Tuesday Double Workout

I did a short trainer ride in the morning, rested(I mean worked) in my cubicle, then rode in the TNCWC race. I decided that my sprint needs work, so I did 8 x 15 sec this morning. I topped that off with 8 minutes at threshold.

Tonight the crit was super fast the whole time. The Tibco women's pro team was in town. Those ladies can motor. They were all over the front and got in some breaks. Pretty impressive. I tried repeatedly to get away, and spent a lot of time off the front, but with all that horsepower in the field tonight, a break just wasn't going to stick. We averaged 26.3 mph. For all my effort I got in a great workout, 1.0 IF, 320w NP for 51+ minutes. I had a bit of a lapse late and was too far back to contest the sprint. In the end Rich got by the US National Crit Champ Brooke Miller to take the win.

Tour de Moore RR 30+

Rich, LL and I made the trip to Southern Pines, NC to race the 70 mile 30+ Tour de Moore RR yesterday. We very nearly missed the start, because we weren't paying attention and missed a turn on the way and lost at least 45 minutes. We rolled into the parking lot about 10 minutes before the race start and well after registration had closed. Thankfully the race promoter and officials were sympathetic to our situation and allowed us to race. All three of us were pre-registered, but we still had to sign waivers and get numbers, but we did that while lined up to start, which was a little nerve racking.

Once the race started, all was fine. We rolled out easy for about 10 miles or so. Once the attacks started I went to the front to take part. At one point I attacked, was brought back, then countered by Nathan Smith and Kris Stein. Then Jason Sprouse joined them. A little while later LL was able to bridge up to the leaders. I sat on the front for a while and kept a false tempo, which was much slower than the leaders, and they were all gone pretty soon.

For a long while, nothing happened as the first group got a huge lead of a few minutes. Then, I was out of position and missed getting into a chase group. After that 4 man group got out of sight. I did manage to get away with a couple of others with maybe 25 miles to go. We were caught by 4 more. The seven of us motored along until we made the turn to head back into the town. During those last 15 miles we had a head wind and the temp was probably approaching 90 degrees. At about mile 55 I was still feeling great, but suddenly by about mile 62 I felt terrible. We limped in to the town with no one fresh enough to attack. I jumped early to kick off the sprint for 9th and was covered by Pat Raines. He got around me, so I finished 10th. The finish had some climbing before the final stretch, and somehow I ended up with a 569 watt 1 minute burst.

Up at the head of the race, LL hung on to finish 4th with Nathan winning. Rich came in with the field. I think everyone was shocked by the heat out there. Everyone looked like death by the finish.

Pre-race Openers Ride

Based on my personal experience over the last several years, I don't like to take a true rest day on the day before a race, especially if it is a one day event. In a typical non-tapering week with a race on Saturday, I'll train hard on Tues-Wed, then do a very easy short ride on Thurs. I'll follow that up with a ride on Friday that includes some openers. This week I followed the plan. Today I went out for 1:10 riding mostly L2 for a long warm-up. Then I did a couple of short threshold efforts. After that I did a few L6 bursts, then rode easy for a few more minutes. I felt really good doing these efforts. My RPE was definitely lower than the power numbers show. I'd say that was about as easy as a 250w NP ride has ever felt.

I guess I have no excuses if I suck in the race tomorrow. I haven't raced in 5 weeks, but I'm clearly faster right now than I was then. I just need to ride smart, make the break, and give myself a chance to do something.

2 days of VO2 intervals

I'm in week three of focusing on VO2, and I just finished a two day block of intervals on the trainer. Yesterday was 5 x 5 minutes and this morning was 8 x 3 minutes. Both days were very painful, but I showed some improvement. I averaged 357 watts for the 5's yesterday and 374 watts for the 3's today. On the trainer, I'm still not able to duplicate the watts I can do outside though.

I'm going to recover the next couple of days, so I can be ready for the Tour de Moore RR in Southern Pines, NC on Saturday.

Saturday Group Ride

Had a nice steady 3.5 hour ride yesterday morning with LL, Rich, Mark D. and Justin. My legs felt good after about an hour and I took several 4 or 5 minute pulls at a bit under threshold wattage. My peak 5 minutes was 314w, so I never killed it. I just rode nice and steady. Everyone was riding strong, so we ended up averaging about 22 mph. The air was dry and the temp didn't reach 70 degrees. I love riding in this weather. In the summer a ride of this distance in the South Carolina heat can easily turn into a death march.

