I'm on the road tomorrow morning to get some racing on. All the PMC data will be delayed a couple days. I'll post a cell phone entry post race on Thursday, but won't be able to update PMC values.

See you in a week!

Looking forward, the weather at Kunisaki looks like this:


Full route map here:
http://www.magnalox.net/log/no.php?fmt=g&lid=12136

Full route profile with some of the climb information annotated here (the full size image is around 1mb, right click and open in new tab):


I sat down last night to work out some of the route information from last year's GPS track. My perception of the course is a bit skewed. I rode this course last year for the first time. I'd only really "ridden" seriously on the road bike for about 6-7 months. I was putting in 200-250 km per week at the time. I was 20-25 lbs heavier, so all of the hills seemed especially steep. My nutrition was seriously lacking so by the time I got to the 100km mark, I had to stop at a checkpoint for about 20 minutes and ingest mass quantities of food. All in all, I finished last year at 5 hrs 23 minutes as the 51st rider to come across the line.

So, since I didn't really get to pre-ride the course this month like I'd planned, I pulled out the GPS log and did a bunch of paper math to figure out % gradients and how fast things moved along for comparison. What this did for me was gave me a huge boost in confidence actually. At first I looked at those first 5-6 hills and thought, crap this is going to hurt. Now, I know that the first 5-6 hills are going to hurt. The upside is that by looking at how fast I was doing those hills last year, I know they're going to hurt for a much shorter period of time.

Hill 1 last year is where the pack basically disintegrated into "serious riders" (who all disappeared up the road in front of me) from the recreational riders. It's going to last about 10 minutes. At this point the strategy is to keep contact with the front. I don't foresee any challenges here.

Hills 2-5 are all especially short. If you took the hills on their own, they'd probably hurt a lot more. But looking at last year's file we were hitting the base of these hills at 55-70 kph. So the trick to hills 2-5 is to maintain momentum through the bottom and push all the way through the top.

Hill 2: about 3 minutes
Hill 3: about 5 minutes
Hill 4: about 1.5 minutes
Hill 5: about 4 minutes

The whole portion that makes up hill 6 and it's following rollers last around 6 minutes at most.

Hill 7, while it looks like a hill on paper, is really just a long gradual climb. Last year in the "middle of the pack" we climbed it at 34 kph. Hill 7 all the way through the top of hill 8 took 25 minutes @ 30 kph.

Likewise, Hill 9 is a long steady, no-pain (well.. almost no pain) climb until the last hair pin turn cranking over the mountain that makes up the Kunisaki peninsula. Then it's downhill to the coast. I remember that final hill/turn and descent. Screaming fast descent, great fun.

Then it's just a matter of hanging out with the bunch around the north and eastern portions of coastline. There are a handful of "rollers" along the coastline. Once we get to the airport on the eastern coast of the peninsula, I imagine the pace will have either picked up or will pick up as it's flat/downhill to the finish for the next 25ish kilometers.

My goals for this race:
1. As always, rubber side down the whole race.
2. No mechanical failures.
3. Top 10 finish.
4. Assist Masaki in winning the overall.

This will require me being able to stick through all the initial climbing. I think I'll be good with this. My legs climb well enough to stick, and there's a lot of road to cover after the last major climb for a climber to be able to get completely away from the pack alone.

This time I won't be riding unaffiliated. Masaki and I will be in contention for the overall. That will provide some team protection. Either way, I need to make sure I stay out of the wind. Reminder to myself... no obligation to work for anyone but Masaki and I.

With that in mind..... taper began today. Set another personal best 5 second power as well as personal best raw wattage peak power. Went to the gym and had the RMR tested accurately (resting metabolic rate... that's the number of calories you burn in a day if you layed in bed all day). She said it was the highest she'd tested so far, by 800 calories per day! The test showed 2470 calories per day just to survive. The test was done on the Cosmed Fitmate (Info Here) which is supposed to be pretty accurate. I'm going to go back one more time next month after Kunisaki to see how it compares.

I'm right at 77 kg right now. Maintenance mode means I need to consume anywhere from 3500-4000 calories per day to maintain weight. I'm finding it's A LOT harder to maintain than lose or gain.

VW

The countdown is on in full force now. At posting, there are only 11 days left until Kunisaki.

This was an extremely long week of bike woes and training challenges.

After completing the group training race last week, my legs were completely spent. By the time I rolled out of bed Monday morning, I decided to try to work some of the gunk out of my legs by doing some easy spinning around the base. I did just over an hour, but didn't really accomplish much gunk cleaning.

