Yesterday I had two encounters where I was asked by triathletes how I train for an Ironman. The question initially struck me as odd, because training for an Ironman is much like training for any other triathlon. Basically it begins with a lifestyle of daily exercise.

Three weeks ago Molly and I arrived to our new home in Great Lakes, IL. We have never been in this part of the country, and knew nothing about the area. The day we arrived I spoke with Marty Taylor who has been here for a while and he told me about a Tuesday evening ride with Alberto’s Cycling. I showed up there, unfamiliar with the route and the group. I tried to keep things mellow, but fell into the pace line rather quickly, which consisted of about 6 of the fastest riders. I hadn’t done a lot of pace line riding in San Diego, so it was pretty fun riding the flats at 27-30 MPH, until I was in the front and missed a turn (I didn’t know we were turning!). Time trialing at 30 MPH then wasted me for the second half of the ride. I was accepted into the group, and they told me about their weekend rides.

That Saturday I rode 11.5 miles to Alberto’s. Minutes after I started it began to sprinkle then pour. I arrived soaked, and chilled. Two people (one of the owners and an employee) were there, and said that because of the rain they weren’t going to ride. In a way, I was relieved, but I also realized that the ride was conditional on the weather. They even said that the Sunday ride probably wouldn’t happen. I rode home and got 25 miles in at least.

Sunday morning actually looked good. I rode to the shop to see if the ride was happening. Sure enough, no rain, and the ride was on. About 2 miles into the ride and it poured. A flat in the group had us huddled under some trees while the rain dumped on us. I saw rain coats start to come out, but all I had was a rain sponge. To my surprise I saw a couple other groups riding by in the pouring rain as we stood there. Flat fixed and we went on. I was waiting for someone to pull the plug. It sucked, I was miserable, and I would have gladly followed someone else’s suggestion of calling it a day. Hmmm… that never happened. It wasn’t even suggested. Sixty miles of not being able to feel my waterlogged toes (toasties don’t do a good job keeping water out of shoes) I finally made it home, and soaked in a tub for 40 minutes to defrost. I think the last time I took a bath like that was… probably never. I would have used bubbles if I had them.

Out of the tub, still wrinkled (I don’t think the bath helped with that), I got online and ordered a Computrainer. It was only September, and the Midwest weather was likely to get worse.

A few days later Molly and I toured some of the local bike shops. Activator Cycles, just 2.2 miles from us in Lake Bluff hosts a fast mountain bike ride Thursdays from 6-8 PM, year-round, regardless of weather. This caught my attention. A group that is close, late enough to make after work, and a ride I can rely on. That and I have a 3 year old mountain bike with less than 100 miles on it. The first Thursday we had high winds, 25 MPH with 60 MPH gusts. Molly questioned my sanity (a regular occurrence), and I shrugged my shoulders and replied “they said regardless of weather”. Sure enough, there were about 8 of us there, and it was brutal. The wind was one thing, but the trails were flooded, and it was dark-dark-dark. I worked to keep up, but was gapped rather quickly and I just couldn’t catch up. Nick, the owner, fell back and decided to show me the route since it was my first time out.

The next day my Computrainer showed up, and so did the sun. It was gorgeous out and I did some exploring of some new routes that I found on ridewithgps.com and mapmyride.com. Molly and I did a Tandem ride west of us on some decent roads and also took bikes on the train into Chicago where we started orienting ourselves to this amazing city. Then I did a 108 mile ride north of us. I was surprised though when I rode about 70 miles in Wisconsin without even a glimpse of a convenience store or a service station. The roads were great, very little traffic, and a few nice rollers. The day was warm though and I went about 90 minutes without any water or food.

The following Thursday’s Activator ride had great weather. I was determined to stick with the group, but my lack of experience and poor handling led me to going off the trail into a ditch. My chain popped off and I tried to catch the group, but never even got a glimpse of them. I finished the ride with Dean who had also fallen back. This Thursday, my third time out, it was raining, windy and cold. I contemplated using the Computrainer for the first time, but remembered my resolve to stick with this group through the year even if it was my only ride outside some weeks. Four of us headed out and again I was dropped. This time I got lost in the trails since I was riding by myself. The trails were covered with leaves and I went off them several times because it was hard to make them out. So far it’s been rather humbling, but I figure the only way to get better is to stick with it.

This morning even though it was only 48 degrees and raining slightly, I figured the weather was bad enough to give the Computrainer a try. First impression: very nice. I still have a lot to learn about the programs, but I can tell that it will be a great tool to keep me in shape through the harsh winters here.

