My Cycling Watts

Tour de Moore

2010-05-02T22:14:00.001-04:00

Here's my file from the 81 mile Tour de Moore pro/1/2/3 race a week ago. This race was a good test of my less is more training plan. I have done virtually no distance riding lately. I have done plenty of threshold work lately, usually in rides that are about 1 hour total, and I've done our local TNCWC ride a few times. The TdM race was the longest ride I have done since last summer.

LL and I left at 4:20 am to make the 8 am start time in Southern Pines, NC. In the race I felt pretty good and tried to get in breaks a few times. I was solo off the front for about 1 mile with 10 miles to go, burning some energy. About 5 miles from the finish I was in the back, when a crash near the front took out LL. He was unhurt, but his shifter was turned and he didn't get back on. Approaching the long uphill drag to the finish there was one rider off the front but he still appeared to be possibly within reach. I was getting antsy approaching the 1 K and launched an attack on the left side from about 12 places back. I got a good gap, but pretty much died after making that initial 15 second burst, and got passed by several riders over the last 200 meters. Final 1:33 was 554 watts, getting me 10th, but not even close to enough to hold off a pro/1/2 field.

Two Ride Tuesday

2010-04-14T21:09:00.001-04:00

I haven't raced in about a month, but have been able to consistently train during that time. I've been busy (or maybe just too lazy to wake up super early like LL and Robert), so most of my workouts are about an hour or less. I've done a lot of threshold work with a touch of L6/L7 thrown in the mix from time to time. On days when I can make it to the TNCWC, I'm going to do a morning workout on the same day. That's what I did yesterday - 45 minutes on the trainer at 6:45 am with 32 minutes around threshold, followed by the crit at 6:30 pm, with 8 hours of office time in between.

The TNCWC was pretty fast tonight, averaging over 26 mph. I got in a few moves, one solo for a couple of laps, but everything came back. After RW, Karl, and Nick were caught, I got away with exactly 2 laps to go and got a good gap that held up to the finish, just barely. Last 5 minutes were 376 watts, 26.6 mph. Also I set a season best 5 second power of 1160 early on in an attack that Marc W followed with ease.

SST On a Cold Day

2010-01-31T21:27:00.000-05:00

This morning it was 18 degrees and trees were coated with ice, so I didn't really plan to ride outside, but due to lack of motivation I piddled around the house and put off the trainer ride. Once it got close to noon, it was sunny and about 32, so I decided to ride outside. After a 9 minute warm-up I settled into a pace in the 280-290 watt range and was feeling comfortable. I felt better as I went along, ramped up the pace a little, and ended up doing 294 watts for an 85 minute stretch. It was one of my best efforts this year, and I even finished feeling like I could've kept going.

Except for the long ride on MLK day, I haven't done any long rides. That's partly due to the cold weather, but mostly because I just feel like trying a different approach. Who says you have to ride lots of 4 or 5 hour rides to build up endurance to prepare for road racing?...Well most people would say that. I'm just not going to do it this year. I don't think missing all those long rides is going to matter at all. In fact, based on how I'm progressing so far, I think I'll be better off. But in the end, if I'm wrong, and I suck when it comes time to race, I can deal with that. The reality is that I'm a 40 year old amateur who does this for fun. I'm just going to keep experimenting with my less is more training plan and see where it takes me.

MLK Day Ride

2010-01-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

TGIM. What better way to start off a week, than doing a 75 mile ride with a bunch of friends on a sunny 60+ degree day in January, and capping it off with large quantities of Mexican food. LL organized the ride and started us out riding a lap of the 6 mile course that will be used in the upcoming Blythewood RR. I'm not sure if that course is really what the race will use though. It includes 1 mile of dirt, plus two short steep climbs.

After the race loop, we headed out into the country and went through Ridgeway, Winnsboro, Cedar Creek, and back to Blythewood. The group was 11, including Nathan from Charleston, and Robert from Rock Hill. The ride was pretty damn fast for so early in the year. We averaged 21.5 mph on a hilly route. My NP was 242 watts, despite trying to conserve energy. Apparently everyone is training a lot even though we've had unusually cold weather since Christmas.

Back to Training

2010-01-15T17:39:00.000-05:00

It's been a long while since my last post. During the last couple of months I took somewhat of a break from cycling. I kept riding, but only about 4 days a week, mostly SST, with some weight lifting, and tennis thrown in for some cross-training. For a mental break, I just let cycling take a back seat for a while. I rode when it was convenient and didn't think about cycling as much. I rarely rode more than 1.5 hours at a time, and my longest ride since Thanksgiving was 2.5 hours.

About 3 1/2 weeks ago I ramped up the training some by adding even more SST, and throwing in some sprints and occasional 30 second intervals in level 6.

Today I had the opportunity to get out in the awesome weather, and my legs were feeling good. This was my first ride at over 50 degrees in many weeks. I was going to do a long 90% FTP interval, but I decided during the warm-up to do a 20 minute test instead. I've been wanting to do that but haven't been motivated to try it at 35 degrees or indoors. Really I was looking at this as a pre-test, since I'm in the very early stages of my training, but once I got going I felt good and put out a much better effort than I expected. I rode the first 10 minutes at 337 watts, and wasn't feeling all that bad, so I ramped up the pace and got the average all the way up to 343 by the 20 minute mark.

It's really amazing the affect that sub-threshold training seems to have. Even though I've been training in the 280 to 290 watt range mostly, I was a able to knock out 20 minutes over 50 watts above that today.

Bike for sale

2010-01-02T11:56:00.001-05:00

If anyone is interested, we are selling my wife's Felt F55 on ebay, as well as a set of ultegra pedals.

Saturday Sprints

2009-11-15T18:30:00.002-05:00

Saturday morning the weather was awesome, so I rolled out at about 9:15 to ride a couple of hours. I threw in four sprints to break up the monotony and give the ride some sort of purpose, since I didn't want to do yet another tempo or SST ride. The first two sprints sucked, but I got a good jump on the third one and hit 1200 watts for the only time this whole year and set a 5 second season best of 1119. As those numbers show, I am by no means a sprinter. However, I will do more sprint workouts in the future and hopefully make some improvement.

Friday SST Ride

2009-11-06T20:48:00.004-05:00

I felt really great on my ride today. I rode my 34 mile loop with the modest goal of doing at least 45 minutes at 90%. Pretty much right out of the driveway my legs had really good sensations. The nice thing about my current schedule is that I'm only riding 4 days a week, so there isn't much fatigue. I cruised along for the first 25 minutes, then started my workout by riding about 30 sec at 120% of FTP, before settling back into 90%. About every 5 minutes I did a 30 sec or so effort. I felt good enough to stretch the workout to 1 hour, with an IF of .94, which was great, since my RPE was much lower. It feels like I've done plenty for the week (3 SST rides), so tomorrow I'm gonna chill and ride a couple hours easy. Then Sunday I'll do my cross training workout(tennis).

Halloween Ride

2009-11-01T20:03:00.003-05:00

I did a fun group ride on Saturday morning here in Blythewood. 14 of us rolled out in foggy, damp conditions and rode a nice steady 20 mph pace. We kept it mostly double file, and there was plenty of opportunity to chat, which was in stark contrast to our summer hammerfests.

I just took it easy, and didn't even push it when I occasionally found my way to the front. My peak 2 minute watts was only 278, and peak 5 minutes was 264. Still the VI was really high, as often is the case on group rides, where there is a lot of coasting, driving up the IF to .66. I was tired and feeling some of the hills after mile 50 nonetheless.

I need to do more rides like this. The time flew by quicker than some of the much shorter solo rides I've done lately.

Speed & Power in Italy DVD Review

2009-10-30T08:51:00.002-04:00

Over the past several years I've trained a lot indoors. I've tried watching training videos, but never got much out of them. I don't want to watch a video showing people riding on trainers, with someone barking out instructions like I'm in a spin class. I'd much rather watch something that tries to get my mind away from the fact that I'm sitting in my basement. I always watch something while I'm riding indoors: TV shows, news, sports, movies, bike races. All those things serve to keep my mind from dwelling on the mundane and sometimes painful workout I am trying to complete.

Recently, for a change of pace I decided to watch a DVD called "Speed & Power in Italy" by Global Ride. From the description I could see that this would be a simulated hour or so fast ride through Italy finishing with a 10 minute climb. Perfect. I usually ride about an hour, with tempo and threshold being my bread and butter. I started up the DVD in my laptop, cranked up the volume to 50 and put the ear buds in place. Some day I'll have a big wide screen down in the man hole, but not yet.

The video starts out in Venice floating through water with coach Matty Reed starting you on a brief warm-up, while Vivaldi plays in the background. After a couple of minutes the road ride begins as you ride with a couple of riders on some narrow Italian roads. The classical music was only for the brief warm-up and is replaced by some more upbeat instrumental stuff. I pedaled along watching the two riders as they cruised along through picturesque country side, passing through villages, with plenty of pedestrians, cars and other cyclists to make it interesting. The picture quality was excellent, by the way. The coach gave instructions, occasionally asking you to increase your speed or heart rate. One thing I liked was that the coach encouraged you to react to changes in terrain, as if you were in the group on the screen, so if there was a short steep hill, you were encouraged to stand. Too bad there were no stops.

The pace was never slow once the warm-up was done. I rode mostly hard tempo at 270 to 290 watts. At about the 45 minute mark, we hit the final 10 minute climb on a twisty narrow road, with zero car traffic, but several other cyclists. My virtual group ride passed several riders on the climb, which helped motivate me to stay near my threshold all the way to the end. I rode that final 10 minutes at 308 watts.

I’ve watched this DVD twice now, and could see myself watching it several more times this off season, especially during sweet spot workouts. It was fun and engaging to watch during my workout and enhanced the indoor riding experience. I was able to stay mentally focused on riding, without being bored at all. This is very different than watching something like a movie, which makes the workout tolerable by causing you to mentally disconnect from your workout.

More Sweet Spot Training

2009-10-27T20:11:00.004-04:00

Monday I had the pleasure of doing a short road ride during the day, so I did the usual - sub 1o minute warm-up, ride hard, sub 5 minute cool-down. The hard section amounted to a little over an hour at 90% of FTP. It really wasn't too bad, so I think my FTP is holding steady. I just need to keep doing these types of workouts at least a couple of times a week.

Rain Ride

2009-10-25T21:19:00.004-04:00

Saturday I woke up, got coffee, fed the cats, quickly checked the radar(which looked clear), then headed out on my bike into the near darkness to meet Gordon for ride. Riding early on a Saturday is great, once you get yourself out there. The traffic was very low and there wasn't much wind. We rode side by side most of the time, chatting and not pushing the pace. Somewhere around Ridgeway it got windy. No problem, we weren't in any hurry. Then there were a few sprinkles later on. Still not a problem. Then as we got close to Blythewood it started raining, and within a few minutes we were riding in heavy rain. We went into pace line mode and picked up the pace a little on Hwy 21. The heavy rain continued for most of the way back home.

