| 2007 december - february 2008 |
| Sunday, March 02, 2008 still sick - no racing this week I didn't bother reporting that I was sick at last week's race cuz it's a lame excuse for my lack of concentration. When I awoke last Saturday morn I had a case of the sniffles. By the end of the race it was full blown snot rockets. I planned to train through and race this week but it got into my lungs and that is where we draw the line. Crap in the lungs and/or fever equals forced recovery. Period. End of story. Not negotiable. Today would have been just another day of training and prolly would have been a major setback had I stubbornly persevered. I suppose this is personal growth. That and a bit of practicing what I preach. Tomorrow begins my six weeks build to the Madera Stage Race. I'll try to post daily and include all them silly wattage numbers, including some Performance Manager theory. Ciao, for now. Sunday, February 24, 2008 The Howling race: Snelling cat 3 teammates: Jason Allen and Brandon Hill weather: 52 degrees and nuking wind with a drop or two of rain place: 30ish - 2/3 of the 100 rider field abandoned I rode at the front for the first part of the first lap looking to get in the early break. I went with a few attacks and rotated at the front until Brandon appeared to be making the early break. This is where I made my first mistake. I assumed the break that was forming would be the early break and with a teammate in the mix I could drift back and enjoy two or three free laps. WRONG! The only place to be when it is nuking wind is off the front (with a breakaway group) or at the front of the main group. After Brandon's group came back another break of about a dozen formed and of course I was at the back sightseeing when the ensuing chase blew the field to bits. I organized a chase group of 6-7 but when it became obvious that they were incapable of riding a paceline I jumped across and tucked back into the main pack. So, there are a dozen up the road and the main pack is selected and I figure I can hang at the back and enjoy a free lap or two before the shooting starts. WRONG! I lost contact for the last time at mile 43. It was the single hardest day of racing I've recorded to date. I saw more than a few of my local heroes relegated to 2nd and 3rd chase groups and the DNF list was massive in all fields. We're talking about really REALLY strong riders with chins on handlebars, eyes crossed, drooling. For you squidheads on the list I racked up 340 Training Stress Score points with an Intensity Factor of 0.919. On my big effort in the second lap to jump across to the main pack (chase group) I hit a season best 5 minutes of 415 watts. Best 20 minutes was 348 watts. My heart rate hit 198 several times. OUCH! High points of the day: Katie mixing it up in her first Cat 3 road race. Mary Maroon killing it in the women's Pro 1/2 race. John Hancock way off the front of the little geezers 1/2/3 race with Larry Nolan and 3 other savages. I think I saw Rick Bradley making the front group in the Cat 3 race, but I was too far back to be certain. Monday, February 18, 2008 specificity I'm working on race winning intervals for the batch of five road races I have coming up. The race winning interval is a hard jump, a settling into threshold pace, and a burst of speed at the end. I am performing these as hard as possible every 72-96 hours. The rest of my program consists of on the bike strength training and long endurance/tempo riding. I've been sneaking in a fair bit of time trial training too. I'm looking forward to a loooooooong and fun season. Sunday, February 10, 2008 a day at the track and my new tt position Yesterday was the last of the Ride the World Cup fundraisers for the Proman track team. I did a 60 laps points race with sprints every ten laps. We had about 20 riders in the B group and I was happy to see that all the new squirrely rockstar roadies signed up for the A race. I got away with a small group that lapped the field then rolled away solo with about 8 laps to go and held off the charging field to the end. I think I ended up with enough points to place third or fourth and prolly scored some precious points towards my upgrade. All the muscle tension work and hard accelerations on the commuter bike in my track gearing definitely paid off and I am psyched for the new season. Today found me out on the aqueduct testing my new time trial position and I'm happy to say all the research and hard work have paid off here too. I am now able to accelerate to 30 mph in about 20 seconds and settle into race pace in about 40. The new position is more aerodynamic AND more comfortable which basically translates into free speed. I posted some pics at http://biketrailsavage.com/tt-position.html I did about 18 hours this week with plenty of intensity and plan to crack 20 hours next week. The Snelling Road Race is in two weeks. I can hardly wait. Wednesday, February 