Earlier in the year I didn’t think I was going to be able to do this race because I knew I was moving to Great Lakes, IL for my first staff physician assignment. When I found out I didn’t need to report until September 30, I quickly signed up and planned to move after the race. The race was on Sunday, September 11.

We had packed out our house on Thursday, the same day that all of San Diego County and many surrounding areas were hit with a massive power outage. Fortunately I had made hotel reservations 30 minutes prior to the power outage. To experience a large blackout was a bit eerie. Our dependence on power for food, water, gas, and most aspects of our nocturnal living (television and lights) became very obvious.

For those that are not familiar with the Superfrog Triathlon, it is one of the oldest triathlons. It is put on by the Navy SEALs and has a couple aspects that add to the difficulty of the race. The swim has two surf entries and exits with a beach run of a couple hundred meters at the midway point. The bike, although very flat is usually faced with high winds on the Silver Strand. The run includes running on the beach. There have been several courses for Superfrog over the years, and this was a brand new one starting at the Advanced SEAL Training base on the southern end of the Strand. The run included 6.5 miles of beach running, but the majority of that was along the water where the sand is wet and smoothed from the receding waves. There was only about ¼ mile of soft sand running.

I set up my transition as soon as it opened up. The lighting was great, and there were bike racks designated by wave. I was in the 4^th of 5 waves. John Czajkowski parked his bike next to me. I hadn’t met him before, but found out he was a fan of this blog, and was also my biggest age group competitor. I had a lot of friends racing, which was cool since this was my last race before leaving San Diego. The race has the feel of being a big deal, and also the feel of a small local race where a lot of familiar faces show up.

When my wave started, some of the swimmers from the first wave had already started their second lap. I got through the surf rather unscathed and felt very relaxed. My first surf exit seemed to happen during a pause in the waves. I couldn’t even get a good push from the waves. I was very pleased though to find out I was the first in my wave out of the water and Steve Hazlett was right behind me. Other times I’ve raced against Steve he’s been ahead of me on the swim, but I knew my swim had been doing pretty well lately with about 10,000 yards/week of Master’s swim practice. During the second surf entry I kept an eye on Steve’s position, then I got hit and tumbled by a wave. Uggghhh. Steve was ahead! Then I saw a wave hit Steve and he was back to where he was before. I picked up the pace a bit and on the second surf exit had a couple good pushes from waves. I just couldn’t seem to catch a wave, but even a little surge is nice to have.

Heading to T1

The transition area had a very rough surface. I had staged my flip-flops just outside the transition area so that I could use them to run in with. I thought it was a good idea, but so did a lot of people. There were flip-flops everywhere. A quick transition and I was off on the bike.

The initial part of the bike was on a small rough road that I just cruised on to catch my breath, get my shoes on, and grab a sip of water. As soon as I hit the Strand it was on. I held an iso-power of 280 Watts throughout the bike course. I was surprised when I flew by Matt Dixon. I had to raz him a little. The race wouldn’t be the same without it. Matt started 5 minutes ahead of me, so I knew I had 5 minutes on him at that point. Matt has been running much faster than I, but I thought if I continue to build that lead I might just beat him. I wanted to make him regret doing that VO2 Max workout two days prior. His reasoning was that Superfrog was a ‘training day’ for Kona. I wanted to make that reasoning an excuse for me crushing him.

The high winds didn’t show up this year on the bike. There was still some wind, but it was much more mild that I had expected. I was very pleased with my ability to hold 280 watts throughout the race. The goal power is always easy to hold initially, but once fatigue kicks in it becomes much more challenging.

When I finished the bike I didn’t see a single bike in for any of the waves except the first. I was surprised that I already had 10 minutes on everyone in wave 2, and 5 minutes on wave 3. I generally do not wear socks in triathlons, but because of the sand running I thought it might be a good idea to wear some. I’m not so sure anymore because it slowed my transition time a lot and I’m not sure it helped my run at all.

I started my run and along the beach I saw Tommy Brown about 2 miles ahead of me on the beach. Tommy was in wave 1, so that gave me 15 minutes, but I knew he was a much better runner than me so I figured that race was over. It wasn’t much longer when Matt Dixon flew saying “5 minutes?” I think I was more surprised by that then when I had passed him on the bike. Matt was running so quick I was thinking “crap, I really need to pull this run together”. My run was okay, but not as quick as I was hoping for. Although my training had been really good for several months and I saw a lot of improvement in each of the three disciplines, my running speed hadn’t returned to where I know it can be. When I started my second lap I was surprised once more. Tommy was still just 2 miles ahead of me! And he wasn’t looking so fresh. I was still lucid enough to do a quick calculation and realize I might have a chance at beating him. I found a little more umph within myself. Although I was pushing myself much harder for the second lap, my splits were 49:48 and 50:21. Again, I am pretty pleased with the even pacing.

