Breaking out of a funk

As I said previously, I've been in a bit of a funk of late. In pondering why, I came to the conclusion that I posted earlier: boredom.

OK, I freely admit I've got a lower threshold of boredom than many (most?) other people. I have friends that ride 10K miles a year on the same roads, over and over. I just can't do it. It feels to me like I'm on a 40 mile long treadmill.

Most years, this isn't a problem. The year generally breaks down to: three months in Texas, my brevet series with various national and international brevets spread throughout the year. As a consequence, I'm typically only riding at home 3-6 weeks at a time and the rest of the time I'm doing something else, somewhere else.

In thinking about it further, I concluded that:

1. The majority of my rides are 40 miles or less.
2. They all start either at my front door (solo riding) or a few miles away (the brevets I host).

As a consequence, I see the same 10-15 miles of road a lot. There are only so many ways in and out of the Big City so regardless of whether I ride a loop or out and back I'm still on the same roads for at least 20-30 miles of every ride.

It gets old fast. At least it does for me.

So with that in mind, what is a Coronavirus restricted cyclist to do?

I decided that I would periodically throw the bike in the car and start my ride from somewhere else.

My first foray at this was yesterday. I drove down to Blue River which is about 15 miles away and then did a portion of my Fennimore 200K from Blue River to Fennimore with a different route that took me back to Blue River. Just under 50 miles total.

The day was hot (near 90) and windy and, being a loop route, the piper is gonna get paid somewhere and I paid him. There were lots of places where I was sailing with the wind and lots where I was grinding hard to go 8 MPH on level ground.

I also did something else that I never do: stopped and took pictures. I generally hate stopping. On brevets, I never stop unless I have a mechanical (rare) or am at a control (or need a bio break). Stopping to take pictures just doesn't happen. For years, I carried a very nice, small, waterproof point and shoot camera. I never used it. I did all of LEL with it in my jersey pocket. Didn't take a single picture.

So part of the "do things differently" ethos I'm trying to adopt is to stop and take pictures, or even turn around (!), when I see something worth a photo.

So here are the results. Hope you enjoy the photos. And yes, the ride did help me break out of the funk so I'm going to do it again.

Between Blue River and Boscobel

The self-proclaimed "Turkey Capitol of the Midwest". When turkeys were introduced into Wisconsin, the state biologist at the time said they'd never survive the winters. There are tens of thousands of them.

Needed all three water bottles today!

They're not kidding about that sign. I've gone that way before, but not today.

In the Driftless, if they put the world "hill" in a road name, you know you're in for something special!

Forever views!

A ride too far?

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

Robert Browning

It's been 5 days now since the last climbfest on Bunker Hill.

My back hurts. It's hurt for the last 4 days.

I've been experiencing one of several "failure modes" where the muscles up the back (hamstrings, glutes, back) get super tight and compress the disc bulge I have at S1/S2.

As is my wont, I've been thinking about this a bunch. My thoughts thus far:

1. Too much, too soon. As it happens, my last two outings on Bunker Hill have been among my longest rides thus far this year.
2. My mileage so far this year is significantly down from years past.
3. Making the jump to both the longest ride and a significant amount of climbing was too much.

Stepping back a bit. One of my goals before I stop doing this silly nonsense (or, as it is so often phrased, before I "age out" of randonneuring) is the ACP Randonneur 10000 award. This requires:

• two full series of ACP brevets (200, 300, 400, 600 and 1000km) where longer brevets cannot be substituted for shorter ones.
• A Paris-Brest Paris
• A second 1200km randonnée homologated by Les Randonneurs Mondiaux
• a Flèche Vélocio
• a Super Randonnée 600
• additional ACP and/or RM events to bring the total distance up to at least 10000 km.

These must be completed within a six-year period.

I meet all these criteria but the Super 600K.

I've had two gos at the Super 6: the Snowies SR600K in Australia and the Colorado Front Range SR600K. I didn't finish either due to back pain.

Which brings us back (see what I did there?) to the present.

I'd planned on taking another run at the Colorado Front Range SR600K in July. Although this was looking doubtful due to the Coronavirus, nevertheless I continued to target it. That's what the hill climbing has been about - to try and prepare for an SR600K where I'll do 10K feet of climbing three days in a row (it doesn't fall out exactly like that but bear with me). My thinking was that by doing the Basecamp locally that I could gradually inure my back to the rigors of an SR600K.

