July 9

STREETliner practice, and the record attempt in less than 10 days!

I’ve been riding Critical Power Streetliner quite a bit – especially when it’s windy and it’s ALWAYS windy in Calgary. Except recently, of course. It’s been very calm, so I haven’t had any really great chances to practice handling the streamliner while getting buffeted by side winds and gusts.

I finished my last long fast century on Friday. I took the M5 back out to High River and headed south on the flat and fast highway to Fort McCleod, AB, then turned around and blasted back. My total ride time was 4 hours, 38 minutes and my total time not including 1 stop was 4 hours, 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I had to stop at the Claresholm 7-11 for water, and as luck would have it, I was stuck in a line-up of slurpie buyers and some lady buying up all the lotto tickets. I was really trying to limit my time off the bike, and was hoping to nail a 4.5 hour century including stops.

I am happy though – this was my hardest, longest ride to date. 200 watts total average which required an average of 225 watts for the majority of peddling time. The winds really picked up during the second half and I am certain that they slowed me down some. I also elected to skip my second water stop and ran out 90 minutes before I reached my car. That was one tough 90 minutes! Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I was checking out some Tour du France SRM files from this years tour. During Jens Voigt’s breakaway on July 4, stage 3, he averaged 300 watts for 4.5 hours!!! Compare that to my measley 200 to put my effort into a rather humbling perspective.

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The record attempt is 10 days away!!!

I’m feeling very ready. After looking through all of my SRM training data files, I feel like I am in pretty good physical condition for the record. This 3 month training cycle I expended 55,940 Kilojoules compared to 25,970 Kj before the Alabama attempt at the end of 2005. Not only was my total training power volume greater, my total time spent training was as well – 115 hours compared to 65, and my average power per hour training was also higher – 486 Kj per hour for this cycle, compared to 397 Kj per hour in 2005. I was also more efficient this go-round with an average heart rate of 110 bpm producing 89 additional watts per hour average than my 108 bpm heart rate produced last year.

I have incorporated way more intensity in this training cycle – a total of 4.24 hours spent above 220 watts compared to .48 hours last year.

The best indicator of my fitness is the average amount of power I produce on an ultra long ride. My recent Calgary to Jasper ride of 14.5 hours resulted in an overall average of 130 watts and 107 bpm heart rate. This compares to an 11.5 hour ride last year where I averaged 127 watts with 116 bpm heart rate.

My weight is up to 157 pounds compared to 154 last year which could mean that I am producing less power per pound of body weight which isn’t great. However, I will probably drop a couple of pounds from my fat loading program that I start tomorrow. (click on the tab at the bottom of that page: “food, water, …”)

We are looking into setting up a temporary web cam at Redwood Acres race track in Eureka, CA to broadcast the 24 hour record attempt. I’m not sure if we can make that happen because internet access is available only in the office which is a fair distance away from the track side.

However, I will make an attempt to issue hourly updates via my BLOG mail list. If you want to follow my progress, then make sure you have signed up to receive these BLOG updates via my email announce list.

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