a long day...

Thursday morning June 25th 2009:

Woke-up pretty early to get in this morning’s Computrainer ride which was of only a one hour duration. With the a/c blazin’ plus the two fans going it kept me cool during this intense, short duration ride. Warmed up spinning for about 12 miles then right into my first mile interval right at a mile marker point on the CT program. Focused for that first mile was there then right into a mile recovery lap then follow that same routine up until minute 52 of the ride time as I spun down afterwards to cool-down to get in a one hour total ride. Only other data I wrote down was my max HR during a mile interval was at 146bpm which is kinda suppressed but maybe an indicator of over-training?

My mile interval times were going by in the range of 2:45 to 2:55 per mile (I’ve been quicker) and the recovery miles were right always around 3:45. To be honest I was feeling fatigued this early morning even after a day of rest yesterday…these hot, humid, muggy days with 100+ heat indexes were wearing on me also at this point of the week…but its good August weather conditioning!

Thursday afternoon and evening June 25th 2009:

Last weekend a friend of mine had lost his life suddenly at the young age of 28 years old. My friends whom own Village Cycle Sports; Vince Boyer and Joe Eberhardt I have known since 1988 and Joe’s son Jason worked at the bike shops also. Jason Eberhardt was a wonderful person to everyone and will be dearly missed by all. On Thursday afternoon I attended the wake to pay my respects to Jason plus to provide my condolences to his father Joe and the Eberhardt family.

Afterwards a bunch of us usual cyclists went back to the VCS bike shop to meet up for the weekly Thursday evening mile repeat group ride. About seventy cyclists showed up this week to honor our friend and fellow cyclist Jason. We all rode as a large group to the ride area of the repeats and rode the first two laps as this group slow and silent as a tribute to Jason.

After the tribute the group went into its workout mode as I hung back to catch my own clear air to push during my mile repeats. The direction of the wind tonight was out of the NW so our mile repeats were to the south which has the slightly uphill draw to it kicking up at a half mile in then at ¾’s of a mile in it pitches slightly more to the mile point. The last half mile of this mile blast was my focus point of the interval as I worked to keep the speed, cadence and HR up while climbing this gradual climb. I got in 7 decent mile intervals with a couple bumping into or just at the red zone.

I rode for 1:09:02 and got in 21.7 miles in along with an average HR of 123bpm plus a max on a climb of 158bpm.

Two biking workouts in a day are tough especially when their similar in nature…

Below is my Polar HR chart from the evening ride time:
http://www.twodogzdesign.com/cycle09/062509.JPG

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continuing the cycling...

Tuesday evening June 23rd 2009:

With the heat index outside well over a 100+ degrees the a/c in the home was working overtime to keep the house cool. I set-up two floor fans as always in front of me but this time on high as I set out on my next CompuTrainer workout on the schedule which was an hour & 45 minute ride with 8 by 5 minute threshold efforts with one minute recovers between each interval...something new for me in the books!

As I used the CT ergo coaching mode on the system which allows me to control the watts resistance to acheive a proper workout I started off with a progressive warm-up through minute 35 then I went right into my first 5 minute threshold blast followed up by a "oh my too short" recovery then right into the next 5 minute interval...repeat 8 of these this total seemed daunting to me but I remained focused and got through them just fine :-)

At about the an hour and twenty three minutes into the ride finally came the cool-down portion after the intervals as I spun-out my legs to help recover them which believe it or not actually works.Average HR for the ride was 123bpm with a max on the last inteval of 153bpm...at 1:45:00 my CompuTrainer ride was done for the night!

Glad that one was over with :-)

Wednesday June 24th 2009:

Complete rest & recovery day from any sort of exercising as the temps in our region were only getting hotter!

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continuing catch-up...

Sunday morning June 21st 2009:

I figure it’s about time to get in a training run this day since it has been 8 days since I last ran a training run. The Chicago marathon (proper training) has taken a couples steps down the priority training ladder this summer, well at least through the end of August so I’m not expecting a PR race at Chicago this October…it will be more of a fun run.

