Saturday Sprints

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.