Time In The Saddle (TITS)

I mentioned in my last post that it's time to start my race preparation training for the Ironman US Championships in August. That means a typical training week will include 6-8hrs of riding on the weekend, a 2-3hr long run on Thursday, tempo or threshold interval run on Tuesday, threshold intervals on the bike Wednesday, 3 swims, and a couple of quick transition runs off the bike. I tend to log 15-18hrs or training each week for the 8-10 weeks leading up to my taper. This year I decided to start with a 4-day block of riding in the mountains to jump-start my cycling strength and get an immediate training volume boost. Over the 4 days preceding Memorial Day I spent 23 hours on my bike logging 377 miles with over 30,000ft of vertical climbing – and loved every minute of it.

May 24 – Skyline Drive (Afton to Front Royal), 106 miles, 8850ft climbing

Day 1 on Skyline Drive

I spent the first 2 days riding with some members of Endurance Nation as part of the Blue Ridge Parkway cycling camp. A small group of EN athletes got together last year and had their own informal camp. This year we made it official with organized SAG support and Coach P on hand to refill or bottles – straight off his AG win at Ironman Texas the previous week. Initially the thought of getting on a bike so soon after training and racing an IM disgusted him but I'm pretty sure he was itching to turn the pedals just a little after seeing how awesome the riding was out on Skyline Drive. The first day we rode Skyline end to end from Afton to Front Royal. The morning started with some dense fog but eventually got burned off and we had nice conditions for riding. The road quality on Skyline is probably the best I've every see on my bike. I don't think there was a single crack in the blacktop the entire 105 miles. Despite not having a lot of riding in me and only one ride over 60 miles so far this season I handles the climbing and time in the saddle well. After the initial 25 miles or so with a few others I mostly rode solo the rest of the day and just enjoyed the scenery and great conditions with extremely light traffic.

Day 1 data geek stats – 7:01 riding, 384 TSS, 198W NP, .76 IF, 1.09 VI

TrainingPeaks power file - HERE

May 25 – Skyline Drive (Front Royal to Afton), 105 miles, 9870ft climbing

Ready to roll out on Day 2

Day 2 was a repeat of Skyline Drive but in reverse from Front Royal back to Afton. At the end of day 1 I downloaded my Garmin Edge 500 and noticed that I had 8850ft of climbing but 10,030ft of descending. That only meant one thing for today – an extra 1200ft of climbing over the same distance. And to add insult to injury we started the day immediately (as in within 100m of getting on our bikes) with a 5.8 mile climb, followed by a 7.6 mile climb, followed by a 3 mile climb. All totaled I spent the first 2hrs covering just over 20 miles and climbing over 3500ft. That works out to a 9.6mph average and only 9min when I wasn't going up – and still 80+ miles left in the day. I had one more 4-mile climb in the first half of the day followed by a series of smaller ups and downs before hitting Big Meadows where we take a short break for lunch. It was another beautiful day for riding. The morning fog was sitting in some of the troughs between climbs and the traffic was still very light although it was going to get close to 90 degrees and holiday weekend traffic would start to infiltrate the park eventually. From Big Meadows on was net downhill but still with plenty of relentless shorter climbs along the way. I covered the last 54 miles in only 3hrs compared to 4hrs for the first 50 miles. I rode a lot of the day solo again and felt comfortable aside from a bit of heat toward the afternoon. I'd already ridden more in 2 days than any 2 weeks since last August but I still had a big challenge waiting for me on Sunday.