Matt, Kona ready and finishing Superfrog – First age grouper overall

The festivities after the race were great too: meeting with a lot of friends, enjoying sunny San Diego, and getting cool handmade trophies. Click here for full results.

Matt and I with our First Place (age group) trophies

The very next day was my trek to Illinois. Although I got in a few runs during the traveling it was good to take some time off. For the past month my workouts have been rather unstructured, trying to learn about our new area. It’s been fun with mountain biking, pace line riding, commuting by bike, rowing, trainer workouts, and running. I already ran a marathon and did a 108 mile training ride.

Thanks for reading.

Even though I say the results seem a bit pathetic, I actually have had some great breakthroughs. During my last track workout, the final 400 meter repeat I did at 1:21, about 7 seconds faster than I’ve done on any 400 meter run this year. On 8/8 I set a new best 2 minute power at 475 Watts, during a 3 minute interval. My previous best was 461 Watts on 9/22/2009. That’s right, two years ago! On 8/20/2011 I set a new best 5 minute power at 412 Watts, the previous being 409 Watts set on 8/1/2011. Also, I’ve started swimming up a lane, with a 1:20 base instead of the 1:25 base that I had been swimming. Although the progress I’ve seen is slowing down, it is still there. Now that Superfrog is so close, it’s not so much about setting new PR’s in training, but preparing mentally for the race and feeling just rested enough to race hard.

Distances: Swim 500 m, Bike 30 Km, Run 5 Km

This was my third consecutive year competing in this race. I had registered Molly and me for it in 2008, but I ended up having to work that day and missed the race. For the next year I got to hear from Molly what a great race it was, how huge the waves were and her experience with being flipped and pinned underwater in the surf. In 2009 I was not feeling particularly fresh, but ended up having a great race. It was an exciting year because the military went off in the first wave and I took the lead about 5 miles into the bike and held it to break the finish tape. There ended up being two pros there that year that started in later waves and actually beat my overall time, so I placed third. My 2010 race I was passed in the run by John Hatala to finish 6^th overall. My 2010 race report is here.

I was really looking forward to doing this race. It is my prep race for the Superfrog Triathlon on September 11. The race also served as a test for my current racing and readiness to race since I can compare the results. Remarkably, the conditions were really pretty similar between the past three races. It is cool and overcast in the morning, but by time the run starts the marine layer has burned off and it is hot out. The surf there is always big. This year there seemed to be more current than I remember, and although the waves didn’t seem as big I was hammered by them this year.

Arrival and Warm Up

This year I arrived a bit later than the previous two years. I immediately went and set up my transition area, where there were already a fair number of bikes. In 2009 my warm up consisted of trying to ride around in the parking area and then doing a short run. Since there really wasn’t a place to ride to warm up, in 2010 I brought my trainer and did a warm up on my road bike, with a short run after. This year I decided to keep it simple. I did a total of about 2 miles of running between my truck, the transition area, and the porta-potties. I didn’t bring any food or water with me, so I was pleased to see that they had some Gatorade available at the registration/finish area. A couple small cups of Gatorade at about 7:30 and I knew I was good for the race. I was in the 9^th wave, so with a race start of 8:00, I didn’t get going until 8:40. I spent almost an hour watching the different waves fight the surf and current, and I spent the rest of my warm up with a few surf entries and exits.

Swim

Even though I am in much better swimming shape than the previous two years, I didn’t feel my swim went particularly well. The current was swift, but during my warm up I noticed that the stronger swimmers weren’t affected a lot by it. The weaker swimmers just couldn’t get through the surf quick enough to avoid getting swept past the buoys, so once they managed to get through the surf they had to back track. On the way out I took one wave hard, which totally knocked me back. The only thing to do though is to get going again and try to get under the next wave. I ended up sweeping around the buoy a bit wide, where I saw a couple swimmers from my wave were able to cut in front of me. The next stretch was parallel to the beach, where I was sitting on Colonel Harry Constant’s hip. On the way back in Harry and I both got slammed and tumbled by a huge wave that came down on us. All momentum lost, we were both sitting up in the water trying to catch our breath and shaking off the dizziness. Uggghh. I wanted to catch a wave in, not get dunked by one. I came out of the water just in front of Harry, but took my wetsuit off on the beach and entered transition right behind him. My swim spit was 11:02, Harry’s 11:01. We were the first in our wave. The swim is what it is, and different wave starts can be affected differently because of the timing of the waves and the current. There isn’t much you can do about that. Here is a summary of my swim splits:

