Intro to the 2015 Ride to Remember

Intro to the 2015 Ride to Remember

Training Update: 2015 Ride to Remember

Recap: 2015 Ride to Remember

In the past, I have always participated in one fundraising ride each year.  This has always been the annual Tour to Tanglewood which benefits the National MS Society, and ultimately helps to find a cure for my Mother who has MS.  This year, I am doing something completely different as part of my entry back into the world of cycling after about 10 months away.  As part of a promise that I made to my wife Toni before buying a bike, I will be participating in a ride to benefit Alzheimer's research.  Why would this be a part of the deal you might ask?  Well, while MS has touched my life, Alzheimer's has touched Toni's life.  Her Grandmother Maybel died with this disease.  Toni remembers her as being the single most important person in her life growing up.  She credits Maybel with doing the vast majority of her raising.  This impact on her life was had before Toni reached middle school.  Her Grandma passed away in July 1988 because of this disease.  In addition to her Grandmother, Toni's Aunt Margaret also currently suffers from this disease.  While she is still alive, the disease has caused her to have to leave home in favor of going to a nursing home which is better able to meet her increasing needs.  As if that wasn't enough, Toni's Mother is also starting to show signs of this disease.  While it has not been diagnosed, it is safe to say that the evidence is there to support that Alzheimer's runs in the family.

Margaret Stout-Brandon 2012
She needs your help, please donate today

So, with Toni's family representing two, and possibly three of the roughly five million who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the US, where does that leave us?  The law of averages would suggest that Toni, will at some point, develop Alzheimer's disease.  We talk about this frequently, most of the time in a joking manner.  Its not that we find it funny...quite the contrary in fact.  Its a big elephant in the room that we just don't know what to do with.  At 39 years old Toni has to ask me in a most serious way whether or not I will still love her if she gets Alzheimer's.  This is just not something that a person of this age should have to consider.  My answer is always the same to her.  Yes, I will still love you and care for you even if you don't remember who I am.  I mean that with every fiber of my being, and fully intend to do so.  Even with that conviction, its a little terrifying to me to think that at some point I could be looking into my wife's eyes and seeing an emptiness where I used to always see a love shared.  Just my mere presence could frighten my beloved bride because she thinks that I am a stranger there to hurt her.  In her mind, she could be trapped in her childhood which was a very scary place to be.  All of the wonderful things we have experienced as a family could be locked away, hidden from the very brain that possesses the memories.

Yes, I have given this a lot of thought, and my only conclusion has been...Yes, I will still love her, and I will care for her to the best of my abilities no matter what happens, good or bad.  It seems like a bunch of reactive lip service though.  Its easy to make promises now when you can still hope that it won't happen.  I've never been much of a fan of being reactive when I have the ability to do something about a potential problem.  I call it stacking the deck in my favor.  How do I stack this particular deck...well, when I was riding to support the NMSS I was raising a lot of money to fight a disease that my Mother has.  Toni and I spent a good bit of time looking for something similar that would benefit the Alzheimer's Association in our neck of the woods.  Sadly, there were no bike rides, only walks and runs.

Mary Belle Ellis Stout circa 1979
06/1921 -- 07/1988
Please donate today

While I was in the middle of my cycling sabbatical, I started seeing some posts on Facebook from a friend of mine about a ride that he was riding in.  It was called "A Ride to Remember" and he was participating in the month of July.  I only half paid attention to the posts until I realized that it was a ride to support Alzheimer's research.  I was too late to make a donation, but I started to read about the ride and found that it was a total of 252 miles in length.  Wow!!!  that's a lot of miles for a single ride.  Then I realized it was spread out over three days with the first day only 67 miles, the second 85 miles, and the third a full 100 mile century.  That is still impressive with the progressive distances.  I found myself wishing that I had known about this ride when I was riding a bike before.  It would have been a great ride to participate in!

Oddly enough, shortly thereafter, I got bit by the cycling bug again and found myself back in the local bike shop buying a new bike.  I had already made the decision that I would ride and train like I had in the past because that was the only way I can truly enjoy cycling.  Unfortunately, that meant a lot of hours away from home, and away from Toni.  She was fine with that because she wants to see me happy and enjoying life.  However, I really wanted her to see some form of benefit from my riding again.  Of course, A Ride to Remember popped right into my head.  I discussed this briefly with her and said that if I did get back into cycling, I would strongly consider doing this ride in Grandma Maybel's memory, and in Aunt Margaret's honor.

Support my ride by donating today

After just a couple of months back on a bike, the registration opened up for the 2015 Ride to Remember.  It was time to put up or shut up.  This was going to be a large scale undertaking for our family.  First off, it was going to be an entire weekend where we would be involved with the event.  Since it was out of town, we were going to have to spend nights in hotels, and with this being a stage event going from one side of South Carolina to the other, we would be in different hotels each night.  Toni, and our daughter Sierra would be bringing the transportation for me and my bike which meant that they would be following along the way.  Logistically, this was going to be a more involved event than my one day ride to the NC coast for a double century.

I started to have second thoughts about this ride, not so much because of the distance, although, that is a lot of miles for just three days.  It was the cost for hotel stays, food, and travel expenses.  Not to mention time away from work, and the training needed for a ride of this scope.  I really thought that it was going to be too much of a drain on our family resources.  Honestly, it will be....but I was losing sight of why I was wanting to ride this ride in the first place.  I was tired of be reactive to a disease that might be getting closer to Toni as we speak.  Almost overnight, my attitude changed, and I decided that I was going to do this ride one way or the other, and I was going to give it my all.  I will ride the 252 miles across SC while Toni and Sierra volunteer along the way.  As a family we are going to make a stand against Alzheimer's disease!  If just one of those 252 miles is the one that allows Toni to remember her own life, then every pedal stroke will be worth it.  Of course, without your generous donations, those 252 miles will just be for my own health.  It is your dollars that make my miles worth it.  Lets stack the deck in favor of beating this disease, and raise as much money as we possibly can!

In April, a slight change was announced to the second day's route.  No longer would it be 85 miles, we would now be riding 88 miles through the heart of South Carolina.  This is getting dangerously close to being a second century.  Oh well, I'm committed, and a few extra miles won't keep me away!

2014 Ride to Remember

Ride details for each day.
July 17 Route--67 miles, Simpsonville to Newberry
July 18 Route--88 miles, Newberry to Orangeburg (Updated)
July 19 Route--100 miles, Orangeburg to Charleston

Please donate by clicking this link, any amount is greatly appreciated.


My personal challenge for fund raising...