I got on the bike again on Tuesday and wow was I still stiff. It just seemed the powertap readings were extremely low for what my perceived exertion ("PE") was telling me I should be at. I biked up to Ueki's and while I was there I changed out the hub batteries, hoping that would fix the problem. By the time I was finishing my 3 hours of L1 riding, I was still thinking the readings were off.

I got out my manual and hit the diagnostics. Here's the snapshot of my powertap SL computer on test screen six:



This screen should read on the middle line right around 512. Mine... not so much. I hit the net and found out that regardless, provided the torque zeroing is completed properly (which means when the wheel is spinning, no pedaling, the bottom line matches the center line), the power readings should still be correct.

I pulled a few powerfiles up and confirmed times/power readings from hills that I did on Tuesday were similar to what I've done before. For now, disaster averted. Probably going to end up buying a PT pro if even to just purchase/resell while the PT SL goes to get repaired.

Wednesday was 4 hours of L1/L2 riding. Coldest day in 3 weeks. Temps never made 50 degrees AND it had to rain pretty nicely on me. I even left the house at 6 am in hopes of beating it, but by 6:30am, it was raining. Power readings continued to look spot on in power file analysis.

Thursday was sprint day, and I clocked a personal best 5 second power. Only by a handful of watts, so nothing to write home to the folks about. BUT.... for me, any increase in 5 second power is a good thing.

Then came Thursday night. I had picked up a set of brake cables/casings and shifter cables/casings to do some long needed replacements. Not wanting to pull the handlebar tape off, I decided to do just the shift cables for now. Front derailleur cable, no big deal. I start working on the rear derailleur cable and find that the casing tip is stuck in the "chainstay cable stop." No worries, I didn't know the technical term either. Here's a picture of what I'm talking about (not my bike):



So, I grab the needle nose pliers and start working the casing end cap out. Then it happens. *POP* The cable stop is in the pliers, no longer attached to the bike. The cable stop is supposed to be connected to the chainstay by a pair of tiny rivets. There's obvious rust on one of the two rivets holding the stop to the frame, but that doesn't solve anything. At this point, the bike is unrideable. No cable stop means no rear derailleur shifting.

I've written a note to Specialized to seek warranty service for this problem. There's no reason that pulling an end cap out of the cable stop should break that thing off. Ueki is checking with the Specialized distributor here in Japan as well. But, all of this doesn't solve the problem really. It will take weeks or more to get a new frame here if I can get warranty replacement/service. So, in the meantime, I took some good ol' fashioned ingenuity and worked out this:



The cable stop still has some portions of the original rivets that allow it to "seat" in the correct position on the chainstay without sliding. I wrapped some electrical tape in the front of the stop so that if I start to see some wrinkling, I know the cable stop is sliding. Then, I took some old computer mount rubber, just the right width and wrapped the hose clamp around it. (The rubber is to protect the carbon chainstay all the way around).

So far so good. I have the screw "flat head" horizontal so I can see if the screw is starting to back itself out at all. I rode power intervals on Saturday and today I completed a 5 hr, 161 km L1/L2 ride and so far no sliding or shifting problems. Hopefully in the next two days, when Specialized US offices open, I will get an email back about warranty service.

What a week! Today marks the 20th straight day on the bike. Tomorrow is the full body massage/day off. Finally!

All this and after today my CTL is at it's highest point of the year so far (128) - probably the highest it will see for a couple months as I do some shorter, more intense work before I start the taper to Kunisaki.

First, I'll start with my excuses. Here's my training info from the 2nd week of April:

7 Day TSS: 1071.9 (over 150/day)
Accumulated Hours: 18.98
Accumulated Distance: 596.05 km (~373 miles for the metrically challenged)

Power zone breakdown:
Active recovery 2hr 56min
Endurance 5hr 28min
Tempo 4hr 8min
Threshold 2hr 11min
VO2max 1hr
Anaerobic capacity 30min

CTL increase 5.15
Went into Sunday morning with a TSB of -14.9 after being in the -15 range for 3 days.

PMC looked like this for the week:


So, I was hurting. But, like any other competitive cyclist, that didn't stop me from thinking I could lay the hurt down on my fellow club members Sunday morning.

We gathered up the folks at the front gate of the base Sunday morning to get 2 hours of riding in. The plan was 2 laps of the Energy Awareness 40km race course in as warm up. Next 4 laps would be at race pace, finishing up with a little bit of cool down time. Today's participants: Masaki, Iwami, Kenji, Masada, Suehiro, Jason, Yuko, and Myself.

