It was cold, but it was dry.

I joined the Scott’s group for their Thursday night ride. I do not know why, but they always seem to take the Macleay route when I join them. Cool.

I intended to contest the Macleay hill with Earl, but he has been chastised about breaking up the group. So I road with him for the first half of the hill. I then slowly pulled away, or more likely, he slowly dropped back. I never really attached until the last 100 meters, so I was able to be the first to the top. My average wattage was 252 and my average heart rate was a low 145.

I guess it is time to start riding with the fast group.

Joanne and I got to lead a dry night ride!

Joining us was Jean, Jim and Dale. Spirits were high as we left the Bi-Mart parking lot. Jim had missed the last two rides due to a cold, so there was some catching up to do. Jean was coming down with a cold, so she was taking it easy tonight. Dale mentioned to me that he was really enjoying these easy night rides.

We altered the route by taking the Salem Parkway Trail. On the cut off that leads down to Keizer Station, there is a section that was covered in mud due to the recent rains. When Dale encountered this section, he went down.

I was following the group when all of a sudden, I saw Dale fall to his left landing on his left shoulder. He was dazed, but not hurt. He took careful stock of himself and found no breakage or cuts, perhaps because he actually slide for a distance in the mud. Needless to say, his left side was a bit on the brown side. After a few moments, he was ready to continue.

The next incident involved Jim and a dog.

There is a short but steep downhill down to Windsor Island. Jim got ahead of the rest of the group and was about 100 yards in front of us when he came upon a black lab trotting down the center of the road. As Jim came up behind the dog, he was at first confused by what he was seeing. He was seeing the dog’s shadow but not the dog! Then, just as he came abreast of the dog, he realized what was causing the shadow, and dog became aware of Jim causing the the dog to dart off into the darkness.

The rest of the ride was uneventful.

I rode this ride very easy. After Monday’s ride with Craig, my right ankle began paining me. I would feel discomfort on the inside side near the heal. As such, I did not do my intended ride on the trainer last night instead taking another day off. This seemed to have helped as I felt no pain walking today, and no pain during tonight’s ride.

Thanks to a very great man, I did not have to work today. So I joined Craig on what was suppose to be a dry bicycle ride.

The plan was to meet midway in between our homes in the small Willamette Valley town of Gervais. I left my house and started riding but I soon returned for a wind jacket. There as a very light mist in the air, and I thought a wind jacket would be sufficient. I was wrong.

Within a half mile of my home, the sky opened up and a hard rain began to fall. It was too late to go back for a real rain jacket, so I got wet. I was wearing four light layers, but none of them could be considered rain gear.

However, Craig and I enjoyed several different weathers today. First there was rain, then clouds and even some sun. Due to the weather, neither one of us were interested in pushing the pace, which was fine with me. I could still feel my hard ride Saturday in my legs.

We headed toward Mt. Angel, but finding a route proved to be interesting. We first rode down Waypark Drive, but we found it flooded. So we turned around a found another road to Mt. Angel.

In Mt. Angel, Craig and I stopped at a small coffee shop. I opted for a muffin and Craig ordered Chicken Noodle Soup (with homemade noodles!). Being two wet cyclists, we attracted attention and we shared a few stories with the locals.

The return started dry, but as we approached Brooks, the sky opened up again and I got wet again, the perfect ending to a Wet Monday.

Miles: 36.16
Average Speed: 14.5
Average Heart Rate: 112

After yesterday’s hard ride, I slept in till 8:00 o’clock. I got a whopping ten hours of sleep! The sleep must have helped as my morning resting heart rate was not elevated.

No bike riding today – quads a bit sore. So I took some time to do some much needed maintenance to my Redline Conquest Pro Ti rainbike. It now has a new chain, clean chainrings and new brake pads in the rear (they were gone!). I’m already for a ride tomorrow.

Words that scare me include: hill repeats, very steep grades and riding in the rain.

I did all three today.

Gibson is one of my favorite hills. It climbs just over 900 feet in three and three quarters miles. But what make this hill great is that the grade is always changing. You find very steep sections, some not so steep sections, a short flat and every a couple of short descents. This hill never gives you a chance to find and then stay in a rhythm. That is what makes it such a good training hill.

The back side of Orchard Heights is shorter, steeper and meaner. You climb 600 feet in 1.6 miles and suffer up grades in excess of 20 percent. This hill reaches into your gut, grabs hold and makes you scream in pain. I like it.

