Registration for Battenkill Roubaix. Finished the event last year 11th, respectable but disappointed. Told myself "I'll never do that again." But registration opens soon and like last year, active duty military registration is free, and the least I can do is go race it! Course change from last year. Less climbing, more dirt. Can't see how the event can be more epic, but it'll be fun! Trip to the folks in the Adirondacks and a race on Saturday. Coolness.

Though... a change from last year. I may not attempt to follow it up with a 40km TT in PA the next day like I did this year. Yeowch that was a killer - even after I flatted on the TT.

Had a good, comfy ride today. Enjoying the extra day off and took in just over 4 hrs of riding. Nothing epic, just cruised out to Vienna, hopped on the W&OD and up toward Rte 7/Dry Mill and back.

I'm really working on "holding back" on the LSD days. I was reviewing some power files from the last two years and one thing I noticed from last year was that my LSD days didn't really hit me as hard on the recovery. I think that's because the terrain in Japan was a lot more "steady" in any direction. A typical 4 hr LSD/Zone 1 day would take me along the coast and I could pretty much sit and spin at the top end of Zone1. Or, I could hop into the mountains, sit down and spin for a couple hours in a lower gear, but rarely was I out of the saddle pushing big numbers. Here in the DC area with the rolling terrain pretty much everywhere you go, it's soooo easy and tempting to crank it up on the rolling hills and pay for it later.

I need to find some more guys to ride bigger distances with. First, it gets you out of the house on those cold mornings that you really don't want to be out there if you know someone else is going to suffer with you. (admit it, we all need more reasons to HTFU) Plus, I've notice the rides with Pete tend to be a lot less of a beat down for me. Same or bigger TSS numbers, but we'll be cruising at conversation pace for good portions of the rides and it ends up being more "time" on the bike than intensity. And while the "numbers" say a 5 hrs/250 TSS ride should be the same "tax" on the body as a 4 hr/250 TSS ride, I just don't feel that.

Tomorrow looks to be a good 4-5 hr day though with the middle time with the team. 45 min - 1 hr to the ride, 2-2.5 hrs with the team, and then another 45 min-1 hr home.

Felt real good on the bike and had a lot of chance to spin comfy. Powerfile attached just cause I'm bored.

Sit and spin,
VW

CTL that is.

What a horrible time of year to be in a CTL freefall, one would think?

Well, the good thing is that even with a CTL now down in the 120's, I'm still solidly able to do 17 hr weeks without a problem. I expected a CTL weirdness once I re-adjusted FTP. When the TSS for a ride drops by 30-40 pts for the same wattage, the CTL does a bit of a re-adjustment.

The question is, "Why the CTL freefall in November?"

Last week's schedule was moving along nicely until Friday. I finished my Thursday ride with good, solid API intervals. 4+ minutes above 400 watts, and the first was at 425. The other two got me on the corners and some traffic, but were both still ~410 so I got what I needed to out of them. I was up ~2 points on CTL at that point of the week from the previous week. Good increase.

Then.. it happened. Twice a year I have to run these things called PFT's for the Corps. Pull ups, crunches and a 3 mile run (sprint). Friday was that day, so off we went. For the DC folks, that was us running in green sweats on Friday down at HP in the 20+ MPH winds. Yah, that was fun. Finished my 3 mile run, worst time in almost 5 years, I think. 18 min 38 sec. First mile and a half, 9 min 54 sec. Holy CRAP. Turned into the tailwind on the north side of the Point and flew back, but the headwind got me hard.

So, the problem with only running twice a year is that the violence of impact at a 6 min/mile pace does a HUGE number on my whole body, from feet (arches) all the way to the shoulders. So, I was supposed to do 4 hrs on Friday and 4 5½ hrs on Saturday. By the time I got home Friday, my body told me that wasn't happening. I woke up Saturday morning and rolled out of bed. I was coating my body in Zheng Gu Shui (google it, amazon - it works!) but it was still Monday before I was mobile again. Suckage. Small sacrifices for the Corps. Next Veteran's Day you can think of me and the three days off the bike I sacrificed in November 2008.

Back fluid this week. Three days strung together @ 3 hrs a piece. Endurance, LSD miles all this week. Next week starts block three of the winter training plan. After riding the TT bike on the endurance/recovery days, it's time to start hitting it on the 3x20 day. It's time. So, if you want to see me suffering, wander out to HP ~1:30-3pm on Monday afternoons. I'll be the guy bundled, fighting this god awful wind that has been with us for 2 solid weeks. But I'll be in the bars, hitting the intervals.

I'll start this coming week a little below what I was doing 3x20's at on the road bike. First week's goal is to get through all 3 intervals. I've got three full blocks to get that TT/road bike power difference closed.

PS - to the IM guy on the FFX PKWY the other day (the one that yelled "Lights are optional" while I was chugging down a banana): Maybe next time I'll hang the westbound on the W&OD and we can cruise. Time schedule to keep last week getting back to Burke.

After a good week on the bike last week, topped off with a long ride in the western Loudon County with Pete, the weather has definitely changed.

Losing daylight fast is going to be a bigger issue than I care to think about on the riding time. I can usually get out on the bike by 2-2:30pm, but with sunlight disappearing just before 5, those 3½ and 4 hr weekday rides are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Rolling into the week, I was quickly forced to slide my work day and didn't get home until close to sundown. 3x20's on the road followed with endurance time went away fast. So, I nailed some 2x20's on the trainer for the first "trainer intervals" of the season. They went decent enough, right at ~94% threshold. Finished off the night with another 45 minutes or so of Z1-Z2 time.

