10-Mile Time Trial: More with Less

After watching the guys in the Tour of California suffer through their Time Trials yesterday I decided it was time to do another Lactate Threshold test, which for me is a 10-mile Time Trial. Didn't take long to remember why I never got around to doing one last year: they're bloody hard!

10-mile Time Trial	7/2009	8/2009	6/2010	5/2012 (today)
Time	29m 21s	29m 18s	28m 40s	28m 20s
Average Moving Speed	20.44 mph	20.48 mph	20.93 mph	21.18 mph
Average Heart Rate (entire 10 miles)	156 bpm	158 bpm	160.9 bpm	159.7 bpm
Est. Lactate Threshold (average heart rate last 20 minutes)	n/a	n/a	165.9 bpm	162.1 bpm

North River Century

Decided to take an enjoyable route from last year and turn it into a full century.

Quick Stats Ride Distance: 100 miles   Elevation Gain: 5,182 feet   Average Moving Speed: 15.44 mph

Siouxon Century

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	100.65 miles	4832 miles
Elevation Gain	6766 feet	52.13 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.04 mph	15.00 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

It was a nice day and there won't be that many more of those this cycling season.

I had been wanting to ride out to Siouxon Creek (pronounced "Sue Sawn") for quite some time. I've hiked on the trail out there, but of course got there by car. Perhaps one day I will do both: ride there by bike and hike the trail.

Ring of Fire, 12-hour Time Trial

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	158.33 miles	4352 miles
Elevation Gain	10,913 feet	47.49 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.18 mph	15.04 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

Where to begin...

I guess at the beginning.

Lactate Threshold (Frenchman OB)

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	23.66 miles	2422 miles
Elevation Gain	718 feet	24.24 miles
Average Moving Speed	16.7 mph	15 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

This was a Lactate Threshold test ride, similar to the ones I did last year. You can find them all nicely grouped here. The Quick Stats data above includes the warm-up and cool-down. The relevant Lactate Threshold portion is the blue highlighted section of the graph linked below (and the data on the left side of the graphic is for that portion of the ride).

The difference between now and last year is that instead of doing a maximum effort 10-mile test (which for me was a little shy of 30 minutes) and using my average heart rate for the whole 10 miles, I am now doing a 30-minute test but using the average heart rate from only the last 20 minutes. Very similar. Just different. I think the current method allows your heart rate to stabilize so that the value is more reflective of reality. Or something like that. Relying on what others recommend here. Of course I myself have no clue!

The nice thing about my current iBike software is that I can still compare to my previous 10-mile time-trial tests since I have all the data...

10-mile TT	7/2009	8/2009	6/2010
Time	29m 21s	29m 18s	28m 40s
Average Moving Speed	20.44 mph	20.48 mph	20.93 mph
Average Heart Rate	156 bpm	158 bpm	160.9 bpm
Average Heart Rate (last 20 minutes)	n/a	n/a	165.9 bpm

So I have definitely improved since last year, which is nice to see. Now I just need to catch up to my dear wife!

Oh, if you're wondering what the LT is all about, you can search for it on the web and there is lots of stuff about it. I basically use it as my maximum heart rate, or the 100% value, and then have various heart rate zones that I try to stay within for specific training purposes. The Ultra Marathon Cycling Association's Heart Rate Training Zones page is a nice summary of what each zone is and under what conditions you should be in each zone.

Woodland OB

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	49.94 miles	371 miles
Elevation Gain	4,154 feet	4.19 miles
Average Moving Speed	13.8 mph	14.3 mph

I was contemplating a 70-mile ride, but based on how I felt and how the weather looked behind me I decided to turn around at Woodland and basically head back the same way I came, mostly. Turned out to be a good decision as I experienced a very minor sprinkle upon arriving at home. And was pretty tired.

While riding I realized I might not have even had time to do the full 70 miles anyway, particularly since I don't have a headlight on my bike. Timing would have been close, but throw in any unforeseen delay (e.g. flat tire) and I would have been riding in the dark. So the lessons learned here are twofold: 1) Actually think about the fact that the daylight will end before setting out on an afternoon/evening ride. 2) Put my head lamp flashlight in my bike bag and just keep it there. Then if I ever get caught in the dark at least I have some kind of light. Oh, and if you are wondering, we both have tail lights and use them whenever we ride regardless of the time of day.

Probably the coolest part of this ride was the descent from Pine Grove toward Woodland. Dropped 750 feet in less than two miles, and some of it was very curvy. A car passed me just before heading down and I had to use my brakes a couple times just to avoid overtaking him. It was one of those hills you could almost just let her rip, but not quite, particularly at one rather sharp-ish corner. Very fun though. Looks like about a 40 mph average on that stretch. I was too busy to notice if it would have been safe for climbing in the other direction. That would be one serious climb.

