I’m leaving for the Death Ride tomorrow.  I plan to spend Friday acclimating (may go for a short ride up and down one of the passes), and also find out when the first pass stickers will be handed out.  Based on that, I plan to start riding earlier, as early as 3am if leaving that early would be productive.  I have a light that should be good for four hours and I’m assured that it’s difficult to get lost on the early stages of the course, so I think this should be OK.

It’s been a real challenge training the last week or two because my startup is also in full-on work-like-a-dog mode – I’ve been putting in eleven-hour days on a regular basis – but I’ve been persevering.  It’ll be a relief when this is all over, though.  I plan to take a month off and then resume training – this time for a Triple Crown next year.

Looking forward to the Death Ride…one way or another, this will be over soon!

Onward ho!

Let me start by saying that I loathe lactate intervals.  I like riding because it’s very Zen.  When I ride, I let my mind drift, and wander aimlessly until I achieve a Zen emptiness that’s much like meditation.  It’s very relaxing.

Lactate intervals, on the other hand, are anything but Zen, especially towards the end.  It’s hard to be Zen when you’re riding all-out, panting for breath, and so on.  I hate exertion (yes, I know that sounds strange coming from someone who bikes up mountains for fun), and I especially hate pushing myself all-out.  I think of riding as being the equivalent of a nice aimless walk, and loathe running.

That rant over, I have to admit: lactate intervals are doing me some serious good.

Went up Mt. Hamilton yesterday, doing lactate intervals: 15 minutes at top speed, 15 minutes off, 15 minutes at top speed, and so on.  I made it to the summit in 2:57, a good 18 minutes faster than my previous top speed, and made it to the bottom in 4:04, 23 minutes faster than my previous top speed.  And felt fresh enough at the end to bolt my way up the one little hill on the way back, just for fun.

So I’m doing a lot better, speed-wise.  Obviously I’m not going to do the entire Markleeville Death Ride doing lactate intervals (I was pretty exhausted by the time I reached the last one), but I do feel comfortable riding faster and at a slightly higher heart rate than I have up until now.  I’m pleased – perhaps I’ll be able to finish after all.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to leave early on the DR, perhaps as early as 3am.  If I leave that early, I’m pretty confident of my ability to finish.  I want that five-pass finisher’s jersey.  🙂

These turn out to be either fun or excruciating, depending on my mood and energy level at the time.  Basically, it’s ride flat out for some number of minutes, then peel back to Zone 2 (the cycling equivalent of walking pace) for a rest period, then ride flat out for some more minutes.  If you’re fresh and have plenty of energy, it’s fun; once you start getting tired, though, it takes a lot of effort and willpower to sustain it.  I’m still learning how to pace myself and recognize when I start slacking off.  The body can be insidious about slowing down without the brain noticing.

The next two weeks are all about doing lactate intervals, alas (for me who doesn’t like to work hard on the bike).  But hopefully they will make me faster…

Tuesdays are short lactate intervals (3 min on, 5 minutes rest x 5)

Thursdays are gear-up drills (go up 1 gear every minute for 5 minutes, then drop back down to the starting gear and repeat)

Saturdays are long lactate intervals (10 minutes on followed by 10 minutes rest x 6)

plus warmup and cooldown times.

Not particularly interesting, so I haven’t written much about them.

Got my new training schedule from Lorri a few days ago, and we’re now going for speed rather than distance.  She’s cut my hours/week back to 7.5 (from about 13-15), eliminated the resistance training, and is having me do shorter, more intense workouts rather than long endurance rides.  So, yesterday I did gear-up drills on the trainer (start in a relatively low gear, pedal one minute, go up one gear, pedal one minute, and so on for five minutes, maintaining the same cadence – this is harder than it looks!).  Tomorrow I’m doing aerobic intervals – half an hour warmup, then an hour of 10 minutes in zone 4 (lactate threshold/max sustainable effort) alternating with 10 minutes in Zone 2 (easy cruising), then an hour of easy riding.  Next week, same thing:

Tuesday: lactate intervals on the trainer

Thursday: gear-up drills

Saturday: longer lactate intervals on a road ride

Sunday: easy spin

plus some stretching and core work.

The idea of all this (I assume) is to increase my lactate threshold, which in turn will increase my speed for endurance work.  Here’s an article on lactate thresholds, for the curious.

Not sure how I feel about it just yet – I must confess that I hate to work hard on the bike, but if I want to bring up my speed, that’s pretty much what’s necessary.  Be interesting to see what Saturday brings…

One nice thing about this revised training schedule: more time for weaving! 🙂

Woke up on Sunday morning feeling good, not at all stiff from yesterday’s ride.  Not too surprising since it had been a relatively short ride, less than fifty miles, but I had been a bit worried about soreness from yesterday’s brutal climbs.  I was pretty exhausted, having just woken up at 4:30am, but a hot shower woke me up a bit.  I ate half a loaf of chocolate cherry bread on the drive south to Los Altos, making sure I had a good breakfast.

