Due to some potential medical issues, I have been careful about taking my heart rate too high until I get a stress test, which is scheduled for tomorrow. Still I was able to get in a good training ride yesterday, with over 10,000 feet of climbing. Yes, I did let my heart rate go over 140, but was very quick to ease off if it hit 150. Even with this self throttling, I was mostly passing people going up Mt. Hamilton.

My mileage for the week ended up being 280 and climbing weekly total of 23,000 feet. These were only slightly lower than my original plan and since I was well ahead of plan a few weeks ago, my accumulated training, over my 19 week training program, remains ahead.

While in Montana recently (no sales tax) we went to REI where they had their Yakima bike racks on sale. We picked up the Yakima Hold-Up rack, the same my son John had purchased earlier. I got the model for the 2 in. receiver since I want to use on our van for future use and plan to use on the Hoodoo 500 this August.

With this new rack the bike is supported from the wheels and a single arm that clamps down on the front tire. Nothing touches the frame. It is very easy and quick to make a bike change. When not in use, the rack folds up, out of the way. Anne is also pleased that the color matches the color of our van!

With this model you can buy an extension that holds an additional two bikes. That would allow you to haul four bikes on the back. I have another so called four bike Yakima rack that hangs the bikes from the top tube but I never could get four bikes on it. Also the new rack works great with mountain bikes, which have a sloping top tube and wider tires.

Need for a Training Program

Training plans for these type of events are not easily found. In 2007 I attempted to do the Devil Mountain Double for the first time, but that was right after running the Boston Marathon. Although I finished, I realized I needed a cycling specific training plan, so I developed one for the Furnace Creek 508 in 2007 and refined for subsequent major challenges. The older I become, the more I need to have a good training program and need to track my progress against my plan. It not only helps me to properly prepare but also gives me the confidence to finish and so far I have been able avoid the dreaded DNF (did not finish).

Avoid Junk Miles

I learned from running marathons that you can not just go out and run a bunch of miles and expect to do well. Although total mileage may be one factor, it is not the only factor and not even the most important factor. When I studied marathon training I realized that there is something called junk miles, those are the miles that you run just to get your total mileage up. When training to run a marathon with the hopes of qualifying to run the Boston Marathon, I actually reduced my weekly mileage. Instead I added in speed work and also the long weekly runs at a faster pace.

Speed Work

Many might think that speed work is of little value when it comes to endurance events but that is due to a lack of understand. I see many endurance cyclists that ride about the same pace on all their rides and just focus on riding a bunch of miles. Chris Carmichael wrote in the June 2010 edition of Bicycling Magazine “When you’re an endurance athlete, one key adaptation you want is an increase in the size and number of mitochondria in your muscle cells. These cellular power plants process fat and carbs into energy, and as their density increase so does the amount of aerobic energy you can send to working muscles … Research shows that spending more than about 60 minutes at at time at a constant intensity doesn’t have much impact on mitrochondrial density. But the evidence is clear that shorter, harder workouts do have that effect – and hence improve endurance performance – for athletes at all fitness levels.”

This week I did two speed workouts. On Tuesday I did my standard interval workout, with 7 minutes of riding hard, trying to get my heart rate into the red zone, followed by 3.5 to 4 minutes of easy recovery. I repeat that 4 or 5 times.

Since this is a circular course it somewhat eliminates the affect of wind on the totals. This table shows a summary of how I did compared with prior times. On Tuesday I had rode 84 miles the prior day and ran 6 miles that morning before the interval workout and it shows.

Today I did a very fast paced ride of moderate distance. After doing a couple mile warmup, I ride a 38 miles course with a combination of flats, hills and rollers, with a total climb of 1500 feet. I vary my effort along the course, attacking the hills and rollers. I was able to get my average speed up to 17.5 mph, about as fast as I have ever done this course in a time trail fashion.

The third type of speed workout I will be adding in is hill repeats. I have a hill that takes about 7 minutes to climb and about half that long to descend. I do 4 to 5 repeats, climbing as fast as I can, then recover on the descent. The goal of these type of speed workouts is to increase your lactate threshold so you can go faster in an endurance event. If you can finish faster, with the same level of effort, it is much easier on your body.

