I have been doing my best to get up to speed. My coach has been pushing me with my limited schedule (I put in 10.5 hours last week). He is very happy with the progress I have made since getting back on the bike. For the most part, I am nearing race form again. The problem is that this isn’t a race.

Jim has me going out a couple nights a week doing “sweet spot” intervals. For instance, last night (TrainingPeaks report) I went out to do three such intervals at varying cadences. Interval 1: 18 minutes with an 85 – 95 rpm cadence at 225-270 watts. Intervals 2 & 3: 18 minutes with a 70 – 80 rpm cadence at 225 – 270 watts. I spin easy for 15 minutes between each. There are also some warm-up and cool-down portions of the workout. The bottom line is, it leaves me feeling pretty tired!

Then twice a week I am going out for 4 to 5 hour rides. Sometimes those longer rides fall on the day after one of those “sweet spot” drills. For instance, Friday I did the drills, Saturday I rode 5 hours, Sunday I spun for an hour easy, and Monday I rode 4 hours. On the longer rides I’m supposed to hold over 200 watts and maintain a cadence between 85 and 95. On Tuesday my legs felt like I had been bouncing on a trampoline for hours. Then I had to go back and do more intervals.

Monday I hit a 200 watt average on the nose. For the four hours I also averaged a cadence in the mid to high 80s. Of course, those numbers are averages. Sometimes I was as low as 60 rpms up to a high of 120 rpms on the cadence. Wattage I tried to hold down below 400 as much as possible and sometimes going downhill, I was getting 0.

What I learned is that the more tired I get the more I find myself pushing a bigger gear. I have to consciously tell myself to keep the cadence up. When you are spinning faster, your body is telling you that you are working harder. There is more motion and your heart and lungs are having to participate in a more obvious way. When you are pushing a big gear, your mind is telling you that the mechanics of the bike are moving you forward with less motion needed.

The downside is that you can’t do that for very long. You are actually working harder even though you are using less motion. Before long your muscles start to tighten, feel heavy, and weaken. Also, the heart and lungs catch up and what seemed to be saving them earlier starts to make them labor. The higher cadence isn’t easy either, but you can keep it much longer without having your legs fatigue and start to seize up.

What I started to do on the longer rides is to pick zones — one zone for wattage and the other for cadence. I tried to (regardless of terrain) attempt to keep those two zones overlapping. For instance, I would try to keep the wattage between 180 and 250 watts. I would work my gears to try my best to keep the pedals spinning between 85 and 100 rpms. This seemed to work very well. My “sweet spot” was about 216 watts at 95 rpm.

When it comes to the ride, I’m not going to focus so much on the wattage and cadence. My focus then will be on average speed and heart rate. My goal will be to keep my heart rate as low as possible and my speed as high as I can get it. This means that I won’t do like I currently do training — pushing a big gear downhill to keep my wattage up. I’ll do my best to use the terrain to my advantage.

However, on flatter areas it will be important to fall back on my knowledge of what my body can handle. I know that I can ride at 190 watts for a long time with a cadence in the 90s. If I go much over that, I won’t be able to hold a good average speed because I will wear down by the end of the ride. If I ride too much below those numbers, I’ll not be fast enough.

My goal is to do my best to hold a 15 mph average. If I can get enough flat roads, I’m pretty sure I can increase that average to 16 mph. The thing I’ve got to fight is going out early and averaging 20+. I can do that for five hours on flat roads… but I won’t be able to ride the next day!

So, the bottom line is that I’ve got to start planning on spending 8+ hours a day in the saddle! I’m going to approach it like a work day. I go out to work for four hours and try to knock out 60 miles. I’ll break for lunch to eat something, stretch, and get a massage. Then it is time once again to head out on the road to finish off another 60 miles before dinner.

The biggest question is… Can I do that for three days straight as I try to cover 120 miles a day from Memphis to Greenville? I’m starting to see that final Sunday – the eighth day – as an important safety valve. I’m going to push as hard as I can to finish in seven days, but I won’t question my manhood if I end up rolling into the finish Sunday morning!

When I got home my wife said, “You’re going out riding, right?” I replied, “Well, I’m home later than I planned. What works for your schedule?” She looked at the clock above the stove, “You’re going out for an hour? That would work perfect for me.”

