Polyphasic Sleep and Back Pain

About six months ago I slipped on the stairs and injured my back. This was obviously unpleasant, but I recovered from most of the pain in about two weeks. Unfortunately, as I was recovering from the initial pain a chronic issue appeared: after about 4-6 hours of sleep I would be woken in excruciating back pain.

Two weeks ago, my wife showed me this article on polyphasic sleep, and I was just desperate enough for a decent amount of sleep to give it a shot. I began the transition to uberman last weekend, and I am happy to report that I have not been woken up by back pain in that many days. I know a lot of people will think that this sleep schedule is a bit mad, but the simple fact is not waking up in pain has substantially improved my quality of life.

Important to note is that I'm really bad at doing this transition properly. I keep changing up the schedule and oversleeping on certain naps, but the shift is still enough to have completely eliminated the pain I've been experiencing. If you are having similar sleep deprivation issues, I highly recommend trying one of the polyphasic routines.

Century

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Well, the century was last Sunday (I know I'm a little late, but it's been a busy week) and I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. I'm very proud of my accomplishment, but I felt the event itself had some organizational flaws.

Getting Up

We found some information online that said we needed to be at the event at 6:00AM, so at 4:30 my alarm went off and we started getting ready to leave. I had packed my bag and laid out my clothes the night before, but getting up that early meant that I still had trouble getting my act together until 5:00 when we had to leave.





Unfortunately, when we got to the event, we discovered that they were barely ready for us to check in. Getting there so early meant that speedy check-in was completely meaningless, but considering there were only about 30 people doing the 100 mile ride, it wouldn't have been that relevant even if I had shown up at 6:30 when we originally planned. It wasn't all bad, though, as the additional time allowed me to get ready at a leisurely pace.

Starting

Other than half the cyclists (including me) nearly missing the first turn, the beginning of the race was incredibly nice. The first 20 miles flew by, as we had a strong wind at our back the whole way, and I rolled into the second rest stop (I skipped the first because I was feeling so good) ahead of the main group.

Adrianna met me at the second rest stop, and I took some time to down a Gatorade and recharge for the next stretch. While I was resting, the main group passed the rest stop (I guess they decided to stop at the first stop but not the second) while I was taking my break, but I was still feeling pretty strong about my progress.

Challenging Hills

I got to the third rest stop before the main group had left, and shortened the rest so I could ride with them for the next stretch. This was better in theory than practice, though, as this part of the ride represented the most challenging climb of the century. I kept up with them fine, but at the first hill everybody pulled ahead as I struggled to push my higher weight over the hills. I caught up with them again at the third rest stop, but was so exhausted that I couldn't leave with them. We weren't quite done climbing, and I wanted to be rested for the work ahead.

Plaistow

The Plaistow stop was a little over half way, and by this time I guess the main group had completely broken up anyway. By many accounts, this was about when stamina started failing. I was extremely exhausted by the climbing we had done thus far, and that made the smaller climbs remaining feel as hard as the most challenging climb from earlier.

The attitude of the riders at the rest stop in Plaistow represented this very well. At the fourth rest stop people were still very talkative and excited, but now the mood was more one of grim determination. There was a chart of the elevation, and so we were able to see the hard climbs still to come.

80 Miles Down

Adrianna met me again at the 80 Mile rest stop, and by this time I had fallen back to the last group. I wasn't really aware of how far back I had gone until I noticed that they were packing up the rest stop as I was recovering. It was somewhat hurtful to not even wait until I had left to start doing so, and made the last 20 miles psychologically difficult.

This was about the time that people started telling me "almost there." This did help me push through to the end, but the last bit still dragged on worst than any other part of the ride. At 10 miles left, I found myself constantly glancing at my cyclometer, as if I could will the distance to diminish faster by doing so.

