An inflection point

A while back I decided that I would chronicle my pre and post surgical experience. I made this decision primarily for my own benefit - I wanted to be able to look back in the far distant future when my memory about what had happened and when had faded. I've found in the past that when a few years have elapsed from an event that I remember the vague outline of what took place but not the details and I wanted to be able to recall the details since this has obviously been a fairly momentous event in my life.

So as with any narrative worth writing there are highs and lows. This post documents one of the lows. I'll preface this by saying I'm not depressed, feeling sorry for myself or giving into my natural proclivity for excessive whining, just documenting what's happening.

So first some stats.

I've ridden 926 miles since I resumed riding on October 9th. Of those, 532 miles have been on the recumbent and 394 have been on a regular bike. The longest ride I've done has been 42 miles and I've done that 3 times. As I've said previously, I've been doing "triplets" where I ride three days then take a day off. My last triplet was 31, 20, 31 with the first two rides being on the DF on the trainer and the last being on the recumbent outside. At that time it had been 10 days since I'd previously ridden the recumbent. Since I'll be talking about it more, here are the specific stats from that last ride:

• 31 miles, 2:20 minutes
  
• 101 average heart rate, 131 max heart rate
• 116 watts average power, 375 watts max power
• 5 minute average power 166 watts, 20 minute average power 135 watts
  

Based on the stats, I think you could reasonably conclude it wasn't a terribly hard effort and I certainly wasn't trying to kill it. It was a very windy day so I was doing "the Zen of the wind" - just taking what it'd give me without pushing overly hard.  

One other point worth noting is that one of the DF bikes I rode during this period was equipped with power pedals (Asioma) and therefore could record a left/right balance, i.e., how hard I was pushing with each leg over the course of the ride. I did a 32 mile ride on that bike and the resulting balance was 51/49 which is actually pretty good and is consistent with what I did pre-surgery. For reference, I've seen similar numbers from other cyclists far more accomplished than me e.g., the  winner of the Transcontinental Race a few years back, and they've had a L/R balance of 47/53 or an even wider disparity. I don't recall ever seeing anyone that was 50/50.

OK, with the stats out of the way, here's the point: on every single ride I have four symptoms post ride:

1. My left calf is so tight it feels like I'm going to tear the muscle doing the "wall stretch" post ride. It tends to feel progressively tighter the longer I ride, like it "wants to" cramp.
2. My left hamstring feels tight and when I push harder it also feels like it wants to cramp.
3. My left toes and foot are tingling/numb to some degree.
4. My back hurts. Either at the L5/S1, the surrounding muscles or both.
   

It should be noted that I have ALL of these symptoms after every ride, it's really only a question of degree and it's generally the case that they're worse after longer or harder efforts. It should also be noted that this is independent of whether I've ridden a DF or recumbent.This is more than a little concerning since doing randonneuring on the recumbent was my fallback plan if riding the DF proved to be too hard on my back.

The first one (the calf) is the most concerning. Let's do a little math. My average cadence is somewhere in the 70-80 RPM range depending on terrain, distance, etc. So to make things simple, let's say 70 RPM. That's 4200 pedal strokes per hour or 84,000 in a 20 hour ride which is the nominal distance for a days riding on a 1200K.

Without getting overly medical, I think it's fair to say that my left leg just isn't working right. I won't even begin to try to diagnose the cause, I'll only say that I had none of this prior to herniating the disc on June 8th. 

So what does this mean? Frankly, I don't know. I'm writing this mostly to document that it's happening. It's my sincere hope that it's an artifact of the disc herniation and surgery and will fade with the passage of time but at this point I don't know. What I do know is this: 80-100K pedal strokes per day is a lot and it doesn't take a whole lot out of the ordinary bio-mechanically to lead to trouble. If I'm having this much trouble riding a couple of hours it doesn't bode well for longer rides.

So this leaves my future in randonneuring very much an open question. As I said, I hope that I look back on this post in 6 months and laugh that it was just a step on the road to a full recovery.

Stay tuned!

Some notes on power

I've been talking a lot about power numbers lately. It occurs to me that there are those in my vast readership who might not know anything about power as relates to cycling. I'm here to help.

