HIT...HAT...FIT...FAT...WIT...WAT

As I stare out the window into the early October mist, I am reminded as to just how frustrating it was to implement a consistent strategy for riding last winter. I design training plans for the athletes I coach based on their available hours, experience, goals, patience, and a myriad of other factors. Unfortunately I can’t control the weather, and the weather is often the most variable determinant of whether or not a training plan will yield the results we are looking for.

Last winter I taught a training plan clinic for High Performance Cycling team members:

http://www.cascade.org/EandR/Ride_HPC.cfm

http://www.cycleu.com/services/team/team_hpc.html

During the clinic, I discussed how to build the classic periodization style plan for the cycling year. Later in the spring (while winter was still raging), I came to the realization that I wasn’t even close to following the plan I had laid out for myself. Given my flexible time to ride and the possession of a “rain bike” (and willingness to use it), I knew that my athletes wouldn’t have much chance implementing the plans I had written for them. What good is a plan if it can’t be completed?

Normally our winters are mild enough for year-round cycling. Even so, there is enough variability that following an outdoor riding plan is challenging. This winter I'll be developing a HIT (High Intensity Training) program for people who realistically can ride between 4-6 hours per week (expandable with nice weather) with a maximum of four rides per week. The hard intervals that are part of a HIT plan can be done outdoors, but doing the workouts indoors makes a lot of sense.

A traditional volume based plan breaks down below ten hours a week. There simply is not enough training stimulus. At eight hours per week, a volume style plan can produce moderate fitness…and keep you there. In other works, the athlete plateaus and often gets frustrated with the lack of progress.

For people willing to tough it out through the winter weather for 10+ hours per week, I'll use a traditional periodization plan. Personally, I’m going with a HIT plan. Coming from someone who has spent a total of one hour on the trainer over the last three years, this commitment to indoor riding is quite a concession. I plan on doing a lot of hiking and snowshoeing over the winter, and spending less time on the road bike. I’m not sure how I’ll account for muddy MTB rides in my plan, but I’ll work around it.

In case HIT is copyrighted, I could call it HAT (Hard Ass Training), FIT (Fervently Intense Training),FAT (Fairly Aggressive Training), WIT (Winter Intense Training), or WAT (Winning Attack Training). On second thought, I’ll use HIT and run the risk of copyright infringement.

There have been a lot of studies over the last several years that demonstrate how effective a HIT strategy can be. Will it work as well as a classic plan built around volume of 12+ hours a week? Well, no, I don’t expect it to, but I suppose if you had no idea as to what to do with those 12 hours HIT very well could be more effective. Depending on the athlete, the goal for a HIT plan could be to prepare for a spring cycling tour or big event, Cycle U Chelan Camp, or to ride strong on group rides. For information about the science of HIT, search the internet for “cycling high intensity training.”

I think the key when time or weather limits training time is to maximize the quality and value of the riding that can be accomplished. With plenty of time for recovery, I intend to make every minute on the bike count this winter. Come spring, I’ll be doing those longer rides that I used to grit my teeth through over the winter.

Hey, if we get a week of dry 65 degree weather in the middle of winter, I’ll throw HIT out the window…for a week. I’ll get back to HIT when the next tsunami of rain hits, and I bet I won’t have to wait long.

2014 S-Works Tarmac SL4 Contador Edition

I named this bike ACE. A is for Alberto, C is for Contador (C could also stand for Clenbuterol, something nobody had ever heard of until he tested positive for it), and E is for the fifth letter of the alphabet, which is appropriate since this is my fifth S-Works Tarmac. Shortly I will post an article that discusses the differences between the bikes.

 It's not like I am a big Contador fan, but I just love the color scheme, and the fact that this bike has fewer Specialized logos than any of the bikes I've owned.

Faceoff: Garmin Edge 510 vs. Garmin Edge 500 review

People who ride with me say that I have a GPS inside my head. I’ve ridden just about every road one would care to ride not only in the Seattle area, but in the entire state of Washington, as well as a fair amount in Oregon and California. My “GPS” has been pretty effective, at least in King County. So I wasn’t looking for GPS help in the form of maps or courses.I started using a Garmin Edge 500 a little over a year ago, almost entirely so that I could try Strava. I quickly realized that I really didn’t know much about either GPS devices or Strava. Strava is an interesting subject unto itself, and I intend to voice my many opinions about Strava, both good and bad, in a future article.