I arrived late (again!), due mostly to leaving a bit late.  I must remember that it takes me an hour, not half an hour, to get up and out the door in the mornings.  I can’t figure out where the time goes, but that’s how long it takes.  I made it out on the road by 6:30, however, so I wasn’t doing too badly.

Today’s route began (again!) with a serious climb, with a 4-8% grade for the first twenty minutes, followed by the ascent up Page Mill Road.  Page Mill was nastier than I remembered – the steep portions in particular – and I had to pull over to rest once along the way.  I wondered if I hadn’t lost some hill-climbing ability in the two weeks I’d been off the bike.  But I remembered fondly the times, early on, when I’d had to pull over every six to eight minutes to rest while ascending, and the burst of triumph the first time I made it to the top without having to rest.  I’ve definitely come a long way in my training.

At any rate, I made it to the top, and made my first-ever descent of the backside, a long curvy way down Alpine Rd.  It was cool in the morning, and despite my legwarmers and windbreaker vest, I was still freezing by the time I made it down to Pescadero Road.

Afterwards we went down the coast on Hwy 1, a long, almost completely flat ride to Santa Cruz.  AIDS Lifecycle was riding the same route that day (Sunday was Day 1 of AIDS Lifecycle 6), so I gazed with fondness on the route signs and actually stopped in at one of the rest stops to say hi.  *sigh*  I wish I were riding this year.

Through the rest of the day, I saw various signs from AIDS Lifecycle supporters, and it made me think of the Ride.  I wished them luck and, although I saw only a few riders (we were ahead of the main pack), I wished I were riding with them.  It seemed strange to be out on the route without a rider number on my helmet and an outrageous tutu-costume on my body.  Ah well, next year.  (I’m already registered for AIDS Lifecycle 7 – whee!!)

As I rolled into lunch and pulled up my bike, someone said, “Are you Tien?”  I said, “Yes!” and he said, “I’m Brian!  I’m the one who’s been commenting on your blog.”  It was great to finally meet the face behind the encouraging comments and the many tips on the Death Ride – thanks again, Brian!  (And what a coincidence that we should happen to meet amongst the hundreds of cyclists on Sequoia!)
At the lunch stop, mile 64, I looked at the route profile for Sequoia.  It was slated to be 9,000 feet of climbing, but looking at the route profile, it was basically flat except for two big hills (read: “mountains”).  After lunch started the second climb, a 30-mile ascent from sea level to 3200 feet, with a number of mini-summits along the way.

It was a hot day.  I was sweating buckets as I climbed – especially on Mt. Charlie Road, another brutally steep climb like Page Mill – and soon was seriously worried about water.  At my rate of climbing, 30 miles is 4-5 hours of climbing, and while I had a 70-oz Camelbak and a 16-oz emergency water bottle, that wasn’t going to last for long in the hot sun.  I didn’t exactly ration the water, but I thought about it as I went up.

Up, and up, and up.  Steep climbs, followed by short downhills (which I found disheartening since it meant more uphill as we went to the summit), followed by more uphill.  At mile 75 I ran out of water in my Camelbak, and switched to my emergency water bottle.  I was now seriously worried, and keeping an eye out to flag down a sweep – if I’d gone through 70 ounces of water in 15 miles, 16 ounces of water was not going to get me to mile 90, the next rest stop.

Finally, I reached the top of Mt. Charlie Road, and turned onto Bear Creek (?) Road.  And, like the answer to a prayer, when I reached the top of Bear Creek, there was a water stop!!  They had not only water, but ice and ice-cold sodas.  I skipped the sodas, but guzzled down 16 ounces of ice water, refilled my Camelbak with a mix of ice and Cytomax, and refilled my emergency water bottle.

From there it was a relatively simple, easy ascent to the top of Saratoga Gap, where I went to the rest stop at mile 92.  I was now running amongst the last riders, as I had expected – that’s just part of being a slow rider.  I arrived just as the rest stop was closing, so ate a couple bananas and kept going.  I was feeling pretty tired (especially after yesterday’s fifty-mile ride), but the rest of the ride was mostly descending, so I knew I would finish.  Maybe not at 6pm (the official route closing time), but fairly shortly thereafter.

The rest of the ride was uneventful.  The backside of Mt. Eden Road, while steep, wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I remembered (perhaps because I was comparing it with yesterday’s death-march), and I cruised down Stevens Creek Road, to Foothill, and along the rest of my usual haunts, to the Palo Alto VA and the end of the ride.  I collected my patch, ate some snacks and some ice cream, and was done.  I had completed 114 miles, with 10,000 feet of climbing, the day after a 50-mile ride with 5,000 feet of climbing.

I don’t know if I’ll be fast enough for the time cuts on the Death Ride, but I know I’m capable of riding it.  I feel good.
The Sequoia Century: 114 miles, 9:48 riding time (12 hours total time), 10,409 feet of climbing. Avg speed: 11.6 mph.