My choice was to go up to Barrington Hills to run the Home Economist 10.6 mile hilly run with a couple extra miles added to the distance. I decided to start running at 6:30am as the weather was hot, humid, muggy any no wind at all. My legs weren’t in too bad of shade from the previous days hard effort bike ride up in the hills of Verona Wisconsin. I chugged along solo at a comfortable LSD pace of an average 8:59 mile for a total of 12.4 miles. When I finished I had consumed all the electrolyte solutions in my running belt along with the 5oz of EFS liquid shot (gel) plus 4 electrolyte/sodium tablets…felt like I just finished running in the desert I was so thirsty!

Monday evening June 22nd 2009:

Hot and humid weather was still in our region so I waited till about 8pm to start my recovery run which I planned to be just 45 minutes long. Within a few short moments I knew things were not going to be pretty at all as my body was exhausted from the two days of hilly training over the weekend. I shut things down at 33 minutes it’s the run and was drenched with sweat and fatigue…this was one of those sloth style runs…oh well.

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finally a note from Saturday June 20th 2009...

Saturday June 20th 2009:

Headed up really early to a town just southwest of Madison Wisconsin known as Verona to ride with the Vision Quest training group out of Chicago. Robbie Ventura whom raced as a teammate to Lance Armstrong (on US Postal) for many years started up his business Vision Quest after he retired from Professional Cycling. He wasn’t present this day as he has about 8 coaches riding with the various abilities of cyclists. The ride for the day was either one or two loops around the Wisconsin Ironman bike course for which each loop was about 41 miles. I was planning on only riding the first loop as I’m really not training for any longer distance bike races this year. Also I was demo’ing a PowerTap rear wheel for the ride from VQ to see what my bike riding wattage was going to be for the day. So I swapped out the rear wheels on the R. Dean and set-up the bike before the ride was to start at 8am.

We were all set to roll off on the ride as a group when immediately I heard my chain fall off the small chainring on the cranks. I put the chain back on the ‘ring as the same thing happens again as it turns out the axle hob on the PowerTap was not going to work with my SRAM Red components on the bike…I was upset for about a minute and realized some things are just out of your control and you have to except it! So I went back to my car and switched over everything back to my own rear wheel/tire assembly but 35 minutes passed so I decided eat some more foods & hydrate properly as the weather was hot, humid and windy. I figured then I would ride the second loop with the Advanced group so I calculated about an hour before they returned to start the second loop I would ride some of the IM WISC bike course solo to warm up the legs and make sure everything was working on the bike which it did. So I finished up this warm-up ride about 20 minutes before the advanced group finished its first loop as I was able to eat and hydrate once again properly before setting off with them. W/U ride was 10.1 miles in 34:26 with an average HR of 121bpm and max HR on a hill climb of 145bpm.

So I set off with 6 of the advanced riders on the second ~41 mile IM WI biking loop in the rolling hills of southwest Wisconsin. Since this was my first time riding this course I was conservative and sat towards the back of the group as I did not know this route plus I had to patient as this mileage in the rolling hills is something new to me. The terrain is quite similar to the Galena region just a lot more miles of it to ride. A couple of the riders dropped off the back within the opening 5 miles as the winds, heat and humidity were quite taxing this day. At about mile 11 our coach stopped riding (which I found out afterwards) so the remaining four of us just kept chugging onwards up and down the hills of the loop. The group size then went down to three of us a couple miles later and as I was feeling good with the group and ride I decided to charge the next hill climb to get my HR near or tapping into the red zone right around minute 42 into the ride. I have to say that the Ridley Dean is awesome, stable and light at hill climbing especially with the 28 tooth cassette ring on the back keeping my cadence in the perfect zone…the bike is great in all conditions!

At about mile 24 we stopped at the feed stop actually to quickly fill up our water bottles and a couple moments later the three of us were off again riding. I continued to feel great so I pretty much charged the rest of the ride especially pushing the hills. With only about 10 minutes left in the ride distance I purposely pulled back my pace and brought up my cadence for a cool-down session. As we wished the ride and rode into the parking lot area of Fireman’s Park I felt great to have ridden so well on this challenging course. Total distance was 41.3 (with a missed turn in there also) in 2:15:13 with an average HR of 134bpm and max HR during a long hill climb crawl of 156bpm. I packed everything back into the car, hung around for alittle bit and then drove back homewards.

