3 miles from the top) so we stopped there to splash some water on ourselves and cool off.  We waitd for awhile and still no Gary.  I started to worry about him since he is a faster climber than I am.

A van was now coming up the hill so I flagged it down to see if they had seen a cyclists.  As it was stopping I could see that Gary was in the van.  I guess he had some issue so the driver offered to carry him to the top.  Russ and I got back on our bikes and finished the climb to the summit.  There we found Gary laying on the ground.  He had become dehyrated, was cramping and even had the chills.  I rush up to get him a cold drink and then he used some water to cool himself off.  We knew we needed to wait for him to recover.  Here is how fast I climbed the backside, but did stop at the spring, so I had some rest midway.

Eventually he wanted to go ahead and bike so we all started down the hill.  Then it was a climb back over Quimby. After reaching the San Jose Valley we could really feel the heat again, after a bit of cooler temperatures at 4,000 feet summit of Mt. Hamilton.  Russ headed his own wan and Gary and I headed back to Morgan Hill.  Gary was not feeling well so we stopped at a McDonlds to cool off and have some drinks.  I wanted him to have more time to hyrate.  We filled our water bottles with ice and water there and then headed back home.

I dropped Gary off in Morgan Hill and then biked home.  It was past 6 pm when I finally finished.  I had biked 135 miles and climbed nearly 13,000 feet.  My HRM showed only 11,900 feet, but last time I did this same route it was 12,700 feet.  We’ve been under a high pressure system resulting in a reduction of accumulated gain. I will use 12,800 since I did an additional climb up Santa Terresa to Miller this time.   This was therefore the most climbing ever on a training ride.

If I had done all five passes on the Death Ride, I would have biked 6 miles less and climbed 2,000 feet more, so this was some training ride.

I took a quick shower and Ann and I went out to dinner. I was felling fine, despite the hot weather, long distance and considerable climbing.  I was more confident that I was ready for the Everest Challenge.

This is the profile of the ride.

Categories: Everest Challenge, Training Log, Training Program
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This morning Ann and I got up to stormy weather.  We had heard the rain all night in our Utah home and figured we would not be able to get in any running or cycling.  Later in the morning the rain stopped so we decided to go out for a 6 mile run on the Provo canyon trail.  It was unseasonally cold since even with jackets on we were feeling a bit cool.  Up on the mountains we could see some SNOW from the storm!

Later in the afternoon the sun finally came out so I head out on for a bike ride.  I was fooled into riding with only short sleeved jersey and cycling shorts.  But it was now 60 degrees so it was okay. I had intended to ride up Squaw Peak, but having done that four times in the last two days, I decided to go further and ride up the Alpine Loop.  That road goes to over 8,000 feet so I figured I would be riding up by the snow we could see from the valley floor.

As I continued to climb, the temperatures kept dropping.  I finally reached the summit and noticed the temperature was now down to 49 degrees. I had tried to do a good time up the climb and had set a new record.

I still felt warm enough due to the climb but the descent down the Alpine Loop was COLD.  I should have brought a jacket.  I did make one stop to warm up a bit and take this photo with my iPhone to send to Ann. You can see a little snow in the distance on the hill top.

Being Labor Day, there was a lot more traffic than I usually found on this rode.  This was especially true from Sundance down where I had many cars behind so I descended down quickly to not be in their way.  That made me even more cold.  In fact I was cold all the way back home.  Quite an unusal ride for this time of the year.

Categories: Training Log
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