Cycling Road Trip Kicks off the Season

My husband Phil and I just returned from a stellar road-trip vacation.  The 5000+ miles that we drove, carting both mountain and road bikes, enabled us to race, ride, and see friends and family along the way.  It was an outstanding way to enter the racing season.

I will be competing at the Leadville MTB Trail 100 this year, so getting in some long racing in preparation is my focus.  The Austin Rattler, in Smithville, TX, fit right in, giving me an early season race of 100 KM and also giving us an opportunity to visit some great folks in San Antonio we'd not seen for years.  The idea of a road trip was born out of this racing opportunity.

We drove to Texas via North Carolina, where we met with good friends and raced the US Cup East/SERC #2 in Bryson City.  The fast and flowing singletrack was a wonderful change from the snowy winter riding I had been doing, and took some getting used to, but was a terrific way to start the season and to get ready for Austin.

My race at the Austin Rattler was one of those where everything aligned just right.  The course, the weather, my bike, my body, and my super support crew all came together to give me one of the best mountain bike races ever.   The course consisted of four laps, 15 miles in length, which was a perfect format for me, and after the first lap I raced my way from fourth to first in my age group.  What fun!

My time for the race was 5 hours and 46 minutes, which was a pleasant surprise.  While I had hoped to break 6 hours I would have been happy with 6.5.  In addition to winning my age group, finishing in this time slot gave me a better corral in which to start Leadville.  My next races will be long as well, with the Wildcat 100KM in May and then the Wilmington/Whiteface 100 – another Leadville qualifier – in June.  Yippee!

Our trip home from Texas took us through Huntsville, AL.  Coincidentally, our daughter was there visiting with her boyfriend’s parents, and we were lucky enough to be able to join in with all of them for a day of hiking and general fun.  The next day we were taken on a great four hour ride to the east of Huntsville, and then we headed up to Chattanooga to do more visiting.  

Heading north from Tennessee, we consulted the map to see where we might be able to get in one more unique ride as we made our way home.  We stopped for the night at Beuna Vista, VA, where the Blue Ridge Parkway provided us with such an opportunity, and the next day I managed to find the longest contiguous climb along the parkway -- 12.5 miles!  Anyone who knows me knows that I love to climb the monsters, and this was one terrific rise to the top.  I even saw a Golden Eagle, who’s shadow as it flew over me was like that of an airplane – huge.  Phil picked me up at the top of this climb, we repacked our van for the final time, and 10 hours later we were home, safe and sound.  

Lucky us!  We are so blessed to be able to do this and to have such an array of caring friends and family.  Thank you to everyone who helped us out along the way.

Functioning on the Indoor Trainer

While I had promised in my last post that I would give some direction on effective training I have been a bit tardy in doing so.  A mixture of indoor and outdoor training, along with work and social happenings, left little time for writing.  Instead, I took the coachly advice to recover a bit at the end of the day.  However, it is 20 degrees out today, and flurrying, so in order to get the most out of what my coach has prescribed for my workout today I will be riding the trainer. 

I’ve had even more motivation handed to me this week.  My entry into the Mt. Washington Auto Road Hill Climb was confirmed.  After that I found out that I had “won” the lottery for the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race.  The best part is that these races are only a week apart. Wow!  Be careful what you ask for might be a better title for this post.  Poor riding conditions or not, I need to be training. 

So I need to continue to embrace the indoor trainer and make the most of the time you I am spending.  You can too. Think about how to function well on the trainer.  The mantra of cycling coaching is “The Specificity Rule” so use the time on the trainer to most-closely resemble what you would actually be doing if you were riding on the road. 

Focus:  Sitting on a trainer and merely pedaling the time away while watching your boxed set of old TV shows has its place, but not for every workout.  Before even getting onto the trainer determine what the purpose of the day’s workout should be.  Zero in on what your coach has planned for you.  If you do not have a coach, devise a plan for yourself that is compatible with the goals that you have coming up this season.  Work on raising your threshold power.  Just as if you were riding outside, think about the purpose of this ride and go for it. 

