MSers In Training 2011

[pawpaw]

Larry- We didn't push very hard. My max HR was 150 and I was rarely in the 140s- just on hills. Much of the time my HRM was beeping the low warning- under 125. The century has a section of fairly nasty hills. Only once we ran out of gears and just had to gut it out. Unfortunately, that was after our legs were gone.
It was a beautiful ride and the temperature was perfect- cool in the shade and a light breeze. The scenery was amazing- baby horses, perfectly manicured horse farms, goat farms, llamas, great roads with few potholes, some sweet rollers, police at most major intersections so we didn't have to stop, great rest stops with shade and good food, really a super ride. Just about 20 miles too much of it for my level of conditioning.

[AMFADVENTURES]

Congratulations Pell! I bet you guys are dead! What do you suppose your heart rate was while you were riding? I'd be interested to know how you feel tomorrow. I understand that a 20-minute recovery ride (zone 1) does wonders for aching muscles, even better than a cold water bath, AND it will help restore your immune system which you probably probably just smashed.

I'm heading to Tahoe late next week for the AMBBR. Haven't decided whether or not I'll do the century yet. I suppose if DW's cousin does it, I'll have to, and I guess it’d be good training for the Triple. It’s just hard to get excited about that much pain even in the face of such beautiful scenery.

Well done Pell,

Larry

[pawpaw]

In the record books

Well, we did it but we are dead meat. We had a total time of nearly 8 hours, pedaling time of 6:06 and speed of 16.9, max speed of 43.36.
My average HR was 118 but that includes rest stops, so not very helpful. The last 20 miles were painful but we finished.

[pawpaw]

Horsey Hundred- 102 miles

Eating my oatmeal and pre-hydrating for our ride today. My DH has a cold, so we don't know how this is going to work out. We can cut the route at several points. We did the 72 mile route last year and that may be what we end up with this year. Our biggest challenge is controlling our speed for the first 50 miles. If we can do that, we may be okay. We ordered new saddles last week but they haven't come in yet.
Larry- my VO2 results are still sitting on the scanner. Soon- promise. I have been writing a chapter for a book that is due Wednesday and that has taken all of my time for the past few weeks.
Time to go- will report later.
Pell

[AMFADVENTURES]

Pell, good luck on the Horsey 100, hope you get past the saddle problems. I'm on my 3rd saddle and have still got a little of that myself, but it is getting better. The last teeny tiny tweek I made to the latest saddle helped a bunch.

[Marinadca]

Marina, I think you should finish your training before you decide one way or the other. But my first thought is that you did a great job picking the ride you wanted to do. The first 27 miles shouldn’t be too bad if you take it slow and keep your heart rate well below 160, say 135 to 150 maybe try to average around 140, you want to achieve a sustainable pace here.

From mile 27 to mile 35 will obviously be the toughest. You will undoubtedly see a heart rate of 160 in there but shift down, slow down, walk or just stop and catch your breath if that happens. You don’t need to get there fast and you don’t want to spend much time at all at a heart rate of 160 or more. You’ve already done a 35-mile training ride so you probably can do it again especially if you don’t push your self too hard.

The last 25 miles are mostly downhill. If you have anything left after the climb, you might even be able to push a little and make up some time. I based all this on things you’ve said here like riding your trainer at a heart rate of 135 and that a heart rate above 160 is very difficult.

You’re going to be out there 6 to 8 hours so be sure to stay hydrated and, even though you might not feel like it, eat a couple of mouth fulls of something at each rest stop. Both of these things are important.

I know the first few rides can be pretty high anxiety events but trust me on this one, you’ve got a lot of great volunteers who are there solely to support you so relax and let them do it. I’ll wager, you’ll meet some really super people and that the experience will mean so much to you that you'll be back year after year. It's a really cool thing you're doing!

Thank you guys for the encouragement - this ride has been much more high anxiety and surprisingly emotional for me.

I appreciate your breakdown Larry...its goiung to help me formulate a plan of attack.

I guess so now I will keep hoping for the 60 mile route...but I keep telling myself I can drop day of.

You all are the best, glad to have some folks to talk to that have been there and done that.

The plan is for 40 miles this weekend and 45 the weekend before the ride. We will see how it goes.

Its amazing how long having that cold knocked me down for. I was actively sick for a week...but I am still feeling the after affects. I am at about 90% now....hopefully in 17 days I will be all better!