What have I done to make this a ride to remember?  Well, I decided that I would do a little challenge to help motivate some donations.  I had set an early goal of $1750.00 for this ride, and saw that I was getting close to it.  In order to possibly set myself up to surpass this goal, I offered up a little personal challenge.  If I could reach that goal by March 1st, I would shave my legs.  Simple enough, and something I had been toying with for a while now.  It was what a proper cyclist is supposed to do, and I also know first hand how bad pulling a bandage from a hairy leg feels.  I figured that if I had enough donations, I would go ahead and make the plunge.  Well, I got the donations needed and that sealed the deal.

The last time I rode a bike with hairy legs

Yeah, I used one of my daughter's disposable razors, but not quite yet.

First, I had to take the clippers to my legs, much like they do to sheep.

Then it was time to shave.  This is not fun at all, is it ladies?

In the end, I had smooth legs, ready for a bike ride.  All in the name of raising money!

So, what exactly is Alzheimer's disease?

Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia which is a general term for memory loss as well as other intellectual abilities.  The result is enough to interfere with a person's daily life.  Typically, Alzheimers represents between 60-80% of the dementia diagnoses.

Alzheimer's typically affects those who are ages 65 and older, however, it is not a "normal" part of aging.  There are up to 5% of cases diagnosed as early as the 40's which is referred to as "Early Onset Alzheimer's".  Alzheimer's is a progressive disease which means that the symptoms gradually worsen over time.  In the early stages, memory loss is mild, and could actually go undetected.  In the late stages though, its not just memory that is affected.  Patients will lose the ability to carry on a conversation and even the ability to respond to their environment.  Even though Alzheimer's is most widely known for the memory issues, it is also the sixth leading cause of death in the US.  The average mortality rate of those diagnosed with Alzheimer's is roughly eight years after the symptoms become noticeable.  However, survival can range from four to 20 years depending on age and other health factors.

Right now there is no cure for Alzheimer's and there isn't even anything available to stop its progression.  What is currently available as a treatment option is designed to slow the progression.  This is just a temporary solution for those who have the disease.  For the most part, once you are diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it really is just a matter of time.  It is only through your donations that research can possibly find a different way of fighting this disease.  Of course the goal is to wipe it out completely, but just think how the quality of life for the patients would be improved if the progression of the disease could be halted at an early stage.

The 10 signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's

1.  Memory loss that disrupts daily life:  This is the most common sign, and typically deals with forgetting recently learned information.  One can also forget important dates or events which can lead to asking for the same information over and over.  The responsibility for remember things starts to fall on notes, electronic devices, or family members when they used to be able to handle these things on their own.

2.  Challenges in planning or solving problems:  Some patients experience changes in their ability to develop or follow through with a plan.  They also can develop difficulty working with numbers.  Just following a recipe or keeping track of the monthly bills becomes troublesome.  Concentration suffers which makes normal activities take longer.

3.  Difficulty in completing familiar tasks:  This might be something like remembering the rules of a game, managing a budget, or driving to a familiar location.

4.  Confusion with time and place:  The simple passage of time might be lost with a patient with Alzheimer's.  They can lose track of dates, and even seasons.  If an event is not happening currently, they may have a difficult time fully understanding what is going on.  Sometimes, they might forget where they are and how they got there.

5.  Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships:  Those with Alzheimer's might have difficulty reading, judging distances, and even determining color and contrast.  Obviously, this could be problematic with those who are still driving.

6.  New problems with words, whether spoken or written:  Those with Alzheimer's may exhibit problems following or joining in with a conversation.  This could cause them to stop in mid statement and pause, or start repeating themselves.  They could also have problems finding the correct words to use, and could call things by the wrong name.

7.  Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps:  Typically, those with Alzheimer's could put things in unusual places.  They have difficulty going back over their steps in order to find the item again.  This can result in the person accusing somebody else of stealing the item.  Over time, this will increase in occurrence.

8.  Decreased or poor judgement:  Those developing Alzheimer's could experience a change in their judgement or decision making ability.  This could result in the person falling victim to money scams and giving away large sums of money.  They could also pay less attention to their own personal hygiene.

9.  Withdraw from work or social activities:  A person with Alzheimer's may start to neglect their hobbies, friends, social activities, or even work activities.  They may develop difficulties keeping up with a favorite sports team.  The changes make it increasingly difficult for them to be social and discuss these interests with others.

10.  Change in mood or personality:  Somebody suffering from Alzheimer's can become confused, suspicious, depressed, fearful or anxious.  They can appear to be easily upset when they are out of their comfort zones.

Please donate by clicking this link, any amount is greatly appreciated.

Grandma Maybel with family that she no longer recognized

Toni's story

What does a disease like Alzheimer's do to the loved ones?  Like I alluded to before, Alzheimer's is a disease that has personally affected Toni at a young age.  I wanted to put a little bit of her story in here to show just how important A Ride to Remember is to us.  Toni would spend her Summers with her Grandma Maybel.  This was a time to look forward to, not for being out of school, but for the time with her Grandma.  This was a bit of an oddity to others because Maybel was very strict, and would not give Toni any breaks.  It was this structure that Toni wanted and needed though.  She learned so much from her Grandma in her early years, and became very angry when Alzheimer's took Maybel away when she was just 13 years old...the most crucial time in a child's life.  This was a trigger for many of the negative things to come.

It was not just this premature exit from Toni's life that affected her, it was the decline in Maybel's life that deeply impacted her view of the entire family.  During the decline, Toni watched the whole family distance themselves from Maybel which was confusing for Toni who has always had a very strong sense of family and what that unit stands for.  Maybe it was the fact that the only person that Maybel would remember was little Toni, her Brown Sugar as she was called, while she could not remember anyone else in the family.  That, of course, made the bond between them so much stronger as the disease progressed.  There were times when she wouldn't recognize Toni, but those were fleeting times, and Grandma would return again.  It made Toni angry the way that everyone treated Maybel and she just couldn't understand why they were being that way.

Toni still feels to this day that her Grandma was the only one who truly loved and cared for her.  She knew this because Maybel would show it through her actions as well as her words throughout their short time together.  There was always a very special connection between them, and to pay tribute to that, our daughter's middle name is "Belle" after Mary Belle Stout.  Toni still visits her grave regularly, and she talks to her when she is needing advice and guidance.  I can only imagine what an impact Maybel would have had on Toni had she had the opportunity to be there all through Toni's teen years and young adulthood.

Toni remembers very well the loss that she endured when Maybel died, and the void in her life that it left.  She is now seeing her cousins going through the same thing, only at a much older age with her Aunt Margaret.  She was diagnosed about three years ago and has since been placed in a nursing home to care for her needs.  Toni stays in contact with her cousins and hears the stories about how Margaret doesn't remember either of them, and in some cases is frightened by their presence.  This brings back all of the memories from what she remembers about her own Grandma Maybel.

Aunt Margaret and Grandma Maybel together

We can make a difference, in the hopes of preventing stories like this from happening again and again.  Please donate to show your support by clicking this link.  Your sponsorship is greatly appreciated, more than you know.