Interesting that this ride is the most elevation gain of any so far. It is very close to two others though, so basically tied. I think the difference is that on the other two rides we returned on a relatively flat route. On this ride I returned the same way I went out: on the rolling hills around Ridgefield.

iBike Data
That reminds me, I am now relying exclusively on my iBike for elevation gain data. I used to use my G1 phone for recording trips (using the My Tracks app) and while it was nice it sometimes gave some fairly whacky elevation data. So I didn't trust it that much and relied more on data from sites like Trimble Outdoors (which is what follows). The only problem with the web sites that provide elevation gain data is that they only use as many points as the route that you punch in has. Which can be limited if you are building the route with the "follow streets" option. And this doesn't even consider whether the topographic information is accurate or not, or to what granularity. Anyway, the iBike grabs a data point every 5 seconds, and the slope information, which I can see while riding, seems reasonable. In other words, since it appears to be consistent if not accurate, and the elevation profile looks reasonable, I'm going to assume the data it gathers is the best information available.

Another Outdoor February Weekend

The somewhat sunny and semi-dry February weather has been... hard to believe.

Quick Stats (all 3 rides below)
Distance: 105.93 miles
Elevation Gain: 6,328 feet
Average Moving Speed: 14.82 mph

Ridgefield OB
This was a solo ride (Amy had to work) all the way to Ridgefield and back. I pushed it pretty hard for this early in the season and was rewarded with my highest average power (184 watts) and speed (15.6 mph) so far this year.



Ridgefield, La Center and Daybreak Park
We wanted to do a 50-miler and Amy had heard about some good riding in the La Center and Woodland areas from her spin instructor. So I scoured the VBC ride maps and came up with our version of one of them.



Immediately starting out we came across some kind of running event, so I asked one of them if they were using the Salmon Creek Trail (since we were planning on using it to get over to Lakeshore). They said yes, so we opted to avoid the throng and went the long way around (Hazel Dell Ave and 99th Street).



All was going well until we got to Allen Canyon at about mile 21. It was a beautiful little canyon (more of a ravine, to me) but since it was so forested the sun had not yet dried out the road. That combined with a very curvy/bumpy stretch of extremely steep road made for some very careful riding. We kept speed to a minimum going down, but the big surprise came on the way up. Man was it steep. My ibike read 20% much of the way up! And since it was wet we had to be careful not to pedal too strong for fear of losing traction and tipping right over (since our shoes are clipped in). Pedaling too strong ended up not being a big issue cuz it was extremely difficult to move forward at all. In my smallest granny gear my cadence was about half of normal (45 pedals per minute) and speed was 4 mph (but seemed like 1 or 2 mph). Crazy. Not used to hills like that. Particularly a full quarter mile of said hill, or 4-minutes of extremely heavy breathing. I am now well versed in the process of converting human muscle into pliable rubber.

Rubber or not we kept going. The big climb after La Center wasn't all that bad since it was an average slope of only 3 or 4%. Until we got to 389th Street. That was a very intimidating hill. The earlier Allen Canyon climb was mostly hidden from our view on a very windy road, so we didn't know how far we had to climb. It just kept going and going. This hill was completely in view and my rubber legs didn't like it one bit. We decided to tackle it though, and it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. It did steepen up toward the end, but never quite reached 15%. This quarter mile stretch was only 3-minutes of pain, not 4-minutes of Allen Canyon terror.

That was mostly the end of the climbing, even though we had over 20 miles remaining. Interestingly, we passed Amy's spin instructor alongside the road (Mike, and 2 riders with him). A mile or two later we reached Daybreak Park and took a break to eat a Clif Bar lunch. Not sure which route they came back, but they eventually caught up with us just as we reached 134th St (while on 20th Ave).

All in all a great ride, particularly if we want significant climbing (over 4,000 feet) on a 50-mile route starting from our house.

Frenchman OB
Another ride out to Frenchman's Bar and back. I was pretty wiped out from the prior two days, but Amy still had some energy and wanted to get in a simple ride. So I tagged along and basically drafted most of the way. You can really see it graphically in the middle third of the ride (see the blue wind speed underneath the white bike speed line). You can also see how the power and heart rate are affected during that stretch.

Ring of Fire, 12-hour Time Trial

Distance: 112 miles
Elevation Gain: 9,520 feet
Average Moving Speed: 12.95 mph

Well, I had a lot of fun for the first 6 or 7 hours. So my first goal (Have Fun!) was met. Not so much fun to end the ride though. I learned that I need to deal with the heat differently on a really long hot ride. Nausea is particularly no fun when you are in the middle of nowhere...

