2009

It's been a nice year of bike riding. I've had a lot of fun and I've ridden a lot of miles. I ride for various reasons. Thankfully, I own a beautiful bamboo bicycle made by Calfee Designs of California. Most of my riding takes place between 4:30 and 7:00 in the morning during my 24-30 mile commute to work. I use various routes depending on the wether, training goals, and level of enthusiasm. The morning commute is my quiet time to mull things over and get some much needed exercise.

Mileage

It's best to start with some simple statistics. I rode the bike 188 days last year and. Total distance covered was 6377 miles. Average weekly mileage was 122 miles. Average miles per ride was 33.9 I also rode four long recreational rides: the Breathless Agony , the Mulholland Challenge , the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge and the Grizzly Century. Each ride was 100 miles long with about 10,000 of elevation gain.

Miles ridden per week - roll over bars to view miles ridden that week.
mileage was rather sporadic in the first half of the year: I was training too hard and then spending whole weeks resting to keep my balance

Goals

It's fun to meet a challenge. It adds some spice to life. There's was no reason to pick a goal that carried no risk of failure. But it's no fun picking a handful of goals that are wholy unachievable. Ummm.... I met one of the goals I set out for myself last year. But, I'm not disappointed because I've learned a lot from my failures.

The goals:

Complete the King of the Mountains Challenge.
Improve my 60 min. power output to 300 W.
Finish the Angeles Crest Century in the top 50%.
Ride a 40 minute ride at CP40.
Reduce my weight to 200 lbs.

First Failure

Complete the King of the Mountains Challenge was a failure I found most difficult to accept. The challenge was to ride three 100 mile rides, each with 10,000 ft. of elevation gain. I completed the first two: The Mullholland Challenge and The Breathless Agony. On the eve of the third ride, I became very ill and wasn't able to ride. Friends who had completed the challenge told me that the two rides I completed were the hardest; the third was quite easy in comparison.

Before setting this goal, I knew that the biggest obstacle would be recovering from each of the centuries and not over-extending myself ( and getting sick.) The week before the last ride, work was very chaotic and I chose to work extra hours to ship a sudden influx of 'emergency' orders. Considering the poor state of the economy, I felt it best to focus on keeping my job instead of completing a bike ride. Consequently, I over-extended myself, got sick and wasn't able to ride the last ride.

What I learned:

I need to take recovery rides very seriously. I need to find a way of managing my training stresses in order to meet my long-term goals. My job is important to me and I will choose work related goals over bike goals.

Second Failure

Improve my 60 min. power output to 300 W was (in retrospect ) a much too ambitious goal. When I chose this goal, my actual 60 min. power output was unknown. It began systematically testing my power output during the second half of the year. Even though I owned a power meter for my bike, I essentially chose to ignore the data it was showing me.

Critical power graph: It shows the highest average power I've attained for every interval length during all rides between July and December of 2009.

I did make some nice progess in my fitness during the last half of the year. I focused on improving my power output over longer periods of time. Every four weeks or so, I'd ride a 20 minute test ride as fast as possible and measure my power output. The graph shows my improvements in 20 minute and 5 minutepower output. By doing these 20 minute test rides, I learned how to pace myself to complete a longer ride at maximum speed.

The graph doesn't show that I improved my endurance. A three to four hour ride over fairly hilly terrain isn't as exhausting as it was before. I'm now able to ride the Bear Training Rides without stopping at the rest stop. The year before, the rides were a challenge to complete; I dreaded the hills on the second half of the ride.

What I learned

I must take recovery rides seriously. I must take endurance rides seriously. Fitness tests are powerfull tools that can help me accurately guage my progress and future training. When training I either don't ride slow enough to recover, or I don't ride hard enought to improve. I don't know how much riding my body can handle before it rebels and I get sick - this will take some effort to determine.

Missed Opportunity

Finish the Angeles Crest Century in the top 50% was a goal that wasn't met. Because of forest fires in the Angeles Crest earlier in the year, the event was cancelled. That was a shame. I particularly like the route. I failed fininshing the ride the prior year because of rain, and was ready and willing to ride it again. Instead I rode the Grizzly Century. It was a nice ride but.... Oh well, there's always next time

Success

Ride a 40 minute ride at CP40 was the only goal I managed to complete. This was a result of my persistent bouts of training and the pacing strategies I learned during the testing rides. I managed to pace myself well and completed the ride. Next step: ride a 60 minute time trial.

Final Failure

Reduce my weight to 200 lbs. was an unmet goal. I don't want to talk about it. I hate dieting.

What I learned

Dieting is unexciting and requires persistent effor. Using an on-line dieting service is very helpful. It is possible to lose about a pound of weight a week with persistent effort and not too much hunger. Dieting is almost impossible after riding intervals. Staying away from sugary snacks and drinks is important, but difficult to do.