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This weekend warmed up a bit and I got some good riding in.  On Saturday I managed to get out on my road bike for about 3 and 1/2 hours.  The temperatures were in the high 30’s to mid 40’s. 

I put on all my wind proof gear but I didn’t have have to bundle up. The wind was pretty brutal though.  There was one stretch of road, Hwy V between Hwy M and Hwy U, that was basically into the wind the entire way.  Not to mention that the majority of that stretch is also up hill.  I was only able to average about 10 miles per hour on that section.  Even with the wind I didn’t get cold at all.

With the wind and the fact that I’ve been restricted to indoor trainer rides for most of the last 3 months, my legs were spent.  I bonked and it wasn’t because I wasn’t eating enough or I was dehydrated.  I was eating plenty and I was drinking enough.   

Its been months since I was able to make my legs hurt like they did on Saturday.  Its a good hurt.  I know that after that ride I could go do that same route again in the same conditions, much faster than before.

Every time you go out and ride hard, your body adapts to that stress to make you better able to cope with it again.  So every time you go out for a long ride and use up all of your energy stores, your muscles adapt to store more energy.  Your lungs adapt to more efficiently use the oxygen you breath, and your cardiovascular system gets better at moving fuel to your muscles and washing away the lactic acid that burns in your legs.

So I welcome a good bonk at the start of a bicycle racing season.  It lets me know where I am and I know I will benefit from it. 

One important aspect of training for anything is you have to know what your starting with and a way to determine if you are making improvements.  For bike racing I like to use the Carmichael Training Systems field test as outlined by Chris Carmichael in his book The Ultimate Ride.  The CTS field test is a tool you can use and you can use it frequently to gage your training progress. 

I did the field test on my indoor trainer (I always do the field test on my trainer so weather and road conditions are not a factor).  I used my bike computer and heart rate monitor to collect the data. 

To do the field test I warmed up for 10 minutes with two short hard intervals during the warm up to get the blood flowing and prepare my body for the test effort.  I then rested for a few minutes until my heart rate had dropped down a bit and I was breathing normally. While I rested, I reset my heart rate monitor and bike computer so I could collect accurate data.  I then started the test which is two 3 mile efforts with 10 minutes of active recovery between the efforts.  You use the numbers from the test with the highest average heart rate.  Here is the data I collected from my field test:

• Average Heart Rate: ———————  180 Beats Per Minute
• Max Heart Rate: —————————– 188 Beats Per Minute
• Average Cadence: ————————— 75 RPM
• Perceived Exertion (1-10): ————- 9
• Time to Complete Each Effort: —— 00:12:56

So what do you do with this data?  Well you use the Max Heart Rate, Average Cadence, Perceived Exertion, and Time to Complete Each Effort to simply compare with future field tests.  You use the Average Heart Rate to calculate different training zones so you can target specific aspects of your fitness and design a well rounded training plan.

From the test data above I was able to come up with these training zones for my specific fitness according to the Carmichael Training Systems method:

• Foundation Miles Heart Rate Zone:    < 160 Beats Per Minute
• Endurance Miles Heart Rate Zone:     < 164 Beats Per Minute
• Tempo Heart Rate Zone:                    158-162 Beats Per Minute
• Steady State Heart Rate Zone:            165-169 Beats Per Minute
• Climbing Repeats Heart Rate Zone:      171-175 Beats Per Minute
• Recovery Heart Rate Zone:                 117-126 Beats Per Minute

As your fitness improves with a regular training plan you will need to do the field test again so you can adjust your training zones accordingly.  If you don’t retest and adjust you  will most likely plateau, not able to make new gains.  So I redo the test every 4 weeks or so.

The holidays are over now and they were crazy.  The food, the family, and trips out of town.

Now its 2008 and time for New Year Resolutions.  The truth is that most resolutions that get made don’t get accomplished.

The most common resolution is to improve personal fitness and that can be the most difficult resolution to keep at times.  There are a lot of ways to go wrong like:

• Setting unrealistic goals almost always ensure failure.
• If you set goals that you cannot reach then as you start to fail you can also start to get discouraged.
• Settings goals that are too easy
• if you set goals that are too easy to meet you won’t ever reach your full potential.  Although it is good that you are doing something.
• Deciding to make large abrupt changes in your life.
• Deciding to cut out all junk food for example is almost impossible for anyone to hold up.  You are better off to cut out things like soda and make healthier snack decisions.  Allowing your self to indulge every once in a while won’t derail your plan as long as its not too frequently.

So my new years resolution is to be more consistent with my training this season and I have set a goal of riding at least 5000 miles this year.  I need to ride an average of 100 miles per week to reach my goal.

What is your new years resolution?  Let us know in the comments.

Yesterday I wrote about staying on track with your training by creating a personal challenge and goal setting.  Well today I am announcing to the world my personal challenge for 2008.  My new years resolution if you will.

Ride 5000 miles in 2008

That’s my personal challenge now my goals to reach that are:

• Ride 96 miles per week
• Complete 4 century rides
• Ride the Flint Hills Death Ride (87 mile mountain bike endurance ride)
• Ride the PRBC Katy Trail Experience (Clinton to St. Charles)

Races count towards the mileage. Mountain biking also counts towards the mileage. 

These goals and the overall challenge is very doable.  The end result should mean I’m riding more often and consistently, making me in better shape to attack the racing season.

If you break down the 96 miles per week into a daily goal of 14 miles per day, its not that bad at all.  That’s only a relatively easy hour on the trainer or my normal training after work rides. 

If you factor in the longer 40, 50, or 60 mile weekend rides we typically do in the summer I should be able to knock out 5000 miles before it gets really nasty out in the fall.

My reward for finishing the challenge will be:  New Fox 32 F100 XC Fork  for my Specialized Rockhopper MTB.

If I don’t complete the challenge, I don’t buy the gear. 

What is your Challenge going to be?  Share it in the comments.