Weekly and Accumulated Training

I plot out my training program, showing my actual values against my plan and also compared with training for some similar events. I track the longest weekly ride, weekly climbing, weekly total miles, accumulate miles and accumulated climbing over the training program. These are some of the charts. After 6 weeks into the training plan I am on track but the tough training is yet ahead.

When I would train for marathons, I liked to do weekly speed work, either a tempo run or intervals. While I might do quarter mile repeats when getting ready for a 10K distance race, for the marathon I found mile repeats worked well for me. I could only do about 4 of them, since that meant 4 miles running well over my lactate threshold.

For cycling I patterned a similar workout. Since it took me about 6:45 to 7:00 minutes to run the mile repeats, I duplicated that with 7 minutes flat out on the bike, followed by an easy 4 minutes. I choose a relatively flat course that included a couple miles of warm-up from our house and then a straight shot, with no need for stop signs or traffic lights during each of the 7 minute intervals. The blue sections on the map are the intervals done at speed and the red sections the recovery portions. From the map it would as if I could fit in a 5th interval at the end, but there are too many stop lights and I am way too tired to try a 5th one. It seems as if all I can do is ride the 4.5 miles back home.

You can see the four intervals, followed by the recovery period from this heart rate curve. I tried to get into Zone 5 on each interval (for myself that means 167 bpm or higher), sometime I was able to do except for the 4th interval where the 8 mile run and the prior 3 intervals were finally taking their toll. At some point your legs and can’t push the heart as much as the heart can deliver. I have my Garmin Edge 500 setup to show the heart rate zone I am in, which works well for this type of workout.

Using a circular course allows me to average the 4 segments so as to somewhat cancel the effect of the wind. This allows a comparison between different dates. I have kept this table at the bottom to show those. With the 8 mile run before, I was not able to quite do the same average speed. There was also a strong headwind on some sections, a penalty you never quite get back on the other sections. Since this is for training, the actual speed is not as important as getting my heart rate up sufficient to exceed my lactate threshold, with a short recovery and then a repeat. This is the best way to improve one’s lactate threshold.

About 6 of the “Nightriders” showed up for the ride. It was great weather, even though we are still in March.

I took my new Garmin Edge 500 on the ride and was able to later download the data and get a map of where I went. I had to cut the ride short today because it was my birthday and we were going out to dinner.

I uploaded the data file to a website called Strava. You can see all the details here. It lets you name some of the climbs you discover with the Garmin GPS. I needed to figure out the name of the major climb we did, so I found this map of Harvey Bear Ranch and saw the name was Harvey Bear Trail. Click the image below to download the full Harvey Bear Ranch map.

Here is a short video I took.

It turns out we did very well, averaging 22.2 mph for the 4 sections and I was able to get my heart rate up to 167-171 on each of the legs. Anne took her heart rate up to 154. We were back home in no time and still had a good workout.

Starting near sea level, the finish is at over 4,000 feet, the highest elevation for any local climb. At the top there is the famous Mt. Hamilton Observatory. With a maximum grade of about 6%, the road leading up is never real steep. To allow the movement of the heavy equipment to build the observatory many years ago, they had to keep the grade from being too excessive. Still, with over 18 miles of racing, mostly all up hill, it is a challenge indeed.

There was a very large turnout for the race, the most I have seen at any Low Key Hill Climb race. I arrived around 8:30 when registration was open and we all started soon after 9:30 am. The temperature had warmed up by then so I took off my jacket before the start and carried it for the later descent. I started a ways back in the pack of about 200 cyclists, not wanting to get in the way of the real fast riders. That was a bit of a mistake because I had to go around a lot of riders in the first half mile. But soon I settled down to a fast, but constant rhythm. I noted that my heart rate was hovering around 170 and I started to worry that maybe I was burning myself up. This is above my Lactate Threshold so I would not be able to hold this for the 90 plus minutes of the race. But I felt fine so I kept holding the pace and continued to pass a few more riders.

There are two short down hill sections on the course, which allowed for some recovery.

photo by Adam Tow

When I was within 3 miles of the finish, I was surprised I had been able to not only keep my heart rate up, but was feeling strong enough to pickup the pace further and start to pace some additional riders who seemed to be suffering from the effect of the long climb.