Riding in the morning, I usually avoid getting caught in the rain, but not this time. It sucked, mostly because of the clean-up that followed, but the hot breakfast and hot shower that followed, almost made it worthwhile.

I just updated my PMC. Check it out. My TSB is -0.1 today. First negative day since August 30th, not because I trained hard this week, but because my CTL has finally declined to my current training level.

Wednesday SST Ride

2009-10-23T16:31:00.002-04:00

I've gotten a little behind with my updates, but I wanted to include this one since it's a good example of what I've been doing since the race season ended. The weather was super on Wednesday, so I rushed home from work in time to get a ride in before dark. By super, I mean it was about 70 degrees with no wind. When I do short rides like this, my default workout is to do a short warm-up, then ride SST, which is exactly what I did. I spent a little over an hour cruising along between about 270 and 280 watts. I'm trying to do 2 to 3 rides like this per week, and a total of 4 to 5 rides. I'm only hitting about 6 hours a week right now, but that is probably enough to maintain fitness, until I start training for 2010.

Weekend Riding

2009-10-10T17:07:00.002-04:00

I'm still riding 4 or 5 days a week, but not doing a whole lot resembling real training. I'm just doing what I feel like doing. Yesterday I went to Harbison and rode for 2 hours on the trails. I wasn't out to get in a hard ride, but you kind of have to put in some hard efforts riding a single speed, unless you want to walk up the hills. The gearing on my 29'er is 32x17, which is great at 12-15 mph, but not so great climbing at 6-8 mph.

This morning I did my usual 40 mile loop at a nice steady pace, never pushing too hard, but not relaxing either. I can tell I'm de-training, since today felt like a bigger effort than it really was. No problem. I adjusted my FTP down to 315 watts. That seems about right, but I don't feel like testing to be sure. I just know my FTP is lower.

Final TNCWC of 2009

2009-09-30T21:40:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I took part in the final Tuesday night crit of the year. I haven't done any structured training in about a month, but I've ridden just enough to hold on to some fitness. My CTL is down to about 70 from a peak of 100.

The weather was great - 70 degrees and sunny, but there was some wind, which ended up dying down by the end of the race. We had a small group of under 20 and started out pretty mellow until about 15 minutes in, when the attacks started. About 25 minutes in I burned a match bridging across to Marc and Lang. That effort required 550 watts for about 1 minute. About 1/2 a lap after I got to them the agitated field caught up to us. Not too long after that things got hard and a selection of 8 or so formed. With about 3 laps to go James got away from us and held on until just before the sprint, with the rest of us marking each other.

Just after turn 3, Marc made his move and only Rich could follow. I was caught off guard and didn't make it, but even if I had covered, I didn't have the legs to win the sprint. Rich did have his sprint legs though, and came around Marc in the final 50 meters to win. Marc put in a monster effort though, basically sprinting the last 500 meters.

State Road Race

2009-08-30T20:28:00.005-04:00

I competed in my final race of 2009 yesterday - the SC state road race, which was held near Greenville. I lined up for the 40-49 race with about 50 or so others, including PV teammates Rich, Ken and Lang. We raced 4 laps of a hilly 13 mile loop. I kind of screwed up and missed the from the gun move by Eric C, despite the fact that I knew it was going to happen. I was boxed in initially, though I could have jumped across to it before it got out of reach, but I didn't make the move. That hesitation was a big mistake and almost cost me any chance of contesting the race.

I attacked once to get across to the four man break, but got pulled back in. After that I just started taking pulls on the front, trying to encourage a chase. Ken and Rich helped me and a few others, including Tom S. took turns, but we really weren't making progress. Following Rich, I took a long pull up and over the new climb, which lined out the field. Shortly after that I took another pull through the right turn before the downhill that went by the river. Pat McCallion jumped and I followed him along with a Van Dessel rider. The 3 of us rode hard for the next couple of miles and got within about 30 seconds of the leaders as we passed the start/finish. The Van Dessel rider, who had a man in the break, dropped back, shortly after saying that the field was closing in on us. I didn't look back. At this point I was committed to either getting to the break or blowing up. It took several more miles, but Pat and I made it across on the 2nd lap, before the steep climb. At this point I had just done 322 watts average for over 25 minutes.

I was in the 6 man break, but had used a ton of energy to be there. I took my pulls in the break, but didn't attack. Eric and Pat were looking strong, so I waited. The break worked well even after we were 4 minutes ahead. About 1 mile out, Pat attacked hard up the hill. Eric and I followed, but we lost the others. From there I sat behind Eric in 3rd wheel. Pat went again, but we followed. I jumped on a little rise about 200 meters from the finish, but Eric was able to cover and come by me, so I ended up finishing 2nd. I had a pretty good sprint, 846 watts for 18 seconds, during a final 2:16 @463 watts, but it wasn't enough to beat a good sprinter like Eric. Oh well. I know I gave it my best effort and got beat by someone faster. That's bike racing.

Another Long Saturday Ride

2009-08-24T20:30:00.002-04:00

I did another long training ride over the weekend. That makes three weeks in a row of getting in a 4 hour ride. That is unusual for me this time of year, since its hot, and I don't have the patience to stay outside that long.

It was a typical fast paceline ride, heading north up Hwy 21 past Ridgeway, over to White Oak via Camp Welfare Rd, eventually heading down Jackson Creek to 269 to Peach and finally back down Hwy 21. I settled in for the first 2.5 hours or so and tried to stay at or below threshold when I was on the front. There were still plenty of short climbs where I was way over threshold just following others.

I pulled the 5 minute climb on Jackson Creek at a steady 335 watts. Then a few minutes later I had to do a 567 watt 30 sec effort to stay on James' wheel on the steep hill on Peach after crossing 321. I took a pull right after that for about 3 minutes. A little later I was on the front going up the hill into Ridgeway pretty hard.

About 76 miles in the fun started. Steve R. met us near Ridgeway riding LL's scooter. From there I rode behind LL and the scooter for a blazing fast 42 minutes back to Wildewood at 279w NP.

Long Saturday Ride

2009-08-15T16:52:00.002-04:00

This morning I rode the exact same 88 mile ride as last Saturday. I left my house a little late for the 5 mile ride to Food Lion and the group had already departed. James and I caught up in Ridgeway while they stopped to wait for us. It was a strong group and we cruised along at about 23 mph for 3+ hours.

With 9 guys riding a paceline taking long pulls, I didn't spend much time on the front, so when I got up there I took some hard pulls. I rested yesterday and didn't spend much time outside in the heat either. I felt much better today than last week. 70 miles into the ride, going into Ridgeway, I got on the front and did 8 minutes at 367 watts, with the final 5 minutes climbing at 382 watts. James and LL were still on my wheel, and James jumped and took the mountain points.

Coming back from Ridgeway, we were kind of taking it easy, until LL's scooter, piloted by Steve, arrived to moto pace him back to his house. I followed along for 6 minutes until they turned off, averaging 30 mph. That was fun.

Hot Weekend Riding

2009-08-10T20:07:00.003-04:00

I'm still here and still riding, even though I've gotten lazy and haven't blogged in a while. Saturday I rode with a fast 8 man group leaving from Blythewood, riding what has become the standard loop around Fairfield County. We had a bit of a scare about 10 minutes into the ride on Hwy 21, when a pickup truck loaded with cardboard boxes and assorted loose pieces of cardboard passed us, then while still on the other side of the yellow line, a large box flew out and landed on the road. Another truck pulling a large trailer began to pass us just as the box was flying out of the truck. Thankfully the driver stayed left and ran directly into the box, and we proceeded unharmed. What kind of idiot drives down the highway at 55+ mph with a bunch of loose cardboard piled up in their pickup?

After that scare the ride was great except for the building heat. I tried to hold back some early on and I forced myself to drink 2 full bottles before the one store stop. At the stop I drank at least 20 ounces of gatorade and water, and refilled the two bottles. It still wasn't enough. I struggled in the last hour of the ride. Instead of kicking up the pace like I usually do, I was resigned to just sitting in and trying to get home. LL, James, & Kevin had other ideas, so that last few miles was a bitch.

The IF of .74 doesn't really reflect how hard it is to ride 4 hours in South Carolina in August. Sunday I went out by myself and rode a nice steady pace for 2 hours...about the same average power(199w), but only .64 IF, and I finished before it got super hot.

Asheville Omnium Weekend

2009-07-22T20:31:00.006-04:00

This past weekend I did a 3 race omnium in Asheville, NC. I spent the weekend at my step-sister and her husband's house, and had an enjoyable time playing bocce ball, watching le Tour, cooking out, and drinking some beer.

Friday 20K TT - I put in the best effort I had in me and it got me across the line in 27:07 which was 11th place in 35+. It was a consistent effort, 318 watts on the way out and 316 watts on the way back. A few watts get lost turning around, so the overall average was 313 watts. I haven't done any training on the TT bike at all and that showed some, since I could probaby hold 20-30 watts more on my road bike.

Saturday 40 mile RR - This was the big day, a point to point road race with 6100 ft of climbing and a mountain top finish. I was really excited about this race. The rider who would end up winning got away very early and unfortunately the field cut him way to much slack. By the time we lit it up on the first big climb it was too late. We were too far behind to bring him back. I rode with the chase group which swelled to about 13 or 14 by the time we hit the final 2 mile climb to the finish. I was able to go with every acceleration until I was in a group of 2 at about 500 meters to go. I tried to attack, but Charlie Brown had no trouble covering. At 200 meters to go, I went again, but Charlie stayed with me. We rode side by side for a few meters, before I cracked and watched him pull away. I cruised in for 3rd.

The power numbers were pretty good for the RR. I averaged 362 watts for almost 12 minutes on the final climb, with the last 5 minutes at 389 watts. The "sprint" for me was 30 sec at 567 watts.

Sunday 55 minute Crit - This crit course was advertised as a 1.1 mile rectangle that was flat. Ha! It had a nice little hill on it that kicked up at turn 2. Then there was some fast descending and a super fast entry into turn 4. I rode the first two laps kind of weakly, then took off and followed an attack. I stayed up near the front while things got hard, and ultimately made it to the winning 5 man break, which included Charlie Brown, Dave LeDuc, Jeff McGrain, and Scott Minor. All I could really do was hold on and wait for the sprint. It was just too fast to think of ever escaping. My NP for the entire race was 334 watts and the speed was about 27 mph. I had some good wattage in the sprint, but didn't do a good job tactically, and ended up 3rd. I think I could've gotten 2nd if I had stayed on the same line as LeDuc through the last turn, instead of just jumping out into the wind. The sprint was 26 seconds at 880 watts with a max of 1102 and a max speed of 38.5.

I ended up 3rd in the omnium, which was great. I'm happy with the weekend. The rest of the PV team rocked. LL got 3rd in the 35+ TT. Gordon was 2nd in the cat 4 TT. Nick got 3rd in the cat 3 RR. Marc won the cat 3 crit on Sunday and will soon be catting up.

