Ups and Downs

Here I am back in Arizona. I flew in from Detroit last Monday and picked up a Honeywell trip Thursday through Saturday. While on layover, one of my Facebook friends suggested I do the Arizona State Road Race Championship which took place today June 7. Well, as I crossed the country on Saturday morning I thought about my week's training goals and it dawned on me that doing the road race would have some great training value in addition to experiencing the local scene.

As most of you know, I lost my job at Ford last December and that event pretty much blew up my training. My form is really at base 1 day 1. Last week's effort at West Branch ended in a DNF due to muscle cramps. Since then I have been formulating a plan to deal with this menace for once and for all. The main cause is probably a lack of training but I believe secondary factors could be potassium, calcium or magnesium deficiency. I have been messing around with supplements and diet this last week and the road race would be a great opportunity to see if anything I was doing was effective.

The race was in Globe, AZ which is about 85 miles from my apartment in Fountain Hills. That meant getting up at 3:30 am which really wasn't any problem since I had just spent three days in the eastern time zone. The drive was really cool with the sun coming up over the mountains. There was some really beautiful countryside to look at but the towns were kind of isolated and, well, strange. I really needed a pee-break by the time I hit the little town of Superior, AZ. At just the right time I came upon a rest stop with what looked like a new building containing the bathrooms. When I pulled in I noticed a "CLOSED" sign at the women's bathroom. A Mexican woman charged out and let fly at me:

"The bathrooms are CLOSED!!! Can't you read, C-L-O-S-E-D!! We have had some vandalism and you have to go somewhere else!! Don't you understand? The bathroom is closed!!!"

All this before I moved a foot away from my car. Truth is I began to get some kind of kick out of watching her get more and more stirred up the longer I stood there without saying anything. She never really disengaged from her rant long enough for me to leave anyway. Awesome. As I pulled out another car pulled in and she went right to work on them.

Globe's main feature is a copper (?) mine. Trust me, it's no Scottsdale. The race registration was at the IBEW which didn't have the parking necessary for all the riders so I moved over to a shopping mall nearby. I was pressed for time and was rushing to get ready. After pumping my rear tire I heard a hissing sound. Yep, flatted. I got a new tube in and didn't even have to use a tire lever. I have Michelin's on the bike right now and they are much easier to get on and off than the Vittoria's. I managed to get myself registered, pinned and peed with 10 minutes to go! Pretty typical for me even without kids I guess. Everyone seemed to be in a similar position so the first 5 miles were at an easy warm up pace.

The first climb came at around the 7-8 mile mark. This is where my eyes were opened. Clearly the climbers were bent on shattering the field right away. I normalized 370 watts for 6 minutes to just hang on to the main group. Even at this effort we still couldn't keep the goats with us and a little group got away never to be seen again. That climb was about 1.5 miles and it nearly killed me. If I would have done a little homework on the course I would have turned around right then and there because another climb came up just a 1.5 miles later that was a little slower since the really fast dudes were already gone. This one was only 331 watts for 6.5 minutes.

After finishing these two climbs I figured cramps were definitely on the menu but from here the course was easy. That is until after the turn-around point. It was great riding downhill for what seemed like miles. Of course, that meant we were going to have to go back up that same road but in my oxygen deprived state of mind I wasn't paying much attention. Amazingly, my legs were feeling great and I felt very strong as we proceeded to the turn-around. I was basically playing defense the whole time not knowing who the real threats were. One team had at least 7 riders in the field. I was near the front until mile 41 when we hit that big 5 mile hill that was so much fun riding down. It was at mile 42 that I felt the first hint of a cramp. Not bad considering and it really wasn't a problem unless I stood up. I made it through the first 1.5 miles at 290 watts then the lights went out. As Phil Ligget would say, "Bridge to engine room, we need more power but there's just nothing there." I finished the climb dropping off the back at 231 watts and even that was a struggle. If the race ended at mile 40 I was in good shape! Problem was I had to make it to mile 59!

I watched the group ride away from me but was satisfied that I was achieving my goals by continuing. When I backed the power down my legs felt better but I began to notice that I just couldn't generate significant power from this point on. I just became a different rider. My raison d'tre now was getting deeper and trying to see if and when the cramps would force me off the bike like last week. After topping that long hill my power dropped to 206 watts from that point to the end of the race but I made it and it was a lot tougher than I could have managed on my own out on a training ride. It was also great to be around the sport and watch others gutting it out.

Stats on the day:

Entire workout (185 watts):
Duration: 2:49:25 (3:17:58)
Work: 1879 kJ
TSS: 226.7 (intensity factor 0.896)
Norm Power: 243
VI: 1.31
Pw:HR: -16.8%
Pa:HR: 28.92%
Distance: 56.983 mi (my bike computer needs calibrating...should be 59 miles)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1190 185 watts
Heart Rate: 121 192 169 bpm
Speed: 2.1 47 20.2 mph
Pace 1:17 28:24 2:58 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 1427 163 lb-in

Check out that max speed. I didn't even notice it when I was on the bike. There was some occasional downhill hammering that must have dialed it up to 47 mph. My HR hit 192 bpm on that first long climb at 370 watts. Geez that hurt.

Note to self:

Next year, do this race 10 pounds lighter, get someone to work the feeds so you can carry just one bottle at a time and for goodness sake get your training plan together with a big emphasis on big, big hills!!