Geeking the Numbers: PBP Training Plan

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I'm putting together a highly scientific, NASA-approved training plan to try to get my aging carcass in shape for this summer's attempt at the Charly Miller Society. To be honest, it's not really NASA-approved. No men in short-sleeved white dress shirts in Texas or Florida have even looked at it. Yet. And while it may be scientific, I don't really fully understand the science. I just stole a lot of the ideas from others who I'm hoping understand the scientific part better than I do.

Really, all I've done is read a bunch of what other people have to say about training for ultra cycling events and then I mixed it all together in my osterizer of a brain, and I drew a pretty picture.

The basic idea is that beginning in a couple weeks I'll start doing some interval and hill training in addition to my usual daily commute, and my weekend rides will start getting a bit longer and more intense. The intervals will start off pretty easy but they will slowly ramp up in intensity until late July when I'll be doing things that will literally make my head spin.

What are intervals? Basically they are periods of intense activity alternating with periods of recovery. The idea is that you can train at higher levels for greater lengths of time if you break it into small intervals and allow yourself to recover between the intervals. It obviously works well because intervals have been integral to professional athletes' training plans for many years.

On paper it all looks simple and easy and great fun. Of course if it was really that easy we'd all be like Alberto Contador except that most of us wouldn't test positive for clenbuterol.

The Joys of Not Training

As I mentioned a few days ago, I've been putting together a serious racer-boy type training plan to get myself into shape for PBP in August. I'm still researching and figuring out the details, but I have enough figured out to know that it's a little too early for me to be ramping up the hard training yet. The serious training will start in about three weeks. From then until the beginning of August, almost all of my rides will be with a purpose.

So, in the meantime I'm appreciating the fact that I can just go for a bike ride on a beautiful sunny Sunday and ride for the love of riding (and eating of course). I can even stop by the lake for a snack (careful to not let those waterfowl get any of my Fig Newton crumbs) and enjoy the view without paying attention to interval schedules and heart rate monitors.

PBP: Getting Started

One of the many things to think about while planning and scheming for Paris-Brest-Paris is the start time. With up to 6,000 riders, letting them all start at once would be a bit like a snake swallowing a hippopotamus, so the organizers spread the riders out on the course by offering a few different choices for start times.

Start times are divided by the type of bike (solo bikes vs. special bikes, like tandems and recumbants) and by time allowed to complete the course. Riders can choose a 90 hour, 84 hour or 80 hour start, meaning they have 90, 84 or 80 hours in which to complete the ride. So, if you think you're going to need the entire 90 hours, you'll definitely want to choose the 90 hour start time. But if you're pretty sure you can finish in 84 hours or even 80 hours or less, you may want to choose the 84 or 80 start.

The advantage to choosing the 84 or 80 hour start is that it separates you from the 90 hour crowd (usually the biggest group) so the roads and the controls are less crowded with the slower riders. The disadvantage is of course you have less time to finish the ride.

According to the PBP web site, the different start times are:

• Sunday, August 21, from 16:00 for a 80 hours time limit(solo bikes)
• Sunday, August 21, from 17:30, for a 90 hours time limit(special bikes)
• Sunday, August 21, from 18:00, for a 90 hours time limit (solo bikes)
• Sunday, August 21, from 21:00, free starts for a 90 hours time limit (solo bikes)
• Monday, August 22, from 04:45 for a 84 hours time limit(special bikes)
• Monday, August 22, from 05:00, for a 84 hours time limit(solo bikes)
• Monday, August 22, from 05:30 to 08h00, free starts for a return before Thursday 17h00

As you can see, one of the big factors is that the 84 hour start leaves in the morning while all of the others start in the late afternoon and evening. There are some strong opinions out there in randoland about whether it's best to start in the morning or the evening. Some feel that starting in the evening and riding through the first night immediately leaves you with a sleep deficit that you'll be struggling with for the rest of the ride. Others feel that you're better off getting some of that night riding done while you're fresh and well rested.

I've done a couple rides that started at night (a 600k and a 200k) and I actually felt pretty good throughout that first night on both rides. But they were both a lot shorter than PBP, so there's no telling how a night start will affect me 40 or 50 hours into the ride.

The group I'll be riding with likes the 84 hour start, primarily because they all tend to fall into the morning-start-is-best camp. So far I'm not sold on the idea. I like a lot of things about the 80 hour start, like:

• It gets you out in front of almost everyone else. Assuming you keep moving fast enough you'll never even see most of the other riders so you won't have to work your way through them on the road.
• Controls will be clean and uncrowded when you arrive so getting to food, bathrooms, etc. should be quick and easy.
• You have the day to take your time getting to the start. Sleep in, take a nap, relax, no rush...
• At least at the start you'll be surrounded by fast riders giving you plenty of choices to draft on.
• You arrive in Brest in the evening which might make it easier to get some sleep there.

