Name of the Beast

"Think of mountain passes as an opportunity for elevation resolution"

The thought of climbing hills used to worry me a bit. Not the kind of fear as a kid when I climbed a tree to poke a stick at the porcupine, or when my friend Scotty tried to grab a baby squirrel out of the nest at the top of a pine tree and instead grabbed momma squirrel. No, this feeling was friction between my self image of not being an athlete and knowing that the TD hills were certainly enchanted, long and tall.

While we're mired in self disclosure, the TD hills looming the most were those in the Flathead Valley; Flathead, Cabin, and Galton Passes. Why? In 2013 I didn't ride in the Canadian Flathead, but surprised myself at actually enjoying some of the other climbs, getting stronger as the ride went on. Still, something about the Flathead rattled my cage. In 2015 when I got to Flathead Pass it turned out to be an easy spin to the top. Cabin pass was mildly annoying as the approach consisted of numerous rolling hills, before getting to the meat of the climb, but was very rideable. Galton was straight forward, up and up. At the top of Galton I remember thinking, "Crap, these are just tilted dirt roads!". And so they are.

What I am getting to is a characterization of the TD route. Remember that I am reformulating my training plan for 2017, and figured that even though I know what the route is, I need to pin down what the route requires in physical ability. Call it a science experiment. So what is the route?

One of the TD Gods once figured that the TD route consists of equal amounts of up, down, and flat. Looking at the elevation profile for the route, that seems reasonable. So lets figure that the downhill portion only requires coasting, or peddling for short distances, at a steady rate, with moderate force at best. That leaves the up and flat parts. The flat portion requires long duration peddling at a moderate to higher (headwinds?) force. The up portion means that we peddle at high intensities (relative to the down/flat), for the typical length of each pass - which is roughly 2 to 8 miles (but there are tons of shorter hills too!).

Notice in the list that there are no instances where we need raw sprint speed, unless you nurse the fantasy of nipping past a faster rider at Antelope Wells! This race consists of strength and endurance. Ok, what does endurance and strength mean in training terms? Best to take them one at a time. Which means a trip down the rabbit hole.

Endurance means that we can ride for a long time. But riding at five miles an hour for a long time is much different that at ten miles an hour. Let's modify endurance to mean riding at a 'race pace', whatever that means, for a long time each day. Long time for the TD means 12 to 20+ hours for us aged mortals. Figuring race pace speed is easy. For example, if you target 25 days for the entire race, and it is 2,700 miles long, then you need to ride an average of 108 miles each day.  Assuming that you ride (not counting stops) 12 hours each day, your average speed is nine miles an hour. Ride slower? Then you need to ride longer each day to meet your goal.

Except! Average doesn't cut it because the terrain gets in the way. Preparing for 2015 I did a massive, complicated spreadsheet of my anticipated racing pace and time, using my training pace, previous 2013 pace, expected daily saddle time, phase of the Jupiter's Moons, etc., etc., and came out with an average of 9 miles per hour. In that masterpiece of data delirium, I used a formula for speed on the up, down, and flat portions of the route. I figured that if Flat Speed is the base unit of measurement, then Downhill Speed is twice Flat, and Uphill Speed is one-half Flat Speed.

Do the relative math and you see that it is not speed that matters, it is Time spent on each portion. For example, the time spent on Uphills is twice that of Flats, and four times that on Downhills. Remember the rabbit hole? Trust me on this, for my assumptions the total time on hills is 57% of ride time. That on Flats is 29%, and Downhill is 14%, near enough, and the absolute numbers don't matter as much as the ratios do. Yer numbers may differ.

If I am riding over half the time uphill, guess what needs to be emphasized in training? Leg strength. The assumption that endurance alone is what is needed stumbles a bit. Yep, you also need endurance to go along with the strength. For hills, call it Muscular Endurance.

On the Flats, we use less strength but still need lot's of endurance. We just don't go as far into the strength intensity zone as on the hills. Call it Aerobic Endurance. Downhill - heck, better bone up on your rough track bike handling skills, as you already have the oomph to keep going - we don't train for Downhills as they come 'free', along with the other training.

So back to the 'average' pace. Some days your race plan goes swimmingly well. Other days it smells worse than you do. No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. My race pace plan for 2015 lasted two days. Where was I? Oh yes, average pace. There are some stretches of the route where getting even close to the average daily miles is a miracle. Other stretches where you can literally, if you are willing to hurt enough, double it. The latter example might happen anywhere on the stretch from the top of Fleecer Ridge MT to past Coulter Bay WY. Fast times, low passes, pray for dry roads.

Dang rabbits! They seem to think that our backyard lawn is a banquet, and flowers are dessert. Rabbit urine kills grass, so we can tell where they have been dining by the bare spots. Although I have 'convinced' three of them to move on to other planes of existence, and closed off their favorite den with wire mesh, the rest have homes nearby (we live a block from the golf course - why can't they stay there?). Which leads to another rabbit hole we need to explore.

What is endurance? To know that we need to delve into how the old (pun intended) body works. Energy to fuel muscles comes from 'burning' nutrients. Call it 'food combined with oxygen'. If I get into the details I may get hate mail, so for you science purists, sorry. The waste from muscles ends up in your blood as something called 'lactate'. Being efficient, the liver recycles lactate into more fuel, but I digress. The more the muscles work, the more lactate builds up before it can be converted. At some level the muscles get the signal to stop making more lactate, and you got no more go power. Your muscles 'burn' and feel weak. This is called your 'Lactate Threshold', or LT.

Alternately, you may run out of oxygen before you reach your LT. Then your problem is that you aren't taking in enough oxygen into your blood from your lungs, and can't burn the food to fuel the muscles. You may be breathing in enough air, but the oxygen level in your blood is too low. This is called your Aerobic Threshold, or AT. If you continue past this point you go Anaerobic (which means you lay there gasping for breath!). Most athletic people run into LT problems before running out of air, but both matter. These explanations are dangerously close to science!

At this time I state the prime two rules for riding effort on the TD: NEVER go past your LT, NEVER go Anaerobic!

Being as smart as you are, you're wondering if both LT and AT levels can be improved by training. You betcha! An increase in LT basically means you can metabolize Lactate quicker. Up your AT, and you aren't limited by air intake. End result is that your muscles can operate longer, at higher intensities, which  means a faster pace.

To summarize, we need at least three things in our training plan; strength training, especially for the legs and 'core' (stomach and back - they act as a base for the legs), raising our LT level, and increasing our Aerobic Capacity.

Enough for this time - I've exceeded my BT (Blog Threshold) ! Next time I'll figure out what training increases my LT and AT, and how to increase strength. The song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show comes to mind,

"Such an effort
If he only knew of my plan
In just seven days
I can make you a man"

Only saw the movie seventeen times. The darn rabbits are out back again...