Dustin
09-22-2009, 02:24 PM
I’m currently in the throes of training for my first double century this October in Death Valley. Prior to all this, I think my longest ride was around 95 miles. I’ve been trying to ramp up the mileage very gradually, not increasing mileage more than 10% over the week before.
Starting with a 115 miler a couple of weeks ago, I could tell towards the end that my left calf was just on the verge of cramping up. This Saturday, I did 130 miles, and the same calf starting to feel like it was going to cramp as early as mile 50, but didn’t violently seize up until after the ride when I got home. A few days later, it’s still sore. So I’m thinking that if I can’t find a way to fix this issue, it may be a deal breaker as far as completing the 200 goes.
One thought I had was that perhaps moving the cleats back would take some of the strain off the calf muscles (though they were pretty far back to begin with). I recalled reading an old article about how Lon Haldeman would drill shoes for RAAM riders having issues to move their cleats back 1-2 cm beyond the normal range of adjustment. So I modified an old pair of shoes I don’t wear anymore so that the cleat goes back another 5 or 6 mm past the normal limit. I'll do some experimenting, and see if it makes a difference.
After that, I started poking around the internet, and came upon this:
http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2007/01/cleat-position.html
I’d love to try this, but it’s hard to do without going custom (yes, I've done a search, and seen the discussion on this board about arch cleat placement). I thought about trying to modify my old shoes for this setup, but seems like a rather tricky hack. The hack I did to get it back an additional
5mm was pretty simple by comparison.
Anyone else deal with similar issues as you started to ramp up the mileage for a long-distance ride? How did you manage it? I should add that I don’t think the problem is an issue with electrolytes, mais qui sait?
Starting with a 115 miler a couple of weeks ago, I could tell towards the end that my left calf was just on the verge of cramping up. This Saturday, I did 130 miles, and the same calf starting to feel like it was going to cramp as early as mile 50, but didn’t violently seize up until after the ride when I got home. A few days later, it’s still sore. So I’m thinking that if I can’t find a way to fix this issue, it may be a deal breaker as far as completing the 200 goes.
One thought I had was that perhaps moving the cleats back would take some of the strain off the calf muscles (though they were pretty far back to begin with). I recalled reading an old article about how Lon Haldeman would drill shoes for RAAM riders having issues to move their cleats back 1-2 cm beyond the normal range of adjustment. So I modified an old pair of shoes I don’t wear anymore so that the cleat goes back another 5 or 6 mm past the normal limit. I'll do some experimenting, and see if it makes a difference.
After that, I started poking around the internet, and came upon this:
http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2007/01/cleat-position.html
I’d love to try this, but it’s hard to do without going custom (yes, I've done a search, and seen the discussion on this board about arch cleat placement). I thought about trying to modify my old shoes for this setup, but seems like a rather tricky hack. The hack I did to get it back an additional
5mm was pretty simple by comparison.
Anyone else deal with similar issues as you started to ramp up the mileage for a long-distance ride? How did you manage it? I should add that I don’t think the problem is an issue with electrolytes, mais qui sait?