First Spring Training Ride

Last night the weather was so good in Ottawa that when I came home after work, I hauled the Ancient but Honourable Bianchi out of the basement and strapping on the heart rate monitor I rolled out at just after 6 pm. It was around 7C, which counts as "balmy" here, and it was sunny enough. The first stretch of road leading to the Aviation Parkway has gotten even worse over the winter, if that is possible: it has the worst collection of potholes and bad pavement anywhere in Ottawa, and possibly North America.

After heading north on the Aviation Parkway, I swung up the ramp onto the Eastern Parkway, passing the Aviation Museum where our time trials start. The asphalt is not too bad but after 2-3 kms becomes very good as it was only repaved a year ago. There were a few other cyclists out training but it was pretty quiet.

Here is what my Coach of Cruelty recommended as a 1 hour 15 minute training sequence:

Power Workout--Jumps.

Warmup for ~30 minutes by performing 3 spinups. Warmup is crucial for power workouts to prevent injury.

First spinup: 70 rpm to 110 rpm increasing cadence by 5 rpm each minute.

Second spinup: 70 rpm to 120 rpm increasing cadence by 5 rpm every 30 seconds.

Third spinup: 70 rpm to 130 rpm increasing cadence by 5 rpm every 30 seconds.

Finish rest of 30 minutes of warmup by spinning in easiest gear at 110 rpm.

Jumps: perform 3 sets of 8 jumps recovering 1 minute between jumps and 5 minutes between sets. Each jump is in an easy to moderate gear and consists of 12-15 complete pedal strokes. Half jumps out of the saddle, half in the saddle. Try for smooth, powerful, high cadence efforts. Try to make each jump more intense than the last, by increasing cadence or initial acceleration. If knee pain occurs, less the effort or stop.

Cooldown: spin at 100 rpm, easiest gear for 10 minutes.

The timing was ideal as I finished the cooldown and pulled back into my driveway at exactly 7:15 pm, just as the sun was setting with a spectacular red and purple glow. It was now much cooler, needless to say, but I felt a real sense of accomplishment with my training. When you have days like these, you have to grab them.

Thursday Night Time Trial: the end

Well, I went off yesterday to do my last Ottawa Bicycle Club 15 km Open Time Trial. I felt great, had a good warm-up and hit the course at high speed. There was a variable wind but I felt good at the turnaround and shortly after passed my 30 second man. He stayed with me for a while but when we had to overtake two non-racing cyclists on the Parkway I stomped on it and left him far behind.

In spite of this my time across the line was 23:05, 10 seconds slower than last week which was already 12 seconds slower than the week before. I was very disappointed not to reach the 40 km/h average I had hoped for this season, having managed 39.6 km/h in my best race. I will just have to see if I can build up some strength in the gym and then try again in Spring. I was exhausted after the race and slept very soundly but am stiff and sore all over today so it was not from lack of effort. I am still hopeful but I have yet to prove that in cycling sufficient training can overcame lack of inherent talent.

I am puzzled as to why I was so slow and won't make any excuses but it was definitely much colder than in previous races. Looking at the results this morning I see that for most of the racers there were only a few Personal Bests.

One more chance at redemption comes on September 21st when I go for the flat 40 km race.

More Hill Climbing

Today's route profile

After not being able to ride yesterday due to the constant heavy rain (always on the weekend!), I was disappointed when I looked outside this morning and saw grey dark skies and the potential for even more rain. I was not planning to spend the day compensating for my missed ride by eating several portions of butter pecan ice cream again so I thought it might be time to go back to the health club for (shudder) an indoor workout. To avoid this, I schlepped around the house, doing householdy things, and by 10 o'clock it became obvious to me that, in fact, it was not going to rain after all. This delay meant that I missed the OBC Sunday group ride, which I had been considering, but then I decided that with my trip to the mountains of France coming up I would be better off doing climbing workouts anyway. So after washing the dishes and getting dressed, I got the Tarmac out and we headed off to the Eastern Parkway for a warm-up before crossing the river to get to the Park.

Sunday mornings in Ottawa in summer mean that the major parkways close to vehicular traffic. Although having four lanes of road to yourself is nice, in practice this never happens since all the skateboards and once-a-month-in-summer-cyclists come out, usually with their children, and take up the parkways. But the Eastern Parkway is furthest from population centres here so it gets the fewest people, meaning that it is easy to overtake and find a line to maintain a decent speed for a warm-up. It was a bit strange since I had the feeling that everyone else out on the parkway was moving in slow motion. There was a strong wind, as has been the wont this summer, but I still managed long stretches at 35 km/h (22mph) or so. At one point someone on a racing bike pulled onto the road just before I came by and I passed him he gave it some gas and sat on my wheel. This was pretty amusing since he looked kind of overextended just coming onto the road so I thought I would have some fun and just started accelerating gently away. I looked back when I hit 42 km/h (26 mph) to see if I should push a bit harder but he had already vanished.

My heart rate profile today

Leaving the Parkway I rode westwards along Sussex Drive and crossed the Alexandra Bridge, turning left and following the usual horrible Blvd. Alexander-Tache to the park entrance. There were a lot of cyclists finishing up already (it was close to 12:45) but the weather, wind aside, looked really nice. I played tag with one rider but he could not keep up to me on the climb and then turned left towards the MacKenzie King Estate so I had the road to myself. A little group passed me on a slight climb but I easily caught back up on the descent. Two younger riders soon turned off but the remaining cyclist, who looked like he had legs made of iron, was too strong for me and I let him go ahead on the climb past Camp Fortune.

