Rocky Mountain High

So tomorrow morning I will be winging my way to Colorado. The Mt. Evans Hill Climb, my second "A" race for the season. I'm feeling pretty amped for this one... the training has been good, but I am a little nervous about the altitude. Not that you can really prepare for an elevation of 12,000+ (unless I wanted to move to Peru for the summer).

It's a pretty gradual climb, a steady 5 to 6% grade for most of the ride with some ramps of 10%+. The first section, from Idaho Springs to about 6 miles in, is a pretty quick and straight tempo ride; then, the road swings to the left and beings to climb in earnest up to Echo Lake. A short false flat follows and then the road turn to the right and climbs up past the ranger station. After another mile or two of climbing through the pines you pass through the treeline. As I remember, this is where I began to slow down last time - like moving through molasses - by moving through molasses I mean moving SLOWLY.

Next, you begin to work your way along the ridge towards Mt Evans. Lots of crosswinds and severe dropoffs - hundreds and hundreds of feet down - a little nerve wracking. A quick drop down to Summit Lake before a long switch back drag up to the finish @ the top.

Times to the top seem to vary from year to year, mostly due to weather conditions, so I don't have a time goal, but would like to finish somewhere respectable...

Well see how it turns out.

Results

So, this is what I woke up to today ( at 5am... I really am turning into my father...).

Cody had two planned 20 minute LT Time Trials today:

Your Workouts for Wednesday:

Threshold-
RideType: Bike
Planned duration: 3:00
Planned distance: 50.0 miles
PEAK WORKOUT: Warm-up + 2x20 min climbs (honey springs?) + Cool-down. Ride the first climb as a TT for best time (don't concern yourself with power so much, ride by feel and note avg power after climb, guessing around 315w), ride the second climb at 15% less power than first climb (this is roughly what power you would climb a 2+ hour climb at).you'll take about 20% off the first climb to roughly find Evans power considering altitude.


So with goal in hand I headed out on the ride - once again the weekly wednesday Cyclovet ride, about one week before I head out to Colorado. It was a full group today with some strong riders - Jamba Juice, Cyclovets, Dewalt, Swami's, and Janel from Webcor. After winding our way out to Spring Valley (or is it Rancho San Diego?) the group hit the climb up Campo Road towards Jamul. The big guys put in some effort and gaped the rest of us - fine, I wanted to do some good work on the TT and it's the second part up skyline truck trail that would allow me to do a full 20 min effort.

The first portion of skyline is about 5% grade. I set a fairly steady pace - I couldn't complete ignore the computer, but tried to go by feel as much as I could - using the others off the front as rabbits. The data for this section shows an average wattage of 336. There is a short fast decent - keeping the watts up while flying downhill is not my strong suit. After this section the climb continues at 7% for several miles. This second ramp is always painful, but I just focused on remaining as steady as I could - 327 watts. After a third short downhill it was another effort of 338 watts.

After dissecting the data on WKO and PowerAgent my 20 min LT looks like at least 320 watts! a vast improvement over my last testing. If I take out the downhill sections (you could argue that they are opportunities for recovery...) and replace them with more of the uphill portions my 20 minute effort is somewhere just north of 330 watts! That's some good power! If I had done Honey Springs as Cody had suggested I might have a better idea, but I think having some other riders to chase helped a bit. I might use the 320 number for Evans figuring that if I have anything left at the end I can always push hard then... beside I won't have the PowerTap for that race anyway - I'll need the much lighter DA's for that...

So by plugging in the 320watts we get the following goals:

2+ HR TT: 272watts
Evans goal: 256 watts

Hmmm... wonder if I can tell the difference between a "perceived effort" of 256 watts or 265 watts...

On the way home we did the usual series of sprints and I tried to break away at the top of the Campo Road sprint and soloed up Bancroft, but was caught by Josh and Janel... I'll take that.

Another good omen is that I hit some new maximal power numbers.

Peak Power: 1288 watts
Peak Power 5 sec: 1227 watts
Peak Power 20 min: 320 watts

And my threshold power looks like it's now 307 watts, broke the 300 barrier - that's good - and on track.

Beans and Burritos: Vol. 3

Clairemont is not exactly San Diego's most exciting neighborhood - it's one half retirement town and one half "wrong side of the tracks"; but living on the north side of town has it's advantages... proximity to the ocean, easy access to Mt. Soledad, a quick ride to the PCH. It also is close to one of my favorite coffee stops... Cafe 976... The food isn't terribly good... neither is the coffee... and the service even less so... But, the scenery... that's another matter. Pacific Beach is only about 4 miles from my place up in Clairemont. Sitting on the corner of Feldspar and Cass, Cafe 976 has one of the most amazing outdoor patios in San Diego.



Cafe 976 has an extensive menu - breakfast, lunch - and serves up San Diego's own Cafe Moto Coffee. It's a convenient place to stop by for a pre-ride espresso and Trieste ( scrambled eggs, sun dried tomatoes, feta, and potatos - or potatoes if you prefer). Like I said if you are looking for epicurean delights this isn't the place, but if you are looking for a place to waste away the afternoon with a Cup O' Joe and the Union Trib's crossword you could do much worse.