Finish

I was one of the last to actually complete the century, with a few coming in after me and a few picked up by the van. I ended up above my target speed, but still exceeding the time limit due to time spent at rest stops. Fortunately for me, the limit was changed from 3:00 to 4:00 in the last week before the event, so I still had a half hour left before they would have picked me up.

Adrianna met me at the finish line, with one of the staff members, and I got a medal for completing the event. Being exhausted and more than a little hungry, we headed indoors to eat some of the end-of-event food.

While I was in the early stages of recovered (I'm still sore as I write this on Wednesday), I had the unfortunate experience of one of the organizers complaining very loudly about the last group finishing at 3:30, and how they shouldn't even bother attempting the 100-mile course. This upset me more than a little bit, but she was the only person in the whole event that was rude, so I can't complain too much.

Conclusion

I worked very hard for this event, training nearly every day for the past 10 weeks, and I am proud of what I have accomplished. I am in now in much better shape than I was when I began the training, and I'll always be able to say that I rode 100 miles in one day.

I couldn't have done any of this without all of the people who supported me. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everybody for their financial and emotional support.

General Update

I know I haven't updated in a while, and I wanted to assure people that this only means that I've fallen behind on blogging. I'll do my best to give a general update of my progress.

Training

My overall training regimen is going well, although a little slower than I was hoping. I went on a 53 mile ride yesterday morning, and averaged 11.1mph. This means that I should be able to finish the century in about 9 hours, with 8 hours being the goal. I purchased on book on training and am currently attempting interval training as a way to improve my speed more quickly.

Equipment

I had some difficulty getting the new parts for the road bike I was planning to use, and decided recently to stick with the hybrid I have been training on instead. Wednesday I decided to forego my normal training ride so that I would have time to attach a cyclometer to the hybrid, then Thursday I brought the bicycle in for a tune-up.

Technique

Yesterday, during the training ride, I learned several things. This was the first ride with the cyclometer, and I learned that on relatively flat terrain I can maintain a pace close to 15mph. Hills, on the other hand, drop my speed down to 5-6mph and wind can have a similar effect. One of the suggestions in the book I was reading was that I treat hills as intervals and press through them quickly, and that is exactly what I attempted (operative word) to do. My cadence seems pretty good, right around 90 most of the time, and popping up to over 100 without too much upper body movement on occasion.

Training Since Sunday

Sunday's Ride

View 38 Mile in a larger map
This ride was much of the reason I haven't posted in a few days, it really broke my momentum. First, as it was getting dark I discovered that one of the batteries in my lights was dead. Not only had the battery died, it had corroded so that opening up the battery compartment was a mess. Second, I missed one of my turns and ended up over in North Andover. I had to have my wife come and pick me up, and ended up having to remove both the wheels to get it to fit in the car. Third, when I measured my distance and determined my speed, I discovered that I had ridden significantly slower than my previous average.

Problems aside, I had chosen today to try out the East Coast Greenway, which comes within a few miles of our house. Unfortunately, I guess the areas outside of the converted trail have absolutely no indication that they are part of the greenway. I rode on the route for 15 miles, and didn't see so much as a sign.

Tuesday's Ride

View 8 Mile in a larger map
I took an easy loop near my house to try to get back into training after Sunday's experience. I was feeling pretty good about the ride until I got home and discovered that my average speed was still very low.

Today's Ride

My motivation has been running a little low, and daylight savings time has been messing with my rhythm even further, so I didn't get out on my bike until around 9:00. I ended up deciding to try a bicycle trainer I got from my in-laws, for which I have mixed reviews.

The Bad

Cycling in place is beyond boring. I was sitting in our drive spinning for an hour, and I will never do that again without something to occupy my mind. It's also somewhat surreal to be cycling without moving, and near the end it really felt sisyphean.

The Good

Segregating the cycling from movement allowed me to concentrate on technique. I was able to adjust my toe clips to better fit my feet and do the single foot drills, which are both supposed to help with the more efficient pedal strokes I described in a previous post. I was also able to time my cadence, and discovered that the optimal of 90 was a lot slower than I thought. Finally, I was able to focus on maintaining a consistent cadence, something that was very difficult when having to spend most of my energy worrying about hills.