Media Attention

Jan 1, 2015, I was featured in the Kernersville News on the front page, with an internet reprint a week later.
Mar, 2015, There was a small story in reference to my participation in this event.

Thank you to all who have donated in support of this cause!

Intro to the 2015 Assault on the Carolinas

Intro to the 2015 Assault on the Carolinas
Training Update
2015 AOTC Recap

For those who have been with me for a while, you will probably remember this ride from when I rode it in 2013.  I had a lot of training to do because all I knew about this ride was that there was going to be a lot of climbing in it, and quite frankly that kind of scared me.  Since the ride happened at the beginning of Spring, I knew that I wouldn't have a lot of time to prepare after a winter of not riding.  I decided to make use of the trainer that Toni had gotten me in the late Fall of 2012 to keep my legs in shape over the winter.  As it turned out, the trainer did the trick, and when I was able to ride outside again in March, I was able to do a little bit of hill work.  When it was all said and done, I was ready for the AOTC and conquered the cat 1 climb known as Caesar's Head which is 2000 ft of climbing in only seven miles.

That was then....this is now.  Why do I need to do this ride again after completing it in 2013?  Well, its kind of a litmus test for me to see how my training is coming along after 10 months off of the bike.  Unfortunately, my entry back into the cycling world comes at a time when the weather is getting colder and the days shorter.  I have a lot of rides planned for 2015 which will tax my endurance and abilities, and I now know from 2013 that the AOTC is a great way to open up the season and build confidence in myself and my machine.  I'm not looking for a repeat of 2013 though.  In fact, I am looking to do better in 2015 across the board.  I learned a lot from my first go at Caesar's head and the rest of the 100K route of the day, and I plan on using that knowledge to have a stronger showing this time around.

This is "Flo" which I will be riding in the 2015 AOTC

So, what kind of things am I planning on changing this year.  Well, the first change was the bike.  That was less by design, and more due to circumstances.  The bike that I chose to ride just happens to be one of the top tier Specialized Tarmacs, although I would have been happy with a lesser ride.  The only glitch was the drivetrain options.  The only way to get a Tarmac with a SRAM groupset was to spec it out with the Red 22 groupset which only came on an S-Works level bike.  The bad part of that was the price of admission.  Lets just say for what I paid for this bike, I could have paid for many...MANY sessions of therapy to determine why I paid so much for a plastic bicycle!

The good, however, outweighed the bad for a ride like AOTC.  For starters, this is the stiffest carbon fiber frame that Specialized makes and is a world class climber.  It is also very light at approximately 14lbs.  While I am not a weight weenie, I do respect the part that weight plays in cycling, especially when it comes to hills.  This bike is also outfitted stock with near bulletproof carbon fiber wheels which are quite light as well.  The wheel hubs, along with the drivetrain bearings are all ceramic which make for much less friction in the moving parts.  In short, this is a race bike designed for climbing quickly.

The rider plays a huge part in the climbing as well, and that is where my training comes in.  Much like in 2013, I find myself needing to drop some weight to get down to what I consider a decent power to weight ratio.  The difference is I was at about 187 lbs at this point in my training before.  When I started cycling again this past September, I was tipping the scales at 205 lbs!!!!  To make matters worse, there is a term for a cyclist that weighs over 200 lbs.....A CLYDESDALE!!  That doesn't sound like I will be able to do much climbing, so the weight was going to have to drop off.  I set a goal for myself of 180 lbs which was about where I was when I stopped riding at the end of 2013.  Twenty-five pounds I was going to need to lose before I had a chance at riding the AOTC with legs that were not used to turning the pedals anymore.  To make matters worse, I was going to be doing this training in the winter months with a bike that should never be put on a trainer.

This is "Snoopy", which is only trusted on the trainer

The answer to my biggest problem happened in a very unlikely way, in the form of a crash.  I now had a bike to put on the trainer.  I started to do intervals six days a week.  After about two months of doing intervals, I had dropped a huge chunk of that weight and as of this entry was down to 186 lbs.  This gives me a fighting chance to get below 180 for the AOTC, and while the weight is dropping, my performance is increasing thanks to the intervals.  Having finally received my replacement bike, I have completed both a 62 mile ride and a 100 mile ride, both of them as fast or faster than I was riding them at the peak of my fitness before.  Of course, part of that is due to the new bike, but it will always be my legs turning the cranks, powered by my lungs and heart.

So, I'm addressing both the bike and its engine to get the most performance out of both that I can muster.  I also know that there will be a lot of tactics involved in this ride thanks to my experience before.  Having never rode this ride before, I listened to what I had been told about the importance of riding in a pack with the others to share the energy.  I thought I was going to be in a bad way when I was dropped from the group I was riding with.  However, what I found was that I was able to ride my own ride, which resulted in a very strong climb up Caesar's Head.  I will take this personal knowledge with me in 2015 and will not get caught up in needing to be with a group.  Sure, I would love to conserve as much energy as I can by hiding out in a peloton, but I think riding at my comfort pace will serve me much better in the long run.  Since most of my rides are solo, I view riding in groups as a luxury for the most part.  I'm much more comfortable relying on myself over the course of a ride.

Elevation profile from my 2013 experience

My trusty steed atop the category 1 climb

Totally worn out, but exhilarated from climbing the cat 1 

Unlike my first attempt at the AOTC, I'm not really worried about not finishing or having to take my bike for a walk up Caesar's Head.  I am curious as to how my performance will compare, and fully expect a stronger ride since I know more about the demands, and at least right now seem to be in a better place physically than before.  With five months to improve on where I am now, I think I will be able to really put a hurting on the big climbs of the day.  This will be a big achievement for me since I have never been a particularly good climber, and by all rights, after so long being away from a bike, I should be struggling to ride anywhere near the level I was at before.

My triumphant finish in 2013 with a 16.9 mph avg speed

The Proof is in the Pudding

Just a quick synopsis of how things have been going since August, 2014, to get things started.  First of all, after about nine months of not riding, I decided that I actually needed cycling in my life because, let's face it...Getting old sucks!  I then found out that I was quite impatient waiting on my new 2015 S-Works Tarmac to be built and shipped to Paul's so I could get back in the saddle.  September 4th was an awesome day as I finally took possession of my new bike and went out the very next day to ride a painful, and slow 50 miles.  I had ridden the miles, but I could tell I was out of shape really badly and was going to need to do a lot of work in order to get back to where I wanted to be.  I rode the following three days at lower mileage with increasing speeds.  On the fifth day, I set out to ride a 100k route.  I was expecting to be tired at the end, but I felt fairly confident that I could pull it off.  However, at just under eight miles, a Dodge had other plans for my day.  Now I owned a bike that was less than a week old, and had been crashed with about 140 miles on the clock.  Thanks to the folks at Progressive insurance, I was able to come out of the crash with some very positive outcomes.  First and foremost, I was able to use the crashed bike as a trainer bike.  Having used the trainer in the past with great results, I had high hopes for an off season of interval training.  Even though my replacement bike wasn't due in until early to mid November, I wasn't concerned because I had pretty much written off road rides for the remainder of the year at this point.  My goal was to concentrate on doing intervals.

