Phun Physiology: Use It or Lose It?

Diagram from Ron's blog

This is dedicated to all my cycling buddies who have noticed that if we are away from the bike for a couple of weeks that our endurance begins to suffer. What’s going on here? Is it anything serious? Is there some point at which all of our previous conditioning goes for naught?

I’m referring here to the effects of complete inactivity on endurance, when a once well-conditioned athlete goes “cold turkey” and does not engage in any type of physical training for a particular time period, regardless of the reason.

Physiologists have studied the effects of training cessation on well-conditioned endurance athletes. The term they’ve coined for this type of inactivity is “detraining.” Detraining is different from either tapering or maintenance, both of which involve purposeful physical activity which guards against performance decline when athletes are not engaged in their normal training routines. Detraining is also different from the type of recovery in which a cyclist may be inactive for a few days following a long, multi-day ride, for example.

Detraining can result in the loss of physiological gains that have accrued in some cases from years of endurance training. Some of the declines begin to occur in as little as two weeks of inactivity. In one particular study that I use as a reference and whose results I report here, most declines begin to plateau at about 56 days of detraining. However, even the fully detrained athlete has greater endurance than a sedentary control who never trained.

What follows is a brief summary of some of the physiological declines affecting performance in endurance athletes and their timeline. Caution should be exercised in generalizing these findings to individual circumstances. As our riding buddy, Lin, so aptly puts it, “Your mileage may vary.”

12 Days of Detraining
In as little as 12 days of detraining, there are perceptible physiological changes affecting performance.

Most notable to athletes themselves is an increase in perceived exertion during sub-maximal exercise accompanied by an increased heart rate.

What’s happening? At the cellular level, there is a decline in the activity of muscle mitochondrial enzymes. These enzymes convert fuel in the presence of oxygen to the high-energy molecule—ATP—which powers muscles. With a decrease in enzyme activity, muscles cannot work as hard, since there is less ATP. The mitochondrial enzymes rather than oxygen have become the limiting factor. It is easy to understand why VO2 max, which is a measure of the peak volume of oxygen the body consumes during a given time period for a given body weight, declines. VO2max is sometimes taken as an indicator of endurance potential.

During this same time period, there are metabolic changes. Muscles begin to shift away from using fat to using carbohydrate for energy. Ironically, however, a muscle’s ability to store carbohydrate—in the form of glycogen—begins to decline with detraining and, unfortunately, returns to baseline levels within just a few weeks of detraining. Moreover, because carbohydrates provide less energy than fats, the athlete who is detraining pays double. One particular study notes the abrupt onset of these latter changes with detraining:

These metabolic changes may take place within 10 d[ays] of training cessation.

21 Days of Detraining
At 21 days of detraining, the aforementioned declines continue, while others become noticeable.

The reduction in fat metabolism has decreased now from 24% of energy utilization to 7%.

The rate of decline in muscle mitochondrial enzyme activity, which was first noticeable after just 10-12 days of detraining, has accelerated.

Ventilation (breathing) has increased significantly from day 12 of detraining.

Other noticeable changes at this time include declines in blood volume (mostly plasma); stroke volume; and VO2max. Meanwhile, peripheral resistance in blood vessels has increased.

What does all this mean? An increase in peripheral resistance means that the heart must pump harder to get blood to the tissues. Because stroke volume (the amount of blood the heart pumps with each contraction) has decreased, heart rate must increase to compensate.

In contrast, well-conditioned athletes possess the opposite cardiovasculature: low peripheral resistance, low pulse, and high stroke volume. Moreover, conditioned athletes store more glycogen (while burning it more efficiently) and metabolize fat better than detrained athletes.

56 Days of Detraining
At 56 days of detraining, many of the aforementioned declines begin to plateau.

VO2max appears to stabilize as does the activity of mitochondrial enzymes, with values still 50% above those of sedentary controls.

Moreover, there is no reduction in muscle capillarization, the amount of small blood vessels serving the muscles. However, stroke volume and mitochondrial enzyme activity have declined to control, or baseline, levels.

By this time, there is a noticeable change in the type of skeletal muscle fibers (cells) brought about by inactivity. Broadly speaking, skeletal muscles are made up of type I and type II fibers, type I being preferred by endurance athletes due to their resistance to fatigue during aerobic exercise. There are also two types of type II muscle fibers—type IIa and type IIb. Type IIa is preferred over type IIb for the same reason that type I is preferred over type II. While there is no loss of type I muscle fibers, detraining results in the conversion of a percentage of type IIa fibers to the less-preferred type IIb fibers. In fact there was an increase in type IIb fibers from 5% to 19% as a result of detraining

60 Days of Detraining
At 60 days of detraining, there is measurable atrophy (decrease in thickness) of the heart’s muscle wall and, consequently, its ability to pump. This corresponds to the decrease in stroke volume noted earlier, necessitating a faster pulse.

84 Days of Detraining
At 84 days of detraining, the once highly conditioned endurance athlete still has 50% more mitochondrial enzyme activity than the sedentary individual who has never trained.

Additionally, the former still enjoys 22% better lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) enzyme activity over controls.

The more LDH activity an individual has the greater is his or her lactate threshold. An athlete with a high lactate threshold is able to exercise at a higher level aerobically than an athlete with a lower lactate threshold. The lactate threshold is the point at which an athlete begins metabolizing anaerobically. (Anaerobic respiration is incompatible with endurance cycling.) This occurs because lactate, which is a by-product of anaerobic respiration, interferes with other metabolic pathways. LDH removes lactate (or what some refer to as lactic acid). It follows from this that an athlete’s LDH enzyme activity is a good indicator of aerobic or endurance conditioning (capacity).

