July 15, 2020. Elgin, Oregon.
Bike MS 2020: 150 miles in 5 Days (Day 4)
Bike MS 2020: 150 miles in 5 Days (Day 3)
Bike MS 2020: 150 miles in 5 Days (Day 2)
Bike MS 2020: 150 miles in 5 Days (Day 1)
100% Today
I started training just over a week ago. It’s been so hard. I needed to drop the session intensity by nearly 50% every ride just to finish. Today, I completed my whole ride at 100%. One step achieved! I can get there. I still have a long way to go, but now is not the time to nitpick. Now is the time to savor all wins! To health!
New Training Plan
Winter is coming. I want to go skiing. Skiing requires a long drive. So, I usually plan a trip where I ski several days in a row and stay overnight to justify the long drive. I want to go skiing so bad! Snow is already perfect in the Methow. My heart wants to go now, but my body isn’t ready. For the few weeks that my gym was open I enjoyed several great workouts, but I never acclimated enough to be able to go 2 days in a row. Wne I go skiing I need to be ready to comfortably exert myself several days in a row. Time to start a training plan! The gym is closed again, so I started a base plan on TrainerRoad. I started with a ramp test and saw a small decrease in FTP. Even with that, each workout has proved far too difficult and technical for my current skill level. I can’t let that get me down. Obviously, it is perfectly logical for me to see a decline in fitness after 2 months of minimal activity. If I stay positive and stick with it, I’m sure to see rapid gains. Right now, my only goal is to follow the program, even if that means I have to drop the workout intensity by 15 or even 50%. It will come back if I stay diligent.
TrainerRoad TSS calendar
I reached an all-time fitness peak starting the spring of 2018 that lasted all the way through the end of the year. For the sake of comparison, I’ll compare some fitness indicators from them with now:
My VO2 max is 42 from 48.
My resting heart rate is 60 bpm from 54 bpm.
My FTP is 191 from 194.
My muscle mass is 100 lbs. from 112 lbs.
My weekly training load average is 300 from 1300.
My monthly Garmin intensity minutes is 1000 from 4000.
Boxing workout tolerance is 1 day with a day off from 4 days in a row before needing a day off.
In comparing my activity level from my last ski trip, I can see where I need to be to have a good ski trip again. I don’t want to overreach and lose time. I can’t perform at the training load TrainerRoad wants me to for the first week of training. I wore myself out more than 80 TSS pointes below where it set me. My hope is to ramp my TSS/load/intensity minutes to the upper end of the safe range for each week such that I build enough tolerance to ski several days in a row and still enjoy each day.
I set up my White Bike on the trainer in the spare room. I am downwind from the cat’s litter box, but it’s better than I imagined. It’s actually perfect. I get a lot of cold air and space to my self so I can sweat, huff and puff unencumbered. I started TrainerRoad’s Sweet Spot Base mid volume 1 training plan a week ago. I plan to finish the training plan by Christmas and be at the planned TSS level. After that, I should only take me another month to get to the point where I can ski a few days in a row comfortably.
Garmin annual report for VO2 max and training load
Sunday series: Portraits of Blue Lighting
Featured
She is exceptionally photogenic. I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to photograph her everywhere I go. She makes the world around me more beautiful.
SheRidesToday Page Updates: Project Sunrise Photos
I spent some time recently updating some of the pages to SheRidesToday. This new page highlights all the photos I took during my sunrise rides. Check it out!
What is virtual Bike MS?
Late last year Heather told me she wanted to do a reunion ride. I doubled over with joy. We haven’t ridden together since 2013. We registered as soon as we could at the turn of the year. It got even better when Heather’s long-time friend Katie signed up too. Then Katie’s friend and co-worker signed up. Heather is sort of like that (and I suppose we all are in a way). One action is contagious, and leads to a train of actions behind it. Speaking of contagious….
You know where I am going with this. We started tracking Coronavirus overseas in shortly after we registered for the ride. B asked me if I thought it was going to impact us. I thought not. I was wrong. That second week in March Washington state shut down. Heather, in Colorado, didn’t face a shut down until a few weeks later, but she called it right then and there. She said Bike MS would be canceled. I disagreed. Bike MS was so many months away. I thought we’d have it under control by then. A few months passed, infection rates continued to rise, and Heather wondered why ride still wasn’t canceled. We heard nothing, but I assumed the ride had to be going to some other format rather than cancel altogether. Bike MS is the biggest charity ride in North America and the main source of the MS Society’s funds. The whole world is under great stress, half the nation is unemployed, and I’m sure few are thinking about giving to the MS Society. As an autoimmune disease, people with MS are at a high risk or complications or death from COVID-19. So many people are having long-term complications, I can’t imagine people with MS living with one more symptom. We still needed to contribute. Turns out I was right about something. Bike MS went 100% virtual.
Bike MS had virtual riders before; that label went to people who wanted to support the ride, but couldn’t actually ride the course. I’ve known some people who have done this, riders who got injured before the ride, riders with MS who had an exacerbation, and non-riding spouses who just wanted to be part of the action.
I didn’t really get the point of it at first. It didn’t feel very exciting. I didn’t get to go to Colorado and ride with my friend. There seemed no point in riding at all. What for? I could collect donations and not pedal once, and no one would know. Heather lost all interest too. I didn’t even bother asking for donations. I stopped riding entirely.
