I have been keeping a training log for many years.  Although I have moved from keeping track using simple cyclometers on my bike, to using  Polar devices to now using Garmin GPS units, I have always transferred everything over to an Excel file.  That has allowed me to keep a great deal of data and compare between years.  For 2010, things did not go quite as I had planned.  I started the year out thinking my ultra cycilng events would be less than before, but during training for the Hoodoo 500 I ended up having some heart issues, which later turned out to be high blood pressure while exercising.  So although I did not do any cycling rides longer than 112 miles and never ran more than 8 miles during the year (2007 was my last marathon), I still ended up with some pretty good statistics.

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.

Categories: Training Log
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I knew something was not quite right with my body from early this year. Although I was still climbing relatively fast for a 62 year old, my times were not at last year’s level. Could it be that age is finally knocking at the door? Or am I just not training hard enough?

I was on track with my training for the Hoodoo 500 bicycle race, a 519 mile race I am doing at the end of August as part of a two man relay team. I had just finished the 12th week of my 19 week training program, with 384 miles that week on the bike, 6 miles running and over 25,000 feet of climbing.  I was finally feeling prepared with the distance but my speed was still not quite what I was expecting.

Beta Blocker Blues

It is now over two months later.  After many medical tests, I finally have the green light to push hard again but  I am now taking a beta blocker to reduce high blood pressure that is triggered by exercise.  It has the effect of lowering my heart rate and makes cycling and running harder than before.  Today I did my intervals on a bike that include 7 minutes very hard, followed by 3-4 minutes recovery, repeated 4 times.  I have done this same course over the past two years and have several data points.  Today’s results were the slowest of any, averaging only 19.8 mph, and my average heart rate during the interval sections was only 132 bpm, showing the effect of the beta blocker.  Before my average speed ranged from 20.5 to 22.5 mph with an average heart rate in the 155-165 bpm range.

If you want more background on the events that have lead up to today, you can read the details below.

Initial Problem

We were in Utah and Anne was up for a climb up the Alpine Loop. After making our way up the Provo Canyon trail, then up to the highway to the intersection for the Alpine Loop, I told Anne to go ahead and I would wait 5 minutes, then push hard up the first section to Sundance. My best prior time this year on this 2.3 mile segment with a 900 foot climb was 15:32. I had not been able to do better than that since May. But today I pushed hard and climbed it in 14:34 but that required an average heart rate of 164, maximum of 172. As you can see from the graph below my heart rate was in the “Anerobic Zone” (152-165 bpm) for the first half of the climb and in the “Red Line Zone” (165-178 bmp) for the later half of the climb, typical for when I am trying to set a new PR on this length of climb. For more information see my article on heart rate zones.

I then rode the rest of Alpine Loop with Anne and then back down to our Utah home. That was now 38 miles of biking but I felt I needed more, so I decided to ride on my own and do Squaw Peak and South Fork. It was now getting warm and my plan of doing Squaw Peak was a good one, but the decision to push the pace and try to see how fast I could do the climb may have been too much. I was taking my heart rate up high, especially near the top of this 4.3 mile climb with 1,700 feet of elevation gain. Later I could see I had an average heart rate of 167 for the climb, with a maximum of 174. You can see from the graph below that I was spending most all of the time in the red line heart rate zone. The poor visibility on my Garmin Edge 500 makes it hard for me to read my heart rate so I did not realize at the time I had my heart rate so high.

Near the top I felt this pain in my left shoulder, but otherwise I felt okay. After descending back down to the Provo Canyon trail, I got some water and rested for while. The pain was still there but I didn’t seem to have any other issue so I finished my intended ride. As the day wore on, I was surprised the pain in my shoulder did not go away, even after several hours. I checked my pulse rate and that seemed normal. Later that night I thought maybe I should check my blood pressure. However the only device we had at the condo was a simple blood pressure monitor that goes on your wrist. I was alarmed when I got a reading over 180, especially since I usually have normal blood pressure.

Visit to Emergency Room

We called our neighbor and borrowed their blood pressure monitor and I took it again. It was 184/110. Now I was really alarmed, enough to decide we needed to get some medical attention. At 11 pm, that meant a trip to the emergency room.

The doctor said they needed to run some tests, so they took a blood sample and then did an EKG.  Both were negative so they did a chest xray then a CT scan with some type of fluid injected into my blood stream. Awhile later the doctor came in to say that the  test was also negative. Now it was about 3 am, and there was no reason to stay at the ER, so we returned home. The doctor suggested I contact my personal physician and schedule a stress test since the testing they did was all without being under stress.

