Good news - I'm back in the game - on this morning's ride with one of my biking buddies, Ed, I did the Hwy 9 climb in 48:05 - about 4:20 faster than just a few days ago (when I did 52:25) - Wooohooo!!
Interestingly, my average heartrate was identical on both climbs - 153 bpm !!
The difference? Pacing. I approached the climb much like I did my PB ride of Hwy 9 back in late April of this year - where I started out much easier, then started pushing harder after hitting the halfway mark of the climb (in terms of time, not distance).
So, comparing my splits today with my PB ride back in April, I was only 2 minutes down at the half-way mark (22:00 in April, and 24:00 today) - then I pushed the pace harder for the second half, when it gets a little steeper on average, and saw my heartrate steadily rise up, just like on my PB ride.
So, for the second half, my PB ride was done in 21:43 (for a total time of 43:43) and today I did that second half in 24:05, losing just a little over 2 more minutes from my PB time back in April.
And when I did that PB ride in April, I weighed 11 pounds less than today - according to Joe Friel, that ll pounds (5 kg) is worth 15 seconds per kilometer, and the Hwy 9 climb is 11 kilometers, so my weight penalized me 165 seconds, or almost 3 minutes!
So, subtracting 2:45 (165 seconds) from today's time of 48:05, you get 45:20 - which is my theoretical time on today's climb if my weight were the same as last April.
And 45:20 is only about 1:30 slower than my PB time back in April. Of course, I need to lose the weight to turn that theoretical time into a real time!
Bottom line? I don't feel quite so bad now.
Oh - more good news! Yesterday's disaster on Page Mill? It appears I had a slow leak in my rear tire! When I met Ed this morning and got my bike out of my car, my rear tire was totally flat! I took out the tube and pumped it up quite a bit, looking for the leak, which we could not find. So I tossed the tube into the back of my car, and when we got back from our ride this morning, the tube's pressure was down quite a bit!
So it looks like I was climbing up Page Mill with a bum rear tire - I hadn't even thought about having a slow leak after I got to the top and saw my horrible time of 1:01:15 (which was about 8 minutes slower than my time last week).
I guess I should have realized that something was wrong, because my descent back to my car took quite a bit longer than when Dennis and I did the descent last week.
Duh!
So now I'm all psyched up again about getting myself back on track with my climbing program. I've decided I'm going to try and mimic the training I did back in the earlier part of this year, when I really did a good job of improving my climbing.
Back then, I did a lot of rides for fun, but I made a point of hitting a lot of shorter climbs, some mild, and some quite steep - where I would turn on the after-jets and burn it up the climb - these climbs were often just 1/2 mile to 1 mile in length - so the climbs took anywhere from 3 or 4 minutes to 12 minutes (Crestview Rd is one of those harder ones - 1.36 miles, but 650 feet of climbing - ouch!).
Then, I started mixing in longer climbs (like Hwy 9 or Old La Honda or Kings Mtn Rd) and would then push it up those climbs - but only after getting in some "base" climbing on the shorter stuff.
Plus, I rode just about every day - doing lots of climbing most days. It's just that some days, my climbs would be "fun climbs", where I went at a very mellow pace, kind of like a cycling tourist - looking around and checking out the scenery, instead of suffering and doing that "blank stare" at the pavement in front of you, wondering when the pain and suffering would mercifully come to an end... :)
So that's what I'm going to do for the next couple of months. And this is a good plan, too, as I need to re-discover how fun cycling can be, but still mix in some useful training days, to keep improving on my climbing, which is my weakest area.
Another bonus about focusing on the shorter (and often steeper) climbs - the first race of next season is the San Bruno Hillclimb, on New Year's Day. I want to do that race - and focusing on the short, steep climbs will help, since that hillclimb is not super long - it's just 3.7 miles, and averages about 7% for the grade. This makes is similar to Old La Honda.
In fact, your theoretical time on the San Bruno Hillclimb should be within 30 seconds to a minute of your time on Old La Honda.
I haven't decided what my target time will be for the San Bruno Hillclimb - it will mostly depend on how I am progressing as we get near Christmas. I'll have plenty of data from my local training rides to see where I am at - hopefully, I will be getting close to my various PBs that I established earlier this year (in April, May, and June).
All I know is that after yesterday's disastrous climb up Page Mill Rd, I was going to call Ed and tell him I wanted to bail on this mornings ride - in fact, I was thinking about bailing on riding for the rest of this year!
But I'm glad I didn't bail - and I'm glad I decided to guts it out and do today's ride up Hwy 9, which gave me faith again that things aren't always as bad as they seem sometimes...
Yep, what a difference a day makes!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Why I Want To Climb OLH in 19:10
For 2008, I want to climb Old La Honda (OLH) in 19:10, which is about 4 minutes faster than my current PB (Personal Best) of 23:18.
Why 19:10?
Well, sometimes, when you're browsing around on the web, you find these little nuggets of gold - and I happened to just find this wonderful Climbing Conversion Chart from the first Low Key Hill Climb (LKHC) series that was done back in 1995 - check out this chart near the bottom of this page.
In particular, it will help you predict your times on various climbs in the Bay Area, based on your known time up any of those climbs.
So, let's use, for example, a very well known time up OLH that my friend, Dennis Pedersen did recently - a time of 19:50.
I always thought I wanted to break 20 minutes going up OLH some day for a couple of reasons:
1) It's fun to belong to the sub-anything crowd for a particular climb, and for OLH, under 20 minutes is that "anything" number, at least for me!
2) I figured that if I could break 20 minutes on OLH, then I should be able to break the magic hour mark for climbing Mt Diablo - and if you can get under 60 minutes for the Mt Diablo Challenge, you get this free t-shirt that tells the world you did just that - and that is one of the "Real Big Goals" in my biking life.
Now, Dennis did 19:50 on OLH recently, so what would be his time up various climbs that I do all the time?
So, using the chart, we can convert his OLH time of 19:50 into a Page Mill Rd time - the conversion factor for Page Mill (week 3) is 2.0921, using the chart.
So, 19:50 == 19.833 minutes
And, 19.833 * 2.0921 = 41.5 == 41:30
Thus, his OLH time of 19:50 should translate to a Page Mill time of 41:30. Pretty cool, huh? I think Dennis and I thought his Page Mill time should be close to 42 minutes or so - I had a slightly different algorithm - take the OLH time, add 1 minute, and double it, which would give us a predicted time of 41:40.
Using the same chart, this would mean his Kings Mtn Rd time would be this:
19.833 * 1.2655 = 25.1 == 25:06
Now, his Bike Trip teammate, Mark Edwards, did 21:46 on Kings Mtn Rd in a recent LKHC climb (he got 2nd place, too - check out the results here), so this means Dennis would have finished just a little over 3 minutes behind Mark, and just after Scott Martin on his team, who did 24:55 - so Dennis would have been 26th out of 75 guys that entered that hillclimb contest a little over a week ago. Excellent, Dennis!
And, Dennis' time on Mt Diablo would be very close to the magic 1 hour mark:
19.833 * 3.1290 = 62.1 == 1:02:06
Of course, you can use the chart to figure out what kind of time you need to do on OLH to break an hour for the Mt Diablo climb - the conversion factor for Mt Diablo is 3.1290, so you get this:
60.000 / 3.1290 = 19.175 == 19:10.5
This means, if you can climb OLH in 19:10, you can (theoretically) climb Mt Diablo in just under an hour.
So, is there any evidence to back up these numbers? Well, let's look at Martin Hyland. He did the first LKHC this year, up Montebello Rd (week 1) and did a time of 32:59 (see the full results here).
And, to convert this to an OLH time, the chart says to use 0.5827:
32:59 == 32.9833
32.9833 * 0.5827 = 19.2 == 19:12
And, Martin, it just so happens, did the Mt Diablo Challenge this year - just a week after doing his time of 32:59 on Montebello Rd. And Martin's time?
59:30.8 ( You can see all the results here)
How about that?
So, now you know why I want to climb OLH in 19:10 by the time we get to this time of year (October) in 2008.
Because if I can climb OLH in 19:10, then I can break 60 minutes for the Mt Diablo Challenge in 2008.
And get that free t-shirt.
Why 19:10?
Well, sometimes, when you're browsing around on the web, you find these little nuggets of gold - and I happened to just find this wonderful Climbing Conversion Chart from the first Low Key Hill Climb (LKHC) series that was done back in 1995 - check out this chart near the bottom of this page.
In particular, it will help you predict your times on various climbs in the Bay Area, based on your known time up any of those climbs.
So, let's use, for example, a very well known time up OLH that my friend, Dennis Pedersen did recently - a time of 19:50.
I always thought I wanted to break 20 minutes going up OLH some day for a couple of reasons:
1) It's fun to belong to the sub-anything crowd for a particular climb, and for OLH, under 20 minutes is that "anything" number, at least for me!
2) I figured that if I could break 20 minutes on OLH, then I should be able to break the magic hour mark for climbing Mt Diablo - and if you can get under 60 minutes for the Mt Diablo Challenge, you get this free t-shirt that tells the world you did just that - and that is one of the "Real Big Goals" in my biking life.