[AMFADVENTURES]

Marina, I think you should finish your training before you decide one way or the other. But my first thought is that you did a great job picking the ride you wanted to do. The first 27 miles shouldn’t be too bad if you take it slow and keep your heart rate well below 160, say 135 to 150 maybe try to average around 140, you want to achieve a sustainable pace here.

From mile 27 to mile 35 will obviously be the toughest. You will undoubtedly see a heart rate of 160 in there but shift down, slow down, walk or just stop and catch your breath if that happens. You don’t need to get there fast and you don’t want to spend much time at all at a heart rate of 160 or more. You’ve already done a 35-mile training ride so you probably can do it again especially if you don’t push your self too hard.

The last 25 miles are mostly downhill. If you have anything left after the climb, you might even be able to push a little and make up some time. I based all this on things you’ve said here like riding your trainer at a heart rate of 135 and that a heart rate above 160 is very difficult.

You’re going to be out there 6 to 8 hours so be sure to stay hydrated and, even though you might not feel like it, eat a couple of mouth fulls of something at each rest stop. Both of these things are important.

I know the first few rides can be pretty high anxiety events but trust me on this one, you’ve got a lot of great volunteers who are there solely to support you so relax and let them do it. I’ll wager, you’ll meet some really super people and that the experience will mean so much to you that you'll be back year after year. It's a really cool thing you're doing!

[pawpaw]

Marina, Relax and enjoy this ride. You are doing great on your training. The morning of the ride be sure to identify yourself to several staff members and get phone numbers for the SAG vehicles. You can get help if you need it, but I doubt that you will.
If you set your personal data in your HRM, it will tell you at what percent of your max HR you are exercising. It is best to stay below the 90% level for distance exercise. If you are hitting the 90% of above level often, slow down. You can go 60 miles with a little adrenaline if you don't go fast and you stop frequently.
I was very anxious about the MS 150 last year and I had energy to spare.
Two years ago we bought our road bikes in mid-May and rode our first group ride on Memorial Day weekend- the Horsey Hundred. We planned to do the 27 mile route as our longest ride up until then was 20 miles. Somehow we were caught up in the excitement of the group and we did the 53 mile route. It took us all day because we stopped for a long time, but we did it.
So, try to push your distance a bit, but if you can get to 45 before the ride, you will do 60 without a big stretch.
Not sure if we will do it, but we are still hoping to do the 102 mile distance this Saturday. Our longest ride this year was last Sunday- 42 miles. An uncomfortable saddle is my biggest worry.

Pell

[Marinadca]

Thank you for the thoughts Larry! I am driving my husband insane with my flip flopping on this. He is with me either way...But I am definitely in partial to full freak out mode.

I honestly have no idea what my heart rate should be. I wear a HRM but don't really know exactly what to do with the figured. I know that while I am riding/stopped my heart rate goes from the 130s to low 160s... the higher in the 160s it goes the more I feel like I am hitting a physical wall.

Compared to your route the climb in mine is nothing...but since we just started riding the road bikes 3 months ago I have nothing to really compare this to.

This is my ride map: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/5281262

[AMFADVENTURES]

More on planning

Marina, here’s a real life example. This is the Triple Bypass ride I’ll be attempting:
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/34161844

Below the route map you should see an elevation scale. This is a detail of the elevation scale:
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/34161844#climbs

Because of the length of this ride, I will need to be careful not to exceed 92% of my max heart rate on the first climb and in fact, I’ll need to try to keep the average heart rate between about 88% and 90%. If I hit that first climb too hard, it’s almost a sure thing that I won’t be able to finish the ride. At the moment I’m thinking I’ll need to take it even easier on the second and third climbs (they’re almost one long climb), something like 86% to 88% average. That might be my best shot at finishing. The Pro’s use very sophisticated methods of determining what level of effort they need to expend on which parts of the course. But since I don’t have access to that type of analysis, well, right or wrong, at least it’s a plan, and I’ll try to refine it as my training progresses. It’s all about spreading out the effort all along the course in order to be able to complete the whole thing.

Glad you got me thinking about this, it's something I needed to do.

[AMFADVENTURES]

Marina, 35 miles! Congratulations, I'm sure it was tough but you did it!

Actually, although there is a difference in scale, there is a lot of similarity between our situations. You're a little over half way to your ride distance, I'm a little under. You've still got about 2 weeks of training time left, I've got about 6. I don't know how bad the hills are on your route but I know I'm less than half way to getting up the hills on mine. And we are both having doubts about completing our rides.