I was hoping that my Edge 500 and Strava could help me by simplifying personal data collecting and record keeping for me. For over ten years, I have timed myself on various local area climbs. My goal has always been to compare today’s me against yesterday’s younger me, and tomorrow’s older me. This is a great way to monitor both fitness level and/or the effects of ageing, and I encourage my coaching clients to do this. With Strava, I figured that I could construct segments on these climbs, and then I would no longer have to do manual split times. There would be no more trying to remember if I stopped timing at the mailbox on the right, or the speed limit sign near the top of the climb. Even better, I learned that if I wanted to, I could make these segments private and catalog only my results, so I would have a quick at-a-glance reference data base. But for this to work, I would need reliable and consistent GPS data.

If you only use your Edge for road riding, go ahead and skip this whole next section on GPS accuracy, because it is most applicable to mountain biking in dense cover.

In the 90’s, what is called “Selective Availability” was used for national security purposes to intentionally degrade GPS signals that consumer devices received. This practice ended in May of 2000. I remember reading that consumer GPS in theory would be just as accurate as military GPS. The official jargon was that “Users in the U.S. and the rest of the world would now be experiencing the same basic GPS accuracy of 10-20 meters or better.” That’s great, but not good enough for what I wanted to do, and quite frankly, not good enough for Strava in general.

I read on and learned that “The actual accuracy users attain depends on factors outside the government's control, including atmospheric effects and receiver quality. Real-world data collected by the FAA show that some high-quality GPS SPS receivers currently provide better than 3 meter horizontal accuracy.” Now we are talking! Of course, the military still has the good stuff: “Higher accuracy is available today by using GPS in combination with augmentation systems. These enable real-time positioning to within a few centimeters, and post-mission measurements at the millimeter level.” OK, I don’t even want to know how much that costs taxpayers.

In a nutshell, my 500 worked pretty well on the road, but not good enough to eliminate my manual split times, and not good enough for totally reliable Strava data. In defense of Strava, Strava can only be as accurate as the data that it uses to do its comparison calculations. It is on the mountain bike that the 500 let me down big time, with so much GPS tracking error that my device was transmitting very erroneous information at times when I downloaded files to Strava. Who knows what kind of results people using phone GPS are getting, although based on files I have viewed, I suspect it is in line with my Edge 500.

Early this year, Garmin released the 510 and 810 devices with touchscreens. My initial reaction was that I would be so distracted by a touchscreen that I would end up in a bad accident. After all, I don’t even carry a “smart” phone. After talking with Garmin in June about my accuracy issues with the Edge 500, I realized that I had to give the 510 a try. In addition to the US GPS system, Garmin has given the 510 the ability to use GLONASS, which is the Russian satellite system. GLONASS has the same global coverage and precision as the US system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS


Using both GPS and GLONASS enables the 510 to “see” twice as many satellites as the 500 at any given time. When I asked Garmin about increased accuracy, I was told, “Well, you basically have twice as many satellites and twice as good of a chance of getting reliable data.” In reality, the 510 has been more like ten times as good in terms of accuracy, especially when riding my mountain bike. I would have considered a Garmin 810, but for some reason Garmin chose not to incorporate GLONASS into the more expensive 810 that features full color mapping. I have a feeling I know why, but more on that later. While I don’t use maps or courses on the road, the 810 could be really helpful while hiking or mountain biking…if it had GLONASS to enable it to be accurate enough for courses and maps to work well under heavy tree cover.

On my road bike, my 500 would normally display accuracy of 20-40’, which worked well about 75% of the time. I would sometimes have odd GPS track results, and friends I ride with shared similar experiences. On the mountain bike, the typical accuracy value for the 500 was 50-80’, which yielded decent results at times. At other times, however, the 500 would get “confused”, displaying accuracy numbers north of 200’. My resulting GPS tracks on days like this might have well have had me riding in the next zip code. I showed up on bizarre Strava segments, and more importantly, many segments I actually rode were not even picked up.

