Monday VO2 workout

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

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

Long Ride on Good Friday

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

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

8 x 3's

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

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

TNCWC #4

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

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

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

Breakthrough Threshold Workout

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

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

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

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

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

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+.