So, after saying hello to the Things Three, I headed out on my bike. I could tell right away that it was going to be a good ride. Yes, I was a little sore after my efforts over the weekend, but I could even tell my legs LOOKED different. They were even starting to FEEL different. There was a little bit of the snap coming back.

It was like going back in time. Jim, my coach, hasn’t given me any training objectives yet. I’m just going out and trying to find my legs again while working through the stiffness in my neck and getting comfortable on the bike. I simply headed out to Cleveland Park to do laps just as I did back in the beginning of cycling days.

The 8 minutes or so it took me to get from my house to the park gave me time to loosen up a bit, so when I got onto the loop within the park I started to open up a bit… though slowly. I still wasn’t paying much attention to the computer. It was all about feeling the bike again.

On one lap about 25 minutes in I came upon two riders who were spaced out. I could tell they weren’t together. I went around the first and then came up on the second one just as we started the climb onto Woodland Way. I really wasn’t trying to drop him or anything. It was just that I had been pushing it a bit — though I admit that coming around him on a climb made me put out a tad bit more of an effort. I launched up the grade and took a glance at the computer. I was climbing at over 600 watts! Ahhhhh, I was leaving that guy in the dust!

I crested the hill and then swooped down toward the doggie park. Suddenly the effort caught up with and at the same time, so did the rider I had passed earlier! He didn’t slow as we started to climb this more shallow grade. I put out an effort to get on his wheel. I found it harder to stay there. Later while looking at the data from my ride, I saw I was pegging 187 bpm during that period. Yeah, that would explain that feeling I had in my stomach!

Then we got separated at an intersection. I thought he was long gone until I reached the Woodland Way climb again. There I could see him just ahead of me on the climb. Once again I put out an effort and got up to his wheel before we reached the crest. However, this time he dropped me for good on the Woodland Circle climb. I let him go.

In the past, I would have kicked myself for not being able to stay with him. Here I was all duded up in my Low Cadence kit, shaved legs, and fancy bike. Yet, here was a guy who looked more like a recreational rider taking it to me. I didn’t kick myself. I laughed at the situation.

No doubt three months ago I would have been able to leave him in the dust. No doubt three months from now I will be able to do so again. Right now it is just kind of reinvigorating to go back to those early days when it was all new to me and every rider was a question mark. Also, just being on the bike is enough. I have nothing to prove.

On the other hand, it was an evening with my first feelings of that competitive urge. That too was a welcome feeling along with the new snap in my legs. In so many ways I am beginning again. This time I am going to take the opportunity to enjoy the journey even more.

I am excited though. As I wrote in a tweet earlier today… “Wednesday… Thursday… ‘Ride-my-bike-day!’” Friday I should be able to ride my bike on the road again! It will be interesting to see what happens.

1) I have not exerted myself nearly to the point where I have in the past. Most of my trainer rides have been one hour spins. Recently they have had an average of 130 -140 watts with some efforts in there of 5 – 10 minutes at around 250 watts. The max wattage I’ve been hitting would be in the low 400’s. In other words, I’m starting to wonder if I might fall over on the side of the road if I attempt a ride of any distance.

2) Now that I am actually going to put the bike out on the road without the safety of my Cycleops trainer holding me up, I am starting to wonder how I’ll feel about that. Will I find that I’m nervous about staying upright? Will I freak out if I find myself in a tight spot? That would not be good. Confidence on the bike can be everything when it comes to handling.

3) What if I get out there and it is a big let down? I’ve been counting down the days for three months now. What if I get out there and the thought comes to my mind, “What did I ever find enjoyable about this?”

Friday morning I go in for more X-rays and I am 95% sure that Dr. Johnson is going to release me to be able to ride again. He will probably tell me that he doesn’t want me to race in a field where there would be a greater risk of crashing. However, I won’t be ready for that anyway.

My boss has given me the rest of the day off. My plan is to spend a good portion of that day out on my bike. I have no plans for a route. I think I will just go and explore some of my favorite places from my past times riding. Funny, even writing about it is somewhat emotional. The emotion doesn’t come because I will be back on my bike. It is there because of the realization that I was only a millimeter or so away from never being able to do those things again.