T1

When I exit the water and am running to the transition area I start unzipping and pulling down my wetsuit. Once I get it pulled down to my waist, if there is still a decent amount of running to do I will finish pulling of my wetsuit. This allows for me to run without the resistance of the suit, but also gives me plenty of room to deal with getting the suit off. Sometimes transition areas can be tight, and fumbling with a wetsuit in a tight space isn’t that great. The downside to doing this is there was a lot of sand to run through, and pulling the wetsuit off after running through the sand would have pulled a lot of that sand off. I ended up with caked sand on my feet throughout the bike and run. After getting to my bike I dropped the wetsuit, and put on my shoes while I was putting on my helmet. These take about the same amount of time. After seeing people really mess up trying to jump on their bike with their shoes already in the pedals I started doing this and it doesn’t really seem to slow me down much. If anything, I feel I get situated on my bike a lot quicker and am ready to start hammering sooner.

Kudos to 15 year old Steven Emerson with a 42 second T1!

Bike

Although I like to think of ‘triathlon’ as my specialty, I’m credited by others by my performance on the bike. With the fastest bike split of the day, 50 seconds under pro-triathlete Heather Jackson, and 1:18 under the next male (39 year old Chris Masilon), I guess the evidence is that I’m strongest on the bike. With my FTP currently set at 337, and knowing that the bike leg would be about 45 minutes long, I tried to keep my power at 320-340. There are a few short climbs where I decided I would push over them at around 400 Watts. Last year I was flying by everyone on the bike, but the climbs I kept my power lower and a few people briefly passed me. Not really a big deal, but after the finish someone came up to me and congratulated me on my fast run (which actually sucked) because he had ‘passed’ me on the bike. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had started 30 minutes after him, and he didn’t come anywhere near passing me. The reason why I surged up the hills this year wasn’t to avoid that awkward discussion, but to just get over the hill and not spend time creeping up it. I had done 400+ Watts for 5 minutes, so I knew I would likely benefit overall from this little effort and then recover on the descents. As it turned out, my peak 30 second power was 442 Watts, and peak 1 minute power was 386 Watts. I probably could have ridden a little bit harder up the hills, but there is the danger of going anaerobic, where too many matches are burned and it costs you dearly in any efforts later in the race. Below are the splits, average power, and normalized power:

These results provide great information. Notice in 2009 that my AP and NP were the same. The Normalized Power is a calculation that gives an indication of what Average Power the rider ‘likely’ could have done. It takes into consideration low power efforts such as coasting, which drastically lowers the Average Power. Wit AP=NP, this tells me that my power didn’t fluctuate much. In 2010 there was a 6 Watt difference, and in 2011 a 9 Watt difference. The larger difference this year with a much faster time indicates to me that although I didn’t hold my power as even, I raced more tactically and it paid off. Higher efforts up hill, and lower efforts downhill. The minimal difference in the Normalized Power over the past three years is actually good news to me too. I had strong bike legs in 2009 and 2010, and I’ve been struggling to get back into shape this year. Although I would have loved to had crushed my power output from 2009 and 2010, getting back to that level is pretty satisfying. Beating my 2009 split by 1:13 is just freaking awesome.

T2

I rolled into T2 without shoes on. I felt that I spent more time than usual in getting my shoes on. My feet were caked with sand, so I tried knocking some of it off. That was futile. Then I made sure I put my shoes on snugly because I have had some problems with chaffing. Grabbing my race belt, I was off to see what I could do on the run.

Run

I’m getting tired of saying, but my running has been on steady decline over the past 3.5 years or so. During the past couple months though I’ve seen steady improvement that has me rather stoked. It isn’t where I think it needs to be, but I also think it will continue to improve for some time. The run starts up a long ramp that is the only hill on the run course. I just tried to focus on keeping a nice quick cadence, and kept trying to focus on relaxing my traps since I tend to tense up and hunch my shoulders. During the entire bike I had been flying by people, without a single person coming close to passing me. On the run I was doing the same thing. Once I hit the top of the ramp I saw someone ahead of me that I thought was running a fairly swift pace. It’s actually kind of tough to run fast when everyone around is running much slower, so I was excited to have someone to chase. I caught him rather quickly though, and he tried to hold on, but that only last about 5 seconds. I really just had to keep reeling in each person I saw ahead of me. Below are my Average Pace and Normalized Graded Pace for each mile for 2010 and 2011. I forgot to grab my Garmin in 2009, so I don’t have those splits.