My 510 displays accuracy of 10’ or less a high percentage of the time when road riding. I can’t say how much less, since the value is set with 10’ as a minimum, but it’s pegged on 10’ a lot of the time. I can’t recall a single disappointing road GPS track since I have been using the 510. While I still will do my manual splits for my most important climbs, I am finding that I am getting Strava data accurate enough for me to make valid comparisons. It is on the mountain bike, however, where the difference in accuracy between the 500 and 510 is quite dramatic. Typical 510 accuracy values are 15-20’, no matter what kind of cloud or tree cover I am under. I don’t believe I have ever seen a higher number than 30’, and I have been obtaining outstanding GPS data as a result.

What this boils down to is that if you use your Garmin on a mountain bike and want consistently reliable data, the 510 is the only way to go. If you only ride on the road, the increased accuracy is nice, but individual results can vary, and I know plenty of people who are happy with their 500. If it were me, knowing I was getting much more reliable and a higher level of GPS accuracy alone would justify a 510 for road only use. But what if we forget about GPS accuracy and mountain biking, how strongly would I recommend the 510 over the 500? Very, very strongly is my answer.

First, the negatives from my perspective:

• I had read complaints of poor user interface, false alerts, and touchscreen inconsistency. I have not experienced any of the functionality issues early adopters initially complained about, so I have to assume that they have been corrected with firmware updates.

• The 510 is slightly bigger than the 500 and weighs 23g more than the 500 (80g vs. 57g). I actually prefer the larger size, as it gives me more flexibility in terms of number of display lines, and text size. I don’t think I will notice the 23gJ

• Even though the 510 has a claimed 20 hour battery life vs. 18 hours for the 500, the “effective” life of the 510 may be quite a bit lower, depending on how the device is used. I don’t know if the color touchscreen sucks a lot of power, but using two satellite systems at once (GLONASS can be switched off, but why would I do that) and the back light full time (see below) does. This is why I think Garmin didn’t design GLONASS into the 810. I have to figure that color maps would be too much of an additional power drain.  Here are the battery life numbers: GPS use only: 20 hours, GPS and GLONASS: 15 hours, and worst case scenario of using GPS and GLONASS, with the backlight on full time at the brightest level: 6 hours. Not a problem right? Well, it could be…

The big negative and the one that could turn off potential buyers is that the 510 is not as easy to read in certain light conditions as the 500. I think battery life must have limited the type of display they could incorporate with all of the new power consuming features of the 510. While I have never experienced any problem even while using the backlight full time, reduced battery life could be an issue if you are a winter commuter who frequently rides six hours or more at night, uses the backlight full time, and uses GLONASS as well as GPS. I can’t imagine many riders fit that profile.

I leave the screen on full time while mountain biking, but I don’t do six hour plus MTB rides. Other users have reported issues in bright sunlight, but I have no problem at all seeing the screen in bright light without the backlight, so I don’t normally use it. In certain light conditions for short road rides, I sometimes leave the backlight on, which works well. At other times, I set the backlight to remain on for 15 or 30 seconds any time I touch the screen. In any case, shorter battery life or a more difficult to read screen has never been a problem for me at any time.  I actually find the 510 easier to read overall, since the larger screen results in a larger font size compared to the 500 when using the same number of data lines. Of course, I have not yet used my 510 on drab lighted middle of the winter road rides, but since the light works perfectly for me in the darkest of woods, I don’t foresee a problem. If you are a heavy screen watcher, you will want to make sure to take the 510 outside and try it with and without the backlight before you buy it.

Here are the positives:

• Significantly increased accuracy give a rider peace of mind that his lung bursting effort will indeed be picked up by Strava and the segment rendered correctly. As I mentioned, I don’t use courses, but if I did, I would think the 510’s higher accuracy would be valuable. Related to this, the 510 has the ability to zoom in on a course, and according to friends that is a nice feature.
• Much faster initial satellite acquisition thanks to GLONASS, normally a few seconds instead of up to a few minutes with the 500. 
• Now this next one is a surprise to me. I far prefer the touchscreen (which works with gloves) to the four small buttons on the sides of the 500. It is much easier to swipe the screen without taking my eye off of the road (or trail!) with either hand than to feel for those small buttons. The 510 does have three buttons (including the power button), but the two most important ones (lap split and timer) are located on the top of the unit, where they are much easier for me to access. With the 510, you can swipe to move from a screen in either direction, as opposed to using a button to move in only one direction with the 500. This means that if you are using three screens, you can access any of them with only one swipe. In my opinion, the touchscreen alone makes the 510 a very worthwhile upgrade. The color screen and night and day screens are nice, but not a hugely important feature for me.