Fans:  People associate riding the indoor trainer with copious amounts of sweat.    Even if one trains in a chilly garage a microclimate soon forms and, wow, the body gets hot.  Fans are required, and more than one.  It is tough work to keep the core temperature down while working hard, and a strain on the body.  Why suffer with zone 4 heart rate while only producing Level 3 power?  Folks are afraid of feeling chilled, so I advise them to start out with a light jacket, arm warmers, etc.  Yes, the skin will feel cool, but it does while riding outside as well.  Those on power meters can make sure that their heart rate does not exceed what it normally does outside for the level of power produced.  If the heart rate is spiking then get some more fans on the job.

 

Food:  Mix drinks and bring your gels, etc., with you to your training area so you can eat replenish just as if you were on a road ride. Learn what works well for you, experiment a bit, or follow what is tried and true.   

Fit:  Squirming around on the bike?  Do you have little aches and pains that you overlook while on the road?  Is your “trainer bike” an older bike that has not been fit properly to you?  Riding indoors gives you ample opportunity to adjust your bike so that it is more comfortable.  If, however, you are still unable to find that sweet spot treat yourself to a good bike fit.

Form:  An advantage of riding the indoor trainer is the fact that one can sit up at any point in the ride to relieve back pressure, etc.  However, folks can forget that they are actually training for riding on the road and their body positions often get sloppy.  To get aggressive on the trainer one needs to get into an aggressive riding position.  Vary your time in the various positions on the bike – drops, hoods, tops.  Feel how the power originates a bit differently for each location.  Look ahead, relax the upper body. Stand up, sit down, vary your cadence.  Use your muscles as specifically as you would on a good road ride.

Fun:  OK, this gets back to my last post about motivation, but it is always worth mentioning.   Training, on some level, should always be fun.  Not every pedal stroke is going to feel glorious, but the satisfaction one gets from completing a good workout does feel really good.  Arriving at a goal event in personal best shape makes that event ever so much more enjoyable.  Feeling good enough to bury yourself, if need be, is a super reward for investing the time to effectively train for your events.  Anxiety is reduced, fun is enhanced.  Need I say more?

Indoor Training -- Motivation Required!

It is another snowy day in central New York, a good one for skiers and the like, and quite beautiful to be outside in.  The complete lack of traction on our roads, though, demands that safe riding be done indoors. The trainer – again?   But, as the saying goes, your season is made in the winter.  Fortunately, I have a Computrainer to ride, which has helped me to “make my season” since 1997.  However, even this virtual reality machine can become a boring ride if I let it. 

My legs are not always as compliant as I would like, just as my coach, Mark Fasczewski, can attest to.  But when they do take up the command I embrace my indoor training as much as possible.  I have found that, like anything else, successful indoor training requires a good amount of positive self-talk.  In other words, if one thinks that an indoor session will be boring/hard/impossible, then, well, it will!  In order to avoid that negativity I recommend that everyone get as psyched up as possible, and anticipate the “ride” just as if it were done outside.

First and foremost, get motivated by thinking about the goals that you have set for the season.  Are your races or events going to be long?  Then spending the time now building up for them will be a great gift to give yourself.  Skimping on preparation, forcing the event to become a slog instead of fun, also wastes the time and money spent to arrive at that event.  I know that my money and time are usually in short supply, so I want to get as much out of it all as possible.  As with any training session, a goal for that day’s training needs to be set.

Still having some issues?  Work a bit in the fantasy world.  Look forward to this ride just as you would if you were headed outdoors. Let’s face it, sometimes an outdoor ride is not very exciting either, but most folks do not conjure up the dread for that outdoor ride like they do for the inside world.  Pick out some good music, and choose a “place” in your mind to visualize this ride.  If you are using a training DVD work on focusing on the location where the DVD was filmed instead of the four walls of your basement or living room. If all else fails, go directly to Sufferlandria and ride with Marianne Vos, Evelyn Stevens and Emma Pooley.

