After three weeks of my training plan, I have reached my first recovery week. That means it is time to absorb all of the training that I did by giving my body the time to rebuild and rest. Woo!

And I, for one, am all for it. Last week had me biking for 15.5 hours with 19,000ft of elevation gain. On top of the bike workouts, I also had two separate hour-long core sessions and my daily 20-25 minute walk. It all adds up. By Sunday, I could feel the stress as it took a good 30 minutes for my body to really click into the day's endurance ride. Also, let's not forget that I got my second vaccine shot last Sunday, which knocked me flat for all of Monday. Overall, not a bad week, not bad at all.

Recovery week mostly means I take the first two days off completely and then have three days of easy rides before I start preparing for the next four weeks of training. And that preparation includes an FTP test. Ohhhh boy!

Let's start with the days off. By the end of the weekend (having spent 7 hours climbing in the mountains on Saturday and 30 miles of endurance on Sunday), Garmin was telling me that I needed 3.5 days off to fully recover from my efforts. Given the strain of the weekday workouts, the vaccine shot tanking my energy, and then my "fun" weekend, my body was pretty well wrung dry and hurting a bit. My calves were tight, my quads and hamstrings were sore, and even my chest felt a bit roughed up. Let's not even talk about my caloric needs, since I easily polished off an entire packet of Trader Joe's Speculoo cookies Sunday night.

So, today is Tuesday and my second, completely-off-the-bike day. This morning my resting HR was 48bpm, which while higher than normal is lower than Sunday's. Also, since I had a book at the library, I enjoyed a 4.5 mile round trip walk this morning. When I got home, my watch said my recovery time was down to only 23 hours. Progress.

The next three days only have me biking four hours total and always at a fairly relaxed pace. No hard efforts and no intervals; nothing but endurance riding. That's because Saturday is the FTP test!

No one really gets excited about FTP tests. In all honesty, I have to psych myself up for them. They are meant to push you hard and are used to determine what your training levels will be for the next block of training. After a warmup that gets the legs spun up and ready for some hard efforts, you do 5 mins at the maximum effort you can sustain. It tends to leave one feeling like Rocky at the end of a round–still standing but a little uneasy on the feet. And then, oh then, you switch to 15 minutes of endurance to "recover" before your 20 minute max effort.

That 20 minute max effort tends to leave me gasping over my handlebars, with a faint taste of copper in my mouth and a desire to collapse and moan "medic" at whomever is within earshot. Since I intend to do this test outside–weather permitting–I will complete the ride by ceasing the melodrama and biking my tired ass home.

And the FTP test signifies the end of rest week and the return to training. More and harder intervals, longer endurance rides, and continuing to build up my ability to maintain power when tired. I will be interested if the FTP test shows any improvement in just three weeks. I think I have noticed an ability to climb hills faster and also maintain my power when I am tired...but...it could all be in my head. When it comes to training, data matters.

Exactly two days ago, on Sunday mid-morning, I got my second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Having had multiple friends that had already received their second doze of Pfizer or Moderna, I had a solid idea of the likely symptoms: very sore shoulder where the shot was given, headache overnight, mild fever, trouble sleeping, and a solid chance of overwhelming tiredness.

And yup, that's exactly what I had. The shoulder got more sore as Sunday went on and my sleep on Sunday night was poor. Woke up both chilled and mildly sweating at 1am with one heck of a headache. Dosed myself with ibuprofen and woke up again at 5am with the light fever gone but the headache back and feeling completely drained of energy.

Monday was just weird. My body felt like it had energy but my brain could simply not access it. Even with a cup of coffee and a cup of green tea, my mental energy to do anything was nowhere to be found. Ended up watching a couple movies and taking at least two full naps on the couch before lunch. Tina and I went for a walk in the early afternoon and for the first time in ages, I felt unsteady on my feet. A 25 minute walk required me to come home, have a snack, take more drugs, and pass out for nearly half an hour.

By Monday evening a bit of my energy had returned and I was able to read a handful of the short stories in my current book. But, let's be honest, I was still little better than a lump on the log. Prior to bed I took a long, hot shower and some Tylenol, which helped me sleep through the night until I woke up at 6am.