• A rider can have ten different bike profiles, but here is a biggie for me: the 510 can store five different “Activity Profiles,” and you can customize data pages and lines, auto-pause, auto-lap, heart or power training zones, page color, alerts, etc, for each profile. For example, I use road, road with heart rate, mountain bike, mountain bike with heart rate, and hiking profiles. I love this! No more rearranging data fields when I decide to ride my mountain bike instead of my road bike, or use my heart rate monitor. This is a great feature. I also think I would get a 510 for this feature alone.

• Many new programmable data fields have been introduced with the 510. An example of two that I particularly like is the ability to display your last lap time, last lap heart rate or power, last lap distance, etc. With the 500, I would get done with a hard climb, set a lap split, and then try and read a tiny number that displayed for 10 seconds. That was a problem if I happened to be approaching an intersection, or jamming down a trail. Now the info remains on the screen in a font size I select, and I can look at it any time I want to until I set a new lap split. For someone who frequently uses the lap timer, this is a huge safety feature. There are some new course related data fields as well.

• Not a factor at all for me, but for some it will be: both the 510 and 810 can be connected via Bluetooth to a smart phone. You can invite people to view your GPS ride track real time on Garmin Connect, and after you are done riding, they will know you are finished, and you can have them over to watch paint dry. Seriously, I do understand the potential safety benefits of this, especially on the MTB. Just how long would my “dot” have to remain in one place before someone called out the posse? You also can automatically post an update to your favorite social media site to announce that you have left your garage and are on your way. You can get weather updates on your 510, and it will automatically send your file to Garmin Connect (but not Strava). You can also download courses from Garmin Connect via the Bluetooth connection. I can’t imagine that the connectivity feature would be reason enough to buy a 510, but if you are already carrying a smart phone when you ride, the safety feature by itself might be really important to you.

• Included with the 510 is a lanyard that you can install to connect the device to your stem, or wrist if you are running or hiking. While I never had to look in the weeds for my 500, I know people who have had to after they fell off of their mountain bike. Besides, I will be a lot less likely to drop the 510 onto my driveway when I remove it from my stem. This provides a little peace of mind, and peace of mind is important.

•  I no longer use a power meter, but if I did I would appreciate the 510’s much improved and more numerous (22!) available power data fields including real time TSS/ IF, and right-left leg balance

• If you are into this type of thing, the grade and vertical speed number accuracy has improved, no doubt due to the increased GPS sensitivity with GLONASS.

• The 510 is fully compatible with standard Garmin mounts, the GSC-10 speed and cadence sensor and heart rate belt; as well as the nifty K-Edge out front mount. Garmin will sell you the 510 head unit individually.

• The workout and training plan features have been improved.

• There is a largely worthless “Personal Records” display. Perhaps this will be improved with a firmware change down the road.

What’s the bottom line? Whether you ride road and/or mountain bikes, the Edge 510 is a very well thought out device. If you don’t already own an Edge, the only reason to even consider a 500 is if you find it more readable in the light conditions you usually ride in. If you already own a 500 and ride exclusively on the road, I’ve given you several reasons to consider a 510. If you ride both road and mountain bikes like I do, in my opinion upgrading to the 510 is a no-brainer.

RAAM: Chris Ragsdale's first solo Race Across America

Local endurance athlete finished his first RAAM eleven days ago. Here is his report. 

"Here I am 11 days after having gotten off the bike from Solo RAAM 2013. Approximately the same amount of time it took me to finish the race. It hit me in the shower that finally I feel ready to sit and tell my story. I've been contemplating it for a week now. You know work, family, downtime, chores, I'm still processing obviously. A lot can happen in 11 days and it often does. This was my first time doing RAAM. I have done a lot of Ultra distance racing, a couple dozen events lasting 24 hours or more.  When asked about those events people would say, what is it like out there? or What do you think about? or How do you feel?  I would say well it's crazy I go through all kinds of feelings.  That's the great thing about an Ultra race.  You're out there so long that you have enough time to feel every way.  I go through anxiety, fear, stress, I feel excited, aggressive, angry, peaceful, fulfilled, supported, passive, and lost. Most of those things and more run through my thoughts during almost all of my races. This race is the equivalent of doing 10 in a row.