Keep distractions at bay.  Try to limit peeks at your email (I find this one hard!).  Dress the part with a decent cycling kit, matching socks and water bottles.  Have all of your entertainment at hand, be it on DVD, iPod, your laptop, radio, or, if you are me, all of these.  Being able to switch from one to another, while still pedaling, can really keep you going.  Do what you can to keep yourself on your bike for the entire time.

If you have a LONG indoor ride planned, though, schedule stops, just as if you were riding on the road.  Get off and go to the “coffee shop” in the middle of the ride, just as if you were outside.  I find a shot of espresso, mid-ride, to really help me through the rest of the time.  Just remember to not get involved in any of your real-world activities until you have completed your goal for the day.

Think about the positives.  You are not going to get too cold, slip on the ice, blow off the road, have bottles thrown at you by passengers in passing vehicles, or get bitten by a stranger’s dog. You will not get lost or have frostbite if you have a flat tire or mechanical. It will not take you 45 minutes to get dressed for an indoor ride, and deciding the day’s wardrobe can be more about fun than function.

Now that I have you all excited about riding that stationary trainer for hours at a time I will save the pointers that I have for what to do when you are actually riding for my next post.  Yeah, I’ve got to get going.  My Computrainer is waiting and I will either be riding today in Lake Placid or Wisconsin. I need to check with my coach to find out, and then I need to pick out my kit.

Whiteface Mountain Auto Road Hill Climb 2012

On Saturday, June 16, I competed in the Whiteface Auto Road Hill Climb.  This is the second race in the BUMPS series, although the first for me as I chase series points.  I had fantasized about this race since my hip fracture six months ago, picturing the glorious views that one occasionally glimpses in the midst of all the climbing.  The average grade for this climb is only 8 percent, but the road is eight miles long, so it is, indeed, one long interval!

In 2010 we got to start in Wilmington, at the base of the auto road climb, with our age group and gender.  New for this year was a mass start of almost 300 racers, three miles from Wilmington, on the bridge over the Ausable Rive at the Whiteface MountainSki Area.    As one would imagine, this ended up being a free-for-all from the gun, and a furious pace was set.  By the time I got myself up to Route 86 from the bridge there was a line ahead as far as the eye could see.

My goals for this race were to use it as a benchmark, to compare myself with my performance of 2010.  As I did two years ago, I am racing both Mt. Washington Auto Road Hill Climbs as a sponsored racer for Hammer Nutrition, so I really needed to figure out “where I was” at this point in my recovery and training.  Consequently, I did not push the pace too much on the brief uphill start or on the Route 86 “sprint” down to Wilmington.

Once on the auto road climb there was a mass of people around me.  I settled into a pace – a certain power level that I was hoping to maintain for the entire race – and I started to pick off people.  During that time I remember being passed by only two people, a woman who was riding her brakes so hard on the steeper section leading toward Wilmington that I almost ran into her, and a teenage boy who zipped past me in the last 100 meters.  I wish I could have counted how many people I passed in the next eight miles, but I was otherwise occupied, concerned with catching and passing as many women as possible.

The climb went great!  While initially I felt hot and a bit whiny, I settled in after the tollbooths and really started to enjoy the challenge.  The day was gorgeous and, when I lifted my head from my Joule, the views were magnificent.  I was ecstatic when I crossed the line, knowing that for the hill climb portion I had come within seconds of my 2010 time.

It was glorious at the summit!  Janice Williams had driven our van to the top, so we all had some warmer clothing and a lift back down if necessary. She also took some cool photos. Thank you Janice! The vistas from Whiteface are always amazing, and I elected to ride my bike back down the frost heaved road and back to the Whiteface base lodge.  I stopped at various points along the way to fully take in the sights and smells that are the Adirondacks, appreciating every moment I could. 

At the base lodge I took the opportunity to have a fabulous massage by friend Tim Chien of Balanced Body Work.  I look forward to massages from Tim almost as much as the races themselves, although my once a year schedule is not nearly enough.  If anyone is in LP and feels the need for massage, please see Tim!