Today, I did a loop that goes up Gibson, down Orchard Heights and then does a short flatish loop before returning and climbing Orchard Heights. You then descend Orchard Heights to make a loop with Gibson. The loop is 20 miles long and right at 2,000 feet of elevation gain. I finished three loops for a total of 58.72 miles and 6,212 feet of elevation gain.

My ride plan for the day was a modified stairstep. I would ride the first loop at a medium effort, the second loop at a hard effort and the last loop very easy. I manage to follow the plan, mostly. The table below show my results for each of the climbs. You can see that I did hit the second Gibson climb hard, so hard that I had nothing left for the return climb up Orchard Heights.

Loop	Time	Avg Heart Rate	Avg Speed
Gibson	28:12	136	8.1
Orchard Heights	16:45	137	5.7
Gibson	25:57	149	8.7
Orchard Heights	17:53	138	5.3
Gibson	33:40	132	6.7
Orchard Heights	19:00	134	5.0

Weather

It was raining when I started and it rained throughout the ride. As I neared the ridge line on my first climb up Gibson, I could see the communications towers. But as the day wore on, the clouds lowered. The ridge line was clouded over on my second time up and I was riding within the clouds on my third and last climb up.

In addition, the wind picked up in the afternoon. There was no wind in the morning, but a strong south wind started blowing in the afternoon. In the few open areas on the climbs, the wind would push my bicycle giving me an opportunity to experiment with positions on the bike that would produce the most stability. My conclusion is the best position is with my foot down and weighted on the side of the bike that the wind was coming from.

Calories

During the five hour ride, I consumed three 24 oz bottles of a mixture of Perpetuem and Heed and two Chocolate Mint Cookie Crunch Balance Bars for a total of 1,120 calories – roughly 225 calories an hour. This felt find, but it seems a bit low. I think I will try to slowly increase my per hour calorie consumption to 300 per hour.

Tomorrow, I plan to put in a long, hard day.

I plan on riding the Orchard Heights Loop, several times. Each loop is about 20 miles in length and has about 2,000 feet of elevation gain.

The weather forecast is for rain, so I will be riding my Redline Conquest Ti – my rain bike.

Tonight was the Salem Bicycle Club Wednesday Night Ride.

Joanne, Jean and I rode the Windsor Island Loop counter clockwise. My goal was to ride at recovery pace and I succeeded. My average heart rate for the 25 miles was just 92 beats per minute.

We did the entire ride in a very light rain. So light my shoes never got wet, and my rain coat protected me. However, to shoe booties were wet and covered with grime.

I rode the trainer tonight.

I thought about using one of the multiple short intervals DVDs, but I heard something else calling me. I heard “Long intervals, do long intervals”. I have the Spinerval Totally Time Trial DVD, which includes four 15 minute intervals at lactate threshold. I have used this DVD before, but I never have been able to finish it. Since I had been to the gym for a circuit training workout last night, I should not have attempted Totally Time Trail, but I did.

And after an hour and thirty minutes of work, sweat and pain, I finished it!

I have to revise my cycling goals for this year as for what ever reason, the Davis Bicycle Club will not be having the Davis 12/24 Challenge this year.

This is disappointing to me as I was really looking forward to racing it this year.

But not all is lost as the Lewis and Clark Ultra will be held in May. I have never raced this event and I am looking forward to it. The last two years, I have volunteer and I am impressed with both the course and the support provided by the race promoter – Glenn Johnson.

As to training, yesterday was a complete rest day – no trainer and no riding. Today, I attended my circuit weight training class (which was difficult). Tomorrow night I plan on an interval session on the stationary trainer.

The alarm did wake us up at 6:00 am.

We had intended to go ride our bicycles.

The sky was clear.

But, it was cold and the ground was icy. So we decided to postpone our ride until the afternoon. This allowed me to get in a stationary trainer workout.

I choose the CTS Hill Repeat DVD, but with 36 minutes left, if froze up on me. None the less, I got in an hour of training including two 5 minute intervals and then two 10 minute intervals – all at lactate threshold.

I get the sense that I am getting stronger, which would not be difficult considering my level of fitness when I started training.

Distance: 16.85 mph
Average Power: 166 watts
Max Power: 372 watts
Time: 1:00:00
Average Cadence: 65
Average Speed: 16.9 miles per hour

In the beginning of the ride, I concentrated on my cadence. Spinning with power cranks is difficult, but for two 5 minutes rest periods, I did average 90 rpm. I was quite pleased as I have never been able to maintain this high of cadence on the power cranks before. However, after the first ten minute lactate threshold interval, I dropped down to my usual 65 revolutions per minute cadence.

Also, fiddling with the computer to get the DVD to play did impact my performance.