Rebecca's Coffee House in South Park is another matter. If you are lucky enough, or obsessed enough (yours truly), to arrive at Rebecca's before 7am you will be just in time to grab some of the first batch of her freshly baked scones. Your ready haven't had a scone until you've had one of these. In fact, I'd dare say that after having one of these, you'll never be satisfied with anyone else's.



The one picture to the right is an apple cinnamon. Approximately 3000 calories of gastronomic goodness. I'm pretty certain that all 3000 calories are from fat, and not the good kind, but you have to live every now and then. Oh, by the way... they also come with a side of homemade preserves.

If you get there late, it's well worth your time to wait the 40 minutes for the next batch, call in late to work... and get a second for your boss, after one taste they'll understand.

Wheewww...

Last week... a bit much. Long, long hard miles. Tuesday was a series of 3 minute progressive VO2 max intervals. The results were good: 280, 310,325, 354, and 376 watt efforts up Torrey Pines. Wednesday was the Cyclovet's Highline ride, on which Gary showed us a detour up the dirt fire roads, very cool! I logged in over 6 hours. Thursday, was to be a solo ride up the Great Western, but I ran into Josh (Swami's) and Rob (Cyclovet's) and had some well appreciated company. I did put in several 10 minute efforts of 281, 338, 312, and 285 watts with 4 minutes rest between. I felt pretty strong pulling up to the house after another 6.5 hour day. Friday on the other hand... I couldn't even pull myself up on the bike for a slow recovery ride. Saturday was another 4 hour ride, and Sunday a painful 6 hours in the saddle... all told nearly 28 hours and 370 miles. Uff Da!

All this as the final prep for the Mount Evans Hill Climb(http://www.bicyclerace.com/index.php). It runs from Idaho Spring, Co ( Ev. 7555'), 27 miles to the top of Mt. Evans (Ev. 14130'). It climbs a total of 6915' up the highest paved road in North America. Coming up from sea level it's going to be nothing but pain. I did this race a few years back, and I remember my body all but shutting down by the time I hit treeline, there's just not enough oxygen. Should be fun.

Congrats to C-Dog on the killer race this weekend! http://www.codywaite.blogspot.com/ That's one race series I really miss.

The Major Taylor kit came in this weekend, as well as the new EPC Jerseys - and it's a good thing, there's not much left holding my old kit together.

The Major Taylor kit is fantastic, cool retro look with really good attention to detail from the folks at Champion. Jerseys, bibs, vest, and jacket - designed by the founder of the club - good stuff

The EPC gear is completely "off the hook", Cody and Pearl Izumi hooked us up with their best... their Pro Octane line up - it's doesn't get better than this. I don't think I've ever worn anything so good at moving the sweat away or so good at keeping your core temperature level. If you're in the market for some new cycling clothing, be certain to take a gander at Pearl Izumi.

Watch out for this guy... a good showing in stage 6 and then wins stage 7 in the Dauphine. David is ready for a big Tour De France. 'bout time, maybe the French will have something to crow about.

After last week's "rest" I was chomping at the bit to really push it this week. Monday was a short 1 hour ride to loosen the legs up and was followed by yesterday's painfest. Cody had set up a training day which included not just 1 x 10-20 minute interval, not only 2 x 10-20 minute intervals, nor even only 3 x 10-20 minute intervals, but a full 4 x 10-20 minute intervals. The goal was to hit between 84-94% of LT power and LT HR for the duration and take not more than 5 minutes of rest between each effort.

While he wanted me to try to find a climbing route on with to torture myself, this is Southern California, not Colorado, and there are limited opportunities for 20 minute + climbs; at least ones that I can get to before work. So, Fiesta Island was once again the ride of choice.

The Intervals broke down like this:

1. 20:05 min, 277 watts avg; 161 HR avg 93% LTpw
2.19:00 min, 282 watts avg; 172 HR avg 95% LTpw
3. 20:00 min, 279 watts avg; 172 HR avg 94% LTpw
4. 12:30 min, 234 watts avg; 158 HR avg 79% LTpw

And it looks like this:

Oops, interval 4 didn't go to well - lost all power, but it was still a valuable workout.

Today was the Cyclovet's Ride, no Arnie, but the Vets were out in force as well as a bunch of the Adams Avenue guys and the Jamba Juice crew. A long, slow ride out to Campo Road and then the charge up to Lyons Valley Road. A poorly time stop light split two of us off the front and made us rabbits for the rest of the group... so we made the most of it; a two up time trail. We got caught just before the junction by a group of three.

The second, longer section was a steady climb to Four Corners. Some effort, but not full out 29 minutes @ 288 watts. The ride back included a few sprints after the drop down Mexican Canyon, maxing out @ 1152 watts and 1178 watts. Those numbers have to get bigger.

Today was another ride on which we had a rider go down in a significant accident. This time the rider only cut up his hand somewhat and bruised his back (against a power pole), the time before a bruised and battered hip as well as another hand, the time before that a couple of fracture vertebrae, a punctured lung, and recovery complications due to pneumonia - not good. Descending quick is good for races, not so good for training rides.