RAAM is 3,000 miles and the clock never stops. The route this year went from Oceanside California to Annapolis Maryland; we left on June 11 at noon. Well, my start time was 12:53--we went off on a time trial start process. So we each were brought up individually, names called out so the crews and locals that were watching could put a face to the name. I had been standing in the ocean a couple hours earlier with my friend and crew member Matt.  Now i'm standing at the start line of what would be the biggest event i'm likely to ever take on. I was thinking about how grateful I was to be there. Standing there I was present to how fortunate I was for having gotten to this point.  The race is a Big Deal to the minority who know about it. I've been aware of it for more then 10 years. Had all kinds of thoughts about it, everyone has their own.  It's amazing, crazy, inspiring, even impossible. For me it's a process.  One that was about to go into its next phase.  I had decided shortly after PBP in 2011 that I thought I wanted to give it a go, that finally I was ready. Over the next 2 years I organized, planned, and had to raise enough money to make it happen. RAAM costs a lot of money. We need crew people and resources to do it. Standard protocol is to feed and shelter the people who have so generously volunteered to take 2 plus weeks of their life off to help.  I decided on a small crew to keep expenses and drama to a minimum.  For a 6 person 2 van crew we estimated our budget to be $25,000. Sounded like a lot to me, I kept looking at our spreadsheet trying to find ways to pinch here and there.. By May and some small miracle we had managed to raise enough. I  had also managed to land some sponsors. Getting sponsorship is a difficult process. This is a small niche sport and financial times are tight. Fortunately companies started to come forward: Redpoint Coaching stepped up as Tittle sponsor, Volagi bikes, Assos, McHale Performance and Byrne thermal, and Dumonde tech, and other companies had been helping me already like Seattle Performance Medicine and Olson's. While I did have some companies pitching in, a lot of the money that came in was from friends and supporters. I asked for money to help make this event happen. I simply could not afford to do it otherwise and more then 100 different people donated, that is inspiring. Some donated multiple times. Looking back through the list now I see how these people have come from all walks of life, many of which have nothing in common with one another. They are my riding friends, people from work, neighbors, strangers, people I knew growing up, and some people I barely know at all.  They made it possible for me to stand at the start line, and I am eternally grateful for it. Gathered around the start line I find myself more relaxed then I had thought. People were huddled around racers in small clusters and the locals were lining the start to see what this was all about. I had anticipated more people, a bigger stage. Entering the start area I was more focused on the clock than the people, soon there was no more thinking, planning, or preparing, only the doing. When the clock starts there are no do overs, no time outs, what ever happens happens.

Led by a tandem and followed by Micky Dymond with a camera strapped to his chest I take off. There is a neutral stretch down the trail until we can really race. We chat, I don't remember about what but it's pleasant and I notice the slight tail wind. Then I'm off alone for now, I will see the crew about an hour into the race for the first time. It's business as usual, the legs never hold me back early in a race, I can hardly tell they are there. I push till the breath is noticeable and focus on it. I told myself this race I wouldn't let the breathing get heavy early. A lot of racers use power meters, some still watch the heart rate.  I have always used the breath, legs and head. Early on I focus on the breathing. Usually I keep it heavy but controlled early in the race.  This race I would keep it out of the heavy zone, keep the breathing noticeable but not heavy. This method is good for the first few hours, eventually the limitation becomes the legs. I focus on keeping heavy pressure in the legs. Only letting up to relieve the back and feet. Heavy pressure through the pedals, that is the pace. After a few hundred miles the mind wonders. My pace is eventually driven by the amount of concentration I muster up. How focused on the moment I can stay. Thoughts and feelings coming and going constantly distracting my body from doing more damage. Focus, stay in the moment, make a difference here, make a difference now, re commit, re focus, a little more, right here, right now. I caught maybe a dozen of the RAW racers before I got to the crew.I caught maybe a dozen of the RAW racers before I got to the crew. The Race Across the West racers start just before us but stop in Durango. It got hot much sooner then I thought, only a couple hours in and it becomes the focus of my thoughts. Climbing Mt Palomar I get passed for the first time. Reto, last year's winner, comes past me on the climb at close to twice my speed. He smiles and I wave. I continue to look over my shoulder. This year is supposed to be an epic battle. 3 past winners are all here and a handful of guys who have seen the podium before are chasing them. Lots has been talked about with regard to my being here. Americans haven't gotten a win here in a long time. I'm here to do my thing, my best, for me. When the sponsors, friends, and media crews are all gone and I'm in my darkest hour, that's what will matter. More than 30 minutes go by from when Reto passed me and finally Wyss from Switzerland comes by, about as long again and Strasser goes by.  It's a long race but I thought they would be closer.