November 3, 2014 (one year to the day from my first crash)

So, that gets us caught up on the soap opera that has been my return to cycling in the past two and a half months or so.  Its been a bumpy ride for sure, and one that has had more twists and turns in it than a mountain road.  I had pretty much settled into a five week program on the trainer which was doing wonders for me.  I was getting faster, more fit, and losing weight like crazy.  I had completed the first four weeks of the program and was cleaning my bike up, and servicing the chain when I got a call from Jimmy.  Now, Jimmy is the lead mechanic at Paul's.  I wasn't really expecting a call from him, so I was a little surprised to start out with.  What he told me next was even more surprising...my new bike had come in earlier that day and he was about done building it.  Wait.....What.......Huh?????  Last I heard from Dale was about a week ago saying that they had gotten the order confirmation from Specialized which would put the delivery out about two weeks or so.  Here I was getting told that the bike was actually here....now.....almost ready to pick up!

I'm a planner, so this threw my life into instant turmoil (in a good way).  I was technically off the next day, but I was scheduled to be in court for the vast majority of the day.  By the time I was supposed to be released, it would put me getting to Paul's at about 4:30 or so.  That was going to push it to get the bike finished (I had the accessories at the house) and fit to me before they closed at 6.  I could just wait until Wednesday to go and pick it up, but looking at the weather, I would actually have a really good day to go ride outside....OUTSIDE!!!  If I picked the bike up in the morning, it would be around lunch before I got home, and then I would have a lot of other things to do to get it ready for a ride...effectively burning all of my day, leaving me with Thursday which was supposed to be rainy.  This all would also mess up my last week of intervals training for this particular program I was on.  I was in a pickle!

November 4, 2014

I managed to get things sorted out over the phone the following day from court.  The plan was, I would bring my old bike to the shop so they could just duplicate the fit measurements from one machine to the next.  that would save a lot of time.  Even with that amount of work to be done, as well as installing pedals, bottle cages, etc, Dale told me that if I got there at 4:30 we should be OK.

When I left court, I made a quick trip to the truck (after answering a series of questions all the way to the parking lot) and headed home to change.  I put on some regular clothes and pulled my bike off of the trainer.  It was loaded into the bed of the truck as well as my bag of goodies I had for the new shoes.  Like I said, I had all of the accessories here.  I was bringing the pedals, footbeds, cleat stackers, and cages for the new bike.  After getting things loaded up, Sierra and I boogied down the road to Paul's.

When I got there, Jimmy took my old bike and put it on the mechanic's stand.  He said "are you sure this has been on a trainer?"  He was referring to how clean everything was on it, since trainer bikes are usually encrusted with salt, and everything is grimy.  Of course, I could never have a bike that wasn't clean and maintained, not even a crashed bike.  I had just done a full service on it, and a complete wipe down as part of my normal Monday "rest day" routine.

We started to talk about the new bike, and I told him that I was planning on swapping out the saddle for a new Romin saddle which would allow more blood flow to certain sensitive areas which contact the seat.  He looked kind of puzzled and asked didn't mine come with a Romin?  As I was saying no, Patrick pointed out that it was equipped with a Toupe' saddle.  Jimmy took me back to the rear of the shop and showed me that the new bike was, in fact, equipped with the Romin.  Bonus!!!!  It wasn't the team edition that I was wanting to buy, but functionally, it was exactly what I was wanting and it matched the bike just as well.  I also noticed that the seat post was different on the new bike.  It was a 0mm offset tube as opposed to the -30mm that my first bike was equipped with.  The -30mm worked, but the saddle was at the limits of the adjustment and there was a good possibility that I would be swapping it out for a 0mm when I had my first full fit with the bike.  So...DOUBLE BONUS!!  As if that wasn't good enough, I was also informed that this bike came with a Roval wheel bag which was something that I had wanted for a while with my other bike since I had two full wheelsets.  SCORE!!!!

Romin saddle with a nice large relief in the middle section

Wheel bag that will come in very handy in the event I get a second set of wheels

Jimmy started measuring everything out and getting the bike set up to my specs while I tracked down my new S-Works road shoes.  After test fitting them and determining that the 48's fit better than the 47's, I took them back to Patrick to get the cleats and the left shoe spacer installed.  Things were going well, and they were going quickly.  While I was there, I had Jimmy put on the bracket for the spare water bottles mounted to the seat post, and also bought a couple more cages to mount to that bracket.  Since he had the clamp loosened for adjustment that was no problem at all to do.

These look so impressive and fit like a dream

Things were going well ahead of schedule and since I had my original bike there to match measurements up with, there was no need to get on the trainer and get a basic fit done.  We knew that this would work fine based on my previous fit.  With time to spare, I was loading up my truck with not one, but two S-Works Tarmacs.  It was impressive...even Jimmy commented that it looked like a pro support truck all loaded up.  The only glitch in the visual was the red trainer tire attached to the old bike, which had been named "Snoopy" when I first bought it.  The new bike is affectionately called "Flo" after the Progressive spokeswoman (great idea from Sierra).

They do look impressive side by side

Snoopy on the left and Flo on the right, framing my Specialized logo

One would think that after all of this I would be all set to ride.  Not the case, not even close.  The bike comes originally equipped with performance race tires which don't work well for my kind of riding.  With a tread life of only about 800 miles, I would burn through them in less than two months.  I have been a big fan of the Continental GP4000S II tires and that is what I installed on the rims for my kind of riding.  I also had to set up the Garmin GPS with the new sensors which are magnetless.  This makes for a much cleaner install, and gives me the ability to leave the standard sensors on the trainer bike so all I have to do is swap the computer between the two.  Speaking of which, I had to install the K-edge computer mount to the handlebar, as well as a headlight.  Yeah, I do all my riding in the daylight so a headlight isn't really needed unless it starts raining.  However, with my track record, I wanted all the visibility I could possibly get!

The Thunderbolt headlight fits nicely right beside of the Garmin and has a really bright blinker

It was time to turn to the rear for lighting and for storage.  Since my rides are all self sustained, I have to have a saddle bag to carry tubes, tools, etc.  I had been using a large bag on Snoopy, but decided that it was just too big to hang under the seat of this racer.  I opted to step down a size and Toni got me a smaller wedgie that fit perfectly under the seat.  Despite its small size, it holds two spare tubes, tire tools, and a multi tool.  There is also a hanger strap for a tail light which was exactly where I mounted my Niterider Solas 2 tail light.  Below the bag, I positioned the spare bottle carriers so they were out of the way of everything and didn't block the view of the light.