Now, Dennis did 19:50 on OLH recently, so what would be his time up various climbs that I do all the time?
So, using the chart, we can convert his OLH time of 19:50 into a Page Mill Rd time - the conversion factor for Page Mill (week 3) is 2.0921, using the chart.
So, 19:50 == 19.833 minutes
And, 19.833 * 2.0921 = 41.5 == 41:30
Thus, his OLH time of 19:50 should translate to a Page Mill time of 41:30. Pretty cool, huh? I think Dennis and I thought his Page Mill time should be close to 42 minutes or so - I had a slightly different algorithm - take the OLH time, add 1 minute, and double it, which would give us a predicted time of 41:40.
Using the same chart, this would mean his Kings Mtn Rd time would be this:
19.833 * 1.2655 = 25.1 == 25:06
Now, his Bike Trip teammate, Mark Edwards, did 21:46 on Kings Mtn Rd in a recent LKHC climb (he got 2nd place, too - check out the results here), so this means Dennis would have finished just a little over 3 minutes behind Mark, and just after Scott Martin on his team, who did 24:55 - so Dennis would have been 26th out of 75 guys that entered that hillclimb contest a little over a week ago. Excellent, Dennis!
And, Dennis' time on Mt Diablo would be very close to the magic 1 hour mark:
19.833 * 3.1290 = 62.1 == 1:02:06
Of course, you can use the chart to figure out what kind of time you need to do on OLH to break an hour for the Mt Diablo climb - the conversion factor for Mt Diablo is 3.1290, so you get this:
60.000 / 3.1290 = 19.175 == 19:10.5
This means, if you can climb OLH in 19:10, you can (theoretically) climb Mt Diablo in just under an hour.
So, is there any evidence to back up these numbers? Well, let's look at Martin Hyland. He did the first LKHC this year, up Montebello Rd (week 1) and did a time of 32:59 (see the full results here).
And, to convert this to an OLH time, the chart says to use 0.5827:
32:59 == 32.9833
32.9833 * 0.5827 = 19.2 == 19:12
And, Martin, it just so happens, did the Mt Diablo Challenge this year - just a week after doing his time of 32:59 on Montebello Rd. And Martin's time?
59:30.8 ( You can see all the results here)
How about that?
So, now you know why I want to climb OLH in 19:10 by the time we get to this time of year (October) in 2008.
Because if I can climb OLH in 19:10, then I can break 60 minutes for the Mt Diablo Challenge in 2008.
And get that free t-shirt.
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Streak (or, I Was Almost A Mutant)
I was just reflecting in an e-mail to my friend, Dennis Pedersen, about how I was doing a lot of climbing in the early part of this year.
And, when I was looking back at some of my records, I totally forgot about "The Streak", which was this magical period from February 28 through April 19 of this year, when I rode my bike every day - and most of those days involved a fair amount of climbing. You can see a record of all my rides (with my Garmin, anyway) right here.
In fact, during "The Streak", I rode for 51 days straight, and did 156,600 feet of climbing, which is an average of 3100 feet of climbing per day!
I also happened to have set a fair number of PBs (Personal Bests) during that streak, or just after the streak finally ended. I was even getting PBs on dead-tired legs (see my comments on day 12 of "The Streak" right here) !!
I didn't happen to plan "The Streak" - it was just one of those things that started spontaneously - I don't think I even paid any attention to it until I noticed I had ridden about 12 days straight - I think my previous "streak" was about 10 days of riding. So, I was suddenly on this roll...
And, during "The Streak", I even got sick for about a week, but still continued to ride (just doing easier rides for several days).
And why did "The Streak" finally come to an end? Simple - my youngest son, Grant, and I had to drive down to Oceanside for a couple of days for his surfing contest. I was going to bring my bike, but decided it probably would not really work out, since it was going to be just me and Grant for 2 or 3 days - it was a chance to do some good father/son bonding, which is what happened. Thus, my greatest streak came to a close at 51 days.
All in all, it was probably the single greatest period of my life on a bike - I was getting stronger, faster, and feeling healthier than ever - and my weight dropped down, too - which helped me immensely in setting those new PBs during that time.
Maybe I should start "The Next Streak"... :)
Gee, I was almost a mutant...
And, when I was looking back at some of my records, I totally forgot about "The Streak", which was this magical period from February 28 through April 19 of this year, when I rode my bike every day - and most of those days involved a fair amount of climbing. You can see a record of all my rides (with my Garmin, anyway) right here.
In fact, during "The Streak", I rode for 51 days straight, and did 156,600 feet of climbing, which is an average of 3100 feet of climbing per day!
I also happened to have set a fair number of PBs (Personal Bests) during that streak, or just after the streak finally ended. I was even getting PBs on dead-tired legs (see my comments on day 12 of "The Streak" right here) !!
I didn't happen to plan "The Streak" - it was just one of those things that started spontaneously - I don't think I even paid any attention to it until I noticed I had ridden about 12 days straight - I think my previous "streak" was about 10 days of riding. So, I was suddenly on this roll...
And, during "The Streak", I even got sick for about a week, but still continued to ride (just doing easier rides for several days).
And why did "The Streak" finally come to an end? Simple - my youngest son, Grant, and I had to drive down to Oceanside for a couple of days for his surfing contest. I was going to bring my bike, but decided it probably would not really work out, since it was going to be just me and Grant for 2 or 3 days - it was a chance to do some good father/son bonding, which is what happened. Thus, my greatest streak came to a close at 51 days.
All in all, it was probably the single greatest period of my life on a bike - I was getting stronger, faster, and feeling healthier than ever - and my weight dropped down, too - which helped me immensely in setting those new PBs during that time.
Maybe I should start "The Next Streak"... :)
Gee, I was almost a mutant...
The 10 Fingers of Death Ride
I work in San Mateo, which turns out to be the epicenter of a lot of very cool short and steep climbs. Since I bring my bike to work every day (and try to get out for rides 3 or 4 times during the weekdays), I decided earlier this year to map out an insane ride, where I manage to ride up 10 of the steepest roads I could find here in the San Mateo area.
Now, for those of us that ride a lot in the Santa Cruz mountains (which I do all the time, since I live in Scotts Valley), a typical ride just about anywhere will result in about 1,000 feet of climbing for every 10 miles that you ride, or 100 feet for every mile.
So, a typical 30-mile ride would be 3,000 feet of climbing, etc. - but I wanted to map out a tough ride where you would do closer to 150 feet of climbing for every mile you ride - about 50% more the typical ride you'd do in the Santa Cruz mountains.
And hence was born "The 10 Fingers of Death Ride" - an epic bike ride that, in only 42.6 miles does 6800 feet of climbing - about 160 feet of climbing for every mile - ouch!
There are 10 roads that are included in this insane ride - and it's partially insane because the climbing you do are not on these long, gentle grades (like Highway 9), but the climbing is done on shorter, steeper climbs - the kind that tend to average anywhere from 9% to 12% (and that's just the average!). These are roads that are like Jamison Creek, or Alba Rd, or Bohlman - On Orbit - Bohlman - but just not as long.
And here are the 10 roads (the "fingers", if you will), in their order of appearance on this insane ride:
1. Glendora / De Anza - 0.61 miles, 215 feet, 6.8% grade
2. Bunker Hill - 0.51 miles, 300 feet, 11.4% grade
3. Woodridge Rd - 0.51 miles, 290 feet, 11.0% grade
4. Tartan Trail Rd - 1.11 miles, 500 feet, 10.0% grade
5. Crestview Dr - 1.36 miles, 650 feet, 9.3% grade
6. Club Dr - 1.29 miles, 605 feet, 8.9% grade
7. Hastings Dr - 0.67 miles, 450 feet, 12.7% grade
8. Melendy Dr - 1.37 miles, 640 feet, 8.8% grade
9. Alameda de Las Pulgas - 0.75 miles, 340 feet, 8.6% grade
10. West Hillsdale Blvd - 0.51 miles, 300 feet, 12.0% grade
As you can see, this is not a ride for wimps! In fact, this is not a ride for anybody that has an ounce of sanity in their brain.
But, for any regular, crazy cyclist - a cyclotic, if you will (hee-hee!), this is a dream ride - one for the ages, one to tell your grandchildren about one day.
Now, I don't have the time to do this kind of ride during the regular workday week - I figured out this ride would take me about 3.5 hours to complete (Lance Armstrong could probably do it in about 2 hours!) - I have to limit my rides to somewhere between one and two hours. But one day, I'll do this ride on a weekend day - and hopefully, find a couple of other crazies to join me!
Is it possible to do this ride? Of course - in fact, to test it out, I decided to break it up into two rides that I could do during the weekdays, as part of my regular training rides that are based from where I work.
So, one day I did what I call the "Easy 5 Fingers of Death Ride", where I did the first 4 climbs of my insane ride, plus the last climb. It was about 20 miles and did 2800 feet of climbing and took me about 1.5 hours to complete - you can see the data from this ride right here.
Then, about a week later, I decided to tackle what I called the "Hard 5 Fingers of Death Ride" - basically, the last 5 climbs of the insane ride. It was about 22 miles and did 4000 feet of climbing, taking me about 2.0 hours to complete - and you can see the data for this ride right here.