I crossed the finish line at the parking lot of the Observatory with a total time of 96:46. This is a bit less than my official time of 97:03 because I did not start my watch until I reached the intersection while the front of the pact was actually positioned beyond that point when the official clock started. Although this was not my very best time, it was a minute faster than the same race last year, so I was happy with that.

When I returned home and downloaded the data from my heart rate monitor I was surprised that for the entire climb I averaged a heart rate of 168, including the downhill sections. That means my Lactate Threshold is something above that, which is remarkable for someone nearly 62 years old. My maximum heart rate during the climb was 176, close to my max heart rate. You can see this on this graph (click to enlarge).

When they posted the results I was 86th place out of 152 men and it appears I had the fastest time for anyone over 60 years of age. It is a bit difficult to be sure because this is a low key event and some people make up their own categories, but most use something related to their age. They have a scoring system where you get some percentage of the median time. For this race I got a score of 97.80 since I was slightly slower than the median male rider. When I did the Montebello hill climb race last month, and set a new PR, I scored a 102.15.

My biking is not quite up to last year’s level in either total miles or feet of climbing. Last year in the fall I did both the Everest Challenge and the Furnace Creek 508 races so I didn’t think I would do as well this year on the Mt. Hamilton race. Even being a year older and with fewer feet of climbing, I still shaved over a minute off my time from last year.

It was a fun event. I was surprised I was able to hold my heart rate at such a high level for so long. I think I might have been able to push even harder but it was Thanksgiving and I wanted to have energy left to eat that big meal. Since I burned over 1,600 calories on the race, I had no guilt eating that afternoon.

I have a few major things on my bucket list that I checked off in the last few years, but one that I had not yet accomplished was to ride the Moab White Rim Trail in a single day. I have ridden it before but in 3 days so I knew that although the trail is not that technical, with over 100 miles with no water sources, over 6,000 feet of climbing, sand, and pounding from the terrain, finishing it in a single day makes it a monster ride.

A couple of weeks ago my brother Mike called and let me know they were going to attempt to do the White Rim Trail in a day and thought they would have a spot for me. I knew my friend Jim would also be interested so I checked if there was a spot for him, which became available. It was short notice and no time to do much training on the mountain bike so it was relying on my road bike training. I figured I had a fairly good chance of finishing but was not fully confident. There was going to be a vehicle to follow the riders to carry water and food, and provide the only bail out if someone could not make it.

On Thursday Jim and I made the long drive from California up to our second home in Orem, Utah. On Friday afternoon, Mike came by to pick us up for the drive to Moab. Mike and Stu’s bike were in the bed so we loaded Jim and my bike on a rear mounted rack.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Moab. The four of us checked into the motel and then met Rian, Vint and Jack who had driven from Colorado. Jack had offered to drive Mike’s truck along the route and be our support vehicle, supporting the 6 riders (2 from California, 2 from Utah and 2 from Colorado). We decided at dinner to leave in the morning at 5 am. First stop was Denny’s, the only place open at that time to get some breakfast.

From Moab it is a 30 mile drive out to the White Rim Trail. The trail itself does not form a complete loop so there is a section of connecting the two ends of the trail with 14 miles on a dirt road and then about 7 miles on a paved road. Some people do the White Rim in a Day by skipping these miles, having someone shuttle them, but we wanted to do the entire loop and finish where we started. We drove the 14 miles out on the dirt road and parked at the top of the Horsetheif Trail Climb. Our biking route would then be going back on the 14 miles of dirt road to the highway.

Our plan was to start biking around 7 am, just before civil twilight. After getting a group shot we started at 7:15 am.

It was now barely light enough to start without a light. We rode the 14 mile dirt road section back to the highway and ended up with 1,600 feet of climbing. The sun was now fully up so we decided to take off some of the clothing and put it in the truck. That stop cost us 7 minutes. It had been decided earlier to send the truck ahead at this point so it could get down Shafer Trail before we did since we could descend faster than the truck. We biked another 7 miles on the paved highway to the park entrance where we had to stop and pay the entrance fee. There was no one manning the entrance booth to take the fee and we didn’t want to bike an extra 2 miles to the visitor center to pay it. Luckily we noticed a drop box we could put in our $5 each in an envelope. Soon after the entrance we made a left turn and headed down Shafer Trail. This is my least favorite part of the White Rim Trail. It is very rocky and a relatively long steep descent. On some sections, if you went off the trail, you would fall down 500 feet because it is cut into a cliff.

