Where did the spring go?  I went outside today and it was 103 degrees in the shade.  What a wake up call, so I decided it was time to give an update on the progress the individuals have made in the quest for the MS 150 Tulsa Championship Ride.  I do not want either of the competitors to have any reason to come to the competition out of shape. 

 

This is shaping up to be our largest group of riders yet.  Here is where we stand with the riders:

 

Rider                   Status   

Chris Cowgill           Registered

Steve Lercher           Registered

Tanya Lercher           Registered

Clint Lercher           Registered

Martha Lercher          Registered

Cheryl Lercher          Thinking About It

Brad Neahouse           Thinking About It

 

I took the time to call each of the riders that were committed to riding and below is an update from each of them.

 

Clint & Martha

 

It has been a wonderful spring for us.  Martha and I are taking one short 25 mile ride together each week.  It took some time, but I found a route that gives us a few hills to climb.  I love the speed you get on a down hill run. 

 

In the next few weeks Martha and I are going to do a fund raiser in Little Rock, the C.A.R.T.I. ride (Central Arkansas Radiology). 

 

Martha and I signed up to both ride in this years event.  With the extra time to train we believe there will be no problem completing this year’s ride.

 

To aid our training we purchased Lance Armstrong’s books to serve as a training and inspirational aid.

 

My goal is to do a century on the first day of the ride.  A century ride is 100 miles of cycling.  The normal riders will do roughly 80 miles.

 

 

Steve & Tanya

 

I am taking a different approach this year to the ride.  In past years I would ride throughout the year and find myself getting burned out by the time September rolled around.  This year I have decided to use an Eastern European method of training called periodization. The basic premise of all periodization programs is that training should progress from the general to the specific. 

 

This year I spent most of the spring and early summer working on my strength training.  Normally I would head to the gym and use the weights found there, but this year I decided that I wanted more free weight training versus using machines.  With that in mind, I spent most of the spring and early summer lifting railroad ties to help build a fence out at the farm.  With my weight training behind me I decided to focus on my diet.

 

To get my eating habits off to the right start, Tanya and I decided that we needed to get away from it all while we started the nutritional phase.  We looked around for a good place and finally found the perfect place to get focused on the nutritional phase, Carnival Cruise lines.  I made sure that I had three square meals each day and washed down this enhanced nutrition with plenty of fun filled liquids.  I knew that this opening phase was a success when I arrived home and had expanded my downhill muscle by almost six pounds.  Lets just see those other riders catch me on the downhill this year.  

 

Since Strength and Nutrition are firmly behind me, it is now time to get on the bike for some serious riding.  I plan on increasing my rides each week to work up to the first days distance.  Tanya and I are getting out and riding the bikes, looking forward to this years challenge.  Currently we have logged 300 miles on the bike with a goal of 2,000 by September.  The average speed right now is 15 mph.  I plan getting the conditioning so that the first 20 miles are ridden around 20mph.  The plan this year is to go out hard in the beginning just like last year.  Looking back at last year, if I had gotten out of the 3^rd rest step just a minute sooner, I would have won the entire race last year.

 

Chris

 

Last year I relied on a new bike to keep me in the race.  I was not prepared for the challenges presented to me by Clint.  This year, I am calling on science to give me an edge, any edge.  For the year I have logged about 1,600 miles averaging 15mph.  I ride 8-12 miles each weekday on flat roads.  On the weekends I will try to get 60-80 miles with a few hills in the mix.  I just hope that this training will be enough to give me a chance to win.

 

I decided that I needed a sponsor to help fund my rides.  I looked high and low for the right company to sponsor me.  Most of the companies took one look at my physique and told me they had no money left to spend.  They also did a little snickering for some reason.  I was getting pretty disheartened until I met with Michelin.  The Vice President of Marketing got this gleam in his eyes when I walked into his office.  He told me that I was the rider they were looking for.  He had never seen such a well developed spare tire on a rider.  With a downhill muscle like mine, I would always be at the front of the pack going downhill.  I was the perfect poster boy for Michelin Spare Tires. 

 

To help me see how I am training, I purchased a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) to keep track of my training.  I then spent one night with a cycling coach to take a fitness test to determine where my anaerobic threshold was.  I learned two things that night from the Coach, I had pretty good endurance, and I could suffer with the best of them.  With my new training tool, HRM, I decided it was time to do some training at altitude.

 

Having read that all great athletes spend some time training at altitude each year, I needed to find a place train that would be above the 1,100 feet of Phoenix.  I decided to head to the Grand Canyon to train along the Rim Roads.  The Altitude was 7,000 feet.

 

We went to the Canyon and had the hardest day of training I have every experienced.  There were about 30 riders from Phoenix riding ahead of our group.  We came to one hill that was over a mile in length at 6-15% grade and I saw six riders weighing less than me walking their bikes up the hill.  When we hit 43 mph going down that hill and not pedaling, I knew it was going to be hard getting back up. 

 

During the day my heart just kept beating faster and faster.  It became harder and harder to keep going.  At first I thought it was the Altitude.  I could not get my Heart Rate down to under 160 bpm when riding.  We would pull over and I would get the heart down to normal and the minute I did one rotation on the pedal it was up to 160-180 bpm depending on the terrain.  It was to the point that while sitting at Desert View eating a Hamburger I would have put my bike in the back of a car and quit for the day.  I was sitting next to the canyon and had no desire to get up and walk around.  I was finished and we still had 25 miles to go back to the cars.  We started riding home and the group just kept waiting on me.  They would get half a mile ahead of me and I could not catch up.  By now my heart was red lining at maximum effort and I was struggling to get to 20mph on downhill sections.  At the 50 mile mark we stopped at the top of a hill and I leaned over on my handle bars and started sucking in air.  I kept hearing this squeaking sound coming from the bottom of the bike, what was causing this noise.  We started looking for the source and traced it to the back wheel.  It took a few seconds to realize that the back brakes were rubbing on the rim at two points in the ride.  My back wheel was the cause of all the trouble.  When the group found out that I had ridden 50 miles with the brakes on, talk about taking some grief.  Now when ever we start a ride they all ask me, did you check your wheels rookie?

 

Look at the chart below to see how the ride looked.  We did over 3,310 feet of climbing for the day.  I spent over 3 hours with my heart rate over 155 bpm.  This was a day I will not soon forget.