And I awoke with energy! This morning was sunny and warm after two days of rain, and I felt practically reborn with life. Got up, got going, and while I still felt only around 90% of my normal energy levels, it was such a significant change from Monday morning that it hardly mattered. Go, modern science!

Since I have a Garmin Fenix watch that I wear to bed nearly every night, I got to see some objective data about how the vaccine affected me too. My resting heart rate is usually around 46 beats per minute (bpm). While sleeping Sunday night, post-vaccine, my rest heart rate was 62 beats per minute. My body was definitely stressed and working hard. Tuesday morning it was down to 52 beats per minute, showing that my body was starting to come back from all the energy it had diverted into my immune system.

Garmin also has something called Body Battery that is "a feature that uses a combination of Heart Rate Variability, Stress, and Activity to estimate a user’s energy reserves throughout the day." Even on hard training days, my body battery rarely dips below 40 (out of 100). On Sunday night, my body battery was 26. A solid night of sleep almost always gets my body battery above 80, but on Monday morning it was still at a paltry 40 despite at least 5 hours of sleep. And, crazily, my body battery actually slowly increased over the course of Monday. By the time I went to bed it was at 59 and I woke up with a complete 100. Definitely reflects how I felt my energy levels changing.

––

According to the NY Times, as of today, the COVID-19 virus has killed at least 577,378 people in the United States. And then there are all the individuals who have survived COVID-19, only to have serious, long term health problems. This does not even begin to scratch the surface of how this virus is continuing to cause suffering and death in the world.

There are three different vaccines available in the United States and they are free to everyone. Not a single death has been caused by these vaccines, their effectiveness is even better than forecasted, and the chance of side effects is ludicrously low. I have no hesitancy in recommending this vaccine to anyone. For only a day and a half of discomfort, I am protecting myself and everyone around me. Completely worth it.

More vaccine facts here.

It is nigh impossible to talk about starting a training program without bringing up the new, shiny technology required. Effort needs to be measured, progress needs to be tracked, and pretty graphs must be squinted at. Also, I am a bit of a gear junkie who finds joy in researching things online for hours.

The used 2017 Wahoo Kickr that I purchased at the beginning of winter was my first introduction to the world of tracking power output. For every workout, I could see the precise amount of effort I was expending to climb hills and go fast but also when I was casually cruising. The advantage of tracking power is that it is both more precise than using heart rate and more accurate than riding by feel.

My Kickr did not have the ability to measure cadence, so when I got more experienced with the Zwift workouts and understanding my power output, I also bought a cadence sensor that I attached to my crank arm. Most people implicitly understand that it is easier to spin your pedals on the flats than when you are slowly churning pedals up a steep climb. Power (watts) is torque (force put on the pedal) times rotational speed (cadence), so cadence gives you one more way to evaluate your cycling work. Everyone has their preferred cadence in different situations, but you can also train yourself to use different cadences and use cadence to improve your fitness. In short, it's a handy thing to know when training.

Now, none of my outdoor bikes have a power meter or cadence sensor built in. Before doing my winter workouts on the Kickr, I honestly did not think I would ever really need to care about such things. Even when doing all of that Everesting training last year, I mostly just went out and biked at whatever pace, speed, and grade that I felt like doing that day. And for the most part, that actually work reasonably well. If you want to do long distances, you need to bike longer distances. If you want to do long climbs, you need to bike longer on climbs. Your brain just exploded with that amazing knowledge drop, I know.

But–and the past 10 days with this training plan has really proven it to me–at a certain point you need to buckle down, see where you as a cyclist need to improve, set some goals, and actually focus on improving. In other words, you need to become scientific about your training. And that, my friends, requires data and analysis.

So. Last week I had my very first power meter installed on my road bike. It streams its data over Bluetooth, which means the Wahoo app on my phone was able to receive my power and cadence instantly from my bike. Since I had a phone mount for my bike already, I took my Saturday workout and did it outside.

It definitely had its challenges. The outside world has cars, other cyclists, pedestrians, stop signs, stoplights, and wind from every possible direction. Trying to keep an eye on the world around you while performing a workout based on data displayed on your phone is tricky. Definitely felt myself struggling numerous times and my workout numbers were not exactly what was specified in my training plan. At the same time, I was outside and that is rather preferable to being on a bike trainer in the garage.

