Day three

I think I'm losing weight in sympathy for my dad. Eating less.. Riding lots. And climbing galore. Can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a ball-busting climb.. Later today I'll go out of Mudanya on the main highway with my Polar and get the altitude profile for later. I'm guessing that it climbs about 600 feet in 2-1/2 miles. The other day I climbed it without stressing myself too much, but it turns out that I pushed hard enough that my bar tape unraveled on the tops.. Tonight I'll be meeting up with one of the local Masters for a ride together. His name's Zafer. We tried to rendezvous last night (my 2nd ride of the day) but I took some wrong turns and it didn't work out. In the morning I went out by bike to meet my wife at her mom's house. Since I needed to have street clothes with me, I took the "rescue pack"- my orange adidas back pack that looks a lot like Diego's.. Had to climb the hill out of Mudanya with about 15 extra pounds.. Plus I added my red blinky to the bike to be safe. We rented a car yesterday for two weeks- a brand new Renault Symbol. It had 12 km on it and the interior still wrapped in plastic. For a sub-compact it sure had no trouble swallowing my bike in the trunk (with both wheels off). Cost for 15 days: 1050 dollars. Gas costs 9 dollars a gallon so it will be about 120 dollars to fill up the 13 gallon tank. Crazy. You can rent a car for 20 dollars a day in the states. Here it's triple to rent a car and more than double for gas.. Americans complain about gas prices.. Pfffft! I hope the price goes up to 10 dollars. Can't afford it? Ride a bike! Eat your house! You know the one where you financed BOTH the down payment and the other 95 percent too?! Sorry I'm way off topic here. Here's my upturned middle finger to Washington Mutual Bank- the one which, for the third consecutive year, embarrassed me in Turkey with credit card transaction failures.. In spite of my calling in advance and telling them I'll be in Turkey. What a joke.
Father seemed to improve marginally yesterday.. But he looks a little more tired this morning. Pulse is down to 96 today from 120.. I don't know if it's a good sign. He can't speak. He can't stand or walk without two people assisting him.. He's too weak to eat or bathe or do anything really. We need a full time nurse because Im here for only so long and his wife is exhausted both mentally and physically. There is no such thing as a "hospice" in Turkey, or so I'm told. Got cancer? You're on your own.
Yesterday while out on the roads I suddenly became very aware of a few observations:
1. Everyone.. smokes.. cigarettes.
2. Men walking hunched over, hands often behind their backs, with big beer bellies and narrow downward sloping shoulders outnumber all other 'types' on the street. Occasionally you'll spy one who's in between cigarattes, but it's rare.
3. Young misguided teenage boys with absolutely AWFUL looking 'mohawk-ish" haircuts.. Are everywhere and should be beaten to in inch of their life or until they agree to shave that travesty of hair clean off their heads. 4. Young girls with their heads covered with scarves.. Not only do they appear freakishly top heavy and androgenous.. They also seem to outnumber the other girls by a factor of 3:2. Do I have to go to the south coast in order to see some eye candy??
5. The coolest cars are in Turkey: Seat, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot, Fiat, Skoda, Alfa Romeo.. These companies do not sell in the US.. But if they did, their sporty looking compact models would be very popular.. The compact class is very limited in the US, but not for long I think.
6. Turkish people love to gawk, laugh, point and sometimes shout at handsome and muscular bike racers who are wearing great looking team uniforms and going very fast.
:)
Thanks for reading.
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Mudanya-Bursa