Summary
It is true that an endurance athlete’s performance begins to suffer as a direct result of inactivity even in the space of ten days. The good news is that performance decline is not progressively linear as a function of time of inactivity. While we may lose our competitive edge quickly, the physiological declines of inactivity begin to plateau at about 56 days with the exceptions of stroke volume and glycogen storage capacity both of which continue to decline to baseline, or control, levels. Consequently, the detrained athlete will still be able to outperform the sedentary individual who has never trained. Even the pumping action of the heart of a fully detrained fifty-year-old male is as strong as that of a much younger male who has never trained.

There are ways that endurance athletes with limited time to condition can stave off the adverse effects of detraining, that is, if they can manage short, intense workouts known as interval training. One possibility for cyclists who wish to maintain their present conditioning level is speed training. According to some:

[S]peed endurance training can maintain muscle oxidative capacity, capillarization, and endurance performance in already trained individuals despite reduction in the amount of training.

Another group maintains that athletes who are able to train as little as once per week at 70% VO2 max are still able to maintain their aerobic conditioning level.

Summary of Physiological Effects of Detraining
Heart rate increases as well as total peripheral resistance
Blood volume decreases (mostly the plasma portion)
Stroke volume decreases to baseline levels
Cardiac output decreases
VO2max decreases
Conversion of some type IIa skeletal muscle fibers to type IIb muscle fibers
Lactate threshold decreases
Ventilatory efficiency decreases while rate increases
Fat metabolism decreases while carbohydrate metabolism increases
Resting muscle glycogen levels decrease
Mitochondrial enzyme activity decreases


Let’s ride!

Phun Physiology: Regular Exercise May Prevent Weight Regain after Long-Term Weight Loss

With the demanding portion of the cycling season pretty much in the rear-view mirror, we now head into the offseason. I seem to grow in girth just relishing the thought of the upcoming holidays! Some cyclists, myself included, intended to and ultimately succeeded in shedding a few pounds during the cycling season. But don’t we ultimately share the same fate as dieters who successfully lose weight only to regain it again?

We know that for many individuals weight-loss diets sooner or later fail. In fact, not only do most dieters regain all of the weight they lose while dieting but are dismayed at how quickly they regain the weight. The “yo-yo” phenomenon in fact has a physiological basis.

Dieting triggers numerous physiological changes aimed at efficient weight regain as if the body seeks to reestablish its pre-diet “steady state.” Weight loss causes a decrease in hormone levels of leptin and insulin. The brain perceives an energy store deficit and signals us to eat. Ironically, weight loss actually triggers the production of additional fat cells, which facilitate rapid weight regain, should we overeat just once. And when we overeat, we feel less like exercising, which is the very antidote for preventing weight regain.

But it may be possible to turn the body’s physiology in the opposite direction so that we can benefit long term from a successful weight loss program, according to experts. This is the claim made by a team of researchers in an article published just this summer in the American Journal of Physiology entitled, “Regular exercise attenuates the metabolic drive to regain weight after long-term weight loss.” This topic might be of interest to cyclists heading into the off-season.

But haven’t we known for some time that most successful weight maintenance programs include exercise? True, but now it seems that the science (i.e., underlying physiological mechanisms) may be getting closer to this observation, giving us a reason and also the motivation to stay on track.

Of note, the researchers contend:

The novel observations from this study are that regular, aerobic, treadmill exercise in male rats countered several metabolic adaptations to weight loss that are known to facilitate weight regain and the eventual relapse to obesity.
One physiological change brought about by regular exercise after a period of successful weight loss is the body’s utilization of fat as an initial energy source rather than carbohydrate.

There is more good news. So far as it might apply to humans, the regular exercise required to keep weight regain in check is not only of low intensity but low duration calculated at four percent of daily energy expenditure, or thirty minutes of fast walking, for example.

What does this mean for cyclists? Think about the added benefit of base training this winter, consisting of long slow distances (the cyclist’s LSD). One benefit is weight maintenance. As an increased, albeit negative, incentive, recall that weight gain automatically lowers VO2max, since the calculation of the latter includes dividing by one’s body weight.

Consequently, to retain many of the physiological gains posted during the year, some cyclists may want to consider at least regular doses of low-intensity exercise with the approaching holiday season. See you out there!

Phun Physiology: Ever Thought of Having Your Own VO2 Max Tested?

Now you can. I lifted portions of two advertisements directly from this December’s issue of the Triangle edition of “Endurance Magazine.” Apparently, triangle residents (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) have a couple of choices for VO2 max testing at local universities.

First, brought to you by our friends in Chapel Hill:

Beginning in 2009, the UNC Wellness Performance Center will offer VO2 Max Testing! Results of VO2 max testing allow you to maximize training efficiency and benefit. Get the information you need to Take Your Training to Your MAX!

Direct expired gas analysis will provide you with precise measurement of oxygen uptake, while 12-lead electrocardiography will be used to monitor cardiac function. Anaerobic, ventilatory, and lactate thresholds will be calculated along with specific training heart rate ranges.

ACSM-certified Exercise Specialists and ACLS-trained nurses will administer maximal effort treadmill or cycle ergometer tests. Physician-supervised tests are also available.

VO2 Pricing
Treadmill or bike test $200
Physician-supervised test $250
Computrainer testing is available, utilizing your own bike . . .
Second, brought to you by our friends in Durham:

LET’S FIND OUT WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF.

The K-lab is a state of the art performance testing facility at Duke’s world class Sports Medicine Center. But we don’t just test Duke athletes. Whether you’re a weekend warrior or an elite athlete, we’ll assess your current fitness level, target your proper training zones and show you how to maximize performance while preventing injury. As a leader in the study of athletic performance, we can take you and your body to the next level. . .

Sport Specific Training
VO2 Max
Blood Lactate Testing
Body Composition Analysis . . .

