Organized bike rides – some people never do ‘em, some people, that’s all they do. Cheryl and I did big group rides for a time, from about 1995 through 2001, back in our touring days. But nothing for a long time, since she got heavy into photography and I circled ever closer to Ironman specificity.
RAPSody – the Ride Around Puget Sound – is now in its 6th year. Originally conceived as a true Sound surround experience, complete with ferry rides, the addition of the broad bike path across the Narrows bridge eliminated the Vashon Island portion of the trip. It does make the first day a bit quicker, though. About 350 people did the circuit from Tacoma through Port Orchard and Allyn to the first night’s camp at Shelton High School (86 miles). The second day, a bit shorter and less hilly, covers 81 miles through Olympia back up to the Tacoma Community College.
I’ve had a hankering to do this ride, increasing every year as I do more and more of my long rides on the very route this takes. Fully half of the miles on this trip were ones I’ve worn a groove in over the past few years. But seeing and feeling the road from the front of the tandem is a different experience from sitting on the aerobars and soloing at threshold, or holding on for dear life in a pace line with powerful 35 y/o guys in front.
Scheduling a major event like this, even in August, is always a risk, mostly for rain. The longer our warm dry summer (the best I can remember, starting in mid-May and peaking with those 103F days in late July) goes on, the more we expect the clouds to fill and drench us just when we start having fun. But this weekend was textbook Puget Sound – morning clouds, a bit chilly, with afternoon sun, a bit warm.
This ride, at $80, with an extra $20 for dinner and breakfast and fully supported rest/lunch stops, provided the standard multi-day group ride experience. A Budget truck hauled tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks to the high school. Volunteers from the five sponsoring bike clubs drove sag and served up yogurt parfaits, bagels, cookies, calzones, wraps and endless Gatorade at every stop. The whole event seems a little like a rolling small town.
We kept passing and being passed by the same folks. There were the two young tandem couples, intent on blasting by us at every opportunity. Retro grouches from the Cyclists of Greater Seattle (COGS) smiled beatifically in their red wool bike jerseys. Haven’t they heard about polyester – it doesn’t itch! Several small paceline groups of 4-6 bikers would slowly drift past us and wake up the sleeping racer in me. I would haul Cheryl forward, sit in at the end for a few minutes, then drift by at 21 mph, feeling proud if I could get the wheel suckers to stay with us for a few miles.
We were joined by Joan and Pat Hogan. Pat has a serious sports addiction, or maybe he just likes to make life hard for himself. Swimming across lakes, water skiing, ultra-distance running, triathlons, up to and including Ironman – he’s gotten into them all. But I haven’t gotten him to take the MTB bug yet. Anyway, last winter, he was training for a marathon, and kept complaining about a nagging pull in his calf. He even got some imaging studies done which showed a developing defect. But he kept on plugging – I think he wanted to get back to Boston, where he’s run before. It was inevitable – he tore his Achilles tendon, and had repair surgery in May. In June, he went on a multi-day bike tour with friends in the California wine country. He’s stomping on the elliptical machine and water “running”, and doggedly trying to beat the rehab timetable of 6-9 months.
But you can’t fight Mother Nature. For the first twenty miles or so, he biked at his usual 18 mph speed, but drifted farther and farther back as each day went on. His ankle, where a nasty scar curved outward across the lower back of his calf, puffed up like he’d been bit by a snake. He didn’t complain, just kept biking.
In a way, this made my day a bit easier. Whenever Joan and Pat would bike with us, Joan – who wouldn’t draft, but stayed back to the left of our rear wheel – kept a constant conversation with Cheryl. Now, I don’t mind them talking, but there’s two things about it while I’m captaining the tandem. First, Cheryl sometimes forgets she’s actually on a bike, and twists around to look at Joan, or gesticulate with her hands as they talk. And second, I suspect that if she can have such an animated conversation, she’s probably not really working as hard as I am. So I labor more, and my arms grow slowly weary trying to hold us straight.
I will say this – my wife was amazing on this trip. In the last year, she did not bike at all from August through May – not one mile – as our daughter had Cheryl’s bike with her at college. We took a short trip with the tandem in Montana in early July, about 30 miles a day for five days. And we did two other bike rides on the tandem, of about three and four hours, on the very roads on which we would start and end the RAPSody. Plus, she did a few rides on her own.
And yet, not only did she not complain (oh, she did grumble about saddle sores), she kept her spirits up the whole way, certainly better than me. And whenever I asked her to stand and provide some turbocharging for a minute, or hold a strong, steady effort to lead a paceline, she was always there. In the end, she was convinced she was not working as hard as I did, because I seemed way more tired than she felt.
But that’s just the nature of tandem riding. It is possible for each person to put in the effort level they want, and see the results in the forward speed. If I took it easy, we’d go about 13-14 mph. With a strong effort, we could get to cruising at 19, and at times even faster with a following wind or a slight downhill. So we each got out of the ride what we wanted, in the end.
Because, in the end, it IS all about training for me, still. I’d planned that trip in Montana, this heavy weekend, and then the two weeks at Aspen, to build my bike strength in plateau stages towards a double boost of bike fitness peaking on October 10th and November 22nd. Then I can rest for a week (or two).
And today, I got confirmation my training is on track. I did a 62 mile ride on the Green River trail. This is basically flat, but into and with the wind, as it’s out and back. There is a bit of slowing and acceleration, good for building leg strength, as I cross railroad tracks, roads, and root ruts. So while the ride averaged 18 mph, when I was actually time trialing, I was at 19-20.5 into the wind, and 20-22 with the wind. All at a heart rate of 114-124. Last time at Kona, I rode 177 watts at an HR of 117, and I think I am at the same or better level of fitness. Based on Arizona last year, I probably can actually up both of those numbers by 10: 187/127 would be my “redline”, or has hard as I can go for 112 miles and still expect to be able to get off the bike and run.
My most recent race, the Whiskey Dick, showed me once again that I CAN redline the bike and still perform properly on the run. The key is to know exactly where that line is, and not exceed it, ever. In a recent blog post, Matt Fitzgerald notes that elite and pro Ironman triathletes all probably are biking at 98% effort level, meaning they are at the highest effort level possible, with the caveat that this effort level must be maintained for 112 miles. So the “hardest effort possible” for an Ironman will be less than the hardest level they could do in, say an Olympic distance race (25 miles). The 2% difference represents the fact that they do NOT try to finish completely exhausted; they do not put on a finishing spurt in the last 5-10 minutes. My races last year and the Whiskey DIck this year all showed me I could do this, too.
It is, however, counter-intuitive, since every coach and every fiber of my body tells me I should “hold something back for the run”. Well, I don’t run any faster if I do that.
So the next two weeks (Sept 1-13) will be all about two things: raising my redline for the bike, and running well off the bike at altitude. I intend to make it the best two weeks of training in my life.