After returning to California, I paid a visit to our personal physician.  After showing him my blood pressure readings, he prescribed a low dose Ace Inhibitor medication and refereed me to a Cardiologist for a stress test.  I started to take the blood pressure medication on the next evening, July 27th . Although the information with the prescription said it takes 2 to 4 weeks to take affect, it had an immediate impact and starting the next morning, almost all blood pressure readings have been in the normal range, even on the low side.

Stress Test

On Monday, August 2nd, I was glad that I would finally get a stress test. Although I have continued to bike, I have tried to keep my heart rate below 140 as a safety precaution. They hooked me up to something like a EKG machine and then the doctor came in. I explained much of the above history to her. I showed her the details of my blood pressure readings that I had kept for the past 10 days.

It was easy for me to walk, then run on the treadmill. As my pulse rate increased, she would periodically take my blood pressure. I noted that my blood pressure was starting to go up rather high. When I reached a pulse rate over 150 bpm, she asked how I felt and I said I was fine and could keep this up for hours. When my pulse rate reached 163, my blood pressure went to 230 so she decided to end the test.  That was alarming when I realized that I routinely gone higher than a heart rate of 163 when I push hard on a hill climb.

There was an indication on the EKG that my heart muscle had been thickened. Several years ago I had visited the same cardiologist when something in an EKG had indicated something and she had done an echo-cardiogram back then and found it was borderline. She said the primary cause of this heart thickening is high blood pressure and believes I may have had the issue for some time and I became tolerant to the high blood pressure while exercising hard.

I called David, my Hoodoo 500 partner, to give him the whole story. I said I was fine if he decides to do it solo, or do it with a different partner and if he decides either of those, I will crew for him. I received a call back a day later and David said he would do the Hoodoo 500 with his wife, Deb, as the partner. Although I was disappointed that I could not put all my training to use, it did give me some sense of relief to cut back on my training until this medical problem could be resolved.

Echo Cardiogram Results

On Thursday, August 5th, I went in for an echo-cardiogram. This is essentially a sonogram of the heart.  When I visited with the doctor on August 10th, she told me the echo exam showed no enlarged heart but there had been some further thickening of the heart wall, which is usually caused by high blood pressure.  She prescribed a new medication, a beta blocker and to stop taking the ace inhibitor.  It seems that the beta blocker is more effective at keeping your blood pressure down while your heart rate goes up.

Nuclear Stress Test

On September 16th, I went to the doctor’s office to have the nuclear stress test. It took about 3 hours total time. First they connected an IV to me so they could inject the nuclear isotope. After making the first injection, they had me wait for over 20 minutes, then I was placed on a bed that had some type of camera system rotate around me. I asked how it worked, and I guess it takes about 60 pictures, that can be used to form some type of 3D image.

After that I went to the treadmill and had a similar stress test conducted by the cardiologist. Once again she was measuring my blood pressure during the test and she commented it was not going abnormally like before. I went about one minute further into the test than last time and they then injected more isotopes into the IV, then stopped the treadmill. This time my blood pressure had only risen to 200, a more normal value than then 230 last time. So this was the effect of the beta blocker.

During a follow-up visit with the doctor on September 21st, she showed me the images from the nuclear test and said things looked fine, no blockage of the arteries. My next visit is in 6 months. She said I can go ahead and push hard again on the bike. I am just not sure how fast I can go considering being on the beta blocker.

After having so many tests, I need not worry about my heart. That is the good news.  I am very fortunate that I found out about this issue because many people whose blood pressure only goes up during exercise never know about their condition since blood pressure is always taken while resting.  For now I need to stay on the beta blocker so I don’t expect to set any new KOM times on my hill climbs, but at least I can now push hard again and not worry.

Categories: Health, Hoodoo 500
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Categories: Health, Hoodoo 500, Training Log
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Seems I might have finally found the (near) perfect bike rack for the car. For the Furnace Creek 508, we used my two bike hitch mounted Yakima bike rack. This is the type where the bikes hang suspended by the top tube. The front fork was free to rotate so we had to secure the wheel after mounting the bikes. With the new carbon bike frames becoming increasingly thin to get the weight down, I have grown concerned about hanging the bike from the top tube.

While in Montana recently (no sales tax) we went to REI where they had their Yakima bike racks on sale. We picked up the Yakima Hold-Up rack, the same my son John had purchased earlier. I got the model for the 2 in. receiver since I want to use on our van for future use and plan to use on the Hoodoo 500 this August.

With this new rack the bike is supported from the wheels and a single arm that clamps down on the front tire.  Nothing touches the frame.  It is very easy and quick to make a bike change.  When not in use, the rack folds up, out of the way.  Anne is also pleased that the color matches the color of our van!

With this model you can buy an extension that holds an additional two bikes.  That would allow you to haul four bikes on the back.  I have another so called four bike Yakima rack that hangs the bikes from the top tube but I never could get four bikes on it.  Also the new rack works great with mountain bikes, which have a sloping top tube and wider tires.