It is sobering… but liberating as well. The fact is, that didn’t happen. I refuse to live my life based on “what could have happened.” I have been given a wonderful life – twice. Everything from here is extra!

Stay tuned. I’m thinking of something interesting for Saturday, August 21. That is, if I get up the nerve!

You start to realize just how in shape you were once you stop exercising for a period of time. I remember back when I was racing in May. It was my concern that I just wasn’t in shape enough! I could go out there and hang tough for the first part of a road race, but I would start to fade toward the end. Ha! Compared to now? There was nothing to complain about.

I don’t even consider myself training right now. This is pre-training. My body isn’t ready for serious training.

Woke up this morning feeling kind of worn down. Oh yeah, I remember that. It is the way you feel when your body is trying to recover from the shock of exercise. At first you think you must be coming down with a cold or something. I’m not worried. I just need to rest a bit today and then get back on there tomorrow night. The strength will return.

One thing is for sure, all this time on the trainer has me yearning for the outdoors.  I find myself fantasizing about a Saluda ride. I’m even looking forward to another climb on Paris Mountain. I want so much to feel the heat of the sun, the rocking of the bike, and see the changing scenery around me.

18 more days!

My closet got cleaned when I had my accident that took me off the bike. It certainly wasn’t that I wanted to empty that part of the closet! Still, for a couple of weeks that space was a vacuum waiting to get filled.

I did get back on the trainer and the first week of the Tour De France put in about 7 hours of trainer time. Then LIFE hit me and the vacuum of the empty spaces started to pull in other fillers. The bike — my Tour De Basement — suffered because of it.

On a positive side, I needed to devote more time to some areas of my life. I’m in a time of transition at work. There are also changes taking place at The Worthwhile Company. Of course, there are always more opportunities to spend time with your family.

All those things have pulled me away from the bike. In some ways, it has been a reality check. When I step back and look at it honestly, I have to accept the fact that the bike was probably taking a little too much space in my closet. I realize that not only did it take away from the time I have to spend with other important things, it also saps the amount of energy and motivation I have to devote to those things.

Now, this isn’t an announcement that I am giving up the bike! Oh no. I miss the bike and I can’t wait to get back onto it. However, I do believe I am much wiser in how I’ll approach the bike when I get back on. The bike needs to enhance all aspects of my life — not take away from those areas.

Basically, what this means is that I am going to have to have more realistic goals concerning my competitive nature. To this point, I have been driven to always be at the front. That is why I was so pumped to be at the front in the Category 4 peloton. However, I also understand the devotion it took to get there!

As I have now moved up into the Category 3 field — and more than that, the 35+ Masters field — I understand what it will take to move up into the upper ranks of that group. Do I doubt that I could do it? Absolutely not. Do I think that it would be best for me to give that amount of devotion to the sport to get there? The answer is no.

My approach must be that I will be as competitive as I can be with the time I am able to give. That means I may end up being field fodder at times. It means I will be a worker bee and not a podium finisher. The competition will have to be within myself. More than that, the objective (at my age and status in life) needs to be focused more on having fun and staying in shape than on winning races and moving into a new, tougher category.

We’ll see how that works out. I’m a competitive person and I do love riding my bike. We’ll see how long my closet will keep the new arrangement!

Saturday, I started my own Tour De France — or I’m going to call it the Tour De Sous-sol. What? I’ve been off the bike for several weeks. The legs have only turned for several hours since May 22. I’m down to 163 pounds from around 167. Much of that weight lost I’m certain is muscle. It’s time to get going again. It’s time for the Tour De Sous-sol — my Tour of the Basement.

It is exciting to see the Peloton rolling over the roads of the Netherlands and Belgium. The pulse quickens and that switch flips in my head drawing me to the bike. The only problem is that my bike can’t go on the road. Let me rephrase that… my bike can go on the road, but I’m not allowed to be on it if it is!

I’m getting around this by riding the trainer. My goal is to get back on the bike and ride each day there is a stage of the Tour. As I go forward into this month, I’m sure I’ll come up with more of a system of training. Right now, I just want to get on the bike for as long as I can each time.