No pricing was provided, although mention of the ad qualifies individuals or teams for 15% off the regular rate.
Since my original post, an anonymous commenter (see below) alerted me to something I completely missed: there is at least a third institution of higher learning involved in VO2 max testing in the Triangle! My apologies! And now, brought to you from our friends here in Raleigh:




Beginner to Elite Fitness/Performance Testing
Fitness Counseling
Resting Metabolic Rate
Body Composition
Heart Rate/Power Training Zones
VO2 Max
Blood Lactate Threshold . . .
Their website (in comments below) includes prices for various services and packages.

Phun Physiology: The Young at Heart, by Dean Furbish

The conversation in the parking lot at the conclusion of Saturday’s “Showdown in Black Creek” Permanent was delightfully animated (see Mike D's previous post). I mention this because we’d spent the day under overcast, melatonin skies and had battled a slight inbound headwind. No dreary moods here, though. The group of nine riders engaged in mild banter, self deprecation, and story-telling over coffee, pastry, and post-ride picture posing. It can be said that these riders are literally some of the young at heart. Read on.

The topic of this post occurred to me when a couple of riders shared hilarious anecdotes about how their normally slow heart rates had raised eyebrows during annual health checkups. Slow heart rates aside, it’s a fact that endurance training makes hearts young.

One indication of a “young” heart is its ability to metabolize glucose as an energy source during exercise. An aged heart loses its ability to utilize glucose during exercise. The good news is that endurance exercise reverses this aspect of aging.

Moreover, exercise benefits even the elderly, including those who previously have led inactive lives.

Exercise turns aged hearts into “young” hearts metabolically, according to a recent study out of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, because it reverses the aged heart’s inability to metabolize glucose during exercise. In fact, exercise training enables the hearts of older people to double their glucose utilization during high-energy-demand exercise just like the hearts of younger people.

Women’s hearts benefit doubly metabolically as the result of endurance training. In addition to increasing cardiac glucose metabolism, it turns out that cardiac fatty acid metabolism increases as well in women. The same cannot be said for men.

I include some of the specifics of the 11-month study to point out that people do not need to be randonneurs or RAAM types or even train for years in order to obtain this anti-aging heart benefit of regular exercise.

In fact, endurance training was defined in the Washington University study as hour-long exercise sessions 3-5 times per week consisting of walking, running, or cycling. Participants began at 65% of maximum capacity for three months increasing to 75% for the next eight months. The six men and six women in the study were between the ages of 60 and 75. Although they were non-obese, participants had previously lived inactive lives.

Phun physiology advice: Keep riding!

The reference is here: Soto PF, Herrero P, Schechtman KB, Waggoner AD, Baumstark JM, Ehsani AA, Gropler RJ. Exercise training impacts myocardial metabolism of older individuals in a gender-specific manner. American Journal of Physiology. Heart and Circulatory Physiology. June 20, 2008 (advance online publication).

The Joys and Sorrows of Club Riding

Know how to do a 21 mph 100K?

Head out with the local club at 23 mph to the 31-mile turnaround, then claw on the back as long as you can when the pace ramps up on the way home. When you crawl home at 12 mph, whipped and exhausted, for the last 10 miles, you've got your big average in the bag.

I love riding with the North Raleigh Gyros, a congenial bunch of guys and gals that focus on two-wheeled camaraderie at 19-20 mph. That's about my limit. Much faster and the wheels are likely to come off two-thirds of the way through a 60-80 mile ride.

Because of other rides and other commitments, I've only ridden with the Gyros twice this summer. So I was looking forward to joining them this Saturday.

I checked the schedule online and saw the note from Tony, one of the Gyro leaders:

G-Men & Women,

We'll be riding "The 2008 Road Dog Rally" this Saturday. It will start from Pleasant Union Elementary at 8:30am and will do the Oxford route.

Distance was advertised at 63 miles, a 100K. And the speed? "Usually FAST going out and FASTER coming back."

Hmmm. This sounded a bit above my instrument rating. The Road Dogs are a club with a reputation for a high pace. Their slogan: "We only drop our friends," and apparently they make friends easily. But what the hey. I decided to stick it out for as long as I could, then drift off the back and do a leisurely pedal in from the "drop zone." I had one other advantage. The route was on the stick portion of my Lake Loop. I'd know every dip in the road, I'd know where the pace was likely to get amped up. And I'd know the way home when I inevitably lost contact with Planet Bike.

The ride started at 8:30 a.m. from one of the Gyros' typical locations, Pleasant Union School in North Raleigh. I put the bike in the car, made a latte, a nutella sandwich. I rolled into the parking lot a few minutes past 8. I didn't see any of my Gyro pals. Instead I saw some of the Simple Green riders, a local racing team. Then I saw David LeDuc in his work van. David is a legend in local and national racing circles. Uh oh. This was going to be a fast day.

Eventually, some of the Gyros showed. Among them: Ed, Bert, Mario, Tony, Derrick. I took comfort in familiar faces, and I took a good look. I wasn't sure how long I'd be seeing them. We clustered, swapped small talk. Riders from other clubs, elbows on handlebars, gathered in separate clumps in the parking lot. Like the Ramones said, we're a happy family....

Lo and behold, somebody actually shooed us out of the parking lot with an official LET'S GET GOING. And we were off. There must have been 50 of us. Lots of club jerseys, lots of banter, and lots of hard pedaling. The first 10 miles has a couple good uphill stretches. They didn't put much of a dent in the overall average of 21. Every time I looked down we were doing 24,25,26, with surges of 30,31. This was going to be tough.

I sat on the back. There was no need for me to do any pretending about a pull. Also, this big pack of mixed clubs made me nervous. I'd seen a crash just two weeks earlier on another Gyro-Road Dog combo ride. Too many riders who don't know each other, too many riders riding at or above their limits. In my experience that was a recipe for touched wheels -- a recipe that never comes out well.