Of course there are also some things to not like about the 80 hour start like:

• Given our planned schedule, the 80 hour start would have us doing a slightly higher percentage of night riding.
• Historically riders choosing the 84 hour start have had a higher finish rate than riders in any other start group (it's not clear why, though possibly starting in the morning has something to do with it).

Ultimately I'll go with whatever my team chooses since my only hope of achieving my big fat goal is to ride with a team.

I'm interested in what start time other PBP riders are choosing and why. And am I over-thinking this a bit?

Training with a Capital T

I've never really trained for a randonneuring event before... Well, that's not exactly true. I should say, I've never used a well thought-out structured training plan of any kind. I commute to work by bicycle nearly every day year-round, and I find time for a ride of some kind on most weekends. That all amounts to a decent amount of riding in a year and a lot of "normal" people might call that training. But, that's not really Training (with a capital T); it's what serious cyclists call "junk miles." Sort of the Doritos and Cheese Whiz of cycling.

Real Training involves a mix of specific kinds of riding (intervals, hill climbing, long steady distance, etc.) according a schedule, which alternately stresses your body and then allows it to recover, and then stresses it some more. Done correctly it increases the strength and efficiency of your muscles, the potential of your body to store carbohydrates (a.k.a. fuel), your body's ability to deliver oxygen to your muscles, and its ability to convert stored fat into energy. The schedule is one of the most important aspects of a real training program as it attempts to get your performance to a peak at a specific time, which hopefully coincides with the event for which you're training.

I guess that's a long drawn out way of saying, training makes you faster. Hopefully.

With a concrete yet very "stretchy" goal for PBP, I've decided I need to take training a little more seriously this year. As it stands now, I know next to nothing about real training. But luckily I know how to use one of those interweb search engine thingies (JumpStation is my favorite) and there seems to be an enormous load of information available out there for free (and probably worth every penny).

But don't worry, I'll resist any urges to turn this into one of those training blogs. I've read of few of those and while they sometimes provide some useful information, they are BORING (unlike this blog).

And for those of you who landed here because you were searching for good detailed training information, you may want to go back to JumpStation and try again. I'll probably talk a little about things I learn about training over the coming weeks that are interesting or amusing, but I won't attempt to provide yet another authoritative source of endurance training info. Like I said, there's already an enormous load of that available.

My Big Fat PBP Goal

I have to admit that the history lesson on Charly Miller posted a few days ago was really just a setup for this post. I've already told a few friends this, but I figure you haven't totally committed to a goal until you've blogged it, right? So here goes:

My goal for PBP is to finish in less than 56 hours and 40 minutes and be added to La Société Charly Miller honor role. There, I said it.

Is it possible? Well, I'd say it's a long shot; what my bosses in corporate America refer to as a "stretch goal." And it definitely wouldn't be possible for me to do this by myself. But... with the right group of cyclists working together, plus good luck with the weather (especially wind), plus no big mechanical issues, plus no navigation mistakes, plus no serious physical problems, and with a heapin' helpin' of suffering, it seems possible. In theory anyway.

This goal grew from a seed that was planted on the second brevet I ever did back in the spring of '09. I rode almost the entire 300 km brevet with a group of six fast riders, and together we finished the ride in just under 12 hours. Bob Brudvik and Wayne Methner were in the group of six and somewhere along the way they told me about a group that was forming that wanted to make the CM list in 2011, and that they thought I should join them. At that point I knew next to nothing about PBP and had never heard of Charly Miller. I couldn't even imagine riding any distance greater than 200 miles in those days. So of course I said, "oh yeah, I'm in," thinking the conversation would be forgotten.

Over the remainder of the 2009 brevet season and through the 2010 season, I'd often see Bob on rides and again we'd talk about the Charly Miller society. Bob's a good salesman and I'm sort of a sucker for a pointless challenge so it wasn't long before I started believing it really could be done. See the deal is... (I'm channeling Bob a bit now) all you have to do is maintain a pace of 4 hours per 100 kilometers (including controls) all the way to Brest. That get's you there in 24 hours. You spend 4 hours eating and sleeping and then get back on the bike for the return trip. This gives you 28 hours to get back, which lets you ride a bit slower on the return trip. Sounds simple, right?

I've done 200km, 300km and 400km brevets at a pace of better than 4 hours per 100 km before. It's not easy, and for me it can only be done riding with a group, but it can be done. It's kind of like golf. Even if your a lousy golfer (which I was back when I used to golf), every once in a great while you hit a shot, like maybe a hundred yard approach shot, that looks just like something Tiger Woods would do. While that one shot is in the air, you're thinking to yourself, "hey, I'm pretty good." But in reality you're not that good, you just hit a good shot. The difference between you and Tiger is that you hit one like that out of about 115 shots while he does it every time.

