Ryan Bickerstaff

I went out for my first bike ride outside with my new bike and powertap wheel on Saturday.  It’s a fairly challenging 66-67 mile route to the coast and back, with some pretty significant climbing, but the scenery is pretty varied and once you get to the top of the first climb, it seems a bit easier.  This is my fifth time doing this route, and I’m happy to say it was my fastest ever by 12 minutes.  Here are some times I dug up from the past:

April 12, 2008 - 4:50:00
June 14, 2008 - 4:23:00
August 30, 2008 - 4:00:00
March 28, 2009 - 4:06:40
April 18, 2009 - 3:47:53

Here’s the route and a representative picture along the coast.  Unfortunately, there was a lot of fog over the ocean up to about a quarter of mile inland, but otherwise it was sunny and warm.  It was pretty cool to see the fog sitting there when I was descending down the mountain.
 
          

I took splits at some key points - at the intersection of Page Mill and Skyline (almost to the top of Page Mill), at the general store in Pescadero (stop to get a cinnamon roll and chocolate chip cookie), after finishing the climbs on Stage Rd and Highway 1 at the turn onto Tunitas Creek, at the top of Tunitas Creek, and then down Kings Mountain to home. Here are some comparison times between March 28 and April 18:

Page Mill - 59:47, 53:43
Pescadero - 60:09, 54:32
Stage Rd - 37:27, 35:53
Tunitas Creek - 46:41, 42:51
Kings Mountain to home - 42:36, 40:52

Now for the good stuff. This was my first time using the Powertap outside, and I’ve included all the intervals below. This was pretty much a continuous ride, except for the break in Pescadero to get something to eat. I set the graphs to display rolling 30s averages. It records data every second, but it looks really choppy if you don’t do any smoothing to the data. If you include the zeros (coasting), my average watts was 235. If you remove everything below about 30 watts, it is close to 280 watts. I have no idea how this compares to other people, but it’ll be interesting to see how I progress with this.

The Entire Ride:

To the top of Page Mill:

To Pescadero:

Stage Rd and Highway 1:

Tunitas Creek:

Kings Mountain to Home:

The Powertap software also shows your peak power over various intervals from 1 second to 2 hours. I’ll have to do a workout focused specifically on seeing what my maximum values are at some point, but here were what they were during this ride (includes any time spent coasting with zero watts…which really only affects the 60 and 120 minute values):

1s - 973 watts (3 hours 30 minutes into the ride!!!)
5s - 812 watts
30s - 492 watts
1m - 414 watts
5m - 341 watts
10m - 330 watts
30m - 308 watts
60m - 277 watts
120m - 256 watts

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Training has continued to go great since the Stanford Treeathlon last month.  Everything has pretty much gone according to plan, and I really like it when I know I’ve put in all the work I wanted to do.  Hopefully the results take care of themselves when my racing season starts next month.  The only adjustments I’m thinking of making over the next month are to go to sleep a little earlier (11:25pm right now!) and to eat a little healthier.  Being a little bit leaner should at least let me run faster.

My racing schedule next month is still a little bit up in the air.  I had been training towards the Pan American Championships in Oklahoma City since starting my season late last year.  Unfortunately, the ITU has set a field limit of 75 athletes and right now there are only 10 US athletes on the start list.  The good news is that more spots should open up in the coming days.  The bad news is that more than 40 US athletes requested starts, and although there is the possibility for USA Triathlon to make some discretionary selections, most of the starts will go down the ITU points list…and my point total is zero.  I’ve beaten several people on the list in the past and feel faster than ever, but there isn’t anything I can do about it at this point.  I was hoping to use the Oklahoma City race followed by the Capital of Texas Triathlon in Austin on Memorial Day (9 days later) as a launching pad to get a bunch of ITU points.  I may have to settle with just getting points in Austin now.  If I don’t end up on the start list in OKC, then I may just race in the age group race Sunday morning.  It’s not ideal, but since I’ve planned my training around doing a race that weekend, it may be the best thing.  Plus, it’s possible that if I’m in OKC and there is a late scratch, then I may be able to get a start.  I’ll find out soon if that’s possible.