Tuesday 2 x 20's

2009-07-14T21:03:00.003-04:00

After two easy days, my legs were pretty good today. I got out for a morning ride and went over to Hwy 269 to do 2 x 20 minutes. Headed north I had a head wind and only averaged 22.6 mph, which is probably my slowest 20 minute interval ever on that road. No problem though, since the power was right on target, 326 watts. I was shooting for mid 320's.

The 20 minutes coming back was much more fun, with the tail wind helping me average 26.4 mph. Power was again right on target at 327 watts. There's a lot of suffering doing long intervals, no matter how good you are on a given day, but at least today felt better than last week.

Saturday Long Ride

2009-07-14T20:49:00.003-04:00

This post is a little late, but I since this is certain to be my longest ride of the month I'm not leaving it out. I rode a long ride at a pretty fast pace with a few others on Saturday. We started real early, and it wasn't too hot. I took some hard pulls in the 3rd hour and by the last 30 minutes I was slowing down and struggling to get home.

Hill Climb Intervals

2009-07-10T16:45:00.003-04:00

On the morning after racing the training crit really hard, I did 2 x 20 out on the road. My legs were predictably tired, but I was able to sustain a reasonable pace, 97% of FTP. Thursday was a much needed recovery day with only a 50 minute easy spin.

This morning with drier air and temps below 70 degrees, I did 5 x 4.5 minute hill repeats on a 1.5 mile section of Pine Grove Road that I have used a few times now for this workout. Power numbers were great for me - averaging in the high 380's. As I finished the last one I turned around, then sprinted downhill until I was at 5 minutes total for the interval, just to record a decent 5 minute power number. To finish of the workout I rode another 15 miles at endurance pace with some tempo riding and finished up still feeling great.

I'm looking forward to getting out for a long group ride tomorrow morning. It'll be good for me since, I haven't done anything longer than 2.5 hours in the last 4 weeks.

Fast TNCWC

2009-07-08T21:42:00.004-04:00

Last night I rode in the TNCWC for the first time in several weeks. The weather was about as good as it gets for July - under 90 degrees, and not raining. I wanted to make it a hard workout, and sit in as little as possible. I went with the first move immediately at the start. The race started so fast that the first 5 minutes were a season best 366 watts. From there I rested some and then attacked as many times as I could, but never got a break established. A couple of times it seemed like a move was going, but then it would get chased down. Usually when the race is hard, eventually the elastic snaps, but not last night.

Early in the last lap, I jumped one last time, not really expecting to get away, but just wanting to put in one last big effort. I just stayed on the front and led it out as long as I could, staying on the front until just after the 3rd turn, with a 505 watt 1 minute effort. Then I peeled off and watched everyone go by. Marc won the sprint, but I was way to far back at that point to see it.

July 4th SST Ride

2009-07-05T20:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated the Fourth of July by spending the afternoon at my Parents' house on Lake Murray. We ate some great barbeque and rode around on the party barge where I enjoyed a few cold ones. It was a blast. Before that I squeezed in a 2 hour ride first thing in the morning.

This ride was a repeat of what I did exactly two weeks ago, except this time I didn't take any breaks. I warmed up for maybe 5 minutes and did about 3 minutes cool-down. In between I rode hard. I tried to keep my watts around 90% of FTP, occasionally ramping up the pace on the uphills, while easing off a little going downhill.

Today I again rode about 2 hours, but at a slower pace. I threw in about 35 minutes of SST in the middle, but did most of the ride at endurance pace. I can't seem to get motivated to ride more than 2 hours. I'm thinking next Saturday, I'll try to find a long group ride.

Back to Training, Sort of

2009-07-03T15:42:00.010-04:00

Wednesday I didn't ride and yesterday I rode 1.5 hours easy and felt like total crap. My recovery after the road race wasn't exactly ideal, since I drank several beers to celebrate. Today I was feeling like my normal self again, but mentally wasn't quite ready for a real workout, so I opted to try an all out 1 minute, just to see what I could do and to put a high data point on my power profile chart. On a gradual uphill on Hwy 269, I did my 1 minute all out...almost. I messed up and stopped about 3 seconds early by mistake. Still it was my best 1 minute ever, 692 watts.

For anyone who uses Training Peaks software, I think it is impossible to have a true idea of your 1 minute power from any race effort. I couldn't come within 150 watts of what I did today if I were in a race. For one thing, sprints, even long ones are never 60 seconds and you will never be fresh enough at the end of a race to go all out.

Masters Nats RR

2009-07-02T17:07:00.003-04:00

I finished 7th in the Masters Nats 40-44 road race on Tuesday morning in Louisville, KY after a bizarre finish to a crazy hard race. Here's how it went down.

I lined up with 90 something strong masters racers from all over the country which included several ex-pros and some former national champions. Weather was great, 70's with light wind and sunny skies. We raced ten laps of a 5 mile undulating course with numerous curves and turns. I rode near the back for the first 3 laps and had to ride across a couple of small gaps as riders were getting popped on the 2 short climbs near leading up to the start/finish. My strategy was to do nothing for the first half of the race, then look to get into the break later in the race, after the field had been whittled down. That didn't quite work, because a group got away around the midpoint, while I was still conserving energy and hanging near the back. While the field was still big it was really nerve racking to ride towards the front of the group with all of the aggressive riding on the technical course.

I finally dragged myself up to the front with 2 laps to go. The pace of the previous lap had been real hard and there were at least 8 riders away in two groups, but the gap was still under a minute. I tagged onto a 6 man break, that didn't last long, and watched for counters once we came back. I jumped onto the wheel of an LSV rider and we broke free with about 8 miles left in the race. We thought we had a chance to bridge up to the next group, so we worked as hard as we could. We got as close as maybe 10-15 seconds on the last lap, but the problem was that they were chasing the lead group, so basically everyone in front of us was going all out. I was spent by the time we hit the first climb and got dropped by my breakmate and rode the last mile alone, thinking I would finish 10th or 11th. Then things got interesting.

When I was inside of 500 meters from the finish, I looked up and saw riders rounding the corner to start another lap, when they should have been going straight to the finish line. I knew it was the last lap and there was no way I was going any further. People were yelling at me to go straight. I did. After I finished there was all kinds of confusion and I now had no idea what place I was. To add to the confusion there were a few lapped riders mixed in with the breakaway riders ahead of me. People were saying that I was certainly in the top 5. A possible podium result sounded good at the time, even though it sucked for guys who should have beaten me, that made a wrong turn literally 100 meters from the line.

When the dust settled and protests were denied, I was 7th, so I can't complain. I rode well in the final 2 laps, but just didn't have the power to chase down the break ahead of me. The final 19:38 of the race was 344 watts normalized, and the whole 1:54 race was 308 watts normalized.

Rich avoided a pile up in the field sprint and got 19th.

Many thanks to Rich's parents for sharing their wonderful home with us. The time in Lousiville was relaxing and stress free, except for that 2 hours on Tuesday morning.

Taper Week

2009-06-28T14:12:00.002-04:00

I've backed way off from training this week to taper for the masters national RR coming up on Tuesday morning in Louisville, KY. Here's a quick summary of what I did over the past week.

Monday: Total day off from riding. Went to the beach with Lynda and relaxed.

Tuesday: Easy trainer ride at 65% of FTP for 58 minutes.

Wednesday: 5 x 4 minutes climbing intervals at 383w avg.

Thursday: 1 hour easy at 65% FTP.

Friday: 1:11 at 67% with 2 minutes at FTP.

Saturday: 1:40 with 15 minutes at FTP and 1 minute at 519w.

Sunday: 1 hour at 63% FTP

My total TSS for the week was only about 1/2 of what I've averaged over the last several weeks. CTL is down to 92 and TSB is up to about +17. Despite the positive TSB, I felt really flat yesterday doing a hard 15 minute effort. That worries me a little, but I think whatever residual fatigue I have will be gone by Tuesday. The day before the race I want to do some hard openers to charge up my legs. I don't want to rest too much. There seems to be a thin line between resting too much and not resting enough when you are tapering.

Later today I'm riding up to Lousiville with LL. It'll be nice to get that 500 mile drive out of the way and have all day Monday to chill out before racing on Tuesday morning.

Weekend Rides

2009-06-21T15:05:00.003-04:00

I just finished off three solid days of training. Friday was two hours with 6 x 4 minutes on variable terrain. It was a little harder to hold power than doing hill climbs, but I felt pretty good and averaged 379 watts.

On Saturday I needed to be done riding by 8:30 am, to spend a day with family on the lake, so I rolled out at 6:30 and simply rode hard for the whole time except for 8 minutes of easy riding in the middle when I came up on a few buddies who were spinning around waiting for the group to assemble for a long ride. The image on the left is from Saturday's ride. I had an IF of about .9, and spent a lot of the ride in L4 a little below threshold. I'm finding that as my CTL rises, I can hold a pace near threshold for a long time.

On Sunday I did a 50 mile endurance ride, just to top of the week of training, and get some TSS points without hurting. I was tired but a steady 220 - 240 watt pace felt comfortable, until it got real hot and no pace felt comfortable. I drank 3 big bottles in 2:24 and still lost 4 pounds.

As of today my CTL is at 100.4. This is the first time I have ever cracked 100. It'll be short-lived though, since tomorrow I begin my taper for Nats. I'm going to the beach for the day and won't ride at all.

L4 Work

2009-06-18T20:49:00.003-04:00

Yesterday morning I wanted to do a hard workout to complete a two day block, but my legs were tired, so I opted for some threshold work instead of more VO2 stuff. I warmed up for a few minutes, road tempo for a few minutes, then did 23 minutes at right around FTP. After a brief rest, I rode 27 minutes at 90% FTP. It was just a good solid hard ride and my legs actually were feeling better as I went along.

When I do these early morning rides I don't eat any food beforehand. I have a cup of coffee when I wake up, then drink Gatorade on the bike. I'm thinking 1.5 hours is about the limit for this nutritional strategy.

Tuesday VO2 Hill Repeats

2009-06-16T21:29:00.004-04:00

I rolled out this morning planning to just ride easy and maybe do a few openers, since I thought I would need two days to recover from the weekend races. Once I got going I felt fine, so I decided to do the workout I was planning for tomorrow. I did 5 x 4.5 minute hill repeats on Pine Grove Rd at an average of 387 watts, which is 119% of FTP. This is about as good of a VO2 interval set as I've ever had, despite having a TSB of -14 today.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow morning; maybe just a solid SST ride. I hope the rain moves out by then.

Road Race Weekend

2009-06-15T20:23:00.008-04:00

I just finished another big weekend of racing. Although I ONLY did two races this time, they were the longest two races I've done this year, about 80 miles apiece. Saturday morning Rich, LL and I left early and drove about 2 hours to Salisbury, NC and lined up for race #1, the 30-39 NC State Championship RR. Rich and I rode near the front early on and covered several moves. I attacked a few times to no avail. Then LL moved up and made a well timed attack to get away with Kerry from Carolina Masters. I was right there behind them when they went, and cruised up to the front and helped let the gap form. They linked up with a couple others who were already up the road, and got out of sight. Rich and I followed various moves, but missed the important one. Rich Harper attacked up the left side, but I was on the white line sitting behind Cannell and boxed in. No one flinched, so we watched the race winner, get away and ride up to the break.