But, as noted at the outset, my back hurts.

Right now, I'm not ready to concede that an SR600K just may be more than I'm able to do. My perhaps wishful thinking is that I've just done too much, too soon and that a more gradual ramp up is required.

Edited to add: my goal was never to do a full Everesting to prepare for the SR600K. Frankly, I think that'd be overdoing it in two ways:

1. Doing 30K feet of climbing to prepare for 30K feet of climbing is unnecessary from a training point of view.
2. I think it's not likely my back would ever get there.

A key difference between an SR600K and an Everesting is the SR600K breaks the 30K feet of climbing into three chunks with rest in between whereas the Everesting does it all in one go. My plan was to do at most a Basecamp and more likely to just stop at 10K feet.

At this point, I'm planning on focusing more on longer rides with a fair amount of climbing and perhaps resume the Everest Basecamp challenge at some point in the future. My current thinking is that I can get to the point where my back will take the stress of 10K plus climbing for three days in a row but that it needs to be done gradually. This may be wishful thinking on my part but, as I said, I'm not yet ready to concede otherwise. I'm no small amount of stubborn mixed with a fair dose of stupid.

Stay tuned!

Back at it on Bunker Hill

Well, I'm still trying (and failing) to get it right. The weather looked pretty good for Friday so Bob and I decided to give it a go. Bob got started really early (5:30 I think?) and ended up with over 13K feet for the day - go Bob!

It was really foggy when I was getting ready to leave so I dawdled to give it time to clear and got started riding at about 7:45. Cool and very humid to start so I had sun sleeves, vest and knee warmers on which I wore for the first four laps. My goals for the day were:

1. Get the nutrition/hydration/electrolytes sorted.
2. Complete 10K feet of climbing.
3. Stretch goal: Everest Basecamp (14,502 feet)

The power numbers for this ride and the two previous goes are below. As you can see, I started off considerably harder than on previous attempts - 200+ watts for the first 11 laps and 198 for the 12th lap before I took my first long break. Power fell off somewhat after that but not as precipitously as it did on 5/2 averaging 183 watts for laps 13-24.

My strategy going into the ride was to stop at the bottom of the hill every 2-3 laps and eat/drink something. I mostly adhered to the strategy but I realize in hindsight that I really only drank enough to wash down the food I was eating and that would once again prove my undoing. I was also taking an S-cap every other lap so roughly every 30 minutes.

At lap 21, my left leg felt like it "wanted" to cramp as I neared the top of the hill. I backed off from then on. By then it was quite warm and I'd once again gotten the hydration/electrolytes wrong. From then until the ride ended I stopped every other lap at the bottom of the hill and took a long drink from the gallon jug I'd stashed plus 2 S-Caps. Between soft-pedaling and the increased fluids and electrolytes I didn't have a major cramping episode so I'm happy that I avoided that but disappointed that I'd once again gotten it wrong.

I hit it somewhat harder on the last ascent just to see if I was in fact recovered or if my legs would cramp and fortunately they didn't and I averaged 172 watts for that climb.

So what now? Obviously I've screwed up the hydration/electrolytes twice now and I'd very much like to see what I can do if I get it right. How to fix it though? Two possibilities suggest themselves:

1. Wear a CamelBak. I used to wear one on brevets all the time. I'd typically get a blinding headache after around 100 miles or so but a couple of ibuprofen would sort it. I stopped wearing the CamelBak and voila - no more headaches. Still, a CamelBak would allow me to take a good long drink while descending.
2. Really make a point on the "every 2-3 lap" stops of drinking a bunch. The problem on this hill is that the descent is fast, has a sharp curve in it along with some longitudinal cracks that you need to watch out for. Because of that, I typically would take a drink from my water bottle at the bottom of every lap but that's only at most one mouthful of water - not very much when it's warm. I was able to recover when I started stopping and taking a big drink.

In more positive news, I did manage the food well and I'm pleased with the effort for the first 20 laps, that's just about 5 hours of riding so being able to keep the wattage at about a 192 average for that length of time is good progress.