Everything fits so well

One of the nice things about this bottle carrier system is that it rides lower than the seat mounted one that I had on my red Tarmac before.  With them mounted to the seat I was constantly kicking them with my legs when I was getting on the bike.  They would also get bumped by my hiney when I was shifting in the seat from time to time.  It worked, but not well.  The center of gravity was also raised very high on the post.  I haven't had the opportunity to really test this out, but I think it will work out much better than what I had before.

My setup on my original Tarmac

In addition to getting all of these things done, I also had to strip the protective coating off of the chain and get it lubed up.  While I had the lube out, I decided to go ahead and lube up the moving parts in the driveline as well.  I checked the operation of everything and determined that both brakes had a hard time centering themselves.  After a quick search of how to address that problem, I made the appropriate adjustment and got them adjusted in closer as well.  Now I had a nice short throw on the brake lever and a full release of the pads when the lever was let go.

Everything installed, cleaned, and ready to roll out

The bike was now done, but I needed to lube the cleats on the shoes, especially since the springs were new and that would mean harder engagement for a while.  I flipped the shoes and started to lube things and noticed that something didn't look quite right.  I was seeing different parts than I was used to.  I knew that this was the V2 version of the cleat, but it didn't look right.  As I investigated, I realized that the spring retainer plate had been swapped left to right.  It was a quick and easy fix, but one that I'm glad I caught before trying to clip in.  There would have been no way to engage the pedals had I not caught this.  Within a few quick minutes, I had everything sorted out and lubed up.  I made a last quick test fit of the shoes and made sure that the footbeds and wedges were correct before putting everything up.  It was late, and I needed sleep before going on my ride in the morning.

November 5, 2014

The day had arrived.  Honestly, I was just as nervous as I was excited about the new bike.  I had been putting in many hours on the trainer and was expecting that by the time Spring arrived, I would be at a reasonable performance level.  I also knew that the last time I went on a road ride, I had crashed hard.  Just a year ago, I had suffered another crash. Out of my last 6 road rides, I had crashed out twice.  I wasn't liking the odds, not one bit.  I wasn't scared, but I was very much apprehensive about going out...especially since I hadn't really thought I would be riding any more until Winter was over.  I wasn't mentally prepared for this, but I was hoping that I was physically prepared for it.

After waiting for the temperature to get above 50*, I got dressed and grabbed some food.  To show how unprepared I was for this, I had two Smucker's Uncrustables which I had left over from an experiment as a possible ride fuel.  There was a single Cliff Bar in the cabinet and I had a few Slim Jims available as well.  That was pretty much my selection for ride fuel.  I really wanted to try for that 100K ride that was interrupted so quickly last time.  I loaded up my pockets with what I had and filled two water bottles.  This should easily last me the 62 miles, as long as my body held up.  I kept remembering just how bad I had started to feel in the last third of my 50 mile maiden voyage just a couple of months earlier.

So worn out I couldn't stand up any more

I had put over 600 miles in on the trainer so I felt much stronger than I did on that first ride.  My speeds had increased, and I was estimating that my road speed for 50 miles should be back up in the mid 18's to mid 19's based on my previous experience with the trainer.  That was when I was very fit though, and I didn't know if it would translate over to the current body.  Time would tell I suppose.

Here I am starting out, full of hope

If nothing else, I was fitting better in my kit this time.  The 17 lbs that I had lost really made a big difference, but I still wasn't at my previous riding weight.  I didn't know how that 8 lbs left would affect my ride, but my legs felt good, and had been resting for two days at this point.  I started my live tracker so that Toni and a few others could follow my progress.  I made a last minute check of all the things that I needed to have.  After determining that I had everything, I clipped in with the right foot (it worked by the way) and started off.

I wasn't sure of the route I wanted to take so I kind of pieced it together as I went.  I started out wanting to go to King, but decided that wouldn't give me enough mileage and the traffic might be an issue as well.  As I was rolling through Rural Hall, I was noticing that my speed was well into the 19's and I was loving how the bike felt on the road in the big ring.  Feeling confident, I decided to make a right on Hwy 65 and head out to Walnut Cove to tackle some hills.  However, the hills came after a gradual decent into a valley.  I was smoking going down the road and at one point, close to the center of Walnut Cove, I was averaging 20.7mph!!!  Holy cow!  Not only was I feeling good on the bike, I was doing this route faster than I had ever done it by about seven tenths of a mph.  Talk about fueling the fire within!

When my lap reminder clicked over at 25 miles (40K) I was at a solid 20.4mph which I knew right then and there was my fastest 40K time and would be a record for me.  Over 10 months off of the bike, and just a hand full of road rides...this was what I was able to manage.  I was elated to say the least!

When I hit the climbs on the other side of Walnut Cove, my speeds dropped below 20mph and settled in the upper 19's by the time I hit the 50 mile mark.  I had my answer about whether or not the trainer was working.  From a dismal 14.9mph average on my maiden voyage, I was clocking nearly 5mph faster on average with a tougher route.  My speeds were right in line with what I was expecting them to be from the trainer speeds.

Buzzing the house just cause I had extra energy

A much happier cyclist at the end of 62.2 miles than I was after only 50 miles

When all was said and done, I had completed 62.2 miles at an average speed of 18.8 mph!  On that ride, I had landed a record 40K time trial speed, as well as a second fastest time on one of the climbs on Hwy 65.  I had food left, water left, and energy left.  I think that this is undeniable proof that doing intervals on a trainer will not only keep your fitness level in the off season, it will increase it...and in my case it will take you from couch potato to an "A Group" rider in a very short amount of time.

Lets look at some quick comparisons for a minute.

Last metric century ride before quitting cycling was November 2, 2013
Distance--62.15 miles
Average speed--18.0 mph
Time--3:27

First ride on Snoopy was Sept 4, 2014
Distance--52.55 miles
Average Speed--14.9 mph
Time--3:22

First ride on Flo was a metric century on November 5, 2014
Distance--62.22 miles
Average Speed--18.8 mph
Time--3:19

Second ride on Flo was a full 100 mile century on November 12, 2014
Distance--103.24 miles
Average Speed--18.4 mph
Time--5:37

Comparison century ride from September 16, 2013
Distance--103.73 miles
Average Speed--17.7 mph
Time--5:52

As you can see, the times for metric centuries are all pretty close, but the fastest of the three is today's 100K and the 52 mile ride was very close to the time of a 62 mile ride from a year ago.  Since my original writing of this entry, I have completed a full century which I have listed above with a comparison to another century on the same route.  In 2013, I had been riding for a full two years and was at about my top physical shape.  However, after using the trainer, I have gone from warming a couch cushion to shaving 15 minutes off of my time for that same route.  The numbers don't lie...my performance has increased exponentially from working on intervals, and is at, or better than my performance from a year ago already.  So, what does this mean?  It means that 2015 will be a really cool year!