Riding in the back may be safer, but it's a helluva work-out. You get the worst of the accordion effect, with the pace slowing to 22, 23, and immediately pogoing up to 27, 28 as the pack feels the chain at the top of hills and through intersections. The constant seesawing was working my lungs and my legs.

My bike computer showed 31 miles and a 22.8 pace when we hit the turnaround point, the Exxon in Oxford that serves as a Lake Loop control. I told one of the Simple Green riders I'd had a rough ride on the way here. He leveled with me: "That was the easy part. They're getting ready to crank things up."

The line inside the convenience snaked around to the very back, near the drink coolers. It would be at least 10 minutes before folks were ready for the return. And so I made the easy call: I'd get a head start and let the group pick me up. Hopefully, I'd be able to jump in and hang on for the wild trip home.

I wasn't alone in this decision. I'd seen two or three riders head back down the course, and I eventually caught up with one, a rider from Cary named Michael. He was good company. We rode together for about 10 miles, swapping our cycling histories. He was a former racer who had been out of the sport for years and was getting his legs back again -- at least as much as family and work allowed. Like me, he was going to grab a wheel as the peloton came by. He said we'd probably be fine if we made it up the big hill at the Tar River crossing before the catch. He too was worried about the twitchiness of the pack, and he said crashes were more likely as red line riding began to affect peripheral vision and reaction time.

Michael and I got swept up about two-thirds of the way up the Tar River hill. The pack came out of nowhere. One second my mirror was clear, the next it was wall of cyclists pushing a wall of wind. We latched on. The chatter was gone. Riders were now leaning into their handlebars and furiously working the pedals to stay in contact. Any gap now and all hope of reconnecting would be gone.

I stayed on for the next 10 miles or so, but the accelerations had taken their toll, and it only took a very small rise to spit me out the back. I saw another rider come off as the pack crested the rise and got serious with a stretch of straight flat pavement.

I'd hung on for 50 miles and my average was still over 22. I was content. I could come in easy now, 18-19, with lots of downhill.

The route features a 3-mile downhill run to Falls Lake. I imagined the group descending at 35 or 40. They'd be 3 or 4 miles ahead of me by that point, maybe even dumping the water bottles and loading bikes into their cars at the finish.

As I neared the bottom of the Falls Lake Hill an approaching car blinked its beams several times. And I knew what that meant. Around the next corner, there it was. The crash. A rider was down in the far lane. Traffic was stopped and a rescue vehicle was already on hand from the fire station at the top of the hill. A dozen riders and a few motorists were gathered around.

I'm not sure who the cyclist was. He did not look good and appeared to have hit heavily on the left side of his face. He was awake and talking. He knew his name and he knew where he was. One of my Gyro buddies said he'd been knocked out for a minute or more. An ambulance pulled up. Three or four of us left together, did a sober pace line up the next hill. The ambulance caught us and roared through the red light where New Light crosses Highway 98.

I saw Mario in the parking lot at the end. "That could have been any one of us," he said. We could only hope things turned out well for our fellow rider. I finished off my water bottle, loaded the bike and headed home.

Sunday Update: the downed rider was a Gyro, Don, who posted that he's fine, although his injuries required 40 stitches.

Sweet Virginia: Lin Osborne and the Shenandoah 1200K

There’s nothing like a goal to motivate you. This season, Lin Osborne has his first 1200K in his sights – the Shenandoah 1200K – and he has been riding with real purpose. I’m one of the many riders who can attest to his fitness – he kindly towed me home on April’s 300K. Lin has been getting in lots of weekday riding with a daily commute of more than 30 miles, and he’s been doing it on a carbon bike that has the look of a classic randonneuring rig.

As Lin packs his bags for the trip to Virginia, he made time for a quick Q&A with RTP. As you’ll see, his sense of humor is still intact. Several members of the NCBC crew will be working at the Fancy Gap control, so it's a sure bet that Lin will have the best cheering section. Lin, we're rooting for you!

This is first 1200K. What attracted you to this event?

To quote the old real estate saw, "Location, location, location."
It's a regional event so I don't have to travel as far or take as much time from work yet I've never seen the Shenandoah Valley. So, it's close enough to be accessible but still is a new adventure. The fact that I'm much closer to home for my first 1200 km randonnee also makes me feel more secure. If I'm successful in my back yard, I'll have confidence to tackle events across the continent and abroad.

Tell us about your training. Have you done anything different this year than in other years?

I haven't followed a structured training program in about 20 years when I gave up racing. Since that time, I've "just been riding" but for the last six years that has meant commuting to work every week day. I ride amazingly little on the weekends unless I'm going out with the local randon contingent. The main difference between this and former years is that I have a new job that's twice as distant as before. I now ride about 32 miles a day and the terrain is considerably more rolling than my former route. I believe it's made me stronger.

Which bike are you taking and why?

A heavily customized 2007 Trek Pilot 5.9. Why? Well for one, I can't seem to keep more than one bike in rideable condition at a time. ;) But even if I had another bike up and running, I'd still use this one due to its low weight and smooth ride quality. I lucked up and was able to purchase a bare frame and thus built it the way that made sense to me for randonneuring, not the way Trek stocked it on the peg. To me, "makes sense for randonneuring" means high spoke count wheels, mudguards, higher bar height plus bar-end shift levers coupled with a 50/34x13/34 drive train. Yep, a one-to-one gear on carbon fiber. It may seem excessive but then I've heard there are a couple of hills on the Shenandoah route. Also, I've commuted on this bike since last November so I know what to expect from it. It's served me well on the brevets so I'm not going to switch now!

Like everybody else, you probably have a bit of nerves. If so, how do you deal with those?

