Heading to bed early on a Friday night means one thing. That's right... ROAD TRIP!

I'm off to the race tomorrow. I'm expecting around a 5 hour drive to get to the race location for the Kyushu Autopolis Circuit Race. I'll get down there late afternoon after squeezing in an early morning leg-opener workout in on the bike.

The forecast for the weekend is not looking so hot. Rain in the forecast for Sunday - race day. I've learned to accept the riding in the rain at this point in the year. I stepped out of the house today into the rain for my 2 1/2 hours of riding. It POURED today, and of course it did so even harder every time I started to descend at 60+ kph to the point that I could barely see with the rain stinging my face. No fun... but, at least it's warm!

I really have no plans at all for this race on Sunday. It kinda feels weird. So far every race there's been a "plan." Sunday is all about getting a 3 hour fast group ride in on the bike more or less. The last race on this course saw 3 people come in about 45 seconds "off the front" of the next 3-4 spaced out riders before the pack came in a lap down. So I suppose part of the plan is to be able to cover whatever breakaways get going - or to get on the wheel of whoever is covering the breakaway. No other riders from Club Athlete heading to this event so I'm on my own once again.

The rain might slow us down a little bit, but looking at the course there aren't really any especially hard corners. It's not nearly as twisty as the Aida Circuit in Okayama, and that course we were taking one of the narrower turns at 61 kph on the last lap (descending hard left turn).

I do have one challenge, but the rain might actually help me out with this one. 3 hours of riding usually takes me through 3 1/2-4 water bottles. So, without support I've tossed the seat post bottle cages on so I can start the race with 4 full water bottles. The rain might drop the temps up on the mountains so I might be able to get by with 2 bottles if that happens. We'll play that by ear race day morning.

Finally, the week ended on the up note as I rode today. After a great upper tempo day yesterday, 300 watts for 2 hrs, my legs felt remarkably fresh today. Even in the downpour, I was having to pull back on the pace to keep from pushing too hard and still I think I might have stretched it out a little. Perceived exertion for the pace was definitely down and I finally feel like I'm getting back in the groove after a couple of weeks "in the rough." Some hard intervals are in the plan for next week and I'm looking forward to carrying this "groove" through that training.

Ride safe everyone!
VW

Cheers to Saris and their customer service this week.

Back a couple months ago my Powertap SL started showing some funky torque readings and things went crazy. Short of it - a number that should read @~ 519 was reading 342, and has since shown readings from 340 up to 460 - sometimes drastically changing mid-ride. So, they told me I could send it back and get it fixed and until now I just didn't want to part with the wheel and the training data. But, now that I can (more to follow), I will send it in this week. I called them to confirm my RA # was still good. Rick told me all was well and send it on in. I figured while I was on the phone I'd ask about the new PT CPU's so I could get a coded HRM strap. He said the current deal was $200, but since my PT SL was so new they could consider the swap a warranty replacement. So when they send my wheel back to me (to an address they had on file from nearly 7 months ago), they'll send me my new CPU/strap. THEN I can send them the old CPU/strap so I don't have to be without the CPU at all! Man... amazing.

Compare that to Specialized. 9 weeks ago I emailed them about my broken chain stay cable stop. I emailed Kevin once per week for 8 weeks, sometimes getting a "we're working on it" reply, and sometimes getting nothing. Last week they finally came back and said "Oh, Specialized Japan's new operations are open, start over with them." Great, I thought. Now I have to work around the language barrier and the brand new operating procedures of a new branch of Specialized to get this WARRANTY repair done. Fortunately, my guy knows a guy @ this new Specialized Japan distribution branch. But, his response was less than appealing. "We'll attempt to repair the frame for around 20,000 yen ($180-200ish). Attempt and repair and frame are not words you like to hear in the same sentence. Oh yeah, not warranty - but for cost. I emailed Kevin this response and FINALLY... a week and a half later, they've worked out that they will cover the repair under warranty. I'll be without my Roubaix for up to a week while it's being fixed in Tokyo smack in the middle of the summer training season. Needless to say, I'm likely to buy more powermeter tools from Saris but will never buy another bike frame from Specialized. Customer service speaks volumes.

