Getting Stronger!

Or more efficient, hell, maybe even both. I'm not sure how much it makes a difference, but I feel better than I have ever been on the bike. And what is weird is the more that I ride the mtn bike, the stronger I am on the road bike which is the opposite result that I have been hoping for.

I decided to skip this weeks race at Amelia, but I did manage to get out there and ride 3 laps on Wednesday. The first lap was with a group, and the next 2 laps I did back to back, and they were by myself. It is strange to be on this new program, as it does not leave me much time to chat in between laps. I'm a bit of a social butterfly, but this new program has me looking like I'm standoffish. I'm getting more out of my workouts, and that is the theme. I actually love doing more continious laps. On this day I didn't push the legs too much. I actually just wanted to do 2 laps without stopping. I have become a much stable rider this year with regards to a more leveled out HR now that I always do at least 4 lap, and 95% of the time I do 2 laps back to back.

Since I wasn't racing this weekend I wanted to take advantage of a course that was cut and ready to be raced so I took a drive 26miles south to Amelia and took the camera with me. Out on I-75 and Pines Blvd a new mall is being put up so I know Mrs. P is going to frequent this place.

I wanted it to be a smash mouth day of mtn biking since I was not going to race, so 6 laps were on tap for me.

When you see this sign,

Then you are going to do this.
Which is not bad, as it probably is the most family friendly of all the parks in South Florida. They have the most pavillions and overall space



And a doggie park that would make Lance probably run himself into a coma.

And of course you have Po Po's out in force.

And then of course, you have the course.

Steve and the "In da House" crew all are putting the funds and effort where it belongs. They put in a new section that lets you know that they really do know how to trail build, and make it challenging also. Hats off to them.

But I had a different agenda today. I wanted to compare my performance to the last 2 visits I had here last year when I did 4 laps. So for the first 4 laps I would do 2 laps back to back, and skip the new section so I could go back and study lap times.

I didn't race at this course in December as a result of a busted fork, and I couldn't get it fixed until after my wave started, but I did go out and do 4 laps. My total time for the 4 laps was 1:57.16. The laptimes were 27:53 & 29:37 for the 1st & 2nd. Then I did 30:27 & 29:24 for the 3rd and 4th. Here is the chart. Any time you see it in the red, I'm officially going race effort.

And I was trying to race this day. The next week I skipped the State Series Finale in Santos, but did another 4 laps at Amelia to see if I could get the laptimes down. I was able to knock off 4mins and 16 seconds in doing a 1:53.00. The lap times were 28:56 and 28:19 for the 1st and 2nd laps. I did 27:28 and 28:15 for the 3rd and 4th laps. I spent less time in the red zone even though I put out the same effort as the week before. Here is that chart

Now fastforward 60 days when I have done a water fast fpr 14 days, been sleeping in an Altitude Tent at 9000ft for 22 days, drinking 9.5 water that is more absorbant, taking the supplements EP-NO and Kona Endurance Pro, and 80% of the food that I eat comes from the earth. Shate! I'm doing a lot.

I felt really good this day, and I did 27:35 & 27:31 for the first 2 laps. And the 26:55 & 27:55 for the 3rd and 4th laps. 85% of my time was spent below my race zone, and my overall time was better by 4 mins, with a time of 1hr:49.58.

I was very happy with these laps. I was actually holding back because I didn't want to bonk on laps 5 & 6. I could have easily taken off 45sec to 1 minute off of each lap,but I was zone training. I then went back out and did 2 more laps back to back, but I added in the new section. The last half mile of my training was interrupted as the Short Track was in progress. So I jumped in and finished out the workout above my race zone. I was very excited to watch, and I hope Dave does another one at the Oleta race so I can get a piece of the action.



My total mileage for the day was 34 miles, and all of it was singletrack. One great thing that I noticed after the workout was that my back was not aching at all. Nor did I get up to stretch my bike when I think about it. I have been doing these core training exercises, and it has been paying off. I'll do a post on the core training I'm doing, and it's "Gut Busting".