No, not that kind of force

Simplistically, power is a measure of how much force you're putting into the pedals and is expressed in watts - just like a light bulb. In electrical terms, a watt is a derived unit of 1 joule per second. A joule is the energy transferred to an object when a force of one Newton acts on an object in its direction of motion through a distance of one meter (one Newton meter). 

OK, enough with the technical stuff, what's that got to do with cycling and how is it relevant to me? As I said, watts is an objective measure of how much power you're applying to the pedals i.e., how hard you're working. Nowadays, this is measured via a power meter (well, duh) which come in a variety of forms: pedal based, integrated into the spider of the crankset, or a specially built rear hub. The thing all of these have in common is a "strain gauge" that measures force in a standard way. It's generally true that the closer you get to the source of the power (you!) the more accurate the measurement so pedals are the most accurate and a hub is the least since you have drivetrain loss. Probably the least accurate is a hub based power meter on a long wheel base recumbent like a Bacchetta. The drivetrain loss in an LWB recumbent is on the order of 20%. As I've said previously, I have all three types and they're all accurate enough for my purposes.

Back in the day before power meters, people still spoke about how many watts a rider was generating. Given the weight of bike + rider, a hill of known gradient and a fixed distance it's a relatively simple calculation to get a pretty accurate estimate of the amount of power a rider is producing. Dr. Miguel Ferrari (of "Operation Puerto" fame) used to take his clients to a particular hill with a stopwatch. Pro riders in the Merckx/Indurain era didn't have power meters on their bikes when they raced but sportswriters used to time them on climbs during races and print estimates of how much power they were putting out, usually using phrases like "super human", "other worldly" which meant "doped to the gills".

Nowadays, every professional rider has a power meter of some sort, usually crank based, on their bike and many of them post power profiles on Strava. The data is also quite often displayed in real time during the race. Modern racing bikes are so light that weight needs to be added for them to reach the UCI weight limit of 6.9 Kg so a power meter serves the dual purpose of bringing the bike up to the weight minimum and providing useful data.

Pro riders put out insane amounts of power. We could have a lively discussion on the methods they use to achieve it but the results are impressive regardless. A top sprinter will turn over a 53x11 gear at 125 RPM producing in excess of 1500 watts. A climber making a break will put out 700 watts or more for 10-15 minutes and your "average" pro rider can crank out 400 watts for hours.

And then there's me.

Regular readers will know I've had back trouble on the bike since 2014. The back plays a significant role in producing power, it's the fulcrum that allows you to use your upper body to counterbalance the force generated by your lower body. That's why core strengthening is so beneficial to cyclists, it stabilizes your upper body and allows you to generate more power.

Despite my chronic back ailments I used to be able to generate a reasonable amount of power with an FTP of just over 400 watts. This decreased significantly over the past two years as my back became increasingly worse to the point where the last 20 minute FTP test I did (in 2019) I only managed an FTP of a little over 260 watts.

Although there are a number of training programs under the general heading of "FTP builder" I never used any of them instead adopting the Merckx philosophy of "ride lots". I'd periodically push as hard as I could on climbs or keep my average speed above some threshold for an interval, go for a KOM, things like that. That worked well enough and I was able to produce a reasonable amount of power up to the limit my back would handle.

Post surgery I've been monitoring my power output carefully as noted by the most recent posts. I've seen improvement and hope this continues. I've found that at this point my back is able to handle a sustained hard effort better than the semi-maximal load created by a sprint. I've found this out "the hard way" so I'm staying away from sprints and am focusing more on "keep the watts above x for y minutes" sorts of efforts. I do hope to introduce short, hard efforts at some point, most likely in the spring when I've rebuilt a base of strength.

Stay tuned!

Geeking out on data

I've probably spent more time looking at ride data in the now almost three months since my back surgery than I have in my entire cycling history. All of the bikes I've been using post surgery now have power meters. This includes the power meter on the trainer(s) and crank, pedal or wheel based power meters on bikes I ride outside. I've been doing this for a number of reasons:

1. To make sure I don't overdo it. I monitor the power levels while I'm riding and have set "not to exceed" limits based on my most recent rides. 
2. To monitor progress. As I've said previously, I'm trying to regain fitness from a fairly low point and it's gratifying to see that there's improvement even though it often doesn't feel like it.
3. Because I can ;-) I'm analytic by nature so doing post ride analysis appeals to my natural inclination. 