Here's what I ate during the ride:

• 2x half PB&J (full sandwich cut in half)
• 1 banana
• 2x chicken wrap with mayo, lettuce and tomato (and 2 Cokes)
• quart sized zip loc full of Tostito chips
• 1.5 Gu flask
• Grapes

Not sure when/if I'm going to have another go. I'm thinking of trying a Basecamp on Zwift which has the advantage of a regular forced stop as my avatar descends not to mention being able to control the conditions. My friend Dawn is going to have a go at Bunker Hill in a week so I might join her. I've also still to go check out Denzer.

Stay tuned!

Lap  4/22    5/2    5/16
1     184     187   200
2     180     188   208
3     181     186   205
4     194     183   206
5     187     184   207
6     177     181   209
7     179     184   203
8     183     183   203
9     176     181   201
10   185     182   200
11   192     184   202
12   174     176   198
13   181     176   194
14   188     170   189
15   184     169   187
16   182     160   184
17   168     183   185
18   172     175   182
19   181     153   188
20   173     164   183
21   177     155   180
22   169     155   174
23   161     153   172
24    ---      160   169
25    ---      162   160
26    ---      152   159
27    ---      161   157
28    ---      148   158
29    ---        ---   158
30    ---        ---   158
31    ---        ---   151
32    ---        ---   172

What I meant to say...

I've been feeling a bit out of sorts the past few days. Not ill and not "depressed", just sort of a low grade "something's missing" that's been hanging over me. I was post-processing my previous post (see what I did there?) on my ride yesterday and coincidentally had an email from a friend on strategies for riding through the pandemic. I also heard yesterday that the Great Southern Randonnée (GSR) was canceled for 2020.

I realized that yesterday's post missed the mark and could be interpreted to mean that I'm missing the miles I rode during 2019 since I wrote how many fewer miles I'd ridden this year as compared to last.

But that's not the case at all, what I'm missing are the experiences associated with doing brevets around the country and world: seeing different places, reuniting with friends I've made, riding in different terrain, experiencing the culture, etc.

As has always been the case, the overwhelming majority of miles I ride are solo. The exceptions are brevets, both local and global. The local brevets let me reconnect with friends here and, because the majority of my solo rides are in the 30-60 mile range, let me ride on roads that I don't normally get to. Likewise, I look forward to the international brevets for the experiences that come with going to another country and to see friends I've made from around the world.

That's what I miss. To use a metaphor, my riding is like a solo voyage across the ocean and brevets are islands in the sea: I look forward to the next one and think about the last one for a long time afterwards. Not having those "islands" in my cycling year is a real loss.

Still, a first world problem to be sure. I have my health, I can still ride my bike and this will all eventually pass. I've found other ways to add some spice/focus to my riding (the Everesting challenge) and will continue to do that by mixing up routes, going in directions I've not gone for a while and perhaps doing some rides with starting points other than my front door.

Life is beautiful.

Stay tuned!

This one is not like the other one

I was thinking a while back about how this year compares to previous years as far as cycling is concerned. Obviously, the coronavirus has played havoc with my travel plans as both domestic and international travel shut down and events I was signed up for were canceled. Also, I had a fairly significant injury in the Spring which hampered my riding during our winter sojourn in Texas.

Here's a comparison. By the end of May in 2019, I'd:

• Ridden 5,517 miles
• Done a Flèche in Australia - the Flèche Opperman
• Done a 1000K in Australia - the Geelong Flyer
• Done a 1000K in Texas - the HCR BNBB 1000K
• Done 3 200K's and a 300K
• Done the Florida Sunshine 1200K

Thus far in 2020 I've ridden 2,544 miles and my longest ride has been 81 miles. Not a single brevet of any distance.

I have to admit that apart from the injury, this is fairly close to normal for me without a brevet to target. My rides are typically in the 30-40 mile range with the occasional 100K. I rarely ride 200K or more just for the heck of it.

But I guess that needs to change. It's not likely longer brevets are going to happen for the foreseeable future. I've been focusing on the Everest Challenge and that's done a good job of giving me a target to shoot for but I realized that doing e.g., even an Everest Basecamp (14,514 feet) would require me to ride nearly 75 miles and somehow climbing 14K feet as one of my longest rides of the year seems unwise and a full Everest would require riding nearly 150 miles.

