An Epic Day – 70 miles of Spectacular Cycling
My wife and I had an absolutely EPIC day of cycling on Saturday. It was a day where the temperature was perfect. The scenery was spectacular. The route was familiar. Traffic was low, except for the myriad other cyclists with whom we shared the day.
The Xert Adaptive Training Advisor suggested 170 XSS for the day, with an emphasis on Endurance. I knew I needed to get those points in, especially after such bad rides on Thursday and Friday. But I also knew that if the weather was good, and I was prepared, then I might be able to get more than points. I had not had a Fitness Breakthrough in about two weeks, and I wanted that revised signature pretty bad. I also wanted to see how close I could get to 300 watts on FTP.
PREP and WARMUP
The best way to have an epic day is to get a good night’s sleep. I’ve written about sleep before, but there’s something to a solid 7 hours of sleep, in a cool room, with blankets, or in my case, dogs, sleeping on top of me. Then, I woke up naturally, made my coffee, had a good breakfast of about 800 Calories, and drank a full 24 ounces of Beet Juice and Ginger. Beet Juice is a natural vasodilator, with a half-life of at least five hours. When you consume it regularly, it will lower blood pressure, and keep things flowing. It’s also just a good sugar.
Tracy spent the night in South Lake Tahoe, with her brother, as she was taking several photography classes. She drove down Kingsbury Grade, parked at the bottom, and rode to Genoa, NV to meet me. I parked in Carson City, NV, and rolled to Genoa from the other direction. We met in the village, and proceeded south.
An Epic Day of Scenery
Saturday was just one of those days that sort of makes you believe in a higher being. The sky was clear and cobalt blue. The valley was a mix of green and yellow, as many of the trees have begun to change colors. We stopped at a brook that was steaming, and learned that it was a hot spring seeping into a swamp of Cat O’ Nine Tails. We rode South, into California and burned several dozen grams of fat, keeping our pace even, side by side. I am incredibly lucky to have a spouse that is fit, fast, and strong. She is my pillar and my best friend.
The EPIC Breakthrough
The terrain rolled just enough that I felt like the surges were waking up my legs and lungs. At roughly 540 KiloJoules, I decided I would try my Trademark Breakthrough Intervals. These intervals are basically 8-second efforts, with 8-second recoveries. They are best performed on flat or false-flat terrain, and the trick is to ride them in Xert ORANGE Wattage. Do as many of them as are necessary, using the inertia of your wheel for the recoveries, and the onset of drag from the earth, to stay consistent.
On my Garmin 1030, I have an Interval Set of 44 8×8’s. This can be manually triggered at any point during a ride. It sets an audio timer with 5-second countdowns, and you just repeat the intervals until you achieve a breakthrough, or halt the intervals on the screen. I rarely need 44 of them to achieve the breakthrough, but I have come close more than once.
Here’s what the Intervals look like on your Garmin in action.
After just 5 minutes and 30 seconds, I was done. I performed 27 intervals, drew down my MPA to my Threshold, “Crossed the Rubicon” for 2 full minutes, and achieved an EPIC breakthrough.
Here’s the chart:
#BOOM!
This was an EPIC breakthrough. My previous Xert Fitness Signature was about 2 weeks old, and my fitness was improving. Furthermore, I’d had two mediocre rides in previous days, and honestly, I was ready for a good effort. Heart rate was high, but not stratospheric. And if you know my terminology, “Crossing the Rubicon” in Xert-world, means “Once you get your MPA down to your ‘old’ FTP (273 watts), KEEP GOING. The longer you keep that MPA “Flat”, and the longer your watts are above it, in purple, the more you will affect your revised signature. TWO MINUTES of this is what raised my FTP, LTP, and HIE in the Xert Fitness Signature. #BOOM!!!!
Part 2 – An Epic Day of Climbing Up Kingsbury Grade
But the ride wasn’t even half over! I still had several XSS Points to earn!
Slowly, I recovered until my wife rejoined me, and together, we both worked to keep our fat-burning up, and conserve our carbs. The day was warming up, so we drank and ate. We stopped to take some photos of a mountain bike obstacle course, and then began our return trip. Kingsbury Grade had always been optional, but I was STILL feeling good, and when we arrived, we both decided to give this mountain climb a solid effort. To add emphasis to the epic day, I had successfully climbed my fat/carb ratio back toward a 1:1 ratio.
PACING WITH XERT SEGMENT HUNTER
The Xert Segment Hunter is a novel field for your Garmin. Basically, when you’re in front of a computer, you look up your Strava segments, highlight the one you want to attempt on a given day, and set a time goal. You can then choose whether you want the effort to be a breakthrough effort, or slightly less. On Friday night, I had set a goal of 48:54, which was my Personal Record. When I approached the start of the segment, the Segment Hunter switched from “Prowling”, to “Stalking”, and a wattage value popped up.
The goal for this then became, “How do I pace myself up this hill? The Segment Hunter seems to think I can average 277 watts, given my ‘current’ Fitness Signature.” Well, when I crossed the segment starting line, the mental game was on.
Here are a few screenshots of the climb. I also used the “Live Segments” option that is native to Garmin. Take a look especially at the countdown timers, while also looking at my pace vs my previous PR, and the PR of the next best climber on Strava’s records.
The carrot has pulled away, and my PR effort seems to be falling back. The Time anomalies between the two apps is better, but it’s still significant. BTW – these images were captured 4 seconds apart.
AN EPIC DAY ATOP KINGSBURY!!!
How’d it end? Well, here —
I still intend to keep using the Xert Segment Hunter – I just need to dial in the time goals better, and watch my pacing as I continue to set PR’s. I doubt I’ll take another 2 minutes off of this climb again.
If we look at the overall Epic Day picture, well, read the details on this photo….
So, even though I didn’t hit my Segment Hunter wattage goal, I DID set a PR, and I DID achieve a wattage average climb PR, by 1 watt. This was not all wind – the day was calm. I’m left wondering if perhaps my previous effort was hampered by wind, or there was a weight or drag factor from equipment that I wasn’t considering. This is the capstone to an Epic Day.
CONCLUSION
The trip down the hill was uneventful. My wife made the climb a few minutes behind me, and then we turned around and cautiously descended. We got to her car, I kissed her and bid her farewell, and then made my way back to Carson City, and my own vehicle.
This was the final tally for the ride….
And most importantly, here is the boost to the fitness Signature.
- FTP went from 273 watts to 289 watts
- LTP went from 212 watts to 222 watts
- HIE went from 25.3KJ to 26.2KJ
- and Max Wattage is still at roughly 1120 watts.
An Epic Day is the culmination of hard work over previous weeks, perfect conditions, proper rest, good terrain, hydration, and caloric nutrition. Using Xert has brought me to within ELEVEN WATTS of my FTP Goal of 300, and I have not been this fit since at least 2017, or maybe 2011. I checked my weight on Saturday afternoon, after consuming an 1100 Kcal milkshake, and I came in at 67.2Kg, so that makes my W/KG ratio 4.3, a value I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. 50 has never felt so good.
Thanks for reading, and special thanks to my wife, who has helped make this past year the best yet.