Although my run was slower this year, I was very pleased with it. It feels like it has been a long time since I run anywhere near that pace.

Finish!

The race finish was awesome I rolled around the final corner and John Hatala (who wasn’t racing this year) was cheering for me, then I could hear Molly yelling for me. Both of them made me feel that someone I wasn’t aware of was on my tail, so I got a great final kick in (hence the 4:45 pace). Molly said later that since I’m 40+ pounds heavier than the athletes I was flying by I looked like a freight train. Here is a photo she grabbed at the finish:

Because of the wave starts, I had no idea how I finished. I decided to go grab my bike and gear out of transition, and ended up wasting a bit too much time down there chatting with people. Brian Long started telling me how the timing officials asked him if Heather Jackson’s time could be legit, because she finished over a minute ahead of the first male. He said now that they knew her time was good they were going to do the awards. I knew I needed to hurry up then, so I hustled up to put my bike in my truck and heard them announce that they were about to present the overall awards. I ran over to the posted results, bummed to see that my name wasn’t on the overall list. Then I noticed it wasn’t on the results at all. I went up to the timing tent, behind Mark Salisbury who was stating that his time was posted as 1:32, but he knew it was much faster. About 30 seconds after the awards were given, it became clear what happened. The overall winner, Mark Tripp, and myself had been disqualified for having times ‘too fast’. The assumption was that we had started in earlier swim waves accidentally. Tripp had fixed the problem before the awards presentation, but Salisbury and I didn’t. Our awards were handed out to the 4^th and 5^th overall. It was slightly comical, but still annoying.

Overall there were 1200 registrants, and just under 1000 finishers. Some didn’t start I’m sure, and there were a lot that didn’t finish the swim. Heather Jackson was the only pro there, but Mark Tripp is a well known triathlete in SoCal. I don’t think he is ‘pro’, but he did have a 1:58 finish at Superseal triathlon. I was the first military in, 3:27 under 30 year old Emilio Ramirez.

Today I set a new Personal Best for my 5 minute power. My previous best was 404 watts, done on 6/25/2011 and 9/6/2009. I am planning on doing these intervals again in four weeks, so I’ll have another opportunity to surpass the 409 watt mark.

These intervals are rather timely since Joe Friel just posted on his blog about improving endurance through High Intensity Training (HIT), which he goes on to describe as VO2 Max training. Endurance athletes are limited by their VO2 Max, or the amount of oxygen they are physiologically able to deliver from to their tissues. Age and genetics are definitely factors in how high your VO2 Max can actually be, but HIT has proven to improve you VO2 Max.

For my threshold power (337 Watts), my VO2 Max Zone (Zone 5) is 357-407, which you can see I was at the upper end of. In the wattage group there has been a lot of discussion of how long of interval is ideal for VO2 Max training, 3, 4, or 5 minutes. Longer than 5 minutes is considered too long to be able to hold the VO2 Max power. Shorter than 5 minutes isn’t considered effective either, because the beginning portion of the interval is actually bringing your heart rate up, and you are just warming up to the point of physiologically being at your VO2 Max. The argument then becomes, if it takes 2 minutes to get to your VO2 Max, with a 3 minute interval you are only getting 1 minute at VO2 Max, but with a 5 minute interval you are getting 3 minutes of benefit. It’s interesting to a point how coaches, physiologists, and athletes can argue such points. I do agree though that the longer you can maintain a high power the better. Three minute intervals however should be done at even a higher effort than the 5 minute intervals.

Since at 5 minute intervals I was able to be at the high end of my VO2 Max zone, it makes me wonder if my threshold power is going up. That is the ultimate goal of all this training (whether long or short), so it’s a nice thing to ponder. This coming Saturday is the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon, where I will be able to test my threshold during the 30K bike leg.

For completeness I am posting the last of my 90 second interval set. The results are dismal, but it does show that you can’t have breakthrough workouts every time you want them. A breakthrough workout is essentially one that pushes you beyond what you have already adapted to. These are stressful workouts that provide the stimulus for improvement. Even though I schedule a couple such workouts each week, the breakthrough sometimes cannot be planned. You just have to be ready for it by giving what you have at the time, and occasionally you’ll achieve that higher power output, or faster pace. During this workout I was experiencing a lot of fatigue in my legs. Although I wasn’t able to deliver much, it was still a great workout because I had to try to focus enough to push as hard as I could, and push to just finish the workout.

