Monday, February 6, 2017

Week 5: Cactus, Reality Check, and Fun


Not bad, but the timing wasn't good at all!
Thursday I did an FTP test, kind of.  I was fresh, in the right frame of mind and very motivated to get accurate results.  The Valley of the Sun stage race is in two weeks and if I win the time trial I stand a chance to win the stage race.  But, the time trial requires accurate FTP.  Some way into FTP test #1 I grazed a chunk of cholla cactus laying in the road.  A needle grabbed the tire and the cactus flew up and impaled itself in my left hand.  I had no idea what had happened.  FTP test over.  I regrouped, checked the tires and tried again, but eventually resigned myself to trying again this week.

Now this year is all about learning and much of that happened this past week (beyond watch out for cactus in the road)!  It might be a breakthrough week for me really.  See, sometimes when things do NOT go as planned they're of greater benefit than when things go perfectly as expected.  That's what happened with me, all week!

Mt. Hopkins and behind it, Madera Canyon, in the background
Saturday I went with my teammate Tim, who is also doing Tour of the Gila with me, and attempted to do the Big Boy Shootout and Madera Canyon, totaling 100 fast miles with about 5,000 feet of climbing.  (To be my first 100 mile ride since 2014!)

I'd done the slower variety of the Shootout a few weeks before and only had trouble when I put myself in difficulty with intention.  But Saturday there were a lot of young pro riders looking for a workout and they had me in difficulty all day long.


Long story short, I discovered how much my inexperience is costing me ... I really need to learn how to ride in a group.  I'm not unsafe, if anything, I'm too cautious.  I kept getting scrubbed off of wheels I wanted to follow and ended up in bad positions all day.  Then, at one point I decided to take off my gloves, but thought it best to slip towards the back to do so.  I ended up on the wrong side of a split in the group.  I waited to let those in front of me bridge the gap, but they couldn't.  By the time I decided to do it, the gap was significant.  UGH!  I had to work for a long time before catching back on.

As it turned out a large group was deviating from the Shootout route and heading up Madera Canyon, too.  Madera Canyon is a category 1 climb, most of the elevation gain in the last 3 miles.  The last 3 miles average 7% gradient, but there are long stretches of 10% plus with no rest.  For a big boy, like me, this is brutal.

One of the hills near my home I ride up every day.
For the Madera climb I used Best Bike Split to create a Garmin Power Course, which I had loaded on my Garmin 520.  It worked really well.  Once the pace up Madera got to where I was hitting 400 watts just to hold wheels, I dropped out and followed the power suggested by Best Bike Split.  I ended up with a PR by almost 8 minutes!  But, it cost me.  I had the BBS pacing set at a 0.88 IF (that means very hard, and on the heels of 90 minutes of hard riding already).

On the return leg of the ride back to town I ended up getting cramps in my left leg, suddenly, without warning.  It was very strange.  Upon reviewing the data collected on the day I saw that I had an imbalance between left and right leg power, 46% to 54%.  So I need to address this before it leads to injury!

So I learned I need to work on riding in fast groups as well as flexibility and strength in my left leg (weakened by the back injury).  But, I also learned that BBS can have a great application even in a group ride or race!  I also worked on nutrition timing, which worked very well.  I'll share about that another time.

Cedric climbing out of Pena Blanca Lake on Sunday with me.
Sunday I went on a long ride from my house to Patagonia Lake and then to Pena Blanca Lake.  The route is just shy of 70 miles and just shy of 5,000 feet of climbing.  Great practice for Tour of the Gila.  Although I was tired from Saturday I decided to test myself on a couple of difficult sections. I smashed by previous best time on a tough section where I used to train frequently, but hadn't ridden at all since 2014 (post surgery).  That put a smile on my face!

I collected a handful of KOMs on Strava Sunday, even though I had fried legs.  Funny how finding your limit, like I did Saturday, can help push that limit!  It's a great thing.

So while I got my butt handed to me Saturday, I realized that I've come a long way on Sunday.  That's cycling for you!

Last thing to share:  I put together the video from the Oracle Road Race that happened last weekend (week #4).  Here it is.  Thanks again for reading.









3 comments:

  1. I'm not sure that the power imbalance is something to get too worked up about. Everyone I know who's used L/R power sees a discrepancy of several percent. Now granted you are actually coming back from an injury which h affected one leg more than the other, but keep in mind that most power meters are only accurate within about 2%. And to measure L/R power you need to make 2 power meetera potentially leading to a 4% discrepancy even if you are 50/50.

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  2. The imbalance has been drifting (towards greater imbalance) and is worse during a hard ride. No big deal, glad I know about it before it turns into something. I need to be more vigilant with my single leg exercises. Today I found one I forgot about that targets that exact muscle that cramped.

    You looked smooth and comfortable on your new bike Saturday. Is the bike fitting worth the money?

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  3. Oh it is absolutely worth it. A few years ago I had a problem with a really bad case of runners knee (Patellar Tendonitis) and I used some other fitters but couldn't shake it. After using Tim Carolan I was able to eliminate the tendonitis. So I've used Tim ever since and I always feel so much more at home on the bike afterwards. Even when I try to recreate my position from one bike to another I never seem to get it exactly right, I blame the change in the seat tube angles, since he's fit my other bikes he's able to get me re-fit much quicker and he reduces the price accordingly. Also after getting a fit with Tim (and most fitters I think), if it isn't quite right after you ride it for a while he'll do another adjustment free of charge to get it dialed in exactly.

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