I had full intentions of commuting to work this morning, but realized that my only spare tube left was with the TT bike at the office. It's one thing to take a chance without a spare spinning around the neighborhood - it's another trying to commute into the city without a spare in 34° temps and trying to make it to work. So, took the train and committed to some TT bike time after work.

The network took a dump on us, which got me out of work early. Woohoo! Then I got on the roads on the TT bike and headed to HP to get some intervals. HOLY FRIGGIN' WINDY! Gusts to 30 MPH and the south side of the point was a bear. I was nailing pretty steady power on first interval, not that great on the second. My legs are beat for sure.

Here's a shot of the speed differences, gate to gate on the Point today:


Got to reading the Accuweather.com and Farmer's Almanac long range forecast. Looks like the east coast is in for a beating this year according to both. Time to start looking at different ways to do 2-a-days and to vary up the threshold workouts on the trainer. 2 and 3x20's aren't so bad on the road, but the trainer is something else.

Oh... and so I figure I'd just drop the TT bike off at work, take the train home and hit the trainer tonight, right? No such luck - with the servers in the dump, the whole office left and locked up - so I got my endurance time riding the TT bike home from the city back to Burke in the lovely beat-down wind fierceness. Yah, that was fun.

VW

Lots of time on the bike this week....





Everyone should be getting time on the bike this week with the weather as beautiful as it has been. Even the days it has rained have been warm!

I rolled a pretty miserable 2x20's day this week, but after two more days of riding, things were settling back in to normal. I really didn't feel like doing the 90 minutes of SST on Friday, but once I once I got out of the city and on the W&OD, off I went.

Bad part of the W&OD is the stops, but I still got some great hammer time in. A few times I looked down at the Ptap and actually had to check the torque. I was seeing numbers way too high for the PE I was feeling. BUT... the torque was zeroed correctly, so off I kept going. Fantastic, chain free hammer session.

Legs a bit tight this morning getting out on the trail for some long endurance cruising. Nothing pushed, just 4-5 hrs of saddle time cruising along. So, that's what I did - out to Purcellville and back via the W&OD. Kudos to the folks involved in fixing up the W&OD from Rte 7 out to Purcellville. It's a fantastic ride on that new asphalt. That stretch used to be the worst, and it's definitely the best now.

Hooked up for a bit with Geoff and RP before the dropped off to recovery pace - I still had 2 hrs to go. Then I hooked with Chris for some cruising into Vienna and chatting. Great ride in fantastic weather.

I took two days off in a row this weekend for the first time since... well... lesse.... June 5th.

Last week was a typical week, nothing crazy. Monday was the 3x20's I posted about before and then I rolled home, prepped for massage. My normal masseuse was out on maternity time so I had someone new. BIG mistake. She must have been some sort of masochist in a different life. Five days later my legs and back were still sore from the massage. It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat and beat down my legs and they just weren't recovering.

I thought I'd change up my Friday SST day and head over to the lunchtime Hains Pt ride. I have to admit, I was a bit perplexed at the flow of this ride. I expect I'll see comments or emails on this, but I really didn't get the point of the ride - let alone the amount of time involved. I rolled into HP ~12, and slid into a small warm up group. We got to moving along ~12:15. First lap, nothing exciting, getting organized - cruising ~25 mph. DC velo folks do some semi-attacking toward the gate, regroup and get going again. Rotate through the pulls for a lap, lap 2 was a little more brisk. Lap 3, well.. it just stopped rotating. I sat on front until we rolled out of the point and the slid off and soft pedaled. A couple folks rotated through and then a guy in a non-descript jersey was on front, I was in fifth wheel. The rotation stopped.

I realized at this point, the SST workout of a hard hour of riding wasn't going to happen today, so I slid out of the pack all the way to the left, settled into a pace on my own. A couple folks slid over on the wheel until we got near the gate and there were some folks attacking again - sitting up into the turn. I rolled through the turn. This was the end of 4 laps... a whopping 30 minutes of work. I rolled through the turn and back onto the north straight off the front - or so I thought. I settled back solo SST area and when I rounded the point I realized the group had dissolved and there was no one behind me. So the lunch time ride lasted 4 laps of work? ~ 30 minutes? Guess that's just weird to me.

I guess if that's the typical flow, it has to work for someone, but I'd be curious to know what folks are using that ride to accomplish.

Saturday was going to be a long ride, but when I realized Friday night that the legs weren't recovering right, it was time to listen to the body and take a whole weekend off. It got me out to the mountains with the family, gave me some nice "off the legs time." I'd been on the bike for 13 days straight, including a couple really easy days. It was weird to take two off in a row, and every time I took a breath of the clean, fresh 70° air on the Skyline Drive I had to remind myself that riding hard requires recovering hard.

And with that, we're back to training this week. Legs felt much better going into yesterday. The massage beat down soreness was gone. 3x20's became 2x20's today in the rain. They weren't great, but every day can't be great. 2x20's at 341, but it felt like my heart was coming out of my chest and rather than blow the rest of the training week, another day to listen to the body and bring it on home. 4-5 months until I have to be in any sort of form... 4-5 months, lots of time for good days and bad days.

More time on the TT bike this week. I need to get myself a TT saddle - the Selle Italia SLK's nose is like a brick.

Finally - Seal Skinz waterproof socks. They work. Wore them today in the rain and I didn't realize how wet my shoes were from the rainy intervals until I was cleaning up the bike room some 4 hours later. Drastic difference from last week when I got home with pruned feet.

Ride hard, recover hard!
VW