With about 25 miles to go, and LL's group minutes in the lead and a chase group also out of sight, I followed an attack by Chris Harkey and we immediately started rotating and got away. After many miles of hard riding we eventually caught the chase group of 4 about 3 miles from the finish. A short climb caused a split in our group, so I could see that there were some tired legs in there. I didn't want to regroup, so I attacked at the left turn with about a mile to go. I held on and finished solo for 5th, a couple of minutes behind LL, who took 4th.

The final hour was the hardest at 302 watts normalized, with the final 2:12 at 411 watts. The NP for the whole 3 hour + race was 279 watts, so this was a big draining effort, but I had to quickly forget about it and rest up for the next day. We ate lunch at a pizza place in downtown Salisbury, then moved in to our accommodations above the Windsong Bicycle Shop, which Charlie from Carolina Masters hooked us up with. After a steak, and a tall beer for dinner, I went to sleep early.

Day 2:
Sunday was another 80 miles of racing in a big Pro/1/2/3 field. Despite planning to sit in and be patient, I somehow found myself in an 8 man break about 15 minutes into the race. Everybody was rotating and we built a lead of 1:20 at one point, before the field chased us. Team Mountain Khakis wasn't represented, so they along with Rich Harper and maybe others, brought us back after we were away for 1 hour. I still felt fine, so I was thinking about being in the next move, but I didn't keep myself near the front well enough and didn't make it. The rest of the race was boring, until the last few miles. LL and I got to the front and launched a few attacks, but didn't get anywhere. I thought all was lost, but in the last mile or so, I was near enough to the front to contest it, and Rich and LL were both there too. With both of them on my wheel, I took off up the right side and tried to lead them out. It was a little dicey, and at one point I went through a gap that closed as I went through. Thankfully no one crashed. I ended up riding hard all the way to the line to snag 4th in the field sprint (without ever going over 807 watts) for 10th overall. It was just a long hard finishing effort at 577 watts for the last 50 seconds. Rich was 16th and LL was 22nd.

Now its time to train a little more, then taper for Masters Nationals in a couple of weeks.

12 x 1 Minute Intervals

2009-06-11T20:45:00.003-04:00

Here's a graph from a ride I did on Wednesday morning. I'm trying to prep myself for master's nationals so, I did some one minute intervals on the road. I rode a big loop from my house, and the plan was to do 12 x 1 minute with 3 minutes rest between intervals. Some of the rests were longer, so that I could use uphills for the intervals when possible. My goal was to ride at 150% of FTP, but that wasn't too hard, so I really kicked up the pace for the last few, hitting a peak 1 minute of 560 watts on the last one.

It's amazing how much 12 minutes really hard, can jack up the VI and IF of a ride. The VI was 1.37 and the IF was .908 despite spending 90 of the 102 minutes total ride time riding easy.

It seemed kind of weird having this be my only hard workout of the week, but I just wasn't recovered enough to train on Tuesday, and I need to rest on Thursday and Friday, to take on a big race weekend in NC that will comprise of back to back 80 mile RR's.

3 Race Weekend in Beaufort

2009-06-09T12:23:00.009-04:00

I had a busy weekend of racing. I loaded up my 2 bikes, several wheels, tools, and miscellaneous gear and left at the ass crack of dawn to make my 8:44 am start time in the 40K State Championship TT, held in Yemassee, SC. I made it in plenty of time and got a decent warm-up. I surprised myself and rode a 57:12, which was good enough to get 2nd in 40-44 and 5th in P/1/2. I was happy to average 310 watts and over 26 mph, considering how little I have ridden the TT bike this year. Teammate LL had a great race, riding a sub 55 time to take gold in 35-39 and 2nd in P/1/2.

After a big lunch and a few hours resting in a hotel room, we took on the crit in downtown Port Royal. The race was shortened to only 47 minutes and was hard from the gun. I felt surprisingly recovered from the TT and made a few efforts to get away around the middle of the race. I found myself in bad position in the closing laps and couldn't move up much as the field was bunching up leaving little space to pass. I gained a few spots on the last lap and finished 16th, salvaging a few omnium points. Norm power was only 304 watts, but as you can see from the graph it was anything but a constant effort. It was a 4 turn 1/2 mile course, with coasting through turns, then sprinting out of them.

Sunday after a big breakfast including a waffle and assorted cereals, LL and I made the 2 mile drive from the hotel to the Naval Airstation in Beaufort to conclude the weekend with a 63 mile RR on a pancake flat 10.5 mile loop. The sun was coming out and from watching the radar I thought it was going to be dry. I even put on sunscreen since we were racing in the middle of the day. Then a dark cloud moved in and the skies opened up right after the race started. I rode near the front for a while, then settle back as we rode through downpours for the first couple of laps. It was dark and hard to see and there were areas with standing water on the course. A group of 3 got way up the road early on.

Late in lap 3 I got away solo, knowing a had no chance of bridging the 2 minute or so gap myself, but what the hell, I went for it just to see what would happen. What happened was lucky for me. Two guys, then eventually three, bridged up to me after I was away for 5 minutes. One guy was super strong and helped us bridge that gap to the leaders with 1.5 laps to go. After dropping one, the now 6 man group at the front rode together to the finish. There were some attacks along the way, but I just did what I had to do to stay in there. My legs were dead from the chase. In the end I got 4th in the sprint, which was enough to secure 4th in the omnium.

The power numbers didn't reflect how hard the RR felt. My norm power for the 2:24 race was 285 watts (88%), but it felt much higher. The big effort of the day was my 5 minutes out there solo at 340 watts average. All in all I was pleased with some good results racing Pro/1/2.

Great day for the Palmetto Velo team Sunday! Marc got 3rd in cat 3 and Rich took 3rd in 40+.

3rd Hard Workout in 2 Days

2009-06-03T21:04:00.002-04:00

About 11 hours after racing in the TNCWC last night, I rolled out of my driveway for some hill repeats on a nice zero traffic road that is 12 minutes from my house. The climb starts with a steep 20 second section, followed by a 20 second flat, followed by another 20 second steep pitch. Then it is a gradual climb, before it kicks up again near the end taking about 4 1/2 minutes going hard. I rode the steep parts out of the saddle at over 400 watts and rode easier on the flatter sections resulting in a 375 watt average for 5 intervals.

I was really pleased with the power numbers today, especially since I did two workouts yesterday, and didn't get enough sleep last night. Now I'm going to rest up for a big race weekend in Beaufort, SC which includes a 40K TT and 60 minute crit on Saturday, plus a 63 mile RR on Sunday.

Tuesday Crit

2009-06-02T22:58:00.004-04:00

After doing some intervals in the morning (see previous post) I made my way to the crit course at about 6:15 for the 6:30 start. It was hot so I didn't want to be in the heat any longer than I had to. I spent some of the early minutes of the race nestled in near the back of the group, while I tried to get my legs going.

About 12 minutes in, I went hard for about a minute at 440 something watts, but was brought back. Then I sat near the back for a few more minutes, while Rich and Karl were away. After the pack chased and brought them closer. I launched and went up to them. Marc and Nick followed. Karl jumped in, but Rich sat up, thinking the field was right there. The four of us traded pulls and quickly built up a big gap. Karl dropped back after a while, and the three of us continued.

I looked back a few times late in the race, and didn't think there was anybody near us. The field had broken up and lots of riders were assembled at the finish line. Apparently a small group including Jamie, Damon, and Rich had us in their sites. At 2 laps to go, we slowed a little and near the end of the lap, when I was thinking about suggesting that the 3 of us finish together, Nick jumped. I followed and Marc caught back up to us. Yes we are all teammates. Then Nick attacked again. We got back together, and eventually Marc said he would just lead us out so we could sprint each other. I came by Nick near the finish.

I'm pleased with how I felt today. I was at 101% (330w NP) for the 31 minute break and didn't feel like I was fading much at the end.

Tuesday AM Intervals

2009-06-02T22:30:00.005-04:00

Masters Nationals are four weeks from today, so it's time to sharpen up and do some anaerobic stuff. This morning I did some 1 minute intervals on the trainer. I was hoping to do 10 at 150% of of FTP which equates to 488 watts, but as you can see on the picture, I was down in the 450's to 470's range and stopped at 8. I couldn't have gone any higher as my legs were burning towards the end of the last few. I still have time to improve over the next few weeks.

Saturday Fast Group Ride

2009-05-30T21:27:00.003-04:00

I got in a great training ride today. I rolled over to Food Lion in Blythewood and hooked up with 7 others for a big loop around Fairfield County. Everyone was killing it on the rollers out there and I was getting in some hard efforts even when I wasn't on the front. When I was on the front I usually rode around threshold pace or a little higher.

Late in the ride on the climb into Ridgeway, Rich attacked and I ultimately chased him down, then set a fast pace (520 watts for 50 sec) up the steep hill near the top. After regrouping, we headed back down 21 to Blythewood with a tail wind and covered 5.5 miles at 27 mph as a series of attacks split us into two groups.

I ended up with 88.7 miles in 4:03 at 22 mph with an NP of 251 watts. The ride felt pretty hard. For me a .77 IF is about what I would expect to see for a race of the same duration. My legs are toast right now from the effort. Some guys had IF's much higher on this ride, and I can only imagine what they must feel like.

TT Workout

2009-05-29T21:42:00.003-04:00

I did my first real workout of the year on my TT bike this afternoon. It wasn't real fun because it was hot and windy and the bike beats the crap out of me on rough roads. My bike is an all aluminum Cervelo P2K that is several years old.

After cruising for about 30 minutes, I did a 20 minute hard effort on Hwy 269 averaging 314 watts. Based on how that felt(real hard), I'd say I was about 15 watts below what I would have done on my road bike. However, I am pleased with the speed. I averaged 25.4 mph on the same section of road where I recently averaged 24.4 mph at 342 watts on my road bike. I had a cross wind today, so I don't think that helped.

After my interval, I rested a few minutes, then rode tempo for about 30 minutes. I've ridden this 34 mile loop a couple of times recently on my road bike going hard, but today I was faster with less effort and less watts thanks to the TT bike. 22.2 mph for the whole ride, despite starting off pretty slow.

Mountain Ride in Boone

2009-05-25T20:14:00.004-04:00

As if Climbing Mt. Mitchell on Monday wasn't enough torture for the week, I took a day trip to Boone, NC for more climbing with LL and Mark D. on Saturday. I had done a couple of hard training days on Thursday and Friday, although I didn't do anything too serious - a little threshold work and some SST.

We did a 36 mile loop twice that included the Snake Mountain climb used in the annual Blood, Sweat and Gears century ride. We pushed this climb really hard both times. The second time up Snake I averaged 349 watts for the final 10 minutes, which pretty much used up all I had in the tank. Thankfully there is a nice 10 mile gradual descent after the climb.