The Conclusion

I think that there are some really good benefits to using the stationary trainer, and I think I'll incorporate it into my training regimen. My Tuesday ride is supposed to be easier, so that is the ride I'm going to replace. I will also either load many songs onto my mp3 player, or set it up inside in front of the TV.

Donations

I surpassed my fund raising goal this past week, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everybody for their support. I am very excited by the amount that has been raised thus far, and really appreciate you're generosity. When I first started raising money, I thought I would be lucky to get even a little over the minimum requirement, but now I'm sitting just $75 shy of getting into the "Winner's Circle" for the event. Thanks again, everybody, the support has really kept me going through this rough patch in my training.

More Errands

Todays Ride

View 15 Mile in a larger map
I had more errands to run today, so I rolled them into my ride again. This time, I had to pick up a plumbing piece at Lowes to fix our broken sump pump.

Also, as you can see on the map, I made it into New Hampshire today. This represents the first time I've crossed a state border on bicycle, so it's a bit of a novelty. I know I barely made it into the state, but still a weird sort of milestone.

Three Days Off

I took the last three days off, but for very good reasons. I made it back out onto the road today, and I'll talk more about that once I get down to today's ride.

Sunday

This was a planned day off so that I could go to the New England Open Go Tournament at MIT. I didn't do that well (won 1, lost 2, and a bye), but I got some ideas for improving my game.

Monday

Mondays are my planned rest day, and for good reason. I go into the office on Mondays, and the commute eats up two and a half hours of my day each way.

Tuesday

This was the only day I took off that I didn't plan to do so. We woke up that morning to a failed Sump Pump, and after sloshing around trying to get it working all morning my back was giving me some serious problems.

Todays Ride

View 13 Mile 2 in a larger map
Today I actually had to run a few errands, so I made sure that my route took me through downtown. My back was still giving me trouble at the beginning of the ride, but by the end it was fine.

My favorite part of this ride was when I went by Kimball Farm. I guess in the summer they have a corn maze, and they don't bother taking down the sign in the winter, so I was able to solve the maze instantly from the road. They also sell hay, which I made a mental note of so that we could pick some up for our guinea pigs when we run low.

Donations

I don't want to be too pushy about donations, but I found out that check-in on the morning of the event will be significantly easier if I raise the $250 by April 8th. If you look at the bottom of the page, you can see that so far only $75 has been donated. You can make a donation here, so please do so soon.

First Long Ride

Today's Ride

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Well, today I rode 33.9 miles, which is the furthest I've ridden since I began training. Every part of my body is sore right now, and I learned a couple things about long rides.

Bring keys

I'll probably have to stop for the bathroom and need to lock up my bike.

Bring a second water bottle

My camelbak works great for the 10-15 mile loops that I've been doing during the week, but it ran out about halfway through the ride today.

Bring a couple food bars

I brought one food bar, and was really wishing during the last stretch that I had a second one for an additional energy boost.

Although it was a difficult trek, I was very excited that my average speed, even with the exhaustion, was 10mph. This shows that my training is having a pretty beneficial effect, and that I'll probably be able to make the 12.5mph goal easily.

I know I wrote a lot about training yesterday, but on such a long ride I really didn't do any of those techniques. I was so focused on just finishing the ride that I didn't really give much thought to training.

Ice Fishing and Unlabeled Streets

Today's Ride

View map in a larger map

When I started this training, I knew that it was still winter and I would have to deal with some cold weather. I thought most of the snow was over and we were pretty much in the thawing stage just before Spring. The past couple days of near freezing weather sure proved me wrong, and today I actually rode by some people out on a lake ice fishing. I suppose it doesn't matter too much, the roads are clear and once I get moving it doesn't feel too cold. That being said, I am really looking forward to when I can bike outside without bundling up first.