A rock solid day of bike training except for the mechanical issues early on…

Below is my Polar HR chart from the IM WI portion of the ride:
http://www.twodogzdesign.com/cycle09/062009.JPG

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Obi's own mud puddle...

stepin' out with style :-)

it's here...

new prototype HP received...

phase.2 of catch-up...

Thursday morning 06.18.09:

Speedwork number two for the week via the Computrainer since big t-storms were forecasted for the evening. When I woke-up I had enough time to get in part of my required cycling training workout which turned into 1 hour and 15 minutes of speedwork. On the plate was one mile TT style repeats with a one mile recovery segment to simulate the Thursday evening VCS mile repeat ride.

I started off with 15 minutes of warm-up in the Ergo mode of the coaching software getting my body & legs ready for this focused workout. On the computer screen I watched for the next even mile to turn up to start my first one mile repeat at that time giving it my all as I turned up the wattage resistance to an exceptable level to handle this blast into the lower end of my HR red zone tapping on anaerobic at this point. As that mile completion I went into a recory spin mode by bringing down my resistance wattage to a higher zone 2 HR level for me...repeat this process many times until I hit the cool-down timeframe at one hour and 7 minutes into this ride. The eight minute cool-down is more than enough to bring my HR down about 90bpm so that's fine.

For reference each speedy mile repeat was in the timeframe of 2:20 to 2:30 and the recovery miles took about 4 minutes each...it was a very good & challenging cycling workout!

I planned later that night to ride another 45 minutes but I was exhausted from the long day already and canned that idea...btw...it never rained that night ;-)

Friday morning 06.19.09:

Recovery day for a 41 minute spin on the Computrainer keeping my eye on my HR so it stayed in zone 1 during this shorter ride...mission accomplished!!!

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blog catch-up...

Well I've been slackin' on my blog entries recently so here's a couple of training days from earlier last week...remember my training is 95% cycling focus thru the end of August 2009 with very little base training in the running category...

Monday morning June 15th 2009:

Easy recovery spin on the Computrainer device in the house on a chosen 10 mile flat TT course where via the training software I can control the about of wattage I am training at in 10 watt increments. The ride was quite un-eventful as I kept my HR in the lower zone 5 lever for full benefit of this easy, recovery day…about a 40 minute spin!
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Tuesday evening June 16th 2009:
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Very specific biking workout via the coaching software on the Computrainer this evening as the ride time was a duration of 1 hour and 45 minutes of 4X10min threshold efforts (touch zone 1 in the HR zone) then two minutes rest between efforts. I used the first 38 minutes of the ride via the CT as a warm-up towards these threshold efforts by controlling the wattage resistance once again to ramp up my HR for these efforts.

Once I start my threshold portion I ramp the resistance wattage up to 300 watts and hold on as long as I can to get my HR to just at my red zone then I back the wattage down to about 260 and hold onto that 10 minute threshold effort…then repeat that 3 more times with 2 minutes recovery between each…these are leg burners but I know there only going to build my cycling conditioning to the next levels!

I get in about 15 minutes of cool-down which is greatly appreciated at this point…good stuff

Wednesday June 16th 2009:

I choose this day as my complete rest/recovery day from either cycling and/or running…much needed at this point!

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Saturdays bike ride on the IM WI loop...

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Here's my HR chart from the Verona, WI ride on the IM WI loop course last Saturday...I really focused on pushing the hill's as there were plenty of them to climb...great ride! :-)

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mech problems fixed...

rode 10 hilly miles solo then will ride the 2nd 40 mile loop with the group...

up here in Verona, WI waiting for the VQ IM WI training ride...

my new cycling jersey arrived...

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from Voler today. My neice goes to school here...

Harvard 33.3k TT race report...