Oh - and if you want to see a recording of the entire ride, where I first scoped it out by car, you can see the that data right here.
Okay, so who out there would like to join me one Saturday or Sunday to do this ride? The drinks are on me... :)
Now, for those of us that ride a lot in the Santa Cruz mountains (which I do all the time, since I live in Scotts Valley), a typical ride just about anywhere will result in about 1,000 feet of climbing for every 10 miles that you ride, or 100 feet for every mile.
So, a typical 30-mile ride would be 3,000 feet of climbing, etc. - but I wanted to map out a tough ride where you would do closer to 150 feet of climbing for every mile you ride - about 50% more the typical ride you'd do in the Santa Cruz mountains.
And hence was born "The 10 Fingers of Death Ride" - an epic bike ride that, in only 42.6 miles does 6800 feet of climbing - about 160 feet of climbing for every mile - ouch!
There are 10 roads that are included in this insane ride - and it's partially insane because the climbing you do are not on these long, gentle grades (like Highway 9), but the climbing is done on shorter, steeper climbs - the kind that tend to average anywhere from 9% to 12% (and that's just the average!). These are roads that are like Jamison Creek, or Alba Rd, or Bohlman - On Orbit - Bohlman - but just not as long.
And here are the 10 roads (the "fingers", if you will), in their order of appearance on this insane ride:
1. Glendora / De Anza - 0.61 miles, 215 feet, 6.8% grade
2. Bunker Hill - 0.51 miles, 300 feet, 11.4% grade
3. Woodridge Rd - 0.51 miles, 290 feet, 11.0% grade
4. Tartan Trail Rd - 1.11 miles, 500 feet, 10.0% grade
5. Crestview Dr - 1.36 miles, 650 feet, 9.3% grade
6. Club Dr - 1.29 miles, 605 feet, 8.9% grade
7. Hastings Dr - 0.67 miles, 450 feet, 12.7% grade
8. Melendy Dr - 1.37 miles, 640 feet, 8.8% grade
9. Alameda de Las Pulgas - 0.75 miles, 340 feet, 8.6% grade
10. West Hillsdale Blvd - 0.51 miles, 300 feet, 12.0% grade
As you can see, this is not a ride for wimps! In fact, this is not a ride for anybody that has an ounce of sanity in their brain.
But, for any regular, crazy cyclist - a cyclotic, if you will (hee-hee!), this is a dream ride - one for the ages, one to tell your grandchildren about one day.
Now, I don't have the time to do this kind of ride during the regular workday week - I figured out this ride would take me about 3.5 hours to complete (Lance Armstrong could probably do it in about 2 hours!) - I have to limit my rides to somewhere between one and two hours. But one day, I'll do this ride on a weekend day - and hopefully, find a couple of other crazies to join me!
Is it possible to do this ride? Of course - in fact, to test it out, I decided to break it up into two rides that I could do during the weekdays, as part of my regular training rides that are based from where I work.
So, one day I did what I call the "Easy 5 Fingers of Death Ride", where I did the first 4 climbs of my insane ride, plus the last climb. It was about 20 miles and did 2800 feet of climbing and took me about 1.5 hours to complete - you can see the data from this ride right here.
Then, about a week later, I decided to tackle what I called the "Hard 5 Fingers of Death Ride" - basically, the last 5 climbs of the insane ride. It was about 22 miles and did 4000 feet of climbing, taking me about 2.0 hours to complete - and you can see the data for this ride right here.
Oh - and if you want to see a recording of the entire ride, where I first scoped it out by car, you can see the that data right here.
Okay, so who out there would like to join me one Saturday or Sunday to do this ride? The drinks are on me... :)
Sunday, October 14, 2007
How NOT To Do A Climb
I did a ride today with a couple of my biking buddies, Ed and Sheila - and I had a lot of hopes that it would be a fun ride for me, even though I dreaded the fact that climbing up Highway 9 from Saratoga to Saratoga Gap was going to be a lot harder than normal.
Why would it be harder? Well, as you probably know from my recent posts, my climbing legs sort of did a disappearing act in the last couple of months, as I did a lot of shorter and flatter rides, even though they were often very fast rides (like 20 to 24 mph - mostly because I was doing training rides with the Noon Goons or actual races on the weekends and having a blast!).
But all those great climbing rides I was doing in the first half of this year were no longer a part of my weekly diet - and my recent attempts to do some long climbs resulted in total disasters!
We had planned to climb Highway 9 first, as a warmup climb - and then do one of the grand-daddys of climbs in the Bay Area, Bohlman - On Orbit - Bohlman (affectionately known as B-O-B). In fact, the Low Key Hillclimb (LKHC) series had just done the B-O-B climb yesterday (Saturday morning) - I didn't join them for a couple of reasons: One, I was taking my youngest son to surf team practice and two, I didn't want to embarras myself by being the last person to finish the climb, which would have most likely been the case!
So Ed and Sheila and I did a little 10-minute warmup from the Starbucks on Saratoga Rd, and when we got to the town of Saratoga, we warmed up a little stronger while going through the town, and when we hit the Bend-Of-Death after you get through the town (where there is a strong left-turn bend), we hit our timers and took off for the climb up Highway 9.
Now, I know that Ed has been getting himself into pretty good climbing shape lately, since he climbs up Sierra Rd near his home in Fremont about once or twice a week - and he also does a lot of mountain biking up Mission Peak, which keeps his legs used to climbing up a big hill.
But I haven't been quite so diligent, and it was interesting when we took off - I started out exactly right, going moderate, keeping my heartrate in the 140 to 150 bpm range (zone 3 for me, where my max heartrate is about 175 bpm). But as we hit those first little rollers on Highway 9, I started pushing a moderate/hard pace (150 to 160 bpm, or zone 4), and then pushed it up into the hard/hard pace (zone 5, above 160 bpm) - and by the time we got to the bridge at mile 2.1 (where Sanborn Rd meets Highway 9), I was 40 seconds FASTER than my PB time back in April of this year! I was cooking - and out there ahead of both Ed and Sheila.
But then, after that bridge, the road pitches up a little stronger, and I realized that I was just going too hard - Ed passed me up as I decided to consciously slow myself down a little - and I watched him pull away from me, which made me feel bad (since I was usually the first one to the top of Highway 9 when we used to ride together a couple of years ago). How depressing!
And, by the time I reached the big hairpin turn at mile 4.4, I was now down by 1:25 from my PB time (my PB on that climb back on April 25 of this year was 43:43).
Normally, being down by just a little over a minute, with just 2.4 miles left to climb would have been fine with me, since I'm 11 pounds heavier right now than when I got that PB back in April, and I haven't done too much climbing in the last 2 or 3 months.
But then, disaster hit - I just couldn't turn the pedals comfortably and get my heartrate back up to hard/hard - it was stuck in a moderate pace, hovering around 150 bpm - basically, I had blown up!
OMG!
And, in the next 2.4 miles, I lost almost 3 minutes PER MILE, losing another 7:15 of time - ugh!!! But, that's what happens when you blow - you just can't turn the pedals very well, and it's possible to lose a lot of time in a very short distance - and that is exactly what happened to me. Sigh.
So, in the end, I did a time of just 52:25, which was close to 9 minutes slower than my PB time of 43:43 just 6 short months ago - oh, brother!
The profile for my heartrate data on my PB ride in April was perfect - I started out moderate (140 to 150), rose to moderate/hard (150 to 159), then rose to hard/hard (160 to 170) for the last 2.4 miles.
To put that into concrete time, I did the last 2.4 miles in my April PB ride in just 17:15, my best ever (I would normally do this in about 19 to 20 minutes). My average heartrate for that last 2.4 miles was about 165 bpm.
For today's ride, I did that same 2.4 miles in 24:30 - quite a difference! My average heartrate for that last 2.4 miles today was only about 150 bpm.
Now, Ed did quite well today - his time for the 6.8 miles was about 44:30, just 45 seconds slower than my PB time of about 43:45 last April.
Ed was actually up by 45 seconds at the big hairpin turn (when you have 2.4 miles left) - and, as he said, his legs felt rather dead towards the end of the climb - he ended up doing that last 2.4 miles in 18:45, which is still an excellent time - but was 1:30 slower than my PB time, which is why he ended up 45 seconds slower than my PB time today.
The bottom line? When you start a climb, you need to stay well within yourself - especially in the first half of a longer climb, so you have something left for that last half.
You also need to keep your weight down, by monitoring it daily - and if you see it starting to creep up, it's time to put the brakes on those second helpings and cut back!
Today, I went out so fast, I was almost a minute faster than my PB ride back in April, which is ridiculous, since I'm not in the same climbing shape - I should have paced myself so I was staying consistently below my PB pace from last April - and if I had done that, I would probably have had a more consistent and stronger second half for today's climb - and not lost so much time so quickly in that last couple of miles.
I think if I had done the climb properly, I would have been about 2 minutes down at the hairpin turn (28:30), and then done about 19:30 for the last 2.4 miles, for a total time of 48:00 - this would have still have been about 4 minutes slower than my PB back in April, but I'd consider that a relative success, since my extra 11 pounds is probably responsible for an additional loss of about 3 minutes ( every 2.2 pounds extra slows you down 3 seconds per kilometer on a moderate 5% climb - so the 11-kilometer climb of Highway 9 translates to an extra 165 seconds for me, almost 3 minutes!).