I can now look at the numbers and it can confirm that I'm a faster rider than before. I'm not sure where that puts me with the Experts as I have not done any significant with regards to high end efforts. I always let them go when things start shaking up like that because I don't want it to ruin my progress in this program. I think it's a time, but now is not it. I can say that me being a faster rider is a factor of everything else except putting in hard efforts. I'm not sure if that much high end is going to be needed for Santos since it's a much flatter course, and those courses suit me better. If I have to go up and down constantly, then that is what hurts me right now. But, I have a plan for that. I'm going to go out to Markham on Thursday and ride the most jaggedly intense part of the course for 1 hr straight. You know what I'm thinking don't you. That would be all of the Gun Range, Outback Ext, Crime Scene, Jet Ski Hill, and Ted Twisted Trail. Yeap! that is what I call threshold training, and I'm not sure if anyone has thought of that. If they did, then they have to be just as fanatical as me.

Now, the update on the road bike has been more promising. I have done the same workout of a 40 mile time trial in my lower endurance zone in this new program. I have put up some HR charts in other post I have done, and the lastest 2 charts kept the hopes up that I'm improving every week. I waited 10 days just to see if I could get the body to forget this route. The last workout I did 1:55.48, and after 10 days off I did 1:54.02. Wow, I knocked off 1 minute and 46 seconds off my best time. Something is working, maybe it's everything that is working together.

Here is the Chart

Here is the HR Values to let you know what time was spent where.

So after doing the smash mouth 34 mile day of singletrack, I decided to go out and hurt myself on the road bike. I mean, really go out and up my effort. I have done all of these workouts with my HR between 140-150bpm. Now, I would raise my effort 5%, which is a whopping 10bpms. At this point I was experimenting, so I wasn't even apprehensive about attempting it. I wanted to see where my aerobic ceiling was after 23 days of being back on the bike.

Since I was raising the HR 10 beats I really tried to look at when the best time was to push the effort. It's easy for me to get in the 140's, but getting into the 150's proved to be much more challenging than I thought. I felt like my legs and lungs were burning like I was in the 160's, but my HR was 144, and I could not get it close to 150 without feeling like I was going to suck my lips down my throat. So I gave up the HR concept and decided to push the pedals way harder than I had done before. This would be great time to have a power meter to look at wattage. Note to self, AGAIN. Get the Polar Power Meter, Pacer!

At the 33 minute mark my Avg speed was 22.9 with is about 1mph faster than normal, and my HR finally got to 151bpm, and 10 seconds later it was at 147bpm. I just laughed as the Workout Gods were playing with my emotions. Then comes the headwind for last 27 minutes going east from Royal Palm to Orange all the way out to Flamingo. I get to the halfway point, and I'm 44 seconds faster than my best time.

I turn around and for 23 minutes I feel like I have a real motor on bike as I never went under 25mph. I got to every light and it was green, so I really got a mode going. Then comes the headwind going back East on 84. I could see that I was way ahead of my best time, but the last 30 minutes really put me in the dirt. I came in at 1:52.31. and that is 1 mins and 31 seconds faster than the time I did 5 days before. I feel good about this workout, but I know that my effort was a lot more than the heartrate values were showing. I'm going to chalk it up to haywire day with the heartrate as a result of the long singletrack effort I put out at Amelia the day before.

Here is the chart

And the HR Values.

When I completed this workout I decied to hop on the trainer, and ride on the Altitude unit at 9000ft for 30 minutes.

Riding at this Altitude for 30 minutes in the fat burning zone is the same as working out for 1hr above your race zone due to the lack of oxygen. In fact, there is no workout you can do at sea level to lower your blood saturation level low enough to trigger the body to make more red blood cells. So this is my way to get more RBC's in the system, the LEGAL way of course. So I can add an extra hour to my workout making it a 3 hr effort, and I need everything considering I'm going to be on the bike for 12-hrs at Santos.

I have only done this workout a couple of times since having the unit, and never after a really hard workout. Sheesh! I felt like I was racing after 5 minutes, as I just felt like I just could not get the oxygen that I needed. I took the mask off for 1 minute and I felt fine, so that did indicate to me that hypoxia training (low oxygen)is really a deep workout for the cells as it leaves them with very little oxygen to work with. I put the mask back on, but the feeling came back, so I took off my shirt.

Great I thought, the breeze on the patio can cool me off. No dice! I still felt like someone has my lungs in the bear hug. I pulled the plug at 25 minutes as it just became to challenging, but I should have pulled it at 15 minutes.

I'm 2 weeks away from the 12-hour and I have done all I think I can do to prepare. I have to be honest in saying that the real goal is to finish the race. I have studied all the races, and only the elite actually finish the race. I don't consider myself the best, but I'm going to consider myself good enough to race with the best. Finish the Race!

Keep Singletracking

Pacer Out!