Even after writing an article about online training logs, I still keep up my Excel spreadsheet.  For over a year I upload my GPS data to a couple of websites (Strava and Garmin Connect) and to a local computer based program (Ascent). One might think that a website like Strava.com should be more than enough, and might be for most people, for me personally I want to do more, including:

• Chart cycling and running miles separately
• Track how I am doing compared with prior years at this same time
• Track for both my wife and I together since mostly bike and run together
• Track details on mileage on various bike components on various bikes
• Track which club or non-club miles I cycle.

This manual entry was becoming a chore after all these years so I sought to automate the process.  I looked at the above and decided to scratch the last entry since no online training log let’s you record that.  I still wanted to track how I was doing against prior years, using my old training log data, so none of the online training logs are by themselves are sufficient.  I finally came up the approach to modify my current Excel file, which has sheets for all prior years, a sheet for my bike component log, and a lot of other training specific data.  But instead of adding a new sheet for 2012 with places for every single workout during the year, I added a sheet for 2012 with weekly totals.  A small section looks like this.

If you look across the actual Excel file you will see similar blocks for my running, as well as Anne’s running and biking.  I decided it was no longer necessary to record every workout in this Excel file, just the weekly totals.  That allows me to plot how I am doing compared with prior years.  Initially I was going to manually enter this data but found a much easier way.  Since I upload my GPS devices to Garmin Connect, I use the great report feature in that program to export to CVS files.

I just select the report type “Group by Week” for “This Year”.  After doing a one time customization of the report to get the columns I wanted,   I then select Cycling and export the CVS file.  I repeat for running.  Then repeat for Anne’s Garmin Connect information for both running and cycling.  This creates four CVS files.  In my main Excel file I use links to these external CVS files to fill in all the data.  It is not something I need to do very often, just when I want to see how I am doing.  Even if I do monthly, I will still get the data in a weekly total format.

Bike Component Wear

The only missing item is the mileage on each bicycle.  For that I end up doing some manual entry, here taking the data from Strava.com which allows you to track your rides by bicycle.  I just enter the current mileage on each bicycle and use that in my existing formulas on component wear.  Hopefully if Gramin Connect ever adds this feature I can automate that also.  I might just switch over and add all the components in Strava.com and only use that for component tracking.

How is My Training Going

Using this new approach, I can still easily see how my running and cycling are doing compared with prior years. This shows how I did in 2011 compared with the prior years.

Now for 2012,  I will still have similar graphs, but using the data that is auto filled in from the Garmin Connect CVS files.  I have friends who don’t even use a cyclometer to cycle with and have no idea how many miles they have ridden.  But I also notice these same guys are always having some issue with cassette wear because they didn’t change their chain until it was too late.  It might be the engineer in me that loves to see the data so I know how I am doing and how my bikes are doing.  Now I have an effortless way to get that data in a format I can use for my own purposes and not rely on the limitations of the online training logs.  For most people this is more than they will want and are happy to just use what one of the online training logs offer, but if you want to get things in a format you can manipulate for your own purposes, this might give you an idea.

While I once did a lot of cycling with ACTC in California, that is not the case so much anymore as you can see from this chart.

Our time in Utah this year has been limited, but miles with that bike club has been almost as much as with ACTC.  When I am California I prefer to bike with my cycling friends, the Night Riders, which is a ad hoc group that just does what we want to do, when we want to do it.  ACTC, on the other hand, is a inflexible club, with it’s own way of doing things and rides that are schedule many weeks before they happen, when the weather conditions can not be known.  ACTC is a very diverse club with all types of riders and although it has a lot of rides, more than most any other club, I have little interest in most of them.  Some involve too far of a drive from our house.  Most have a pace that is too slow for us with too frequent and  long regroups.  Some rides seem more focused on getting to some place to eat than riding the bike.  Others are oriented to try to do the most number of different billy goats (climbs) rather than finding the most interesting route.  Others are geared to only ride a long distance and there is little group riding on those.  There is nothing wrong with any of these and they meet the needs of many.  It is just curious that with such a diverse group of rides that there are so few rides that interest me.

I have the great advantage of being able to bike with my wife, Anne, and sometimes my children.  Also I have some great cycling friends that are nearer my home.   Those meet most of what I want to do when I am in California.   I am glad that ACTC does exist and still do quite a few rides with them.  However my cycling with that particular club in on the wain.

Heading up from our Utah home on 4th North is usually an easy ride with very few cars.  Suddenly a pickup truck came out from a side street  (that had a stop sign) to my left to drive right across my path.  I had to swerve to avoid being hit.  Luckily the driver saw me just in time and hit his brakes.  I should have known I was in for one interesting ride.