So, taking the 11 pounds off my body and attacking the climb properly would get me to within 1 minute of my PB time, and would allow me to just about match Ed's time from today.
I'll have a chance to test this theory in early December, when I plan to have lost the extra 11 pounds... :)
And I think I'll try to climb Highway 9 again this week, and attack it like I did when I did my PB ride back in April, and see if I can get anywhere close to the 48:00 time that I should have done for today's ride.
Boy, sometimes your best laid plans...
Why would it be harder? Well, as you probably know from my recent posts, my climbing legs sort of did a disappearing act in the last couple of months, as I did a lot of shorter and flatter rides, even though they were often very fast rides (like 20 to 24 mph - mostly because I was doing training rides with the Noon Goons or actual races on the weekends and having a blast!).
But all those great climbing rides I was doing in the first half of this year were no longer a part of my weekly diet - and my recent attempts to do some long climbs resulted in total disasters!
We had planned to climb Highway 9 first, as a warmup climb - and then do one of the grand-daddys of climbs in the Bay Area, Bohlman - On Orbit - Bohlman (affectionately known as B-O-B). In fact, the Low Key Hillclimb (LKHC) series had just done the B-O-B climb yesterday (Saturday morning) - I didn't join them for a couple of reasons: One, I was taking my youngest son to surf team practice and two, I didn't want to embarras myself by being the last person to finish the climb, which would have most likely been the case!
So Ed and Sheila and I did a little 10-minute warmup from the Starbucks on Saratoga Rd, and when we got to the town of Saratoga, we warmed up a little stronger while going through the town, and when we hit the Bend-Of-Death after you get through the town (where there is a strong left-turn bend), we hit our timers and took off for the climb up Highway 9.
Now, I know that Ed has been getting himself into pretty good climbing shape lately, since he climbs up Sierra Rd near his home in Fremont about once or twice a week - and he also does a lot of mountain biking up Mission Peak, which keeps his legs used to climbing up a big hill.
But I haven't been quite so diligent, and it was interesting when we took off - I started out exactly right, going moderate, keeping my heartrate in the 140 to 150 bpm range (zone 3 for me, where my max heartrate is about 175 bpm). But as we hit those first little rollers on Highway 9, I started pushing a moderate/hard pace (150 to 160 bpm, or zone 4), and then pushed it up into the hard/hard pace (zone 5, above 160 bpm) - and by the time we got to the bridge at mile 2.1 (where Sanborn Rd meets Highway 9), I was 40 seconds FASTER than my PB time back in April of this year! I was cooking - and out there ahead of both Ed and Sheila.
But then, after that bridge, the road pitches up a little stronger, and I realized that I was just going too hard - Ed passed me up as I decided to consciously slow myself down a little - and I watched him pull away from me, which made me feel bad (since I was usually the first one to the top of Highway 9 when we used to ride together a couple of years ago). How depressing!
And, by the time I reached the big hairpin turn at mile 4.4, I was now down by 1:25 from my PB time (my PB on that climb back on April 25 of this year was 43:43).
Normally, being down by just a little over a minute, with just 2.4 miles left to climb would have been fine with me, since I'm 11 pounds heavier right now than when I got that PB back in April, and I haven't done too much climbing in the last 2 or 3 months.
But then, disaster hit - I just couldn't turn the pedals comfortably and get my heartrate back up to hard/hard - it was stuck in a moderate pace, hovering around 150 bpm - basically, I had blown up!
OMG!
And, in the next 2.4 miles, I lost almost 3 minutes PER MILE, losing another 7:15 of time - ugh!!! But, that's what happens when you blow - you just can't turn the pedals very well, and it's possible to lose a lot of time in a very short distance - and that is exactly what happened to me. Sigh.
So, in the end, I did a time of just 52:25, which was close to 9 minutes slower than my PB time of 43:43 just 6 short months ago - oh, brother!
The profile for my heartrate data on my PB ride in April was perfect - I started out moderate (140 to 150), rose to moderate/hard (150 to 159), then rose to hard/hard (160 to 170) for the last 2.4 miles.
To put that into concrete time, I did the last 2.4 miles in my April PB ride in just 17:15, my best ever (I would normally do this in about 19 to 20 minutes). My average heartrate for that last 2.4 miles was about 165 bpm.
For today's ride, I did that same 2.4 miles in 24:30 - quite a difference! My average heartrate for that last 2.4 miles today was only about 150 bpm.
Now, Ed did quite well today - his time for the 6.8 miles was about 44:30, just 45 seconds slower than my PB time of about 43:45 last April.
Ed was actually up by 45 seconds at the big hairpin turn (when you have 2.4 miles left) - and, as he said, his legs felt rather dead towards the end of the climb - he ended up doing that last 2.4 miles in 18:45, which is still an excellent time - but was 1:30 slower than my PB time, which is why he ended up 45 seconds slower than my PB time today.
The bottom line? When you start a climb, you need to stay well within yourself - especially in the first half of a longer climb, so you have something left for that last half.
You also need to keep your weight down, by monitoring it daily - and if you see it starting to creep up, it's time to put the brakes on those second helpings and cut back!
Today, I went out so fast, I was almost a minute faster than my PB ride back in April, which is ridiculous, since I'm not in the same climbing shape - I should have paced myself so I was staying consistently below my PB pace from last April - and if I had done that, I would probably have had a more consistent and stronger second half for today's climb - and not lost so much time so quickly in that last couple of miles.
I think if I had done the climb properly, I would have been about 2 minutes down at the hairpin turn (28:30), and then done about 19:30 for the last 2.4 miles, for a total time of 48:00 - this would have still have been about 4 minutes slower than my PB back in April, but I'd consider that a relative success, since my extra 11 pounds is probably responsible for an additional loss of about 3 minutes ( every 2.2 pounds extra slows you down 3 seconds per kilometer on a moderate 5% climb - so the 11-kilometer climb of Highway 9 translates to an extra 165 seconds for me, almost 3 minutes!).
So, taking the 11 pounds off my body and attacking the climb properly would get me to within 1 minute of my PB time, and would allow me to just about match Ed's time from today.
I'll have a chance to test this theory in early December, when I plan to have lost the extra 11 pounds... :)
And I think I'll try to climb Highway 9 again this week, and attack it like I did when I did my PB ride back in April, and see if I can get anywhere close to the 48:00 time that I should have done for today's ride.
Boy, sometimes your best laid plans...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
It's The Fat, Stupid!
So, I think I've figured out yet another reason - perhaps the main reason - why my climbing performance is suffering a little these days.
For those of you (most likely, all one of you - and you know who you are, Dennis!) that have followed my recent posts, you know that I've been just a tad disappointed that my ability to climb a hill has deteriorated in the last couple of months, which happened to coincide with my entry back into the world of bike racing.
"Aha!", you'll say - training for races makes you weaker, right? All those Noon Goon rides and crits and flatter road races have been really bad for you, right? Well, not really, as it might turn out.
This blog entry is a remarkably boring analysis of why you need to watch your diet - especially if you want to keep your racing edge.
So, I was reading Joel Friel's excellent book, "Cycling Past 50" (okay, so I'm 53 and "over-the-hill" - but I can still beat a lot of guys half my age on a road race course!) - and I came across this very interesting tidbit on pages 70-71 (oh, you can buy his book at Amazon.com right here):
"It's been estimated that every extra kilogram of fat (2.2 pounds) adds three seconds in a one-kilometer climb (0.62 miles) on a moderate grade of about 5 percent."
Really?
And I was telling my friend, Dennis Pedersen, just the other day, that I thought part of my problem in my recent poor climbing performance was due to the fact that I was about 10 pounds heavier now than when I was at my climbing fitness peak back in mid-July, just before I started getting back into the racing scene.
Hmmmmmm......so, I decided to do the math, to see what effect 10 or 11 pounds might have on climbing my old nemesis, Old La Honda (OLH).
Now, OLH is not a moderate grade of 5 percent - it's a lot meaner - like an average grade of 7.5% - so I decided to give myself a five second penalty for each kilogram of extra fat. I'll justify this value just a little later...
Okay - let's see...11 pounds would be exactly 5 kilograms, so I'll just say I'm 5 kilograms over my mid-July weight (okay - I'll go eat a couple of donuts to make that absolutely true). So my time penalty for those 5 kilograms is about 25 seconds for each kilometer of the climb. Hmmmm.....interesting!
And, OLH is 3.3 miles in length, which is about 5 kilometers (actually, closer to 5.5, but we'll just use 5 kilometers).
So, 25 seconds for each of those 5 kilometers gives me a time penalty of ... 125 seconds, or about 2 minutes!
Now, I recently did OLH in 27:02, as you all know - but I told Dennis that I thought this was a poor representation of the actual baseline for me right now - I went out way too hard on that ITT up OLH (remember - I got to the halfway point in just 11:45, which was only 10 seconds slower than my halfway point on my PB time of 23:18 - and you can see the data for that PB ride right here - the PB climb is the data associated with Lap 2). I lost about 4 minutes in that second half of the OLH climb.