So I guess it's time to ramp up the distance a bit. I've never been a believer that mega-distance rides are required in order to be able to do mega-distance rides but one thing I've learned is that gradual adaptation is important for my back, especially with the stress of climbing.

I'm thinking of perhaps doing another climbing session this coming Saturday on Bunker Hill or maybe going over to Denzer Hill to check it out some time this week. I might also do a Basecamp on the trainer.

Stay tuned!

Bunker Hill by the numbers

Strava gives some pretty nice analysis tools (Summit membership required) if you have a power meter. Being a data geek, I thought it'd be interesting to compare some of the numbers from my first set of repeats on Bunker Hill on April 22 with the more recent go on May 2nd. Some things to keep in mind:

• I'm coming back from injury so power and endurance are both lower than normal.
• Because of the injury, I've not done much in the way of long rides. As I write this, I've only done 4 rides longer than 60 miles this year. This is uncharacteristically low.
• I weigh about 15 lbs more than I normally do (though sadly the weight is consistent between the two efforts)
• It was on average 10 degrees warmer on May 2nd.
• On the first attempt, my goal was 5K feet which I reset to 7500 during the ride so I wasn't necessarily "pacing" myself for a long effort. On the second, my goal was 10K feet or more.
• On May 2nd I also had the goal of completing the Fleche within the time limit. Although I'd previously said this was a secondary and therefore expendable goal, on the day I decided I didn't want to let the team down so I made it the primary goal.
• Focusing on the Fleche caused me to take fewer breaks than I probably should have since I was cognizant of the time limit (I made it with 6 minutes to spare).
• On the first attempt, I only had a Gu in the first 12 laps then stopped for a longer break.
• On the second attempt, food intake was more regular. I took a long break after 18 laps and had 21 minutes off the bike total. 
• The numbers are for the climb only, descent is not counted.

With that as intro, here are the numbers (lap with a long break in red):

Lap   4/22    5/2   
1     184     187
2     180     188
3     181     186
4     194     183
5     187     184
6     177     181
7     179     184
8     183     183
9     176     181
10   185     182
11   192     184
12   174     176
13   181     176
14   188     170
15   184     169
16   182     160
17   168     183
18   172     175
19   181     153
20   173     164
21   177     155
22   169     155
23   161     153
24    ---      160
25    ---      162
26    ---      152
27    ---      161
28    ---      148

So what does that tell me?

1. The first thing that stands out on the 4/22 effort is that the break at the end of the 12th lap was restorative. My power levels returned to essentially what they were prior to taking the break.
2. It appears that the break on 4/22 also slowed the overall decline in power. Although the numbers went down toward the end on both efforts, the drop was more pronounced (and more immediate) on 5/2.
3. As I've observed in my ride summary, I felt OK after the break at lap 18 but my power was off significantly and never came back.

Two data points don't necessarily constitute a trend, but this is what I'm going to try differently next time based on what I've observed:

• I'm going to take regular, longer breaks every two hours. The data suggests the earlier break on 4/22 worked better than delaying it as I did on 5/2.
• I'm going to stop briefly at the end of every other lap and eat/drink/replenish electrolytes. The goal here is not to go into a deficit on anything. This isn't planned to be an extended stop, no more than 2 minutes, but I think this should help me do a better job of maintaining power levels for a longer time. 

Not sure exactly when the next outing is going to be. I'm planning on going over to Denzer hill and doing some repeats. Not a serious effort, perhaps 4-6 repeats, just to get a "feel" for the hill and how it compares to Bunker.

Stay tuned!

Battle of Bunker Hill Personal report

As noted previously, I'd hurt my back several days before the ride overdoing the core strengthening. Before I did that I was fairly confident in my ability to reach my goal of completing the vFleche and climb 10K feet.

Because of the back injury, I went into this ride fairly anxious as to how my back was going to respond. The good news is that other than a few twinges it was fine.

For the ride, I had a big cooler at the top of the hill in my car and a second cooler at the bottom. The one at the top was for longer breaks and held several sandwiches, cokes, chips and grapes. I also had 2 gallons of water in the car.