Saturday was my first day on my personal tour. I went for two hours on the trainer! I don’t do two hours on the trainer when I’m training for real! Granted, most of the time was spent at 100 watts or under. However, I did get over 150+ watts for thirty minutes or so with a few minute bursts up to 200+ watts. It was a good start, but there is a lot of work ahead.

Sunday I backed off a little with only an hour on the Pain Machine. It was nice though to find the legs are remembering the rhythm. The 90+  cadence was coming as second nature. I even can feel a bit of firmness coming back to my muscles.  This is going to be good.

I’m looking forward to seeing where I’ll be a month from now. I will be out of the neck brace and hand cast by then with quite a few hours in my legs. It will be a good thing — when the Tour De France ends, I’ll have less than two months before the Ride for Mike begins.

Now, I haven’t always had power meter issues. When I was riding only with the Quarq CinQo on my White Giant, there was no problem with the power files. I went out there did the workout my coach wanted me to do and sent him the info to evaluate.

Then I got my Black Giant fixed and I got the opportunity to try out the iBike iAero power meter. A few hiccups to get started, but for the most part I was now able to take out either bike on my workouts and have the information needed to send back to my coach. Things were going pretty smoothly.

The problems started when I introduced the time trial bike to my training. I just never could feel comfortable that the iBike was working correctly. Part of it was because it was hard for me to read the screen as I had to mount it in a weird spot on the bike.

Finally, yesterday I was able to take the TT bike out for the first time with the Quarq CinQo installed on it. Ahhhhh, a little bit of the fun of suffering through 12 minutes intervals returned. I was able to clearly see on the Garmin readout what my power was. As I uploaded my file to TrainingPeaks.com last night, I felt confident that the coach would like what he sees.

Of course, that means that I’ll be racing the Black Giant in the race tomorrow. I’ll be using the iBike then as well. The White Giant is currently hanging up with no crank. I’ve just got to make sure that I have the sensors securely fastened on old black before taking to the course!

So, why put up with all of this? I have put a good amount of a time investment into my training. I’ve also signed up for year of coaching. The system I am on is “Training with Power.” The only way you can train with power is to be able to ride your bike and know how much power you are producing. Each workout requires you to be able to see your power output.

Bottom line is that you can’t train with power without a power meter.

Yes, yes, yes! I would love to just ride my bike and forget about the power meter and all the stuff it causes me to have stuck on my bike. However, I look back over the last six months and see how much I have improved and I must give much of the credit to the fact that I am using this system to train. I still have six months to go… there is no stopping now!

Besides, all of these power meter issues give me something to gripe about in the blog! I don’t think my griping will be able to continue too much longer. I’m starting to get a better understanding of the capabilities of the iBike. There are somethings I can do to alleviate some of my frustrations. I just need to find the time to sort it out.

The first thing to get out of the way is that I loved the pain. It is the primary love-hate portion of the endeavor. However, there is just something about pushing yourself to your limit and going on. In life there are many times when you reach that point emotionally, professionally, or spiritually. Those aspects of life are pretty complicated and it takes more than just gritting your teeth and continuing to churn to reach success.

The Individual Time Trial allows you to take that ball of life’s frustrations and turn it into something real. For a bit you can take all the pressure and stomp on it with every stroke. Here is something you can control. Here is an opportunity to push through and feel the pain knowing you will find an end to it. Best of all, the pain has a measurable purpose. The better you ride above the pain, the better your time.

The second thing that draws me to the Individual Time Trial is that it is individual. You are racing against yourself. In other forms of bicycle racing, you are part of an organism. Every move made by another affects you. That can mean, as in the recent Giro d’Italia, that you could be leading the race at one moment and caught up in an accident the next. It also means that if  you are smart, you can use the tactics of the team or the riders around you to win without using all your cards.

In the ITT, you have to lay it all out. It is just you and your bike against the environment. The wind, the road service, the temperature, and any number of variables are your only competition. Oh yes, you can’t forget that top competitor — the clock. How much time does it take you to lay it all on the line and overcome the variables is all that matters. How well you do or how badly you ride is all on you.