The one major hiccup was that the Wahoo app drained my phone battery almost completely dry in 3 hours. Not the ideal situation for someone who frequently does even longer rides. To be fair, our phones are not designed to have their displays continuously on full brightness and streaming data from external devices for hours on end. Enter the bike computer, stage left.

A bike computer is another one of those purchases that I thought I would never make. They are designed for serious cyclists, who are out there training every day and want GPS navigation from their handlebars. And, ladies and gents, lo and behold, that is now the type of cyclist that I am!

Tina was fortunate enough to find a friend in her training group that had an older bike computer to give her. I, on the other hand, fell down the rabbit hole of researching the purchase of a brand new bike computer for the better part of a week. There are many options out there to choose from: super lightweight and aero, those with a touchscreen, those with only buttons, color or grayscale, one based off the Android operating system, and those that have days of battery life. They all have pros and cons, of course, but all of them have the ability to read sensors from your bike and do basic navigation.

In the end, I wanted a bike computer that would last at least 15 hours (2 full days of riding without charging), solid navigation, customizable data screens, easy syncing of my rides, and buttons for when it is wet or in winter. Ideally, I wanted one released in the last couple years and for under $300. Given this was my first foray into bike computers, I also was hoping to pick it up from REI since it has an excellent return policy.

The one that most perfectly fit my needs was the Garmin Edge 530. And once I made my decision, I was able to purchase it at REI the next day and try it out an hour after getting home.

And, it seems to be working out pretty darn well! My watch and power meter connected to it without problem. The mount took all of 2 minutes to install and is exceptionally stable on my handlebar, even on rough gravel. Garmin has a well-earned reputation for having so many features and abilities that one can get overwhelmed, but I found that with a little effort I was able to set it up just how I wanted. And the battery life is exceptional; a two and a half hour ride this week only reduced the battery 8%. Rarely am I so pleased with a purchase.

Doing workouts outside will still be challenging, but I feel like I am now set up for success. And since I am training for gravel races, I am considering adding a power meter to my gravel bike as well. And, while these workouts are definitely challenging, it is obvious they are focusing on my weaknesses and making me stronger. So far, so good.

Around the middle of October, Tina and I acquired two Wahoo Kickrs thanks to our local bike shop, Boulder Bicycle Works, having a couple used ones to sell. While they were definitely a couple years old and well loved, they were only 40% the cost of new machines. Since COVID was still raging and snow storms here can be a bit intense, it seemed a wise choice to have a way to exercise throughout the winter.

This led us to doing our first FTP tests, completing all of the Zwift Academy workouts, and even participating in a Zwift races. As the rabbit hole deepened, Tina signed up for Basecamp, an online winter cycling training program, for three months and dedicated herself to not only keeping her biking fitness but improving it.

Challenge-focused individual that I am, I focused primarily on things like the Thanksgiving Groad, the Rapha Festive 500, and doing 350 miles in a single week. Yes, I still spent time on the trainer–mostly attempting to improve my climbing abilities–but I was not nearly as dedicated as Tina.

My outdoor fun over the winter convinced me that I was finally willing to invest in a dedicated gravel bike. While my lovely carbon road bike can handle quite a bit, after a particularly rough ride that left a couple decent scrapes in its frame, I decided it was time to stop beating it up and get a real gravel bike. So, on my birthday I got a Giant Revolt. It's pretty darn spiffy.

If this blog post has a point, it is that escalation is a very real thing in biking. I came to Boulder with an 11 year old aluminum bike, and 18 months later I now own four bikes and easily spend 12-18 hours a week riding. Crazy.

What's even crazier is that for the first time in my life, I have signed up for a bike race! Oh, but not just a single bike race. No siree! I am currently signed up for three different gravel races in 2021. And some seriously challenging ones too:

• Ned Gravel, July 31st, Tungsten route: 66 miles and 8,200’ of climbing.
• Rebecca's Private Idaho, Sept 5th, Baked Potato route: 102 miles and 5,295' of climbing.
• Desert Gravel's Rexy, Oct 30th: 208 miles and 11,400′ of climbing.