The cooler at the bottom was for quick refresh stops and had 6 water bottles, 3 filled with Spiz and 3 plain water. It also had several bananas, energy bars, 2 PB&J sandwiches. I also stashed a gallon of water at the bottom.

I started exactly at 9 AM with Bob and Dawn on Bunker Hill. We all rode away from the hill for a bit to warm up and then descended to the bottom and started climbing. I had the following for nutrition/hydration:

• I started with one water bottle full of Spiz (3 scoops rather than the recommended 4) which gives just under 400 calories per bottle.
• I had a half PB&J, a banana and a Gu flask in my jersey pockets.

As noted previously, I have a hard time eating/drinking while climbing and the hill is steep/curvy enough that doing so while descending is risky so so my plan was to take a long drink of water at the top and bottom of each lap and every other lap to eat something (shot of Gu, a couple of bites of banana, etc) at the top and chew on the way down.

I pretty much stuck to the plan and never felt "out of gas" during the ride.

I did 18 laps which was just under 40 miles and 6K feet of climbing before I took my first extended break. Before the break I'd been maintaining fairly consistent wattage of 175-200 watts and my lap speeds were consistently in the range of 10.5 MPH. I actually still felt pretty good when I took my break.

During the break, I ate a wrap with turkey, lettuce & tomato, some chips, some grapes and drank a coke.

After the break, I felt OK but just didn't have any power. I thought I might return more or less to what I was doing previously after a lap or two but never did. My lap speed average dropped to in the range of  9.5 MPH for the rest of the ride and never really recovered.

As noted in the team report, the wind was out of the NW switching more westerly through the day. The final pitch up the climb goes straight north into the wind but this was OK as it cooled me off. When the wind switched to its more westerly direction this gave a slight push up the hill.

The westerly wind would prove to be my undoing to some degree. With the tail wind (no apparent wind) I'd be really hot when I got to the top but then on the descent I'd be going straight into the wind which cooled me off and dried off accumulated sweat.

The bottom line is I was really pouring off the water and it was kind of hard to tell because I remained dry.

Total liquid consumed during the ride were 5 16 oz bottles of water/Spiz and one 24 oz bottle of Coke. I also took an Endoralyte Extreme every 40 minutes which gives 120mg of sodium, 180 mg chloride and 75mg potassium.

The last two laps I was pushing the time limit of 6:40 for the Fleche and I started cramping really badly on the climb. I took 2 Endurolytes and drank all of the water in my bottle but on the last lap, near the top I cramped so badly that I thought I was going to have to get off and walk. I made it to the top without walking, rode to the car and ended my ride having completed the Fleche distance within the time limit. Final stats:

• 62.92 miles
• 6:13 moving time, 6:34 total time
• 8,963 feet of climbing

In the end, I only accomplished one of my three goals which was to complete the Fleche inside the time limit (6 minutes to spare!). I didn't reach the goal of 10K feet of climbing. With benefit of hindsight, I probably could have doubled my intake of both fluids and Endurolytes.

Post ride, I had a celebratory beer with Bob and Dawn then collected my stuff and headed home. On the drive home I drank 2 full bottles of water (32 oz) and when I got home drank an additional 64 oz of water and took 2 more Endurolyte extremes.

I took a short nap (20 minutes or so) and when I got up both of my legs cramped so badly I couldn't walk and hurt so much I broke into a cold sweat. I stood there for 3-4 minutes (seemed like an eternity!) then was finally able to move. I took a jacuzzi bath in warm water followed by a cold shower, drank about 1/2 cup of pickle juice, drank an additional 48 oz of water then had two beers with dinner.

This morning my legs are a bit stiff but otherwise OK. I'm still really thirsty.

Battle of Bunker Hill Team Report

This ride was a virtual Fleche held under the auspices of the virtual "Hudson Valley Randonneurs" region. The rules for the vFleche are appended at the end.

The name of our team was "Team B.S.A.G Bunker Hill Battlers". The acronym is based on Jim Collins book "Built to Last" which introduced the term "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" into the lexicon. During the late 90's, "What's your BHAG?" became the corporate equivalent of "What's your star sign?".

So B.S.A.G stands for "Big Stupid Audacious Goal" which for the three of us on Bunker Hill meant doing repeated climbs to achieve the distance. This would amount to just at 9K feet of climbing.