On the good note for the week, I can finally send the PT SL in to Saris for maintenance because my NEW WHEELS have finally arrived. Wheelbuilder.com took care of me and I now have a set of Velocity Aerohead wheels with a PT Pro on the rear. I also got a rear wheel cover to toss on for the handful of TT's I might get myself into. Specs:

Velocity Aerohead Front, 24 spokes, White Industries F1 hub
Velocity Aerohead OC Rear, 28 spokes, Powertap Pro hub
Sapim CX-Ray black spokes/nipples all around



Yes... the disc covers are against the wall behind the front wheel. I should have put them along the wall behind the back, but I'm too lazy to take another picture.

I took the PT pro out for a spin yesterday, and whether it was placebo or just my shoes were on tighter, I set a personal best max 1 sec power and managed to find some of my missing 5 second power. I took the wheels back out today for some high tempo/SST riding. 1 hr 40 min just under 300 watts normalized. On some still slightly tired legs and starting to suffer from dehydration the numbers and PE seemed to match up well enough with what I'm used to. But, more than anything - it's great to know that the numbers I am looking at can be reasonably assured to be accurate instead of always wondering if the numbers on the PT SL were right.

My initial impression of the Velocity Rims is good. They feel a lot flexier than my Open Pro rim on the rear. There's a bit more give which isn't so bad, but I worry about how well that will hold up on the Japan roads - which aren't so great. Time will tell. When the PT SL comes back from Saris, I'll only run the PT pro for races on the more aero rim setup.

All other metrics remain reasonably the same. Took resting heart rate last week at a surprisingly low 38 bpm. Weight is hovering around the 77kg mark, right on the money. Feeling a little fat tonight after a good pasta dinner.

Looking forward to racing this week and getting a good workout. No plans or real goals for the Kyushu 3 hr circuit race. Get on the track, ride in circles as fast as I can go for 3 hours and hold on someone else's wheel for the most of it.

Safe Riding to all,
VW

After finishing up watching the season finale of Sports Night on DVD this week, this phrase sticks in my head. Quo Vadimus? Latin: Where are we going?

After a long distance week (553 km, 17 1/2 hrs saddle time), next week I start hitting threshold improvement specific workouts again. Pain and suffering. 2x20's, longer/higher L3 work, with some aerobic power/vo2max intervals tossed in the mix just for fun.

The trick is to convince my body that it can do more again. After hitting a sort of plateau in threshold improvement, we'll try to get the body doing new things. I'm actually looking forward to getting some solid 2x20's in this week as it will give me a good feel for my 40km TT power. I'll do those this week on the 40km TT course and that will give me a little bit of a gauge how fast I'm going on that course. I won't be all "aero'd" out, but if I can get sub 15 minute laps on the TT course without the aero gear, it will settle any concerns I have about getting the whole 40km TT in under an hour in September. It's not that I don't think I can do a sub-hour 40km TT. It's that I am wondering if I can do THIS course in under an hour. Lots of turns, times 4. In fact, if you zoom in around the 4 and 6 kilometer marks, you'll see the nice 140 degree turns - one of which is followed by an immediate 90 degree left turn. Not set up for speed.

Anyway....

Hard to believe that June is over half way finished and I'll be travelling to Kyushu in two weekends to race again. I'm not really expecting to blow the socks off anything there. Rather I'm treating it as a good tempo training day. It'll be fun laps on the MotoGP course in Kyushu. For the Google Earth enabled, I drew an overlay of the course on the track and you can download it here: Kyushu Autopolis Circuit

I'd toss some snazzy charts or something exciting up in this post, but there's just not that much to be had. Weight is steady @ 76kg. I'm finishing off a 990 TSS week, heading into a 950 TSS week. CTL up to 113 with the 110 mark gone in the distance. TSB back in the negatives for the foreseeable future as I rebuild for the October/November races. You can see all that on my PMC online, or again download the PMC planner I use to see "where am I going?" (horrible grammar, but anything else wouldn't have fit my post title!)

Safe riding!
VW

Yes indeed... time will tell if the numbers my powertap are telling me are right. If so, I can't wait to race this fall.

A couple quick snippets from my tempo ride today:





Greatest thing was... at the end of the ride I was thinking.. man. I coulda gone forever today. I know I'm putting in solid tempo work. It feels like solid tempo work. Tomorrow is another tempo day and I'll wear the heart rate monitor for the first time in a while just to get a look at it in comparison to the power data.

Next week I'll have a new powertap on the back wheel and the truth will come out. One thing I can say for certain. I was climbing today in gears I wasn't climbing in before. I was out of the saddle, climbing very comfortably at/above 400 watts quite a few times. Then when I got to the flats I was riding a steady tempo pace, into the wind, at just over 40-41 kph for a while before coming back into the city.