Sunday morning 06.14.09:

Well the Harvard 33.3k TT results from Sunday are now posted so I can right up a short (ha!)note about my race day…below is the link to the results:

http://www.ambikerace.com/2009/Results/Harvard_results_2009v1.pdf

This race is located about 75 minutes NW from our homestead in the Chicagoland region on county roads safely (for the most part) tucked away from vehicular automotive traffic in the lightly rolling farm field regions just a few miles south of the Wisconsin border. This was my first time at the specific TT so as usual I pre-register so race morning goes smoothly. I arrived early to pick-up my bib for which I had start time of 8:38am with riders going off every 30 seconds starting at 8:30am. The wind was light out of the NE with diffused sunlight at about 66 degrees but the humidity was high this morning. As I got in a warm-up ride on the county roads for about 6 miles slowly working my HR up to my LT zone to get the racing motor warmed up properly I headed over to the starting line.

I took off after my 5 second countdown timer and was within the proper HR zones within a moment or two is I was settled into my TT race pace. As I was at about mile 3 I noticed my average pace was at about the 26 to 27mph zone but it was deceiving as the outbound portion of this cycling TT course has a slight downhill trend to it for the most part. I road as hard as I could as I knew the return direction would be slightly uphill and into the wind that was starting to pick-up this early morning. At about mile 8 the course sent you on some really rough county roads until mile 12 when you returned to the decent roadway…these 4 miles were tough on me as it felt like I was riding on gravel!

Once I got beyond this section of the race I was mentally trying to remain as focused on my PEL level and HR range but the early race effort was paying a price on my maintaining my speed ability. The gradual climb back towards the finishline and the wind in your face now was a real challenge. At about 1.5 miles from the end of the race I hit some shaded area of roadway by trees typical 1” potholes, which on an all carbon fiber bike feels like the bike, is going to explode beneath my feet as my teeth were chattering also. Unfortunately this completely rattled my focus towards the race as I thought I destroyed the frame and wheels…after a couple moments of analyzing the situation I dropped the hammer to the finishline completely exhausted.

I finished the 33.3k TT (~20.68miles) in 51:24 for an average rate of speed of 24.16mph with an average HR of 150 and a max early on at about minute 14:20 of 155bpm. On mile number six I averaged 27.3mph with a max of 31mph, which calculates that mile going by in 2 minutes and 11 seconds. In my Cat.5 class (novice) I finished 4th out of 11 racers…not bad but this biking TT stuff is serious business just like running. Believe it or not if I want to win these things in my class I need to be at least 2mph average speed faster but I’m training towards that continuously as biking is my main sport right now through early September.

Below is my typical Polar HR graph from the race effort:
http://www.twodogzdesign.com/cycle09/061409.JPG

Afterwards I went for a cool-down ride of ten miles to focus on what just took place.

All in all I’m happy with my result and my new TT bike is absolutely awesome! Now I’m working on my own personal engine to propel it at a higher rate of speed!

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sometimes ya just have to race a special event...

Well online registration opened up today for the 4th Annual Alexian Brothers Tour of Elk Grove so I signed your to do this event - Charity Time Trial Fundraising Ride of 4.5 miles and the monies are going to a very good cause...plus this TT is actually close to home and is for the most part the course we ride on Thursday evenings for the one mile repeats of the VCS training group...

http://tourofelkgrove.com/event_schedule.cfm

Looking forward to the anaerobic fun :-)

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quick post...

Sunday morning:

33.3k TT in 51:22 = 24.17mph this morning...

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its been along time...

Saturday morning:

K and I headed down to Montrose Harbor early this morning as its the first session of the CARA Chicago Marathon training group that leaves out of that Lake Michigan area. She is a group pace leader once again this year as I have choosen not to sign-up for CARA training since alot of my biking long rides will take place way out in the 'burbs on Saturdays.

