Stagnation is one of my greatest fears; the feeling that I am not learning anything or not making gains in performance ranks above fear of death and public speaking. As such, it should be of no surprise that setting and tracking personal records is important to mark my improvements. With my weight loss, I have a big excel file that lists my weight for the past five hundred or so days. With my personal records on specific courses I am a bit more loose, but they are on my mind as I ride through them, regardless of whether or not I am having a go.

Last week, on 26 August 2010 I left the house on what would turn out to be an awesome ride. At the time, of course, I didn’t really know what pace I was going to keep – I just needed to relieve some stress and energy built up from work. At my first main road I made the turn as a truck was coming my direction and was able to slip into the gigantic draft and go ~38 for roughly one mile. It was awesome to say the least, but I eventually had to make a turn and was forced to back off.

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The first thing you’ll notice when cycling in the Adirondacks is that everything is big. Lakes are big, mountains are really big and even the roads are big (that is a good thing). Even the distances between towns is big. So when planning a route, you really have to pay attention to how much climbing you will have to endure. The image floating off to the right there is of me during my last ride this year. The mountain in the back is Whiteface which summits around 4500 feet. While I didn’t (and couldn’t) go to the top, as I went past it I had to climb roughly 1500 feet to a peak around 2500 feet. And that was just to get to the base of the toll road that takes you to the top!

That ride (yesterday) covered roughly 66 miles and nearly 5000 feet of climbing. No simple task for a guy who is more Texas Longhorn than mountain goat. I got it done in just over four hours, and learned a few things along the way.

1. Roads in the ADKs are wiide and have almost no tree cover. Result? My arms are burnt (a bit, I had a tan already). So wear sunscreen or arm "coolers"
2. While roads in the ADKs are wide, so are big trucks. Stay to the right as much as possible to avoid the wash.
3. Enjoy the flat and downhill sections of your ride. Breath them in and don’t fret the speed. The climbing is where you gain (or lose) massive time.
4. Bring lots of water. I never ran out because I had three bottles, but because towns are spaced out you could run into issues if you aren’t prepared.
5. Small cameras are the bee’s knees. The ADKs are beautiful and you’ll want to remember your ride, even if it makes for an embarrassingly funny story.

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There is no way around it: crashing sucks. Besides the psychological effects of going down, the physical implications of a crash can seriously disrupt any momentum you have. For many cyclists that hit the pavement, crashing will mean at the least a broken collarbone. Add to that the financial impact of destroying wheels, bikes, helmets and tearing of clothes and the sum is clear. No matter what way you look at it, crashing sucks.

My story begins nearly two weeks ago. The roll off of the Category 4/5 Pinecone Road Race was without incident. The course is a flat 10 mile loop with five right hand turns – easy enough for those who have ridden in serious groups before. Through the first turn I chose an inside line knowing that there would be a sand trap of sorts. By putting myself through the dangerous part of the turn I insured that no one could come on the inside of me and wreck the group. If I went down, I could only blame myself.

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Competed in the Upper Freehold ITT (Individual Time Trial) yesterday, and came out tired, but with good data. This was my first race this season, having skipped the earlier time trials for hatred of the 50mph crosswinds that the Jersey shore can produce so early in the year. Until recently I have been doing entirely base miles (slower pace over longer distances), and over 1500 of them. I initially thought that I had good speed going into the race, but now on the other side I know it isn’t true. According to the official timing and scoring I managed a 00:30:01.77 (h:m:s) at a 22.575 average over 11.3 miles. My Garmin says otherwise and although I wasn’t using the speed sensor, I think the Garmin is a little more true to my performance.

Photo by Jan Curran

Immediately leaving the gate, I felt good and settled into a comfortable albeit fast rhythm. My heart rate, around 170bpm, was right where I wanted it. This beautiful scenario was quickly smashed when I hit the first roller which brought me into the red zone immediately. You can see from the data below that this is where my problems started.

(Click to enlarge)

Because it was the first hill and because I was able to topple it rather quickly, my body recovered once over the top. However, with each subsequent hill my HR went through the roof and then remained high. Somewhere after mile three or four I developed and odd sensation in my chest; like a grapefruit had been lodged deep within. I pressed on, but each roller really started taking its toll on me until I could barely get over them above 15 mph.

Overall, I am pleased that I got out and did another race and gave it my best shot. As for my performance, I know what I need to work on and know I need to work much harder if I expect to beat my personal best at the Kingwood TT (end of July).