In the desert the first evening, the crews change and I change bikes.Terry, Louise, and Matt had started with me and they would now hand the follow van over to Bob, Mike, and Sol.  I hop on the other Volagi. I had one set up close to stock with the disc brakes and lighter wheels and another set up with traditional wheels, both had clip on aero bars.  I went from the climbing bike to the more TT set up with aero wheels. It's dark now but it's also over 100 degrees. We haven't been racing long but it feels hard.  I get a leg cramp, that's odd, I never cramp, keep going. The first night feels noisy, lots of racers, lots of crews, lots of questions. I continue to feel things out. During the night we have to stop for gas and while doing so Mike accidentally steps on a giant toad. We continue on, racers are strung out like climbers on a mountain. Lights shining and evenly spaced this is a non drafting event so we are spread out long. We have to stop again I'm not sure for what, I'm only focused on how far the other lights must have gone. I chased for 2 hours to find that when I caught them the lights were now out. The sun was rising and gaps had grown. Soon I would have my first radio interview. 

I had gotten hooked up with Cardo radio systems. It's a small device that goes on the back of my helmet and has a small ear and mic piece that I can talk into.  It is wireless to my phone and can be paired with another unit worn by a crew member in the van. It allows me to talk hands free to who ever is wearing one in the van or talk blue tooth through my phone to anyone anywhere. So when I was asked to do interviews during RAAM I said sure.  My home town radio wanted to do a daily interview and so did George Thomas with OTTP radio. I spaced them out by a couple hours and had them both in the morning. The first was at 7am EST, the second was at 10am MST. All race communications were to be done in Official time which was EST regardless of the time zone we were currently in, we would go through 4 time zones. Try figuring it out with no sleep. 

The first morning was fun, changed clothes on the side of the road and got ready for my first full day's work.  I would see my old friend Alan who had moved to Arizona. I told him I would be to Congress about 24 hours in.  He met me on the road before I got there. He had crewed before and he knew the drill. We hugged and smiled and I rode on.  Congress time station had a pool, I wasn't going to pass it up. There were other racers there I think, did I mention the pool. Shoes on and more food in the belly, I took off and up the Yarnell grade. For a moment at the intersection they had recently repaved the road and the Garmin read 126?  Moments later it read the usual 110. I felt great on the climbs out of Congress, I passed riders, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, there was pain but I don't remember it. Pain is a funny thing, It means different things to different people and it shows up in different ways on different days.  Most try and avoid it, some seek it out. I usually make it present and then just acknowledge it, seek to understand it. Where is it coming from? and what is it capable of? If I ignore it, it will get bored and go some where else, maybe my feet or hands. It's like a game of chicken. It can't possibly stay there forever, It will run and hide.

It gets dark again, we are in the mountains still. I'm getting tired, we had planned for our first stop about 40 hours in. It was just less than that when I stopped, 90 minutes sleep in the van, time to go again. We go through a large college town late at night, I'm sure we are lost. Soon another crew exchange. At the crew exchanges I started binge eating. While riding I was constantly eating, at least as much as I could. But when we would stop to swap crews as a way to distract me from the ordeal they would give me gigantic piles of food. I think they thought I wouldn't notice they were swapping if I was distracted enough. And so it went, town after town, bottle after bottle. I would ride to the next crew exchange. That is where the best food was. For the longest time the plates of food would come every 12 hours. Eventually I had to wait 15 hours until the good food. I was told by one RAAM vet that it was more like an eating competition than a bicycle race. I think he was right, It's a good thing I have a good gut. Never a single issue with the belly and proud of it! My mouth however fought back, sores and achy teeth another new experience.