As I said a couple of posts back, the things I'm choosing to monitor are average and max heart rate, average and max power, 5 minute power and 20 minute power. In the last 3 day cycle I've done two extended climbs: the "Epic KOM" and "Mount Zwift full reverse". My PR's on those climbs are 19:53 and 40:52, respectively. But I wasn't going for PR's and in fact on the most recent ride I wasn't really going for anything at all. In both rides I was a good ways off of my PR but I did notice something interesting when contrasting my last two extended climbs.

A couple of days ago on the Epic KOM, I was TRYING to set a good 20 minute average power baseline so I felt like I was making a good effort for the entire climb. By contrast, today I was NOT trying to do anything really, just riding steady so I was surprised when I'd set a new benchmark. What was even more surprising (and gratifying) is that my average heart rate was lower despite the fact that I was putting out more power.

Here's the full data with the Mount Zwift Full on the left and the Epic KOM on the right..

It should be noted that this was NOT an FTP test. An FTP test, if done properly, is the absolute hardest you can go for an hour. An approximation is as hard as you can go for 20 minutes which is extrapolated to a 60 minute test and that's all I've ever done - I've never done the full one hour test. Having said that, when I've done the 20 minute test it REALLY hurts. I've barely been able to get off the bike when I'm done, we're talking "flat out, slobber on the top tube" level of effort and both of these were a long way from that. In fact, if the above were an FTP test it'd yield an FTP roughly in the 190 range and my FTP the last time I took the test was 263.

Nevertheless, the results are gratifying. In particular, one thing stands out:

• The 20 minute average for the most recent effort on Mount Zwift Full was 196 with an average heart rate of 122.
• The 20 minute average for the Epic KOM was 187 with an average heart rate of 133.
• 11 BPM less while making 9 more watts.
  

It should be noted that the average of the 20 minute power numbers for my first week of riding post surgery was 156 so progress is being made.

And if you're a "glass half empty" kind of person, I should also point out that on my PR on the Epic KOM my average watts were 244 with an average heart rate of 126 so I still have a way to go.

Stay tuned!

Getting better

In our last episode, I expounded on the dangers of taking an extended time off from an activity and waxed rhapsodic on the downsides, chief among them hurting all the time. 

The thing is, it's not as though I'm doing easy spinning while reading Dostoevsky or watching Oprah. I'm actually trying to improve my fitness from what is a very low point indeed and there's just no way to avoid it: that's gonna hurt.

I've never done anything that could even charitably be called "training" in cycling. Every time I've tried to follow a specific program it's turned something that I do for fun into work. Back in the day when I was a runner I did it all: foundation, intervals, you name it and followed a very strict regimen that dictated what I'd do and when. But there are two important differences between then and now:

1. I'm older (funny how the age card keeps floating to the top of the deck) and more injury prone.
2. I really do view cycling as an activity that I'll keep doing for the rest of my life. Although I was quite a serious runner and a reasonably good one, I knew that at some point it'd come to an end. I certainly hope that's not the case with cycling.

 But having said that, I do hope to regain lost fitness and improve. It's a lot more fun to be able to attack a climb rather than dread it.

So I have a goal of regaining fitness and a willingness to do no small amount of suffering to achieve it. How to proceed?

I've generally taken the attitude that there are three knobs:

1. Intensity. Measured via things like max power and heart rate, time in zones, etc.
2. Frequency. How many days in a row I ride.
3. Duration. How long I ride.

So my goal is to gradually increase all three but not to turn all three knobs simultaneously and that's what I've been doing since I resumed riding on October 9. The measures I've chosen to pay attention to are average and max heart rate, average and max power, 5 minute average power and ride time. So how does it look?