Are separated by 30 km.. I assembled the bike today determined to get back on track. Did not ride this past Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sat so today was a shock to the system. Headed out in the afternoon heat.. In the direction of Bursa.. Mudanya is the equivalent of Newport.. It's a seaside town about 1/2 hour drive from Bursa/Providence.. There's only two ways out, both from the same road. One requires you to climb a 3 mile hill on a windswept state highway with terribly heavy chip/seal asphalt. The other road is the "old" Mudanya road- used for ages before the highway was built. It climbs for about 4 miles to a higher elevation, switching back and forth through olive orchards until you reach a point where the views are so breath taking that you may as well be looking from the seat of an airplane.. Today I wanted to take the old road but I went past it by accident- the mouth of the road which leads to the climb was so over-developed with housing that I didnt recognize it. Used to be nothing but olive trees.. So instead I rode the steeper and more direct highway to get out of Mudanya- didn't go hard up the climb, but it still hurt. The descent was a hair raising 45-50 mph. Overall I rode 50 miles in about 2:55. My tan lines after today will make everyone back home look like feta cheese. Father is still fighting a fever. Doesn't seem fully self aware.. He's scared and confused.. Seeing things around him which we cannot see. Today we lifted him into his chair next to the bed. He wanted to sit.. It was a good opportunity for him to eat some soup and drink fluids.. There were other benefits too of which I'll spare you the details.. This could be the beginning of a long and drawn out ending. I check his pulse regularly- it's a solid 110 to 120 bpm. Beating strongly. I don't think he was prepared for this. He doesn't seem to know what hit him. Even when he was well and into treatment, we never spoke of his inevitable death. We always danced around the topic using words of encouragement.. Now that he's hanging by a thread, I can't help but think that he's highly confused and very angry that we kind of lied to him in the process of propagating our own denial. We were lying to ourselves, too.. I hope he doesn't hate me for duping him into believing he'll recover. Not just me, but everyone who cares about him is complicit. What a silly thing to feel guilt about, yet here I am. Thanks for reading.
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Apologies..

I'm delivering lots of bad news and I feel badly for being such a Buzz Killington..
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Sunday morning

Im wearing the same clothing as yesterday- slept in them. Suitcase and bike are still unpacked. Brought a nurse in who helped put an IV on my father's wrist. We're giving him some serum with sugar and b-c vitamins. We've more or less given up on using modern plumbing.. Will he come around? Stand on his own ever again? Eat? This is hard.. But it could be a lot harder.. If father were awake, we might see and hear and know how he really feels. His unintelligible whispering and blank face expression makes it easy for us.. It hides his pain and his fear- the two things I can't bear to witness.. I fell apart completely last night when I first saw him. My next meltdown will be when I see him cry or wince in pain.
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Nothing left to do

We've been at my father's house for all of 90 minutes. It's 8:50 pm Saturday May 24th. Moments ago I sent my wife to go stay at her mom's with my son. None of us have slept in the past 24 hours, unless numerous 5 minute episodes of passing out in the airplane count..
I do not recognize my father's appearance.. And in his incoherence I have doubts about whether he recognizes me. The shock and awe of seeing his wife carry him to the bathroom heimlich style.. Paled in comparison to the moment they emerged from the bathroom.. And father's legs gave out... The same legs that raced bikes 45 years ago.. And I lifted his weak and crumpled body from the floor the way that a father carries his slumbering 5 year old child and I carried him to his bed, for a moment astonished at my burst of strength.. until I realized how much he's wasted away.
This has been the most difficult hour of my life.
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Eagle has landed

Istanbul! not Constantinople!
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Greetings from Frankfurt

Three hour layover until our flight to Istanbul starts boarding. Gotta love Lufthansa!! They took the bike case without asking for an extra dime.. Of course it might be because we are entitled to 6 suitcases and only had 4.. The bike case was the lightest piece too.. Maybe they'll nail me on the return leg.. We're docked at a table and chairs in front of a panoramic view of the airfield. It's pretty awesome. The Airbus ride here was six hours, and that plane was huge.. You take a flight of stairs down to the toilets. Private Lcds in front of every seat.. You choose your own movie, cartoon or sitcom. I was seated next to a 350 pound mouth-breather who cursed at my son in German when he accidentally kicked the guy.. I didn't take offense. Germans usually do not seem to be crazy about kids (Sorry Ralf- they're generally just plain cold towards their own kids and especially towards the kids of others) Me, I don't think twice about talking with or winking/smiling at little kids. I'd pick them up and kiss them if I knew I wouldn't be assaulted by their parents.

Women's Lib Arrived on Bicycles

This looks like a great read:

Women were once considered too frail to ride bicycles.