Scotch and melatonin...no, wait.... Seriously, I try to visualize the ride, visualize the fun and adventure I'll have and the new friends I'll meet. I've tried to anticipate how I'll subdivide the route into ride segments between drop bags and gauge the gear and nutrition I'll need to carry and what I'll need to send ahead. I've tried to project an average speed, when I expect to arrive at the drop points and how long I plan to spend at each. In other words, I've developed both a vision for the ride and an event strategy that makes sense to me at least on paper. And well, now it's time for the scotch and melatonin...no, wait.... In truth I think once we're underway and I can develop a rhythm, my nerves will calm.

Are you planning sleep stops or straight through?

I understand that I'll need to sleep but I plan to ride as much as possible and to not lose time at controls. I expect to enjoy beautiful scenery but for me this isn't a sight-seeing trip.

Do you have a daily mileage goal?

I don't have a specific daily mileage goal. Instead, I plan to ride to Harrisonburg (drop point), pluck what I need from my drop bag, rest for a few minutes and then ride to the next control (mile 266). I'll rest longer there before continuing to the turn around at Fancy Gap. I hope to arrive in Fancy Gap by Friday afternoon/early evening. Once there, I'm sure I'll need to rest for a few hours. Afterward I plan to ride straight through back to Harrisonburg, rest, and then ride the final leg back to Leesburg. This is the paper plan, at least. We'll see what the route says about that.

Any other goals on this ride?

Enjoy the company of new riding partners, of the people I meet 'en route' and to enjoy the view. Oh yes, and to finish...can't forget that.

Do you feel our local brevet series prepared you for this event?

That's hard to answer since I've been randonneuring for three years but have only ridden NC brevets. It's difficult for me to gauge how well prepared I am since this will be my first "away game." This I can say: the prime benefit of the local brevet series for me hasn't been physical preparation. That's come from daily riding. Instead the brevets have given me the opportunity to observe how experienced randonnuers/randonnueses approach long-distance cycling. I've learned a lot from my riding partners since my first brevet, a little through talking and a lot through observation. I ride brevets considerably faster now than when I started and I credit as much to being exposed to knowledgeable, efficient riders as to fitness gains from the NC series. A large measure of credit will go to the NC randonneuring contingent if I'm successful on this ride. And if I'm not successful, only I not the brevet series will be responsible.

Have you picked up any helpful pointers from your fellow riders?

Absolutely. A couple have verbally advised me on how to approach the event, confirming that I should stick with what I know and that I'll mainly need more of what I require on shorter distances. (Thanks Branson and Paul!) Given what I've heard, read and observed, I'm convinced that riding as fast as possible while remaining within a sustainable limit is the best approach to success since speed creates opportunity for future rest without running up against the time limit. I'm also convinced that it's important to decide what to carry versus what to leave at home. As others have said, this is essentially risk assessment. I plan to cover the common scenarios (tires/tubes) plus a couple of potential show stoppers (chain, der. cable) but otherwise plan to ride as light a practically possible. Of course, everyone has a different definition of "practically possible" and I tend to carry more gear than others but I don't want to haul unnecessary luggage through Virginia hill country. I'm counting on a base set of clothing and repair items that I'll always carry and then resupply nutrition, shorts/jerseys, and any other needed consumables from my drop bags. Based on what I've been told and picked up elsewhere, I think this is a sound strategy. I sure hope it is.

Bagging Mt. Mitchell

On Saturday we did what no cyclist has ever done before -- at least from Capn’s house on Grandmother Mountain.

We bagged Mount Mitchell.

Snuck up on her when she wasn’t looking, trapped her in the fog and a heavy downpour.

Saturday was a day for the record books: an out-and-back of 108 miles, including 96 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway and a wet 5-mile slog up the winding road to Mitchell’s 6,600-foot peak.

The climbing total: 12,800 feet.



We might not have reached the summit had we not refueled with a jumbo dog, Coke and Yoohoo at Crabtree Meadows.












Another satisfied customer.








Here’s the trophy shot from the top, taken by the guy at the concession stand who sold us the celebratory hot chocolate.

When I say we bagged Mitchell, I mean that literally. That trash bag I’m wearing? I found it on the Parkway while climbing toward Mitchell’s entrance.

I hadn’t packed a raincoat and the temperature plummeted as we ascended Mitchell in a bone-chilling rain. Necessity being the mother of improvisation, I sliced a head hole and two arm holes in the bag and wore it as a makeshift windbreaker on the screaming descent. I shed my custom Hefty two hours later after the rain stopped.



Here’s Ende at the top. The guys in the background were also cyclists but they abandoned and had a friend retrieve them in a truck. They offered us a ride home. Tempting, yes. We took a hard look at the truck, and that warm dry back seat. But we remembered a little dance called PBP and made the call to continue our epic ride.




Here’s Ende climbing up past an interesting Parkway sign. That guy on the motorcycle sure looks like he’s having fun.




Check out the interesting swirl effect of this shot taken on one of the descents.













I saw this little fellow crossing the road. Lucky he didn’t drown.











Another great day on the bikes.

Lake Loop: July 21, 2007

We set out at 7:30 a.m. on the 132-mile Lake Loop. The trio: Byron, Lin, me. A perfect riding day: headwinds on the route north, a healthy and helpful push home. Temps in the mid 80s, low humidity that put the drain on our water supply. After the obligatory stop on Kerr Dam, we hit a lunch stop at Roses in Boydton. For more on that eatery, see April's fleche write-up.

We checked out the Skipwith Grocery, a very funky place with a friendly owner who agreed to serve as a control, so I'm moving the second control to there and out of the always busy Uppys in Clarksville.

For the second year in a row, we hit Lake Fest in Clarksville and rode through the crowds on Virginia Street before veering off on the sidestreets and through town.