When we reached the bottom at 7:43 am there was no truck. Evidently Jack had not noticed the drop box and had driven over to the visitor center to pay the entrance fee. While waiting I took a few pictures of the riders.

After the truck arrived we topped off our water and headed out, for a total stopping time of 18 minutes at that spot. Vint and Rian went out ahead, and Mike and Stu were falling behind Jim and I. Jim was riding next to me. Just as soon as he made a comment to me that my mountain biking skills had improved, he hit a bump that knocked one hand off his handlebar and he was headed off the trail. He was able to recover just in time. I thought it would have made a better story if he had taken a fall, but with a trail of rocks and slickrock, no one wanted to fall on this ride.

At 34 miles into the ride we came upon Rian, who had stopped to wait. While waiting, Jim was checking his tires and realized the rear was too low of a pressure. It seemed like a good spot to wait for the other riders and the truck.

We were not quite sure what happened and it was 15 minutes before they showed up. I guess Jack was having a hard time driving the truck to keep up with the bikers so Mike was holding back. Jim pumped his tire with the floor pump from the truck and we were off, with a total stop of 18 minutes. Rian had estimated that we needed to average 10.5 mph and stop a total of 90 minutes, or we would not finish without lights. But we had now used up half of our total allocated 90 minutes stopping time and had only gone 17 miles from the start going down Shafer Trail. We clearly needed to pick up the pace and keep any more stopping to a minimum.

Our next stop was at mile 43 and we were off within 6 minutes. We had some periodic stops along the way and were doing similar quick stops. Keeping up a fast steady pace and short stops left little time to take any pictures but I was able to grab a few at some of the stops.

At White Crack (1:24 pm and mile 58), we did take a bit longer break. With 11 minutes I was able to gobble down a PB&J sandwich and drink a diet coke. After another 2 hours we finally reached Murphy (2:15 pm and 65 miles). I knew from past experience that this was one of the hills I would not be able to climb so I got off my bike at the bottom and started to walk up. It allowed me to grab one picture of Rian who was making it up the hill.

After another short stop at the top of Murphy we continued on. Mike had promised me no more climbing before the last climb so I kept saying, “hey I would call this a climb” every time we had to go up.

Actually we had some real serious climbing up Hardscrable (87 miles and 4:45 pm). This section proved too difficult for me so I was walking part of the climbs but Rian and some others were motoring up them. I could never figure how someone could climb such steep grades with rocks and loose dirt. It was amazing to watch.

We now started our descend down to the Green River. I recall last year this section had a lot of sand that I had to walk through this year I was able to stay on the bike. I could see several vehicles stopped on the road ahead. Some group, headed in the opposite direction as we were going, had got stuck trying to pull a loaded trailer with a truck that just had street tires on it. Cars had been stopped behind it. This is a steep section and no room for a vehicle to go around and it was difficult enough just to get my bike around the congestion. They kept trying to put some rocks under the truck tires to get traction but were failing. I decided to bike on down where I saw Vint waiting. It was now 5:16 pm and I was running out of daylight so Jim and I decided to go ahead. But that meant we could not retrieve any water or food, or even our lights, from the support vehicle. I had enough water and hoped we could make it before dark. Vint said he was going to wait for a short while to see if they freed the road, then catch us.

Finally we reached my favorite part of the trail, along the Green river. Jim was not feeling that great so we made one stop to take on some more food. While we were waiting Vint and Rian joined us and told us that the trailer had finally got freed so it should not be too long before our support vehicle could continue on. We all continued along together. Rian’s bottom bracket was making a real racket so I was not sure he would be able to make it. At last, at 6:13 pm we made it to the bottom of the final climb up Horsethief Trail. We had figured that we could bike without lights until 7 pm so I knew that I had plenty of time to make the climb. I was feeling fine enough so I went ahead and reached the parking lot at 6:35 pm, with plenty of time to spare before it was too dark to bike without a light. It was a great feeling to finish such an epic ride.

I grabbed my camera and took some pictures of the other riders as they finished right behind me.