The whole point of this is that we need a strategy. I know about what heart rate limits I’ll need to stay within in order to ride 120 miles (average less than about 80% of my maximum) and I could do that except for the 3 mountain passes and 10,000 vertical feet of climbing involved. I’m pretty sure that by the end of my training I’ll be able to do at least the first 2 passes but I’ll have to keep my heart rate as low as I can even if it means stopping for a minute every ½ mile or so on the steeper parts. Even at that, I’ll be heavily anaerobic most of the time on the climbs.

I know it will be critical to consume about 250 calories and about a liter of water and electrolytes every hour and I know from experience that I’ll need something solid, like a tuna fish sandwich, at about hour 5 or 6.

I think the ride could take +/- 12 hours from start to finish, I’ve never ridden that long so that will be a test. I’ll try to do the whole ride but I’m not going to beat myself up if I just can’t. We’ll have our DW’s along the way and if necessary, a phone call should get me to the top of the last pass and I can essentially coast in to the finish from there. It is possible I’ll manage the whole ride but in any event, I know I’ll leave everything I have in me on those mountain passes, and that’s all I can do.

I think all we can do is wish ourselves luck, trust our training to take us as far as it can and have a plan B in place just in case.

Good luck Marina, keep your training up, ride smart and hope for the best. If you really think you need to switch to the 30 mile ride, you can probably do it at the last minute and don't worry about it, it is undoubtedly better to live to ride another day.

Larry

[Marinadca]

Well we did go out and ride on Saturday - 35 miles, my longest ride yet. Towards the end I though I might die...but I made it. It was really tough - I was definitely very sore afterward.

The plan is to get 3 hours on the trainer in this week...

I am worried about taking the distance up further, but I guess we have to...the ride is in 19 days - that 30 mile route is really looking better and better to me. I don't want to give up or fail...which is what I will feel like dropping from the 60 miles to the 30....but with 2.5 weeks until the ride...and wanted to take it easy the week of the ride....it might be the best option.

What do ya'll more experienced folks think?

[AMFADVENTURES]

Got 8.5 hours in this week, had lousy weather here too, in fact, got rained on a little today. Since it was forecast well in advance I was able to change my schedule to include fewer hours at higher intensity though, hope it doesn’t backfire. Tried to put together a couple of tough days back to back without luck, don’t know what that was all about, but next week is a rest week, so maybe I’ll do better in the following period. Overall, I’m making good progress on my climbing and I might even be making a little progress on my speed.

Marina, if you can get through the cold, you should still be OK. The most important thing now is just to stay healthy, don’t risk making your cold worse by trying to do too much, or as Pell would say, “listen to your body”. If you find yourself struggling, ease up to let your heart rate come down to the 135 range that you see on the trainer. You might be surprised at how little time you actually add to your ride by doing that. If the cold gets into your chest, you probably have to take some time off.

There’s a lot of research on “exercise imunology”. Basically, too much exercise can be detrimental but exercise done right should strengthen your immune system. Eventually, if you pay attention to how your body is responding to the exercise that you ask it to do, you will get a feel for how much is too much. It is a learning process though. Google “exercise immunology” and you will find more than any human could absorb in a lifetime.

Be healthy,

[pawpaw]

Tandem

Marina, Our tandem is a Co-motion. There are several bike companies that make good, light weight tandems. We liked the Co-motion steel tandem with carbon fork, handlebars, cranks, etc. There are other companies- Santana, Caffee, DaVinci, Cannondale- that make good tandems. I wouldn't buy a cheaper box store bike unless you realize that you will be replacing it soon. It is important that the bike fits both of you well.
We bought ours from a tandem dealer in Birmingham but there are dealers all over the country. I forget where you are. If you are in California, Colorado or New Jersey, there are very good dealers near you.
Our weather has been awful as well. We haven't been on a bike in a week.

Pell

[Marinadca]

Been a little discouraged this past week with a nasty cold.

Only got 2.5 hours on the trainer and no long ride on the weekend. Totally blew our training schedule

This week trying for 4 hours on the trainer and 35 mile ride we'd planned for last week.

I am still not feeling 100%, but I guess we will see, it tends to take me forever to shake the after effects of the cold.

Worried because there are only 3 weekends left until the ride - but not much I can do about getting sick...better now than the weekend of the ride.

Pell, I am so interested in the tandem road bike, me and my husband see others with them on the trail...maybe you've posted this earlier...but where did you get it from?

Marina-