That leads me to the third siren call of the lonely ride. Data. There are all sorts of things to measure and evaluate. Because it is individual and the only thing you are competing against are measurable environmental elements, you can recreate your effort by looking at the data. You can then go out and do the same course again and compare that data. Minute changes can make the difference in seconds — even tens of seconds. It drives you to say, “If I just did such-and-such, I could have saved this amount of seconds.”

So, I am looking forward to the next Individual Time Trial I’ll have an opportunity to race. Right now life is so busy, I’m not sure when that will be. All the end of the school year programs, etc. are really putting a hole in my training. Thankfully, I have a coach who understands and is working with me. I guess it is just one more of those frustrations I can iron out when I start feeling the pain of my next race of truth.

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Things started out pretty well. Yesterday’s post about the new Low Cadence kit design drew a lot of traffic and better yet, I got 16 responses expressing interest in buying one. I also was looking forward to getting my Boyd Bikes wheels and a iAero from iBike was supposed to arrive on my doorstep.

The day ended with my wheels at the wheel builder. The arrival of the spokes was delayed and the builder wasn’t able to get them complete in time. The iBike didn’t arrive by the time I started out on my ride. Plus, someone had relayed some information to me that shouldn’t have gotten under my skin, but the more I thought about it, the more perturbed I got about it.

But that wasn’t what got me the most. The training plan called for me taking an easy hour spin. My son had left for his baseball scrimmage out in Greer and I wanted to see him play. So, I figured I would go out there and watch for a few minutes.

Now, riding from Greenville to Suber Road in Greer at 5 PM can be a hair-raising experience on a bike! I cut through as many neighborhoods as I could, but still ended up having to ride a short distance on Brushy Creek. I was feeling pretty good about it until I came upon some road construction that had stripped the shoulder away.

The cars were squeezing through on the even more narrow road than usual. There simply was not room for me. So, I went off on the dirt where the asphalt and grass had been removed. This worked for a bit until I came to a rough section. This was worse than cyclocross and I was on my race Michelins!

I tried to go over a ridge of dirt and clumps of grass and it stopped my bike cold. I went down unceremoniously into the dirt. Popping up, I lifted my bike up over the obstacle and continued my ride in the grass farther from the road until I came to a spot where the ditch and trees would not allow me any further.

At that point, we were near a flagman and the traffic was slower. A kind driver let me into the line and I continued past the construction following a white Corvette. The driver was talking on a cell phone and didn’t see me. For a bit I was able to motor pace behind him until he looked in his rear view mirror and saw me. Once he did, he stepped on the gas and was gone until I caught up with him at the next light.

Finally, I made it to the field. The practice had not yet started. After saying hello to Thing Two, I sat to watch hoping to get the opportunity to see him play. As I did, the sun kept dropping in the east. Time required me to leave before he got on the field.

As I rode back – taking another route that allowed me to avoid the construction – I got hit with some doldrums. One of the reasons I started riding was so I could be in shape to do things active with my children. Now, here I was riding a bike alone while my son was sitting on the bench at a baseball game. This wasn’t what I envisioned.

I don’t know if he will ever get bitten by the bicycle bug. If he doesn’t that is okay. I don’t want to force my sport of choice on my children. The fact that he wasn’t riding with me wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was that I was not there at his scrimmage. “Here you are a forty-year-old guy riding down the road in a race team kit,” I said to myself. “What are you doing?”

It sent me to bed feeling a little down. What I know is that physically the bike saved me. I would not be in the condition I am in today – in my forties – had I not started pedaling when I did. Ultimately, I is good for me and my family.

I’ve scheduled my riding around Thing Two’s baseball games for the season. I’ll be there for him. There is also time yet for him to discover the joys of riding. There is no reason to give up on that… only he will have to come to the decision himself.

Most likely the wheels will be done today, the iBike will arrive, and I’m already getting over the information that was relayed to me. Besides, just spilling my guts here at Low Cadence has helped. I think I’ll be okay.

Today’s metrics:

• Sleep – 7.5 hours
• Heart rate – 54 bpm
• Weight – 166 lbs
• Body fat – 15.2%
• Soreness – Low
• Fatigue – Low
• Stress – Low+
• Sleep – Best
• Overall health – Best

I think today is going to be a “green” day!