Riding Hard and Getting Nowhere

For the most part, when you get on a bike, you are going to be traveling somewhere.  Maybe you are a commuter who rides to and from work every day.  Maybe you like to cruise over to a friend's house to visit for a while.  Maybe you are into riding events where you ride to the finish line.  It could just be that you are riding for fitness and enjoyment so you ride until you are ready to stop enjoying the scenery around you.  In any case, when you ride, you are going....somewhere.

When I started riding several years ago, I was doing it for fitness and training for some long event rides.  I would go out and ride in the heat, wind, and even in the cold.  It was the cold that really got me though.  That first winter, I managed to ride fairly often as it was a mild winter.  Temperatures were around the mid 40's to 50's most of the time and I found that I could ride in that for several hours at a time.  Keep in mind that I really didn't have much in the way of cold weather riding gear.  I just sucked it up and rode at a freezing state for the most part.

By the time the next winter had rolled around, I had made the move to clipless pedals and felt that I would possibly benefit from having an indoor trainer for the purpose of safely doing pedal drills.  Simply put, this was where I would unclip one side and pedal in a high gear for a minute or two with only one foot and then switch sides.  I just wasn't completely sold on the idea of a stationary trainer for just this simple job.  My wife, on the other hand, figured that it was a pretty good idea all the way around and she surprised me with a Cycleops Fluid II trainer.  Ultimately this ended up working wonders for my pedaling form.  A strange thing also happened, I found that you could very effectively do intervals with a stationary trainer.  Of course, these could be done on the road as well, but pesky things like stop signs, red lights, hills, traffic, and road hazards tended to interrupt your interval set.  I guess Toni saw this benefit too, even though I wasn't quite ready to give up my outside riding.

So what exactly is interval training?  It is self inflicted hell.  It is punishment for all the bad things that you have done throughout your life.  It breaks you down and leaves you feeling like you don't have the energy left in your body to pass out.  And....you do it completely voluntarily.

Simply put, interval training is a training method that uses short, high intensity efforts, coupled with lower intensity "recovery" periods to build up different aspects of your riding performance.  Whether you are a sprinter, climber, racer, or just want to lose a few pounds, intervals will help.  Additionally, if you are already a good sprinter, but need to work on climbing, intervals will help you improve on your weaknesses.

For me, in that first year, I figured that I would do interval training to offset the lack of road time I was going to get due to weather concerns.  I started doing intervals in mid October on a rainy day when I had scheduled myself to ride.  I tried using the DVD that came with the trainer.  I was not ready for that and didn't really understand what I was going to be doing.  While I rode, I still count that experience as a fail.

Cycleops Fluid 2 Trainer hooked up to my Specialized Tarmac

As you can see from this picture, the trainer is attached to the rear axle by removing the regular skewer and replacing with a much more substantial piece.  This new skewer is then locked in the "clamps" which fixes the bike on a four point platform for stability.  The fluid drive unit (the magic of the whole thing) is then rotated up and locked into place against the rear tire.  There are others that are based on magnets or air resistance. These are typically more noisy and don't offer the same kind of resistance as a fluid trainer does.  The benefits of a fluid trainer mainly are in the area of resistance.  With the fluid that is in the drive unit, there is a progressive resistance as the internal impeller turns quicker and quicker in the fluid.  There is a lot of heat that builds up as the speeds increase, so there is a fan built into the opposite side that produces a breeze across the drive unit to keep it cool(ish).  As you can see, this is a fairly simple device, and easy to hook up to any bike.

After my attempt at the video training, I decided that I wasn't quite ready to go off of cues on a television and did some research on intervals that I could do without watching a video and getting sidetracked.  The research that I did provided me with a lot of really great information on different programs.   The first ones that I tried were called pyramid intervals.  For these, you would warm up and then do 3 minutes at a pace you could maintain for that amount of time.  Then you would recover for 3 minutes at an easy pace.  Then you would ramp up your efforts to a quicker pace for 2 minutes, followed by a recovery of 2 minutes.  The last interval was a maxed out effort (as fast as you could go) for a minute with a minute recovery.  You could repeat this process as many times as time would allow.  I would normally go three sets of those which would take me about an hour including warm up and cool down.  Obviously, these became very boring very quickly.  Yes, they were effective and pushed me to be able to get to sprint speeds which was not my strong suit.  I just wanted something different.

Since I didn't need the television, I moved into the office

I continued my research on intervals, but what I was finding was very few of them had explanations of what effort levels they were calling for.  For some reason, I have never been all that good at figuring out my perceived exertion levels, so a level 6 to me, turned out to be more like a level 8 when I was told to sprint to a level 10.  There wasn't that much difference in what I was doing.  Hey, I like things explained to me.  In one of my issues of Bicycling I had my answer for what would form my basic interval workout for the winter.  It was a program that was set up to be over four weeks and showed two different interval workouts each week.  The author suggested that this be mixed in with regular road riding, which I would have loved to do, but the winter of 2012 was not very forgiving.  It was constantly cold and wet with lots of snow and ice.  What that meant to me was I was pretty much stuck on the trainer for the whole season.  I had to do these intervals at a different pace than what was recommended because I had scheduled event rides as soon as mid April which I was going to need to be in top form for.  I altered the scheduling for the intervals and just started doing them sequentially when I had time to ride.  That could be anywhere from twice a week, to five days a week.  I tried to give myself rest days often to offset the rate that I was doing the sessions.

Here is a break down of what I was doing for most of the winter of 2012:

Workout 1--3x(10 minutes tempo + 5 min recovery spinning between intervals, or RBI)
Workout 2--3x(1 min fast pedal + 1 min RBI), 2x(15 min tempo + 5 min RBI)
Workout 3--3x(1 min fast pedal + 1 min RBI), 30 min tempo
Workout 4--3x(1 min power interval + 1 min RBI), 3x(8 min steady state + 4 min RBI)
Workout 5--3x(8 min steady state + 4 min RBI)
Workout 6--3x(10 min steady state + 5 min RBI)
Workout 7--3x(10 min steady state + 5 min RBI)

Now for some definitions of what you are seeing there:
Tempo--This is a slower pedaling state around 70-85 rpms
Fast Pedal--This is usually an easy gear, with a high cadence around 110 rpms
Power Interval--This is also a higher cadence, but at a harder gear.  Look for cadence in the area of 95-108 rpms
Steady State--This is your brisk pace, just below a time trial pace.  Cadence should be 85-95 rpms

This was what formed the basis of my winter training and I rotated through the different workouts for most of the season.  When I started my average speeds were in the mid 14's and by the time I was at a close to trainer sessions, they had moved into the high 16's.  This alone shows that they do help increase performance, but what does this mean to the real world of road cycling?

