September’s Soggy Sayonara

Statistically unimpressive, but better than nothing!

I followed last Saturday’s cyclocross race with a Sunday road ride here in the Philadelphia suburbs, then lost the next five days to the shockingly widespread effects of Hurricane Helene. Things aren’t as bad here as they are in Georgia and the Carolinas, but we have had at least some rain every day since Monday. I found just enough time for a walk on each day that I couldn’t ride, so I haven’t been completely idle. I had to complete some of those walks at night on days that offered no breaks while the sun was allegedly up. There is some chance of rain tomorrow, Monday, and on Tuesday as October begins. I didn’t expect Wisconsin would have better weather during this time of year, but I didn’t predict Helene. And, as you should expect, I have been pretty miserable this week.

Next weekend looks beautiful, so I still hope to do another cyclocross race here. A long layoff is poor preparation for a race. Those five lost days were my longest layoff since April 1-6. I forced myself to ride today in conditions that were less than ideal. There was a constant mist, but at least there was no rain during my ride. The roads were wet and fallen leaves made for many sketchy corners. I rode for almost 1.5 hours and saw exactly zero other cyclists. It wasn’t much of a ride, but it was far better than another rest day. I need to test myself a little more in the days to come, then decide by Thursday’s pre-registration deadline whether I’m racing on Saturday.

2024 Carpenter Cross

Today, for the first time ever, I did a cyclocross race in Pennsylvania. I lined up for the Masters 40+ Cat 4/5 race at Carpenter Cross in Horsham, just 7 miles from my mother’s house in the suburbs north of Philadelphia. The temperature was about 80° and the course was dusty from a recent absence of rain in this part of the world. I really liked the course. It didn’t have a run-up, but it had a challenging mix of barriers, climbs, descents, off-camber sections, and sand. I was able to ride the sand pit when some of my rivals were forced to run, and that was good for a couple of positions. We did a short prologue lap to start the race, then three full laps. I had a disappointing start but then settled in. My final lap was my fastest full lap, and that ain’t bad. The race combined the Masters, Juniors, and singlespeed fields, but scored them separately. I had a little fun with an under-19 racer who, technically, wasn’t my competition: I cut him off at the last tight corner and then outsprinted him to the line. He will learn not to leave the door open! As for the guys who were my competition in Masters 40+ Cat 4/5, I placed 13th out of 19, 4:57 behind the winner. That translated to about half a lap on this long course. So, I wasn’t close to the front of the race. That’s OK. I got a good workout, sharpened my bike handling skills a bit, and showed my mother and my oldest kid what I do for fun.

Surprise: A 200-Mile Week!

Short and to the point.

I lost track of my miles this week. Yes, me! With the final Royal Oaks cyclocross practice of 2024 on Wednesday, the season opener of the WCA cyclocross series on Saturday, and the long drive to Pennsylvania coming up tomorrow, today I was surprised to awaken to the realization that I was just a few miles short of my first 200-mile week this year. Not too long ago, I banged out 200-mile weeks with some regularity. But I had not done one since last year, July 31-August 6. So, today I insisted on hitting that target. I finished my week with a total of 201.85 miles and a season-high ride time of 13:40:47.

I am not likely to approach those numbers again this season. I will be off the bike tomorrow, then back on the road bike for 1.5-2 hours on Tuesday. The midweek forecast for eastern Pennsylvania is rainy. I hope not to be shut out. There’s a cyclocross race in my plans for next Saturday. I will want at least more one good ride after Tuesday … and I don’t want the race itself to be a mudder.

2024 Greene Acres CX Classic

The 2024 Wisconsin Cycling Association cyclocross series opened today at a new venue, Nathanael Greene Park in St. Francis. The course featured open grassy straightaways, a short sand pit, some off-camber descents, singletrack through the woods on the park’s west side, and more elevation change than you would expect. It was a course that suited me pretty well. My results probably are an accurate reflection of my fitness and ability at this moment, but in both of my races this morning I was delayed more than once by riders who crashed or stalled in front of me.

I turned 59 in June, which is 60 in cyclocross years. That’s because USA Cycling calculates “racing age” as the age you will be on December 31 in the year in which the world championships take place in your chosen discipline. Got it? The world championships for the 2024-2025 season will be held in France, January 31 through February 2. I will turn 60 in 2025, so my racing age for this season is 60. That puts me in a new division, and today I did OK in the Masters Cat 4/5 60+ race. I placed 5th out of 19.

In the open Cat 4 race—not age-restricted—I placed 28th out of 44. If you could break that race down by age, then I would have been 3rd of 10 in the 60+ group. So, both of today’s results give me some hope that this season I could find myself on a Masters Cat 4/5 60+ podium or two.

When I wasn’t racing, I was shaking a lot of hands. It was good to reconnect with so many friends in the cycling community. It also was good to see the results of the guys from the Royal Oaks practice series and to hear from them the ways practice converted to success today. Finally, it was super gratifying to receive several compliments from people who know me as the current President of the Wisconsin Cycling Association. We’ve done some really good things this year to move the organization forward, and there’s more to come before my term runs out in December.

But now it’s time for me to run back to Pennsylvania. If all goes as planned, then my next race reports will come from there. I should be back in Wisconsin in time for Field of Riches CX, right here in Washington County, on October 12.

Twenty Seasons Of 3,000 Miles

Trust me: today’s ride was nothing special. After a 50-mile effort on Thursday, today I wanted an easy spin in advance of tomorrow’s cyclocross races. Today’s ride was noteworthy only because it took me over the 3,000-mile threshold for the 20th consecutive season.

