WhiteGiant
Maximum Pace
- Nov 4, 2006
- 1,233
- 395
*Apology in advance: This blog is all "me, me, me!" Pardon my narcissism - Or feel free to skip this one (it's pretty long).
Tour de Okinawa 2017 – 140km Men's Road Race
This is the late, late report… 3 years late!
The following is a tale of the longest and hardest I have ever ridden. Of course, I've done longer rides, but not with as much effort. Of course I've ridden at higher intensities, but not for such a distance.
At the beginning of 2017, I received the entry form for the Tour de Okinawa in the mail (the regular post) – One receives them after entering previous years. I had entered before, in 2015, but circumstances dictated that I forego the race that year. I was determined that 2017 would finally see me there.
When I had planned to race in 2015, I had a small taste of what it was like to train for a specific event – I signed up for a Trainerroad subscription, and bought myself a cheap "wheel-on" indoor trainer and a Powertap rear wheel. In that initial training experiment though, I didn't have much idea about how to train, and ended up over-training. Or to be more specific, I never allowed myself enough recovery time – I later learned about the 3-weeks-hard / 1-week-easy method of block training – and hence I was almost constantly fatigued. I did make progress, but it was painfully slow.
THE TRAINING
In 2017 though, I was more methodical about giving myself time to recuperate within those training blocks, and I was much more consistent all the way through. I started in February, weighing 72kg with an FTP of around 220. For those without a calculator, that's just a smidge over 3W/kg, which is not great. But it's a decent place to start, and I set myself the arbitrary goal of 300 – Something to aim for (spoiler alert: I never made it… but I did get close). In the first two months I saw tremendous improvements, and by mid-April, my FTP was up to around 250. With 7 months until the race (it's held in mid-November, by the way), I was sure to hit my 300W target, or so I thought. It turns out that that initial spurt of gains was just my returning to a previous mean. You see, I'd been riding for over 12 years by then, and when I'm in fairly good shape, I suppose I hover around the 3.6~3.7W/kg range anyway. That quick initial improvement was just my body returning to a previous median level. What I didn't realize at the time was that any gains beyond that were not going to come so easily.
My progress went something like this:
Mid-April: 250.
Mid-May: 258.
Mid-June: 266.
Mid-July: 272.
Mid-August: Too hot to ride.
Mid-September: 265.
Mid-October: 272.
Mid-November: (race-day) 278.
Let's call it 280, and I weighed right on 70kg, so 4W/kg – That would have to be enough.
So far, all I've mentioned is the Trainerroad sessions, but I also added other upper-body and core exercises to the mix. Two to 3 times a week, I was doing push-ups, weighted sit-ups, weighted-lunges, and dumbbell (shoulder) presses. I would have to say that by far the most beneficial exercise was the weighted sit-ups. Recently, sit-ups have gotten a bad rap for being ineffectual. But that's only if your purpose is to get six-pack abs; apparently, there are much better exercises for that. Where the sit-ups shine is for hip-flexor strength - Something that would benefit me greatly during the race – more on that later. As race-day drew nearer, I was doing 5 sets of 40 sit-ups with 2 x 7kg dumbbells (one on each shoulder).
With the training over, it was time to race. I had gone from 3W/kg to 4W/kg in around 9 months. Although perhaps I could have done more, I was probably the fittest I had been in quite a few years, since at least 2011. Now the real question was, would 4W/kg be enough for a decent place?
GETTING THERE
I had decided that, even before registering for the race, I would go with my girlfriend at the time, Satoko – She's now my wife, so taking her was probably the right thing to do.
We flew down to Naha airport on the Friday (Nov. 10th) before the race, which was to be held on Sunday (Nov. 12th). We took the courtesy bus from the airport to the car rental place, which seemed to take forever, and we were finally on our way to the hotel around dusk. Our hotel was located on Sesoko Island, about 5km south of the Churaumi Aquarium – It's also about 45km from where I would have to start racing on Sunday.
On Saturday, I decided to reconnoiter a part of the course that I wasn't so familiar with. I had actually spent the last few months watching Youtube videos of previous years' races, even doing some of my Trainerroad workouts while watching them, to get a sense of the course. I felt pretty confident that I knew the course well enough, but I wanted to see how tough some of those smaller-looking climbs might be in the latter half of the race. So I chose a 20km section along the east coast of the island heading south on Rte.70 that I wanted to check out a bit more, and had Satoko drive me there and drop me off with my bike. She drove on ahead (snapping some pictures along the way) to pick me up at a preselected point, and I got in one last little pre-race muscle-activation ride. We had a big meal that night (carb-loading) and went to bed early.