A few notes about the data:

1. Most of it is taken from one of two smart trainers, either a Wahoo Kickr or a Tacx Neo II. The bike on the Tacx is a Cannondale diamond frame and the recumbent Cruzbike is on the Kickr.
2. The rides on the Cruzbike without power data are outdoor rides. I didn't have any method of collecting power on the Cruzbike at the time. This has since been fixed with a PowerTap wheel but there's no data yet as it's been too cold for my weak shit to go outside lately.
3. The other bike in the mix (the Crumpton) doesn't have a way of collecting power data. I'll remedy that before I go to Texas by moving the Asioma power pedals from the Pinarello (the 11/7 ride) to the Crumpton.
4. Pre-surgery, my FTP was 262. I've not done a test yet and it's not likely I will for a while, I don't think I'm up to it. My guess is that it'd be somewhere in the 210-220 range.
5. Pre-surgery, my max power for 3 seconds was 843 watts. I have briefly (like "blink of an eye" briefly) hit 1,000 watts but the 3 second number is more revealing. 
6. I've deliberately NOT done anything approaching a maximal effort. At most, I'd say the max power numbers above reflect a 75% level of effort. I don't think it's a good idea to do any more at this point in my recovery. 
7. The rides on 1 November are 4 shorter routes on Zwift and I just took the data from the first one rather than combining them. N.B. I've been chasing "Route Completion" badges which earn you "Experience points" on Zwift although I care about neither. Funny the things you'll do to motivate yourself.
   

I'll let you pore over the data to whatever extent you're interested (or not at all) but as you can see, the frequency has been 2-3 days of riding then a day off. The duration has increased from around an hour to a few rides of more than 2 hours and the intensity has gone from a 5 minute power average below 200 to above 200 on harder rides. The max power number similarly has gone from below 200 to above 400 with my absolute max being 462 post surgery which at 75% effort would give a max of somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 watts which seems about right.

So aside from the fact that I'm naturally whiny, there's actually a pretty good reason I'm sore all the time. With only a couple of exceptions every ride I do is either longer or harder. 

Between now and when I head to Texas, I'll probably do a few extended climbs on the trainer at a more sustained and higher level of effort. I might do an informal FTP test. We'll see.

Stay tuned!

Don't ever stop

 Elderly people have a proclivity for giving unwanted advice to the young. It usually contains words like "when I was your age" or "I used to"

Since I'm officially old (I started collecting Social Security this year), I obviously can't help myself. Here's my unwanted advice:

Don't ever stop.

Like probably everybody, I've had periods in my long riding career where I've not been able to ride for various reasons: injury, travel, weather, etc. My longest period prior to this recent hiatus was when I had AC reconstruction surgery. It was more than three months between rides on the road, from October 11, 2013 to January 30, 2014.

But.

I never really stopped riding for all that long. I didn't ride at all between when I had the surgery on 15 October until 31 October but on 1 November I started riding the trainer. This was with my arm still immobilized, I rode sitting straight up or brief intervals with my left hand on the bars. My first trainer ride was 5 miles. Next day, I rode 8 miles. It was really painful and I was nauseous from the pain meds so I didn't ride again until 20 November (I lost 10 pounds during this period). I rode 10 miles on 20 November, 15 miles on the 22nd, 15 again on the 24th and then 10-15 miles every other day.

In December I rode a total of 332 miles and 220 in January before I finally resumed riding on the roads. 526 miles in February, 933 in March, ...

The point (and I do have one), is that I really only had 2-3 week intervals of not riding at all. In this most recent episode I went from August 25th to October 9th without turning the cranks at all. Another important difference is that from the first of June to the end of August, all but three of my rides were on the recumbent. 

The effect this has had is that it has been incredibly difficult to regain any semblance of fitness. I hurt all the time, everywhere. I can't do anything remotely resembling a hard effort without really paying for it. I've been trying to ride the DF more. I've ridden 9 times in the first 13 days of November with 6 of those rides being on the DF. The two longest rides were outdoors, 34 and 37 miles, with the rest being on the trainer. Post-ride, everything really hurts. Most notably the things most directly affected by the differences between the recumbent and DF: butt, shoulders, neck and lower back. 