One of the idiosyncrasies of New England is the fact that they don't bother labeling roads half the time. This is not just an honor exclusive to the obscure side street, you could be going on a major highway for miles without having any idea of the actual road name. While this is sometimes endearing, most of the time it's just downright annoying, today it was annoying. If you look at the map (which you can get to through the link at the top of this section, I'm working on embedding these maps directly in the page),you'll notice a strange loop where the route gets off of 125. This was not intentional, both the location where Boston Rd splits and the turn onto Willow Ave are completely unlabeled, and it was only through guesswork that I was able to get back on the correct path.

Training Plans

There are two biking best practices that I currently have not turned into habits, and doing so is my first goal when it comes to training for this century. These are applying equal force at all points during a pedal stroke, and pedaling at an extremely high cadence.

Continuous force is probably the more important of the two, and means that even while the pedal is coming back up the foot is exerting force. This is important because it uses the leg muscles more efficiently, and causes the rider to tire less quickly. There are essentially two ways to accomplish this requirement: toe clips and clipless pedals. Toe clips are essentially little harnesses attached to the pedals in which you place your feet, so that when your leg is coming up you have the ability to pull the pedal. Clipless pedals are named in a somewhat misleading way, as they involve special shoes and pedals which clip together.

As clipless pedals are significantly more expensive, I have toe clips attached to my bicycle. Unfortunately, simply having the ability to pedal more efficiently is significantly different from actually pedaling more efficiently. I'm still pushing down really hard and then letting the foot be lifted up by the force of the down stroke of the opposite foot. This is just habit, so I'm going to make it a point that throughout my training I will occasionally rest one leg limply on the pedal while the other foot does all the work. This is a variation on single foot pedaling I've devised to make such a method possible outdoors.

A higher cadence currently feels like a much loftier goal. Cadence is essentially RPMs in bike language, and it is recommended in most cycling literature that a cadence of around 90 should be maintained. I've tried to keep a higher cadence, but I guess I'm so out of shape that I just get myself out of breath really quickly. So I've broken the goal of a cadence of 90 into several subgoals, just like I would develop a large piece of software.

No Coasting

How am I ever to hope to keep a high cadence if half of every ride is spent coasting downhill? My goal for the next week is to just make it through an entire ride without ceasing to pedal.

Intervals

Once I've established a pace that I can actually maintain without a break for the entire ride, it's time to begin increasing my cadence in intervals. This is a tried and true method of training that many marathon runners use to improve their speed more quickly.

Cycle the Seacoast

I've begun training for a bicycle century run by the American Lung Association called Cycle the Seacoast.

What is a century?

A century is cycling 100 miles in one day, and is considered to be equivalent to a half marathon.

Why the American Lung Association?

My grandfather died of Emphysema, and I thought it would be a good way to honor his memory.

Why?

Well, I have never been in really good shape, and I've tried several times to change that aspect of my life. Doing a century gives me a goal to work toward, and doing it through the ALA is a way to hold myself accountable.

There are a few obstacles to making this happen:

I have to raise $250

You can help with this by clicking here. (It won't be immediately obvious that the donation is being done in my name, but I've tested the link and it works correctly. You should get an email confirming that it is in support of me.)

I have to increase my average speed over 12.5mph

I have a strict training regimen that's got me riding six out of every seven days in the week. My average speed right now is around 9mph, so I have a bit of work before I'll actually be allowed to complete the event.

I have to make sure my bicycle can make it through the trek

I'm currently riding a hybrid that I bought back in 2006 for my commute to work. This has worked OK for the training I have done thus far, but I'm not confident that it will be effective on a long ride. My in-laws had a road bike they weren't using, and that may fit the bill, but I need to replace some parts before it can fit correctly.

This is an initial post to announce my intention and provide a link for donations. I'll be posting further information and adding cool little charts to the site as I have more time.