 

Story Highlights

Victorian era women were expected to be frail, wear 7 pounds of underwear
Bifurcated garments called bloomers were scandalous
Escorts needed to protect women from becoming morally debased by their bikes
1900 U.S. Census Report said bicycles caused "revolution in social conditions"

 

By Christopher Connolly

(Mental Floss) -- Susan B. Anthony once said, "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world." A woman on a bicycle, the equal rights champion observed, presents "the picture of free and untrammeled womanhood."

Complete article

"What Have I Done?"

Now that I look at this list of races which I have just pre-registered for, I'm wondering if I should maybe skip a race here and there in favor of fresher legs elsewhere. I guess I'll exercise those options when the time comes- it's only money.. What worries me the most if the weather. Pre-registering seems to always guarantee rain! Nutmeg sucked last year for this very reason. The above check-out totaled just a little over $400. Ouch! In case anyone wonders, my entry fees are not paid by the Millwork One team budget. I cover them myself and take them as a tax write-off since our little WeeBIKE company is a co-title sponsor of the team.
Seventeen races in the span of four weekends (July 6th being Masters Nationals Criterium in Kentucky- I'm going!)
So much can go wrong between now and the New Britain Criterium on July 13th.. If I complete all of these races with no crashes, no dnfs and no flat tires, it will be a triumph indeed. I think that this approach proves beyond all doubt that I love to race.. I just love being a part of this. That's what it's all about, eh? As impressed as you are with my bad-ass doing three crits a day, I swear I did not do this to impress you or to prove anything.. All of these races have been on my radar since the end of last season. Now.. Let's see if all of this excessive training and "TSS" and "FTP" amounts to anything. I'm faster and stronger today than I was at my peak last year.. assuming that the numbers don't lie. I trust the numbers and they give me confidence which I would not otherwise have. Wish me luck.

"I am so broke"..

Leaving for a two week trip to Turkey on Friday means a few things: 1. All my bills must be paid before I leave and during my absence. I have a 1" thick stack of envelopes I'm mailing tomorrow. 2. Plane tickets for the three of us are mucho dinero.. let's just say you can buy a very fine road bike with the plane ticket dough.. 3. I will be working 16 hour days all week to make sure that none of my projects suffer a meltdown while I'm gone. Stress is off the charts this week, needless to say. I'm glad it's a "rest week".. Gotta rest up for my vacation. Which in reality, is more of a visit to my father than anything else. His cancer is progressing, he's just managing pain right now and we need to see him soon if you know what I mean. I don't know what's going to feel better or worse, this work week from hell leading up to the trip, or the sadness and emotion of the actual trip itself. I return on June 9th as wife and son stay behind to be close to my father and keep me informed of his condition. Murat will be all alone for five weeks, meaning that he can ride and race as much as he cares to every day and every weekend. Not a bad thing. Today I was up at Wells and had a great time. Our man Adam Sternfield made it into the 8 man break which rolled off after the 1/2 way prime (same as last week!) and finished a solid 6th place. Dear wife actually filmed the finishing sprint and we see that the field was bearing down on these guys pretty hard- they were not that far up the road. (I will try to post it to Google later on) I think I was 10th in the field sprint. Whatever- I was really just having fun today bridging across 10 second gaps and doing a good job of accelerating when it was required.. Legs were not fresh at all but I had no difficulties with todays 26.7 mph pace. Funny- today's race watts averaged lower than yesterday's 3 hours of tempo watts. But of course today's Normalized Power was up there at 277, right at my functional threshold.

"I am so fast"..

..is the theme/category of this post. Why not? It can only be good for morale to give ourselves some occasional attaboys.. I didn't race today up at Sunapee, no, but our Millwork One team had a few guys up there and so far I'm informed that we took the 35+ field sprint for 5th, convincingly. New Hampshire is not only too far away for my taste, it' probably hilly and therefore doesn't suit my lack of climbing talent/ability or my nutritional reserves.. Never done Sunapee, and may never do it, and that's fine and dandy. One thing I definitely like, even though I passed on it, is the entry fee- a reasonable $25.. as it should be. Promoters take note... or don't. My opinions on these matters are not worth paying any mind to. But I also think that being a "friend of promoters" should not be contingent upon being tight lipped about high entry fees. Look at it this way: I manage a team and it's finances. Sponsors paid us a lot of money in order to cover all of our entry fees. I need to both make the money last AND give sponsors the best value for their money. Crits are more compatible with these objectives than road races. Simple.
Back to my original purpose: I rock.
I've been doing this 56 mile loop of rolling hills almost every weekend.. and seeing my elapsed time getting faster and faster. Today marked the latest episode of this [as yet un-named] epic saga. There's more to this evolution than meets the eye. It's not the 20mph average speed of my three hours overall in the saddle or the 2:49:25 time for the 56.6 miles which turns my crank- it's the fact that in all of 2007, I never did a 3 hour ride of more than 188 average watts- and that peak ride was in mid-July when I was going good, not in mid May on the penultimate day of a very highly stressful build period. Today's three hour ride averaged 220 watts. This data, by itself, is meaningless.. but within the context of my own evolution last season and this spring, it speaks for itself and says a lot! I realize that this is partly a case of "putting my mind to it".. after all- who cares [besides me] about the power, speed and duration of a three hour tempo ride? ... Cut me some slack.. I have issues.. and I'm sorely in need of a victory.. even if it's only me who I'm racing against. I defeated my previous PB by another 5 minutes. Hurray for me. Thanks for reading.

Sterling Race Report and Bonus: Wells Ave Report

Many thanks to our self-depracating-sprinter, Adam Sternfield. He owes himself more credit- he initiated and stayed in the ten man break at Wells and duked it out for a solid 5th.
Here's his story from the Pro-1-2 field at the Sterling RR (Full Results are here) :
Thought I'd write a brief race report on Sterling- though for the record I don't necessarily consider what I did "racing". Explanation: due to weather and car rental concerns I had to do the P/1/2 race, and I wasn't sure I had the endurance for 10 times up that hill (80 miles). As such, my mindset was one of training/survival, and the only placing I was concerned with was making sure I placed some water in my ice cube trays so I'd be able to chill my Scotch when I got home. Generally not the attitude I like to bring to a race but I had to be realistic in my ambitions and on the other hand, for training purposes, you really can't beat being bludgeoned for 3 hours by the likes of Mark McCormack. Certainly better for my fitness level than spending the entire day home with a bottle of Scotch...
On to the race itself. The pace of the first 5 laps was so infernal that one rider's post-race comment sums it up nicely: "When we came up the hill and I saw the lap cards say there were still 5 to go, I prayed for a sniper's bullet to take me out and end my suffering". OK, so the rider that made that comment was me, but I'm sure there were others who felt the same. In fact, it was right at about that halfway point that the merely tired started to seperate themselves from the truly spent. Dribs and drabs of 3 to 4 riders rolled off the front and by lap 7 there were 16 guys (including Mark, of course) up the road. That pretty much exhausts my first hand knowledge of the race for the podium. I was told that on one of the later trips up the hill, Mark detonated the group, attacking and taking 2 guys with him, whom he dusted easily in the sprint. We back in the field were content to roll steadily to our goal with a minimum of fratricide. In the end, it turned out I did have the legs to withstand the bludgeoning and was even able to unleash my World-Famous "Eephus" sprint up the hill, carrying me to 13th place in our 17-man drag race. Another surprise, because normally I'm a lock to finish dead last in any sprint.....
and here's the Wells Ave recap:
I think we did fairly well at Wells. Kyle, Matt, and I lined up with 40-50 of our close friends. After the halfway prime I was able to roll away with Marvin Wang and we were soon joined by 5 more. Sam Morse bridged up with a teammate and when the dust settled we had roughly 10 guys and were gone. Kyle and Matt patrolled/thwarted at the front of the field. I worked as much and as hard as possible (training, after all) with little regard for the final. As I mentioned, I am by no means a sprinter :-) EXCEPT if it's a looooong, momentum-driven, tailwind-assisted sprint- which just happened to be the case. I actually led it out from just past the final corner and though an IF guy and a CCB guy came past me pretty convincingly, I thought I was gonna hold on for 3rd. Unfortunately Marvin and Sam's teammate just snuck by me at the line. We were all within a half-wheel of each other, but I believe I was 5th. So, not too bad....
Thanks Adam! A solid weekend for you.

