Rest & Recovery

Co-Motion Macchiato. Built for pure speed, it omits the center bracing tube, and features a belt Captain's drive.

 After Sister Heat (love child of Father Time and Mother Nature) took most of the summer off, she made a saucy appearance last week, with temps in the high 90s, but it's been cooling off dramatically now, with highs in the 70s, and rain on the way for Tuesday if the weather guessers are to be believed.

After a smoking fast Tuesday night ride with SBH, just 2 days after a 50 miler 2 weeks ago Sunday, I found myself awash in fatigue. When it lasted more than 3 days I knew something more was going on. In part that was due to a rare flair-up of diverticulitis, but it was more than that too. When fatigue goes on for days, it's heart fatigue, and the cure for that is Co-Enzyme Q10.

It was first synthesized in Japan in the early 50s, and has been used as part of standard therapy for heart attack victims there ever since. Incredibly effective for tired muscles, and no muscle works harder than the heart, thus any deficit in the body's naturally synthesized Co-Q10 is felt first in the heart. Burning the candle at both ends writing software for Wall St took a lot out of me, and a real toll on my heart, but 400-600mg of Co-Q10 restores vitality in days, and 1-200mg per day maintains it. I'd stopped taking it altogether about a year ago, and won't do that again.

I was hoping after a week I could do the Tuesday night ride again, but wasn't feeling chipper at all. By the time Thurs rolled around though, I had been taking 400-600mg of Co-Q10 for 5 days, and was raring to go. The Thurs night rides are usually pretty leisurely, and only 20-30 miles, but since I rode to the start, this one was 42 miles and change.

As it was, Steve had his Co-Motion tandem out, and after getting passed by a fast peleton, he decided to push the pace, with me right on his wheel. They didn't stay ahead of us long, as we bridged up within a half mile, and eventually, passed them pushing into a 10mph headwind. Advantage tandem!

Co-Motion Supremo

That set the tone for the whole ride though. The Garmin reported 20.25 mph for 27 miles at 147.5 BPM (89% max HR) for 1:25:11, so basically an hour and 25 minute TT at ~ 90% of max cranking out 280 watts. About 12 miles of that was done before dark at an average speed of 21.6. The rest of the ride possible because of the myriad of lights we had on the bikes allowing me to ride 2 hrs after full darkness.

I might remount my MagicShine to the right side of the handlebars though, swapping its position with the Planet Bike 1W Blaze, as I had to offset 2 ft and back 4ft to keep my light on the trail surface, and not all the reflective stuff on Steve's tandem. This gave Steve a solid fix on the trail so he could freelance his helmet light to see around corners or into deer saturated grasses.  His taillight was also blinding me when directly behind, so after dark, I wasn't able to draft effectively.

I felt fantastic once home, and really great the next day, a little tired the 2nd day, but still enough energy to stay up late reading Joe Friel's Paleo Diet for Athletes, which I highly recommend. It's much better than I expected, as he spends more time on the science than he has in any other of his books. I'm still wanting to do my favorite 65mi ride to the Rescue Fire Station, and was hoping to do that today, but I was up babysitting a pot roast until 2:00 AM last night - something I haven't made in 20 yrs at least,  but good Paleo nutrition.

I was going to do the Rescue ride today, but with rain on the way I need to fix my car windows instead. Plastic gears on electric windows get old and brittle, and are kind of a bitch to fix (unless you like your arms cut up by sharp sheet metal edges) but not all that hard either. 

It's also becoming clear to me that when you CAN ride all year around in an accommodating climate, it's important to take some planned time off from time to time. Since I'm not training for events, there are no built-in rest periods, so I am learning to make some to allow me to recover. Living and learning.

I think I'll head up to Beals later and do something I've never done before - take pictures of the sun setting on the lake an hour from home. Really like my new MagicShine light. 

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Miracle on Lake Natoma

What's that calculation again? 220-age?

As indicated in my last post, I have been pushing my max HR, and monitoring fatigue, to see how far I can push for threshold power, where the aerobic and lactate thresholds edge into anaerobic lactic acid spikes and extreme muscle fatigue. As Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrong's trainer noted, pushing into Z5 created so much fatigue for Lance when first recovering from cancer he was not able to ride again for days. I have noticed the same thing is true for me.

I have done 2 rides since the Mt Hamilton ride on June 13th, because after training from mid November 2008, more or less with no breaks, I needed to take some serious R&R time. Last Saturday, July 4th, I did a short 28 mile climbing route with a couple of guys I hadn't ridden with in a long time. They really pushed me, and actually handily dropped me on the short, but super-steep climb. When I got home and uploaded my Garmin 305 to Training Center I saw I had spent 24 minutes in Zone 5. The next 3 days I was pretty tired, so lots of fatigue.

Since high altitude climbing is so demanding on the cardio system, this is an important unknown I would like to nail down, not only for the Death Ride, but for cooler mid-summer rides in the mountains, and for sprinting and general threshold power. Pushing back and forth across your aerobic threshold is also how you increase your VO2 Max. For all of these reasons I am at a point where I really would like to know how hard I can push a bent ticker.

I got my answer, or at least a big part of it, much sooner than I anticipated. On a ride Sunday night with the Feisty Fun & Frisky Fitness Meetup.com group, I was doing a little racing along the west side of Lake Natoma, pulling at the front of a draft, when I had to fall back, jump on the back of the peleton and then sprint up a short 3-4% hill. At the beginning of the ride the very dry air dried all the moisture from under the HR strap, and I got a few false readings in the 170s, so I dismissed the audio alarm with an annoyed glance and pushed on in spite of a reading of 173. Only later did I realize the readings were correct, or at least I think they were. (I will definitely repeat the experiment, but didn't see the kind of flaky readings going from 175+ to 120 or so in 2 seconds)

As you can see, I spent almost double that, 44:44 in Zone 5 Sunday, and no ill effects. Aside from general rest there are two things I suspect are helping me - Acai berry and CoQ10. I had this same experience 3 years ago with CoQ10, but stopped taking it when my peak HR returned to it's expected peak at 220-age. Almost on a fluke I started taking it again about a week ago, and given my past experience, this seems the likely reason for my heart's rather miraculous performance. I had no chest pain during the ride, after, or since. I am a little freaked out, and pretty excited. Taking my HR up from 166 to 176 should give me a 6% increase in cardio capacity. WOW, I'll take it!

Can you spot the guy who showed up without a helmet?


Pre-miracle grinning!

Photo credits to my friend Jeffrey Thorne
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