I had a very similar experience on Tuesday, 7/26, when I tried doing a threshold workout of two 18 minute intervals. My power for the two intervals was 320 and 290, much less than my 337 threshold power. The drill was good, trying to keep the power up even though my legs were fatigued and I was struggling. Interestingly though, later that same day I went and did the TCSD track workout with Jim Vance and had a great workout. Jim’s workouts are fantastic. He really emphasizes the need for flexibility, technique and rapid turnover to run efficiently and fast. Following a long warm up, dynamic stretching and drills, the workout was 12X400 meters with a 100 meter active recovery (very short/incomplete recovery). I struggled to finish, but managed to keep my intervals at 90-95 seconds for the entire workout. This isn’t real fast, but it is the best I’ve been able to do for a long time, and was definitely a breakthrough workout.

Here are the brevets/permanents I’ve done in the past 12 month.

The last two R-12′s were much easier for me to complete than the first one. There were definitely challenges, but I’ve become much more used to the long rides. For now I plan on attempting a fourth R-12. The challenge for this one will be living in Illinois where I’ll probably have to travel during bad weather months, but the adventures should be awesome.

Thanks to all the permanent owners, RBAs and volunteers that have made these great routes available.

Today my best 60 second split was at 493 Watts, better than the 483 Watts I did last week when I was focusing on shorter intervals. My best 90 second split today was even higher, at 494 Watts. I was putting out a lot more power today. I was hurting big time, and as you can see I was fading fast on the second half of the workout. Even though the second half felt horrible, the power was pretty close to what I was doing the first day I did these intervals.

If I just look at the first half of my intervals today, compared to the best four intervals on 9/23, the averages are 482 vs. 437, a 10% improvement!

Next week will be 90 second speed intervals. This will be the last of 90 second intervals, and then I’ll be moving on to something different.

Distance: 200K

Route: San Diego to Dana Point and back

Today was the scheduled San Clemente 200K Brevet, put on by San Diego Randonneurs. Since Jim’s killer was found guilty this week, and the route went by where Jim was struck, it was very fitting to do this brevet in memory of Jim Swarzman. There was a good turnout for the early start ride (5:30 AM), and we were given memorial bracelets. I really think of Jim frequently, so I don’t need a bracelet to remind me that, but I still like the bracelet. I hope it provides me the opportunity to share Jim’s successes in life, and the tragedy that happened. It’s a message that people need to understand, whether they are cyclists of any variety and/or a motorist.

Molly has been back on the bike now for about a month now. After the accident in October (right after we got back from Kona) where she was run off the road into a parked car, she had a lot of knee and shoulder pain. Fortunately her knee is fine now, but her shoulder kept causing her a lot of pain so she took a long break from riding. Come to find out she has a labral tear, that will not heal with rest or rehab, so she is having surgery in a couple weeks. With that knowledge she decided to get back on the bike and in after last weekend’s ride she decided to give the 200K a shot. She did great, with a time just under 8 hours and 30 minutes!

I had already planned on doing the brevet on my time trial bike to get time in the aerobars, and to see if I could set a new PR for a 200K (currently 6:37). I figured I should be able to get under 6:30 at least, but ended up with an official time of 6:45. After reviewing my Garmin file though I noted that we actually started a little late, because my time was 6:40, total ride time was 6:17. The route was coastal which means there are a lot of lights and stop sign. I did opt to not ride on the I-5 though and went through Camp Pendleton in both directions, which definitely added time, and possibly a little distance. I ended up clocking 129 miles.

Time is an okay metric, but overall doesn’t mean that much when you can have power. I was hoping for a high power for the first three hours. I thought of comparing it to some of my best long rides.

Normalized Power for First 3 Hours (Rides were from 5-7+ hours in duration total)

I was hoping today to generate closer to 280 watts. One difference was that I didn’t really have anyone on my heels today as I did on the other rides. The aerobars felt good, and I am getting a good sense that I can hammer for 2+ hours in them pretty well at Superfrog on 9/11. There isn’t a lot of climbing along the coast, about 4200 feet of elevation gain today, but I tried to push fairly hard up the hills. There were many times that I wanted to give up the push before the summit, so I kept reminding myself of Jen Voigt: