Mike's Bike Blog

Before I get into the numbers for 2009, one disclaimer, I don't set a goal amount of miles to ride, nor do I set a goal for average speed. I train on too many hills to care about my overall average speed as doing hill repeats at 10 mph tends to bring the overall number down.

Here's my numbers for 2009:

Total Miles: 7,356
Total Climbing: 307,316
Calories: 285,606 kJ
Avg Speed: 17 mph
Max Speed: 69.68 mph
Avg Cadence: 77

For 2009 I set some lofty goals and my direction in riding got a bit more focused as I got my feet wet in bike racing. 2009 saw me pin on my first race number at the Tour of New Braunfels after missing out on the Copperas Cove road race.

    •    A 40K Time Trial in 1 hour or less - I never pursued this goal, this will turn out to be a longer term goal than one set for 2010. First I will need to average 25 mph in the Run Far Time Trial and once I can do that then I think I can start thinking about a 40K in under an hour.
    •    Ride 200 miles in 1 day - This is another one that I didn't go after. I had hoped to do the Texas Time Trial 12 hour race and get the 200 miles in during it. But as the season progressed I didn't train for that type of distance and concentrated solely on the Cat 5 race distance <50 miles. It is still something I'll keep as a long term goal but nothing I'm putting down on paper that needs to be completed in 2010.
    •    Ride up the 3 sisters in 3 minutes flat, (2008 goal was 3'30 current PR is 3'24) - This was my big goal for 2009 and I did it!
    •    Join a team/club - I started racing for Southwest Cycle Sport in 2009.
    •    Ride the Outlaw Trail 100 in 5 hours or less - I ended up not riding in the Outlaw Trail 100 in 2009 as I was focused on other races like the Chappell Hill Bank Classic and the Texas State Road Race Championships. I did come close to a sub 5 hour century when I did the FatCyclist.com 100 miles of Nowhere ride. Again this is not something I'm going to carry over for 2010.
    •    Increase my FTP by 20% - That's a big jump for 1 year, I've seen some increases in my FTP this year which is good. I did raise my FTP by 14 watts this year. For 2010 I'll continue to raise FTP as it will be needed to meet some of my other goals, but I'm not going to make it a line item for 2010.
    •    Increase my 5 second and 1 minute power to balance out my power profile - I was able to raise my 1 minute power this year as well as my 5 minute. I spent a couple weeks focusing on VO2 Max and was able to raise my 5 minute power. I'm going to carry over working on my 5 second sprint for 2010 as this is an area that is a limiter for me.
    •    Get my body fat tested so I know how much to lose. In High School my body fat percentage was 11%. Ideally I want to get it down to 13%, I'll have to see how realistic that is, but at this point I'd rather focus on body fat than solely on weight. If anybody has recommendations on where to get a true body fat test in Austin let me know. I want either the calipurs or one of the newer tests that use professional quality dual electron machines, not the consumer level scales that give you weight and body fat. - I did lose about 15 pounds this year getting down to my lowest weight for the Hugel (162 lbs). I'm going to carry over this goal for 2010 to get my body fat % down.
    •    Raise $1000 for Team Fatty and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. - I fell short of raising $1,000 for Team Fatty, but did raise money for the cause.

2010 Goals

• Average 25 mph for a Run Far Time Trial
• Get body fat down to 12% currently 16%
• Place in the top 10 in 3 targeted Cat 4 races this season
• Improve 5 second sprint power
• Ride up the 3 Sisters in 2 minutes 30 seconds
• Ride up the 3 Sisters 20 times in one sitting
• Get my USA Cycling Level 3 coaching certificate

A couple days ago I looked at my mileage for the month and my jaw dropped. Without going out of my way to put up big numbers I was looking at going over 800 miles for the month, which would be my highest mileage for a month. In the end, for May I ended up with 834.43 miles. Another number that surprised me a little was the amount of climbing I did. For the month I climbed 30,549 feet, which beat my previous high by about 2,000 feet. I guess riding 2 centuries this month contributed to the high number.

Training Stress Score (TSS): 3170         
kJ: 32838

Kind of makes me wonder if I could do 1,000 miles in a month. Sounds like something to give a shot sometime.