Reconnaissance ride pics - Courtesy of Satoko
Tour de Okinawa 2017 – 140km Men's Road Race
This is the late, late report… 3 years late!
The following is a tale of the longest and hardest I have ever ridden. Of course, I've done longer rides, but not with as much effort. Of course I've ridden at higher intensities, but not for such a distance.
At the beginning of 2017, I received the entry form for the Tour de Okinawa in the mail (the regular post) – One receives them after entering previous years. I had entered before, in 2015, but circumstances dictated that I forego the race that year. I was determined that 2017 would finally see me there.
When I had planned to race in 2015, I had a small taste of what it was like to train for a specific event – I signed up for a Trainerroad subscription, and bought myself a cheap "wheel-on" indoor trainer and a Powertap rear wheel. In that initial training experiment though, I didn't have much idea about how to train, and ended up over-training. Or to be more specific, I never allowed myself enough recovery time – I later learned about the 3-weeks-hard / 1-week-easy method of block training – and hence I was almost constantly fatigued. I did make progress, but it was painfully slow.
THE TRAINING
In 2017 though, I was more methodical about giving myself time to recuperate within those training blocks, and I was much more consistent all the way through. I started in February, weighing 72kg with an FTP of around 220. For those without a calculator, that's just a smidge over 3W/kg, which is not great. But it's a decent place to start, and I set myself the arbitrary goal of 300 – Something to aim for (spoiler alert: I never made it… but I did get close). In the first two months I saw tremendous improvements, and by mid-April, my FTP was up to around 250. With 7 months until the race (it's held in mid-November, by the way), I was sure to hit my 300W target, or so I thought. It turns out that that initial spurt of gains was just my returning to a previous mean. You see, I'd been riding for over 12 years by then, and when I'm in fairly good shape, I suppose I hover around the 3.6~3.7W/kg range anyway. That quick initial improvement was just my body returning to a previous median level. What I didn't realize at the time was that any gains beyond that were not going to come so easily.
My progress went something like this:
Mid-April: 250.
Mid-May: 258.
Mid-June: 266.
Mid-July: 272.
Mid-August: Too hot to ride.
Mid-September: 265.
Mid-October: 272.
Mid-November: (race-day) 278.
Let's call it 280, and I weighed right on 70kg, so 4W/kg – That would have to be enough.
So far, all I've mentioned is the Trainerroad sessions, but I also added other upper-body and core exercises to the mix. Two to 3 times a week, I was doing push-ups, weighted sit-ups, weighted-lunges, and dumbbell (shoulder) presses. I would have to say that by far the most beneficial exercise was the weighted sit-ups. Recently, sit-ups have gotten a bad rap for being ineffectual. But that's only if your purpose is to get six-pack abs; apparently, there are much better exercises for that. Where the sit-ups shine is for hip-flexor strength - Something that would benefit me greatly during the race – more on that later. As race-day drew nearer, I was doing 5 sets of 40 sit-ups with 2 x 7kg dumbbells (one on each shoulder).
With the training over, it was time to race. I had gone from 3W/kg to 4W/kg in around 9 months. Although perhaps I could have done more, I was probably the fittest I had been in quite a few years, since at least 2011. Now the real question was, would 4W/kg be enough for a decent place?
GETTING THERE
I had decided that, even before registering for the race, I would go with my girlfriend at the time, Satoko – She's now my wife, so taking her was probably the right thing to do.
We flew down to Naha airport on the Friday (Nov. 10th) before the race, which was to be held on Sunday (Nov. 12th). We took the courtesy bus from the airport to the car rental place, which seemed to take forever, and we were finally on our way to the hotel around dusk. Our hotel was located on Sesoko Island, about 5km south of the Churaumi Aquarium – It's also about 45km from where I would have to start racing on Sunday.
On Saturday, I decided to reconnoiter a part of the course that I wasn't so familiar with. I had actually spent the last few months watching Youtube videos of previous years' races, even doing some of my Trainerroad workouts while watching them, to get a sense of the course. I felt pretty confident that I knew the course well enough, but I wanted to see how tough some of those smaller-looking climbs might be in the latter half of the race. So I chose a 20km section along the east coast of the island heading south on Rte.70 that I wanted to check out a bit more, and had Satoko drive me there and drop me off with my bike. She drove on ahead (snapping some pictures along the way) to pick me up at a preselected point, and I got in one last little pre-race muscle-activation ride. We had a big meal that night (carb-loading) and went to bed early.
Reconnaissance ride pics - Courtesy of Satoko
Last edited:
