Tour de Moore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Another Long Saturday Ride

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

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

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

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.