Even in bad shape though I was able to finish the big loop, so I accomplished the second goal as well.

We won't discuss goals any further... ahem. ;)

The day started out gloriously. The drive from Madras to Maupin allowed me to watch the sunrise - food for the soul! I arrived in plenty of time to get ready to go, but not too much to twiddle my thumbs and work up some race anxiety, so the day really couldn't have started any better.

Once I started riding up out of Maupin my heart rate jumped to the top end of my target climbing range. The route to Mt. Hood is nearly all climbing, so I had it basically pegged there the whole morning. It was more than I had intended, but in the end I think it was okay, since that is what those zones are for. The problem is when I started descending it was getting hot, and I hadn't been eating enough, and things started to deteriorate.

I had read up on riding in extreme heat beforehand, but I didn't want to try something totally new on an actual race. I had ridden in the heat before and been okay. But I hadn't ever ridden this hard in the heat, nor this long. Our RAPSody ride weather was 50s, 60s and 70s all day, not 90s like that last few hours today. Live and learn.

Rode a bit with John Henry Maurice, whom Amy and I had met at RAPSody. Great guy! We were riding up the hill toward Tygh Ridge Summit and he and his support vehicle offered me a ziploc bag of ice to put on my back under my jersey. It was awesome - Thanks John Henry! Another valuable lesson learned...

Wind wasn't bad. There was a little stretch of headwind from Tygh Valley to Sherars Bridge that was pretty tough, but that was mostly tough due to heat/nausea. At the 100-mile point on this stretch my total time was a minute or two over 8 hours. I wasn't excited about the milestone at the time, but in retrospect, what with all the climbing, going 12.5 mph overall to that point was a nice achievement.

I'm pretty sure the nausea issue I was having is related to not being able to eat enough food while riding. That will be solved on future rides, hopefully. But today, it was ironically during and after the descents when I had nausea. The climbs were okay. My theory is that my stomach only had liquids in it, and the 25 to 40 mph descent speeds was enough to bump and vibrate my tummy into a very upset state.

My time-off-the-bike was minimized fairly well at the 3 rest stops. That all blew up when I had to stop at Sherars Bridge and recover from nausea for about 20 minutes. I needed cold water badly. My water was hot. No fun. Only 9 miles and it may as well have been 90 in the state I was in. Thankfully the WSU-Vancouver relay team was there. Little did they know they would be the fourth SAG stop of the day! They offered water to the pathetic schmuck who needed it very badly. And it was cool water. A major, major improvement over my hot cytomax water - makes me want to puke just writing it!

The nausea subsided so I decided I could make it another 9 miles. The WSU guys said it was flat and with a tailwind - and there'd be ice water in Maupin - SOLD! Maybe they were running short on their own water? ;)

I made it to Maupin and contemplated trying to recover and attempt a small lap, but after a few minutes I realized that was not likely to happen. At least not to the level that I'd be comfortable risking being nauseous again. Seriously not a fun thing to experience! So I thanked George and Terri, George gave me my "Ring of Fire Finisher" cap, and I called it a day.

Another learned item: a personal support vehicle on a ride like this would sure be nice. Although if I had a PSV today it wouldn't have solved my main problem - that's all on me. But the ride would have been much more enjoyable with immediate access to cold water (among other things) at all times during the race...

All in all, lots of positives in terms of lessons learned, and that was the main reason I did this race this year - so I could learn all that much more about racing if we decide to do it next year. The only question is, will we do any racing next year? Only time will tell. :)

EDIT: With further reflection I am confident that the much higher than usual physical effort for the first 6 or 7 hours, the lack of fuel intake (I tried but just couldn't ingest as much as I knew I needed), and excess heat were interrelated and as a whole are what caused my nausea-induced early finish.

10-mile Time Trial

Quick Stats
Distance: 10 miles
Elevation Gain: 0 feet
Average Moving Speed: 20.48 mph

Another time trial down on the flat toward Frenchman's Bar.

Did it in 29:18 at average heart rate of 158.

Only 3 seconds faster than prior time trial, but with heart rate 2 beats higher? Weird.

10-mile Time Trial

Quick Stats
Distance: 10 miles
Elevation Gain: 0 feet
Average Moving Speed: 20.44 mph

Did my first 10-mile time trial down on Frenchman flat in order to approximate my Lactate Threshold (LT), aka Anaerobic Threshold (AT).

29:21 time at 156 average heart rate.