Ouch.

I was joined on Bunker Hill by Bob Booth and Dawn Piech. Carol Bell and Eric Peterson were the other two team members with both of them doing rides in Iowa City, IA and Naperville, IL, respectively.

So how did it go?

Most importantly, all team members completed the ride within the official time limit - way to go team!

Dawn, Bob and I got to Bunker Hill between 8:00 and 8:30. Bob arrived first and, overachiever that he is, did 3 laps while the others were getting set up. Here is Dawn's setup at the top:

The day was quite warm with a high temperature of 75 forecast. It was also pretty windy with gusts to 25 MPH. The wind was out of the NW at the start and moved to more westerly through the day. In general, this worked in our favor. There is a section at the steepest part of the climb where we were going straight into the wind. This increased the difficulty of getting to the top but the wind did a good job of cooling at the hardest part of the climb so it was a worthwhile trade-off.

One difficulty the wind created (for me) when it switched to more westerly it gave a small push up the hill but there was zero apparent wind and thus no cooling. I'd get to the top really hot but then descend into a headwind which did a great job of cooling and drying me off. As a result I didn't fully realize how much water I was throwing off and became pretty badly dehydrated. I was cramping really badly the last two climbs but managed to finish.

Dawn and Bob both rode really strongly through the day. Bob was a particular standout as he both rode well and because of his extra laps and because he continued after he finished the vFleche distance he ended up with more than 11K feet total climbing. Great job Bob!

Here are links to our rides:

• Bob https://ridewithgps.com/trips/48142002
• Dawn 
  
• Carol
  
• Eric https://www.strava.com/activities/3387171674?share_sig=279032481588450963&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ios_share
• Greg  https://www.strava.com/activities/3387923417

Here is a collage of pictures that Carol took during her ride:

And here is a shot of the happy Bunker Hill team at the finish:

vFleche rules:

• Each team must have between 3-5 riders.
• At least three riders on each team must complete the distance successfully
• All teams will complete a ride of at least 100 kilometers in less than 6 hours, 4 minutes
• Each team must select a team distance and all riders must complete the same distance within the maximum time allowed.
• Each team shall determine a Virtual Captain (me, in this case) who will notify the Virtual RBA of the team name, the team roster and the team distance.
• Indoor riders may use social riding apps like Zwift to ride "together" but may also complete their rides separately on standard trainers or rollers and should coordinate their starts to begin at roughly the same time.
• Outdoor riders need not be in the same location or even in the same state to complete the ride successfully as a team. If riding separately, riders should coordinate their starts to begin at roughly the same time.

Plans, Plans and more Plans

Those who know me know that I always have a plan. I'm not wed to it, willing to change as circumstances dictate but I always have a plan.

So here's the plan for tomorrow:

My goals in priority order are:

1. Climb 10K feet.
2. Complete the vFleche distance (100K) inside the time limit (6:40)
3. Complete an Everest Basecamp (14,514 feet)

Based on my previous effort, I'd expect to accomplish (2) as part of (1). Here are the stats from my initial effort:

• 53.39 miles (includes warmup)
• Five hours 48 minutes total time

So I'd have another 8.747 miles to go to complete 100K or 4.1 laps which based on an average lap time of 10 minutes should get it done in 6:28, just under the 6:40 time limit.

At that point, I'll have climbed 9,296 feet so will have another two laps to go to reach the 10K goal in a total time of a little over 7 hours. Since I'll no longer be "on the clock" after completing the Fleche, I'll likely take a longer break at that point so this might stretch out a bit.

I'll have another 5,218' to climb or 16 laps to go to complete the Basecamp. Without any additional breaks and at 10 minutes/lap that'll be 2:40.

OK, now for fallback plans.

I'll preface this by saying I hurt my back several days ago. Overdid the core strengthening. As regular readers will know, this is an ongoing thing and it's generally the case that if I do too little core strengthening, my back hurts. If I do too much, my back hurts. There's a very fine line and I've unfortunately crossed over it.

So my plan is to proceed as above but if my back becomes overly painful I'll fall back to riding the flattest route I can in order to complete the Fleche.

Stay tuned!