Good day on the bike; getting 50 miles in at a good average speed for this early in the season. A little breezy and a perfect temperature due to the impending downpour. Managed to take a lot of pictures of all the spring flowers and trees in bloom. My courses have turned to pink and yellow in the past couple of weeks and fortunately the pollen doesn’t bother me too much.

This is just the beginning (facing backwards) of a long, hidden treasure in NJ. A road that creeps along a hidden lake/reservoir, waterfall and river.

This is the wide part of the river. It feeds towards the camera to the lake (behind the camera).

Daffodils (I think?) in bloom! These are everywhere along the route, giving you something to look at as you climb.

Lazy on the editing (electrical lines), I know, but pretty tree never-the-less.

Overall I am very happy with the camera so far, and very happy with my progression this year on the bike. I have lost some weight (horray!) and my power and endurance are staying pretty level. They are certainly much better than this time last year. Now, back to coding!

Wish this were the law everywhere. Give a cyclist three feet of room or more to make a safe pass. Seems so simple and yet many drivers just can’t seem to grasp it.

Jealous of Epon’s fantastic photography on-the-go, I took the plunge and bought a new toy for when I am out enjoying the road sweep under my two wheels. The camera boasts a lot of pixels but more importantly does HD (1280×720) video at 30fps while being tough. Supposedly it can take a 2 meter drop and is somewhat waterproof, though I plan to never test either claim. And yes, this means to expect many pictures of my cycling adventures!

Taken with my XTi and 24-105L

Also of note is the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, speaking about photography:

As of today I have completed 869.41 miles on my bike in September alone. The original goal was 1000 miles but slacking off early on because I thought I was well enough ahead caused me to not be able to reach the goal. As you can see in the calendar below, there weren’t too many days near the end that I took off. In most cases I only took off because of weather or because I was feeling sick. Never-the-less I am more than happy with the work I put in and feel like it was a tough month and a great way to end the season (although there are still a few weeks left).

My weight has hit a flat spot at around 210 pounds but I continue to cut the body fat little by little. I am happy with my progression this season in that respect, having lost a total of 30 pounds over the course of seven months. The tough part is ahead as I look to maintain my current weight and lose more next season. I say it is tough because the holidays are notoriously rich in sugar and fat and my metabolism will surely slow down. I have started running in preparation for transitioning off the bike in a somewhat feeble attempt to keep my weight down. It remains to be seen what effect the new regiment will have.

This past Sunday I completed my very first Century (100 miles) on the bike. It has been a target I’ve been working towards since I started to get serious about riding last August. Not only was it tough on my body but more so on my mind.

Mile 0-46
The first 46 miles or so were spent leading our normal Sunday group ride out of Loantaka Park. Because I was the only one who knew the route, I was delegated the responsibilities of a group leader. My good friend helped me out when things got a little hectic by staying back or rushing forward to give some instructions but in general the ride was enjoyable. This was only the second time I have led a group ride and I must say that it is tougher than you expect. People, of course, have varying levels of skill in the sport and making sure all of them are happy and not getting lost can be hard work. There was one time where I repeated a hill a couple of times as I shuffled myself backwards in the strung out group. In the end, however, the awesome company from the other riders made the first 46 very enjoyable.

Mile 46-70
At mile 46 I stopped at home to refill the water bottles and was in the mindset that I would just do an extra 20 or 30 miles which would bring me to a season high of seventy. As I set off I remarked how good my legs were feeling and let the idea of a century creep in slowly. It was at this point that my mind started to take a downward turn. When you are in a group for many hours it is easy to pass the time by with conversation. In a sense it is as if the group can feed off itself for energy. On the other hand, when you are alone with the sun beating down, it is tough to stay focused 100% for so long. Luckily at mile 70 I decided to stop at my local bike shop for some food and some discussion.

Mile 70-90
As I left the LBS I made the crucial mistake of not topping off my water supply. I have always been a big consumer of water and with no clouds in the sky I should’ve known that my half bottle of gatorade would not be enough. At about mile 75, I realized the situation at hand but pressed on knowing that I would start to feel really dehydrated. At this point my mind was going crazy because water was all I could think about! At mile 85 I was seriously close to hallucinating and took my last sip to try and take my mind off the increasing stiffness in my back. I stopped by a vending machine but it wouldn’t take my money and so I set off for home, finally making it at mile 90 exactly.