So......I told Dennis that my most probable time for OLH right now would be 25 minutes, about 2 minutes slower than my PB time earlier this year.
And now, I have some evidence to suggest where those 2 minutes got lost - not so much in my legs (which I always thought made some sense, but it's not like I haven't been using my legs for the last few months!) - it sounds like those 2 minutes are buried in the extra fat rolling around my tummy!
If you subtract off that 2 minutes from my likely time of 25 minutes for OLH right now (where I pace myself appropriately for the entire climb), you get a magic time of about 23 minutes!
Oh, remember I said I could justify that value of 5 seconds per kilogram of extra fat? Well, in my interest of trying to be accurate (and fair) to myself, I did a little more research and found this interesting tidbit on Wikipedia:
"The formula for power suggests that 1 lb. saved is worth 0.06 mph (0.1 km/h) on a 7% grade"
You can find this little gem right here, if you want to read all the details.
Well, OLH is about 7% - and this means my extra 10 pounds would slow me down by 0.6 mph for the climb. For that 3.22 mile climb, if you use my average speed for my PB (8.3 mph) and subtract 0.6 mph, you get 7.7 mph - and if you then re-calculate what my time would be doing that climb at 7.7 mph, you get a time of 25:06 - about 2 minutes slower than my PB time of 23:18 !!
So, as you can see, my use of 5 seconds / kilogram for the time penalty on OLH is quite justified - and is probably fairly accurate, too...
And just what does this all mean?
Wooohoooo!! This means that all I have to do is lose those 10 or 11 pounds and I'll probably be able to match my PB time up OLH back on August 1.
Oh - and those two donuts I told you I'd eat? Uh, no way, Charlie - it's veggies and water for me, until I get back to my old climbing weight... :)
Okay, so now I don't feel so bad - it's the fat, stupid!
For those of you (most likely, all one of you - and you know who you are, Dennis!) that have followed my recent posts, you know that I've been just a tad disappointed that my ability to climb a hill has deteriorated in the last couple of months, which happened to coincide with my entry back into the world of bike racing.
"Aha!", you'll say - training for races makes you weaker, right? All those Noon Goon rides and crits and flatter road races have been really bad for you, right? Well, not really, as it might turn out.
This blog entry is a remarkably boring analysis of why you need to watch your diet - especially if you want to keep your racing edge.
So, I was reading Joel Friel's excellent book, "Cycling Past 50" (okay, so I'm 53 and "over-the-hill" - but I can still beat a lot of guys half my age on a road race course!) - and I came across this very interesting tidbit on pages 70-71 (oh, you can buy his book at Amazon.com right here):
"It's been estimated that every extra kilogram of fat (2.2 pounds) adds three seconds in a one-kilometer climb (0.62 miles) on a moderate grade of about 5 percent."
Really?
And I was telling my friend, Dennis Pedersen, just the other day, that I thought part of my problem in my recent poor climbing performance was due to the fact that I was about 10 pounds heavier now than when I was at my climbing fitness peak back in mid-July, just before I started getting back into the racing scene.
Hmmmmmm......so, I decided to do the math, to see what effect 10 or 11 pounds might have on climbing my old nemesis, Old La Honda (OLH).
Now, OLH is not a moderate grade of 5 percent - it's a lot meaner - like an average grade of 7.5% - so I decided to give myself a five second penalty for each kilogram of extra fat. I'll justify this value just a little later...
Okay - let's see...11 pounds would be exactly 5 kilograms, so I'll just say I'm 5 kilograms over my mid-July weight (okay - I'll go eat a couple of donuts to make that absolutely true). So my time penalty for those 5 kilograms is about 25 seconds for each kilometer of the climb. Hmmmm.....interesting!
And, OLH is 3.3 miles in length, which is about 5 kilometers (actually, closer to 5.5, but we'll just use 5 kilometers).
So, 25 seconds for each of those 5 kilometers gives me a time penalty of
Now, I recently did OLH in 27:02, as you all know - but I told Dennis that I thought this was a poor representation of the actual baseline for me right now - I went out way too hard on that ITT up OLH (remember - I got to the halfway point in just 11:45, which was only 10 seconds slower than my halfway point on my PB time of 23:18 - and you can see the data for that PB ride right here - the PB climb is the data associated with Lap 2). I lost about 4 minutes in that second half of the OLH climb.
So......I told Dennis that my most probable time for OLH right now would be 25 minutes, about 2 minutes slower than my PB time earlier this year.
And now, I have some evidence to suggest where those 2 minutes got lost - not so much in my legs (which I always thought made some sense, but it's not like I haven't been using my legs for the last few months!) - it sounds like those 2 minutes are buried in the extra fat rolling around my tummy!
If you subtract off that 2 minutes from my likely time of 25 minutes for OLH right now (where I pace myself appropriately for the entire climb), you get a magic time of about 23 minutes!
Oh, remember I said I could justify that value of 5 seconds per kilogram of extra fat? Well, in my interest of trying to be accurate (and fair) to myself, I did a little more research and found this interesting tidbit on Wikipedia:
"The formula for power suggests that 1 lb. saved is worth 0.06 mph (0.1 km/h) on a 7% grade"
You can find this little gem right here, if you want to read all the details.
Well, OLH is about 7% - and this means my extra 10 pounds would slow me down by 0.6 mph for the climb. For that 3.22 mile climb, if you use my average speed for my PB (8.3 mph) and subtract 0.6 mph, you get 7.7 mph - and if you then re-calculate what my time would be doing that climb at 7.7 mph, you get a time of 25:06 - about 2 minutes slower than my PB time of 23:18 !!
So, as you can see, my use of 5 seconds / kilogram for the time penalty on OLH is quite justified - and is probably fairly accurate, too...
And just what does this all mean?
Wooohoooo!! This means that all I have to do is lose those 10 or 11 pounds and I'll probably be able to match my PB time up OLH back on August 1.
Oh - and those two donuts I told you I'd eat? Uh, no way, Charlie - it's veggies and water for me, until I get back to my old climbing weight... :)
Okay, so now I don't feel so bad - it's the fat, stupid!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Closing Down The Gap
So today, one of my cycling buddies, Dennis Pedersen, and I started a new fall/winter training program that will include climbing up Page Mill Road on Wednesdays, starting at about noon. Neither one of us had ever climbed UP Page Mill, even though both of us thought we had descended Page Mill in the far, distant past.
Our plan was simple - we wanted to do 2 relatively hard efforts (about 90% of your max heartrate) for 20 minutes each. When Dennis and I met on Old Page Mill at noon, I told him I might cheat a little and only put out about 85% of my max heartrate, since I'm typically a little conservative when doing a climb for the first time - I like to "scope it out", so to speak - get an idea of all the little nuances of the climb, like where it hurts the most - like those dang switchback turns that often hit 15% to 20%, unless you cheat and swing over to the wrong side of the road to flatten the bend a bit - but this can be dangerous, and is not particularly recommended - traffic coming down the mountain will be going a lot faster than you are going up the mountain!
And I had already "virtually" scoped out the climb by analyzing various people that had uploaded their ride data to MotionBased.com - what a cool site! I have a Garmin Edge 305 cyclometer - and anyone that has a Garmin can upload their data to MotionBased.com, which has much better software for analyzing your data than the stock software that comes with your Garmin (their Training Center program).
I had also driven up Page Mill several times, as it happens to be one of the "escape routes" when I commute home from San Mateo. If I get to the Page Mill exit on Hwy 280 and see a long line of cars parked on the freeway, I will often decide to take "the scenic route" home, going up Page Mill to Skyline, then Skyline to Black Rd, and down Black Rd to Hwy 17, where I latch back onto the freeway system and scoot on over to Scotts Valley, where I live.
So, the combination of having driven up Page Mill, and looking at the MotionBased.com data from different cyclists that had gone up Page Mill allowed me to inform Dennis that I had a basic game plan for attacking Page Mill to get our 2 20-minute workouts.
Here's the profile of the climb up Page Mill: The first 1.0 mile (starting at Arastradero) is fairly mild - just a 3% average grade or so. Then, from mile 1.0 to mile 4.5, it kicks up fairly strong (this is the hardest section of Page Mill, no doubt). In that 3.5 miles, you gain about 1500 feet, so the average grade is between 9% and 10% - and that's just the average! There are spots that hit 15% to 20% (yep - those damn switchbacks!). Then, after you hit the 4.5 mile mark, the next mile is fairly easy (back to a reasonable - and pleasing - 4% average grade). Then, the last 3 miles, from mile 5.5 to mile 8.5 is a series of uphill rollers, i.e., rollers that keep getting you up higher and higher. You climb another 600 feet in that 3 miles, which is an average grade of just 4% again - but they are rollers, so the aveage is a little misleading. Still, the top half of Page Mill is a piece of cake, compared to that tough 3.5 mile section you slog through between mile 1.0 and mile 4.5, for sure!
So I proposed a gameplan to Dennis - we go fairly mild for the first mile, then when the road starts to kick up, we do our 20-minute interval, which should get us to somewhere around the 4.0 mile mark. Then, we go easy for 5 minutes and do the last 20 minutes hard again.