I bought a bunch of new equipment for this year to help in training and racing - a BlueSeventy Helix wetsuit, Trek Madone 6.5 Pro with Dura Ace  7900, Powertap Pro+, InsideRide e-motion rollers, Nike Lunar Trainer and Racer shoes, and some new race goggles for the swim.  I’ll have to write more about each of these sometime in the future, but they’ve been working amazing so far.  The combination of the new bike with PowerTap and rollers vs. my old bike with the CompuTrainer has made comparisons a little difficult so far.  I have a long ~4 hour bike ride planned for this Saturday, and hopefully I’ll get a better sense of just how much of a difference some of this equipment is making.

Swimming has continued to be my primary focus.  I was averaging around 30,000m per week for two weeks of harder training, and then ~15,000m during a recovery week.  As I’ve added more intensity to the bike and run, though, I was feeling a little bit of accumulated fatigue, so I’m backing off by a couple thousand meters per week.  Hopefully that leaves me better rested and ready for the key workouts.

The past two weeks have produced some pretty good workouts.  In a speed focused workout I did 4×25y at 100y pace with 25 easy recovery, 4×50y at 200y pace on 1:00, 5×100y at 500y pace on 1:30.  The 25’s were in ~12s, 50’s were in ~27s, and 100’s were in ~58s.  I was feeling a little fatigued during my race pace workout, but still managed 2×150m in 1:49-150, 4×300m in 3:42-44, and then 1×100m in 1:10.  Those times should drop considerably when I’m shaved and rested.  On Monday I did a 2000y tempo swim, looking up to sight once per 50y.  I held a pretty steady 5:35/500y pace and went 22:22 overall (I think 18:25 through 1650y).  Tonight I did an endurance swim and just went 6000y straight.  I didn’t jump in the pool thinking I was going to go that far straight, but I felt pretty good and just kept going.  The first 1500y was in ~18:40, then I went through 5000 in 1:00:30, then I did the next 500 in 5:51.  At this point, I was at 1:06:21 and was thinking it would be nice to finish 6000 under 6:00/500y pace (1:12/100y).  So, I went harder the last 500 (5:27) and finished in 1:11:48. 

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My first race of the year, the Stanford Treeathlon, was this morning, and after 4 years of racing it, I finally won!  That means I’m undefeated so far this year!  haha  The last time I won a race overall was Boulder Peak in 2005, and both races were close. I won those races by a combined 3 seconds!

Leading up to the race, I had two solid weeks of race-specific training.  I did less reps than I will do in subsequent cycles since I wanted to make sure I eased into it without getting injured.  I did a 22:30 2000y tempo swim (lifitng up to sight once per 50y) and did some 300y reps in around 3:12-13.   The end of this past week was pretty tiring.  Wednesday night I did a 7200y swim with 5000 straight in 1:00:50.  Then I combined a tempo effort and long run on the treadmill - 2×10:00 at 5:27 pace with about 1:30 easy in between and then aerobic effort afterwards to bring the total to 10+ miles.  Finally, I finished up the night at around 10pm after doing some strength training.  Thursday afternoon I went for a 7-8 mile run and then did a 3 hour ride on the trainer at a pretty high aerobic effort.  I was feeling really, really fatigued on Friday and just did a 2700m swim as I didn’t want to be completely tired for the race.

I didn’t have much “spring” in my legs and arms during the race because of all that training, but overall, it felt pretty good.  I had a nice 500m swim in the San Francisco Bay (it was cold!) but my start wasn’t the greatest, and I ended up about 8-10s behind a few of the leaders.  I started the bike in 3rd and gradually lost some ground.  It was my first time riding outside in a few months and the first time riding with the aerobar setup since October, but I think the Thursday night long ride had much more of an effect than that.  Luckily, I had a good T2 and felt decent on the run.  Again, there wasn’t much spring in my legs, but I held a nice strong pace and gradually got faster.  About 200m from the finish I full on body slammed someone running in the opposite direction but did a quick 360 in the air before going all out for the finish.  I held on barely to win by just under 2 seconds.  My transitions were actually around 40 seconds faster than the guy I beat, so I guess transitions can actually win or lose a race!  Knowing the training I put in the past two weeks, the race was definitely a good sign for where I’m at and where I can get to before my next race in May.