The only down-side to the day was the “computer glitch” which made immediate posting of race results impossible.  After this announcement, disappointed racers left the venue, not sure when they would ever know how they did.  Bragging rights were put on hold for all but the first few finishers, and a chance for all to commiserate with their fellow racers was lost.  Results were finally posted on Sunday evening.  I was pleased to find that, while I was the second oldest woman there, I was 14^th of 44, and 58 seconds out of 10^th place.  I was second of nine in the 50-59 age group, and I saw that no matter what I had done I would not have won.  I’m happy with my race and the decisions I made.

“Summer solstice week” in Lake Placid makes for a wonderfully long day, which Mark Williams and I started at 6 am with a ride from Lake Placid to the Whiteface venue.  Wow!  The sun was already up, but the quiet and calm of the morning made everything look even more spectacular.  In addition to the race and the ride down the mountain we also rode back to our housing at Lake Placid (thank you Norm and Val!) and then I got to go on a nice ride with Janice and Val.  All in all, a wonderfully long day, which we finished off with our drive back home, again through the Adirondacks, that evening.  Life is good!

Thank you for reading J

Climbing My Way to Another Lesson

“Truth is stranger than fiction” is a phrase that I often quote.  Mostly, the truths I refer to are my own.  Pushing myself in some kind of methodical manner has lead me to loftyish places where I never imagined being, and this spring I was able to experience that again.

Less than three months after I had my right hip replaced, and only 5 weeks after I could put 100 percent of my weight on that leg, I signed up for a climbing challenge on a cycling and running web site called Strava.   A Classic Challenge from Specialized  goaded cyclists to climb a total of 105,312 vertical feet between March 15 and April 30.  The significance of this number is that it is three times the total feet of climbing in the Spring Classic races in Europe.  I’ve long been a big fan of climbing, even when the little climbing specialists are dropping me, so I figured I would give this a try and see where I ended up.  Besides, there was a cool water bottle as a reward if you actually did reach that total.

It soon became evident that my normal rides and routes were not going to amass climbing feet very quickly.  Compared to some of the women signed up, I was fairly minor league.  So by early April I decided to up my ante, and change my routes.  I tried not ride anything for more than a mile that registered zero percent grade – what a waste – and opened my eyes to the local hills.

My neck of the woods is fairly generous when it comes to available climbing..  The glaciers left several valleys running from north to south, with steep grades on some of the roads leading to the tops of the ridges.  These roads are mostly all paved, thanks to some free-flowing money in the mid 20^th century, and are spaced fairly close together.  While the climbs generally last only 10-15 minutes, getting down to the bottom of the hill to start up another one does not take long either.  Certainly they are not mountains, but we most definitely are not in the plains.  My new plan was to simply go up and down the ridges and choose roads that had steeper grades to accumulate the climbing more rapidly.  I remembered a treasure trove of climbs with grades in the 10-18 percent range.  Yummy!

This was certainly fun and gave each ride an immediate purpose.  I recorded the rides on the Strava app on my Android phone, which soon began to rule my world.  As soon as each ride ended I would upload my ride onto the Strava web site and soon thereafter I would log on to check my progress against my virtual, but real, competitors

So I climbed, descended, and climbed again, and my coach, Mark Fasczewski, enabled me with the gift of longer rides as the weeks wore on.  I was soon in the top 20 out of over 500 women and in around 300^th place out of the 10,000 plus people, worldwide, who had signed up for this challenge.  .

When I significantly increased the amount of climbing feet per week I started leapfrogging over people.  While in the teens I was hoping to get closer to women’s tenth place, and with two weeks remaining in the challenge I had clawed my way into ninth place.  What?  Now my riding took on an obsessive edge (OK, it usually does anyway, but humor me here) and Mark gave me the green light to absolutely give this my all.  I dropped to 7^th, then 6^th.  With just a few days to go I found myself in 5^th place, and my focus now turned to maintaining that position.  Professional obligations this past Saturday kept me from bagging much of anything, but competing in two events at the Binghamton Circuit Race on Sunday added 4000 feet to the total.  While I should have been tired after racing, I had to remain energized to get out there on Monday –April 30! – for that last day of climbing.