After the first sleep we found a routine. 22 hours on, 2 hours off, pretty much. Sometimes I was slow getting out of the van. Sometimes I would sit a little extra at a clothes change.  In eastern Colorado on day 4 I stopped for a shower. I know quite a few RAAM vets and I made a point to talk to most if not all of them before taking this on. I would ask them everything, some would have tons of advice others much less. One thing was common: Stay On the Bike. Hmmm just noticed that's SOB. The clock never stops, 0 mph is tough to make up for. So I worked through things, I mentioned the pain thing already. It showed up in the feet and then cramping, then the heat would mute it all. It showed up in the knees and quads. There were times when I had to push my leg down with my hand in order to keep things turning, it happened a lot.  The crew was great, they would work so hard to find solutions for me. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. Get to Annapolis SOB 

America is big, and the weather changes, those things I knew. But if you never go inside, the conditions feel erratic, it changes so quickly. The reality of that has never been more clear. In 10 days I experienced teeth chattering cold to the point I could barely keep my bike straight and heat that hurt my nose and throat to breathe in.  The heat radiating off the ground cooked my knees like potatoes in tin foil.  I felt the sand ripping at my skin and eyes in a sandstorm in Utah. I experienced the fury of the storms over Kansas. And felt the calm cooling rains that reminded me of home.

The people, one of the reasons this race is so amazing is the people.  At only 11 days after the race I am forgetting where the pain was? and when? I'm forgetting what I was frustrated about and where we had issues. I don't remember which State was on what day. Or what the height was at the top of the hill. I do remember the guy in Ohio driving past me honking and then rushing into a parking lot and running from his car to the street with 2 small signs that read GO CHRIS.  I remember standing outside a hotel with a man who wanted his picture with me, he kept asking questions and I could see the inspiration in his eye. Coming over the top of the climb in Indiana after having experienced a LOW and having a rider introduce himself as Jim Rosa. We had met years ago at the National 24 hr and he had been tracking me and drove down to support. Jim rode his bike up the climb and then turned around when he saw me coming. We rode down together and he wished me well and mentioned riding together years ago.  He had put signs on the side of the road on the descent. Chris is #1,  Top American,  Go Chris etc.  I remember the Crew.  All of them doing everything they could to help me get to Annapolis. Crewing is tough, I have done it, but never on this scale. It takes a lot of patience and commitment. We were going painfully slow from one side of the continent to the other and they kept with me. It has been 11 days since I finished and it took about that long for me to get it done.  That feels like such a long time now and I know it was for them. They were driving and shopping and prepping food and bottles, taking pictures and logging spreadsheets for days and days and days on very little sleep. It was crazy hot and that Van stunk like hell. That's how committed the Crew was and needed to be for me to get to Annapolis. I can't thank them enough. The final days were dominated by the thoughts of seeing my family. They were at the finish line day's before me, never before have I experienced time in this way. The beauty of the land around me and the caring support of the crew next to me were a muted back ground to the vision of being with my wife and kids again. It was all that mattered but I needed to take the slowest and most painful way to experience that vision. It had to be done that way and it was torturous and unlike anything I have experienced. I felt isolated and alone, there was nothing anyone else could do. The only thing that made a difference was the rotating speed of the wheels beneath me. And it felt as if there was tar in my hubs. I simply couldn't go as fast as I needed to, the last days would take an eternity. Since finishing the race I have dreamed about it almost every night. Some times waking in the middle of the night " did I finish? did I make it?" Are they nightmares or just reminders? 

Mesmerized by the people and the process of RAAM at some point my race became more about survival. It was focused entirely on managing my process in a way that would have me Finishing in Annapolis. Strasser the Austrian had distanced himself from the field by the largest margin ever. He would go on to redefine what is humanly possible, crossing the country faster then it had ever been done. If we pay close attention, things like that can impact all of us. I like records, they set a frame work.  Often when looking into an Ultra race I will look at the record books. That is the frame work for possibility. It is the measuring stick upon which I judge my potential.  I'll go on to train, plan, and visualize according to the best case scenario. I like that process, I feel inspired, motivated. I've been fortunate over the years to have created some records. On this occasion I was much closer to the back of the race then I was the front. But my process was the same. Dream big, do what I can in the here and now, focus my energy, believe, my thoughts and feelings matter but the only thing that makes a difference is what I do about it. The crew and I made it to Annapolis 10 days 23 hours and 20 minutes after taking off from Oceanside. Official finishers of the solo Race Across America."