The last 50 miles we cranked up the tempo, regularly amping it up to 22, 23, 24 until Byron's stomach finally cried uncle. Average ride speed: 17.2, up from 16.4 at the 50-mile mark. We rolled into the finish at 5:15 p.m.

Another beautiful day on the bikes. Slideshow below.

Mountain Training Camp

The big day: 90 miles, 9,000 vertical feet. Salsa & Spaghetti. No Internet. Grandfather Mountain. Grandmother Mountain. Fountains of Wayne. Blue Ridge Parkway, blueberry dessert, wild blueberries. Tubs of French vanilla. Tape of the Tour de France. Lunch at Sharpies, the skinny boys and the skin-free chicken sandwiches. Hold the Mayo. Texas chicken breasts. Gully-washing rain. A feud among friends about the bonus loop. Climb and climb. In and out of the overlooks. Free to a good home: one kitten. Shulls Mill Road. 221. Free financial advice from the Blowhard in Blowing Rock. Dead crow. Laundry. Put the lyrca on high heat and watch em run. Why was the hardest climb of the day always the last one? A miracle: the knee heels. JoeRay vs. Smolke: a story interrupted. Wine, wind and winded. Harold Lloyd. Safety first? Safety Last. Mountain Training Camp.

Blackbeard Training Ride / July 7-8

The magic of rural night riding.

Five of us rode the 283K Blackbeard's Permanent this weekend: BobO, Dean, Wes, Byron and myself. We settled on a 10 p.m. start time. That gave the three riders heading to Paris Brest Paris an anticipatory taste of what that nighttime start will be like.

I made a round of lattes for one last bracing jolt of caffeine before we headed out.

The crew hit our busiest street within the first 2 miles, cruising through Raleigh’s Glenwood South district, where the odor of cheap beer and cheaper perfume hung in the sticky night air.

A run through downtown to east Raleigh, 8 miles on Poole Road, a right turn on Grasshopper Road and boom we were in the country.

For the next six hours, the world went quiet and black, illuminated only by the crazy dance of our headlamps.

Dean rolled up beside me as we headed down Covered Bridge Road, about 20 miles into the ride: “I feel like a kid,” he said.

I knew exactly what Dean meant. Night riding is as close as I can get to seeing life through the eyes of a child. As we sailed along on a dark ocean of asphalt, every sound, every smell was exotic. We were on our way to the New World.

Byron recognized one smell as we rode along the tobacco fields near Rock Ridge -- a sickly sweet chemical sprayed on the plants to prevent suckers.

“I worked in tobacco as a kid,” he said. “That smell always made me gag. Not a pleasant memory.”

I warned the crew that we might not see any services for 80 miles or so, and that proved to be the case. We stopped at a “24-hour” service station as we crossed the I-95, about 45 miles into the ride. Closed.

“It’s 24 hours,” Wes said. “Just not 24 hours in a row.”

We drew a crowd as we filled our water bottles and Camelbaks at a faucet out front. At least four cars pulled up, perhaps drawn like moths to the only signs of life in a five-mile radius.

Throughout the night the dogs were spooked by our presence. They howled ferociously as we rolled past, but few strayed from their front porches for a closer encounter.

We made impressive time through the night, regularly hitting 20 mph on several flat straight roads.

We found our first open store in Winterville at mile 82. The store clerk did not bat an eye at the sight of five cyclists arriving at that time of the morning, and he did not ask a single question about where we were from or where we were headed. An extraordinary lack of curiosity or an impressive respect for personal privacy? Dunno. I didn’t ask.

As we ate Powerbars and drank Coke on the front sidewalk, a local rolled up on a one-speed cruiser. He bought a pack of smokes and took his cruiser off into the night.

The sky lightened as we neared Grimesland, just past the century mark, and by the time we reached Washington at 6 a.m. we’d seen the dawn of a new day. We got our cards stamped at the Travel Store, then detoured off-course to the local McDonalds.

Three of the crew had begun to complain about stomach issues, but everyone managed to choke down a biscuit or hash brown.

Breakfast over and stomachs secure, we headed back to the course, following Bike Route 2 for the remaining 100K.

We had an easy 10-mile roll into Bath, Blackbeard’s former hometown where a new breed of pirate, the land developers, appear to have set up shop. From there, a few of us tested tired legs, laying down a 20-plus average on the 13-mile stretch to Bellhaven, where we stopped for drinks and a few photo ops.

Here's a shot of Bob and Dean at the Bellhaven rest stop....










And one of Wes and Byron...


Nothing notable about the last section from Bellhaven to Swan Quarter, except the road itself, which has more bad cracks than a Rodney Dangerfield movie. A constant eyetooth-rattling, wrist-jarring buh-bump, buh-bump, buh-bump.

Wes took the King of the Mountain points by outsprinting a lackluster field up the Intracoastal Waterway bridge.



Here’s a shot from the top.



If the roads were a little bumpy, at least the weather held. Cloud cover sheltered us from the sun, and the wind, which can be a fierce adversary across the exposed wetlands, took the morning off.

Our little group splintered as a couple horses raced to the barn. The frontrunners reached the ferry at 11, with the others arriving a few minutes behind.

We got our cards signed by the sweet woman working the ferry window, and got drinks from another sweet woman, Dean’s wife Deborah, who met us at the ferry station.

We washed off the stink and the road grime with cold hose showers behind the ferry station. Nothing says good morning like 70-degree water. We were kids again in the backyard sprinkler.

Our day accomplished before noon, we loaded up the bikes and headed buh-bump buh-bump home.

Another great training ride with good friends.

My Fixed Gear Route / Capital Area Greenway

As I mentioned in an earlier post, as part of my PBP training I’ve been heading out for a short (25-30 mile) ride 3 times a week. The goal is simple: keep a little blood in the legs.

