Readers, forgive me... it's been 2 weeks since my last confessional.. er.. blog entry.

So, one would think there has been loads of things going on, right? RIGHT! The house was in chaos, the body was in chaos, the kids were in chaos... it was all.. well. It was all a mess.

Over the last two weeks my riding has been all over the place. I've had good days and bad days, and then the bad days started to string themselves together and I just plummeted on my riding. We're in the process of moving, and the last week or so has been all about getting the house organized for moving trucks to come and take all our stuff to the other side of the world again. Top that off with children who are still learning how to time manage and get large homework projects done, and a semi-busy work schedule. You can quickly find out that performance on the bike is dependent on more than just the numbers of a performance management chart, or the scheduled workout for the day. Mental stress, life stress, and all the rest of the things that go into a mood make a huge impact.

Long story short, I pulled back on my training load and gave myself a break. It had to be done for my sanity if not for my body. The amazing thing is, I was cruising along in workouts like it was cool. My log entries for my rides were consistently:













Then... WHAM, the next day it was like I woke up on someone else's legs. I bailed the next day's workout at 45 minutes into a 2 hr hammer session, spun easy on the way home. The day after that was scheduled to be 3 hrs with API's, and I ended up riding a total of 1 hour. So, I made the decision that now was the time to transition. Finished off last week with all easy riding so I could concentrate on things at home. Felt better mentally and physically.

I took the week off from really tracking any numbers. I stopped weighing all the foods and micromanaging the diet. I flipped the powertap over to overall avg watts when riding and stopped chasing that power number so much. A week later and I feel worlds better. This week already started off with two great rides. I get to race what will probably be my last race in Japan on Sunday. AND... to top it all off. I'm on vacation until the end of December when I get ready to fly back to the states. One month of stress free riding and family time. Gotta love it!

Ride safe, ride often, ride fun.

VW

It's November, right? For those like me who don't have the option (or necessarily the desire - like me) to race cyclocross in November, what does that leave us? Base miles.

For readers that may not be familiar with what "base miles" are, let me introduce you to what "base season" is generally considered. Let it be known that "base" may be called different things by different people. Endurance, Aerobic, LSD (not the drug, but the training style). They're all really the same in intent.

A person's physiology is typically geared toward certain levels of fitness. For cycling, what will typically makes a "great cyclist" great (if not drugs!), is their body's natural/genetic and trained aerobic fitness. Road cycling is an aerobic sport - there's just no getting around it. Even the best sprinters in road racing have to have a "base" of aerobic fitness. After all, if the sprinter can't get to the end of the 100 mile race, their fast twitch muscle fibers won't win them any races.

So, all cyclists start with establishing an aerobic base to build their training program around. Building this aerobic takes the most time of any of the physiological adaptations. Aerobic base is a person's ability to pedal, pedal, pedal for long periods of time without tapping into muscle fibers that are going to take a long time to recover. Aerobic base is the ability to recover the cardiovascular system after extended efforts so that you can do it all over again. Aerobic base, plain and simple, is staying power.

So... two questions:

1. How does one get an aerobic base?

2. How does one know if they're building an aerobic base properly?

The answer to question one is battled around all over the internet forums, mailing lists, and volumes of books for cyclists to decipher at this time of year. What I've come to believe is that you build your aerobic base all year long just by riding a lot of miles at a STEADY intensity which allows you enough recovery to continue riding at those intensities on a day-to-day basis. During racing season, it's an intensity that allows you to recover well enough to ride race level intensity. This time of year for most everyone, it can be a bit higher. That's because you're not going to be doing those 1-2 minute intervals day in/day out that require a completely fresh body.

So, the simple answer... "ride lots!" (Thanks Eddy) That works if you have lots of time to ride. Fact is, if you don't have lots of time to ride, then as the available riding time reduces, your intensity should increase slightly (and still steady riding) to compensate as well as possible for the reduced time.

The answer to question 2? Well, you may/may not find out that answer until spring time when racing starts again. But for those of us training with power, there are things that I've come to look for that help me know how my aerobic base is doing. This happens to be one area where you can actually use that heart rate data you're getting.

I think this year, I've done pretty well at building a substantial aerobic base. I can set my legs into endurance zone pedaling and ride for hours upon hours. Drop me into a paceline and I can last virtually indefinitely (food, water, and saddle sores not withstanding).

My aerobic recovery has really come around. I finished a hill climb yesterday after 30 minutes up hill. Tempo pace ~ 310 watts, 10 minute ~335 with a "climb topper" of 1 minute just below 400 watts. I capped off the climb at around 174 bpm on the heart rate monitor. Just under 2 minutes into the descent my heart rate was below 110 bpm - which is essentially a "complete recovery" aerobically.

So... at the end of my dissertation and self-congratulations, the question still remains from the post title. Why are base miles fun? They are fun, because you can get out on the roads and cover some fun distances at a solid, steady speed - and if the winds are just right, fly along quite nicely.





Main session of the workout was just above 36 kph for a little over 2 hours, avg 270ish watts. Great day in the saddle. Great, great day.

With 320 km to go by Saturday for this week's road time, all I can say is: Base miles are FUN!

Happy 232nd Birthday to the US Marine Corps!

After a week of riding, it appears my knee is back to around 95% capable now. It's still a bit sore if I try to work it too hard, and climbing stairs can be a little painful. Fortunately, I'm addicted to about the only sport other than swimming that lets me keep training without real impact to the joint.

I backed off the training week a little and got some easy riding in this week to recover the knee and that seemed to work well. I still rounded out at just over 16 hrs of riding and 550 kilometers:

- Tuesday I was very sore, and I only got about 1 hr 30 min of spinning done, a real low IF of .67.