Well, Dennis stuck to the plan, almost exactly as I mapped it out. He got to the 4.0 mile mark in just about 20 minutes (that is, 20 minutes after I said, "Go!", which was at the 1.0 mile spot of the climb). Then, he patiently waited for me to arrive, which was about 3 minutes later, we calculated. You see, even though Dennis got to the 4.0 mile mark as instructed, I was lagging behind, since I'm not climbing quite as strong as Dennis (that's an understatement!). So, when my 20 minutes were up, I was only at the 3.5 mile mark. It took me another 3 minutes to do that 1/2 mile to get to where Dennis had kindly parked himself, waiting patiently for me.
So we discussed what we had experienced so far and decided that Dennis would most likely do the rest of the climb in just another 20 minutes or so. And I would most likely take a few more minutes than that, again! So we started off rather easy, which is actually hard to do, since we had another 1/2 mile of steeper grades before we got to the "easy" part of Page Mill, at mile 4.5 - and after a couple of minutes, Dennis blasted off ahead of me, to head for the top.
And, right on schedule, he got to the top in 20 minutes (after going easy for 2 minutes with me).
And me? Well, I kind of cheated again and didn't really push it at 90% of my max heartrate - it was more like just 80% to 85% - so I lost a couple of minutes for the last half of the climb. Unfortunately, it makes it easy for you to do this, since Page Mill really lets up for those last couple of miles.
So, how did we do? Well, we figured out that Dennis probably did the entire climb in about 46 minutes or so - and I had an actual, official time: 53:31 - not too shabby, all things considered.
I believe that Dennis can do the climb in about 42 minutes, if he made an all-out effort for the entire climb. To see why, just check out the times of the guys that did Old La Honda (OLH) in last year's LKHC (week 2) and compare to their times on the Page Mill climb (week 6):
http://www.lowkey.djconnel.com/2006/week2/results.html
http://www.lowkey.djconnel.com/2006/week6/results.html
Check out, for example, the times of Ron Brunner, Fred Stamm, and Peter Tapscott:
RB -- 20:18 (OLH) --- 41:46 (Page Mill)
FS -- 20:03 (OLH) --- 42:53 (Page Mill)
PT -- 19:58 (OLH) --- 41:20 (Page Mill)
It looks like the algorithm for converting OLH times to Page Mill times is pretty simple:
Page Mill time = (OLH time + 1:00) * 2
Since Dennis did 19:50 on OLH last week (when I did that disasterous time of 27:02), there's every reason to expect his Page Mill time would have been right there, in the 42 minute range.
And, today's result on Page Mill backs up my algorithm - I did 53:30, but I'm pretty sure it could have easily done about 52 minutes if I had pushed a little harder on the top half.
So, reversing the algorithm, you get an OLH time for me of about 25 minutes ( 52/2 - 1 ), which is what I was telling Dennis earlier today - I don't think my time last week was a good baseline - 27:02 - I know I had lost my climbing legs over the last couple of months, but I figured that was good for a 2 minute loss on OLH, and not 4 minutes!
See? I'm a genius, right?
On the other hand, if I can get back to my OLH time of about 23 minutes (doable in the next couple of months), then my Page Mill time should end up in the 48 minute range.
So, this means I'll end up about 6 minutes behind Dennis, when I get my climbing legs back in the next month or two.
But by that time, Dennis will have most likely be approaching the OLH times of someone like David Kelly - he did 17:53 last year in week 2 of the LKHC. And, his Page Mill time was a very respectable time of 37:35 ( (18+1) * 2 = 38 ).
So even as I get better, so will Dennis - and the gap will still be there.
Or will it?
Obviously, I have a lot more room for improvement than Dennis does - we'll both reach some natural limit to our improvement - I just hope that I can end up close enough to him so we can work together in a few races next year, tearing the legs off all those guys that spent their fall and winter months watching football and pigging out during Thanksgiving and Xmas...
Well, I still like to dream, anyway... :)
Our plan was simple - we wanted to do 2 relatively hard efforts (about 90% of your max heartrate) for 20 minutes each. When Dennis and I met on Old Page Mill at noon, I told him I might cheat a little and only put out about 85% of my max heartrate, since I'm typically a little conservative when doing a climb for the first time - I like to "scope it out", so to speak - get an idea of all the little nuances of the climb, like where it hurts the most - like those dang switchback turns that often hit 15% to 20%, unless you cheat and swing over to the wrong side of the road to flatten the bend a bit - but this can be dangerous, and is not particularly recommended - traffic coming down the mountain will be going a lot faster than you are going up the mountain!
And I had already "virtually" scoped out the climb by analyzing various people that had uploaded their ride data to MotionBased.com - what a cool site! I have a Garmin Edge 305 cyclometer - and anyone that has a Garmin can upload their data to MotionBased.com, which has much better software for analyzing your data than the stock software that comes with your Garmin (their Training Center program).
I had also driven up Page Mill several times, as it happens to be one of the "escape routes" when I commute home from San Mateo. If I get to the Page Mill exit on Hwy 280 and see a long line of cars parked on the freeway, I will often decide to take "the scenic route" home, going up Page Mill to Skyline, then Skyline to Black Rd, and down Black Rd to Hwy 17, where I latch back onto the freeway system and scoot on over to Scotts Valley, where I live.
So, the combination of having driven up Page Mill, and looking at the MotionBased.com data from different cyclists that had gone up Page Mill allowed me to inform Dennis that I had a basic game plan for attacking Page Mill to get our 2 20-minute workouts.
Here's the profile of the climb up Page Mill: The first 1.0 mile (starting at Arastradero) is fairly mild - just a 3% average grade or so. Then, from mile 1.0 to mile 4.5, it kicks up fairly strong (this is the hardest section of Page Mill, no doubt). In that 3.5 miles, you gain about 1500 feet, so the average grade is between 9% and 10% - and that's just the average! There are spots that hit 15% to 20% (yep - those damn switchbacks!). Then, after you hit the 4.5 mile mark, the next mile is fairly easy (back to a reasonable - and pleasing - 4% average grade). Then, the last 3 miles, from mile 5.5 to mile 8.5 is a series of uphill rollers, i.e., rollers that keep getting you up higher and higher. You climb another 600 feet in that 3 miles, which is an average grade of just 4% again - but they are rollers, so the aveage is a little misleading. Still, the top half of Page Mill is a piece of cake, compared to that tough 3.5 mile section you slog through between mile 1.0 and mile 4.5, for sure!
So I proposed a gameplan to Dennis - we go fairly mild for the first mile, then when the road starts to kick up, we do our 20-minute interval, which should get us to somewhere around the 4.0 mile mark. Then, we go easy for 5 minutes and do the last 20 minutes hard again.
Well, Dennis stuck to the plan, almost exactly as I mapped it out. He got to the 4.0 mile mark in just about 20 minutes (that is, 20 minutes after I said, "Go!", which was at the 1.0 mile spot of the climb). Then, he patiently waited for me to arrive, which was about 3 minutes later, we calculated. You see, even though Dennis got to the 4.0 mile mark as instructed, I was lagging behind, since I'm not climbing quite as strong as Dennis (that's an understatement!). So, when my 20 minutes were up, I was only at the 3.5 mile mark. It took me another 3 minutes to do that 1/2 mile to get to where Dennis had kindly parked himself, waiting patiently for me.
So we discussed what we had experienced so far and decided that Dennis would most likely do the rest of the climb in just another 20 minutes or so. And I would most likely take a few more minutes than that, again! So we started off rather easy, which is actually hard to do, since we had another 1/2 mile of steeper grades before we got to the "easy" part of Page Mill, at mile 4.5 - and after a couple of minutes, Dennis blasted off ahead of me, to head for the top.
And, right on schedule, he got to the top in 20 minutes (after going easy for 2 minutes with me).
And me? Well, I kind of cheated again and didn't really push it at 90% of my max heartrate - it was more like just 80% to 85% - so I lost a couple of minutes for the last half of the climb. Unfortunately, it makes it easy for you to do this, since Page Mill really lets up for those last couple of miles.
So, how did we do? Well, we figured out that Dennis probably did the entire climb in about 46 minutes or so - and I had an actual, official time: 53:31 - not too shabby, all things considered.
I believe that Dennis can do the climb in about 42 minutes, if he made an all-out effort for the entire climb. To see why, just check out the times of the guys that did Old La Honda (OLH) in last year's LKHC (week 2) and compare to their times on the Page Mill climb (week 6):
http://www.lowkey.djconnel.com/2006/week2/results.html
http://www.lowkey.djconnel.com/2006/week6/results.html
Check out, for example, the times of Ron Brunner, Fred Stamm, and Peter Tapscott:
RB -- 20:18 (OLH) --- 41:46 (Page Mill)
FS -- 20:03 (OLH) --- 42:53 (Page Mill)
PT -- 19:58 (OLH) --- 41:20 (Page Mill)
It looks like the algorithm for converting OLH times to Page Mill times is pretty simple:
Page Mill time = (OLH time + 1:00) * 2
Since Dennis did 19:50 on OLH last week (when I did that disasterous time of 27:02), there's every reason to expect his Page Mill time would have been right there, in the 42 minute range.