The "legal cycling rights way" is not always the best way

Most of us know our rights as a cyclist. A friend shared a story as to why we sometimes need to think outside of the box, as well as why using a mirror makes a lot of sense.

"Hey I had a great safety situation yesterday.

You know Paradise Valley road out by Maltby and such? Well it’s two narrow lanes in the woods and the white stripe is the bike lane. Normally traffic is fairly light but I think there is a construction project for which Paradise Valley is a junction. I was coming up a rise and saw a dump truck in my mirror a ways back still. I could tell that we were going to reach the crest at the same time, give or take. As I approached the crest I could see over it to find another dump truck coming our way. All three of us were going to be at the top of the hill and the two drivers would be blind to each other until just shortly before they passed. Now, of course bikers have the right to be on the road—right? We also have the right to get the hell out of the way of colliding dump trucks! I stopped my bike, dismounted and scurried up the woodsy sloped shoulder to let the two monsters pass. It could have gotten really ugly if my presence had forced the driver away from me and into the opposite truck’s lane. So I decided to live and ride another day!

That was a first. I hope last."

In memory of Lance David, the cyclist killed Wednesday on East Marginal Way

When I read the article about this accident, I didn't see many details of what happened to cause it:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020898284_bikefatalxml.html

I rode through this area hundreds of times during the ten years we lived in Downtown Seattle. I've been trying to picture how this tragic accident could occur, as more details have not been forthcoming. What we do know is that the cyclist was very experienced. His name was Lance David:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020911068_westsidebicyclistxml.html

Team HPC member John Pottle was good friends with Lance and rode with him a lot.  John emailed me to remind me that while I didn't know Lance, I had ridden with him on a Hills of the West Coast ride. John was on that ride, as was Team HPC member Greg Barton.

After I started writing my cycling blog in June of 2008, I would write a summary article on almost every Hills of the West Coast ride that I led, including 8/7/11, the day when Lance made the ride. I try to learn something every time I ride my bike, and that day was no exception. I learned from Greg that day, and I learned something from Lance:

http://tomsbicycleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/hills-of-west-coast-competitonand-pride.html

In his email to me John wrote, "Your piece was a source of great amusement to Lance and his friends - good natured ribbing only." I’m honored to know that my comments were a source of amusement to Lance and his buddies. In addition to John’s comments to me, I learned of another friend of Lance’s when he posted a comment to my original blog. Clearly, Lance was a respected cyclist and a good guy all around.

It’s always sad to read about a tragedy like this. Please be safe out on the road.

The Chill Factor

Back in November, I wrote a short article for the Cycle U Newsletter titled The Art of Riding in a Straight Line. I also published the article as a post on this cycling blog:

http://tomsbicycleblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/coachs-corner-tip-published-in-todays.html

Being able to ride in a straight line sounds like pretty basic stuff; the kind of thing most of us struggled with and ultimately mastered when we were about six years old and the training wheels came off. Right? "Riding in a straight line" takes on a whole new meaning and level of significance when you are in a race, or in a rotating paceline at 22+ mph. 

David Longdon, Team High Performance Cycling Powered by Cycle U co-manager, has written a blog about wintertime group riding. In his blog, David offers some great safety advice. Of particular note is his concluding paragraph:

Periodically there are reports of riders with abundant physical talent but limited group cycling experience at local races or group rides who do something that causes a crash or some other problem. The typical remedy usually includes yelling, harsh words, and hurt feelings. If this describes you, the best way to avoid such a situation is to swallow a humility pill then learn and practice the basics before jumping into the deep end of the swimming pool. Take a clinic at CycleU and see what the Online cycling forums have to say. Practice regularly. If you are joining a new group ride make a point of introducing yourself to the ride leader before the start, and let him/her know you are practicing your group riding skills. The ride leader may ask you to ride at the back of the group and observe, and maybe give you some tips about joining the fun.

Whatever path you take, group riding is one of the most enjoyable facets of cycling and I encourage you to get the skills and find groups that work for you.

A rider could be the next Lance Armstrong (I have not come up with a replacement phrase for this yet!) in terms of strength on the bike. If his group riding skills resemble a bull in a china shop, admiration for this rider's fitness will be far overshadowed by the chill factor caused by his lack of skill. 

David's advice is very good advice.