So today I ran a solo 10 miler southward along the lakefront and back in the rainy conditions with a stout breeze in your face for the final 5 miles. I felt pretty decent considering on Wednesday evening and Thursday I had a fever which finally broke later on thursday evening. My 10 mile run time was 1:24:44 with an average HR of 136bpm & max HR at somepoint of 151bpm while I was passing a huge training group. The last time I ran was the Saturday before but I have cycled alot during this week...

Afterwards all us usual suspects went out for breakfast at Nookies to celebrate the kick-off of the training season :-)

Now I'm resting and recovering as I have a 33.3k Cycling TT up in Harvard, IL in the morning ;-)

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Tecumseh via a stop or two in Chicago...

Well it's about that time to start-up a new info for my upcoming races later this summer and fall. Normally the Chicago Marathon would be my goal race for the fall but this year it's taking a backseat to other racing endeavors. So I will use Chicago as one of my long training runs towards the race I'm looking forward to the most in early December - The Tecumseh Trail Marathon near Bloomington, IN...even though it really hurt last year it was my favorite race of 2008 :-)

As my biking is my focus sport through the end of August this summer I won't be able to do alot of proper training towards Chicago as I'm really gearing up for hammering the bike portion of the Chicago Triathlon with my teammates Jillian (swimmer) and Dave-O (runner) in the coed relay division. If all the stars are in alignment on 08.30.09 we have a strong shot of winning this division! Also I'm racing more cycling time trials this summer & fall ;-)

After the Chicago Marathon I can ramp-up my training towards the Tecumseh Trail Marathon and really enjoy this racing challenge!

Thanks for following along the journey!

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computrainer ride on a rainy Sunday morning...

Sunday morning 6.7.09:

As the rain was falling early this Sunday morning I choose to ride the 3D Computrainer on a semi-hilly ride of mid-distance length as it was a down week for my long run weeknd. My training watts were dialed in at 265 and the CT was calibrated then away I went on the trainer ride. Believe it or not the ride goes by rather quickly as your focusing on alot of variables such as ; gradient, shifting, rpm, watt range and etc...

I rode a 31.1 mile biking course through the rolling hills of out west in 1:42: 34 for an average pace of 18.2mph with a max speed on a nice sweeping downhill at 34.2mph. Average HR came in at 110bpm with a max on a climb of 134bpm plus a smooth average cadence of 88rpm. My average watts burned for the ride was at 174 plus a max wattage on a 12% climb of 491 and I burned off 1027 calories in the process...

I think I have for my ultimate training partner for indoor cycling :-)

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Saturday morning June 6th 2009...

Saturday morning:

I have fallen quite behind on my journal entries over the last week so heres my last run on 6.12.09 up in Barrington Hills Illinois. Our Fast Track Racing Team meets here every Saturday morning throughout the year for various distance runs in the rolling hills just NW of Barrington high school. This was the first time I ran this course and everyone was running 12.5 miles today so of course I followed suit...

Grace was kind enough to hang back with me throughout this new challenging hilly course at my pacing. My last longest run was the Indy Indy half in early May so I was already getting out of running shape as I dial in my cycling for the summertime racing challenges. Anyways we were the last ones to finish in 1:44:27 for 12.5 miles which is an average mile pace of 8:21 which was pushing it for myself this early, beautiful morning. Average HR was at 135bpm with a max on a climb of 151bpm...

I think I have found a nice new mid-distance group to run with as an alternative to running at the lakefront on Saturday mornings :-)

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ct time on a friday night...

Friday evening:

Rode the CompuTrainer in the 3D mode on a hilly 10 mile TT for a recovery spin with a little bit of kick to it. The profile of the course didn't look so bad but it had several 9% short burst climbs with one that through in 12% for 100 meters...ouch for this flatlander.

All went well though as I completed the 10 mile CT bike ride in 28:44 for an average pace of 20.9mph push a max at one point of 29mph on a downhill. Average HR was at 118bpm with a max on the 12% climb near the end at 140bpm and an average cadence of 94rpm. I averaged a solid 213 average watt reading with a max at one point of 437 watts.

The CompuTrainer is an awesome bike training device and I know it's gonna help me towards my goal 40k TT on August 30th 2009!