And, today's result on Page Mill backs up my algorithm - I did 53:30, but I'm pretty sure it could have easily done about 52 minutes if I had pushed a little harder on the top half.
So, reversing the algorithm, you get an OLH time for me of about 25 minutes ( 52/2 - 1 ), which is what I was telling Dennis earlier today - I don't think my time last week was a good baseline - 27:02 - I know I had lost my climbing legs over the last couple of months, but I figured that was good for a 2 minute loss on OLH, and not 4 minutes!
See? I'm a genius, right?
On the other hand, if I can get back to my OLH time of about 23 minutes (doable in the next couple of months), then my Page Mill time should end up in the 48 minute range.
So, this means I'll end up about 6 minutes behind Dennis, when I get my climbing legs back in the next month or two.
But by that time, Dennis will have most likely be approaching the OLH times of someone like David Kelly - he did 17:53 last year in week 2 of the LKHC. And, his Page Mill time was a very respectable time of 37:35 ( (18+1) * 2 = 38 ).
So even as I get better, so will Dennis - and the gap will still be there.
Or will it?
Obviously, I have a lot more room for improvement than Dennis does - we'll both reach some natural limit to our improvement - I just hope that I can end up close enough to him so we can work together in a few races next year, tearing the legs off all those guys that spent their fall and winter months watching football and pigging out during Thanksgiving and Xmas...
Well, I still like to dream, anyway... :)
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Going Backwards
So today, my friend, Dennis Pedersen, and I joined the Noon Goon ride in Palo Alto. Our intent was to start out the ride with them, which includes a nice climb up Old La Honda (OLH). But at the top of OLH, we were intending to slide back down to the bottom of the hill and - oh, no! - do the climb - again!
So, you might be wondering - why the hell would we do that? Simple. Today was the official start of the off-season for us - and we both want to improve our climbing for races that we intend to do next year. We'll both do our fair share of crits and the flatter road races, but it would be nice to be able to hang with the main pack on some of the hillier road races, too - the ones that have significant climbs in them (in this case, "significant" means something more than a mile long, and gaining more than just a few hundred feet of elevation).
So Dennis proposed that we start doing a series of 2x20 climbing efforts - this is where you climb at about 90% of your max heartrate for 20 minutes - and you do it 2 times (hence, the "2x20" nomenclature). We'll be doing other hill-climbing feats of pain, too - like 4-minute hill repeats (5 or 6 of them - ouch!), and other equally horrific painful activities - all meant to make you stronger, of course ("That which does not kill you...yeah, yeah, yeah...") - and since climbing OLH takes a decent climber about 20 minutes (usually a little less), then doing OLH twice made total sense.
So we meet with the Noon Goons at precisely 12 Noon (that's partially how they get their nickname from me) - and head out for a nice, 25-minute warmup to the base of OLH. I was a little hesitant about doing this climb just once, mind you - I last climbed it about 2 months ago and did a PB (that's Personal Best, just to be clear) of about 23:18 or so. Not a great time, but good for me - and I was confident about 2 months ago that I could keep chipping away at that time and get it into the very low 20s by the end of this year. My modest goal for the year was 22:00 flat - and I was sure I could meet this goal - maybe even get it down into the 21:xx range. In fact, a time of 21:18 would have been perfect, since there's this guy, Lucas Pereira, who did 21:19 several years ago when he participated in the Low-Key Hill Climb series back in 1997 (see his personal cycling records here).
I always thought it would be great if I could, one day, match the records of Lucas Pereira, just because his time for various climbs were well beyond my capabilities just a few short years ago, when I first came across his Personal Cycling Records page. I'm sure that Lucas Pereira could care less that there is someone out there attempting to match his accomplishments - he even says this at the top of that page:
This page is mainly for my own use. The records are nothing special, but I figured I would write them down so that I don't forget.
Yeah, I know what you mean, Lucas - and that's how I feel about my own records (the PBs) - they're mostly just for my own benefit. But it's always fun to have someone that you are competing with - besides yourself - just to make the game a little more fun and interesting.
So when I did the Beat-the-Clock Canada Road Time Trial back at the end of May this year (see the results here), I was delighted with my time for the 10-mile TT - 26:14 - which translates to just under 23.0 mph !! Why was I delighted? Because I had done better than Lucas Pereira, who did a lesser version of this time trial on Canada Rd (a shorter, 7.6-mile version, but on the same road) - he did 19:58, which translates to just 22.8 mph - so I had gone a longer distance (2.4 miles longer), and averaged just a little faster speed! Woohoooo!!!
Now granted, there isn't much climbing in that time trial (just a few hundred feet), but it showed that I had made great progress, indeed! Lucas had also climbed Mt Diablo in 1:10:40 - and I had done that same climb in 1:15:30 just a couple of weeks before that Canada Rd time trial, with my friend, Ed (you can see a recording of that ride here) - and I wasn't even trying to go that hard that day - I estimated I could have ridden up Mt Diablo 5 to 7 minutes faster than that, which would put me right there with Lucas' time! Maybe even a little faster! Not only that, but another biking buddy of mine, Mike Tolaio, had climbed Mt Diablo in a best time of 1:09:35 - and so there was an excellent chance I could have done a better time than Mike - and he's someone that was always able to out-climb me on any given day. This year, I've been riding fairly consistently, but Mike has not (he's been devoting a lot of time to his son's baseball development).
So what is the point of all this? Well, getting back to Old La Honda and the ride we did today, I was feeling hesitant - mostly because I just knew it was going to be a painful ride up the climb - and not just because of the difficulty of doing the climb, but also because I have not been climbing much the last couple of months - I've been riding with the Noon Goons during the week, and then doing crits or flatter road races on the weekends, which are a ton of fun, but don't really help you climb any faster.
So today I found out the truth - I'm going backwards! My time up OLH today: 27:02 - almost 4 minutes slower than just 2 months ago! How can that be?
Well, it's not quite as bad as it sounds, at first. If you looked at my time when I was about 1/2 way up the climb, things were looking bright. True, my average heartrate was more like 95% of my max (close to 165 bpm) instead of the 90% rate I was supposed to target (about 157 bpm) - but my time at the 1.0-mile mark was just 6:45 - only 10 seconds slower than my PB time. At the 1/2 way point (mile 1.6), I was at 11:55, just 30 seconds off my PB time. So I was starting to slip, but not too much.
Then, my world blew up - or, at least, my legs blew up. Suddenly, I had that horrible feeling I was about to slow to a crawl - and, I did. At the next checkpoint, mile 2.0, I had a time of 15:50 - a full 1:30 slower than my PB, so I had just lost a full minute in just 0.4 of a mile - not a good sign! And, I knew the last 1.2 miles were going to be equally painful and slow - and, they were! At mile 2.2 (where you travel through these incredibly beautiful pair of redwoods - like a magical door), I was at 19:00, now I was 2:30 down - oh, no! - I had lost another minute! At the 3.0-mile mark, I was at 25:30, now down by 3:30 - oh, brother - I was losing time real quickly - was there a hole in the bottom of the hour glass? How could so much sand escape? Finally, I rounded the final bend and dropped dead at the mailboxes, with a final time of 27:02 - I had officially lost almost 4 minutes from my PB of 23:18 just 2 months ago, on August 1 (you can see a recording of that ride here). Horror of horrors!
Then, I had a bit of good luck - Dennis thought his head tube was a bit loose, and decided he didn't think it would be a good idea to do another climb up OLH. Well, I could have told him that - and I didn't need to pretend my head tube was loose, either - my legs had learned to "Just Say No!" - and they did! So, I didn't (do another climb, that is) - and Dennis kindly kept me company as I limped back to the start area. But we did get in a couple of practice lead-out sprints on the way back - I felt much better, once I was on semi-level ground again!
So what does this all mean? Have I progressed backwards that much in such a short time? Well, yes - and no - I definitely went out too hard, which I said I wasn't going to do - but I did, anyway. The lesson there is: Follow your plan - if you were smart enough to come up with a training plan, then try to at least follow the training plan! Otherwise, why make a plan? Why not just do random rides at random times on random days? So, I think I learned a good lesson here. I'm fairly certain that if I had just started out by working my way up to the 90% heartrate (about 157 bpm), and stayed there for the entire climb, I would have hit the 1/2 way point a little slower (like at about 12:30 or 12:45), but then finished a lot stronger, and would have only lost about 2 minutes from my PB, to finish at about 25 minutes or so.
Thus, I would have been down about 2 minutes, which is a lot more palatable than down by 4 minutes!
Oh, and my friend, Dennis? I had predicted that he would break 20 minutes, based on my observation of his performances over the last few months. And his time? 19:50. Boy, I'm getting awful good at predicting other people's performances - now it's time to work on my own! So congrats to Dennis - he is now officially in the "sub-20" crowd for OLH - and it seems that everyone who considers themselves an avid cyclist knows his/her time up OLH - it's a classic benchmark climb in the Bay Area. It's not the steepest climb (it averages about 7.5%), nor is it the longest (it's about 3.25 miles), but it does climb 1330 feet - and if you can do it in less than 20 minutes, you belong to a fairly elite club of cyclists - and I hope to be there by the Spring of next year, with a little help and encouragement from Dennis and his new training program for me, which will focus on a lot of climbing during the next 4 to 5 months, in preparation for some of the hillier road races next year.