I was completely caught off gaurd tonight when I looked at my numbers for the month. For March I've ridden 666 miles! I've burned 27707 kJ/calories for an active time on bike of 40:01:58. Another number that completely surprised me was the amount of climbing I'd done this month. I climbed a total of 28,023 feet. This surprised me as I really wasn't going out of my way doing hill repeats or hilly courses per se like I did for Tour das Hugel training. This was the most climbing I'd done in any given month. My past most climbing month was last November when I climbed 10,000+ feet for the Hugel and that month I posted up 27,955 feet of climbing.

It wasn't the most mileage I've done in a single month, that honor still belongs to July 2008 where I had 730 miles. Yes I will be riding a mile tonight, don't want the 666 number hanging around and jinxing me.

2008 was a great year on the bike I racked up a total of 6,577.91 miles. I climbed 256,046.2 feet and I lost 35 pounds in 2008, but more importantly I reached a long term goal I set for myself in 2007, that getting my weight down to what I weighed when I played hockey in Europe. Not only did I get back to my hockey weight but I ended up beating it by 10 pounds. Back in January 2007 I set the long term goal of losing 105 pounds to get back down to 190. When I reached this goal this summer I rewarded myself with a used PowerTap from ebay.

I'm a firm believer of rewards when goals are met, it helps to keep me motivated. In fact my reward for achieving the 2008 goal of riding 10,000 feet in 1 day was a new jersey. I actually bought the Twin Six King of the Mountain Brew Pub jersey during the summer when they had a 3 day sale. I didn't even try it on until I conquered Tour das Hugel thus reaching the 10,000 foot mark.

Another 2008 goal that I met was riding a century. Once I had 100 miles under my belt I upped the ante and set a time constraint of riding a century under 5 1/2 hours. I bettered that mark by 10 minutes at the Outlaw Trail 100. One last achievement in 2008 was getting up the Limecreek hill (the Sisters) in 3 minutes 30 seconds. My best time of 2008 was 3 minutes and 23 seconds. When I first set the goal my time was a little under 5 minutes (4'52).

2009 Goals

Where to go from here? In 2009 I'd like to try my hand at actual racing from road racing, time trials and ultra endurance races. I'll still do some event rides here and there but won't be a focus. Right now I don't have any dilusions of grandure so I won't be making any bold statements that I finish in the top 10. This year I'll just be content with competing and learning the ropes of racing while focusing on training. Without further ado here's my goals for 2009:

• A 40K Time Trial in 1 hour or less
• Ride 200 miles in 1 day
• Ride up the 3 sisters in 3 minutes flat, (2008 goal was 3'30 current PR is 3'24)
• Join a team/club
• Ride the Outlaw Trail 100 in 5 hours or less
• Increase my FTP by 20%
• Increase my 5 second and 1 minute power to balance out my power profile
• Get my body fat tested so I know how much to lose. In High School my body fat percentage was 11%. Ideally I want to get it down to 13%, I'll have to see how realistic that is, but at this point I'd rather focus on body fat than solely on weight. If anybody has recommendations on where to get a true body fat test in Austin let me know. I want either the calipurs or one of the newer tests that use professional quality dual electron machines, not the consumer level scales that give you weight and body fat.
• Raise $1000 for Team Fatty and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

There you have it, this is what I'll be focusing on this year on the bike. So stay tuned as this is what this blog will be focusing on as well. Just for the record in case anybody clicks on the Fat Mike picture I lost the weight through working out and changing my diet, I have been accused of getting medical procedures to lose the weight, nope it was all bike and no fast food.

August Achievements:

• Miles: 682.58
• Climbing:  22,858 feet
• Longest ride: 109 miles while riding the Outlaw Trail 100 route.
• Shortest ride: 4.61 miles riding with my son Jack.
• Lost 3 pounds!

September Ambitions

• I want to continue my hill climbing routine with a major hill ride of around 8,000 feet of climbing.
• Get in a really long ride, I'm thinking a down and back to San Marcos. Depending on the route it looks like it'd be about 140 miles. As alluring as competing in the 12 hour event at the Texas Time Trials is the 160 mile drive up to Cleburn makes the ride to San Marcos a bit more appealing.
• Ride the Tour de Florence, metric century route.
• Cut weight to 180 lbs (4 pounds)