One of the first things that I noticed in the Spring was I was able to ride a 50 mile road ride without stopping.  This was a first for me.  I attributed that to the steady exertion that my body was used to after doing repeated hour sessions of non-stop pedaling.  My speeds were also up near 18mph for that distance of a ride, and my 25 mile rides were coming in at a solid 19-20mph average.  This was slightly better than how I had left the cycling season the year before, but the fact that I had increased any was miraculous considering that typically winter is a time for performance to drop considerably.

Something else that I noticed while I was on the trainer was that my heart rate was doing strange things.  When I started paying attention to it, I was regularly operating in the 106% plus range which I figured was not overly healthy.  According to my Garmin, my max heart rate (based on age) should have been 184bpm.  I was cruising at that number and honestly, I got a little scared at my cardio health.  It wasn't until I started to talk with Dale at the bike shop that I realized that there were ways to test your max heart rate for the individual which I did.  When I started that testing, I maxed out at 194bpm.  By the end of the winter, thanks to my training, I had actually stretched that to 196bpm.  Essentially, that was my heart rate when I started to get dizzy, lose vision, and wanted to puke.  I replicated that number several times with the same results which made it an accurate measure.

2000 ft of climbing in about 6 miles

I was able to build on that base performance throughout the spring and I got stronger than I had ever been on a bike.  So strong in fact that I was able to conquer a category 1 climb up Caesar's Head State Park in South Carolina in mid April.  I really don't think that there would have been any way for me to have done that without having done the trainer through the winter months.  My legs were strong, my heart was strong, and my endurance was through the roof!  I was at the top of my game when most were just getting used to riding again.  I was sold on the trainer, but I was so happy to be able to ride outside again that I packed the trainer up and didn't give it much thought again.

The next time I needed the trainer was when I was getting ready for my epic double century ride.  In the last week of training before the ride, I was avoiding hard efforts to save my legs for the upcoming distance.  However, I needed to spin them a little bit.  Knowing that I have a hard time riding easy on the road, I opted to set the trainer up for an hour session of easy spinning while watching a movie.  I could stay at an easy pace and just work the muscles a couple of days before the big ride.  It was effective because I wouldn't let myself try for speed.  It was just movement I was after.

After that, the trainer pretty much went in the closet with the intention of bringing it back out in the following winter.  My plans changed in early November though as I suffered a crash that ultimately prompted me to throw in the towel on cycling.  I sold everything, including my trainer and began my winter of very little exercise.  In fact, other than the occasional hike in the mountains, I was pretty much sedentary at home, and at work, I just sat in a car all day.  All that training and effort out of the window, and gone.  I was a couch potato, and my body was starting to feel it.

My cycling rebirth on my new mount.  Notice the "spare tire" I'm sporting beneath the jersey!

In late Summer, I decided to make a change in my life that would reintroduce cycling.  I bought a new bike (spent way too much on it to make me use it), and went out on my first road ride in ten months.  It about killed me, but I managed to crank out 50 miles. I was hurting from it, and could tell that I was out of shape.  I had been able to do that route at around 19mph less than a year ago, but had slowed to 15mph after being a spud for so long.  I had a lot of work to do to return to where I knew I should be.  Since it was the end of the season, I actually really wanted a trainer, but had been told that putting the Fact 11R frame on a trainer was not a great idea.  I started my search for a cheap road bike that I could put on the trainer to help build my fitness with intervals again.  Hey, I was sold on what they could do for me!

I had a very hard time sourcing such a bike, but I had a handle on where I could find a trainer.  You see, my friend that bought my trainer hated it so much that he only used it once, and was more than happy to sell it back to me.  In fact, I think he would have payed me to take it off his hands. Intervals just aren't for everyone.  I just needed a bike....

Ironically enough, on my 5th ride on my new bike, I ended up with an answer to my scavenger hunt for a cheap, less than road worthy bike with a functioning drive train that was 56cm so it would fit me.  The answer came in the form of a Dodge that turned left in front of me, causing me to crash into his passenger doors.  I was unhurt, but the bike shop deemed the bike to be unfit for the road since it was carbon fiber and there was a better than average chance that there was damage to the frame.  His insurance paid to replace the bike and after a little bit of inquiry, they opted to let me pick up the damaged bike that they were just going to dispose of.  Less than road worthy bike...check.  Functioning drive train....check, 56cm....check, bonus, has already been fit to me.  I had my bike!  Now it was time to get my trainer back.

I was even able to get the trainer tire back with the trainer.  It was all cleaned up and ready for a workout.

I used a very familiar place in the office to set up my pain cave

This looks familiar, but I'm a good bit heavier at 205lbs

Everything was in place to get back on track with my training.  The difference this time was I wasn't trying to maintain my fitness level, I was trying to find that fitness level again.  While I was happy with my road rides up to this point, they were a far cry from where I once was.  In fact, I had only been using the little ring on my crank because I knew my legs weren't ready for the big gears.  I had a lot of work to do, but at least I had all winter to do it.  My first hour session on the trainer went fair.  I was in the little ring still and was having to use a relatively low gear on the back for my easy spin, and a moderate gear for any intervals...all in the little ring though.  My speeds were in the low 14's which did not bode well for me.  If it's worth having, it's worth working for.  I committed to making this happen.  I decided that I would ride six days and then rest on the seventh.  That would be my routine, and I would go back to my tried and true intervals from two winters ago.

I saw success in both how I felt on the bike, and also my average speeds for each session.  I wasn't quite back to where I had been before, but I was getting pretty close.  I had also moved out of the little ring and started to work primarily in the big ring using lower gears on the cassette.  I was feeling more and more like myself.  When I started averaging in the 16's after about three weeks of solid work, I felt like my base performance was getting close to normal.  I also started to realize that rotating between just seven workouts was going to get very boring quickly.  I also knew that unless I was pushing my body, and changing things up, I would eventually plateau and cease seeing any benefits.  So, in order to head that problem off before it even got started, I decided it was time to change up my interval workouts.

I started to search the Internet for some new intervals.  Instead of concentrating on power, I looked for something that would help get rid of some of the pounds I had added to my mid section.  The reason for this was I was feeling so confident that I would be back to my old riding form that I had signed up for the 2015 Assault on the Carolinas which was scheduled to take place in mid April.  In a stroke of deja vu, I found myself in a similar situation as I was in in 2012 where the Trainer had come to my rescue.  This time, I was going to rely on it to help me get back to a decent riding weight from my current 200 lbs, down from a high of 205 lbs from early September.