It was getting cold now. Luckily I had kept a jacket in my Camelbak but that was not enough. Rian and Vint had both parked their cars at the top, but both had left their keys in the support vehicle. Fortunately Rian had a keypad so we could get in his car, out of the wind. Another gal was also parked there, waiting for her group who had also been doing the White Rim in a day. Some time passed and no sign of Mike and Stu or any of the riders she was waiting for. One of the riders from the other group finally came in and gave us an update that although the trailer had been freed, it got stuck again. I figured Mike had stayed back to watch his truck and would not leave until it had got through. We were not sure how long it was going to be now. Finally a second rider from the other group arrived and let us know that the trailer had finally cleared the climb. At 7:48 pm Mike and Stu arrived, wearing headlamps. Right behind them was the support vehicle.

It turned out to be ideal conditions. Although this time of the year meant less sunlight, the temperature was just about right for such a long ride. I had a fantastic time and the group of guys I was riding with made it extra special.

Later I downloaded the data from my Polar heart rate monitor. I had to adjust my distances because I didn’t have things set right for my mountain bike so I was reading 7% low on the distance. Mike got around 100 miles on his Garmin GPS so I used that as the total distance and adjusted things accordingly. Here is a elevation profile and some other data. Click the chart to view enlarged.

Date: 10/24/09
Distance: 100 miles
Climbing: 6,600 feet
Average Heart Rate: 132
Maximum Heart Rate: 169 (93% of Max HR)
Average Speed (rolling): 10.5 mph
Total Time: 11:20
Stopping Time: 1:50

Franz At Finish - photo by Calvin Do

I kept my heart rate high the entire climb with an average of 168 and a maximum of 174. After the initial ramp-up, I keep it in the red zone for the whole climb, as you can see below (click graph to view enlarged).

About two weeks ago I did the 1000 Warriors race and had terrible cramping on the final climb up Snowbird. I usually only get to climb this hill after a lot of biking in terms of distance and climbing. Since Anne needed to return something to a store in Salt Lake I thought this was a good time to do the usual bike route in reverse so I had her drop me off on Wasatch Blvd.

I figured I could set a new best time up Snowbird since I would not have that many miles on my legs before I started. I am proud to say I was not passed by any other cyclist this time and I passed everyone in sight (an old guy on a recumbent and another ld guy on a mountain bike). I ended up with a time that was about 8 minutes faster than my prior best time I did on a training ride.

After descending back down I rode the 1000 Warriors route in reverse until I reached the bottom of Transverse Ridge (the north side of Suncrest). If thought maybe I could set a new PR on this hill also so I took my heart rate up to a rather high level and kept it there for the entire climb. I was able to take three minutes off my prior best time.

I was feeling rather tired and was tempted to ride back home the flat way. But after making a brief stop to get some more liquid in me (it was hot in the low 90′s) I decided to stick with my original plan and go up American Fork Canyon, then down the Alpine Loop. As I started the climb, I was feeling in pretty good shape and decided to give it a go to see if I could sent a 3rd PR for the day, something I have never been able to do before. I passed a couple of riders I recognized that had the “Ride for a Reason” jersey on. One joined me for awhile but when I answered his question that it was 3 miles to the summit, he backed off to join his friend. I was checking the time on the mile markers and about 1.5 miles from the top I knew I would be able to set a new record time. I ended up taking another 2 minutes off. So with the 3 new PRs I collectively took 13 minutes off, which I was very happy about.

It was getting a bit cool as I started to descend down the Alpine Loop. I am sure that the temperature was high enough but after pushing my body so hard on three tough climbs, I guess I should have stopped and rested. I did decide to take it easy going down. About 6 miles from home I had a flat on the rear tire. Normally would have been frustrated to flat so close to home but I was so happy with my riding that I just took it in stride.

Here is all the data. You will see that my LT has moved up from my training because I was able to sustain heart rates over 165 bpm for almost an hour. Before I would have been cooked if I tried that. My maximum heart rate for the day was 177, so I guess my maximum heart rate is still around 180. I am not quite sure why I ever let my heart rate go to 177, I guess I got excited near the top of Transverse Ridge with my time.

Here is my heart rate chart. You can see I went into the red zone on many of the climbs, especially on Transverse Ridge. Click to enlarge.