Categories: Cycling Equipment, Hoodoo 500
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I had a good week of training for the Mt. Tam Double and the Hoodoo 500.  On Wednesday I did a 138 mile ride, my longest ride of the year, and climbed 9,000 feet that day.

It was the most miles biked in a week so far this year and the most feet climbed.

Also looking at the accumulated training on week 12 of my 19 week program, I am ahead of plan and ahead of what I did for training for the Furnace Creek 508.

This coming week will be less since I will be traveling and also want to get some recovery days in.

Categories: Hoodoo 500, Training Log
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Tomorrow I WILL NOT BIKE.  Tomorrow I WILL NOT BIKE. I have to keep repeating this to myself because I definitely need a day off.  It has now been 13 consecutive days biking, several days with double workouts, running and biking or two bike rides. During those 13 days I racked up nearly 700 miles. This chart, from my Hoodoo 500 training program shows the miles in each week. I am ahead of my training program and need some recovery.  Tomorrow I WILL NOT BIKE!

Yesterday after a 44 mile ride I was feeling ragged, my right calf muscle was still hurting and now my left ankle started to hurt. I thought I should have taken the day off. Today, after a 85 mile ride I was actually felling fine with no joint or muscle problems like the prior two days.  With that it is easy to start thinking I don’t need any recovery and can keep going. But I will say it one more time, tomorrow I WILL NOT BIKE!

Categories: Training Log
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Unlike the prior few years, I decided to take a longer break from the ultra distance events over the winter. No Death Valley Double, no Solvang Double,  not even a Davis Double. I had already decided no more Devil Mountain Doubles. Although an extended period of lower activity can help prevent burnout, starting in May, I realized I needed to increase my training for the Hoodoo 500 event that is scheduled at the end of August.

Need for a Training Program

Training plans for these type of events are not easily found. In 2007 I attempted to do the Devil Mountain Double for the first time, but that was right after running the Boston Marathon. Although I finished, I realized I needed a cycling specific training plan, so I developed one for the Furnace Creek 508 in 2007 and refined for subsequent major challenges. The older I become, the more I need to have a good training program and need to track my progress against my plan.  It not only helps me to properly prepare but also gives me the confidence to finish and so far I have been able avoid the dreaded DNF (did not finish).

Avoid Junk Miles

I learned from running marathons that you can not just go out and run a bunch of miles and expect to do well.  Although total mileage may be one factor, it is not the only factor and not even the most important factor.  When I studied marathon training I realized that there is something called junk miles, those are the miles that you run just to get your total mileage up.    When training to run a marathon with the hopes of qualifying to run the Boston Marathon, I actually reduced my weekly mileage.  Instead I added in speed work and also the long weekly runs at a faster pace.

Speed Work

Many might think that speed work is of little value when it comes to endurance events but that is due to a lack of understand.  I see many endurance cyclists that ride about the same pace on all their rides and just focus on riding a bunch of miles.  Chris Carmichael wrote in the June 2010 edition of Bicycling Magazine “When you’re an endurance athlete, one key adaptation you want is an increase in the size and number of mitochondria in your muscle cells.  These cellular power plants process fat and carbs into energy, and as their density increase so does the amount of aerobic energy you can send to working muscles … Research shows that spending more than about 60 minutes at at time at a constant intensity doesn’t have much impact on mitrochondrial density.  But the evidence is clear that shorter, harder workouts do have that effect – and hence improve endurance performance – for athletes at all fitness levels.”

This week I did two speed workouts.  On Tuesday I did my standard interval workout, with 7 minutes of riding hard, trying to get my heart rate into the red zone, followed by 3.5 to 4 minutes of easy recovery.  I repeat that 4 or 5 times.

Since this is a circular course it somewhat eliminates the affect of wind on the totals.  This table shows a summary of how I did compared with prior times.  On Tuesday I had rode 84 miles the prior day and ran 6 miles that morning before the interval workout and it shows.

Today I did a very fast paced ride of moderate distance.     After doing a couple mile warmup, I ride a 38 miles course with a combination of flats, hills and rollers, with a total climb of 1500 feet.   I vary my effort along the course, attacking the hills and rollers.   I was able to get my average speed up to 17.5 mph, about as fast as I have ever done this course in a time trail fashion.

The third type of speed workout I will be adding in is hill repeats.  I have a hill that takes about 7 minutes to climb and about half that long to descend.  I do 4 to 5 repeats, climbing as fast as I can, then recover on the descent.  The goal of these type of speed workouts is to increase your lactate threshold so you can go faster in an endurance event.  If you can finish faster, with the same level of effort, it is much easier on your body.