The Home Stretch
Hitting 90 was certainly enough for me to be happy and so my spirits were on the up at this point. As I sat down and consumed at least 1-1.5 liters of liquid and ate a banana I could feel mile 100 was well within reach. I retopped both bottles at this time despite only having to go 10 and set off. I took a fairly flat route and when I hit the 5 mile marker I turned around and headed home with refreshed legs. Suddenly I found myself going 19-20 mph again, a speed I hadn’t seen since the 65 mile mark, but I let it continue since the adrenaline was kicking in.

A tenth of a mile from home I saw it: 100 miles. I was grinning like a stupid kid at Christmas, as happy as the one who got the N64 [in that commercial]. I had finally made it to one of my more epic goals and with fairly no planning either. While it wasn’t the most exciting route ever, the mileage is what counts.

Total time in the saddle? 6 hours and 37 minutes…

Here are some other stats from my Polar CS200:
Execution Time: 6:38.55
Avg HR: 140
Max HR: 185
Calories: 5436
Distance 100.1
Avg Speed: 15.1
Max Speed: 41.7
Avg Cadence: 85
Max Cadence: 126
Ride Time: 6:37.44

Extras…
Start Weight: 214.5lbs
End Weight: 208.5lbs (yikes!!!!)
Water Intake: 5-6 liters
Gatorade Intake: 1-2 liters
Food: 2 powerbars, 4-5 Cliff ShotBlocks, 1 banana

My next goal for distance will be something over 100, but with a much better route. I definitely repeated some of the easier parts of my local courses several times and I can’t help but feel it contributed to my poor mental state in the late portion of the ride. One idea I have toyed with was to ride to High Point Monument (and perhaps back) which will be very interesting and certainly epic.

Recently I entered myself into a mass-start ride that would be well over 60 miles long (70+ in fact) with over 5000 feet of climbing. While this may not seem like much to some of the ultra-cyclists out there, when you realize that the climbs are nearly all at a steep gradient (New Jersey is just a bunch of ridgelines) and that I have been working on my time trial position, something was going to break – and it did. My left knee started giving me problems at around mile 40 and I just rode through the pain.

My mother (a physical therapist) did a few simple checks and decided that my quad muscles were lopsided and one side of the leg was pulling the kneecap off center. Ok – not good but also not bad! After a fairly easy week though the pain had subsided off the bike because of the exercises I had been doing to strengthen the inner side, but on the bike the knee still hurt. I decided it was time for a cyclist’s opinion. Speaking with the person that has done my fit twice and is a good rider himself the conclusion was that there is something wrong with the way I was pedaling and/or sitting on the bike.

The problem could be one of many things…

1. I had adjusted my saddle position to be farther forward and this was crunching the knee too much on the top of the pedal stroke due to the lower position. Fixes? Raise the saddle or sit back farther.
2. I was pounding too hard on the pedals and not lifting enough on the upward portion of the stroke. Fixes include spinning lighter and spinning faster.
3. Unlikely possibility but my left leg could be a different length. Fixes would include a refit with some shims or something.

I can hear the programmers wondering what the hell this post has to do with debugging code. If you are a learned programmer you should understand the benefit of the scientific method and having controlled changes. By limiting the number of things you change between builds a programmer can see how A affects B directly or indirectly without worrying about how C fits in. I take a similar approach to my health: when sick, eliminate something until the problem changes or is fixed and then work backwards adding things back on. Unfortunately I didn’t do that this time around!

What ended up happening is I bought new bibs (shorts with suspenders built in) that have a thicker padding than the ones I was wearing when the problem started. I also lightened my pedal stroke and sat farther back on the saddle. I just committed debugging suicide by changing three things about my fit and while it may not seem like a big difference remember that a 1mm change in saddle height can be the difference between excruciating pain and pure bliss for some riders. The effective changes include higher sitting height from the bibs and the saddle position, a different KOPS measurement due to changing the saddle position and spinning lighter meant that my quads would not be working against each other so much.

Where do I go from here? While the changes have eliminated the pain, I need to actually work backwards no until I get some sign of the pain reoccuring. This means sitting forward on my saddle with the new bibs as well as sitting at the back of the saddle with the old bibs. I have to mix it up completely until I can figure out specifically what triggered the pain. The problem is that it is time wasted towards a goal I don’t want to sustain (knee pain) and with a race in five weeks, my fit should be the last thing I am worried about.