The back pain is particularly notable in that it is a combination of both sore muscles and pain centered in my spine at the surgical site. In thinking about this, I've concluded that this is to be expected. I had surgery then spent the next six weeks trying really hard not to use that part of my body at all: no bending, twisting, lifting, etc. It stands to reason that in addition to some amount of scar tissue there'd be a fair amount of stiffness.

And finally, all of this is exacerbated by the fact that I'm older. Recovery is slower. Muscles are less elastic and lose their acclimation more rapidly.

I can't help but think that I'd be better off had I been able to do even easy spinning on the trainer but in all honesty I don't see how I could have plus the fact that I was explicitly told not to. As a result, I've got a long slog in front of me to try and get back into shape. Plus the fact that I've gained about 20 pounds in 2020 (maybe there's more significance to the repeated digits in the year than I thought?).

I use a metaphor to guide my daily efforts: "you've got $10 worth of will power, you can spend it however you like". In normal times, I spend $7 on my ride and $3 on core strengthening, post ride stretching, etc., and eat a normal diet. As things stand, I'm spending all $10 on riding. I am slowly trying to increase the stretching and core work but at best I'm at $0.50. Given the relatively small amount of exercise I'm getting and the fact that my entire budget is spent on riding, dieting is off the table right now. 

My plan between now and when we leave for Texas is to increase the distances I ride and to focus more on the DF although I will still ride the recumbent. I hope to be able to do a few more rides outside before the weather goes to hell. I'll also gradually change the will power budget to $9 on the ride and $1 on the core strengthening.

Once I'm able to ride more, I'll try and adjust to $7 on the ride, $2 on the core strengthening and $1 on the diet. This will hopefully get me into better shape and I'll manage to lose some of the weight.

So my advice: if you can avoid it, don't ever stop. Even a short, easy effort is better than nothing. 

Stay tuned!

On the road again

We're forecast to have a run of warmer weather over the next several days - in the 60's F - so I wanted to get outside to ride before the weather turns colder which it will inevitably do.

As noted previously, I've been 100% on the recumbent on the trainer since I was cleared to ride and have been riding in a pattern of three days riding, one day off with the total distances for the three days gradually increasing. Since my first ride on August 9th, I've ridden 382 miles with my longest being 40 miles. On the last day of my last three day group on the trainer I rode the DF 24 miles to see how that would go. Although I could feel it in my back somewhat when out of the saddle it generally went well enough that I thought it'd be OK to ride a DF outside. I also wanted to ride a DF because the Cruzbike is a royal PITA to remove and put on a direct drive trainer.

Based on all that, my plan was to ride a DF for this entire run of good weather. I rode a custom bike that I took delivery of in Texas earlier this year that has a measly 500 miles on it.

In brief, today's ride was 34 miles with about 1500 feet of climbing. I rode at an easy pace the whole time. The weather really was lovely and the only downside was I was significantly overdressed. It was 45 degrees when I started getting ready but had warmed up to near 60 by the time I started - I was dressed for 45. I quickly shed a few layers but had a jacket on and nothing to replace it with so I was pretty warm.

In general, I felt OK. My left hamstring and calf hurt for the first 10 miles or so. I stopped and stretched a few times and that helped, after that it was OK. My back was OK for the first 15 miles or so, when out of the saddle I felt "pressure" in my lower back, sort of like someone was pushing on it, but I wouldn't describe it as painful. The longer I rode the more I felt it and it progressed to a dull ache which increased in intensity over the course of the ride. It never got to the point of being painful but I was feeling it more and more as the ride went on.

But I finished. The aftermath isn't all that pretty. I hurt. Everywhere. Given that almost all of the riding I've done post surgery is on the recumbent it's perhaps not surprising that my hands and arms are sore as is my butt (one of the real upsides of a 'bent is there are absolutely no butt related issues!). My back is sore but I'd say it's proportional to everything else. A session in the jacuzzi tub helped but I'm still pretty sore.

I've given up on my plan to ride the DF exclusively through this spell of good weather. I'm going to pull the recumbent off the trainer and hopefully will be able to alternate between them for several days. Given the paucity of miles on the DF, it seems like it'd be pushing it to ride it too much so although it's a pain I'll do the smarter thing and ride the recumbent too. Hate to miss any days of riding when it's so nice out!

Stay tuned!