More Hill Repeats

What a day. Stress and pressure could not possibly be worse, but I saved a little reserve of strength to use at the end of the day for myself.. Sure I didn't get out on the road until 6:00 but with the limited daylight I did a series of quality intervals that make the last session of hill repeats look like junk miles. Could have done 1 more but it was getting dark.. family was waiting for me at home. Instructions were clear:
10:00 WU
30:00 endurance
3:00 hill repeats (Vomax for 2.5 min with AC for last 30 sec)
8:00 RI
repeat until you cannot match within 10% of 3rd interval
In case it interests you (and it probably doesn't but that's fine and dandy), I use a hill on route 12 in Scituate. It's exactly one mile long and the first 1/2 mile is 7% grade before it eases to about 3-4% at the top. You do not absolutely need a power meter to do this workout, because you are basically going as hard as you can without popping for the first 2-1/2 minutes, then you're going full throttle for the final 30 seconds. Personally, I like seeing the erosion of watts on the power meter display as this workout progresses and fatigue builds. Notice the instructions: "repeat until you cannot match within 10% of 3rd interval". Some may argue that this is a trivial matter- judging when you have done enough work.. Well.. I'm a lazy idiot with a pressure cooker job and after 10 hours at my job I don't want to risk making poor choices on the bike. I pay a coach to give me workouts that are tailored to me. Can I get just as fast without a coach, by making my own training program and following it? Sure, maybe, possibly, probably.. I've done it before.. but I'm not interested in reinventing the wheel in the process.. not interested in screwing up and feeling regret. My life is complicated. Having a coach makes the hardest part of training, simple. At least I know that I'm doing the specific training which is already proven to have worked for others before me. Thats the key.
Here's what my first interval looked like:

Going Away

On May 23rd we fly to Turkey for a two week holiday. ("We" means wife, son, bike and I)
I return on June 9th.. meaning that I will be missing three weekends of New England crits.. including Mystic Velo Crit, Hartford Crit, Cyclonauts Crit, etc.. However.. put me down for the Nutmeg Classic on 6/21 and every other Crit which follows it through New Britain on 7/13. I expect to be flying by late June/early July.
Needless to say, with a two week vacation on the horizon, I'm wrapped around all kinds of axles here at work- a mountain of work needs to be accomplished before we head to Logan next Friday afternoon.

It's about time!: Gas prices influence bike sales

High Gas Prices mean more Bike Sales and Repairs
A real forehead slapper! Americans realize that they can use their "nutritional reserves" for fuel instead of gasoline to get from place to place. Thirty years of relatively low gasoline prices in this country has made Americans the most obese and unhealthy people on the planet. Maybe this will spark a reversal.