The original plan called for a third climb of Snake Mountain, but after lap two we all agreed to end the ride and get some Mexican food.

On Sunday I did a short 1 hour easy ride on my TT bike. I haven't been on that stupid thing since last October, so it was a shock. Also I got rained on. I'm gonna ride the TT bike just enough so that the state championship 40K TT in a couple of weeks is possible.

Assault on Mt. Mitchell

2009-05-19T21:49:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I finished 5th at the Assault on Mt. Mitchell, a 103 mile ride from Spartanburg, SC to the top of the highest peak in the eastern US with over 10,000 feet of total climbing. I've never done AOMM before and had no plans to do it this year, until Saturday afternoon, when a ticket suddenly became available. I made a few preparations, then headed to Spartanburg Sunday afternoon with Mark D.

On Monday morning I ate a big breakfast with oatmeal, eggs, potatoes, bacon and a bagel with cream cheese, washed down with some coffee. Losing track of time I made it to the start at about 6:27 for the 6:3o am start. About 9 minutes into the ride, the guy right in front of me locked up his brakes avoiding a pothole on the bridge over I-85. He went down and I went around him. I looked back and saw riders going down like dominos across the road. LL got taken out and broke two spokes in his front wheel, but was able to continue thanks to the generousity of Casey, who offered up her wheel.

The first 82 miles of this ride were pretty easy for me, as the group was huge and nobody was driving the pace. The first 4:08 of the ride was only 217 watts NP for an IF of .66. Then we reached the steep climb up Hwy 80 and the shit hit the fan quickly. Our 100+ rider group was shredded to 9 as Boyd Johnson drilled it. I averaged 326 watts for 19:46 up to the turn onto the Parkway. After a slight pause, the pace was back up again and I couldn't hold on after a few more minutes. I watched the remaining 5 riders ride away and rode the final hour or so alone. I gradually slowed down, but kept a decent pace right to the end, averaging 252 watts for the final 24 minutes. I backed off before the final steep pitch, because I knew I would need to some power to push my 39x25 gear, which wasn't really enough in a couple of places.

I passed one rider from the fractured front group, so I ended up 5th with a time of 5:44. The last 20 miles took 1:34 at 270 watts avg, 286 watts normalized, and a speed of 12.7 mph. IF was .88. LL came in 12th and Mark D was 28th.

Saturday Solo Ride

2009-05-16T21:30:00.003-04:00

I was kind of busy today, but I managed to squeeze a good ride in late this morning. After 30 minutes kind of easy, I did 8 x 15 seconds with 1:45 rest in between. These weren't full on sprints, but pretty close. After that I rode about 1.5 hours at 250 watts avg. I ended up doing just under 50 miles at 21 mph.

The last two days were a good training block, but this is only the beginning. I decided last minute to ride the Assault on Mt. Mitchell on Monday. I had the opportunity to get a ticket from someone who isn't able to make the ride. Now I have one day to rest up.

20 Minute Test

2009-05-15T17:32:00.003-04:00

I rolled out from my house this morning undecided on exactly what workout to do. I was thinking sprints, then some sort of threshold effort. As I headed over to Hwy 269(long traffic free country road with no stop signs or traffic lights) my legs felt really good, so I skipped the sprints and decided to see what I could do for 20 minutes. I was optimistically thinking 345 to 350 watts, so I rode for a few minutes at that pace, then deteriorated after 5 minutes as it became clear that 350 wasn't going to happen. I got a second wind at 15 minutes and ended up averaging 342 watts. The 8.1 mile section has one pretty good climb and a net elevation gain, so I was happy to see that I averaged 24.4 mph riding my road bike with box rim wheels.

After recovering for several minutes, I rode a 41 minute section at 274 watts and 22.5 mph. When I'm by myself, riding hard and steady seems like the way to go. I rack up TSS points without having to be out there for more than about 2 hours.

Solo SST Ride

2009-05-13T20:47:00.003-04:00

After all of the hot weather lately, it was 48 degrees when I left the house this morning at 6:30. I had to break out some winter pieces, like a vest, arm warmers, and knee warmers. I'm not complaining though. The goal was simple, ride around at about 90% of FTP for most of the time.

Yesterday I did 2 x 20 minutes on my trainer at 317 watts. I'm trying to put in a solid amount of time in L3 and L4 right now to raise my CTL over the next couple of weeks. I don't have any races coming up until early June.

Big Day in the Heat

2009-05-09T16:23:00.004-04:00

I did a big ride in the heat on Saturday with 7 others. This turned out to be my 2nd longest ride of the year. I rolled out from my house at 7:20 am and it felt perfect - cool with no wind. I met up with Mark D, Casey, and Rob in Blythewood. We linked up with LL, RW, Brian C and Justin in Ridgeway, then headed north for a big counter clockwise loop around Fairfield County.

Since it was going to reach 90 degrees, I forced myself to drink 2 big bottles before the one stop. Then I drank as much as I could at the stop, then drank 2 more bottles on the way back. Also I didn't push real hard when I was on the front. I would take a 2 to 3 minute turn at 90 to 100% FTP, but then I'd have several minutes to rest. Everyone else was riding strong, so the pace was pretty high - about 22 mph while we were all together.

With all that hydrating, and conserving energy, I felt really strong, so I did put in some of my hardest efforts after the 3 hour mark. LL decided to attack the climb back into Ridgeway and I put in a 602 watt 30 second effort to follow him.

Heading back home solo on Blythewood Rd near the end I rode into a stiff headwind and it was now above 85 degrees. All in all it was a great ride though.

Friday Sprints +

2009-05-09T16:10:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I decided to work on my sprint, which has been neglected lately in my training. I did 8 x 15 sec with 1 to 2 minutes recovery. After that I took a few minutes easy, then did a 20 minute interval right at threshold pace. After that I just cruised along for almost another hour.

Midweek Update

2009-05-06T21:48:00.002-04:00

I'm going to use the rest of the month to build, so I'm taking a break from VO2. I'm going to do a lot of L4 and SST. Tuesday I skipped the crit and did 2 x 20 on the trainer at 98% of FTP. This morning my goal was to ride SST, but I felt really good, so I ramped up the pace a little and ended up riding for 52 minutes at 94%, while I watched three episodes of Entourage.

I'll take one rest day, then more L4 on Friday, followed by a long ride Saturday.

Dilworth Crit 35+

2009-05-03T21:34:00.004-04:00

I made the short drive up to Charlotte yesterday to race on a fun course that features a nice long hill leading up to the finish. I didn't have any teammates today, and had to go up against the loaded Carolina Masters team. The race started fast and nothing got away for a few laps. That 50 second or so climb wears down the field quickly.

Charlie from Carolina Masters rode off the front a few laps in. One more bridged up. I missed out, so I tried several times to get away and go after them, but it wasn't working. All I ended up doing was wasting a ton of energy. Eventually, I did get away and hammered out a whole lap at 386 watts and 26.8 mph. Ryan from CM had followed me and together we increased our gap on the field but made little ground on the two leaders.

With 1 lap to go we did catch Gordon, but Charlie was up ahead soloing to a win. The field was so close to us, that I didn't mess around and took a big pull down the hill before the climb to the finish. I couldn't stay with the other two on the climb, so I finished 4th. The sprinters from the field zoomed by me about 20 meters after the line.

Interesting race file to look at. The normalized power for 49 minutes was 353 watts, which corresponds to 110% of FTP. I took a quick look at the file from last year's Dilworth and at was actually higher - 356 watts!

Tuesday Double Workout

2009-04-28T21:54:00.003-04:00

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+

2009-04-26T13:43:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-24T13:08:00.004-04:00

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

2009-04-22T21:52:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-19T19:59:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-17T17:18:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-14T22:18:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-13T20:44:00.004-04:00

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

2009-04-10T20:04:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-07T20:39:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-01T20:58:00.002-04:00

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.

Breakthrough Threshold Workout

2009-03-30T18:02:00.002-04:00

I broke out of my training rut today with a great 2 x 20 workout on the road. I averaged 334 watts for the first 20 minutes headed North up Hwy 269. I did the second one in 328 watts, but it was on a less than ideal route, with a left turn, two stop signs and almost no flat stuff. I did manage to finish strong averaging 397 watts for the final minute.

This is the first time I've averaged over 330 watts for 2 x 20, since 2005. I just hope it wasn't a fluke. My legs really felt like they should when you are tapering for a peak. It wasn't really planned, but due to all of the racing I've done lately, and being sick last week, I backed off some and as a result my TSB has been positive for about 7 days in a row.

Tomorrow I'm planning to make it to the training crit. I really like stacking two hard days in a row, and it works much better to do structure on day one, then a crit on day 2, than to start a two day block with a crit.

Saturday Intervals

2009-03-28T12:22:00.005-04:00

I stuggled with a sinus infection earlier in the week and didn't do much training. I did a 2 x 20 workout on Tuesday morning about nine hours after taking a dose of Nyquil, with predictably mediocre results. The next couple of days I spun easy for a few minutes and let myself recover.

Friday morning I felt much better so I again did a 2 x 20 workout. The goal was to go a little below threshold just to get the work done. I rode at 97% of FTP, but struggled near the end.

Today I felt better and banged out a pretty nice workout, once again on the trainer. I opted for the trainer(bailing out on my buddies who are out doing 110 miles), because I wanted to start early(before sunrise) and because rain was on the way. I decided to try something new - a 20 min set of micro-intervals. First I did 20 minutes at a little under FTP. I averaged 313 watts and didn't have to kill myself to hold the pace, which was perfect. Then I set out to do 20 minutes, alternating between 30 sec at 400 watts and 30 sec at 200 watts. That would lead to 300 watts avg, but I felt really good doing these so I upped the pace a bit and averaged 313 watts with an NP of 328. Surprisingly, the micro-interval set felt easier than the well paced first 20 minutes.

After that, I had enough in the tank to cruise for 12 minutes at about 90% FTP, to rack up a few more TSS points, ending with 112 for the day in 1:25. Post workout I polished off a giant stack of pancakes, easily replacing the 1319 calories I just burned.

Win at Out Like a Lion 35+ RR

2009-03-22T17:18:00.008-04:00

I won the Out Like a Lion road race yesterday in a 7 up sprint! No that's not a misprint. I certainly wasn't the best sprinter in that group, but I was sitting in a perfect position heading down the stretch, 4th wheel right behind Charlie Brown, with Pete Cannell in front of him. I jumped as hard as I could on a small rise with 300 meters to go. I got a gap and crested the hill with momentum and was able to hold them off on the flat section to the finish. The numbers on the sprint were 5 sec @1105w and 24 sec @866w. This came after riding the final hour at an NP of 325 watts. I can't sprint any better than that no matter how fresh I am. The funny thing is that the finishing effort was a carbon copy of what I did last year at this same race, but last year I was in a 3 up sprint for 3rd place with Charlie on my wheel. I jumped at the same spot with the same effort, but he covered it and came around me. This time Pete and Charlie were watching each other and I was able to sneak up on them.