The the Colorado MS chapter held a Team Captain rally online using the remote meeting platform, Go To Meeting. I signed on. Why not? I was sitting at my desk for work anyway. I participated in meetings like this now every day. I joined a small group of ragamuffins, team captains just like me. Some people didn’t know how to use their computers very well, many didn’t have cameras on, but MS employees was there, and one guy showed up riding his bike on his indoor trainer, sweat towel and all. They started talking about the virtual concept and how we’d all be connected through social media. The ride dropped its minimums, encouraged everyone to take part, and shared ways they would make is fun for us. They published printable bib numbers and photo props on their website. They challenged us to do all sorts of things online. They brought a whole lot of enthusiasm (it was happy hour after all). Enthusiasm crept up inside me like it always does around ride time. I contacted Heather. Proving that enthusiasm goes both ways, she talked about doing the ride with her friends over the course of the month. They planned to quarantine so they could get close along the ride and even planned out friends they could visit who had yards they could eat outside picnics at. I decided to do the same, but over a week. I planned for 150 miles in 5 days. I hadn’t been riding hardly at all, but I could do that.
A few weeks later the Team Captains had another meeting to firm up our plans and share all the neat things teams were doing; how they were fundraising and how they were going to ride. Riders would go out and serenade neighbors who donated, or in one case, serenade the neighborhood until someone donated. People did crafts and made team face masks just like team jerseys.
It took a little longer for me to actually start riding than I planned, but once I got it together, there was no stopping me.
SheRidesToday Page Updates: Portraits of Blue Lightning
I spent some time recently updating some of the pages to SheRidesToday. I’ve been posting each new photo every Sunday. Here is where the collection of all the photos live. Check it out!
Sunday series: Portraits of Blue Lighting
Featured
She is exceptionally photogenic. I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to photograph her everywhere I go. She makes the world around me more beautiful.
SheRidesToday Page Updates: Project Sunrise Summaries
I spent some time recently updating some of the pages to SheRidesToday. This new page highlights a single photo of the quintessential view of Space Needle from Kerry Park in Seattle. Mt. Rainier sits behind the city. Sometimes she shows her face, sometimes she hides behind the weather. Check it out!
Sunday series: Portraits of Blue Lighting
Featured
She is exceptionally photogenic. I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to photograph her everywhere I go. She makes the world around me more beautiful.
Biking in Lander, Wyoming: Baldwin Creek & Squaw Creek
Ride Summary
Experience
Brain fog doesn’t describe it enough. Woke up in a daze, drank a C4, thought a ride would clear my mind. It was absolutely difficult to make sense of anything. Luckily pedaling is so ingrained into my muscle memory that I somehow managed.
The scenery was red and rugged, Utah-like. The stepped rock walls were not as grand as I passed driving into town, but they were distinct and impressive nonetheless.
Weather
Hot and sweaty, clear and calm.
Spotted
flocks of birds high in the sky
livestock
buddies in trucks stopped in the road to chew the fat.
lots of fellow cyclists.
happy kids and families playing in neighborhoods on bikes and such.
The City park doesn’t allow overnight parking, but has a designated space for free camping. I wonder if Seattle could benefit from a setup like this.
Roads
Largely butter-smooth and spotless.
Mechanicals
None
Sunday series: Portraits of Blue Lighting
Featured
She is exceptionally photogenic. I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to photograph her everywhere I go. She makes the world around me more beautiful.
Sunday series: Portraits of Blue Lighting
Featured
She is exceptionally photogenic. I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to photograph her everywhere I go. She makes the world around me more beautiful.
SheRidesToday Page Updates: Project Sunrise Routes
One of the goals of the sunrise project is to ride a different route every single day. Some days have more variety than others. So far, I haven’t repeated a route yet!
Dayum! Grand Coulee Dam
Keeping safe from COVID-19. Avoiding the Seattle rain that won’t stop. Feeling moved by the signs of social unrest with every escape from the home. I felt the need for some variety, something to make significant the day-in and day-out I’ve gotten used to. So, out we adventured to the lovely town of Wilbur, Washington.
Wilber, about 6 hours away from Seattle, enticed me to two reasons. One, the area, being east of the Cascade range, promised sunshine and warm weather. Two, this area, with lots of open space and a small population, had far fewer confirmed cases of COVID-19 than the rest of the state.
Wilbur delivered. I rode out to Grand Coulee dam, and had a wonderful time. The quiet roads were traveled by few, and most who passes were pleasant and mindful of my presence. I got to enjoy an amazing descent. There was a bit of a cross-wind, enough that it pushed me on the descent. to get the most out of my downward momentum, I tucked into my handlebars as tight as I could and coasted. The road kept descending. I felt so safe on such a calm, straight road and I let the bike go as fast as it wanted to. I coasted so long that my heart rate dropped to my resting rate. I coasted so long that my arms and legs got stiff from being tucked in for so long…three times! I think this was the longest free coasting downhill ride I’ve enjoyed since Tour de Blast.
It was not so much fun going back up. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Wilbur to Grand Coulee Dam Out and Back
The next day I rode a short way out, just 15 miles to keep the muscles fresh and the mind awake. It’s not exciting enough to recount here, but it was fast. I rode 16.4mph, which is the fasted average I maintained thus far on my new bike. It felt good to know the new bike and I could succeed at these speeds.
The third and last day I rode to Sherman, a ghost town. Once a thriving mill town, all that remains now is an old church and a cemetary. The town is literally dead. I also passed by another cemetery and some farm art. Most important of all, however, is that the ride finished with a perfect iced latte at the local coffee shop in Wilbur that planned it’s grand opening right as the town locked down for COVID.
Wilbur to Sherman Out and Back
Photo Highlights of the Whole Trip
Sunday series: Portraits of Blue Lighting
Featured
She is exceptionally photogenic. I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to photograph her everywhere I go. She makes the world around me more beautiful.