There was the usual big group of people at Champlain Lookout, and I took a break for Gatorade and a snack since I was a bit tired from the wind, more than the climbing. I chatted with one rider with a Sampson bike and then he recognized me from the OBC group ride we had done that he had led earlier this year, when my rear tire went flat. Don and I had a nice talk and then headed back towards Ottawa together. He was on his second loop of the park, which is pretty impressive, and although I was considering doing it the sky to the west was very dark and we were worried that a thunderstorm was imminent.

When we left Gatineau Park, Don took me through Hull in a way that would let me avoid the potholes of my usual route. We passed the Bisson Centre, where the Foreign Service has its school and where I might go for language training, and it was good to see that it was directly on a bike path. We took a somewhat roundabout way to get back to the Alexandra Bridge but I hope to try it again on Tuesday, which is the Canada Day holiday, so that I can remember the landmarks.

When I got home I saw that I had 86 kms (53.5 miles) on the computer, with just under 1000 meters (3280 feet) of climbing. I was thinking of doing the extra 14 but the sky was really looking bad so instead I put the bike away, had a shower and got the barbecue going. In the end I just managed to cook some veggie hot dogs before the rain fell yet again. But the ride was excellent and I can say that I had fun.

A Variation on Intervals and a Speed Surprise

Heart rate profile: you can see those intervals!

My Coach of Cruelty assigned me two big workouts today. Unfortunately, after a glorious week of excellent weather, the weekend has fallen apart somewhat with thunderstorms and threatening skies. So instead of an early start for Workout No. 1, there was a late start and Workout No. 1 And Only.

My task: Lactate reps. After warm-up do 2 sets of 4 x 40 seconds (20-second recoveries) with 5 minutes between sets. Do each at near-max effort. 100+ rpm. This sounds fairly easy but, in fact, near-max effort is still near-max effort. As you can see from the heart rate profile, I did in fact ace the workout (the first set of intervals being into a nasty headwind) but by the time I was done I was quite exhausted. My maximum heart rate was 169 bpm, but what really surprised me was my maximum speed, which came up as 52.2 km/h, on a bike with a compact crank. This bodes well for the next time trial--I think I really have to work on my cadence and get spinning more. Not that this hasn't been pointed out to me...

Yet More Intervals Again

Once again, the wish of the Coach of Cruelty is my command. But my plan to get out on the Eastern Parkway at 5:30 this morning came to naught as it was just too cold outside (can this be almost June?) so I slept a bit longer. The ride to work was pretty awful as I did not bring gloves, figuring that a sweatshirt and a nylon windbreaker would be enough to keep me warm but I was quite wrong. And on the way home again there was a brutal north wind blowing.

But since I am paying for my coaching advice I take it pretty seriously. Just before 6 pm I saddled up the Dreadnought and headed out over the potholes to the Eastern Parkway. The tasty dish on the menu was time trial intervals, 5 of them at 3 minutes each, with a heart rate of 158+, and three minutes to recover. The first two went very well, but the third hurt a bit as my left calf began to cramp but then I felt better and the last two were fine. I then discovered I was on the course for the Ottawa Bicycle Club's women's time trial, so I stopped to cheer them on, even though they all looked faster than me. Sigh.

I finished up the ride with a comfortable cruise back to the house, confident that on Thursday I will not be nearly as slow as I was at the first time trial. Out on the road for 1:20, and put away 38 kms. Still feels cold, though.

Time Trial Season Begins

Today I rode my first Ottawa Bicycle Club 15 km Open Time Trial since August 1998. The course was the same and just to see if I have managed to delay the effects of aging I brought my Bianchi Limited with aerobars, the same setup as a decade ago. The course along the Eastern Parkway is well-known to me as it is close to my house, but so is the brutal west wind that never seems to stop blowing.

A big group showed up, including a lot of guys with very high-end time trial bikes, and registration was completed by 6 pm. The first rider went out 10 minutes later, and after a ridiculously short warm-up I headed onto the course at 6:33 pm. There was a tailwind to begin with and I made an amazingly fast start, with my heart rate skyrocketing to 183 bpm. I backed off fairly quickly and tried to control my breathing.

I executed the turnaround pretty sloppily but felt confident turning into the big headwind. Things went pretty well until around the 12 km mark when I began to feel cramping on my right quad, and then my left calf. This meant I had to back off a bit but I did hit 35 km/h when I crossed the finish line.

Although I will wait for the official results, I think I crossed the line close to my time ten years ago, a somewhat snail-like 25:30. That was a ride at the end of the summer when I was in pretty good shape; it is still early season here and pretty cold so I will improve. Of course in subsequent time trials I will switch back to the Leader TT bike, having made my point, whatever it may have been.

It was great fun but my legs really hurt tonight.

Postscript: this morning I checked my official time and discovered that I had finished in the top ten of my age group at 26:21. This is putting the best face on it, since there were nine entrants in the class and I came dead last. In two weeks I will try again, and I will beat my 1998 time for sure!