There are some really great roads in Fairfield County. Camp Welfare Road has virtually no traffic and a good surface.

Outside VO2 Intervals

I got outside to do a set of 6 VO2 intervals this morning. The weather was perfect - about 60 degrees, light wind, blue sky. I rode about 40 minutes, then did repeats on a 1.5 mile climb up Pine Grove Road. Based on past workouts on the same climb, I thought it would take 4:45, so my goal was 360 watts, but I rode the first one at 364 and it felt too easy. I ratcheted up the watts to the point where I rode the 6th interval at 386 watts and a time of 4:22. My average for the 6 was 376w, which is 24 watts higher than my 5 x 5 min workout on the trainer on Monday.

Double Workout Day

Today I squeezed in two workouts. In the morning before work I did 45 minutes on the trainer with 20 min at around threshold. After work I raced in the weekly training crit. The rain passed through just in time to have a dry race. The turnout was understandably low due to the rain and there were only 4 from the PV team. We were in every move and eventually I got away with Jamie from Harrells. After a few laps I was alone for a bit, then LL bridged up and we rode together to the finish, but never had much of a lead, so we had to work real hard. LL and I crossed the finish together for the win with GW and Rich coming in next to make it a sweep of the top four spots for PV.

The power file shows just how much effort it took to stay off the front. My normalized power for the final 20:47 was 340 watts, with an average of 323. I was in the drops as low as I could get virtually the whole time and I had LL to draft behind half the time.

Monday VO2 workout

After eating and drinking too much celebrating Easter yesterday, I decided that I would tough it out and do VO2 intervals this morning. I was about to go out on the roads for the workout, but chickened out when I saw a few rain drops. Not wanting to get rained on, I went down to the basement and suffered through 5 x 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off at about 110% of threshold power. My legs felt pretty good and I paced well. I don't think I could've squeezed out any higher numbers today. Still I am 8 watts lower than I was in two similar workouts one year ago in the same month. I see more VO2 work in my near future. Maybe I'll come around with a few weeks of this.

I'm racing at the crit tomorrow, but first I might do something on the trainer in the morning.

Long Ride on Good Friday

I did a long ride today for the first time in many weeks. I hooked up with Gordon, Ladd, and Ward this morning for a nice jaunt up to the outskirts of Great Falls, over to White Oak, down to Winnsboro, then Ridgeway and back to Blythewood. It was windy, but with three other strong riders to block the wind, it was no big deal. We didn't really push the pace too much and still averaged 20.6 mph. I did do one 4 minute effort at 356 watts, and a couple of others at around threshold, but that was it. I spent a lot of time out of the wind. I didn't time any of Gordon's pulls, but it seemed like he was always on the front and never seemed to get tired.

Our store stop in Winnsboro was a shady looking liquor/beer store. Four dudes in spandex walking past cases of 40's looking for Gatorade. What a sight we must have been.

8 x 3's

Usually I start doing these torturous VO2 max trainer workouts earlier in the season, but this year I slacked off until this week. Yesterday I did 6 x 4, and today I suffered through 8 x 3 minutes. Power was not outstanding, but I paced well enough not to crack and did all of them at around 365 watts.

I've only ridden about 6 hours in the last 7 days, but that included 4 hard interval workouts, so I'm really tired despite the fact that my tsb is +16 today.

TNCWC #4

I had a nice workout last night at the crit. I got there early enough to squeeze in 10 minutes at around threshold during my warm-up. We had a huge group last night, including some faces I haven't seen in a while. The crit rolled out at the usual slow pace for the neutral lap, but Rich took off as soon as we hit the start line and stayed away for a while. Maybe that was so his rear facing on bike camera could get good footage.

Breaks came and went all evening, but nothing got away. I attacked a few times myself and was pretty exhausted near the end and didn't really feel like I had a sprint in my legs, so I stayed near the front to help with the pace. Meat took a big pull to open up the last lap. I came through briefly, but Rich decided to come around and take the front. I followed him around turn 4, and when he pulled off I managed to stay in the lead for a few seconds before yielding to the sprint, which was easily won by Marc W.

Summary data showed 319 watts NP for 42 minutes. I was really tired. I just spun easy this morning to recover. I'm planning a couple of days in a row of threshold work before a rare bike free weekend.