After getting everything settled in at the picnic area we'd be using, our ride started off at around 10:15am. We did some easy spinning around the course for the folks that weren't familiar with the layout. After the first lap and a half, Suehiro kicked in the pace so he, Jason, and I did some attacking practice. After all, the point of today's group riding was to get race practice in. Suehiro is extremely competitive so it takes a llot of work to put the hurt on him. Jason also showed us a side today we hadn't really seen. He may have been hurting in some of the mountain group rides we did, but he had fantastic form on the flat roads on base.

We finished the second warm up lap and joined up with the rest of the group to begin "the race." We weren't even a full lap in and the pace was high enough that we'd dropped Kenji, Masada and Iwami from the lead group. Jason was schooling us on power on the flats and the slight incline that takes you out around the airfield. He was definitely on his "A" game Sunday.

After a second lap, and some hard increases in pace, Suehiro wasn't able to hang and he dropped off. To be perfectly honest, I was already missing a pull here and there at the pace we were setting as I was definitely feeling the pain building in the legs. We rounded our second lap and as we were passing Suehiro going the other way, I motioned for him to turn and get on my wheel. I figured I'd bring him back into the four of us and see how he did. Jason and Masaki were relentless and pushed the pace just as hard as they had been, making me work pretty hard to get back on their wheels. After about 3 minutes of completely anaerobic effort I was back on the wheels of our lead group. I pulled Suehiro into third wheel and settled on the back to get some air.

We rounded the end of lap 3 as a group of 4 and determined what we would call the finish line. Once we got a collective agreement, we were off again. We passed the end of the runway about 3 minutes later and Jason laid on the gas - he was off. I jumped to get across to him and grabbed his wheel. Masaki crept back on - at which point I should have jumped and attacked. I didn't and pulled through and tapped off. This quickly we dropped Suehiro out the back. I mentally was done already. I'd half determined to let the other two go and fight it out.

We rounded the mainside section and started back out to the finish line with Masaki and Jason on the front. Today this was a straight on headwind/quartering cross wind so we hung tight in a semi-echelon with Jason laying on the tempo. He was keeping tempo high enough that in the wind there'd be no way we could jump around him.

We came around the end of the runway, hung the right hand turn that takes you out to the harbor. This was where I was going to jump. I stood up to go on Jason's left but he took the corner wide and I got pinched on the outside against the gutter. Masaki immediately jumped and took off. I had to back off and jump around Jason on his right. In less than 10 pedal strokes my body said, "No more." I motioned to Jason and told him I was spent. But Masaki was 100 yards off now and in a steady pace. The "race" was over.

The numbers for the day were so abysmally low for me I won't even bother posting. Certainly no personal bests and all in all a disappointing effort. I was pretty frustrated with the lack of energy in my legs, but I suppose that's why you rest after long weeks.

I got the bike out today for an unscheduled easy spin around the base. I mulled over the race yesterday and thought about some of the tactics with just the three of us up front. Mostly, I just let the legs spin on the pedals without asking much of them but to get the blood flowing. Another two more weeks of hard work before tapering for Kunisaki. I need cooperation from the legs and the bike, and today was my plea to both of them to keep cooperating.

So, as the weeks finish out to the Tour de Kunisaki, I want to make sure the blog is fully up and running the way I want it to be. Last year I set this up so I could send myself emails from my cell phone at a special address, then viewers could check here for blog entries.

Tonight is the first real attempt at making the thing work. I should be able to type out the blog entry on my laptop, drop it over to my Vodafone cell phone and send it away to the blog site. For now, the RSS feed will not update and I do not have any intentions of setting that up right away. We will see how that works out for a little bit.

Additionally, astute readers will notice that my site title has changed slightly. Formerly, the blog was called Cycling in Iwakuni. Well, as of the middle of last week plans have finalized for a move out of Japan back to the motherland, US of A. Sometime in mid to late December we will uproot the family and take them back to the Washington D.C. area where I hope to continue my cycling exploits.

I am looking forward to working out the schedule for next year and figuring out which races to participate in. There are some great hill climbs, with the Wintergreen Ascent (Virginia Hill Climb Championship) at the top of the list. There are some great road races in Virginia, and the D.C. area has some great criteriums and road races as well.

This is hoping all of this works like it is supposed to! I am sending this from my cell phone tonight to double check functionality.

Here is ride info from today. Gorgeous ride down and around Oshima Island. Got back to Iwakuni a little early so I did a lap around the base to round off the time closer to 4 hrs. Pretty close!