So my point is, I can ride a 100 km in 4 hours, but it takes a Tiger Woods... er or maybe Lance Armstrong would be a better example? Anyway, it takes something more to maintain that pace for 1200 km.

But like I said, it's a stretch goal.

Charly Miller

One of the things that makes the Paris-Brest-Paris event so special is its rich history. PBP is the oldest bicycling event still regularly run. It was first run in 1891 primarily as an attempt to sell newspapers. Apparently it sold some newspapers since it's still going strong 120 years later.

In the second PBP in 1901 when it was still a professional bike race (though amateurs were always allowed as well), the first American professional cyclist, a 26 year-old from Chicago named Charles Miller, joined the competition. I suspect some of Miller's story has been romanticised a bit over the years, but here's how it generally gets told in randonneuring circles these days:

Miller, under-funded and unsupported, was riding alone amongst 112 European professional racers. Many of the Europeans rode with pacers and had support crews providing food and helping to maintain their bikes along the way. Miller rode alone, finding food and water where he could and fixing his bike himself when it broke down. His bike completely gave out 350 kilometers from the finish, but he was able to quickly borrow another bike and ride on to the finish. Despite the odds,* Miller finished in a very respectable fifth place with an elapsed time of 56 hours and 40 minutes. Miller apparently was still going strong up to the finish as he set the fastest time over the final kilometer of the course (1 minute 26 seconds or about 26 mph!).

The course has changed (it's a bit longer and much hillier now), the roads have improved (one word: asphalt!), bikes have changed (they're REALLY expensive and look way more uncomfortable now), and physical training and nutritional science has improved considerably (yet I still eat PopTarts on rides). All of these changes make it difficult to compare Miller's achievement with what I'll be attempting in August. Still, American randonneurs almost universally recognize Miller's PBP performance in 1901 as nothing less than heroic. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until 1979 that another American (Scott Dickson) was able to better Miller's time!

To honor Charly's achievement, Randonneurs USA (RUSA) recognizes any American who finishes PBP in less 56:40, as a member of La Société Charly Miller. In the century since Charly's PBP ride only 26 solo riders and four tandem teams have made the list.

* After the first day of racing the August 17, 1901 New York Times reported, "The betting to-night is 3 to 1 against Lesna and 6 to 1 against Miller"

The Road to Paris

I've had the 2011 Paris-Brest-Paris randonnée in the back or front of my head ever since I first learned about it almost two years ago. But until recently it had seemed pretty hypothetical. There were a lot of hoops that needed jumping through before I would actually be able to ride it, and I wasn't even sure if I really wanted to do it or was even capable of doing it. And of course there were rumors of registration limits and tough competition to get in.

With Audax Club Parisien's recent announcements about the registration limit and quotas by country, it's now all but certain that I'll be able to register. As a matter of fact, the rumors of tough competition to get in now appear to have been unwarranted and most likely no Americans who meet the minimum requirements will be turned away. And the fact that I completed the Cascade 1240 last summer suggests that I may actually be capable of surviving PBP.

So PBP is quickly looking much more real. Sure, there are a still more hoops to jump through, not least of which is that I have to complete a Super Randonneur series before July 17th in order to qualify. I've done two SR series now, but finishing one is still far from a slam dunk. So far I've been lucky enough to get through every brevet I've started without serious physical, mechanical or mental breakdowns. I contribute about 10% of that success to good training and smart planning and the other 90% is just dumb luck. But at this point I have little choice but to assume I'll finish the qualifying series and eventually find myself registered, qualified and on a flight to France with my bike in pieces in a box.

Not only is PBP looking less and less hypothetical, but it also now seems to be approaching at the speed of a TGV. So I've spent a few evenings recently researching lodgings and flights and working out the details of our trip. Sarah, Cody and Adam are all going to France with me and we'll spend a little over two weeks there in total. The first couple days will be in and around Paris (we're actually going to stay in Versailles which is very close to the start of PBP but still an easy train ride into the city) getting ready for the ride and seeing sights. Then while I ride to Brest, Sarah and the kids will take a much quicker and more comfortable trip there on the TGV. They'll stay in Brest for two nights, hopefully long enough to watch me sleep for a couple of hours and then we'll all meet back in Versailles, me of course taking the much slower and more painful route. After I've caught up on sleep a bit we'll all head to Annecy for a week of hiking, hanging out, and eating well before heading back to Paris and then home. Sounds to me like the trip of a life time!