There was a whole lot that happened before the finish. Here's a recap. Ladd, new PV teammate Rich (aka sufferfest), and I lined up with about 60 other shivering souls on a cold morning. The race took off hard right from the parking lot as everyone jockeyed for position before hitting very narrow curvy roads on the 6.6 mile loop we would ride 6 times, before coming back and finishing in front of the school where we started from. I lost the positioning battle and didn't see the front until late in the 2nd lap. Rich was up near the front and covered some early moves, while Ladd moved up and lit it up during the second lap. Nothing was sticking as the pace stayed high. I got to the front late in lap two and attacked a few times unsuccessfully. Then in a counter move three guys including Cannell and a Carolina Masters rider got away. I sensed that this was THE move and jumped across bringing 3 with me including 2 more Carolina Masters. When the dust settled, the break was seven riders with 3 Carolina Masters. Terrible odds, but at least I made the break.

I NEVER felt good in the break. In a 15 minute period including 7 or 8 minutes before getting into the break, I averaged 325 watts with an NP of 360. I just never had a chance to recover from that, and some of the guys with me are stronger than me to start with. Cannell is the reigning masters TT national champ for God's sake. He is the same weight as I am, likely has a much higher FTP, was riding a Zipp 1080/880 combo, and was wearing a damn skinsuit, just itching to ride away solo.

My strategy ended up being quite simple - Conserve energy when possible, close gaps when necessary, and try to be around for the finish. The Carolina Masters riders started attacking late in lap 5 and I had just enough to cover and stay in the race. Late in the final lap Ryan Jenkins, Cannell, and Charlie got a gap. That easily could've been it, but I closed the gap pulling the other three with me. From this point there were no other attacks and I had about 2 minutes at 201 watts to recover for the sprint. That 2 minutes made all the difference. Also my position right behind the two main contenders was perfect. Those things combined with some luck, got a win for PV.

Friday Openers

2009-03-20T19:59:00.004-04:00

Went out on the road today for an easy ride with a few openers. A few 1 minute or so hard efforts really jacks up the VI and thus the normalized power. So, my little 18.4 mph ride at an average HR of 122 had a 242 watt NP. It was a very hilly route and there was a lot of wind. Check out the 13 minute section on the graph, where I did the openers. 325 watts NP because of a few efforts, but there was also a lot of rest in there. My HR did hit 179, but was coming down quickly during the rest and only averaged 130 during the 13 minutes.

I may have seen one of those shovel ready stimulus projects while I was riding today. I was on the Fairfield county portion of Pine Grove Road, which is easily the worst paved section of road in that county. This road is nice and smooth with zero traffic in Richland county, but when you hit the Fairfield county line, it turns into a bone jarring, rock paved, pot hole ridden mess. A road crew was filling the pot hills with asphalt, so now the road is rock paved with little mounds of ashpalt. Big Improvement.

Tomorrow I'm going up to Salisbury, NC for a short 40 mile masters 35+ road race. Looks like the field is gonna be stacked. This one's going to be fast like a crit and I'll need to line up near the front and go hard from the gun.

Wednesday 2 x 20's

2009-03-19T20:25:00.005-04:00

I kind of messed up with my training plan this week. I raced three times over the weekend and should have given myself Monday and Tuesday to recover, especially since I have a road race this Saturday. Instead I decided to do intervals on Tuesday morning, assuming I could handle it. Wrong. I attempted to do a 2 x 20, but wasn't able to complete it. I managed to do the first 20 minutes at around threshold, but struggled big time in the second one and had to stop at 16 minutes.

Wednesday I felt much better, although not 100% and I managed get the exact same workout done at 314w and 318w. I should've been content with one workout this week, and made it count. Also I need to recover for the next race. After this weekend I won't be racing for about a month.

Forest Acres Crits

2009-03-16T11:31:00.003-04:00

Day 2 of the local crit racing weekend, brought even worse weather than day 1. I had pre-registered the night before to get a two race discount, hoping that the weather would improve. It didn't. It was 48 degrees and raining. While my wife stayed home sick with the flu, I drove into Columbia to ride my bike around in circles in the rain. Riding in the rain when it's cold seems crazy or dumb, but there were plenty of other racers out there to join me.

36 lined up for the pro/1/2 race at 1:30 pm. I liked the course, because it was wide open enough to be safe even with the wet pavement and there was a long hill up one side. I thought the hill would break things up, so I went hunting for a breakaway once again. Eventually, I found one. Just after the half way mark, I bridged up to a lone Global Bike rider and was away for about 12 minutes, only to be reeled in with about 15 minutes left in the race. In the break, including the bridge up to it, I averaged 332 watts. Once we were caught the pace in the field stayed high as another field sprint became inevitable. I attacked about halfway up the hill on the final lap, but didn't have enough left in the tank to make it stick. I hung on to finish 12th in a sprint that hit 42 mph on a fast downhill.

Normalized power for the 1 hour race was 326 watts. Again I was at my limit.

After the pro/1/2 race I was soaking wet, and got really cold waiting for the combined 35+/45+ race to start. It turned out to be Ladd and I for 35+ and nine guys racing 45+. Eventually I wound up with the 45+ winner, while Ladd and Langston came across next together. So, officially PV finished 1-2 in 35+ and 2nd in 45+.

Blythewood Crit (Pro/1/2)

2009-03-15T20:50:00.008-04:00

It was a hard weekend of crit racing in bad weather conditions against some of the top racers in the southeast. Saturday's 1.4 mile course was a mere five miles from my house, so I was motivated to line up for the feature race. It wasn't a big field, maybe 35 or so, but there were plenty of heavy hitters, including five from the Team Mountain Khakis pro team plus a few other former pro's.

It was 43 degrees and the roads were wet, but we were lucky enough to not get rained on. I had no teammates in the race, and my goal was to get into the winning break. Yeah, that might be a long shot, but sitting in the field and waiting for the finish is a waste. I rode aggressively near the front a lot in the first half of the race, attacking a few times and going with a few moves. Absolutely nothing would stick. I don't think Mountain Khakis wanted a break, unless maybe they had at least two guys in it. In the second half of the race I was really tired. I was able to attack a couple more times, but didn't get anywhere. The last couple of laps were really fast leading up to the field sprint. I was able to get in there and finish a respectable 15th, which was enough to earn a small sliver of the payout.

From a wattage perspective this was quite a workout. 322 watts normalized for just under one hour. The final 1:18 of the race was 454 watts and the final sprint was 806 watts for 20 seconds up a slight rise. For me that was a very good sprint, but everyone else is fast too, so that only allowed me to advance one spot.

Props to all the guys on PV who had great races Saturday. Marc was 3rd in 3's, Nick was 2nd in 4's, and Ladd got 2nd in 35+.

L4 Intervals on the Road

2009-03-12T20:59:00.004-04:00

Yesterday after work I did some threshold intervals on the road. Usually I do this stuff in the morning on my trainer, but after the crit the previous night, I needed more time to recover, and the weather was just too nice to be inside. I did the first 12 minute interval headed north on 269 and averaged 325 watts. Then after resting a couple of minutes I came back south for 12 minutes at 329 watts. I added another 10+ minute effort at 327 watts mostly uphill on Cedar Creek Road as I headed back home.

My legs didn't really feel good, but I was able to maintain the pace. It just hurt a lot. This morning I gave myself a break and rode for 45 minutes at 62%. Tomorrow if its not raining, I'm going to ride over and do a couple of laps of the course for Saturday's crit, which is a mere 5 miles from home.

First Tuesday Night Training Crit

2009-03-10T21:24:00.002-04:00

We had a big crowd tonight for the first Tuesday Night Criterium World Championship of the year. After sitting in my cubicle all day it was great to bust out and enjoy the extra daylight and 75 degree weather. During my warm-up I squeezed in a 9 minute steady threshold effort at 314 watts.

The race started out fast and I took several big pulls early on. The pace was high enough that people were going off the back after a couple of laps. I started attacking after a while and was off the front some. The winning break began a little before the half way mark. Originally it was four riders, including only Nick from Palmetto Velo. I jumped across bringing Marc with me. Brian C. came up too, so we ended up with seven total in the break with three from PV. Casey, fresh off her big win at Rouge Robaix over the weekend, was in there too.

I took a big pull as soon as we all got together and after everyone else rotated through we were quickly out of reach. With about 10 minutes to go, I kicked off the attacks. I never got very far, but probably wore some people down. Eventually Nick was able to get away and win solo. Marc won the sprint for second, and I came across third.

The power numbers were really good today. 328 watts NP for the race at an IF of 1.04! For the entire 1:10 that I was on my bike the IF was .97

River Falls RR 35+

2009-03-08T08:35:00.007-04:00

I finished 3rd in the River Falls RR yesterday morning. The field was probably over 70 riders and included a few current and former national champions and a former world champion. The sunny 70+ degree weather motivated everyone to show up this week, compared to last week's race ridden in cold rain.

After last week's 1-2 finish, LL and I were looking for another big result. With the quality of the field, we had our hands full and weren't able to exert control on the race like we did a week ago. The race loop was about 5.6 miles including a 1K climb at the end. We only did 6 laps, so it was a 34 mile road race. The race was ridden aggressively throughout, leading to a finish time 4 minutes faster than last year. I won't bore you with a full blow by blow account of how the race played out. I'll stick mostly to the power numbers.

First of all the climb, required a pretty big effort all six times. The lap 5 ascent required 457 watts for almost 2 minutes, and even the easiest trip up the hill saw me average about 360 watts for 2+ minutes. I only weigh 149 lbs, so some others were probably working much harder than that.

My first two laps were the easiest due to the fact that I was lined up in the very back at the start and it took me two laps to make it to the front. I was in a couple of breaks for short periods of time and on lap 4 I spent about about 7 minutes solo off the front at 329 watts average. After the huge effort up the climb on lap 5, I was sitting about 6th or 7th wheel while we were lined up chasing John Patterson from Carolina Masters. It looked like we were going to catch and then the counter attacks would come. Wrong! Before the catch, Tony Scott from Texas Roadhouse jumped across. A little bit later, sensing that the two were a big danger, I got away by myself and chased them, but wasn't able to bridge the 15 second or so gap. I did stay away from the field for the final 11 minutes to finish alone in 3rd. That final 11 minute effort was 332 watts AP at a VI of 1. In hindsight it looks like I should've been able to go harder at the start of my chase...maybe a do or die 3 or 4 minutes to make the catch or go down in flames trying.

I didn't win, but did have a good result, and with an IF of .97 for the race, I'd say that I got all of the training I could possibly handle. It is billed as a "Training" series after all.

Pre-Race Openers

2009-03-06T20:12:00.003-05:00

It really felt good to ride in the 70 degree sunshine today. It was really windy, but after all of the rain and cold we've had lately I'm not complaining. A couple more days like this, and I'll have my farmer's tan back. Before today I rode 5 days in a row on the trainer, and the day before that was a road race in a rain storm.