Weekly and Accumulated Training

I plot out my training program, showing my actual values against my plan and also compared with training for some similar events.  I track the longest weekly ride, weekly climbing, weekly total miles, accumulate miles and accumulated climbing over the training program.  These are some of the charts.  After 6 weeks into the training plan I am on track but the tough training is yet ahead.

Categories: Hoodoo 500, Training Log
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While most cyclists might dread the hills, I seem to be the opposite. When I am with a fast group of guys I can barely hang on, especially if there is a headwind.  Once we reach the hill, my heart rate will actually go down and I may even go ahead of much of the pack.

In trying to understand why this is the case, I have calculated the power requirements.  If I had a power meter, I guess I could measure it directly, but calculating it will work fine.  I am short and relatively lightweight.  I would like to compare myself  to a bigger guy, say someone who is 6 ft. 2 in. tall and weighs 200 lbs, compared with my 5 ft. 6 in. and 140 lbs.  I have run the power required on different situations and put them in a table below.  I will assume a 20 lb. bike in both cases.

To make the comparison easier to follow, let’s assume both riders can climb a 10% grade at the same rate, and that rate is their maximum power output.  If we calculate the power required for each rider to accomplish this, we can then see how much reserve power is left for different scenarios.  If we are riding together on a flat road, with no wind, at 23 mph, I need to put out 91% of my maximum power output, while Mr. Big only needs to use 73%.  If we now have a 15 mph headwind and travel at 15 mph, I have to increase my power to 96% of my maximum, and am dying trying to keep up.  Mr. Big only needs to go to 79%.  We know that human physiology is not linear and the closer one gets to their maximum ability the harder it becomes to achieve even a small increase in output.

Of course we could look at things a bit different.  Using the above table, let’s say both riders, traveling at 15 mph with a 15 mph headwind (on Malech) are putting out 95% of their maximum capacity when they hit the hill with a 10% grade.  In that case I would be able to climb at 8 mph by putting out 100%, while the big guy will have to drop his speed because his 100% would be 315 watts which means he can only climb the hill at 6.7 mph.  If the hill is Metcalf, which averages a 10% grade, that means I can reach the top in 13:20 (about my PR) but Mr. Big will need 16 minutes.

Now you know why I hate flats and love the hills.

Categories: Training Log
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After a few days of wonderful weather, the temperatures had turned to the cooler side and there was some threat of rain.  So this morning we decided to go for a run instead of bike.  The original plan was to go 6 miles, but after 4 miles into the run, Anne thought she might want to do 8, so that is what we did.  I still felt like I needed some more exercise.  Since the weather was now a bit warmer and no rain yet, it sounded like a good chance to do my interval training.

When I would train for marathons, I liked to do weekly speed work, either a tempo run or intervals.  While I might do quarter mile repeats when getting ready for a 10K distance race, for the marathon I found mile repeats worked well for me.  I could only do about 4 of them, since that meant 4 miles running well over my lactate threshold.

For cycling I patterned a similar workout.  Since it took me about 6:45 to 7:00 minutes to run the mile repeats, I duplicated that with 7 minutes flat out on the bike, followed by an easy 4 minutes.  I choose 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.  I tried to get into Zone 5 on each interval (for myself that means 167 bpm or higher), sometime I was able to do except for the 4th interval where the 8 mile run and the prior 3 intervals were finally taking their toll.  At some point your legs and can’t push the heart as much as the heart can deliver.   I have my Garmin Edge 500 setup to show the heart rate zone I am in, which works well for this type of workout.

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 kept this table at the bottom to show those.  With the 8 mile run before, I was not able to quite do the same average speed.  There was also a strong headwind on some sections, a penalty you never quite get back on the other sections.   Since this is for training, the actual speed is not as important as getting my heart rate up sufficient to exceed my lactate threshold, with a short recovery and then a repeat.  This is the best way to improve one’s lactate threshold.

Categories: Speed Workout
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It seems like months since I have been on a mountain bike so I was glad when the weekly MTB rides at Harvey Bear Ranch started up again.  HBR is close by and easy to get to and the trails, although somewhat steep in places, are not that difficult.

About 6 of the “Nightriders” showed up for the ride.  It was great weather, even though we are still in March.

I took my new Garmin Edge 500 on the ride and was able to later download the data and get a map of where I went.  I had to cut the ride short today because it was my birthday and we were going out to dinner.

I uploaded the data file to a website called Strava.  You can see all the details here.  It lets you name some of the climbs you discover with the Garmin GPS.  I needed to figure out the name of the major climb we did, so I found this map of Harvey Bear Ranch and saw the name was Harvey Bear Trail.  Click the image below to download the full Harvey Bear Ranch map.

Here is a short video I took.

Categories: Mountain Biking
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