For me, this is Season 21. The only time I have failed to exceed 3,000 miles was in Season 1. That was 2004, when I rode only 1,454 miles. Cycling then was still very much an activity that I saw as an accessory to my other athletic interests. Mileage goals didn’t really start until 2005.

I will try to surpass 4,000 miles before this season ends. The last time I failed to reach 4,000 was way back in 2008 when a crash resulted in a broken collarbone and some unexpected time off the bike. In 2023, I rode 1,151 miles between September 14 and December 31. A repeat of that performance would get me past 4,000 miles for the 16th straight year.

The Brutal Math Of Garmin’s Step Challenges

Last Saturday’s 7.2-mile walk on the Ice Age Trail took 15,713 steps over 2.5 hours.

As I continue to use Garmin Connect for fitness motivation, I am trying to earn as many badges and points as I can within the activities I am willing to do. Garmin has challenges for all sorts of things, including swimming, scuba diving, and a few other sports in which I have zero interest. Most of my badges and points are coming from cycling and walking. Some of the walking challenges are quite easy. For example, I can earn the September Weekend Walking badge (1 point) by completing a single 3-mile walk on September 27, 28, or 29. The challenges based on steps, not on miles, are much harder.

When I’m walking for fitness, my stride is about 32 inches. That makes each mile an average effort of 1,980 steps. My average speed is about 3.5 mph. So, here’s the effort required to hit Garmin’s biggest one-day step challenges:

Can you imagine devoting 7:13 to walking in a single day? Even 3:37 would be an ordeal unless it were in some impossibly beautiful setting. I hiked the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon in 1983 and I would love to know how long it took to cover those 7.8 miles with a heavy pack on my back, but that was long before the days of GPS-enabled fitness trackers. I’m sure I didn’t average 3.5 mph or take such long strides … not with 4,460 feet of elevation change to accommodate. I don’t know if I can commit to any of those challenges if I have to complete them on the treadmill or the Eisenbahn State Trail or even the Ice Age Trail.

Getting 10,000 steps per day is a commonly recommended goal for general health and fitness, but here again the math is daunting. At 1,980 steps per mile, I would need to walk nearly 5.1 miles to get 10,000 steps, and at 3.5 mph, that’s almost 1.5 hours. Garmin’s “30-Day Goal Getter” (4 points) and “60-Day Goal Getter” (8 points, repeatable) look attractive because of their high point values, but just try to find 1.5 hours every day.

The people who are successful with these 10,000-step challenges probably are breaking them into smaller chunks. A 45-minute morning walk before work plus a 45-minute evening walk after dinner gets you to 1.5 hours without too much trouble. But there’s no way to break up the 25,000- to 50,000-step challenges that diminishes the effort. Credit to you if you have completed one of these. I’m not sure I ever will.

Royal Oaks CX Practice: September 4, 2024

Summer 2024 In Its Death Throes

“Meteorological fall” began yesterday and will continue until November 30. And it’s “meteorological fall” in quotation marks because it’s not actual fall, which will begin on September 22 and continue until December 21. I’m trying to convince myself that summer isn’t over yet, but I’m failing. Yesterday and today were noticeably cooler than average for this time of year. A warmup on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will get us back to where we should be … briefly. By Saturday we could see overnight lows in the 30s and an afternoon high of only 50-something. If you have a morning start time at Englewood, site of the first event of Wisconsin’s 2024 cyclocross season, then you might be racing with 40° wind chill. Yes, really: on September 7, a summer day. And it’s summer not in quotation marks because it’s actual summer, and I’m not sure there’s anything Wisconsin hates more.

I will not be at Englewood next Saturday or Sunday, though I enjoyed racing there last year. This year’s races are not part of the Wisconsin Cycling Association series; Englewood is its own independent event. As an independent event, Englewood’s registration fees are much higher than those of a WCA race. That’s a big turnoff for me. Other people must think so too: the pre-registration numbers don’t look good. A lot could happen between now and late Thursday night when the pre-reg window closes, but I think many amateurs are balking at $50 per race.

My Saturday is probably going to include a long hike on the Ice Age Trail. I don’t want to break out the thermal cycling clothes this early! I’m not chasing every last mile anymore. I have abandoned the goal of 100,000 lifetime miles before the end of 2025. To get there I would need about 6,000 miles next season. I have hit 6,000 only once in 20 seasons and I won’t get close to it this year. There’s no good reason to expect a return to that kind of volume, and my objectives are changing.

Two weeks from today I will be back in Pennsylvania. I expect to stay there until October 11. I also expect that the weather will be consistently warmer there. So, I’m hoping for more cycling miles than I would get here, plus a couple of cyclocross races, plus a significant amount of walking/hiking. Pennsylvania trips never have truly worked out as training camps for me, but I will keep trying. I want to return to Wisconsin with improved fitness and a desire to challenge for WCA cyclocross podiums in my age group.

I get a lot of fitness from riding a lot of miles, but I always seem to hit my head on the same ceiling. That’s not genetics; I am coming nowhere near my potential. Greater attention to detail in my cycling workouts would yield greater results, but I have struggled for years to commit. It’s not fun. There’s a reason so many people burn out after turning to that kind of training. I recognize that I need something new and I want it to be a more well-rounded approach to fitness, not a cycling-only plan. Currently, I am making a conscious effort to increase my walking mileage. When my Pennsylvania trip is over I will begin a new strength training program in the home gym. Cyclocross is the focus at the moment but cyclocross will last only as long as I can tolerate the cold. When that season ends—and especially if that season ends early—I will need some new objectives that have nothing to do with the bike.