Is "audacious" the right world? Seems like it might be.

An FTP test last weekend showed that I not only kept my fitness over the winter but actually got a smidgen stronger since last October. And I did a 350 mile week at the beginning of March, so the distances are not too worrisome. Gravel riding over long distances is more jarring and exhausting, but a recent gravel-filled weekend makes me think it is manageable with the right tire size and additional training.

However. Part of me would like to do really well in these races. And, I would definitely like to be so fit that finishing (barring a mechanical problem) is a foregone conclusion.

And so, I have started my first structured training program. It is an 8-week plan written by one of the leaders of her Basecamp group and is meant to improve my strength, resiliency, and ensure I can survive a long, hard day in the saddle.

I am only four days into it and boy oh boy has it already given me a couple decent workouts. Today is a rest day with a relaxing one hour ride before a delightfully hard weekend of climbing and endurance riding, and I very much need this recovery day. Many of the more structured workouts will probably be done on my Wahoo Kickr, but I just bought my first power meter to allow workouts to be performed outside too.

Feels a bit weird to take exercise this seriously, but with races on the calendar and a partner who is kicking ass with her own cycling, I thought it was time to up my own game a bit.

I woke up this morning with the intention of having an easy day. Last night was an anaerobic power workout that had left my legs wobbly, and Sunday's weather forecast was so pleasant I was considering a century ride. Today should have been relaxing.

Well. Ms. Spitfire and Energy woke up biting at the bit to do Rapha's #rideandseekbdr scavenger hunt. She was already dressed for riding while I was still sipping my coffee at the kitchen table. In my curiosity, I pulled up the list of participating Instagram accounts and created a spreadsheet to track clues and possible locations for the hidden water bottles.

When we figured out that one of the water bottles was hidden up a nearby climb, she set off while I continued researching clues. As the garage door closed, I discovered a second account had hidden a water bottle only a little bit further away on the same climb. Well. Shit. If it was so close...

So. I rushed to get dressed. After emailing myself the spreadsheet with clues and guesses, I headed out. At the bottom of the hill, Tina texted saying she did not get the first bottle but was going for the second. But, there were other people already ahead of her.

I took a quick left and headed to Flagstaff Mountain where I knew another bottle was hidden. After a fairly quick climb to Realization Point, another biker appeared from a snowy trail where they had already found the water bottle. Darn darn darn.

So, I turned around and headed down Flagstaff with the goal of going for a water bottle near Eldorado Springs. On the way down I took a break to see if that water bottle had already been found. It had. Shoot!

Obviously at this point I was committed to finding a bottle, so I pulled up the spreadsheet and started hunting for new quarry.

While standing there, Tina texted me and said to hold fast: there might be another Flagstaff bottle! There was! Naturally, it involved climbing 1700' to the top of Super Flagstaff, but at the end the bottle was mine. Victory!

What did I win? Fortune and glory, kid, fortune and glory. Also, a water bottle, pair of socks, and @maurten_spain gels. I may skip the century tomorrow.

The Rapha #Festive500 is a simple challenge. Bike 500 kilometres between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. And this year, virtual rides were allowed, though I chose the more traditional (and chilly) outside approach.

Further, the Rapha Clubhouse in Boulder (#rccbdr) had additional challenges, unique to the area:

• Complete the Festive 500
• Ride all eight days from December 24 to 31
• Ride 100 kilometers or more in one day
• Catch a sunrise or sunset on a ride
• Ride to either Carter Lake or past DIA
• Climb 5000 feet or more in one ride
• Ride at least 20 kilometers of gravel/dirt in one ride
• Climb NCAR two times in one ride

And this morning around 7:30am I completed all eight challenges with a total of 314 miles and over 16K of elevation gain. And since I am a bit of an overachiever, I did both sunrise and sunset rides as well as going to both Carter Lake and beyond Denver International Airport (DIA).

All and all, it was a fairly fun challenge. Got to explore areas of Boulder that I had not quite gotten to yet. The roads were incredibly quiet most days. And, it got me outside even when it was below freezing, snowing, and windy. Gravel in snow on a road bike? A hoot and a half!