After reaching the summit I looked down to the valley and could see it was raining heavily and there was several bolts of lightning.   Without the “Capture Lightning” app on my iPhone, I could only get this photo of the valley.  It is easy to see where it was raining.

At the top of the climb I was only getting a few sprinkles so I was hoping to beat a path down the mountain while the road was dry.  Once I reached the highway, it would be less than a mile to a large park where they have covered areas where I could escape the storm, should I run into it.  I reached the highway and it was now starting to rain.  After crossing the highway, I headed down when it started to really pour, like having buckets of water dumped on you.  Way too heavy of rain to safely ride so I pulled off the road into a side road.  I took a position slightly under a tree, but was afraid to be too close to the tree with all the lightning bolts striking around me.  I kept thinking at any time lightning would strike this tree and I was too close to be safe.

The rain left as fast as it came and soon I was on my way back down the canyon road.  When I reached home, Anne was a bit upset with me, being out on my bike in such a thunder and lighting storm.  I was just glad to be back and not hit by either a car or lightning.

For a year now I have been on a beta-blocker for blood pressure.  It has been like a year in cycling prison because this stuff really lowers your heart rate, really slowing you down.  I was also taking another medication in addition, and had to cut both doses down to keep from going too low on my blood pressure.  During my 4 month follow-up visit to the Cardiologist last week, she decided to take me off one of the medications and offered a chance to decide.  That was an easy decision, so I finally stopped taking the beta blocker.

One of the reasons why I was originally put on the beta blocker was that my blood pressure went very high during a stress test.  Everyone’s blood pressure rises during a stress test, but mine went much higher than usual.  So after stopping the beta blocker I wanted to get some blood pressure readings during intense climbing so I took a wrist blood pressure monitor with me.

Here is the data from the average of the hill repeats I have done.   On my latest workout I wanted to get my blood pressure, so I had to come to a stop and stand on the ground, otherwise I would get an error on the blood pressure monitor.  I was able to get stopped rather quickly at the end of the interval.  The reading should be fairly indicative because you can see the heart rate on the blood pressure monitor was close to my my maximum heart rate during the interval.  It has been along time since I was able to take my heart rate up above 170 bpm.  I was happy that the blood pressure readings were so reasonable during these intervals.  I pulled out my data from 3 years ago when I did a similar hill interval workouts up Squaw Peak and Thomas Grade.  You can see my climbing speed declined since then, even though I was pushing my heart rate higher.  However in 2008 I was in top form and was training for both the Everest Challenge and the Furnace Creek 508.

This shows graphically the vertical climbing speed (VAM) for each of the hill repeats I have done.  The vertical climbing speed is measured in meters per hour.  It will change depending on the grade and typically for every one percent increase in average gradient increases VAM by 50.  Since Thomas Grade and Squaw Peak average grade is within 1%, they can be compared directly.  Improvements would show an increasing VAM and a decreasing average heart rate.  My data shows the opposite.

The photo shows the intervals up along Squaw Peak.

I have a rather detailed training log and have revised it so I have real data on who I bike and run with, or when I am solo.  These charts tell it all.  The family percentage is even higher than it appears because when Anne and I bike together with a bike club, I record it as miles with that club.

It is a relatively flat course that included a couple miles of warm-up from our house and then a straight shot, with no need for stop signs or traffic lights during each of the 7 minute intervals. The blue sections on the map are the intervals done at speed and the red sections the recovery portions. From the map it would as if I could fit in a 5th interval at the end, but there are too many stop lights and I am way too tired to try a 5th one. It seems as if all I can do is ride the 4.5 miles back home.

You can see the four intervals, followed by the recovery period from this heart rate curve. During the 7  minute interval I push as hard as I can and still hold the pace for 7 minutes.   This was my heart rate curve for today’s workout.

Ignoring the false reading during the warmup section, you can see in the above curve the four periods where I did the 7 minute speedwork.  The affects of the beta block are significant when you look at the same curve below from only one year ago, when I was not yet taking the beta blocker.  There is a much more pronounced heart rate buildup during the 7 minute interval sections.

Using a circular course allows me to average the 4 segments so as to somewhat cancel the effect of the wind. This allows a comparison between different dates.  I have data from ten workouts, the first in March 2008 and the 10th today.  The last two were done while on a beta blocker and you can see the significant reduction in average heart rate and average speed.

So although I am not going to be as fast, I need to get back to doing some speed workouts to improve my conditioning.  Next up will be some hill repeats.

Although many people keep track of the miles on their car and know when to take it in for an oil change, they often neglect keeping track of components on their bicycle, or they rely on a local bike shop to check it out.