And climb I did, on all the steepest hills I had found between Clinton and Peterboro.  In my longest and toughest ride since Leadville I bagged another 7800 feet in 78 miles, during six hours of riding time.  I got home, uploaded my ride, ate whatever I had left in the house, and then logged on to Strava. My total for the challenge was 137,772 feet.  The waiting game began, but in the end I held on to 5^th place for women and managed 107^th of the 10,923 people who entered the contest. 

This is, of course, something that I had not even dreamed about when I entered the challenge.  Once I’d entered, though, I pushed myself to do things that I would not have done otherwise.  I rode in abysmal weather, I did nothing but climb, I descended some steep and scary stuff, and I enjoyed almost every demented minute of it. I consumed lots of good products from my sponsor, Hammer Nutrition! The offshoot of this was that my hip is now super-strong and my walking, which I had been having trouble with, is now way better than when I was spending a log of time, well, walking.

Besides bragging rights, what did this challenge give me? Did I get any faster with all this climbing?  Maybe.  Did I get any better at descending?  Maybe not.  My ever-zealous braking kept me from colliding with things like dump trucks, deer, chickens, dogs, people in a daze crossing the road, and manure spreaders.  But whether riding uphill or down, I would be constantly reminded that I live in a beautiful area and that I was so blessed to be able to enjoy it in such a fashion. 

I’ve been reminded, too, that there are always more possibilities for myself than I can imagine and that one thing leads to another.  The first step into a new venture can open up doors formerly thought “closed for the season.”  The focus on climbing helped me heal more quickly, and the fitness I accumulated definitely widened the array of events for me this season.   “Never say never” is another one of my favorite slogans, but I can be guilty of holding myself back with closed-minded thinking.  It is easy for me to see this in the athletes I coach and to help them, but difficult to recognize when I am doing this to myself.  My coach Mark does not have my blinders on when it comes to coaching me.

This challenge has taught me to go with the process, work hard, and see what happens -- to try not to predict the end of the story.  For most of the challenge I never even considered a top five finish, and it is not something that would be predicted for myself, but in the end it absolutely happened.  Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Three Months Later

Most of you know that in December I fell “just the wrong way” in a Cyclocross race and ended up with a shiny new hip! I had that surgery three months ago today, and while it seems like yesterday it also seems like a lifetime ago. So much has happened in such a short amount of time. There are a few things that I still cannot do at present – many yoga poses and long distance running – but those of you who know me also know that I did not spend too much time working on either of those pursuits before I got hurt!

When this first happened I thought that my convalescence would open up lots of free time in which to write a book, blog regularly and catch up on correspondence with long-lost friends. I soon learned that there were still only 24 hours in each day and seven days in each week. Being “disabled” meant that everything I did took longer, and what time I had left over was overtaken by the things that I needed to do to get myself back to “normal.” Two-a-days for in-home physical therapy were the norm. And then there was the exhaustion associated with recovering from the surgery and the ensuing PT. Nap time was a must the first three weeks or so.

Before I collapsed into the recliner, though, I still needed to get my work done. Fortunately I can coach my athletes from where I am located, be it in the hospital (yes, I did this) or on the beach (no, I have not done this lately). My athletes were an understanding lot and most of them got to do whatever they wanted over Christmas – what a lucky bunch! Work got done, writing was put on the to do list.

Of larger importance to me was to do the things that would get me better the fastest so that I could get back to doing the things that I normally did. All that PT was one. Another was to get onto the Computrainer, and do what my body loves to do – pedal my bike. With a lot of help from Phil I was doing so 2.5 weeks after the surgery. The first few days were not pretty, but I grew stronger and soon would quip that I could ride a lot better than I could walk. Eventually, I could even reach the handlebars and shift my bike, and the more I rode the stronger my hip became. My coach Mark Fasczewski has been pushing me since week four, and I am now back to doing Level 4 intervals. Wow, my old Level 4! Some of these recent intervals have been almost respectable, but even when they are not I attack them anyway, knowing now what it is like to just sit in a recliner and wonder if I would have the strength to get up and push my walker into the kitchen.