Also, having completed 250 miles in the first four days, it actually seems realistic that I could have done 500 miles total if I had not had work and the weather had stayed unseasonably pleasant. Maybe a goal for early next summer.

See ya next year, @rapha_n_america and @rapha.

Like so many things in this household, it all started when one of us shared an Instagram post with the other. And so this is how I found myself doing a muddy, cold, snowy, and altogether awesome ride today thanks to @secretgroad.

Neither one of us has a gravel bike, which seems an important point. And with the recent snow and parts of the route, it seemed unlikely that our road bikes would be able to complete the journey. Our mountain bikes were overkill for two thirds of the route but absolutely necessary for the other third (looking at you Chapman). It was incredibly fun and challenging, and I definitely need a nap soon. #rccbdr

Oh. And unrelated. With this ride, I have done more than 500,000 feet of elevation gain this year. Whee!!

Mr. Bubbles: And things have indeed gone wrong.

Tina has informed me that I cannot read her blog entry about my second Everesting attempt until I finish writing my own and post it. So, here I am, almost two weeks later, reminiscing about yet another failure. Oh, yippee.

Let’s see. What to say, what to say.

It started early. 2:54am to be exact. It was cold. Mid-40s is my best guess. And it only got chillier as the night went on, thanks to the clear night sky. Obviously, that meant layers. Thermal tights, cold weather biking jacket, a light puffy jacket, long fingered gloves, wool skull cap, buff, and shoe covers. Hot coffee in an insulated thermos, naturally.

Cold weather plus climbing is tricky. Roughly 1600 feet of climbing every hour with an equal amount of descent. Makes it challenging to balance between staying warm and not sweating so much that you get chilled on the fast descent. This meant a fair amount of zipping and unzipping with a regular rotation into dry gloves

The first quarter (12 laps, 7300 ft) went fine. It was chilly but I did a short warm up beforehand and kept myself well fueled with bars and cookie dough. I had plenty of bike lights and the road had virtually no traffic. No animals rushed in front of me this time and while there was some wind, it was not a significant hindrance.

All that being said, it was really nice when the sun rose. Layers came off and my cold feet warmed up in no time. The canyon above Jamestown stayed fairly cool and you could definitely smell autumn in the air. A small amount of leaves had already dropped and a few, eager deciduous trees were already changing colors.

Part of me was a little disappointed that this was not a normal bike ride up in the foothills as it was idyllic in both weather and ambiance.

Around 11am Tina returned and joined me for lap 23 with approximately 13K feet of elevation gain already in the bank. And by noon, I was halfway done. All according to plan.

It sounds good on paper, but in reality it felt less than superb. When I started my first Everesting attempt, I felt strong. My energy levels were good and finishing felt not only possible but almost inevitable. Not sure what was going on with this ride, but I simply never clicked into a good place mentally or physically. I was tired from the start.

Maybe it was the wildfires pumping smoke into the air for weeks beforehand or the consistently hot temperatures in Boulder during August or the stress and exhaustion from working while the entire country seems to be falling apart, but even the first lap felt like effort. You know those rides: you’re there and you’re going to do the time, but it’s going to be a struggle.

And then that damn, stupid leg started hurting again. I cannot emphasize how frustrating it was during the first attempt when it got so painful that I ended up limping for almost a week afterwards. You do months and months of training with literally 100s of thousands of elevation gain, and then on Game Day it decides it wants to break down.

The month between this attempt and the last attempt I really worked on rehabilitating it. Hot baths, massages, stretching, and gradually ramping up to more and more climbing. When Tina did her Everest and I ended up doing 10K of elevation gain with no pain, it seemed like I had recovered sufficiently to try again.

Nope. It started getting unhappy again around 12K of elevation gain. I had modified my segment to take off the steepest section to improve my chances, but by the halfway point it had become a serious concern again. I was getting out of my seat frequently to help stretch it out and reduce the repetitiveness, but that had the consequence of using up more and more of my precious energy.

Somewhere around 15.5K feet of elevation gain, I started feeling pain in my knee again. At 16.5K I was so exhausted from trying to do anything and everything to reduce the discomfort and growing pain that I just threw in the towel. The pain was less sharp than last time, but even so I found walking unpleasant for days afterward.