- Wednesday I stuck to the flats on the coastline, did a little bit of SST and then kept endurance/tempo on the return trip. IF .785 and ended the ride early at 1hr 50 min. The knee was feeling better, but I couldn't stand on the pedals.

- Thursday by the time I got on the bike, the knee was loads better and it felt good to get a workout in. I did 1 solid hour of SST (around IF .89), and followed it with another hour of low Zone 2 riding (IF .77)

- Friday I thought I'd try to get the API/VO2max workout in that I missed earlier in the week. I dropped over to a new hill that I hadn't done intervals on before. It's a good steady 7-8% climb, but it only lasts around 3 1/2 minutes. I only got 4 intervals done @ 1:1 recovery before my legs said it was over. I finished off with just over 2 hrs of Zone1 riding with a bit of climbing for fun.

- Saturday: Today was a great ride in fantastic weather. Temps were a chilly 10C on the way out of the house, but the sun warmed it up nicely and by the time I was done I'd stripped the arm warmers (woulda stripped the leg warmers but was running out of pockets). Great 4 hours in the saddle with only a hint of stiffness in the knee as a reminder to SPIN! DON'T MASH!

Tomorrow is a complete day off, and I figure by Monday I should have no remnants of the knee pains. It's probably also better to have a day off tomorrow after we attend the US Marine Corps Ball tonight. Riding hard after a night at the ball is a recipe for a very long, torturous ride.

I'm also working on putting on a bit of weight. The weight had settled into the 74kg range, and it just started to feel "tapped out." I'm going to try to creep the weight back to around 76kg and slowly bring it back down to 75 again. We'll see how that goes.

Semper Fi and Safe Riding,
VW

First, a note. My previous post "Let's take a ride" mentioned leaving the base and driving through "locust fields." I was apparently not thinking about what I was writing, as the fields of vegetation south of the Iwakuni Base are not covered with locust. Locust would be a swarming type of grasshopper featured in the 10 plagues of Egypt (specifically number 8) in Exodus Chap 10.



The fields would actually be filled with LOTUS. The lotus flower is a plant which is almost entirely edible. To learn more about the lotus flower, readers (and I!) can wander over to http://www.khandro.net/nature_plants_lotus.htm



And now... some quick training updates:

The 3rd of November is the "28 day" mark of the new season's training plan. My average TSS/day for the first 28 days is around 146 right now. My CTL has nudged it's way into the 140's a couple times, and Sunday it peaked out at 142.03 - my all time high. I'm certainly gaining some PE changes in my efforts in all ranges.

My L1 work feels almost "recovery like" when riding in the 240s at the lop of L1, so I tend to ride 250-260 for most of that time.

My "L2" riding used to be normalized in the upper 260's-low 270's for 2-3 hours of tempo riding. I use normalized here as a comparison because I usually take the L2 chance to get short/steep rollers into the workout and the ups and downs really throw average power around. I'm normalizing in the 280's pretty consistently now.

My MIET/SST workouts have been feeling fantastic. I'm seeing a good slide in power distribution on that as well into the 310-320 range. This week's main session was 2 hours right at 90% of threshold and it was definitely not "all out" at the end of 2 hours to get it done.

This week's VO2max workout was a complete mess, but that doesn't discourage me much. My 4-5 minute interval power has gone from 380-400 6 months ago up to 420 now when I'm fresh enough to get them done. I'm actually learning to love the pain in 4 minute intervals.

On to the injury part. Last week I took a route I don't normally ride because of some crazy steep sections of climbing. Well, the leaves were gorgeous and it was a fantastic weather day for riding into the mountains so I took the chance to head up the side that I would normally go down. Climb, climb, climb and as I round a corner I realize I'm staring at a "wall of a climb" so I push hard to get through. Sign on the down hill side showed 19%, and me on my 39x23 jammed up it in the cadence of 45-46 rpm standing and mashing to move forward:



I rode the rest of the day with a bit of an ache right around the left knee, but nothing major I thought. Thursday was up/down on rollers and the knee had stiffened up. Friday was recovery spinning with sprints and it was stiff, but workable. Saturday, still a bit stiff but I worked through a 3 hour tempo session and thought, "Few, feeling better today." Sunday's schedule had 4 hours of long ride time and I woke up still stiff in the knee. I turned around at 2 hours in and out of pain - sometimes excruciating. The pain comes in the area on the knee in the picture as I push through the top of the pedal stroke and downward. (Yeah, I know - the legs aren't shaved. It's the offseason, I haven't had a good massage in 3 months and I'm riding in leg warmers almost every ride now, give me a break!)



Today is a completely off day, so I'm resting hard with ibuprofen and liniment. Tomorrow was supposed to be a SST training day but if it's still sore, it'll be a second completely off day. If not sore, I'll do some low Z1/recovery time for 90 minutes-2 hrs. Officially this is the first "injury day off" I've had since last December, so I've certainly been blessed. That doesn't make it any less frustrating to be staring at 2 off days in a row, but that's what I get for being an addict.

Finally... the insult. Really, it's not an insult, but it made the title fit. My lack of grasp of the Japanese language prevented me from catching that registration for Tour de Yuu (AKA Zenitsuboyama Hill Climb TT) had already opened with an October 25th deadline. I missed the cut off and hoped that I could get the LBS to sign me up for it using his contacts, but that was unsuccessful as well. So, my plans to compete in the Zenitsuboyama Hill Climb next week are gone. I'll be going up the climb on my own maybe the day before or day after, or.. maybe in December. It's a great chance to get a 20 minute power test in. I'm not really disappointed because I can't physically beat the lightweights up the mountain, but it would have been fun to get a chance to compete there after last year's got cancelled.