For years I have kept a detailed log of all my training.  Even after writing an article about online training logs, I still keep up my Excel spreadsheet.   Today I upload my GPS data a couple of websites (Strava and Garmin Connect) and to a local computer based program (Ascent).  One might think that a website like Strava.com should be more than enough, and might be for most people, for me personally I want to do more, including:

• Chart cycling and running miles separately
• Track how I am doing compared with prior years at this same time
• Track for both my wife and I together since mostly bike and run together
• Track details on mileage on various bike components on various bikes
• Track which club or non-club miles I cycle.

So I take the time to enter into my Excel based training log, which is setup so it also keeps track of which bikes were ridden by myself and my wife.  Using formulas in Excel, as I enter a daily workout rather quickly, it then computes a lot of data

Bike Component Wear

Using data from when I have had to replace components in the past, I can estimate the percent wear on each item.  This is what it looks like.

I check this periodically and noted I had better check the chain wear on my wife’s Trek Madone 5.1.  Sure enough the chain checker tool showed wear to 0.75, which I use as a time to replace, so as soon as I finish this blog entry, I will go do that.

For the tear wear, I keep track of how many miles the tire has been on the front and on the rear so I can estimate wear.  I use a factor of 2X for rear wear compared with wear while on the front.

Who I Bike Wtih

It all might seem a big complicated, but after creating the training log, it is very easy to enter the daily workouts.  Selecting a single drop down will allow me to choose that it was something my wife and I did together, only I did or only she did, and all the other numbers are automatically calculated from that.

One other feature I added for this year was tracking which group I bike with, one of the 3 bike clubs I belong to, solo, or with someone in my family.  This is what it looks like so far this year.  Note that if my wife and I join a club ride together, that is where I count the miles so the “Family” category is just with someone in the family.

Our time in Utah is more during the summer so that will change.  Biking with ACTC is not so common as it once was.

These two examples are the type of information you can get if you keep your own training log.  In my case it is really a training log for both myself and my wife and since most of our workouts are together, that makes things easy to track and also makes life a lot of fun.

How is My Training Going

I can easily see how my running and cycling are doing compared with prior years. This shows how I did in 2010 compared with the prior years.

I have friends who don’t even use a cyclometer to cycle with and have no idea how many miles they have ridden.  But I also notice these same guys are always having some issue with cassette wear because they didn’t change their chain until it was too late.  It might be the engineer in me that loves to see the data so I know how I am doing and how my bikes are doing.

After going through 4 months of 2011 the trend is continuing. My running so far this year is about as high as prior years, except 2007 when I was training for the Boston Marathon, which took place in April. Compared with 2009, my running is up significantly because 2009 was the year better characterized as “more cycling and less running”

We have traveled twice this year so far.  In March we went to Utah where it was too cold to do much biking.  Then in April we went back to Utah, and then a trip to Virginia and Atlanta.  This type of travel, especially when the weather in Utah is cold, points out clearly the advantage of being able to run and not just cycle.

Still the total amount of exercise is down and at the same time I seem to be going slower.  There is no easy way to come up with an equivalent between sports, but I have developed a simple formula that attempts to convert all exercise I do into equivalent miles of running.  I have use other formulas that are based on calories consumed or time exercising, and they have similar results.  My goal has been to exercise the equivalent of 50 miles of running each week.  After 19 weeks into the year that comes out to 950 miles.  I was above that on prior years, but a bit short right now, averaging only 42 miles a week (equivalent running).  As I do more running and less cycling, it is harder to get up to my goal, but I am still confident that I can get back on track.  I hope to get the cycling up soon since we will be doing a 7 day cycling tour, Sierra to the Sea, starting from mid June.

Total Exercise

Some feel the best measurement for most people is to just count total hours.  It is an easy way to equate different types of exercise.   When I look at hours logged, it is amazing how close 2010 was to the prior three years.

Cycling

Of course an hour of running seems to be more exercise than an hour on the bike, except when I am doing a lot of climbing.  For cycling I track two parameters, accumulated miles ridden and accumulated feet of climbing.  In both cases I was a bit less than last year and even more so for the prior years.

About half of those cycling miles were with Anne.  The feet of climbing continues to amaze me when I realize that during the year I climbed more than 100 vertical miles.

Running

On the other hand my running was more than last year, but still not as high as the years when I was training for a marathon.  I feel that in 2010 I had a better balance between running and cycling.  Running is a much more efficient sport time-wise.  Still most of my exercise comes from cyling.

Most all of my running was with Anne.  She actual ran a bit more than I did for 2010 because there were a few days when I did some Ultra Distance training on the bike when she did a run instead.

2011 Plans

Only a couple of years ago I use to lay out an aggressive plan early in the year for events I wanted to complete during the year.   For 2011 I do not yet have any specific plans established.  As I get my blood pressure under control, I hope to return to do some more ultra distance events during 2011 and may even train for a marathon or half marathon.  Even if I am not able to do that, I plan to keep my mileage up, both cycling and running, as I did in 2010.