The workout today was simple; Spin around for a while and do some openers. About 50 minutes into the ride, I did 4 x 1 minute on, 2 minutes off at around 460 watts each. TSB is gonna be about +5 tomorrow, and I'm not feeling fatigued, so I should be in good shape for this weekend's Greenville Spring Training Series event - the River Falls RR.

Wednesday 1 x 44

2009-03-04T21:37:00.004-05:00

I continued my L4 extravaganza this morning by knocking out 44 minutes at 100% of FTP (315 watts) on my trainer. Today hurt more than yesterday's 2 x 20's, but I survived. I did well to get to my current fitness level by doing tons of SST and distance rides over the last couple of months, but to see further increases, I'm gonna keep doing L4 work over the next few weeks.

Tuesday 2 x 20's

2009-03-03T20:42:00.003-05:00

After a hard race Saturday, I wanted to let myself adequately recover so I could have a good two day training block this week. My legs felt really good today, and I was able to go a little harder than I did last week doing this workout. I did the first 20 minutes at 322 watts, rested for about 4 minutes, then did the second 20 at 324 watts. I'm hoping to get above 330 watts for 2 x 20 at some point this spring, so I'm pleased with my progress so far. My weight is 149 lbs today. I'm starting to look like an anemic climber again.

Openers on Monday

2009-03-03T13:44:00.005-05:00

I did my basic pre-race openers workout Monday, to shock the legs into being ready for a hard workout Tuesday. I was actually toying with the idea of doing threshold intervals, but when I was warming up, my legs just felt dead, so I aborted and did 5 x 1 min on, 2 min off. The 1 minute efforts were between 455 and 464 watts, or pretty damn close to as hard as could go and finish all 5. I highlighted the 13 minute segment containing the intervals to show how much a few hard efforts like this can drive up the normalized power. It was 341 watts.

Today I had much better legs for my 2 x 20's. More on that later. I better get back to work.

A Team Win at Fork Shoals RR

2009-03-01T14:48:00.008-05:00

My teammate Ladd and I went 1-2 in the Fork Shoals 35+ RR yesterday morning! It was an awesome result for us in our second race of the year. On Friday we were wavering about whether or not to even go to the race, since the weather was going to bad, but we both came to grips with the idea of racing in the rain, and plans were made. Rich's text Friday that he was definitely going helped prod me into going. So, the three of us drove up in the pouring rain, and took our place at the start line, where the rain continued.

They combined 35+ and 45+ and cut the distance down to 45 miles. I'd say we had about 60 riders total. The plan was to attack early, and try to get 2 out of the 3 of us in a break. Attacks started immediately, but the early moves were covered. I just stayed near the front waiting for the right time to do something. Those first few minutes were pretty hard, 312 watts NP for the first 13 minutes. At mile 5, I jumped away at one of those lulls, where an attack has just been brought back and everyone pauses. I got clear quickly and no one followed. I stayed above threshold at first, then gradually settled into a pace just below threshold (304 watts NP for 61 minutes). The first five minutes was at 345 watts AP to establish the gap. Once I was out there alone one of the thoughts going through my mind was, I sure wish I was running my carbon 58 mm deep front wheel instead of a box rim training wheel, just to have better braking in the rain. Oh well.

I never got more than perhaps 60 seconds ahead, and could look back and see the field on some of the long straight roads. I figured eventually a small group would make it up to me. That is exactly what happened at mile 29, just before starting the 3rd lap of 3. My Palmetto Velo teammate Ladd, and Jim C. from Globalbike bridged up to me. I had seen a group coming for a while and had backed off when they got close to save some energy to catch onto them, not knowing who it was. I was relieved to see that it was Ladd. I knew right then that we should be able to win the race. The field was out of site and three strong riders would hold that gap. We motored along working together until about 5 miles to go.

Then it was time to decide things. I was trying to decide exactly when to attack, but Jim beat me to the punch and went first. Ladd covered and I followed. Then I went and Jim covered. Finally Ladd countered and was gone. Race over. Jim and I took a long pause to watch Ladd become a speck on the horizon, then we settled back into a steady pace to avoing being caught. I came through for 2nd to make it 1 - 2 for the team! Meanwhile, Rich was in a break of his own and finished next in 4th.

First 2 x 20's of 09

2009-02-25T20:41:00.005-05:00

After one day off from riding, this morning I did my first true threshold workout of the year; 2 x 20 minutes on the trainer. My legs didn't feel recovered, so it was a struggle from the start. I did #1 in 311 watts, but woke up a bit in the 2nd interval and hit 314 watts. Now I'm going to take two more easy days to be more race ready this weekend. I've done so much training over the last six weeks to raise my CTL above 90, but I haven't yet been able to realize any gains in FTP. I'm hoping that some recovery time will get me on track.

Long Recovery Ride

2009-02-23T21:35:00.003-05:00

It was cold and windy today, but since I'm not working on Mondays I went out for a ride. I was tired from the last couple of days, so I kept the pace easy. I hovered around 200 watts or so most of the time. I did zero hard efforts. My 1 minute max power was only 254 watts and that was climbing a steep hill with 2 miles to go. For comparison, I recently did a 3 hour ride at 255 watts average. I felt pretty good, but even at this easy pace, I was tiring in the last half hour. My average heart rate was only 119 with a max of 139. I can hit high 190's, so by that measure I didn't work hard today.

I've decided that I'm done building my CTL for now, and I'm going to transition into some higher intensity, lower volume work. CTL is 92.1 today with TSB of -28.8. The next two weekends I'm going to do some RR's that I'd like to do well in. Then there is a weekend with 2 crits here in town.

Sunday Solo Ride

2009-02-23T16:44:00.004-05:00

Sunday morning I opted for a solo distance ride instead of another race up in Greenville. I've been building over the last 5 weeks and I was happy to ease into racing by doing only one race this weekend.

I started off by riding over to Blockbuster to return a DVD. About 10 minutes after that stop I flatted on Summit Parkway. After changing the tube I continued along at warm-up pace. After maybe an hour of ride time, I finally ramped up the pace and rode mostly tempo for the final 2 hours. It was real windy out there, but I adjusted by using the little ring a lot. Psychologically, its hard to go 12 mph for a stretch into the wind, but it's easier to accept the slower pace than fight it.

One crappy thing happened on the ride. I managed to return without a ziploc bag containing my driver's license, credit card, and $10, which was stuffed into a jersey pocket. I was carrying a lot of stuff in my pockets, including a Cliff bar that I removed several times to take bites from. Somewhere on the 58 mile loop, that important bag most have flown out. I realized this many hours after returning. Today I rode 49 of those miles looking for the bag, but didn't see it. Credit card is already cancelled, so my only real loss is $10 cash and $10 to get a reissued license. I've been riding since I bought my first real road bike in 1986, and this is the first time I've lost anything of significance on a ride.

Donaldson Center RR

2009-02-21T21:13:00.003-05:00

Today marked the start of the 09 racing season. I raced a 57 mile pro/1/2 road race in Greenville, SC for my new team, Palmetto Velo. LL and I started the race with a huge field of probably over 100. The course was about 7 miles, and we did 8 laps. The first half of the race was pretty hard and all breaks were quickly brought back in. I spent most of the time stuck in the middle of the group trying to move up. I got all the way to the front once for about 3 seconds.

In the second half of the race a large break got up the road and our pace slowed. The first half was about 90% or 283 watts NP, which was pretty tough, but the second half of the race was much easier at about 79% (248 watts NP). I spent the last couple of laps stuck in the back half of the group. Inside the last 500 meters I steered around a crash and finished safely.

Thursday Trainer Ride

2009-02-19T21:14:00.005-05:00

This morning I did about 42 minutes at 286 watts, with a short break at the 20 minute mark. Then after resting for 3 minutes it was time for the hard part of the workout; 3 sets of 4 x 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. I was able to hold about 450 - 46o watts for these efforts. Watching highlights of the past 3 stages of the ToC helped with the motivation.

Tomorrow I'll do an easy ride on the road and then it's race day.

Boring Trainer Ride

2009-02-18T21:02:00.003-05:00

I've been able to ride outside a lot more this winter than in previous years, but I still log my share of trainer hours. This morning was a pre-dawn ride down in the basement. At least it was raining, so I don't feel like I missed out from not riding outside. My legs still felt like crap from back to back long rides on Sunday and Monday. The goal for this week is to accumulate another 700+ TSS points, while still being fresh enough to race on Saturday, so the trick is to train, but somehow gain strength as the week goes on. Today I rode for 1 hour at 90% of FTP. It wasn't comfortable, but I actually feel better now than I did yesterday.

Another Big Ride

2009-02-16T20:41:00.004-05:00

I climbed back into the saddle and headed out early this afternoon to join LL and Ward for a ride out to Lake Wateree. I was thinking I would be out for about 3 hours, but due to some on the fly re-routing, we ended up adding about 15 miles to the regular lake loop. We found some great back roads with zero traffic, but my body struggled to handle the extra distance.

I've had some days lately where I expected to be tired but ended up having a great ride. Today was not one of those days. I was every bit as tired as you would expect to be after riding hard four of the last five days and having a TSB of -34.

For all of my suffering today, I did reach a pre-season goal by pushing my CTL to 90.2. ATL is 131 and TSB will be -41 tomorrow and I'm not riding at all.

Sunday Hard Group Ride

2009-02-15T20:14:00.003-05:00

I drove into town today to ride with the group leaving from Outspokin. Several of us are prepping to race next weekend, so we split off from the main group after leaving the fort and heading down Percival. From that point we hammered along for the next 25 miles until the store stop in Eastover at just under 24 mph, on a route that included plenty of hills and some good wind. For that 1:03 portion I was at 90%, or 284 watts NP. At the end of that section Rich went by me in the sprint on Chaingang.

There were some tired legs in the group after the stop and we backed off for a while. Then I had my peak 5 minutes leading us up Horrel Hill at 323 watts. The light caught us, so we got about 1 minute to completely rest after that.

Heading back through the fort, it seemed like we might just chill, but Tom C attacked a climb and Ward followed. That seemed to touch things off, and the section on Hartsville Guard saw several attacks with Rich winding up on the front at the end.

Then my rear shifter cable broke, and I got to ride the final 25 minutes in the 39x12. We did shut it down from there and I had an AP of 99 watts at a cadence of 64.

This ride was a lot harder than the 204 watt AP, and 20.2 mph would suggest. The overall numbers are skewed by the long warm-up and cool-down. We actually did the 47 mile business portion of the ride at 22.4 mph and my NP was 271 watts.

Friday Solo 3 Hours

2009-02-13T19:30:00.004-05:00

I'm really glad I went out and did this hard ride today. My original plan was to do an easy ride today to recover from back to back hard trainer rides, each netting over 100 TSS points. I scrapped my plan when the forecast called for a rainy, cold Saturday. I decided to make Saturday my recovery day instead.

I rolled out this morning under a warm sun with fairly light winds. I expected to be tired, so my only plan was to do 3 hours at whatever pace I could handle. I can usually tell if I have the legs to go hard within the first couple of minutes, and today was no different. I'm going to have to start planning more 3 day blocks because this is the second block in a row where I had the best legs on day 3.