The interval program I found was a five week long adaptation of a nine week program by James Herrera.  This program is designed to burn fat, but more importantly, it is one that is set up to increase in intensity as it progresses.  Its also designed to be done completely on a trainer as opposed to blended in with road rides as my other intervals were.  It also kept with my six on, one off schedule incorporating rest days where I was just spinning with no intervals.  In short, it was designed around the schedule I was wanting.  The description of the sessions were also spelled out very nicely and were based on heart rates as opposed to cadences that I was used to.  It was very clear on what to do, and the effort level I needed to use.  This was going to be a no brainer, I just needed to wait until Monday to get started with the program...beginning with a rest day off of the bike.

I had a few days to get things ready for my new session.  One problem that I could foresee was that many of the intervals were set up to 30 seconds, or 90 seconds long.  Up until now, I had been able to watch the timer and get my interval times done that way.  I was going to get confused when I started introducing complex math into my intervals.  I needed to figure something out to make this easier to follow so all of my attention could be applied to the actual workout.  Fortunately for me, I was already using the Garmin Edge 510 which has a "Workout" function built in.

I could explain how the "Workout" function works, but this video does an excellent job of it.  How it helps me is that I can input each workout step by step into my Garmin and it will tell me what my heart rate needs to be and give me a count down of how long I need to maintain it.  It takes all the guess work out of the workout which is great when some of the sessions are 20 steps long and lasting over 2 hours.  I know that the Garmin GPS cycle computers get a mixed bag of reviews, but every time I turn around I find something new to love about the devices.

For the first time, I was going to be training by heart rate, not perceived exertion.  To me, this made my workouts very scientific and tangible.  It was no longer based on how I felt, but rather how my body was reacting.  From my last few weeks on the trainer, I knew that surprisingly, my max heart rate was still at 196bpm which was incredible after 10 months off of a bike, and only a few weeks back on it.  I didn't ask questions, just went with it.  I also went with the Garmin breakdown of zones for the work loads (I didn't know any better at the time).  With that information added in, I set up my first week's worth of workouts.

When Tuesday rolled around, I started things up and set out on my first heart rate based workout.  I found that the zone 4 and zone 5 workouts were pretty good, but I felt like I was working less than I was used to.  This is to say, I really felt like I was sandbagging the workout and not going as hard as I had been with the other program.  I continued on with Wednesday feeling the same way.  Thursday and Friday were the simple and easy spins that were designed to recover from the previous days.  Saturday was an hour and a half session as was Sunday.  Those days provided me with a little more effort and I felt like I liked the intervals more than I had originally thought.  My final test of whether or not I liked this program came on Sunday when I weighed in.  The previous week, I had been a solid 198 which was down 7 lbs from my high weight of 205 at the beginning of September.  This week, I was down to 195 lbs which was an additional 3 lbs.  Yeah, I was liking this program!

The next week added onto the intensity and the total time for the week was up from 6:30 to 7:00 total.  The workouts were a bit harder, but I still felt like I was getting off easy going by the heart rate.  At the end of that week, I was down to 194 lbs so I had no room to argue.  I was getting results, and they were happening quickly.  The third week, was a recovery week with only two interval workouts scheduled and the rest just simple spins.  Total ride time for the week was only 5:45.  At the end of that week, I expected to to see no change in my weight, but I found that I was down to 192 lbs. I was starting to feel like I had found a magical potion and started to really feel good about myself.

I took the recovery week to do some evaluations of my fitness.  I was checking my resting heart rate which had been 72bpm since I started back cycling.  I was happy to learn that my resting heart rate had dropped down to 60bpm which was where it had been at my peak of cycling before.  Based on several ventures into zone 5, I was maxing out at 196bpm still which was great!  I started to input the new resting rate into the Garmin files and saw the percentages of the zones off to the side.  They did not quite match up to what James Herrera had, so I figured out how to change the percentages.  What ended up happening was each zone climbed up about 10bpm which shifted me into a significantly different zone map.

OK, so what does that mean.  Well, for starters, zone 3 used to be 152-166bpm, and it was now 161-174bpm.  I had tried to keep my heart rate around 165 previously, so I had always been in this zone, but now, instead of being on the top end, I was at the bottom end now.  I was going to have to push harder to get on the upper end of the zone now.  Additionally, I had recently decided that my gearing was too low because my cadence had been steadily climbing.  I was now working on a gear up across the board from where I had been which also increased the level of difficulty.  My first run at the new zone map, with the new gearing was going to be an interesting affair.

When that day arrived, I could tell I was working much harder than I had been.  In fact, I was working harder than I had been with the other interval sets.  This felt more like what I was expecting.  I was getting the pain that I had come to expect from the trainer.  It was an awesome pain that could only mean I was getting stronger and faster.  The numbers supported this as well.  On a similar session, I had averaged 15.5mph while with the new heart rate map and different gearing, I was at 16.6mph.  On the second day, that number rose to 17.2mph which was faster than any trainer interval session I had done in the past.  If my estimations from my last experience on the trainer hold true, I can expect average speeds in the area of 19-19.5mph over a 50 mile route.  Of course, my current weight might slow that down a bit, but I'm getting close to my goal of 180lbs which was where I was when I stopped riding.

I know that most cyclists hate an indoor trainer with a purple passion, and rightfully so.  I would much rather get outside and ride, but I know that when results are what I'm after, that outside ride will actually fall short of what I'm looking for.  The ultimate results are not known yet, but they will be proven in the spring when I hit the road on my brand new S-Works Tarmac and finish training for the Assault on the Carolinas.  I know that as of right now, there are some undeniable results.  Lets take a look....

Weight
Sept 18, 2014--205lbs
Oct 26, 2014--192lbs
Nov 2, 2014--190lbs

Average speed for an hour interval session
March 6, 2013--17.1 One of my last trainer sessions, and one of my fastest
Sept 19, 2014--14.3 One of the first new attempts
Oct 29, 2014--17.2 Strongest to date with the new heart rate zone

Something else I have noticed in the last couple of sessions in dealing with my heart rate.  It seems that my max has taken a slight jump to 197bpm.  The difference between 196 and 197 might not seem like much.  However, considering when I first maxed out at 196, I was 39 years old and according to the American Heart Association, I should have been maxing out at 184bpm.  Now at 40 years old, they report that I should be maxing out at 180, but here I am actually increasing to 197!!  I'm not the most physically fit in the well rounded sense, so I have to attribute that number to cycling, and every time I record an increase, its after working on the trainer regularly.  I'm telling you, when used correctly, a stationary trainer is a great tool to increase your fitness level, and make your outdoor cycling more fun, and a lot faster.

If I play my cards just right, I'll be back in shape to tackle the biggest ride I've ever done once again....Double Down 2 the Beach.  With only seven weeks back in the saddle as of this writing, I'm feeling pretty confident that I will be able to hold my bike up once again while standing in the Atlantic Ocean.

June 2013, after 212.21 miles at an average of 18.1 mph in one day!!!!