No idea what that look on my face is all about

 Day 2 data geek stats – 7:15 riding, 366 TSS, 189W NP, .73 IF, 1.08 VI

TrainingPeaks power file - HERE

May 26 – Wilderness Road Ride - 38 miles, 1890ft climbing

Ahhhhh – RECOVERY! Friday evening I departed the Charlottesville area and left my EN teammates to battle the Blue Ridge Parkway over the weekend. I relocated to a rental house on Claytor Lake in Hiwassee, about 45min from Blacksburg, and hooked up with my wife (that still sound strange) and some friends from VA Beach to tackle the Cycling Double Header. Although I had 2 really solid days of riding in me and was feeling pretty good I decided to make Saturday an easy spin and opted for one of the shorter routes on the Wilderness Road Ride out of Radford College. I knew I had a big day coming on Sunday and didn't need to beat myself down today with 58 or 78 miles. So I rode nice and easy with Shawn and Paul then took a quick 3-mile transition run along the river before we loaded up and headed to Cabo Fish Taco in Blacksburg for some lunch and a couple cold beers. Not surprisingly we ran into some more of the VA Beach crew that had already set up shop on the patio. They were carbo loading for Sunday as well. Our lake house is in the middle of BFE so we had to hunt down some beverages while we were still in civilization unless we wanted to drink Budweiser from the local bait and tackle shop all night. The waitress at Cabo directed us a couple blocks up the street to Vintage Cellar, which turned out to be a beer snob's dream. I grabbed some stouts and Abita Strawberry and everyone else made their selections. Then we headed back to the house for some quality time sitting on the dock and enjoying the quiet, as well as watching Paul swim across the lake and scale the cliff on the other side in his Speedo.

Day 3 data geek stats – 2:25 riding, 96 TSS, 164W NP, .63 IF, 1.08 VI

TrainingPeaks power file - HERE

This where the nice group photo of everyone getting ready to head out of Radford for our ride would go but Katie still hasn't learned how to use the camera on her phone and she deleted it.

 May 28 – Mountains of Misery - 127 miles, 12,100ft climbing

This is what we were here for – the Mountains of Misery double metric century. I've done the double metric once before as well as the standard century once so I knew what the day had in store – many hours of hard work with a sprinkling of fast descents and plenty of rolling country roads connecting it all together. There are 4 major climbs on the double metric route but the first 20 miles also gain 1800ft of elevation as a series of stair step climbs before the first really fun winding descent. This downhill was one of my favorite sections of the route this year. I'm not a confident descender but I was able to relaxe enough to carve through the switch-backs without smoking my brakes – something I wasn't able to manage last time. That fun was short-lived though as the first big climb comes shortly after. There are fairly long sections of mostly very mild rolling undulations connecting the major climbs so unlike my first 2 days of riding where I seemed to be climbing relentlessly up gradual grades, today I was grinding up steeper grades with lots of relatively easy riding between. Here are the first 3 climbs over about 66 miles:

Climb #1 – 42:36, 6.6 miles, 1800ft

Climb #2 – 26:50, 3.7 miles, 1200ft

Climb #3 – 1:15, 17.6 miles, 1900ft

The last climb of the day is brutal for several reasons. First, it's the last 7 miles of the ride, finishing at Mountain Lake. Second, it's the biggest with 2200ft of climbing averaging 5.6% grade with spots that exceed 15% (last 3 miles average 11.9%). And finally, perhaps the most sinister aspect of the entire day – you ride directly past the start (there's my car) only 10 miles before hitting the the base of the climb. With 110 miles already in the books it sure is tempting to call it a day right there. But my other favorite part of the route is in that 10 miles so I pushed on. After a shorter climb there is a section of narrow winding country road snaking along a small river with lots of shade from the dense tree cover. It's a very gradual net downhill and you can really get into a groove carrying good speed for relatively little power output. Riding the entire day solo aside from the first 10-15 miles I was really looking forward to cruising this section of road in peace. I zipped past an occasional slower solo or couple on the back end of the century route but otherwise the road was mine and I really enjoyed it. I knew that it was about to come to an end when I made the hard right under the bridge and crossed the train tracks. There is a shorter climb followed by a quick descent and then the big one. I spent 47min working that 7 miles to the finish line. For every person I passed on their bike I saw at least 3 walking. The road levels out a bit over the last couple 100m and I gave a final kick to the line. Mission accomplished. I felt strong start to finish, only spent 18min total at rest stops, rode probably 110 miles completely solo, and logged one hell of a training day.

Day 4 data geek stats – 8:03 riding, 528 TSS, 219W NP, .81 IF, 1.13 VI

TrainingPeaks power file - HERE

Mountains of Misery double Metric century elevation profile

I've spent most of the days since Sunday recovering aside from a couple of swims. By Tuesday I could really feel the fatigue in my quads and I decided to put off any bike/run training for a few more days. Right now I'm sitting on a flight to Phoenix, AZ tapping out this blog entry. I was hoping to get a longer run in later this afternoon but it is supposed to be 107 degrees there today so that might not happen but hopefully it will cool down enough in the early evening to get some easy running in. Tomorrow morning I'm on a flight back to VA Beach and have Blackwater Duathlon on my schedule for this weekend. It's the USAT National Championship and a World Championship qualifier.  Stay tuned for my next post to find out what I'm doing in Phoenix (Scottsdale actually). I'll give you one hint – FASTER.