I basically just rode hard non-stop for the whole ride. I never really got tired either. Scary. I rode 79% of the ride in Level 3 (tempo) or higher, with only 7 % in L1. My peak 5 minutes of 304 watts was on a climb at the 2 hour mark, when I was ramping up, just because I wasn't getting tired. This is the 4th week of building for the season, and I think my body is starting to respond favorably.

Thursday Morning

2009-02-12T21:23:00.004-05:00

Today was the second day of my mid-week two day block. I'm trying get in as much training as possible right now, even when I don't have time to do distance, so I rode 50 minutes of SST at 284 watts with one short break thrown in. I followed that with 3 sets of 4 x 30 sec on, 30 sec off in the 460-470 watt range. My IF for the entire 1:23 was 89%.

Solo 50 Miler

2009-02-08T17:19:00.003-05:00

The weather was perfect throughout my now completed three-day endurance block. Today might have been the best. I left my house at 11 am in shorts and short sleeve jersey. It was in the 60's and temps rose above 70, but the bright sun made it feel warmer. I now have tan lines on my legs and arms. Hard to believe that it was 9 degrees here just a few days ago.

My goal for today was to ride L2 for 2.5 hours. I expected to be weary from the last couple of big days, but in the first 5 minutes I could tell that I actually felt better than I did yesterday, so I decided to ramp up the pace to L3 after the first hour. After doing that first hour at 203 watts average, I sped up and did 1.5 hours at 245 watts average. When I finished I wasn't nearly as tired as the two previous days. I hope this means that I will recover quickly so I can ramp up my training even more this coming week.

Team Training Ride

2009-02-08T07:22:00.004-05:00

Saturday morning the Palmetto Velo team training ride rolled out from 5 Points with about 15 or so riders under bright blue skies and a temp of 52 degrees. We had some stop and go as we slowly worked our way over to West Columbia, but once we hit open roads we settled into a pretty good pace. It was fast enough that we made a store stop at mile 20 to allow a few stragglers to catch back on.

From there on we rode mostly double paceline, with occasional splits in the group on climbs. We averaged 22.3 mph for the middle 50 miles of the ride, despite the fact that it was windy. The hardest portion of the ride was right before getting back to town. A few attacks and a breakaway with Nick and Lang resulted in a 10 minute period where I had a 312 watt NP at 25 mph. All in all it was a good 3 hours of training. I've done 137 miles over the last 2 days, leaving my TSB at -30.

75 miles on a Friday

2009-02-06T20:37:00.004-05:00

I spent Friday afternoon doing a long training ride with Rich and Ward. We rode to Lake Wateree, over to Ridgeway, then west almost to Winnsboro, then through Cedar Creek, back to Blythewood. This is a hilly route and we had a near constant headwind for the second half of the ride, but we still managed to hold an average speed above 20 mph. My NP was 240 watts, which is pretty high for me over such a long period of time. The final 2 hours was actually done at a 250w NP.

I didnt' really set out to push this hard today, but once we got going I just got into a rhythm of taking long pulls at 85 to 90% or so of FTL. I'm getting so used to riding that one pace. Tomorrow is going to be another story though. Its my team's official training ride. It's going to be a large group ride ridden at a pace where we can all stay together. After today's big effort, I might want to sit in and take it easier tomorrow.

The Basement

2009-02-04T20:48:00.005-05:00

Here's a shot taken just before this morning's ride. Note the cup of hot coffee on the left edge of the screen and full bottle of Gatorade on the bike. Also note the laptop sitting in front of the bike. Gotta have the little comforts to make riding a trainer tolerable. It was 52 degrees in the basement, but I still needed the fan after about 5 minutes.

Trainer SST

2009-02-04T20:30:00.002-05:00

I rode 1:01 at 287 watts (91% of FTP) this morning with a few minutes of warm-up and cool-down thrown in. I felt a little sluggish early, but by the last few minutes I was in a rhythm, and could've done more if I had the time.

I think I'll hold back some tomorrow so I can save some strength for three days of distance starting Friday.

More Distance Training

2009-02-01T20:19:00.004-05:00

I decided to cap off the weekend with another endurance ride. LL said he was doing 3 hours, so I agreed to do the same. We rode to Lake Wateree and pretty much took it easy, but it was windy and that's a hilly route, so we did have to put some effort into it. We sprinted for the 3 county line signs, and I came up short each time. The first one was very close and I did manage to produce exactly 1100 watts for 5 seconds at 68.6 kg body weight, which is my best 5 seconds in a long time.

On paper this doesn't look like that tough of a ride, but after 151 miles and over 5000kJ in two days, I was exhausted.

Saturday ROP Ride

2009-01-31T19:26:00.002-05:00

Today was the epic ROP (Ride of Pain), which is 93 miles of rolling hills on a route that circumnavigates Lake Wateree in a clockwise direction, passing through Ridgeway, Great Falls, Camden, Lugoff and Elgin. The last 20 or so miles probably has the most climbing and some rough pavement and is often into the wind as you head west.

Five of us rolled out from LL's house at 9 am with the temp at 31 degrees, but sunny. It warmed up to maybe 50 by the end of the ride so the cold wasn't a big deal. About 40 miles in LL anounced that his prescribed workout plan called for a 20 minute threshold effort, so he went to the front and hammered along at 351 watts while the rest of us hung on.

For most of the ride I was content to take 5 minute or so pulls at about 85 to 90% of threshold, then sit in for several minutes. It never seemed like I did a lot of work, but after 4 hours I was wearing down and couldn't wait to get off the bike. At mile 82 or so, Nick, Marc and Stephen(who had joined us in Lugoff) peeled off and headed to Stephen's house to end things there. RW, LL and I continued on. I managed to take the one sprint of the day at mile 87. I am far from being a great sprinter, but my odds increase greatly after everyone is tired.

This ride ended up being harder than I was expecting. The IF was .74 and I was thinking it would be in the .65 to .70 range. As a result I had the highest TSS I've seen on a ride since 2007.

Midweek Update

2009-01-29T21:04:00.005-05:00

Today was the second day of a two day block on the trainer. Yesterday I did some 15 sec sprints followed by 36 minutes of SST. Today I did 32 minutes of SST followed by 3 sets of 4 x 30 sec on, 30 sec off. Check out the graph of this workout. The 30 second efforts averaged about 475 watts and I was really hurting by the last one. The idea of this workout is to train anaerobic capacity after first pre-exhausting yourself. The training plan I used to religiously follow, suggested doing these sort of intervals towards the end of a two day distance block. In a race the hardest part is usually at the end, so I think this workout helps simulate that to some extent.

Monday SST

2009-01-27T07:42:00.004-05:00

I rode over to Hwy 269 and did a 22 minute interval at 91% (287w). I rested for a few minutes. Then I knocked out another 22 minutes at 91% on Peach and Syrup Mill. After that I cruised home at a steady pace between about 240 and 260 watts. I opted to push the pace and keep the time short for the ride, rather than doing a real distance ride. This is the 8th day of the last 10 that I've done an actually training ride. I'm gonna take Tuesday completely off the bike. Then if I am recovered enough I'll pick it back up on Wednesday.

Sunday Distance Ride

2009-01-25T21:06:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was a recovery day, and I ended up going downtown with my wife to the PE Center to lift. Later in the day I got in a one hour recovery ride on the trainer.

This morning I planned to ride outside regardless of the weather, but much to my surprise it wasn't that cold and it was dry. I hooked up with WB for a good steady ride on the Syrup Mill, Peach, Ridgeway loop. I did one 25 minute interval at 95% of FTP and felt pretty good, but not good enough that I wanted to do another one.

I ended up getting 659 TSS points this week which was a little more than expected. Hopefully my body will adapt to the extra load. So far so good.

Let the Long Rides Begin

2009-01-23T19:49:00.003-05:00

The CTL building has begun. After spending the early part of winter just maintaining fitness and lifting weights, I'm ready to kick up the training now. I did back to back SST workouts on the trainer on Wed and Thurs worth about 82 TSS points apiece. I had planned to take Friday as recovery and ride distance on the weekend, but with rainy weather looming, LL and I decided to take advantage of the balmy 60 degree temps and ride on Friday afternoon.

I thought I'd be a little tired, but instead I felt great today. LL really wanted to punish himself. He did a 22 min threshhold effort before meeting me. Then he did a 21 min threshhold effort with me in tow at one point. Most of the ride I did long 5 min or so pulls at hard tempo. We did a couple of sprints and I had 5 sec at 1099w on the second one.

Tomorrow is going to be a short easy day. Then I'll do a two day training block. I've got more time on my hands lately than I should. I've got Mondays and Fridays off from work now. That's good for training, but not so good for the budget right now.

MLK Day Ride

2009-01-19T20:38:00.003-05:00

I met LL at Food Lion this afternoon for a steady endurance ride. Neither of us had a real goal, other than just earning TSS points on a Monday at a time when most would be working. The weather was awesome. Well maybe it wasn't, but 48 and cloudy was way better than the last couple of days.

LL beat me by a whole bike length in our one sprint of the day, on the slight downhill headed south on Grover Wilson. My 1163w max and 1073w 5s didn't cut it.

Sunday Inside

2009-01-19T20:21:00.003-05:00

It was rainy and cold, so I opted for a trainer ride to satisfy my training jones for the day. I wanted to do an hour and half, so I set up the laptop to watch a couple of Hero's episodes on Netflix. I did 3 x 20 minutes with short breaks to get off the bike and stretch. Lately I've been getting off the bike in between SST intervals instead of spinning to recover. It might be better to spin to recover from VO2 max efforts, but at sub-threshold, why not just get off the bike and relax for a minute or two?

Saturday in the Cold

2009-01-17T18:21:00.003-05:00

I feel good about getting outside to ride today. I started at 1:30 so I could enjoy the warmest part of the day. It was still only 34F, but at least it was sunny. I rode mostly L2 for the first hour, then mostly L3 for the second hour. I'm going to start ramping up the training next week, so I'm hoping for some warmer temps.

Sunday Ride

2009-01-11T17:45:00.003-05:00

I did about the first 45 minutes today at L2 wattage (low 200's). Then I kicked up the pace to the SST level, with the goal of holding that for at least 45 minutes. I wasn't really getting tired, so I extended the effort to 1 hour (271 watts avg, 274 watts normalized).

Sprints & SST

2009-01-10T20:51:00.004-05:00

I rolled out late this morning with my wife under beautiful sunny skies, with some wind. She prefers to do her on thing rather than sit on my wheel, so we parted ways as we left the neighborhood. After warming up for about 20 minutes, I did eight 10 sec sprints. I stayed in an easy gear, and spun up to 130+ cadence on most of the sprints. Most of the efforts averaged around 800 watts. After the sprints I rode about a half hour in L2 to fully recover. Then I rode about 50 minutes of tempo/sst at 85% of FTP. I felt pretty good today, which I expected since I only rode an hour or so in L2 the last couple of days. Earlier in the week I did some trainer sprints, one short day of sst, and lifted weights twice.