Blargh. Over 11 hours. All of that biking and no Everest. Again.

Suffice to say, I am not trying again this year. It took me nearly two weeks of recovery to handle today’s Ward ride and I simply cannot fathom losing two more weeks to tapering, especially when the weather is even further against me in October. Nope. Back to fun, shorter, challenging rides in the hills until the snow returns.

I am thinking about getting a Wahoo KICKR to prepare for next year though…

It has been four weeks since my first Everesting attempt. That attempt ended when an already sore quad was combined with cold temperatures and eight hours of biking to result in serious knee pain. It was extremely disappointing to prepare everything, get over 13K of elevation gain, and then have to quit at 3am because I rushed a bit into my first attempt because of weather concerns.

I spent a few days off the biking completely and also drugged myself with ibuprofen to get the leg and knee less cranky. I eased into some slow, short rides and after a couple weeks was back up to moderate training rides. When I pulled off a SuperJames + Ward ride, I felt I was ready to start considering another attempt.

Last weekend the conditions aligned and Tina made her Everesting attempt on Monday. Despite a couple hours of chilly rain at the end, the majority of her ride went pretty darn smoothly. I actually considered joining her so we could Everest together, but I decided that being her support crew was more important. Many things can go wrong during an Everesting but some of those are addressable with a support crew, so it made sense to have that as my focus. Even still, I joined her for 10K feet of climbing. The leg and knee were a bit sore afterwards but overall they held up without much complaint.

With Tina’s Everesting a success, it was time to start considering my own. Labor Day seemed like a reasonable day to make an attempt. I already had it off from work and it gave me roughly a week to taper.

On Friday, I drove up to Jamestown and did a subsection of my segment twice. My original segment had a third of a mile of 11-14% grade at the end and I am fairly sure that was the root cause of my knee pain. Doing that manner of grade repeatedly in the middle of the night with a sore quad is not relaxing. With my leg still not completely healed, I wanted to consider a segment without that stressful bit at the end. It means an increase in the number of laps to reach 29,029’ but a far kinder grade for my knee.

So, here we are on Sunday afternoon. And, Monday is off the table. A winter storm system is supposed to arrive tomorrow night with snowfall predicted for Tuesday. Preceding the storm, Jamestown is forecasted to have 20-30mph wind gusts starting at noon Monday and lasting for four hours. Not a deal breaker but not exactly encouraging with my leg at less than 100%.

No, what has killed this attempt is our heat wave for the past few days with high temps in the upper 90s and low 100s. Combined with some wind, the forest fires nearby have flared up and smoke has filled the skies of Boulder. We stepped outside 30 minutes ago and the smell of smoke is strong. As I look out the window right now, the mountains are no longer visible.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

With the shorter days and the nighttime temperatures lowering into the 40s, my window for successfully Everesting this year is quickly disappearing. I also do not wish to lose fun, autumn bike ride for this project. There are other routes I want to do before the weather changes. We shall see what next weekend brings. I may give it two more weeks and then call it for this year.

Last Monday, at approximately 10:30pm, Tina completed her first Everesting. I provided support throughout the day (3am-11pm) by refilling water bottles, organizing gear, and making sure she never forgot to take a snack. That last one is a fairly easy mistake to make over the course of 19 hours of biking and one that can be a critical mistake given how on top you need to be of your food + hydration.

Her entries are pretty thorough, and I do not feel I need to add much, except a couple of points of emphasis.

1. It was rather cold in the beginning. In the wee hours, I was working on my computer at the base of the hill and I was wearing a jacket, a winter hat, and wrapped in a blanket…and I was still chilly.
2. I still ended up pulling off just over four hours of work and 10,400ft of climbing on Monday. Living the dream.
3. She had a pretty fantastic day for her ride, I am quite envious. The air stayed rather cool and the sun never reached an unbearable level. If it was not for the fact that Sunshine gets a fair amount of vehicular travel, it would have been practically ideal conditions
4. Except for the last two hours when a cool rain completely soaked us for the last four laps. That was demoralizing. I am so happy that I brought my rain jacket and a towel. Neither of which I expected to use, but without them I would not have been able to do the last few laps with her.