After the race, I went and did a 6200y swim at Stanford and did some strength training.  On my way to the gym I noticed a fencing match going on.  It was the NCAA Western Regionals and it was the last match to determine who would go to Nationals.  I only saw the last couple minutes, but it was pretty intense and full of emotion!  It was tied 14-14 at the end of the time limit, then they took a quick break during which the Air Force coach got a red card for talking back to the ref or something (the lady I was standing next to said that was the first time she’d seen that in 10 years).  Then the two athletes lined back up for the final point.  I don’t know fencing terminology, but they went back and forth for a little bit faking each other out before finally the girl from Stanford scored the winning point!  The whole thing was pretty dramatic and exciting - I’ll have to go watch more in the future!

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In an effort to stay focused and add consistency, especially in swimming, back at the end of September of 2007, I decided to train every day for at least 2000m swimming or 30:00 total.  I managed almost 90 days in a row of swimming before having to end the streak due to holiday pool closures.  I kept the overall streak alive, though, and since September 29, 2007, I have now gone 513 days in a row!  I feel like training has an inertia component to it.  Once you get going, it is easy to keep going, but once you start taking days completely off, it can be a lot easier to slip off into complacency.  For someone that is really focused and training full time, I think complete rest days can still be good.  However, with a full time job on top of almost full time training, 30 minutes a day is something easy enough to commit to, and most days I do a lot more.

In fact, I just finished up one of my largest base building phases ever.  Prior to this past week’s lighter training volumes, I managed 62 hours of training over the course of 21 days.  In all, that consisted of 102,600m of swimming, 466 miles of biking, 87 miles of running, and 6:30 of strength training.  It’s kind of funny that my 60+ miles of swimming volume is approaching my running volume, but I’m still really focused on improving my swim, and the run will come along as long as I stay healthy.  After putting in 20+ hour training weeks, the 10 or so hours I did this week felt really, really easy.

That’s a good thing, as it means I’m recovered and ready to begin some more race specific training.  The next four weeks the plan is to do 2 two week cycles.  I have 4 key workouts in swimming, biking, and running and 4-6 strength training workouts in each of those two week cycles.  I’ll drop my swim volume down to 28-30km per week, bike volume to 6-7 hours, and run volume to 3:20-4:00.  I’ll keep the number of reps in the key workouts smaller to begin with to see how my body responds.  After 4 weeks, I’ll take a recovery week, and use the information I’ve obtained to plan training loads leading up to my key race in May in Oklahoma City.

The only race I plan on doing before the Pan American Championships in Oklahoma is Stanford’s Treeathlon in 2 weeks.  It’s a sprint race, and it should be nice to get a feel for racing again.  I’ve come in 2nd overall two out of the three times I’ve raced, so hopefully I’ll win this year!

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I have been feeling really, really great this week.  It seems like I’m gaining speed, strength, and endurance all at the same time.  I’m going to bed tired but am getting incredibly restful sleeps and feeling refreshed and rejuvenized each morning for another day of training.  It’s been several years since I’ve felt this good about my all-around triathlon training, not to mention this early in the season.

The greatest risk will be the switch from primarily endurance and aerobic training to some more race specific training in a few weeks.  To mitigate that risk, I may transition into the faster training a bit more slowly.  That will ensure my bones, ligaments, tendons can withstand the additional force.  I’ve already started to do some strides a couple times when running and some shorter, quicker efforts in the swim.  The high school next to where I live has an astroturf football field, and I’ve used it a couple of times for barefoot strides.  Running barefoot helps to strengthen the foot and astroturf must be one of the most ideal sufaces - as soft as grass but with much less risk of twisting an ankle.

Training since Monday has been great.  I did another 2:30 ride on Thursday, 21,500y of swimming Monday-Wednesday, and one of my longest runs in the past 8 months - all of 55:00 (around 8 miles).  I haven’t felt any pain when running, but I think my sesamoid bones are a little tender, so I’m being careful.  Saturday and Sunday should be a little lighter in terms of training.  1:00 bike and strength training on Saturday, a 35:00 run on Sunday, and around 6500m of swimming spread out over the two days.  Next week will largely be a repeat of this week except that I’ll be doing a little more of everything (around 2:00 more total).

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