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Official May 31st 2009 TT results are in...

Just saw the results from the two 30k Cycling TT's were posted...in Cat.5 I finished 9th of 30 of 46:44.300...Masters 40-49 I finished 19th of 31 in 47:05.130. Very competitive field all around...guess 24mph is not quick enough ;-) but it was dang good base training...

Guess I have to work harder on my cycling personal engine to make the Dean really fly...

http://www.ambikerace.com/2009/Results/Bong%20&%20Half%20results%2009v2.pdf

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Who's that critter?

Obi helping out gardening this afternoon...

Thursday evening biking intervals...

Thursday evening:

Went over to the Village Cycle Sports group interval ride that happens every Thursday throughout the outdoor riding season. The weather was cool but clear and quite abit of wind out east which made things a bit of a challenge it both directions but its all good it the training side of things. The area they ride at is about a 2 and a half mile rectangle box as each straight away is just over 1.2 miles long. Lots of people showed up again due to the nice weather which always leads to a large peleton group ride. This is fine if bike racing crit’s or stage racin is your main sport but for tri/du/tt'ers whom drafting is illegal it’s a challenge to get in a clean shot at pushing your own air. I saw Jen out there and chit-chatted briefly before we both got away from the group and rode in our own clean air to push.

Not much of a warm-up for me as I work till 6pm first so after two miles of easier pacing I went out front of the group on the recovery mile and jumped right into things. From there on out I made sure I was plenty far away from the peloton group to focus on TT positioning and my one mile intervals plus I also held an up-tempo on the recovery mile to help keep my HR from dropping down too low. Since my legs were lacking overall speed tonight this routine worked out quite well for me.

I rode for 1:24:44 for 28.7 miles which is an average pace of 20.3mph and a max speed of 30.9mph plus my average HR was at 129bpm with a max on the initial big push of 156bpm. Overall my performance was decent out there but my legs & body were feeling the fatigue from Wednesday night one track repeats plus residual effects from the two 30k TT’s on last Sunday…

Also while I was on my cool down 2 mile lap at the turn-around a wild rabbit casually ran in front of me crossing the street, stop looked at me briefly and hopped on along his merry way…boy I wish I had that kind of speed tonight :-)

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da chart: http://www.twodogzdesign.com/cycle09/060409.JPG

morning run and track workout...

Wednesday morning:

Ran a easy 8:30 minute mile pace for 3.7 miles in the morning within our neighborhood region before work...today is National Running Day!

Wednesday evening:

I ran at the local community college track with the group know as "Fast Track Racing Team" with had about 43 people show up of various abilities. They had on the schedule pending the group you run with anywhere from 6 to 7 one mile repeats. Since this is is only the second time I have run with the team this season and I was still recovering from the double 30k an-aerobic cycling TT's on Sunday I only ran 4 of them focusing on pushing the last 600 meters of mile to turn a nice negative split to fight though fatigue. Each one felt pretty decent for me as I was able to acheive this type of workout as planned...

Also I ran a 2.1 mile warm-up, 6 - 100 meter stride-outs and a half mile cool-down. Total mileage for the workout came in at 7.6 miles...

A double run day in the books for me :-)

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Cycling TT's on Sunday May 31st 2009...

Here's my Polar HR chart from last Sunday's 1st round of the 30k Cycling Time Trial in southern Wisconsin...~46:36 for an average speed of 24mph...not bad on the slightly rolling terrain ;-)

http://www.twodogzdesign.com/cycle09/053109one.JPG

here's my second round Polar HR chart from Sundays Cycling Time Trial in southern Wisconsin...~47:06 for an average speed of 23.75mph...acceptable considering the short time between the two races...did you notice my HR was higher in the 2nd race so maybe I was too conservative in the 1st race?

http://www.twodogzdesign.com/cycle09/053109two.JPG

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Galena Duathlon pic from 05.16.09...

First good picture of me on the new Dean in it's 1st race...5th fastest bike split out of 228 duathletes...13th Overall but I won my AG as a nice surprise!

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Obi at the dog park last Saturday...

before water time!