Milestones

I've looked forward to this post because as of this date I've finally completed a full year of riding and racing with the PowerTap (which I first used on May 12, 2007).
In the past year:
Distance: 7747 miles (12,467 km)
Duration: 443 hours
Since Jan 1st:
Distance: 3093 miles (4977 km)
Duration: 180 hours
It was also a big week for me in terms of time and mileage as well: 256 miles in 14 hours. (This excludes a 6.5 mile ride I did Saturday with my son Reis by my side- he's four)
Today I skipped the Wells Ave crit that I was planning to do, in favor of more family themed activities: a Mother's Day picnic at Goddard Park. We had a good time- grilled lots of steaks with some friends.. I wasn't done grumbling to myself under my breath until we got home.. which is when I promptly suited up and hit the road. Long sleeves were the right choice because it was mid fifties and windy.. So I set out to do my typical 3-hour ride/route- the one I really like. This time, I wore my HRM chest strap and put the Polar on my wrist- Of course I was more interested in the profile of the route than the HR.. Turns out that this 56 mile ride has 2420 feet of climbing... and my average HR was 148. Whatever. I started out slowwww.. (the HR chart below will show this) Legs were quite whipped from yesterday's "rhythm intervals".. which are basically 4:00 VOmax and then 4:00 recovery. Two sets of three with an extra 5:00 of rest in between the sets. Topped off with 30 minutes of tempo. They hurt.. more than the hill repeats I've been doing. They are an extra minute at the same intensity, with only half of the rest in between. So I was saying.. I started out slow today.. resolving to hold an average of high end zone 2 or low end zone 3.. Of course, I'm not guided by my HRM, I'm guided by the average watts reading. About an hour into this ride, I'm still sub-200w on average.. but my the time I hit the mid point, I'm up into the 215 range and suddenly feeling weirdly good.. not really good, just a little better. By the time I end the ride, I'm back down to 213w, but I feel fresh at the end.. like I could do more.. which I've heard is a good time to end a hard ride. The route was unchanged from before (April 5 was the previous date I did this course, when I was boasting about taking 10 minutes off my time from before) As it turns out, I took another 6 minutes off of that time, without really intending to (at least not during the first hour of the ride..) Here's another compilation of data- one showing the route profile and today's heart rate, one comparing today's ride with the last time I did this route, and still another showing you the last few weeks of ride data.. (Notice that the average distance for the past six weeks is a solid 200 miles). This stuff isn't intended as any kind of chest beating on my part.. I'm just interested in monitoring how the data evolves.. But on the other hand I don't think that riding almost 20 mph for three solid hours by myself is anything to sneeze at. I've done an untold number of "fast" group rides that were a lot slower. Whatever. Just looking for the positive in all of this: Very simply, I'm getting faster.. even though the training stress is making me tired and a touch weaker. Here's the data.. Click to enlarge:

Photos of 2008 Blue Hills Classic

Found a nice photo stream on Flickr and to my surprise, there I am!.. and I now realize how badly my helmet clashes with my kit. Yuck.
Check out the rest.

Nailed it.

I dreaded it a little bit.. okay a lot, especially since it was a highly stressful and energy consuming day.. But when I suited up and headed out on route 12, I was a new man. I started the first 20 minute interval at the beginning of some rolling hills and finished it off on Pippin Orchard Road. That will explain the slightly higher VI and slower speed. I held a tiny something in reserve and hit the target. With my current FT considered to be 271, looks like I did the correct amount of work. (Look at normalized power value)
Interval 2, exactly ten minutes later.. I decide I like Pippin Orchard Road a lot- it runs in between route 14 and route 12, it's relatively flat with wide shoulders, and it's about two miles end to end. I want to do the 2nd interval on flat roads, so that there's a lot less variability, like I get on the climbs. It's a more truthful interval I think.. I had to make three quick U-turns, but I sprinted back up to speed, so nothing was lost. As you can see, interval 2 was stronger than interval 1. I'm happy with that. I rest exactly ten minutes.
Interval 3 is only ten minutes, but I expect it to be the hardest. I was wrong. This is the one which I was able to really shine on- the numbers speak for themselves. Mission accomplished. Overall, the entire workout with warm up and rest and cool down went like this:

20:00 FTP 10:00 RI.. Repeat

I'm going to be wasted after tonight's scheduled workout::

20:00 WU

20:00 FTP

10:00 RI

20:00 FTP

10:00 RI

10:00 FTP

20:00 WD

My FTP is now set to 271 in the Peaks software.. but I just checked my 2008 Normalized Power Chart to date and it says my 60 minute Normalized Power is 277 (and that I did it during the Blue Hills Classic). At my present weight of 79 kg, that 3.5 watts per kilo, for whom it may interest.. This chart shows all norm power levels from 5:00 up.

Jiminy Jilikers

I was perusing the list of Pro-Am finishers and discovered two things:
1. That it was a 93 mile road race (wtf? note to self: AVOID J.P.R.R.)
2. That my good friend and coach, 38 year old Todd Scheske took a solid 30th place, in the Pro-Am, it appears.
From the kick-ass report that I read at Adam Jr's blog, it was a pretty epic fight to the finish..
Full results Jiminy Peak Road Race