When this accident happened I was in some of the best shape of my life. (Yes, you can work long and hard and get better as you get older. Hire a good coach and work at it!) I was, of course, dismayed when I was given word that my hip was fractured. However, I also know that cycling, like life, is not without risks. At least I did this while racing and not tripping in a parking lot! I quickly resolved to put all my energy toward healing. I’ve since worked harder than I ever did on my cycling, with some personally pleasing results. I’ve worked hard mastering again the everyday tasks at home, in what Phil calls “being independent.” I learned about all the things we take for granted while we are all temporarily able-bodied.

I would not, however, be even close to where I am today without my family’s constant help and support. Phil was the go to person for everything that happened in our home and for everything that I needed. I was able to accelerate my rehab because Phil would drive me to PT, assist me with in-home therapies and, of course, get me onto my bike. Meals got made, laundry got done, the house was pretty clean, all while I was busy getting better. Just when he needed a break, MK made the trip from Colorado to spend a week taking care of her mom. Melissa Skyped whenever possible from Vietnam and Thailand, regaling us with stories about world travels. My sister Alison dove into my dad’s care-taking when he fell and broke his pelvis. Friends came over with food and smiles and even a Kindle! I was left to focus on recovery.

While there are things that I will put into the back of my mind when I stop to think about the goings-on of the past three months these are the things that I will always strive to remember. Thank you friends and family for giving me your precious time. This blog post is for you.

Power Based Training Certification

It has been a while since I have posted to my blog and I have a really good excuse for not getting to it sooner. Sure, training for Master World Cyclocross Championships is a good excuse, as is breaking my hip in a Cyclocross race on December 17. But, no, that is not the real excuse. Instead, after my last blog post I became involved with, then obsessed with, USA Cycling’s Power Based Training Certification Exam for coaches. The good news is that I passed this exam and I am now Power Based Training Certified. (CPBT)

I have been training with a power meter since 2004, and I have been coaching individuals with power since 2004 as well. Training and racing with a power meter is more than just a title of a book for me, it is what I do! But every once in a while I would download and then start to take the CPBT Exam and I would find out that, yes, it is long and hard and I would need to totally focus on it for quite some time. The exam would get put away and that would be it for a while.

This fall, though, I knew that my time had come. I had so much experience in the field that I wanted that “piece of paper” to back up this experience. The latest version was downloaded in early October and it was off to the races. Well, almost. It was slow going, all the way through. Not only did I want to give the correct answers, but I wanted to back up these answers with a complete understanding of the field. Days turned into weeks.

When I had completed all the multiple choice and essay questions the last part of the exam featured in-depth coaching of three different racers. While this “coaching” should seem like a piece of cake to a cycling coach I treated these athletes as if they were my own. The problem was that they could not just talk to me and tell me how they were feeling after “this” workout or “that” training week. I had to “assume” that these racers were feeling great, no matter what I gave them to do. Of course I had to make sure they did not become overtrained on what I was giving them, but on the other hand I needed to push these hypothetical racers hard enough for some overcompensation to occur as well. And then there was rest…

Did I learn during this exam? Absolutely! Of particular interest was the additional ways I found on the Training Peaks software to rip into an athlete’s power file to examine even more closely what he or she did during the ride, race or multiple intervals. This is fun stuff for a geek like me, and gives me even more ways to assist my athletes. In general, immersing myself even more fully for those two months into this topic opened my power-based mind even more. I would even wake up from dreams about coaching my own athletes as well as the mythical athletes in the exam. Yeah, I can get that way…

Anyway, after two months, I sent off a stack of paper an inch thick to USA Cycling and then started to wait. While recuperating from my hip replacement surgery I found out that I had passed. Yippee! Now I need to get the rest of my paperwork in so that I can renew my license for the year, but I wanted to share this with everyone. Yes, I have a title that says I can do what I had already been doing. But I really think that it will make me even better at what I had already been doing. Happy 2012!