Those short rides add up: this week I’ll have at least 80 miles before the local crew assembles for the 175-mile Blackbeard’s Permanent on Saturday night. (Here’s a write-up about putting together that permanent.)

A 1970 Raleigh International set up as a fixed gear has been my bike of choice.

My route of choice: Raleigh’s interconnecting greenway system.

I don’t mind riding fixed on the road, but this time of year, North Carolina gets extremely hot and humid.

The greenways at least provide some shade. And the mostly flat routes make for an easy spin, with a few sections suitable for half-mile sprints.

Many of Raleigh’s greenways use land that is otherwise unsuitable for building or development.


They typically cross swamps or wetlands (see the photo above) or follow a river or creek.

Several of the greenways I ride track Crabtree Creek, which resembles a full-blown river. The creek has the bad habit of jumping out of its bed, mad as hell after a big rain, and flooding its neighbors, including several car dealerships and Crabtree VALLEY Mall (translation: built in the bottom of a bowl).

The creek ain’t much to look at: Another one of those urban waterways knocked off its feet by trash, sediment and tree debris.

The route can also be tough on the olfactory senses. Raleigh runs its sewer system along Crabtree. Venting gas makes the course especially ripe in the summer. Kinda like standing outside the portajohn at the three-day barbecue festival.


I don't mean to focus on the negative. Because there are some incredibly beautiful stretches, including one short rise up to a bluff above the creek. And where else do you get to take a boardwalk across the wetlands?

As an experienced road cyclist, I have mixed feelings about greenways. For one, they’re expensive to build as a separate facility. One often-voiced concern is that they relegate bicycle transportation to a “separate but unequal” status.

Also, there is often a dangerous interface between the greenways and the roads that they intersect. The route I take diverts riders onto an adjacent sidewalk rather into the road, where they belong as vehicles.

In some cases, they duck under major thoroughfares by squeezing under an existing bridge, like the shot above. In the lingo, those are called “Grade-Separated Crossings.”

The most famous of those in Raleigh is a handsome span across the beltline which connects Meredith College and the N.C. Art Museum. But that’s a daylight-only crossing -- Meredith locks off access at night.

The Triangle has some enlightened planners, like Jake Petrosky, who are keenly aware of the advantages, drawbacks and limitations of the local greenways.

A 2006 engineering guidelines report from the bicycle and pedestrian stakeholders group noted that greenways were intended for novice or recreational riders. That’s typically who I see on the route: mothers, fathers and their young children.

The 2006 report also notes: “Multi-use pathways should not be considered as a substitute to on-roadway accommodation of cyclists.”

A nice sentiment, but one that some of the Triangle communities only pay lip service to. When it comes to accommodating bike transportation on Triangle roads, we're often sent to the metaphorical back seat of the bus.

Online Poll Results: July Training Miles

The results of the online poll are in, and one thing is clear: Most riders heading to PBP have big training plans for July.

Nearly half of you, or about 46 percent, will average 201 weekly miles or more.

As a group, you'll ride 400,000 miles in July, or 643,737 kilometers, according to one calculation.

The online poll queried PBP hopefuls about their weekly training plans this month. Here’s what the 57 respondents reported:

* One in three PBP participants, or 33 percent, said they planned to ride 201-250 training miles each week in July.

* About 25 percent, or one in four riders, said they'd shoot for 151-200 weekly miles.

* About 1 in 10 riders said they'd keep the miles to a minimum -- 100 miles or less per week.

* At the upper end of the scale, 1 of every 8 respondents said they planned to average more than 250 weekly miles.

Using the low end for each category (and tossing out the 0-100 results completely), then mulitplying by the number of confirmed RUSA participants (500), I got a whopping total of 305,814 training miles in July.

When I went with the higher end of each spectrum, I got 401,146 training miles.

Impressive indeed!

During the Big Show in August, when the miles get compressed into four days rather than four weeks, those 500 riders will rack up 375,000 miles or 603,504 kilometers, assuming they all finish.

If all of the 4,300 expected participants were to finish, they'd log 3,225,000 miles, or 5,190,134 kilometers.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey.

Lake Norman Training Ride

For a while yesterday, this cool cat looked like the only other cyclist Wes and I would see on this weekend's 140-mile Lake Norman training ride. Eventually, we saw two riders heading in the other direction. I didn’t get their pictures, so the cat gets top billing.

The route we took tracks east-west from Chapel Hill to Cornelius. We passed through several familiar towns, including Saxapahaw (this shot shows an old mill, now converted to condos, on the banks of the Haw River) and Liberty, the town where our flèche team narrowly avoided failure.

The route is not too hilly. Before the battery died on my GPS (116 miles), I recorded 5,700 feet of climbing. Most roads are rural, but the run through Randleman is busy, as is a nine-mile stretch on Bringle Ferry, near High Rock lake.

Here’s a photo of the dam.


I also burned 7700 calories during that period, but I more than replaced them with this heaping plate of food at a breakfast/lunch stop in Denton. Wes ordered a burger and about five pounds of curly fries.



One surprise: we hit a bridge out at about mile 30. The DOT had “Detour Road Closed” signs up, but we decided to risk it. This was one of those instances when the road truly was out of commission. Rather than backtrack, we waded through a couple hundred yards of muck and forged a creek with bikes on our shoulders. It took about 10 minutes to clear cement-like clay from our cleats.



The Rest Stop of the Day popped up at mile 120, around 2:30 p.m. After being baked for miles by a merciless sun, we were both parched and nearly out of water. We hadn’t expected to see another store, but came across Atwell’s One Stop.



Check out this great sign (right) on the front door. Don’t see that much anymore.