So, I'm going backwards - but it's all about the journey, right? This has been a fun year - I got back into racing, which I hadn't done for 30 years - and I'm able to hang in for a lot of the Noon Goon rides, as well as crits and the flatter road races - and at age 53, that ain't too bad! I mean, I could be 60 pounds overweight and unable to ride around the block, which happens to describe me just 4 short years ago. So I'm not doing too bad - most of the weight is gone (and just why is that last 10 to 15 pounds so hard to drop, anyway?) - and my enthusiasm for biking is at an all-time high (too high, if you ask my family!).
And besides, next year, Dennis and I plan to be bona-fide mutants, tearing the legs off unsuspecting victims on a weekly basis...right, Dennis?
Yeah, right... :)
So, you might be wondering - why the hell would we do that? Simple. Today was the official start of the off-season for us - and we both want to improve our climbing for races that we intend to do next year. We'll both do our fair share of crits and the flatter road races, but it would be nice to be able to hang with the main pack on some of the hillier road races, too - the ones that have significant climbs in them (in this case, "significant" means something more than a mile long, and gaining more than just a few hundred feet of elevation).
So Dennis proposed that we start doing a series of 2x20 climbing efforts - this is where you climb at about 90% of your max heartrate for 20 minutes - and you do it 2 times (hence, the "2x20" nomenclature). We'll be doing other hill-climbing feats of pain, too - like 4-minute hill repeats (5 or 6 of them - ouch!), and other equally horrific painful activities - all meant to make you stronger, of course ("That which does not kill you...yeah, yeah, yeah...") - and since climbing OLH takes a decent climber about 20 minutes (usually a little less), then doing OLH twice made total sense.
So we meet with the Noon Goons at precisely 12 Noon (that's partially how they get their nickname from me) - and head out for a nice, 25-minute warmup to the base of OLH. I was a little hesitant about doing this climb just once, mind you - I last climbed it about 2 months ago and did a PB (that's Personal Best, just to be clear) of about 23:18 or so. Not a great time, but good for me - and I was confident about 2 months ago that I could keep chipping away at that time and get it into the very low 20s by the end of this year. My modest goal for the year was 22:00 flat - and I was sure I could meet this goal - maybe even get it down into the 21:xx range. In fact, a time of 21:18 would have been perfect, since there's this guy, Lucas Pereira, who did 21:19 several years ago when he participated in the Low-Key Hill Climb series back in 1997 (see his personal cycling records here).
I always thought it would be great if I could, one day, match the records of Lucas Pereira, just because his time for various climbs were well beyond my capabilities just a few short years ago, when I first came across his Personal Cycling Records page. I'm sure that Lucas Pereira could care less that there is someone out there attempting to match his accomplishments - he even says this at the top of that page:
This page is mainly for my own use. The records are nothing special, but I figured I would write them down so that I don't forget.
Yeah, I know what you mean, Lucas - and that's how I feel about my own records (the PBs) - they're mostly just for my own benefit. But it's always fun to have someone that you are competing with - besides yourself - just to make the game a little more fun and interesting.
So when I did the Beat-the-Clock Canada Road Time Trial back at the end of May this year (see the results here), I was delighted with my time for the 10-mile TT - 26:14 - which translates to just under 23.0 mph !! Why was I delighted? Because I had done better than Lucas Pereira, who did a lesser version of this time trial on Canada Rd (a shorter, 7.6-mile version, but on the same road) - he did 19:58, which translates to just 22.8 mph - so I had gone a longer distance (2.4 miles longer), and averaged just a little faster speed! Woohoooo!!!
Now granted, there isn't much climbing in that time trial (just a few hundred feet), but it showed that I had made great progress, indeed! Lucas had also climbed Mt Diablo in 1:10:40 - and I had done that same climb in 1:15:30 just a couple of weeks before that Canada Rd time trial, with my friend, Ed (you can see a recording of that ride here) - and I wasn't even trying to go that hard that day - I estimated I could have ridden up Mt Diablo 5 to 7 minutes faster than that, which would put me right there with Lucas' time! Maybe even a little faster! Not only that, but another biking buddy of mine, Mike Tolaio, had climbed Mt Diablo in a best time of 1:09:35 - and so there was an excellent chance I could have done a better time than Mike - and he's someone that was always able to out-climb me on any given day. This year, I've been riding fairly consistently, but Mike has not (he's been devoting a lot of time to his son's baseball development).
So what is the point of all this? Well, getting back to Old La Honda and the ride we did today, I was feeling hesitant - mostly because I just knew it was going to be a painful ride up the climb - and not just because of the difficulty of doing the climb, but also because I have not been climbing much the last couple of months - I've been riding with the Noon Goons during the week, and then doing crits or flatter road races on the weekends, which are a ton of fun, but don't really help you climb any faster.
So today I found out the truth - I'm going backwards! My time up OLH today: 27:02 - almost 4 minutes slower than just 2 months ago! How can that be?
Well, it's not quite as bad as it sounds, at first. If you looked at my time when I was about 1/2 way up the climb, things were looking bright. True, my average heartrate was more like 95% of my max (close to 165 bpm) instead of the 90% rate I was supposed to target (about 157 bpm) - but my time at the 1.0-mile mark was just 6:45 - only 10 seconds slower than my PB time. At the 1/2 way point (mile 1.6), I was at 11:55, just 30 seconds off my PB time. So I was starting to slip, but not too much.
Then, my world blew up - or, at least, my legs blew up. Suddenly, I had that horrible feeling I was about to slow to a crawl - and, I did. At the next checkpoint, mile 2.0, I had a time of 15:50 - a full 1:30 slower than my PB, so I had just lost a full minute in just 0.4 of a mile - not a good sign! And, I knew the last 1.2 miles were going to be equally painful and slow - and, they were! At mile 2.2 (where you travel through these incredibly beautiful pair of redwoods - like a magical door), I was at 19:00, now I was 2:30 down - oh, no! - I had lost another minute! At the 3.0-mile mark, I was at 25:30, now down by 3:30 - oh, brother - I was losing time real quickly - was there a hole in the bottom of the hour glass? How could so much sand escape? Finally, I rounded the final bend and dropped dead at the mailboxes, with a final time of 27:02 - I had officially lost almost 4 minutes from my PB of 23:18 just 2 months ago, on August 1 (you can see a recording of that ride here). Horror of horrors!
Then, I had a bit of good luck - Dennis thought his head tube was a bit loose, and decided he didn't think it would be a good idea to do another climb up OLH. Well, I could have told him that - and I didn't need to pretend my head tube was loose, either - my legs had learned to "Just Say No!" - and they did! So, I didn't (do another climb, that is) - and Dennis kindly kept me company as I limped back to the start area. But we did get in a couple of practice lead-out sprints on the way back - I felt much better, once I was on semi-level ground again!
So what does this all mean? Have I progressed backwards that much in such a short time? Well, yes - and no - I definitely went out too hard, which I said I wasn't going to do - but I did, anyway. The lesson there is: Follow your plan - if you were smart enough to come up with a training plan, then try to at least follow the training plan! Otherwise, why make a plan? Why not just do random rides at random times on random days? So, I think I learned a good lesson here. I'm fairly certain that if I had just started out by working my way up to the 90% heartrate (about 157 bpm), and stayed there for the entire climb, I would have hit the 1/2 way point a little slower (like at about 12:30 or 12:45), but then finished a lot stronger, and would have only lost about 2 minutes from my PB, to finish at about 25 minutes or so.
Thus, I would have been down about 2 minutes, which is a lot more palatable than down by 4 minutes!
Oh, and my friend, Dennis? I had predicted that he would break 20 minutes, based on my observation of his performances over the last few months. And his time? 19:50. Boy, I'm getting awful good at predicting other people's performances - now it's time to work on my own! So congrats to Dennis - he is now officially in the "sub-20" crowd for OLH - and it seems that everyone who considers themselves an avid cyclist knows his/her time up OLH - it's a classic benchmark climb in the Bay Area. It's not the steepest climb (it averages about 7.5%), nor is it the longest (it's about 3.25 miles), but it does climb 1330 feet - and if you can do it in less than 20 minutes, you belong to a fairly elite club of cyclists - and I hope to be there by the Spring of next year, with a little help and encouragement from Dennis and his new training program for me, which will focus on a lot of climbing during the next 4 to 5 months, in preparation for some of the hillier road races next year.
So, I'm going backwards - but it's all about the journey, right? This has been a fun year - I got back into racing, which I hadn't done for 30 years - and I'm able to hang in for a lot of the Noon Goon rides, as well as crits and the flatter road races - and at age 53, that ain't too bad! I mean, I could be 60 pounds overweight and unable to ride around the block, which happens to describe me just 4 short years ago. So I'm not doing too bad - most of the weight is gone (and just why is that last 10 to 15 pounds so hard to drop, anyway?) - and my enthusiasm for biking is at an all-time high (too high, if you ask my family!).
And besides, next year, Dennis and I plan to be bona-fide mutants, tearing the legs off unsuspecting victims on a weekly basis...right, Dennis?
Yeah, right... :)
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