TrainingPeaks member profile: Bob Grove, cyclist

At first, Bob Grove was into running. “During my high school years I was a decent 400m and 800m runner in track & field… After graduating from college, I started my career as a high school science teacher and track & field coach as well as a cross country coach. Living my competitive streak through my student athletes only lasted so long; I needed to compete myself.”

Next, he tried triathlons. “In the early 1980s I stumbled on an article by Coach Joe Friel on triathlon training. Triathlons looked like just the thing I needed to quench my competitive desires. I purchased a bike, a pair of swim trunks and I was off. I began coaching myself and did find some success in local, age group triathlon events. I then moved to the California Central Coast town of Santa Cruz. I continued to track down any articles I could find from Coach Friel and others on the sport of triathlons. My swimming was okay but didn't seem like it was going to improve quickly. My running was good but I really liked the bike.”

And so, finally, he switched to the bike. “Santa Cruz had a strong bike club in the Santa Cruz Cycling Club and every Saturday morning a group 50 strong would leave Santa Cruz and ride to the small town of Watsonville to the South. I thought I could get a leg up on my fellow tri-guys by training with these Santa Cruz bicycle racers. I was a pretty cocky triathlete and figured I would have no trouble hanging with the Saturday morning ride – boy, was I in for a shock. The first hill left me panting and shelled of the back. I realized I may have been a decent triathlete but I didn't know crap about bike racing. It took me a year of steady training to hang with the lead hammerheads, and I never looked back on triathlons again.”

After taking a break from riding to focus on his family, Bob returned to the sport, and got interested in tracking his progress with TrainingPeaks. “Now fast forward 25 years and 3 kids later, and I returned to bicycle racing in my late 40s. I started with time trials and had some success. I just didn't know enough about the “race of truth.” So at the local book store I picked up Coach Friel's “The Cyclist's Training Bible.” Being a science teacher and coach, I've always had an interest in quantifying my workouts. Coach Friel provided the tools to quantify all the data I was collecting from my own workouts. I was fascinated with his pages on training with heart rate so I went out and bought a heart rate monitor. I liked his way of breaking up the training cycle right down to each day of the year. At the back of the book he had a copy of a spread sheet that the reader could use but also the web address of web site called TrainingPeaks. I went there just to get the spread sheet but after reading all the information available at this site realized I needed help in my training and TrainingPeaks was just the place to get it.”

With TrainingPeaks, Bob went from time trials to racing as a Master’s road racer. “I signed up with TrainingPeaks as a 48 year old road bike guy interested in increasing my time trial time and then got excited with the prospect of racing as a master's level road racer. I am 52 now and very much enjoy racing as a Master's road racer and I've been with TrainingPeaks for 4 years now. My morning always starts with me adding data to my TrainingPeaks daily log and I always look forward to analyzing the data provided by my Garmin training computer right after my morning workout. My Garmin unit interfaces well with the software provided by TrainingPeaks and provides me all the data handling capability I need to coach myself.”

Bob designs his training schedule with the help of the Virtual Coach in TrainingPeaks to create an Annual Training Plan, which has helped him to focus on achieving his goals. “I pretty much train 7 days/week but following my annual training plan, also computed by TrainingPeaks, I go easy on every 3^rd week… Following Coach Friel's advice, I train by hours and not miles… I like the way TrainingPeaks has you prioritize your season goals. Goal number 2 for me is to be a better climber. Using workouts with climbing in mind, I've dropped my body building physique weight of over 200lbs to 180 lbs. At 6' tall this weight is almost perfect for my body type – better yet, I started beating the “climber” of my Saturday morning training group. TrainingPeaks provides me with over 90% of my workouts but it is also easy to customize your own workouts, and as a long-time coach, I find the ease of integrating TrainingPeaks workouts with my own invaluable – I've always recommended TrainingPeaks to like minded friends and athletes.”

Bob’s training has also benefited from a recent move from Southern to Northern California. “I now live in a paradise for bicycle racers: the Napa Valley of Northern California. Within a one hour training ride, I can be riding on the flats, in the hills, in the red woods, or along the coast. Riding through the beautiful grape vineyards with the forest covered mountains all around me as the morning mist burns off is heaven on Earth.”

As a result of all that focused training, Bob’s racing has really improved. “My racing this year has gone better than other years and I have reached the goal of climbing with the peloton and not getting dropped in the hills. My two other goals are to finish in the top 10% of all road races and to out sprint the leaders. I'm still working on those two goals though I did place 18^th in the Southern California Masters' Championships held in Bakersfield, which was a big improvement over the previous year's championship race.”

Still, there have been challenges, including a bad crash early in the spring. “This year has been tough as the move from Southern California to Northern California interrupted a lot of races and training. I was also involved in a horrific bicycle crash in the Tour of Murrieta held in March of this year in the town of  Murrieta Hot Springs,  located just North of San Diego. At over 30 mph my bike did an endo driving me head first into the ground. My helmet was broken in 5 places but surely saved my life. I was knocked unconscious for over 5 minutes and had to be rushed to the local trauma center. The cat scans were all negative but it took me at least a month to recover from this accident.”

Despite this set-back, Bob is still determined to achieve his goals this season, and is especially excited about the Tour of Tucson. “I still have 3 more road races to go this season to see if I can reach my other two goals. And my 3^rd Tour of Tucson will be coming up this November. The Tour of Tucson is not a USACycling event but is a special favorite of mine. It is 109 miles long and attended by more than 8000 athletes. It seems like the whole city turns out to view this ride. The goal for the competitive riders in this event is to enter “platinum” status or in other words complete the ride in under 5 hours. My first year I finished in 5 hours, 1 minute and 44 seconds, last year I cramped bad and finished in 5 hours and 13 minutes (still a 21mph average.) This year is going to be my year and I'm going to beat the 5 hour time. Long time century riders forget that this race has an extra 9 miles and if that isn't bad enough when trying to beat 5 hours, you have two creeks to ford requiring a dismount of your bike; running across the creek bed cyclo-cross style. Once again, TrainingPeaks is the tool I will use to modify my bike racing training to prepare for the Tour. The Tour of Tucson sits in the last slot of my TrainingPeaks Annual Training Plan.”

Finally, aside from his goals as an athlete, Bob is planning to become a cycling coach. “Having been a high school coach for over 20 years, I am looking forward to going through USACycling's coaching program and becoming a level 3 cycling coach. TrainingPeaks will be my tool of choice as I coach other bicycle racers in this beautiful sport.”

You can read more about Bob on his blog at http://masters50plus.blogspot.com/

Comments

[James Ford]

What a great article Bob - I knew you were serious, but wow that's a lot of dedication beyond what I was aware of. I'm pretty damn proud of you and proud to be your friend. Best of luck in the Tuscon race - ahh - you won't need it, you've got that dedication and skill - I'm sure you'll meet and beat your goal substantially!

[Training Schedule]

Rest will help your overall fitness. Make sure that you schedule rest in your training schedule so that your body has time to recover from the periods of training. The rest time also allows your body to make adaptations for the long term based on how long your rest periods are scheduled.

[Bob Grove]

So true. I do follow transition weeks with a lot of rest and though I train 7 days/week the 7th day is usually light wt. lifting and core work. Most of the day though is just sitting on my butt and watching the bird feeder - a lot of times I even drop the wt. lifting and core work...