06, 2008 más dolor I have circled back around to the Lemond method using the insight I have gained from three years of working with powermeters and several local heroes. The basic idea is that sprints and the most intense intervals are on done on Tuesday, threshold and tempo on Wednesday and endurance on Thursday. Monday and Friday are easy days and the weekends are for racing or race efforts. Two workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday are key. High volume, high intensity. Go big or go home. bon jovi! Thursday, January 31, 2008 random acts of savagery wild; not cultivated. barbaric; not civilized. fierce and ferocious. brutal, vicious, or merciless. Interval training has begun. I've been working on seated accelerations on the forty-two pound commuter bike in a pretty big gear...52x15 or 93 inches. I would like to be able to do points races on a 90 inch gear. That would get me to 24-27 mph in the 90-100 rpm range and if I can get it up to 150 rpm I would finally break the 40 mph barrier. This would be the devastating weapon I have dreamed of wielding since I blew apart the 35+4/5 field at Copperopolis almost three years ago. As we like to say in the recovery game... "That's a long time between cocktails." Friday, January 25, 2008 Maximum R & B Is 3000 miles enough to be considered a solid base? After 13 weeks of dieseling down the trail I'm ready for some intensity. We've had some great long rides and I've had seven weeks of 15 hours or more, peaking at 20 hours two weeks ago. This week has been a recovery week. I definitely hit the wall after Saturday's hundred miles in the foothills, Monday night I slept 14 hours and still walked around in a daze for the rest of the week. So it's five weeks to Snelling and that means four weeks of calculated and focused torture. Also, I'm getting the itch to get back on the time trial bike, that can't be bad. Hopefully I'll have the energy to post a bit more often. Oh yeah, today i got my road racing wheels, the Williams 30. They weigh 1500 grams and have ceramic bearings. Rawk on! Thursday, January 10, 2008 holy sheet Okay, so I'm bored at work waiting for the floor guy to finish waxing so I weighed my commuter bike. Drum roll please..... 42.3 pounds... ...that's like two and a half racing bikes. Eeheehee, and my average speed is faster than the same time last year. Thursday, January 10, 2008 waiting for the rain... ...to clear before I do my morning workout. How luxurious! So it's time for a quick update. I've been working on my sustained power just below threshold with some controlled efforts at threshold. This week is purely aerobic endurance pace, but I'm cranking the hours to up around 20 and I feel great!!! Training has been a bit more intense than this time last year AND the time in the saddle and mileage are up 50%. The good news is that I've learned to balance the training stress to the point where I am feeling less fatigue, am recovering faster, and have been blessed with good health (due to proper rest, avoiding germs when I'm knackered, and copious amounts of fruits and veggies). Okay, no more green on the dopplergoogle. Lates! Sunday, December 16, 2007 big block I just finished the first big block of training going towards next season and the sensations are great!!! I took six weeks to build up to 18 hours and now it's time for an easy week. I've mostly been doing long 20 to 60 minute intervals in the sweet spot between hard tempo and threshold. I also started doing some sprint work in addition to my new core strength program which is actually a full body workout with the focus being core strength. After an easy week I will begin to tickle my threshold and see if we can't kick it u a notch or two. We will start with 2x20 minutes at 300 watts and go from there. So...into the cave we go yeehaw! Tuesday, December 04, 2007 oooof, damn If I knew how hard this bike racing deal was gonna be I might have stuck with softball or tennis. The more I study the local rock stars, the more I'm amazed at how awesome their work capacity and level of commitment are. I now have the tools to estimate the level of effort and the amount of training load these guys are producing. It doesn't hurt that I've made friends with a few top level riders who are gracious enough to share their experience and race data with me. Anyway, I'm pretty fit and super motivated so hopefully we'll have a productive winter. Sunday, December 02, 2007 it’s official I'm a farging freak show. I just spent two days in a San Francisco basement studying training and racing with a power meter theory at the USA Cycling Power Based Training Clinic. After I send in the take home test I will be a certified Power Based Training Coach. Oh yeah, and what I do is now worth $300 a month and I'm only taking 7 more clients so buy now while supplies last. Go big or go home! |
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