Inside, Butch entertained us while we polished off icy bottles of K&W root beer and North Carolina’s own Cheerwine. Butch’s store is one of the cleanest I’ve ever been in, and Butch was rightfully proud of it. “The floor gets mopped every evening,” Butch said. “Sometimes it gets mopped twice a day.”

We rolled through Davidson around 3:40 and by 4:15 had our feet up, eating Chex Mix, at the Lake Norman condo of Wes’ in-laws.

We topped that off with an exceptional Indian meal and an evening of engaging conversation at the in-laws’ other home. Among the topics that came up for discussion: ice fishing on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The ride put me over my stated goal of getting in about 200 training miles each week.

As I said, we saw two other riders on our route, but at least two of our rando crew were out on the permanent courses:

* Bob from Virginia beach signed up for the Lake Loop, which circles Kerr/Buggs Island Lake.

* Paul from Charlotte was scheduled to do the inaugural ride of the Siler City Express.

Any ride reports, guys?

I need to give props to Dean, who teaches physiology here in Raleigh. I told him my heart rate was often elevated, probably from dehydration, at the end of these long rides. His advice: take in more electrolytes. I’m garbling what he told me, but the gist is that the salt draws water back into the blood, increasing its volume and making it easier on the old ticker.

So, I took one e-cap early in the ride, and one after lunch. Not sure if there’s a cause and effect here, but my heart rate averaged 140 beats per minute, or about 4 beats slower than normal. However, we didn’t push too hard yesterday, as Wes was making the return trip. (I had to bail to care of some freelance work, but JoeRay joined Wes for today’s eastbound leg.) So time will tell...

How I Train For PBP

I’ve finished the qualifying series for Paris Brest Paris.

I’ve sent in my application.

I’m brushing up on a few French terms that could come in handy: "Un croque-monsieur, s’il vous plaît!” Or “Pardon, ou est le WC, s’il vous plaît?”

(As you can see, my game plan is to end every sentence with s’il vous plait: “J’ai la diarrhée, s’il vous plaît!”)

Time to put the feet up? Mais, no! With qualifying over, now the real training starts.

I’m not much of a planner in this regard, but here’s a look at what I did in 2003. I’m following a similar program this year. It's largely a seat-of-the-pants approach, but it works for me. Your training mileage may vary.

Biking in July and August

In 2003, I did a mix of short around-town cruises, fast weekend runs and three or four long (200-300k) rides. I probably racked up 800 miles in July, and 300-400 miles in the first two weeks of August, but those are just guesses.

* Neighborhood rides. In July, I began joining two neighborhood friends who do a 15-mile loop each morning before work. The pace probably averaged 13-14 along local greenway trails and a few feeder roads. Not much mileage, right? But it helped keep my legs moving, and I added another 10 miles by commuting to work. Those little rides added up -- I wound up with 75-100 miles before the weekend arrived.

This year, I'm joining those guys once or twice a week. I'm also doing a couple weekday rides of 25-30 miles on my fixed gear. Those are usually easy-paced rides, with a short sprint or two somewhere along the way.

* Fast rides. In 2003, when I hadn't planned a long ride on Saturday, I’d head out for a fast-paced 75 miles or so, really getting the heart rate up.

Most of the Saturday rides in 03 were small affairs with one or two friends. This year, I've been doing speed work with the Gyros, a North Raleigh group that gives club riding a good name. Their company and their routes are highly recommended.

* Social rides. In 2003, Sundays were reserved for the local crew. Those were typically poky affairs, with more yammering than hammering, for 45-60 miles. Time to forget about the training, roll down a few country lanes, have some fun in the sun.

I'm repeating the pattern this year. This Sunday's ride was a typical low-key recovery day. JoeRay, Dan and I did 50 miles at 16.5 mph. The route was strategically mapped so that we hit Maple View farm, with its ice cream store, just as its doors opened at noon. (Truth be told, Maple View is the focal point for many of our Orange County rides.) For the record, I had a vanilla shake. Joe bought.

Another popular Sunday route is The Pancake Ride -- a 60-mile out-and-back from Raleigh to Durham, with a stop at Mad Hatters for breakfast.

* Long rides. I did two rides of 200K or more. On the first, I rode what is now the Kerr Lake Loop permanent, a 208K course through the scenic lake country. In 2003, I followed up that ride the very next day with a fast century. The second long ride, just shy of 300K, was my other permanent, Blackbeard’s Permanent. I started this ride at around 2 in the morning, effectively turning it into a test shakeout for my new Schmidt dynahub and E6 light.

I have a similar schedule on tap for this year: We're looking at one weekend of back-to-back 200Ks, as well as the Blackbeard Permanent.

Swimming

I’ve been a lap swimmer most of my life, and I think that helped my overall fitness in 2003. I gave up lap swimming most of last year -- and my cycling suffered. Lately I’ve been in the pool about three times a week.

Other Training

In 2003, doing the Blackbeard permanent in July was the prelude to a week at the beach for surfing at Hatteras. While there, I rode my bike about 15 miles. It made me a little nervous letting go of my legs so close to PBP, but I figured my time was better spent with family and friends. At least Le Tour was on TV, so all was not lost.

Final ride

The weekend before I boxed up my bike in August 03, I did the Bikefest century outfitted just as I planned to ride in Paris. With fenders, lights and Berthoud bag, I looked like a lost tourist among the carbon racing crowd. I got a little practice on tire changing during that ride, something that never hurts. Within the first 2 miles I hit a monster pot hole and tore a huge gash in my front tire. Like a good randonneur, I had a spare with me…

What would I have done differently? I wish I'd had more hills in my schedule. PBP proved to be much hillier than I anticipated. This year, I hope to train for a few days in the N.C. mountains.

If you know how many training miles you're likely to do in July, please submit your response to the online survey at the top of this page.