All in all... the raw data says the powertap must be right. I checked torque on the powertap enough times, and it was consistently at zero, so if it was off in any direction - it would have to be off low.

Makes for the prospects of an exciting week when the new wheels are in town.

Ahhhhh.... that's the sigh of relief of getting on the bike for some great long distance riding. I'm telling ya, racing takes a mental and physical toll on you. You hold back, hold back, and hold back all week and WHAMO, race on the weekend. Hold back, hold back, hold back... WHAMO.. do it again.

It's not like there's no hard work in between races. There's intervals to be done, stuff to keep you fresh and keep the legs working. But it's just not the same.

Then... there's the "let down period." In Friel's terms, it's called "transition." Me, I call it "irritation." It's a necessary evil to let your body recover and prepare for the next long block of training. It's well documented that the transition period is vital to allowing your body the chance - on a "macro" level of training - to recoup some of the beating you've put it through over the previous couple months. That doesn't make it fun. In the world of bike addictions, transition period is just the thing that happens at the end of a period while anxiously waiting to get back to the grindstone.

For me, the grindstone reacquainted itself with my nose yesterday.

For my first "LSD" ride of the second half of the year, I took myself up to the mountains for some good tempo work in the hills. Man did my legs want to move. Sunday was my mental and physical revenge on myself for bombing the MAP test so horribly. A whole messload of me just wanted to prove that I was indeed stronger than 6 months.

So, here's what I know. On Feb 7th, after a rest day, I set off to do MIET - Medium Intensity Endurance Training. That means I'm riding pretty much 85% threshold - middle of sweet spot training, basically. I rode it on the flats for 90 minutes, and while it wasn't tremendously painful, I remember being pretty happy it was done. Normalized power that day 299 (avg 296).

Yesterday was to be L2 Endurance Training. I typically ride L2 endurance training at around 275-280 watts on the flats, maybe 260-270 if I'm feeling tired. L2 does not equal sweet spot training really. Well, yesterday sorta broke the mold for me.

Once I got in the rhythm yesterday, it was on. I stopped watching the powertap CPU for a bit and got into what I felt comfortable for a 3 hour ride. Looked down at the power tap and was pushing 300 watts pretty steady. I remember pulling back a bit and thinking - nope.. too easy, let's make it work. So off I set into the mountains and pushed it on. 2 hrs and 45 minutes later, when I rolled back into the city I felt comfortably worked out. I didn't feel all out blasted, but I felt like I'd had a good workout with probably another hour or so of push in the legs if I'd had that on the schedule.

Yesterday's stats for the main session:





What's that mean? I did 2 hrs 45 minutes of riding at a pace I was struggling to complete for much of the spring. I felt so good I had to check that the torque was zero'd on the powertap a number of times throughout the ride.

I followed yesterday's ride up with a nice 4 hour long ride today. Even on the tired legs, my long ride pace was in a comfortable 250'sh watts for much of the ride. I held back on the hills to keep myself from burning up my week's worth of energy, but it was definitely a day that felt good. I took the trip down and around Oshima Island. 8 or 9 months ago, the 118 km route would have taken me just over 4 hours to complete at a zone 1 pace. I've since had to add some distance to clean up the training time. With some distance added I rolled into the base today with 126 kilometers and 3 hrs 57 minutes. A solid 20 mph pace in zone 1.

Right now the legs feel great - okay, they're sore - but they feel great! I'm excited to see the TSB dipping into the negatives.

So, how does the second half season start? For reference for the end of the season, I'm starting the endurance phase again with a CTL of 108. Two days into the session I'm @ 113 and won't see anything below 110 for quite a while now.

Lastly, a new set of wheels with a new Powertap are in the mail on their way to me as we speak. Velocity Aerohead rims (OC rear) - black Sapim CX-Ray spokes, 24 front, 28 rear. Once they get here I'll ship off my current PT SL to Saris for maintenance. I'll be anxious to get on the new Powertap and see if there's any noticeable difference in measurement between it and my "needs maintenance" Powertap.

More training reports should start flowing as I work through some new sessions to help break the crunch I felt in the transition period. This week is all steady, long ride time to get the legs back in motion. Next week we're into threshold improvement and see if we can get things moving again.

Ride Safe!
VW